CERTAIN LOST SOCIAL SPECIES
The estate of Les Aigues could not do without a steward; for the general had no intention of renouncing his winter pleasures in Paris, where he owned a fine house in the rue Neuve-des-Mathurines.He therefore looked about for a successor to Gaubertin; but it is very certain that his search was not as eager as that of Gaubertin himself, who was seeking for the right person to put in his way.
Of all confidential positions there is none that requires more trained knowledge of its kind, or more activity, than that of land-steward to a great estate.The difficulty of finding the right man is only fully known to those wealthy landlords whose property lies beyond a certain circle around Paris, beginning at a distance of about one hundred and fifty miles.At that point agricultural productions for the markets of Paris, which warrant rentals on long leases (collected often by other tenants who are rich themselves), cease to be cultivated.The farmers who raise them drive to the city in their own cabriolets to pay their rents in good bank-bills, unless they send the money through their agents in the markets.For this reason, the farms of the Seine-et-
Oise, Seine-et-Marne, the Oise, the Eure-et-Loir, the Lower Seine, and the Loiret are so desirable that capital cannot always be invested there at one and a half per cent.Compared to the returns on estates in Holland, England, and Belgium, this result is enormous.But at one hundred miles from Paris an estate requires such variety of working, its products are so different in kind, that it becomes a business, with all the risks attendant on manufacturing.The wealthy owner is really a merchant, forced to look for a market for his products, like the owner of ironworks or cotton factories.He does not even escape competition; the peasant, the small proprietor, is at his heels with an avidity which leads to transactions to which well-bred persons cannot condescend.
A land-steward must understand surveying, the customs of the locality, the methods of sale and of labor, together with a little quibbling in the interests of those he serves; he must also understand book-keeping and commercial matters, and be in perfect health, with a liking for active life and horse exercise.His duty being to represent his master and to be always in communication with him, the steward ought not to be a man of the people.As the salary of his office seldom exceeds three thousand francs, the problem seems insoluble.How is it possible to obtain so many qualifications for such a very moderate price,--in a region, moreover, where the men who are provided with them are admissible to all other employments? Bring down a stranger to fill the place, and you will pay dear for the experience he must acquire.Train a young man on the spot, and you are more than likely to get a thorn of ingratitude in your side.It therefore becomes necessary to choose between incompetent honesty, which injures your property through its blindness and inertia, and the cleverness which looks out for itself.
Hence the social nomenclature and natural history of land-stewards as defined by a great Polish noble.
"There are," he said, "two kinds of stewards: he who thinks only of himself, and he who thinks of himself and of us; happy the land-owner who lays his hands on the latter! As for the steward who would think only of us, he is not to be met with."
Elsewhere can be found a steward who thought of this master's interests as well as of his own.("Un Debut dans la vie," "Scenes de la vie privee.") Gaubertin is the steward who thinks of himself only.
To represent the third figure of the problem would be to hold up to public admiration a very unlikely personage, yet one that was not unknown to the old nobility, though he has, alas! disappeared with them.(See "Le Cabinet des Antiques," "Scenes de la vie de province.")
Through the endless subdivision of fortunes aristocratic habits and customs are inevitably changed.If there be not now in France twenty great fortunes managed by intendants, in fifty years from now there will not be a hundred estates in the hands of stewards, unless a great change is made in the law.Every land-owner will be brought by that time to look after his own interests.
This transformation, already begun, suggested the following answer of a clever woman when asked why, since 1830, she stayed in Paris during the summer."Because," she said, "I do not care to visit chateaux which are now turned into farms." What is to be the future of this question, getting daily more and more imperative,--that of man to man, the poor man and the rich man? This book is written to throw some light upon that terrible social question.
It is easy to understand the perplexities which assailed the general after he had dismissed Gaubertin.While saying to himself, vaguely, like other persons free to do or not to do a thing, "I'll dismiss that scamp"; he had overlooked the risk and forgotten the explosion of his boiling anger,--the anger of a choleric fire-eater at the moment when a flagrant imposition forced him to raise the lids of his wilfully blind eyes.
Montcornet, a land-owner for the first time and a denizen of Paris, had not provided himself with a steward before coming to Les Aigues;
but after studying the neighborhood carefully he saw it was indispensable to a man like himself to have an intermediary to manage so many persons of low degree.