The Short Reign of Pippin IV (17 page)

And meanwhile France enjoyed such peace and prosperity and profit that the newspapers began to refer to the time as the Platinum Age. The New York
Daily News
called Pippin “The Atomic King.” The
Reader's Digest
reprinted three articles it had commissioned: one in the
Saturday Evening Post,
called “Royalty Re-examined”; one in the
Ladies' Home Journal,
“The Glorious Present,” and one in the
American Legion Monthly,
“A King against Communism.”

Citroën announced a new model.

Christian Dior introduced the R line with the highest waistline and the most bursting bodice since Montesquieu.

The Italian Couture out of jealousy maintained that the R line made breasts look like goiters. Gina Lollobrigida, always loyal to Italy, said, on arriving at Idlewild en route to Hollywood, that she refused to look out between herself. But criticism of France was largely grounded in envy of the Platinum Age.

England smoldered and waited.

The Soviet Purchasing Agency ordered four tank cars of French perfume.

In America the excitement rose to fever pitch. Bonwit Teller named one whole floor L'Etage Royal.

A benevolent autumn slipped warmly over France, moved up-Seine and then up-Loire, spread over the Dordogne, climbed the Jura, and lapped against the Alps. A great wheat crop had been harvested, and the grapes were warm and fat and happy. Even the truffles were benevolent—black and full, almost leaping out of the limestone earth. In the north the cows staggered cream-heavy in the pasturage, while the apple crop for once was ready and sufficient for the champagne the English love.

At no time in history had the tourists been so open-handed and humble nor their French hosts so happily sullen.

International relations reached fraternal heights. The most conservative peasants bought new corduroy pants. The red rivers of Bordeaux flowed from the wine presses. The sheep gave milk of a milkness for the cheese.

Vacations being over, parties and sub-parties met in Paris to complete their contributions to the Code Pippin to be adopted in November.

The Christian Atheists achieved a clause imposing an amusement tax on church services. The Christian Christians were ready with a law for compulsory attendance of mass.

Right and Left Centrists walked arm in arm.

Communists and Socialists took to raising their hats to one another.

M. Deuxcloches, Cultural Custodian, but actual leader of the Communist party of France, put into words what every party was thinking. Speaking in secret caucus, he outlined a series of traps and deadfalls so artfully conceived that no possible move by the king could avoid being disastrous.

France was on a peak of good fortune. Everyone admitted it. Tourists were sleeping in the flowerbeds of the better hotels.

This being so, how does one explain the little cloud that peered over the horizon in mid-September, blackened and spread during the first weeks of October, towered like a thunderhead as November approached?

It is common to explain historic events after the fact in terms of the preoccupation of the historian. Thus the economist finds his pattern in economics, the politician in politics, the medical man in pollens or parasites. Very few if any historians have looked for causes simply in how people feel about things. Is it not true that in the United States the eras of greatest peace and prosperity have been also the periods of greatest uneasiness and discontent? Is it not also true that in these weeks of France's fruition there began to develop and grow among all classes a restlessness, a nervousness, a rustle of fear?

If this should seem unreasonable, even unbelievable, consider to yourself how on a lovely sunny day a man will say to his neighbor, “Probably rain tomorrow.” How in a cold, damp winter the general opinion is that it will be a hot, dry summer. Who has not heard a farmer, looking at his abundant crop, complain, “There won't be any market”?

I do not think the historian need look any further in this. It is the tendency of human beings to distrust good fortune. In evil times we are too busy protecting ourselves. We are equipped for this. The one thing our species is helpless against is good fortune. It first puzzles, then frightens, then angers, and finally destroys us. Our basic conviction was put into words by a great and illiterate third baseman.

“Everything in life,” he said, “is seven to five against.”

The peasant, counting his profits, found time to wonder how much he had lost to the wholesaler. The retail merchant could be heard to curse under his breath when the wholesaler turned his back.

This climate of suspicion on an individual level did not remain there. For example, the Foreign Policy Committee of the United States Senate, hearing of the Russian purchase of four tank cars of French perfume, requested samples from the Secret Service and put them in the hands of qualified scientists to find what offensive qualities—explosive, poisonous, or hypnotic—might lurk in “Quatre-Vingt Fleurs” or the newest product, “L'Eau d'Eau.”

On the other hand, Russian operatives secretly inspected a shipment of plastic helicopters designed for the toy shops of Paris.

A troop of French Boy Scouts, drilling with quarter-staffs, was photographed by the silent services of four nations and the pictures sent home for evaluation.

Worst badgered of all were the speleologists, who found that they could not be alone and unobserved even in the deepest caves.

Suspicion of France was on the rise throughout the world. And in France there were gusts of nervousness. Luxembourg's addition of eight soldiers to its standing army caused a hurried meeting in the Quai d'Orsay.

In the provinces, people glanced nervously in the direction of Paris. In Paris it was whispered that the provinces were growing increasingly restless.

Armed robbery increased. Juvenile delinquency skyrocketed. When on September 17 the police discovered in a cellar on the Ile Saint-Louis a cache of buried Communist arms, a ripple of terror spread through France. The police perhaps were not sufficiently explicit. They did not make public that the arms had been hidden by the Commune of 1871, that the cap-and-ball rifles and ancient bayonets were not only obsolete but heavily rusted.

And while this cloud was rising and darkening—what of the king?

 

 

It is generally agreed that within a short time of his coronation the king began to change. Such a thing was to be expected, or at least to be anticipated.

Let us draw a parallel. Consider a strain of bird dogs, say pointers, developed, selected, and trained for a thousand generations for the trait of hunting. Then imagine a morganatic marriage and a resulting intermixture of blood until finally we have a puppy of this mingling in a pet-shop window. He is taken to live in a city apartment, walked twice a day on leash, sniffing his way from automobile tire to trash basket to fire hydrant. His nose is accustomed to perfume, gasoline, and moth-balls. His toenails are clipped; his skin scented with pine soap; his food taken from a tin can.

This dog, growing up, is trained perhaps to carry the morning paper from the apartment door, to sit, to lie down, to shake hands, to beg, to bring his master's slippers. He is disciplined to stay clear of the hors-d'oeuvre tray, to control his bladder. The only birds he has ever known are fat waddling pigeons, or frantic sparrows in the street; the only love a sneer from a passing Pekingese.

Let us then suppose that in his prime of life this dog—the descendant of greatness—is taken on a picnic in the country, to a pleasant place beside a little stream. In the war against sand and ants and the winds which whip up the corners of the tablecloth, our dog is forgotten for a moment.

He smells the lusciousness of running water and strolls to the streamside and drinks deeply of a fluid uninfused with germicides. An ancient feeling fills his breast. He moves along a little path, sniffing at leaves and brown tree trunks and at grass. He pauses at a track where a rabbit has crossed. The fresh wind teases his skin.

Suddenly an emotion falls upon him: an ecstasy, a fullness, like a memory. To his nose comes a scent unknown but remembered. He shivers and makes a little whining sound, then moves uncertainly toward the magic.

Then hypnosis falls upon him. His shoulders hunch a little. His thin tail straightens. One foot creeps after its fellow. His neck stretches forward until nose and head and spine and tail become one line. His right front paw rises. He freezes. He does not breathe. His body is like a compass needle, or like a gun pointing at a covey of quail hidden in the underbrush.

In February 19—a gentle, inquisitive man lived in a small house in Avenue de Marigny, together with his daughter and his pleasant wife, his balcony and his telescope, his rubbers and umbrella, and his briefcase always. He had dentists, and insurance, and a little stock in the Crédit Lyonnais. A vineyard in Auxerre . . .

Then without warning this little man was made king. Who of us who do not have the blood can know what happened at Reims when the royal crown descended? Did Paris look the same to the king as it had to the amateur astronomer? How did the word “France” sound in the ears of the king?—and the word “People” in the ears of the king?

It would be strange if ancient mechanisms failed to operate. Perhaps the king did not know what was happening. Perhaps he, like the pointer, responded to forgotten stimuli. It seems undeniable that the kingdom created a king.

Once he became the king he was alone, set apart and alone, and this is a part of being a king. Monarchy created a king.

 

 

Uncle Charlie had been to Versailles once in his life when as a child in black smock and white collar he marched in a ragged line of smocked schoolchildren through halls and bedchambers, ballrooms and cellars of that national monument, on order of the Minister of Public Instruction.

At that time Charles conceived a hatred and horror for the royal palace from which he never recovered. He remembered the cracked and painted paneling, the squeaking parquetry, the velvet ropes, the drafty halls, as a kind of nightmare.

It was, therefore, a surprise to the king when Uncle Charlie called on him in the royal apartments, and even a greater surprise that he was accompanied by Tod Johnson.

Charles gazed about the painted room. The floors screamed with shrunken pain when he moved. A blanket was tacked over the windows to keep the chill autumn winds out, and a log fire burned in the great fireplace. The gilt clocks sat on their marble tables and the stiff chairs stood against the wall as Charles remembered them.

Uncle Charlie said, “I must speak to you, my child.”

Tod broke in. “I read in the Paris
Herald Tribune
that you had a mistress, sir. Art Buchwald said it.”

The king raised his eyebrows.

Uncle Charlie said quickly, “I am teaching Tod my business. He's opening a branch in Beverly Hills.”

“You can sell them anything as long as the price is high,” said Tod. “Where do you keep your mistress, sir?”

“I have made some changes,” the king said, “but in the matter of a mistress I had to compromise. The feeling was too strong. She is a nice little woman, I am told. Does her job well.”

“You were told, sir? Haven't you seen her?”

“No,” said the king, “I haven't. The queen insists that I ask her for an aperitif one day soon. Everyone says she is very nice; dresses well—neat, pleasant. It's just a form, but in this business forms are very important, particularly if one has plans.”

“Aha,” said Uncle Charlie. “Plans. That's just what I was afraid of. That's why I came.”

“What do you mean?” the king asked mildly.

“Listen, my child. Do you think your secret is a secret? All Paris, all France knows.”

“Knows what?”

“My dear nephew, did you think a mechanic's jumper and a false mustache was a disguise? Do you think, when you applied for a job at Citroën and stood all day at the gates talking to the workmen, that you were actually incognito? And when you went through the old buildings on the Left Bank, pretending to be an inspector, tapping on walls, looking down drains—did you imagine that anyone thought you were an inspector?”

“I am amazed,” said the king. “I had the cap, the badge.”

“And it's not only that,” cried Uncle Charlie. “You've been out in the vineyards, pretending to be a vine-dresser. You have driven the concessionaires at Les Halles insane with your questioning.” He mimicked, “‘What do you pay for carrots? What do you sell them for? What does the wholesaler pay the farmer for them?' And the working man: ‘What rent do you pay? What are your wages? How much do you pay to the union? What benefits do you get? What is your average cost for food and rent for the week?' I think there you pretended to be a reporter from
L'Humanité
.”

“I had a press card,” said the king.

“Pippin,” demanded Uncle Charlie, “what are you up to? I warn you! People are growing nervous.”

The king tried to pace the floor until the squealing of the inlaid wood stopped him. He removed his pince-nez and straddled it on the forefinger of his left hand.

“I was trying to learn. There are so many things to be done. Did you know, Uncle Charlie, that twenty per cent of the rented buildings of Paris are a danger to health as well as a threat to safety? Only last week a family in Montmartre was nearly smothered with falling plaster. Do you know that the wholesaler takes thirty per cent of the selling price of those same carrots and the retailer takes forty per cent? And do you know what that leaves for the farmer who raises a bunch of carrots?”

“Stop!” cried Uncle Charlie. “Stop right there! You are playing with fire. Do you want barricades in the streets again? Do you wish Paris in flames? What makes you think you can reduce the numbers of the captains of police?”