The Short Reign of Pippin IV (21 page)

“I understand, M'sieur. There has been no inquiry.”

“I guess they're all too busy with themselves,” said the king.

At dinner the queen said, “Your Uncle Charles has asked Clotilde and me to drive to Sancerre. I don't think this is a time—”

“On the contrary, my dear. I shall be busy at the convention. And you need a holiday. You have worked hard and long.”

“But I have a million things—”

“Quite between us, my dear, I think it would be good to take Clotilde away from Paris for a few days. Just as a matter of policy, you know—she is talking too much to the newspapers. Sancerre, eh? I remember it as a lovely little town with a great wine if you can get any of it.”

“I'll think about it,” said the queen. “I have so much on my mind. I wonder, Pippin, whether I should tell you now—the agents absolutely refuse to terminate the lease at Number One Avenue de Marigny. They insist that a lease is a lease, no matter what the government.”

“Perhaps we can sublet it later.”

“Just one more thing to worry about,” said the queen. “You know how tenants are. And most of my mother's furniture is still there.”

“You need a little holiday, my dear. You've had too many responsibilities.”

“I wonder what I should take.”

“Just simple things for motoring and a warm coat. It may be quite chilly on the river this time of year. I wish I could go with you.”

The queen looked at him speculatively. “I don't like to leave you just at this time.”

He took her hand and turned it palm upward and kissed it. “It's the perfect time,” he said. “I'll be so busy with the convention, you would not even see me.”

“Perhaps you're right,” she said. “So much talk and politics buzzing around. I'm tired of the nobility, my dear. I'm bored with politics. Sometimes I wish we still lived in our little stablehouse. That is a very pleasant neighborhood. But the concierge is impossible.”

“I know,” said the king, “but what can you expect of Alsatians?”

“There you have it,” said the queen. “Alsatians—provincials, I say. Only interested in their tight little lives. Provincials! Do you think I should take my fur coat?”

“I strongly advise it,” said the king.

 

 

Everyone has seen photographs of the historic opening of the convention to deliberate the Code Pippin. Every newspaper and magazine in the world printed at least one version of it. The half-circle of rows of seats, filled with robed delegates, the speakers' rostrum and the high, thronelike chair of the Chief Minister, whose duty it was to control and govern the proceedings.

The photographs show the eager faces of the delegates in every manner of ceremonial costume; the galleries filled to overflowing with ladies, also costumed and coroneted; the guards at the doorways in slashed doublets and carrying halberds. Not visible in the pictures are the bales of papers, the mountains of books of precedent, the ledgers, briefcases, even small filing cabinets which rested on the floor among the delegates' feet, containing the weapons wherewith each party planned to save France by aggrandizing itself.

The meeting convened at three P.M. December 5, and it was agreed that after the address from the throne it should recess until the next day. The king was neither invited to nor wanted at the subsequent meetings. At the end he was expected to place his royal signature on the Code, preferably without reading it.

It will be remembered that the Duc des Troisfronts had made the first demand for the return of the monarchy. It was therefore considered only proper that he should announce the king, in spite of his cleft palate.

At 3:15 the Chief Minister raised the royal gavel, actually a wooden replica of the hammer from which Charles Martel took his name.

The hammer crashed nobly down three times. From the entrance to the right of the rostrum the halberdiers wheeled inward, opened the double doors, and presented their arms.

The Duc des Troisfronts entered. He was scaled like a lizard with orders and decorations, while a toupee which was an integral part of his coronet gave him an alert look—a little like the March Hare. He advanced to the rostrum and glanced about in panic. Academician Poitin of the Royal Academy of Music rapped three times with his baton, and six trumpeters in tabards raised six-foot straight trumpets from which hung the royal arms. M. Poitin gave them a downbeat, and they blew a fanfare which seemed to rock the great room.

The Duc des Troisfronts struggled for breath. “Hentulmeh. I hive you the Hing of Fhance!”

From the gallery the Duchess was heard to break into applause.

Again the fanfare.

Again the halberdiers swung open the double doors—and Pippin entered.

By no stretch of imagination could he have been thought to have either a military figure or carriage. The marshal's uniform was a mistake. Moreover, the uniform—rented from a theatrical costumer—had at the last moment been discovered to be far too large. The tunic had been made to fit by a row of safety pins up the back. Nothing could be done about the crotch of the trousers, which, even though the waistband was high on his chest, still dangled halfway to his knees. The purple velvet cape with edging of ermine hung from his shoulders and was followed by two pages delegated to control it. They did their best, and when the king reached the rostrum and turned they brought the trailing ends of the train inward to try to conceal his pants, so that he arose out of its folds like the stamen of a lily.

The king placed the manuscript of his address on the rostrum. His hands wandered to his breast, searched frantically amongst the great stars and orders. His glasses were not there. He remembered putting his pince-nez and the ribbon down while his tunic was being pinned up the back. He spoke to one of the boys, who dashed out through the side entrance, knocking a halberd from a guard's hand.

Meanwhile Le Maître Poitin, who after all had been fifty years in the theater, signaled the trumpeters to break into the traditional hunting call whose triumphant theme, “There goes the fox,” puts a strain on the versatility of the straight trumpet.

While this brilliant improvisation continued, the page returned and handed the king his pince-nez. Pippin bent over his pages, written in the precise but minute hand of the mathematician.

Pippin reach his speech exactly as though he was reading a speech. His voice had no rise and fall. His points were made with no underlining and no declamation.

No one could find any fault with the opening statement:

“My Lords, and my People—

“We, Pippin, King of France by right of blood and by further authority of election, do hold that this land has been singularly favored by God with richness of soil and geniality of climate, while its people are endowed with intelligence and talent above many others—”

At this point applause broke out, which caused him to look up, remove his pince-nez, and lose his place.

When the noise had subsided he replaced his pince-nez and bent over the tiny handwriting.

“Let's see. M-mmm—here it is—talent above many others. When we assumed the crown, we made a careful study of the nation, its riches, its failures, and its potentials. Not only did we study available statistics but also we went out among the people, not in our royal character but on the level of the people themselves—”

He paused and looked up and remarked conversationally, “If that seems romantic to some of you, I ask you how else I could have found out.”

He went back to his manuscript.

A slight uneasiness crept into the great gathering.

“We found,” he said pedantically—“we found that the power, the products, the comforts, the profits, and the opportunities of our nation deserve a wider distribution than they now have.”

Right and Left Centrists looked at one another in consternation.

“We believe that changes, programs, and some restrictions are necessary to the end that our people may live in comfort and peace and that the genius of the French, which once lighted the world, may be rekindled.”

During the time it took him to turn a page there was a little pattering of scattered handclapping. The delegates restlessly moved their feet among their books and briefcases.

Pippin continued.

“The People of France have created a king. It is not only the nature but the duty of a king to rule. Where a president may suggest, a king must order—otherwise his office is meaningless and his kingdom does not exist.

“We therefore order and decree that the Code you are creating shall contain the following. . . .”

And then the bomb exploded.

The first section dealt with taxes—to be kept as low as possible and to be collected from all.

The second, wages—to be keyed to profits and to move up and down with the cost of living.

Prices—to be strictly controlled against manipulation.

Housing—existing housing to be improved and new construction to be undertaken with supervision as to quality and rents.

The fifth section called for a reorganization of government to the end that it perform its functions with the least expenditure of money and personnel.

The sixth considered public health insurance and retirement pensions.

The seventh ordered the breakup of great land holdings to restore the wasted earth to productivity.

“To the great three words I want to add a fourth,” he said, “so that henceforth the motto of the French shall be ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,
and
Opportunity.'”

The king, his head still down, waited for applause, and when none came he looked out over the thunderstruck gathering. The delegates were hypnotized with horror. They stared glassily back at the king. They seemed scarcely to breathe.

Pippin IV had planned to bow at this point and to leave with dignity on the heels of his applause, but there was only aching silence. Uproar he could have understood. He had even prepared himself for denunciation, but the silence held him and confused him. He took off his pince-nez and mounted it on his forefinger.

“I meant every word I said,” he began uneasily. “I have really seen France, France which has survived three invasions, two occupations in three generations, and emerged whole and strong and free. I tell you what an enemy could not do to us we are doing to ourselves, like greedy, destructive children throwing cake at a birthday party.”

And suddenly he was angry—coldly angry.

“I didn't ask to be king,” he said hoarsely. “I begged not to be king. And you didn't want a king. You wanted a patsy.”

Then he shouted, “But you elected a king, and by God you've got a king—or a gigantic joke.”

Delegates cleared their throats, took off their glasses and polished them.

“I know as well as you do that the time for kings is past,” he said quietly. “Royalty is extinct and its place is taken by boards of directors. What I have tried to do is to help you make the leap, for you are not one thing or the other. I am going to leave you now to your deliberations. You have my orders—but, whether you obey them or not, try to be worthy of our beautiful nation.”

The king bowed slightly and turned to walk toward the door, but an open-mouthed page was standing on the edge of his purple and ermine-collared cape. It ripped from his shoulders and fell to the floor, exposing the row of safety pins up the back of his tunic, and the baggy crotch of the trousers flopping between his knees.

Strain in children and adults opens two avenues of relief—laughter or tears—and either is equally accessible. The safety pins did it.

Beginning with a snigger in the front benches, it spread to giggles, and then to hysterical laughter. Delegates pounded the backs of the delegates in front of them and honked and roared and wiped their eyes. Thus they channeled the shock the king's message had given them, the shock and the terror and their own deep sense of guilt.

 

 

Pippin could hear the laughter through the closed doors. He removed the baggy pants and hung them on a chair. He put on his dark blue suit with its pin stripe and tied his black silk knitted tie.

Quietly he went out a rear entrance and walked around the building and stood in the crowd gathered at the noble marble entrance. People said, “What's all the noise? What's going on in there?”

The king moved slowly away from the excited people. He walked in the streets a while, looked in windows. At a music store he bought a small cheap harmonica, and, concealing it in his hand, he blew a chord on it now and then. He walked down to the Seine embankment and watched the eternal fishermen with their filament lines and bread-crumb bait.

And then, because the days were growing short, he bought a ticket on the Versailles bus and went home. He wandered about in the empty royal apartments.

He turned out the lights and pulled a chair to the leaded window overlooking the gardens. He took the harmonica from his pocket and tried it timidly. In an hour he had worked out the scale. In two hours he produced a slow and labored “Auprès de ma blonde, qu'il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon.”

Pippin smiled, sitting in the dark. The palace was quiet. He played “Frère Jacques” slowly but accurately from beginning to end. The carp burped loudly in the fish ponds.

 

 

Meanwhile, telegraph and radio transoceanic telephones staggered under the weight of traffic.

Dark-suited men sped to chancelleries. Private and secret wires went into action. The State Department in Washington froze French assets in the United States.

Luxembourg mobilized.

Monaco closed its borders and its soldiers tore the flowers from their rifle barrels.