Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/335

Rh become, through the next-to-certainty that it was French money which was greasing the wheels with which it "coached over," that on more than one occasion threats were made of the intention of the mob to attack the "Chronicle" building and tear it to the earth, if its obnoxious sentiments were not changed to conform with the opinions of a nation which is by blood and breeding thoroughly antagonistic to everything French. But the Emperor, willing to take De Persigny's advice, now discovered to his cost that in taking upon himself the care of the "Chronicle" he had placed on his back an Old Man of the Sea worse than the torturer of Sinbad. It would be easy enough to throw over the "political director;" to use bad faith with a man who, as the Emperor plainly said, he believed was fool though not knave (and folly was much worse than knavery in the imperial eyes); but how to get rid of the obligations entailed upon him through the employment of sixty individuals at different salaries (from Mr. Thornton Hunt's twelve guineas, down to the porter's twelve shillings), that was a graver question.

That Peyton was to be summarily dealt with soon became evident. Since his forced exile in London his wife had been in the habit of touching every month the sum of two hundred and fifty francs, which had been accorded him for "services on the press" ever since the earliest days of his intimacy with Mocquard. This little douceur came out of a bureau, or counting-house, buried in one of those dark streets which thread their way through the Latin Quarter, over the Seine, down through the aristocratic Faubourg St. Germain, near the Pantheon, up mysterious dark staircases, at the end of a moss-grown court-yard where, behind baize doors, muffle-hinged, speaking eloquently of silence, silent men moved about, counting money, paying it out, and making silent, but significant entries in ponderous ledgers. Signing her name in this book, Mrs. Peyton saw there the names of correspondents of newspapers whose chefs little suspect that they are thus in receipt of bribes from the French Government; notable among these stood the name of the principal correspondent of the Independance Belge, a powerful and fearless sheet, which proves a constant thorn in the side of the "expedient"-seeking Emperor of the French. Several correspondents of presumably unpurchasable English journals were also "portés" on the list—some for larger sums than Peyton, some for smaller.

Mrs. Peyton was now politely informed by the official that her husband's name had been erased from the list, and it was, therefore, impossible to pay her the money. The sum in itself was the merest of trifles, but straws did their usual office, and showed that the "Chronicle" was soon to be blown to the winds.