Transcriber’s Notes:-
The spelling, hyphenation, accentuation and punctuation is as the
original, with the exception of apparent typographical errors which
have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted _thus_.
THE PRESENTATION
H. DE VERE STACPOOLE
[Illustration: NEVER HAD MADAME DUBARRY LOOKED MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN NOW
_See page 96_]
[Illustration: decorated title page]
_The
Presentation
by
H. de Vere Stacpoole_
FRONTISPIECE IN COLOUR
BY
EARL STETSON CRAWFORD
JOHN LANE COMPANY : : NEW YORK
MCMXIV
COPYRIGHT, 1914
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1914
BY JOHN LANE COMPANY
CONTENTS
BOOK I
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE DUC DE CHOISEUL’S BALL 9
II. THE HOUSE OF THE DUBARRYS 21
III. A COUNCIL OF WAR 37
IV. THE METHODS OF MONSIEUR DE SARTINES 54
V. FERMINARD 60
VI. THE COMTESSE DE BÉARN 75
VII. THE ARTIST 82
VIII. THE PRESENTATION 84
IX. THE REWARD 97
X. THE ORDER OF ARREST 100
XI. FLIGHT 106
XII. A DUEL OF WITS 110
BOOK II
I. A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT 115
II. THE GRATITUDE OF THE DUBARRYS 129
III. THE PAIR OF SPECTACLES 137
IV. THE ARREST OF ROCHEFORT 143
V. CAPTAIN ROUX 154
BOOK III
I. THE POISONING OF ATALANTA 171
II. MONSIEUR BROMMARD 178
III. CHOISEUL’S LETTER 191
IV. THE DECLARATION OF CAMUS 195
V. THE HOUSE OF COUNT CAMUS 201
VI. THE LABORATORY 210
VII. THE FAWN AND THE SERPENT 218
VIII. THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS 222
BOOK IV
I. NEWS FROM VINCENNES 227
II. THE TWO PRISONERS 233
III. THE TWO PRISONERS (_continued_) 242
IV. THE TWO PRISONERS (_continued_) 249
V. M. DE ROCHEFORT REVIEWS HIMSELF 254
VI. THE ESCAPE 259
VII. ROCHEFORT’S PLAN 265
VIII. THE HONOUR OF LAVENNE 275
IX. THE GATHERING STORM 287
X. THE DUC DE CHOISEUL’S RECEPTION 291
XI. ROCHEFORT AND CHOISEUL 301
XII. ENVOI 312
BOOK I
THE PRESENTATION
CHAPTER I
THE DUC DE CHOISEUL’S BALL
It was the night of the Duc de Choiseul’s ball, that is to say, the
night before the expected presentation of the Comtesse Dubarry at
Court, and Versailles was in a ferment, the seething of which reached
to the meanest streets of Paris.
France had long been accustomed to the rule, not of kings, but of
favourites and ministers, and at the present moment in the year of our
Lord, 1770, she was under the rule of the most kind-hearted of women
since the harmless La Vallière and the most upright minister since
Colbert.
The mistress was Dubarry and the minister de Choiseul.
It was a strange government. To-day Dubarry, who hated Choiseul much
more than she hated the devil, would be in the ascendant over Louis the
Voluptuous. To-morrow Choiseul would have the long ear of the King, who
was, in fact, only the table on which these two gamblers played with
loaded dice for the realm of France.
Behind the two gamblers stood their backers. Behind Choiseul, when he
was winning, nearly the whole Court of Versailles. Behind Dubarry,
when she was losing, only her family, the Vicomte Jean, and a few
inconsiderable people who had learned to love her for her own sake.
This adherence of the courtiers to Choiseul was caused less by the
prescience of self-interest than by hatred of the Comtesse, and this
hatred, always smouldering and ready to burst into flame, was one of
the strangest features in the Court mind of France.
Why did they hate her, these people? Or, rather, why did they hate her
with such intensity—they who had raised few enough murmurs against the
rule of the frigid and callous Pompadour?
They hated her, perhaps, because she was an epitome of the virtues
and the vices of the people whom they had trampled under foot for
centuries. She had that goodness of heart and simplicity of thought
rarer even than rectitude in Court circles, and her very vices had a
robustness reminiscent of the soil.
Dubarry was, in fact, a charming woman who might have been a good woman
but for Fate, the Maison Labille, and Louis of France.
The question of her presentation at Court, an act which would place
her on the same social footing as her enemies, had been the main topic
of conversation for a month past. The women had closed their ranks and
united against the common enemy. Not one of them would act as sponsor.
The King, who cared little enough about the business, had, still,
interested himself in the matter. The Comtesse, her sister Chon, and
the Vicomte Jean Dubarry had ransacked the lists of the most venial of
the nobility. Bribes, threats, promises, all had been used in vain;
not a woman would stir or raise a finger to further the ambition of
the “shop girl,” so that the unfortunate Comtesse was on the point of
yielding to despair when a brilliant idea occurred to the Vicomte Jean.
Away down in the provinces, mouldering in a castle on the banks of the
Meuse, lived a lady named the Comtesse de Béarn. A lady of the old
_régime_, a litigant with a suit pending before the courts in Paris,
poor as Job, proud as Lucifer, and seemingly created by Providence for
the purpose of the presentation.
This lady had been brought to Paris by a trick, installed in the town
house of Madame Dubarry, and wheedled into consenting to act as sponsor
by pure and rank bribery. One can fancy the consternation of the
Choiseul party when this news leaked out.
The presentation was assured; nothing, one might fancy, could possibly
happen to prevent it, and yet to-night, standing with the Duchess
to receive their guests, the face of Choiseul showed nothing of his
threatened defeat.
The Rue de Faubourg St. Honoré was alight with the torches of the
running footmen and filled with a crowd watching the carriages turning
into the courtyard of the Hôtel de Choiseul from the direction of the
Rue St. Honoré, the Rue de la Bonne Morue, the Rue d’Anjou, and the Rue
de la Madeleine.
It was a great assemblage, for the Court for the moment was in Paris,
the King having changed his residence for three days, returning to
Versailles on the morrow, and the people, with that passion for
display which helped them at times to forget their misery and hunger,
watched the passing liveries of the Duc de Richelieu, M. de Duras, M.
de Sartines, the Duc de Grammont, and the host of other notabilities,
content if by the torchlight they caught a glimpse of some fair face,
the glimmer of a jewel, or the ribbon of an order.
The Maréchal de Richelieu’s carriage had drawn away from the steps,
having set down its illustrious occupant, when another carriage drew
up, from which stepped two young men. The first to alight was short,
dark, with a face slightly pitted with smallpox, and so repellent,
that at first sight the mind recoiled from him. Yet such was the
extraordinary vigour and personality behind that repulsive face that
men, and more especially women, forgot the ugliness in the hypnotism
of the power. This was the celebrated Comte Camus, a descendant of
Nicholas Camus, who had arrived in France penniless in the reign of
Louis XIII., married his daughter to Emery, superintendent of finance,
and died leaving to his heirs fifteen million francs.
The gentleman with him, tall, fair complexioned, and with a laughing,
devil-may-care face, marred somewhat by a sword-cut on the right side
reaching from cheek-bone to chin, was the Comte de Rochefort.
Rochefort was only twenty-five, an extraordinary person, absolutely
fearless, always fighting, one of those characters that, like opals,
seem compounded of cloud and fire. Generous, desperate in his love
and hate, a rake-hell and a roué, open-handed when his fist was not
clenched, and always laughing, he was fittingly summed up in the words
of his cousin, the Abbé du Maurier, “It grieves me to think that such a
man should be damned.”
Rochefort, followed by Camus, passed up the steps and through the glass
swing-doors to the hall. It was like entering a palace in fairy-land.
Flowers everywhere, clinging to the marble pillars, gloated on by the
soft yet brilliant lights of a thousand lamps, and banking with colour
the balustrades of the great staircase up which was passing a crowd
of guests, or, one might better say, a profusion of diamonds, orders,
blue ribbons, billowing satin, and the snow of lace and pearls. Over
the light laughter and soft voices of women the music of Philidor
drifted, faintly heard, from the band of violins in the ball-room,
and, clear-cut and hard through the murmur and sigh of violins, voices
and volumes of drapery, could be heard the business-like voice of the
major-domo announcing the guests.
“Monsieur le Maréchal Duc de Richelieu!”
“Madame la Princesse de Guemenée!”
“Madame de Courcelles!” etc.
Camus and Rochefort, having made their bow to Madame de Choiseul and
saluted the minister, lost each other completely. Each had a host of
acquaintances, and Rochefort had not made two steps in the direction of
the ball-room when a hand was laid on his arm and, turning, he found
himself face to face with Monsieur de Sartines, the Lieutenant-General
of Police.
“Is this an arrest, monsieur?” said Rochefort, laughing.
“Only of your attention,” replied de Sartines, laughing in his turn.
“My dear Rochefort, how well you are looking. And what has brought you
here to-night?”
“Just what brought you, my dear Sartines.”
“And that?”
“The invitation of Choiseul.”
“But I thought you were of the other party?”
“Which other party?”
“The Dubarry faction.”
“I—I belong to no faction—only my own, and that includes all the
pretty women and pleasant fellows in Paris. _Mordieu_, Sartines, since
when have you imagined me a man of factions and politics? I keep clear
of all that simply because I wish to live. Look at Richelieu, he has
aged more in the last six months with hungering after Choiseul’s
portfolio than he aged in the whole eighty years of his life. Look at
Choiseul grinning at Richelieu, whom he expects to devour him; he has
no more wrinkles simply because he has no more room for them. Look
at yourself. You are as yellow as a louis d’or, and your liver can’t
grow any bigger on account of the size of your spleen—politics, all
politics.”
“I!” said Sartines. “I have nothing to do with politicians—my business
is with criminals.”
“They are the same thing, my dear man,” replied Rochefort. “The
criminals stab each other in the front and the politicians in the back;
that is all the difference. Ah, here we are in the ball-room. More
flowers! Why, Choiseul must have stripped France of roses for this ball
of his.”
“Yes, but there is a Rose that he has failed to pluck with all these
roses.”
“Dubarry?”
“Precisely.”
Though Rochefort pretended to know nothing of politics, his acute mind
told him at once a secret hidden from others. Sartines belonged to the
Dubarry faction. He read it at once in the remark and the tone in which
it was made.
Sartines moved through the circles of the Court, mysterious, secretive,
professing no politics, yet with his thumb in every pie, and sometimes
his whole hand.
He was Fouché with the aristocratic particle attached—a policeman and
a noble rolled into one. With the genius of Mascarille for intrigue,
of Tartuffe for hypocrisy, acting now with the feigned stupidity of
a Sganarelle, and always ready to pounce with the pitilessness of a
tiger, this extraordinary man exercised a power in the Court of Louis
XV., equalled only by the power of the grey cardinal in the time of
Richelieu—with this difference—he was feared less, on account of his
assumed bonhomie, an attribute that made him even more dangerous than
_son éminence gris_.
He stood now with his hands behind his back, leaning slightly forward,
his lips pursed, and his eyes upon the minuet that had just formed like
a coloured flower crystallized from the surrounding atmosphere by the
strains of Lully.
“Ah,” said the Minister of Police, catching sight of a familiar figure,
“so the Comte Camus is among the dancers. He came with you to-night?”
“Yes; we arrived in the same carriage.”
“Then take care,” said Sartines, “that you do not end your life in the
same carriage.”
“Pardon!”
“The carriage that takes men to the Place de la Grève.”
“Monsieur!” cried Rochefort.
“It is my joke; yet, all the same, a joke may have a warning in it.
Rochefort, beware of that man.”
“Of Comte Camus?”
“Yes.”
“And why?”
“_Mordieu_, why! He is a poisoner—that’s all.”
“A poisoner!”
“Precisely. He poisoned his uncle with a plate of soup, he poisoned
his wife with a pot of rouge, and he would poison me with all his heart
if he could get into my kitchen. You ask me how I know all this? I know
it. Yet I cannot touch him because my evidence is not as complete as my
knowledge. But the rope is ready for him, and he will fall as surely
as my name is Sartines, for he is an expert in the art, and my eye is
always upon him.”
Rochefort, who had recovered from his shock, laughed. He did not
entirely believe Sartines; besides, his attention was distracted from
the thought of Camus by a face.
“Who is that lady seated in the alcove beside Madame de Courcelles?”
asked he.
De Sartines turned.
“That?” said he. “Why, it is La Fleur de Martinique. How is it possible
that you do not know her?”
“I have been away from Paris for two months. She must have bloomed in
my absence, this flower of Martinique. Her name, my dear Sartines? I am
burning to know her name.”
“Mademoiselle Fontrailles. But beware of her, Rochefort; she is even
more dangerous than Camus.”
“Why, does she poison people?”
“No, she only makes eyes at them. It’s the same thing. Now, what can
she be doing here to-night—for she is a friend of the Dubarrys?”
“What can she be doing here? Why, where are your eyes? She is making
Choiseul’s ball-room more beautiful, of course. _Mon Dieu_, what
a face; it makes every other face look like a platter. Sartines,
introduce me.”
“That I will not.”
“Then I will introduce myself.”
“That is as may be.”
Rochefort turned on his heel and walked straight towards Mademoiselle
Fontrailles, whilst Sartines looked on in horror. He knew that
Rochefort would stick at nothing, but he did not dream that he would
dare the act on which he was now evidently bent.
Rochefort walked straight up to Madame de Courcelles, with whom he had
a slight acquaintance, and bowed.
“How delightful to find you here, and you, too, Mademoiselle
Fontrailles. I was just complaining of the profusion of the flowers—I
thought Choiseul must have gathered together a hundred million roses in
this room—till, turning to your alcove, I found there were only two.”
He bowed, and Madame de Courcelles laughed as she rose to greet
Sartines, with whom she wished a few minutes’ conversation.
“Since you two know each other, I will leave you to talk nonsense
together,” said she. “Ah, Sartines, I thought you were eluding me. You
looked twice in my direction, and not one sign of recognition.”
“I am growing short-sighted, madame,” replied de Sartines, as she
took his arm, “and had it not been for the keen sight of Monsieur de
Rochefort, I might altogether have missed you.”
They passed away in the crowd that now thronged the room, leaving
Rochefort and Mademoiselle Fontrailles together.
She was very beautiful. Graceful as the _fleur d’amour_ of her native
land, dark, yet without a trace of the creole, and with eyes that had
been compared to black pansies. Those same eyes when seen by daylight
discovered themselves not as pansies, but as two wells of the deepest
blue.
The Flower of Martinique looked at Rochefort, and Rochefort looked at
the Flower of Martinique.
“Monsieur,” said the Flower, “I have met many surprising things in
Paris; but nothing has surprised me more than your impertinence.”
“Not my impertinence, dear Mademoiselle Fontrailles,” replied
Rochefort, “but my philosophy. Have you not noticed that when two
people get to know each other they generally bore each other? Now
in Paris society two people cannot possibly know each other without
being introduced; and, since we have never been introduced, it follows
logically that we can never bore each other.”
“I am not so sure of that,” replied the lady, looking at her companion
critically. “Many people to whom I have never been introduced bore me
by the expression of their faces and the tone of their voices. I was
noticing that fact even whilst I was watching you talking to Monsieur
de Sartines a moment ago.”
“Ah,” said Rochefort, “you noticed that about him! It is true he is a
bit heavy.”
She laughed. In her Paris experience she had met no one like Rochefort.
Impudence she had met, and daring, laughter, raillery, good looks and
ugliness. Yet she had never met them all combined, as in the case of
Rochefort. For it seemed to her that he was now almost ugly, now almost
good-looking, and she set herself for a moment to try and read this man
whose face had so many expressions, and whose mind had, seemingly, so
many facets.
She was a keen reader of character, yet Rochefort baffled her. The
salient points were easy enough to discern. Courage, daring and sharp
intelligence were there; but the retreating angles, what did they
contain? She could not tell, but she determined, whatever his character
might be, it would be improved by a check.
“I have not weighed Monsieur de Sartines,” she said, rising to rejoin
Madame de Courcelles, who was approaching on the arm of the minister,
“but I have weighed Monsieur Rochefort, and I find him——” she
hesitated with a charming smile upon her lips.
“And you have found him——?”
“Wanting.”
Next moment she was passing away with Madame de Courcelles, and
Rochefort found himself face to face with the Minister of Police.
At the word “wanting,” she had swept him from head to foot with
her eyes, and the charming smile had turned into an expression of
contemptuous indifference worse than a blow in the face. It was the
secret of her loveliness that it could burn one up, or freeze one, or
entrance one at will. Rochefort had been playing with a terrible thing,
and for the first time in his life he felt like a fool. He had often
been a fool, but he had never felt like a fool before.
“Well,” said de Sartines, with a cynical smile, “and what have we been
talking about to Mademoiselle Fontrailles?”
“Why,” said the young man, recovering himself, “the last subject we
were discussing was your weight, Sartines.”
“My weight?”
“She said that you impressed her as being rather heavy.”
He turned away and walked off, mixing with the crowd, trying to
stifle his mortification, his fingers clutching his lace ruffles and
his eyes glancing hither and thither for someone to pick a quarrel
with or say a bitter thing to. He found no one of this sort, but he
found Mademoiselle Fontrailles. Twice in the crowd he passed her, and
each time her eyes swept over him without betraying the least spark of
recognition.
CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE OF THE DUBARRYS
Camus, meanwhile, having finished dancing, went into the card-room. He
seemed to be in search of someone, and passed from table to table like
an uneasy spirit, till, reaching the farthest table, he found the man
he wanted.
It was the Comte de Coigny.
Coigny was standing watching a game of picquet; when he raised his eyes
and saw Camus, he gave a sign of recognition, left the game, and coming
towards him, took his arm.
“Let us go into the ball-room,” said Coigny; “we can talk there without
being overheard in the crush. Did you get my note asking you to be sure
to come to-night?”
“Yes, I got your note. Why were you so anxious for me to come?”
“For a very good reason. There are great things in the air.”
“Ah! Something about the Dubarry, I wager.”
“You are right. The case is desperate, and you know the only cure for a
desperate case is a desperate remedy.”
“Go on.”
“She is due at Versailles at nine o’clock to-morrow evening. Well, we
are going to steal her carriage, her dress and her hairdresser.”
“Dubarry’s?”
“Yes, Dubarry’s.”
“And you want me——”
“To help.”
“And when is this theft to be made?”
“To-morrow, at six o’clock in the evening. We cannot entrust this
business to servants. I have a friend who will look after the milliner,
I myself will attend to the hairdresser, and you, my dear Camus, must
look after the carriage.”
“Let us clearly understand each other,” said Camus. “You propose to
suppress a hairdresser, a carriage and a gown. Is this to be done by
brute force, or how?”
“By bribery.”
“Have you approached the milliner, the hairdresser, and the coachman on
the subject?”
“Heavens no! The thing is to be done at the last moment; give them time
to think and they would talk.”
“And who is to pay the bribes?”
“Choiseul; who else? It will cost three hundred thousand francs; but
were it to cost a million, the million is there.”
“And suppose they resist?”
“That has also been taken into consideration. If they resist, then
force must be used. You must have five companions ready to your call,
should you need them.”
“I can easily find five men,” said Camus. “I have only to whisper the
name of Dubarry, and they would spring from the pavement.”
“They must all be gentlemen,” said Coigny, “for in an affair of this
sort, nothing must be trusted to servants.”
“Just so. Who are the coach people?”
“Landry, in the Rue de la Harpe. The carriage is finished, and the
varnish is drying on it. But Landry has nothing to do with it. Your
business concerns the coachman, Mathieu. You must get hold of this man,
and, having put him out of the way, assume the Dubarry livery, call for
the coach at Landry’s, and drive it to the devil—or anywhere you like
but the Rue de Valois.”
“And the footmen?”
“Your genius must dispose of those. Send them into a cabaret for a
drink, and drive off while they are drinking. That is all detail.”
“But Landry will recognize that I am not Mathieu.”
“You can easily meet that. You can say he is ill, or better, drunk. He
has a reputation for getting drunk, and there is nothing like a bad
reputation to help a good plan, sometimes.”
“_Ma foi_!” said Camus, “if that is the case, you ought to use
Dubarry’s reputation. Well, I agree. But Choiseul ought to make me a
duke at least, for it would be worth a dukedom to see Dubarry’s face
when she finds out the trick, and I will be out of all that.”
“Rest assured,” said Coigny, “that Choiseul will not forget the men who
have helped him; but your reward will come less from him than another
quarter.”
“And where is that?”
“Why, all the women of the Court. And a man with the women on his
side can do anything. Ah, there is Madame de Courcelles with the
charming Fontrailles. Now, what can Mademoiselle Fontrailles be doing
here to-night, for, if I am not greatly mistaken, she is a friend of
Dubarry’s?”
Camus caught sight of Mademoiselle Fontrailles.
“_Mon Dieu_!” said he, “what a lovely face! Where has she come from?”
“What?” said Coigny, “do you not know her? She is from Martinique.
They call her the ‘Flower of Martinique’—but surely you have seen her
before?”
“I have been away from Paris for some weeks, hunting with Rochefort,”
said Camus, his eyes still on the girl.
“Ah! that accounts for it,” said Coigny. “She is a new arrival.”
“Introduce me.”
“Certainly.”
In a moment the introduction was made. Camus’s success with women was
due less, perhaps, to his force and personality, than to his knowledge
of them. Like Wilkes, he only wanted ten minutes’ start of the
handsomest man in town to beat him. With Mademoiselle Fontrailles he
was charming, courtly, deferential and graceful.
He knew nothing of Rochefort’s experience with the girl, but he
needed no warning, and when the Duc de Soissons came up to claim her
as partner, he fancied that he had made a very good impression, as,
indeed, he had.
He watched her dancing. If he had made a good impression on her, she
had made a deep impression upon him. He watched her with burning eyes,
as one might fancy a tiger watching a gazelle, then, turning away, he
passed through the crowd to the supper-room.
Here, drinking at a buffet, he met a friend, Monsieur de Duras, a stout
gentleman—one of those persons who know everything about everyone and
their affairs. Camus questioned him about Mademoiselle Fontrailles,
and learned her origin and history. Her father was the chief banker in
Martinique. She had come to Paris for her health. Attended by whom?
“_Mon Dieu_!” said de Duras, “now you ask me a question. She has come
attended by no one but an old quadroon woman, and she lives, now in
apartments in the Rue St. Dominic, and now at Luciennes. She is a
friend of the Dubarry, to whom old Fontrailles owes many a concession
that has helped to make his fortune. But you may save yourself trouble,
my dear Camus—she is entirely unapproachable, one of those torches
that turn out to be icicles when you take a hold of them.”
“Indeed!” said Camus. He stayed for a little while in the supper-room,
talking to several people; then he returned to the ball-room.
Mademoiselle Fontrailles had disappeared. It took him some time to
ascertain this fact, searching hither and thither among the hundreds
of guests. The corridors, the landings, the hall, he tried them in
succession without result. The lady had vanished.
The mind of Camus was of that type which can turn from one subject
to another, leaving the most burning questions to await their answer
whilst it is engaged in some alien consideration. Having failed to find
the woman who had charmed him, he turned his attention to the Dubarry
business.
He had to find five friends whom he could trust, men absolutely devoted
to Choiseul, that is to say, sworn enemies of Dubarry. By midnight he
had picked out four gentlemen fit for the purpose, that is to say, four
titled rake-hells and blackguards, who would stick at nothing, and who
held the honour of women and the life of men equally cheap. He made an
appointment with these people to meet him at breakfast on the morrow
at his house in the Rue de la Trône, and was casting about for a fifth
when his eye fell on Rochefort, who, flushed with wine and winnings at
cards, had almost recovered his temper.
Rochefort was just the man he wanted to complete his party. He thought
that he knew Rochefort thoroughly, and, taking him by the arm, he
turned to the entrance hall.
“It is after midnight,” said Camus, “and I am off. Will you walk part
of the way with me, for I have something particular to say to you?”
“You are going home?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t mind coming with you. I have won two hundred louis, and
if I stay I will be sure to lose them again. What is this you wish to
say?”
“Wait till we are in the street,” replied Camus.
They got their cloaks and hats and left the hôtel, crossing the
courtyard thronged with carriages, and turning to the right down the
Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré in the direction of the Rue St. Honoré.
“Look here,” said Camus, taking the other’s arm, “we have made a famous
plan about the washerwoman.”
“Dubarry?”
“Who else? Her presentation is as good as cancelled.”
“Oh, I thought it was assured.”
“It was.”
“And what has happened to cancel it?”
“Nothing. But things are going to happen.”
“Explain yourself, my dear fellow; you are as mysterious as the Sibyl.
Are you going to strangle the Comtesse de Béarn?”
“No, but we are going to steal Dubarry’s coach.”
“Steal her coach?”
“And not only her coach, but her gown and her hairdresser.”
“Are you serious?” said Rochefort.
“Perfectly. Is it not a splendid plan? It is all to take place at the
last moment—that is to say, at six o’clock to-morrow, or rather,
to-day, for it is now after midnight. Look you, this is the way of it.”
Camus, bursting with laughter, made a sketch of what he proposed to do.
“I shall want five men at my back,” said he, “I have four; will you be
the fifth?”
Rochefort made no reply for a moment. Then he said:
“You know I am no friend of the Dubarrys, and that I would give a good
deal to see this shop-girl in her proper place. Yet what you propose to
me does not seem a work I would care to put my hand to. I would carry
off the Comtesse with pleasure, but to steal her carriage—well—to
that I can only reply, I am not a thief.”
Camus withdrew his arm from that of Rochefort. He knew Rochefort as
a man who cared absolutely nothing for consequences—as a gambler,
a drinker, and a fighter who could have given points to most men
and beaten them at those amusements. He had failed to take into
his calculations the fact that Rochefort was a man of honour. This
desperado of a Rochefort had mired his clothes with all sorts of filth,
but his skin was clean. He always fought fair, and he never cheated at
play. Even in love, though his record was bad enough, he played the
game without any of those tricks with which men cheat women of their
honour.
Camus, absolutely without scruple and with the soul of a footman,
despite the power of his mind and personality, had utterly failed to
read Rochefort aright, simply because, being blind to honour himself,
he could not see it in others. One may say of a man like Camus that
he may be clever as Lucifer, but he can never be a genius in affairs,
simply because of that partial blindness which is one of the adjuncts
of evil.
“Oh, oh,” said he, “we have suddenly become very strait-laced!”
“I?” said Rochefort. “Not at all! But your plan seems to me equivalent
to robbing a person of his purse so as to prevent him from taking the
stage to Versailles. It is a trick, but it is not a clever one, and if
you will excuse me for saying so, it is not the trick of a gentleman.
Coigny originated it, you say? I believe you. He has the mind of a
lackey and the manners of one—he only wants the livery.”
“Ah!” said Camus, with a sneer, “it is easy to see you are for the
Dubarry party. Why do you not wear their colours then, openly, instead
of carrying them in your pocket with your conscience?”
Rochefort laughed.
“I do not wear my colours,” said he, “my servants wear them. They are
grey and crimson, not rose. I have nothing to do with the Dubarrys,
nor do I wish to have anything to do with them. The Comtesse can go to
Versailles or go to the devil for all I care—but what is that?”
They had turned to the left up the broad way bordered by trees which
cut the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, and led from the Pont Tournant of
the Tuileries to the Hôtel de Chevilly. Rochefort’s attention had been
attracted by a woman’s screams coming from the narrow Rue de Chevilly
that ran by the hôtel. The moon had risen, and by its light he could
see a group of three people struggling; two men were attacking a woman.
Always ready for a fight, he whipped his sword from its scabbard, and
calling on Camus to follow, ran at full speed towards the ruffians,
who, dropping their hold on the woman, took to their heels, doubling
down the road that led past the Bénédictines de la Ville l’Évêque.
Rochefort, forgetting Camus, the woman and everything else, pursued
hot-foot to the road corner, where the two men parted, one running down
the Rue de la Madeleine towards the river, the other up the street
leading to the Hôtel de Soyecourt.
Rochefort pursued the latter, and for a very good reason. The man was
running into a cul-de-sac. The pursued one did not perceive this till
suddenly he found himself faced by the barrier, closed at night, which
extended from the wall of the Bénédictines to the wall of the cloister
of the Madeleine. Then he turned like a rat and Rochefort in the
moonlight had a full view of him.
He was quite young, perhaps not more than eighteen, with a white,
degenerate, evil face—one of those faces that the Cour des Miracles
invented and constructed, that the Revolution patented and passed on to
the _banlieue_ of Paris, and that the _banlieue_ handed to us under the
title of “Apache.”
“Ah,” said Rochefort, “I have got you!”
The words were within an ace of being his last. The ruffian’s hand
shot up and a knife whistled past Rochefort’s neck, almost grazing it.
Instantly, and like a streak of light, the sword of Rochefort passed
through the chest of the knife-thrower, pinning him to the door of the
barrier, where he dandled for a moment, flinging his arms about like a
marionette. Then, unpinned, he fell all of a heap on the cobble-stones.
The sword had gone clean through his heart. He was as dead as Calixtus.
Rochefort had done the only thing possible to do with him—put him out
of existence; and feeling that the world was well rid of a ruffian, he
looked about for something to wipe his sword upon. A piece of paper was
blowing about in the wind and the moonlight; it was a scrap of an old
ballad then being hawked about Paris. He used it to wipe his sword,
returned the blade to its sheath, and, well content with the clean and
very sharp-cut business he had completed, returned on his tracks.
Nearing again the Rue de Chevilly, he again heard the cries of a
woman, and next moment, turning the corner at a run, he saw two forms
struggling together, the form of a woman and the form of a man. Camus,
with his arm round the waist of the woman they had rescued, was trying
to kiss her. In a moment Rochefort was up to them. His quick blood
was boiling. To rescue a woman and then to assault her would, in cold
blood, have appeared to him the last act—in hot blood it raised the
devil in him against Camus. He ran up to them, crooked his arm in that
of the count, and, swinging him apart from his prey, struck him an
open-handed blow in the face that sent him rolling in the gutter. Then
he drew his sword.
Now Camus was reckoned a brave man, and undoubtedly he was, but
courage has many qualities. Caught acting like a ruffian and smitten
open-handed in the face and cast in the gutter, he sat for a moment as
if stunned. Then, rising with his clothes and gloves soiled, he stood
for a moment gazing at Rochefort, but he did not draw his sword. His
spirit for the moment was broken.
He had been caught acting like a blackguard, and that knowledge,
and the blow, and Rochefort’s anger, and the horrible indignity of
the whole business, paralysed the man in him, quelled his fury, and
disabled his arm.
“We will see about this later on,” he said, and stooping for his
three-cornered hat, which was lying on the ground, he walked away in
the direction of the Rue de la Madeleine. Twenty yards off he turned,
gazed back at Rochefort, and then went on till the corner of the street
hid him from sight.
Rochefort sheathed his sword, and turned to the woman, who was leaning,
trembling and gasping, against the wall of the Hôtel de Chevilly.
“Oh, _mon Dieu_,” said she, “what a night! Ah! monsieur, how can I ever
thank you for saving me!”
She was young and pretty. The hood of her cloak had fallen back,
showing her dark hair and her face, on which the tears were still wet.
She was evidently a servant returning from some message, or perhaps
some rendezvous. Rochefort laughed as he stooped to pick up her
handkerchief, which had fallen on the ground.
“There is nothing to thank me for,” said he. “Come, little one, pick up
your courage. And here is the handkerchief which you dropped. Have they
robbed you, those scamps?”
“No, monsieur,” replied the girl; “the letter which I was carrying is
safe.”
“Ah, they were after a letter! But how did they know you had a letter
in your possession? Have they been following you?”
“They followed me, monsieur, from my mistress’s home to the house where
I went to receive the letter, and from that house they followed me,
always at a distance, till I reached the street where they attacked me.
They asked me for the letter——”
“Ah, they asked you for the letter!”
“Yes, monsieur, promising to let me go free if I gave it to them.”
“And you?”
“I refused, monsieur.”
“Well, mademoiselle, your courage does you credit; and now take my arm,
and I will see you safe back to your home. _Mordieu_, many a man would
have given up letter and purse as well to escape from ruffians like
those. What is thy name, little one?”
“Javotte,” replied the girl, taking his arm.
“Well, Mademoiselle Javotte, your troubles are now at an end, and your
letter will arrive safely at its destination. Which way shall we turn?”
“I am going to the Rue de Valois, monsieur.”
“Ah, well then, our quickest way is straight ahead and through the Rue
des Capucines. _En avant_!”
As they went on their way they talked. Javotte was not a Parisienne by
birth—she hailed from Poictiers—but she had a fresh and lively mind
of her own, and to the Comte de Rochefort it came as a revelation that
this girl of humble extraction could be both interesting and amusing.
The extraordinary circumstances attending their meeting and the fact
that he was playing the rôle of her protector served to destroy, in
part, those social differences which would otherwise have divided
them. The whole thing was new and strange, and to a mind like
Rochefort’s, these elements were sufficiently captivating.
In the Rue de Valois, Javotte paused at a postern door and drew a key
from her pocket.
“This is the house, then,” said Rochefort. “What an ugly door to be the
end of our pleasant journey!”
Javotte with a little sigh put the key in the lock of the ugly door and
opened it gently.
“Monsieur,” said she in a low voice, “I can never thank you enough. I
am only a poor girl, and have few words; but you will understand.”
Something in the tone of her voice made Rochefort draw close to her,
and as he took the step she retreated, so that now they were in the
passage on which the door opened.
“You will say good-night?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she replied in a murmur, “Good-night, monsieur.”
“Ah! not in that way—this.”
She understood. Their lips met in the semi-darkness and his hand was
upon her waist when the door behind them, as if resenting the business,
closed with a snap. Almost on the sound, a door in front of them
opened, a flood of light filled the passage, and Rochefort, drawing
away from the girl, found himself face to face with a man, stout, well
but carelessly dressed, and holding a lamp in his hand.
It was the Vicomte Jean Dubarry!
Rochefort was so astounded by the recognition that for a moment he said
no word. The Vicomte, who did not recognize Rochefort at once, was so
astonished at the sight of a man in the passage with Javotte that he
was equally dumb. The unfortunate Javotte, betrayed by the bad luck
that had dogged her all the evening, covered her face with her hands.
After the first second of surprise, Rochefort remembered that the
Dubarry town house was situated in the Rue de Valois, and the fact that
he must be standing in the Comtesse’s house, and that he had saved her
maid and her letter, brought a laugh to his lips with his words.
“_Mordieu_!” cried he. “Here’s a coincidence.”
“Ah!” cried Dubarry, now recognizing his man. “Why, it is Monsieur le
Comte de Rochefort!”
“At your service,” said Rochefort, with another laugh.
Dubarry bowed ironically. He knew Rochefort’s reputation, and he
fancied that the presence of this Don Juan was due to some intrigue
with Javotte. He had Rochefort at a disadvantage, but he did not wish
to press it. Rochefort was not the man to press. As for Javotte, Jean
Dubarry would not have cared had she a dozen intrigues on hand. He
wanted the letter for which she had been sent.
“Monsieur,” said he, “the hour is rather late. To what do I owe the
honour of this visit?”
“Why,” said Rochefort, “I believe you owe it to the letter which
Mademoiselle Javotte has in her pocket and of which two men tried to
rob her in the Rue de Chevilly half an hour ago.”
“Monsieur le Vicomte,” said Javotte, recovering herself, “I was
followed to the address you gave me by two men. Then, when I was
returning with this letter, they attacked me and would have taken it
from me but for this brave gentleman, who beat them off. He escorted me
home. I was saying good-night to him here when the door shut to and
you entered.” She took the letter from her pocket and handed it to him.
Jean Dubarry’s manner instantly changed as he took the letter. He
knew that Rochefort belonged to no party, and to attach this powerful
firebrand to the Dubarry faction would be a stroke of very good policy.
Also, he wished to know more about the affair.
“Monsieur Rochefort,” said he, smiling, “you have done us a service. We
are deeply beset by enemies, and if you wanted proof of that, the fact
that our servant has been attacked to-night, on account of this letter,
would supply you with it. In the name of the Comtesse, I thank you. And
now, will you not come in? This cold passage is but the entrance to a
house that is still warm enough, thank God, for the entertainment of
our friends. And though the hour is late, it is of importance that I
should have a word with you on the matter.”
“Thank you,” said Rochefort, “I shall be glad also to have a moment’s
talk with you.”
He felt slightly disturbed in mind. If everything was as it appeared to
be, then the man he had killed was not a common robber, but a creature
of Choiseul’s; and, however vile this creature might have been,
Choiseul would visit the man who had killed him with his vengeance,
should he discover the fact.
Truly, this was a nice imbroglio, and he was even deepening it now by
accepting an invitation to enter the house of Choiseul’s most bitter
enemy. But Rochefort was a man who, when in a difficulty, always
went forward, depending on the strength of his own arm to cut his
way through. If he was bound to be involved in politics, and Court
intrigue, fate had ordained that he would have to fight against
Choiseul, and if that event came about, it would be better to have the
Dubarrys at his back than no one.
_En avant_! was his motto, and, following the broad back of the
Vicomte, and being followed, in turn, by little Javotte, he left the
passage and entered the house of the Dubarrys.
CHAPTER III
A COUNCIL OF WAR
The Vicomte led the way along a corridor with painted walls and a
ceiling wherefrom impossibly fat cupids pelted one in gesture with
painted roses.
He opened a door, and with a courtly bow, ushered Rochefort into a
small room exquisitely furnished, and lit by a swinging crystal lamp of
seven points burning perfumed oil. This house of the Dubarrys had once
belonged to Jean de Ségur, a forbear of General Philippe de Ségur, that
ardent Royalist who, at the sight of Murat’s dragoons galloping through
the gate of the Pont Tournant, forgot his grief at the destruction of
the old _régime_, and became a soldier of Napoleon’s.
It was furnished regardless of expense. Boucher had supervised the
paintings that adorned the ceilings, the Maison Grandier had produced
the chairs and couches, Versailles had contributed porcelain idols,
bonbonnières, and a hundred other knicknacks. Ispahan and Bussorah
had contributed the carpets, at a price, through the great Oriental
house of Habib, Gobelins the tapestry, Sèvres the china, and the glass
manufactory of the Marquis de Louviers the glass. It was for this
house, perhaps, rather than for Luciennes, that the Comtesse had
refused Fragonard’s exquisite panels, “The Romance of Love and Youth,”
a crime against taste which, strangely enough, found no place in the
_procès-verbal_.
Dubarry, excusing himself for a moment, closed the door, and Rochefort
glanced round the room wherein he found himself.
Everything was in white or rose; the floor was of parquet, covered here
and there with white fur rugs; on the rose-coloured silk of one of the
settees lay a fan, as if cast there but a moment ago; and a volume of
the poems of Marot, bound in white vellum and stamped with the Dubarry
arms and their motto, “_Boutez en avant_” lay upon a chair, as if just
put down in haste.
A white-enamelled door, half-hidden by rose-coloured silk curtains,
faced the door by which he had entered, and from the room beyond,
Rochefort, as he paced the floor and examined the objects of art around
him, could hear a faint murmur of voices. Five minutes passed, and
Rochefort, having glanced at the fan, peeped into the volume of poems,
set the huge Chinese mandarin that adorned one of the alcoves wagging
his head, and wound up and broken a costly musical-box, turned suddenly
upon his heel.
The door leading into the next room had opened, and a woman stood
before him, young, plump, fair-haired and very pretty, exquisitely
dressed.
It was the Comtesse Dubarry.
Behind her, Jean Dubarry’s gross figure showed, and behind Jean the
dark hair of a girl, who was holding a fan to her face as though to
conceal her mirth or her features—or both.
“Monsieur le Comte de Rochefort, Madame la Comtesse Dubarry,” came
Jean’s voice across the Countess’s shoulder, and then the golden voice
of the woman, as she made a little curtsey:
“Monsieur le Comte de Rochefort. Why, I know him!”
Rochefort bowed low. He had met Madame Dubarry at Versailles—that is
to say, he had made his bow to her with the thousands of others who
thronged the great halls, but he had never hung about the ante-chambers
of her special apartment with the other courtiers. He fancied her
recognition held more politeness than truth, but in this he was
mistaken. Madame Dubarry knew everybody and everything about them. She
had a marvellously retentive and clear memory, and an equally quick
mind. An ordinary woman in her position would have been lost in a week.
“And though I have had no proof of his friendship before, I know him
now to be my friend. Monsieur Rochefort, I thank you.”
She held out her hand, which he touched with his lips.
Raising his head from the act, he saw the girl with the fan looking
at him; she had lowered the fan from her face. It was Mademoiselle
Fontrailles!
“Madame,” said he, replying to the Comtesse, “it was nothing. If I have
served you, it has been through an accident, yet I esteem it a very
fortunate accident that has enabled me to use my sword in your service.”
Though he ignored Mademoiselle Fontrailles, his heart had leaped in
him at the recognition. It seemed to him that Fate had willed that he
should find his interests entangled in those of the beautiful woman who
had smitten him in more ways than one. But, as yet, he did not know
whether it was to be an entanglement of war or peace, an alliance or a
feud.
“Camille,” said the Comtesse, “this is Monsieur de Rochefort.” She
smiled as she said the words, and Rochefort, as he bowed, knew
instantly that the Flower of Martinique had told of the incident at
the ball, nor did he care, for the warm glance in her dark eyes and
the smile on her lips said, as plainly as words: “Let us forget and
forgive.” From that moment he was Dubarry’s man.
“I had the pleasure of seeing Mademoiselle Fontrailles at Monsieur de
Choiseul’s to-night,” said he, “in the company of my friend, Madame
de Courcelles.” Then, turning sharply to the Comtesse: “Madame, there
are so many coincidences at work to-night, that it seems to me Fate
herself must have some hand in the matter. Now, mark! I go to Monsieur
de Choiseul’s, and I meet Mademoiselle Fontrailles, who is your friend;
as if the alchemy of that friendship had touched me, on my walk home
through the streets, I had the honour to be of service to you by
protecting your messenger; I offer her my protection and escort and I
find myself at your house; I meet the Vicomte Dubarry, and he invites
me in to talk over the matter, and here, again, I meet Mademoiselle
Fontrailles.”
He bowed to the girl, who bowed in return with a charming little laugh,
whilst Jean Dubarry closed the door, and pushed forward chairs for the
ladies to be seated.
“But that is not all,” continued Rochefort, addressing his remarks
again to the Comtesse; “for if it has been my good luck to have served
you in the matter of the letter, it will perhaps be my good fortune
to assist you on a matter more serious still. You know, or perhaps
you do not know, that I am a man of no party and no politics, yet it
would be idle for me to shut my eyes to the finger that points my way,
and my ears to the voice that whispers to me that my direction is the
direction of the Rue de Valois.”
He bowed slightly, and his bow included Mademoiselle Fontrailles. The
Comtesse had been looking at him attentively all this while, and her
quick mind divined something of importance behind his words.
“Monsieur Rochefort,” said she, indicating a chair, whilst she herself
took her seat on a settee by the side of Mademoiselle Fontrailles, “you
have something to tell me. I have the gift of second sight, and I guess
that this something is of importance; in my experience, I find that the
important things are always the unpleasant things of life, so put me
out of my anxiety, I pray you.”
“I will, madame; you have divined rightly. My news is unpleasant,
simply because it relates to a conspiracy against you.”
“Ah! ah!” said Jean Dubarry, who had not taken a seat, but was standing
by the mantelpiece, snuff-box in hand. “A conspiracy.”
“Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte, a conspiracy.”
“Against my life?” asked the Comtesse, with a laugh. “It would be
a bright idea for some of them to attack that instead of my poor
reputation. Unfortunately, however, these gentlemen are incapable of a
bright idea.”
“No, madame, they do not propose to take your life; they propose to
steal your coachman, your hairdresser and the robe that you are to wear
to-morrow evening.”
Jean Dubarry almost dropped his snuff-box; he swore a frightful oath;
and the Countess, fully alive to the gravity of the news, stared
open-eyed at Rochefort. Mademoiselle Fontrailles alone found words,
other than blasphemies, to express her feelings.
“Ah, the wretches!” said she. “I thought they would leave no stone
unturned by their vile hands.”
“Monsieur,” said the Comtesse, finding voice, “are you certain of what
you say?”
“Why, madame, they invited me to take a part in the business.”
“And you refused?”
“I refused, madame, not because I was of your party—in fact, to be
perfectly plain, at that moment I was rather against you—I refused
because I considered the whole proceeding a trick dishonouring to a
gentleman; and I told Monsieur Camus my opinion of the business in a
very few words.”
“Comte Camus? Was he the agent who brought you this proposition?”
“He was, madame. I can say so now openly, since we are no longer
friends. We quarrelled on a certain matter to-night, and if you are
desirous of knowing the details of our little quarrel, Javotte will be
able to supply them.”
But the Comtesse had no ears for anything but the immediate danger that
threatened her, and Rochefort had to tell the whole story from the
beginning to the end.
“Death of all the devils!” cried Jean Dubarry, when the story was
finished. “What an escape!”
“The question is,” said Madame Dubarry, “have we escaped and shall we
be able to prevent these infamous ones from carrying out their plan?”
“Prevent them!” cried Jean. “I will pistol the first man that lays
hands on the carriage. I will lock the hairdresser up in the cellar
till the moment comes when he is wanted. As for the modiste, we will
arrange that she will be all right. Prevent them! _Mordieu_! Yes, we
will prevent them.”
“Excuse me,” said Rochefort, “but if I may be allowed to give my
advice, I would say to you, do not prevent them; let them carry out
their plan.”
“And let them take my carriage?”
“And the dress!” cried Mademoiselle Fontrailles.
“And the hairdresser!” put in Jean.
“Precisely,” said Rochefort. “With that power which is at your
disposal, madame, can you not have a new dress created, a new carriage
obtained, and a new hairdresser found in the course of the few hours
before us? My reason is this. Should they fancy that their plan is
successful they will try nothing else. Should we thwart them openly, I
would not say at what they would stop.”
“Certainly,” cried Jean, “there’s truth in that. Can we not find a
carriage, a dress and a coiffeur! Let us think—let us think!” He
walked up and down the room, twisting his ruffles.
“No one can dress my hair like Lubin,” said the Countess.
“Excuse me,” said Rochefort, “but I believe there is a man whom I know
who is a genius in the art. He is unknown; but the day after to-morrow,
should you employ him, I believe he will be known to all Europe.”
“As to the dress,” said Mademoiselle Fontrailles, “you know, dear
madame, that I was to be presented also. And our figures, are they not
nearly the same?”
“_Dame_!” cried Jean, hitting himself a smack on the forehead. “I have
the carriage! It is at Vaudrin’s, in the Rue de la Madeleine. I saw it
yesterday. It has been made to the order of the Comtesse Walewski, who,
it seems, has not arrived yet; and all it requires is that the Dubarry
arms should be painted over those of the Comtesse. We only want a loan
of it, and five thousand francs will pay the bill.”
The Comtesse turned to Rochefort.
“Monsieur Rochefort, I can trust your taste as I trust your friendship.
All I ask you as a woman is this: Are you sure of your hairdresser?”
“Absolutely, madame; he is an artist to the tips of his fingers. I will
stake my reputation on him.”
The Comtesse inclined her head. She turned to Mademoiselle Fontrailles.
“Camille, have you thought that this act of generosity will ruin
your presentation, for if I am to wear your dress, which is divinely
beautiful and has cost you a hundred thousand francs, how, then, are
you to appear before his Majesty?”
“Madame,” said the girl, “I will have a cold; my presentation will be
put off, that is all. And I esteem it a very small sacrifice to make
for one who has benefited my family so deeply. Besides, madame, even if
my presentation never occurred, it would not give me a sleepless night.
The world has very few attractions for me.”
Her dark eyes met those of Rochefort for a moment. There are seconds
of time that carry in them the essence of years, and it seemed to
Rochefort, in these few seconds, that some magic in the dark gaze of
the eyes that held him had seized upon his mind, indelibly altering it.
The Comtesse’s only reply was to lay her hand in a caressing way upon
the beautiful arm of her friend. She turned to Jean:
“Jean, are you sure of the carriage?”
“_Mordieu_, yes. Vaudrin is ours entirely.”
“Will it be possible to have the arms altered in this short time?”
“He will do it. I will call upon him to-morrow morning at six o’clock.”
“Well,” said the Comtesse, “I accept. I accept everything—your advice,
Monsieur de Rochefort, and your sacrifice, Camille. But it is a debt I
can never repay.”
This sweet sentence was suddenly broken upon by a shriek of laughter
from Jean. Dubarry rarely laughed, but when he did so it took him like
convulsions—a very bad sign in a man. He flung himself on a couch and
slapped his thigh.
“Their faces,” cried he, “when you appear, when the usher cries,
‘Madame la Comtesse de Béarn, Madame la Comtesse Dubarry.’ Choiseul’s
face!”
“And Polastron’s!” cried the Comtesse, catching up the laugh. “And de
Guemenée’s!”
Mademoiselle Fontrailles clasped her hands and laughed too. One might
have fancied that they were quite assured of their victory over the
profound and duplex Choiseul. They were laughing like this when a
man-servant appeared. He had knocked at the door, but as he had
received no answer and his business was urgent, he entered.
“Madame,” said the servant, “Monsieur de Sartines has arrived, and
would speak a word with you on a matter of importance.”
“Monsieur de Sartines,” said the Comtesse, rising, “at this hour! Show
him in.”
Everyone rose, and as they stood waiting, the little clock on the
mantel chimed the hour. It was two o’clock in the morning. A minute
passed, and then the servant returned, opening wide the door.
“Monsieur de Sartines.”
Sartines bowed to the Comtesse, and then, individually, to each
present. He showed scarcely any surprise at the presence of Rochefort.
Sartines was the burning centre of this conspiracy to present the
Comtesse Dubarry at Court in the teeth of all the opposition of the
nobles, and he wished his part in it to be as secret as possible; yet
he did not question Rochefort’s presence. He knew quite well that,
Rochefort being there, he must have joined hands with the Comtesse. He
was a man who never wasted time.
“Madame,” said he, “I have grave news to tell you.”
“Aha!” said the Comtesse, “more bad news. But stay, perhaps we know it.
Is it the plot to rob me of my carriage and my hairdresser?”
“No, madame, I know nothing of any plot to rob you of your carriage.
It is about the Comtesse de Béarn I have come to speak. Did she not
receive a present to-day?”
“Yes, a basket of flowers from an old lady who belongs to her province.
A Madame Turgis.”
“Yes,” said de Sartines, “and a Secret Service agent has just brought
me news that amidst the flowers in that basket was a note.”
“A note!”
“A letter, I should say, giving the Comtesse de Béarn a full and true
account of the little plan by which she was induced to come to Paris.”
“Oh, _mon Dieu_!” cried Madame Dubarry. “If the old fool only gets to
know that, we are ruined! I know her as well as if I had constructed
her. Once her pride and self-esteem are touched, she is hopeless to
deal with.”
“At what hour did this basket of flowers arrive?” asked de Sartines.
“At four o’clock.”
“It has been in her private apartments ever since?”
“Yes.”
De Sartines looked at the clock on the mantel.
“Ten hours and seven minutes. Well, madame, if in that time the
Comtesse de Béarn has not discovered the note, you are saved. Go at
once, madame, to her apartments, and if you can capture the accursed
basket and its contents, for Heaven’s sake do so. We must give her no
chance to find it in the morning.”
Madame Dubarry left the room without a word. She passed through the
next room and down a corridor, where, taking a small lamp from a table,
she turned with it in her hand to a narrow staircase leading to the
next floor. Here she paused at a doorway, listened, and then, gently
opening the door, entered the Comtesse de Béarn’s sitting-room.
On a table near the window stood the fateful basket of flowers. The
folding-doors leading to the bedroom were slightly open, and the
intruder was approaching to seize the basket, when a sound from the
bedroom made her pause, a low, deep groan, as if from someone in mortal
pain.
“Help!” cried a muffled voice. “Who is that with the light? Ah! how I
suffer!”
Without a word the Comtesse passed to the folding-doors, opened them,
and next moment was in the bedroom. On the bed, half-covered with the
clothes, lay the Comtesse de Béarn, on the floor near the stove lay a
chocolate-pot upset, and the contents staining the parquet.
“_Mon Dieu_!” cried Madame Dubarry. “What has happened?”
“Ah, madame!” cried the old woman, “I am nearly dead. Here have I lain
for hours in my misery. The pot of chocolate which I was heating on the
stove upset—and look at my leg!”
She protruded a leg, and Madame Dubarry drew back with a cry. Foot
and ankle and the leg half-way up to the shin bone were scalded in a
manner that would be unpleasant to describe; but it was not the scalded
leg that evoked Madame Dubarry’s cry of anguish. It was the knowledge
that her presentation was now hopeless. For the Comtesse de Béarn to
undertake the journey to Versailles with a leg like that was clearly
impossible.
The Choiseuls had taken all precautions, their bow had many strings.
This was the fatal one. The old woman on the bed, though suffering
severely, could not suppress the gleam of triumph that showed in her
eyes, now fixed on those of the Comtesse.
“Ah, madame!” said Dubarry, “this was ill done. Had you known what
personal issues to yourself were involved, you would have been more
careful!” Then, lest she should lose all restraint over herself, and
fling the lamp in her hand at the head of the scalded one, she rushed
from the room, seized the basket of flowers, and with basket in one
hand and lamp in the other reached the ground floor, taking this time
the grand staircase. She broke into the room, where de Sartines and the
others were seated, flung the basket on a chair, so that it upset and
the contents tumbled pell-mell over the floor, and broke into tears.
Everyone knew.
“Has she found out?” cried Jean.
“Madame,” said de Sartines, waving the Vicomte aside, “calm yourself;
all may not yet be lost.”
“Ah, monsieur, you do not know,” sobbed the unfortunate woman. “Not
only has she found out, but she has scalded her leg, so that the affair
is now absolutely hopeless.” She told her tale, and as she told it her
sobs ceased, her eyes grew bright, and she finished standing before
them with clenched hands and sparkling eyes, more beautiful than ever.
Mademoiselle Fontrailles had been collecting the flowers; there was
no sign of a letter among them. Jean Dubarry, white and beyond speech
and unable to vent his spleen on anything else, had cuffed the China
mandarin on to the floor, where it lay shattered. Rochefort, carried
away by the tragedy, was cursing. De Sartines only was calm.
“It is impossible, then, for her to appear at Versailles?” said he.
“Utterly, monsieur.”
“Well, madame,” said de Sartines, “courage; all is not yet lost.”
“Ah, Monsieur de Sartines,” said the Comtesse, “what do you mean? Do
you not know as well as I do that, failing the Comtesse de Béarn, the
thing is impossible? Even were I to find someone qualified to take the
place of this old woman, there would still be all the formalities of
the application. Monsieur de la Vrillière would have to inquire into
the antecedents of the lady, and Monsieur de Coigny would have to
receive the request, only to lose it for Monsieur to find and cancel on
account of the delay.”
“Madame,” cut in de Sartines, “the plan which has just occurred to me
has nothing to do with the finding of a substitute. Madame la Comtesse
de Béarn shall present you; or, let us put it in this way: to-morrow
evening at ten o’clock you will be presented to his Majesty at the
Court of Versailles. I am only mortal, and therefore fallible; but if
you will leave the matter in my hands the thing shall be done, always
saving the direct interposition of God.”
“You are, then, a magician?” cried the Comtesse.
“No, madame; or only a white magician who works through human agency.”
“Ah, Monsieur de Sartines,” cried the Comtesse, hope appearing again in
her eyes, “if you can only help me in this, I shall pray for you till
my dying day!”
“Oh, madame,” replied de Sartines, with a laugh, “I would never dream
of imposing such a task upon the most beautiful lips in the world. I
only ask you now to work with me, for this immediate end.”
“And what can I do?”
“Carry on all your preparations for to-morrow night. Monsieur Rochefort
has explained to me the plot for the stealing of the carriage, the
dress and the coiffeur. Let the Vicomte attend to the carriage, let
Mademoiselle Fontrailles supply you with her dress, and let your most
trusted servant fetch the coiffeur that Monsieur Rochefort knows of.”
“I will fetch him myself,” said Rochefort.
“No, Rochefort,” said de Sartines, “I have need of you for something
else. May I put my reliance on your obedience in this crisis?”
“Implicitly, Sartines,” replied the Comte. “Call upon me for what you
will. _Mordieu_! I have fought many a duel, but never has a fight
stirred my blood like this. I will act any part or dress for any part
except the part of spectator.”
“I will find enough for you to do, and now I must be going. It is after
three o’clock, and if you will take a seat in my carriage, I will give
you a lift on your way home, and explain what I want.”
“And I will see you again, monsieur?” said the Comtesse, addressing the
Minister of Police.
“Not till after the presentation, Madame, when I hope to have the
honour of kissing your hand. You understand, I have nothing to do with
this affair. You must even abuse me to your friends, who are absolutely
sure to be in communication with your enemies. And now, if I were you,
I would send for your physician to attend to Madame de Béarn’s leg.”
He bade his adieux.
Rochefort, having scribbled the name of the coiffeur on a piece
of paper supplied by Jean, gazed into the eyes of Mademoiselle
Fontrailles, as he lifted his lips from her hand. He fancied that her
glance told him all that he wished, and more than he had hoped.
In the hall Sartines enveloped himself in a black cloak, put on a
broad-brimmed hat, and, followed by Rochefort, entered the carriage
that was waiting in the courtyard. It was a carriage, perfectly plain,
without adornment, such as the Minister used when wishing to mask his
movements.
“You did not come in your own carriage, then?” said Rochefort, as they
drove away.
“Oh, dear, no,” said Sartines. “My carriage is still waiting at
Choiseul’s. I slipped away, having already sent an agent for this
plain carriage to meet me at the third lamp-post on the right, as you
go up the Rue St. Honoré from the Rue du Faubourg.”
“You had an agent in attendance, then?”
“My dear Rochefort, three of Choiseul’s servants are my agents, and it
was from one of them that I learned of this precious plot about the
basket of flowers. You live in the Rue de Longueville!”
“Ah, you know my new address!” said Rochefort, laughing.
“I know everything about you, my dear Rochefort. Now, will you put your
head out of the window, and tell the coachman to drive to the Rue de
Longueville? I cannot go back to the Hôtel de Sartines at once. I must
crave the shelter of your apartments; we are being followed.”
“Followed?”
“_Mordieu_, yes! The Dubarrys’ house has been watched all day. When I
drove up in this carriage, I saw one of Choiseul’s agents, who, without
doubt, tried to question my coachman whilst I was in the house; a
perfectly useless proceeding, as my coachman is Sergeant Bonvallot. I
know quite well, now, that there is a man running after us, so do as I
say.”
Rochefort put his head out and gave the direction.
“My faith!” said he, as he resumed his place, “but they are keen, the
Choiseuls.”
“They are more than that. You cannot guess at all the way this matter
has stirred the whole court. Of course, when the thing is over and
done with, and the presentation an accomplished matter, the Comtesse
will not be able to number her friends. But she is lost if Choiseul
succeeds, and if she succeeds Choiseul is lost. Once give her an
accredited place at court, and the breaking of Choiseul will be only
the matter of a few months.”
“Sartines,” said the young man with that daring which gave him
permission to say things other men would not have dreamed of saying,
“you are not doing this for love of the Dubarry?”
“I?” said de Sartines. “I am doing it to break Choiseul.”
The carriage which had entered the Rue de Longueville stopped at a
house on the left, and the two men got out.
CHAPTER IV
THE METHODS OF MONSIEUR DE SARTINES
De Sartines said a word to his coachman and, without even glancing down
the street to see if he were followed or not, entered the house, the
door of which Rochefort had opened with a key. They passed upstairs to
the apartments of the Count. In the sitting-room de Sartines cast off
his cloak, flung it on a chair with his hat, and took his seat.
“Now let us talk for a moment,” said he. “And first, a word about
yourself. It is unfortunate that you killed that man, considering that
he was one of Choiseul’s agents.”
“I killed him in self-defence,” said Rochefort; “or at least, I can say
that he attempted my life before I took his.”
“Oh, the killing is nothing,” said de Sartines. “The vermin is well
out of the way. What really matters is, that you balked Choiseul in
his attempt to spy upon Dubarry’s secrets. Of course, he may never
know the truth of the matter; but, if he does—well, you will need a
lot of protection, and we will endeavour to find it for you. Now to
the Comtesse’s business. It is quite clear that the old Béarn woman
is literally out of court. Every other woman in Paris or Versailles
is equally impossible, or, at least, seemingly so. I, as Minister of
Police, have great power; but I am powerless to help, for to help I
would have to declare my hand openly, which, as you well may guess,
is impossible to one in my position. Besides, my power has limits. I
cannot say to one of these Court women: ‘You _shall_ present Madame
Dubarry to-night.’ No; yet all the same, I am powerful enough to ensure
that presentation, I believe.”
Rochefort listened with interest. It was rarely that de Sartines
unbosomed himself, and when he did it was generally only to show a
cuirass of steel painted to imitate flesh; but to-night was different.
He knew Rochefort to be absolutely reliable to those who trusted him.
“You talk in enigmas, my dear Sartines,” said the young man. “You say
you are powerless, and then you say you are powerful enough to assure
the presentation. Please explain yourself.”
“No man can explain himself, with the exception, perhaps, of Monsieur
Rousseau, whose ‘Confessions’ you have perhaps read. But a man may
explain his methods. Well, my methods are these. Being by nature a
rather stupid and lazy man, I seek out the cleverest and most active
men I can find to act for me. People fancy that my life is spent in
searching for criminals, political offenders, and so forth; on the
contrary, it is spent in looking for clever men. I have one gift,
without which no man can hold a position like mine. I know men.
“More than that, I hunt for men and buy them just as M. Boehmer hunts
for and buys diamonds. The consequence is that I have more genius at my
command in the Hôtel de Sartines than his Majesty has at Versailles or
Choiseul at the Ministry. I have Escritain, the greatest linguist in
France, who knows not only all European languages, but all dialects.
I have Fremin, the first cryptographer. I have Jumeau, the first
accountant, who could reduce the value of the universe to francs and
sous and, more important, discover an error in his work of one centime.
I have Beauregard, the bravest man in France; Verpellieux, the best
swordsman; Valjean, whose tongue would talk him into the nether regions
and whose hand, if it caught hold of some new Eurydice, would bring her
out, even though it fetched everything else with her. I have Formineux,
a blind man whose sense of smell is phenomenal; and I have Lavenne, the
greatest Secret Service agent in the world. Bring me a book you can’t
translate, the name of a man you can’t find, a crime you can’t fathom,
a suspicion you want verified, you will find the answer at the Hôtel de
Sartines. One of these brave men, who are mine, will read the riddle.
“But outside the Hôtel de Sartines I have other men at my service.
Yes, you will find a lot of people attached to us. You yourself, my
dear Rochefort, have just become one of us. The Hôtel de Sartines has
touched you.”
Rochefort laughed. “If it does not touch me any more unpleasantly than
now, I shall not mind,” said he. “But you have not yet explained.”
“What?”
“Your plans as to the Dubarry.”
“Oh, that. I was coming to that; let me come to it in my own way. I
have shown you the power at my disposal. I have all sorts of brains
ready to work for me, all sorts of hands ready to do my bidding; but
all those brains and hands would be useless to me had I not an intimate
knowledge of their capacities, and had I not the power of selection.
More than that, my dear Rochefort; I have, I believe, the dramatist’s
gift of valuing and using shades of character. Dealing, as I do, with
the most complex and highly civilized society in the world, I would
be lost without this gift, which might have made me a good dramatist
if Fate had not condemned me to be a policeman. In fact, my work at
Versailles and in Paris has mainly to do with the reading backwards
through plots, far more complicated than the plots of Molière, to find
the authors’ names.
“Now I come to the Dubarry business. This woman must be presented
to-morrow night. Choiseul has as good as stolen her carriage and her
dressmaker—that will be put right. Choiseul has succeeded in making
Madame de Béarn half boil herself to death. But Choiseul, who fancies
that he has the whole business in the palm of his hand, has reckoned
without the Hôtel de Sartines and the geniuses whom I have collected
for years past, just as Monsieur d’Anjou collects seals or Monsieur de
Duras Roman coins.
“I am about to employ one of these geniuses to work a miracle for
Madame Dubarry. His name is Ferminard. He lives at the Maison
Gambrinus—which is a tavern in the Porcheron quarter—and, as you have
promised to serve us, you will go there to-morrow at noon, or a little
before, with my agent Lavenne, and conduct this Ferminard to the Rue de
Valois. Lavenne will not go to the Rue de Valois, for I will have other
work for him to do, and besides, it is just as well for him not to go
near the Dubarrys’ house, for, clever as he is in the art of disguise,
Choiseul will have men watching all day who have the scent of hounds.
We must run no risks.”
“Let us understand,” said Rochefort. “I am to meet your agent,
Lavenne—where?”
“He will call for you here.”
“Good! Then I am to go with him to the Maison Gambrinus, find
Ferminard, and conduct him to Madame Dubarry’s house in the Rue de
Valois—all that seems very simple.”
“Perhaps. But you must be on your guard, for this Ferminard is a _bon
viveur_. Taverns simply suck him in, and were he to get lost in one,
you would find him next drunk and useless.”
“A drunkard?”
“No, a man who drinks. Never look down on these people, Rochefort.
Drink may be simply the rags a beggar walks in, or the robes and
regalia that a royal mind adorns itself with to enter the kingdom of
dreams.”
“And what am I to tell this Ferminard to do?”
“You are to tell him nothing, simply because you are a stranger to
him, and he would look on orders from a stranger as an impertinence.
Lavenne, however, knows him to the bone, and is a friend of his.
Lavenne will give him private instructions, and then hand him over to
you.”
“Very well. I will obey your orders, though they completely mystify me.”
“I assure you,” said de Sartines, “that I have no intention of
mystifying you; but I cannot explain my idea to you simply because I
have to explain it to Lavenne. It is after four in the morning, and I
must get back to the Hôtel de Sartines. There is a man still watching
at the corner of the street; he must not follow me. Now, do as I tell
you. Take my black cloak and broad-brimmed hat, and put them on. We
are both about the same size. Go out, walk down the street, go down the
Rue de la Tour, and then through the Rue Picpus, returning here by the
Rue de la Vallière. The fool will follow you all the time.”
“And you?”
“And I,” said de Sartines, putting on Rochefort’s cloak and hat, “will
slip away to the Hôtel de Sartines, whilst you are leading that _sot_
his dance.”
“But he will follow me back here.”
“Of course he will, and he will see you go in and shut the door.
Lavenne will bring you back your cloak and hat in a parcel. The point
is, that they will never know that the man in the black cloak and hat,
who left the Hôtel Dubarry with Monsieur Rochefort, returned to the
Hôtel de Sartines.”
“But your carriage?”
“I told the coachman to take the carriage back to the place it came
from. They will not follow an empty carriage; were they to do so, they
would get nothing for their pains, as it came from a livery stable
managed by the wife of Jumeau, that accountant of whom I spoke just
now.”
Rochefort looked in astonishment at this man, whose methods were as
intricate and minute as the reasoning power that directed them; whose
life was a maze to which he alone possessed the clue, and whose path
was never in a straight line.
He followed implicitly the instructions he had received, conscious all
the time that he was being tracked, and once glimpsing a stealthy form
that slipped from house-shadow to house-shadow. When he returned, de
Sartines had vanished, and, casting himself on his bed dressed as he
was, wearied with the night’s work, he fell asleep.
CHAPTER V
FERMINARD
When he awoke, with the full daylight staring into the room, the first
remembrance that came to him was that of Mademoiselle Fontrailles. The
whole of the past night seemed like some page torn from a romance; only
this girl from the South seemed real. He was in love, for the first
time in his life, and he did not recognize the fact that his passion
had bound him openly to the Dubarrys, cast him head over heels into
politics, to sink or swim with that exceedingly dubious family.
Rochefort had a big stake to lose; he had estates in Auvergne, his
youth and his position in society. He had no political ambitions, but
he had an ambition, ever living and always being gratified, to shine
in his own peculiar way. He set the fashion in coats and morals, his
sayings were repeated, even though many of them were scarcely worth
repetition; his eccentricities, which were genuine and not assumed,
were a feature of Paris life. Paris was his true home, and though he
was seen frequently at Versailles, he was seen more often at the Café
de Régence. He was the first of the dandies, the predecessor of the
_boulevardier_ of the Boulevard de Gand and the Café de Paris, the
prefiguration in flesh of Tortoni’s and the Second Empire.
Our present utilitarian age could no more produce a Rochefort than
one of our engineers could produce a butterfly; only the full summer
of social life which fell on Athens four hundred years before Christ,
which fell on France in the time of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., and which
brushed England with its wing in the time of the Regency, can produce
these rare and useless human flowers. Useless, that is to say, as fine
pictures, Ming figures, and live dragon-flies are useless.
He had, then, a big stake to lose by venturing into the stormy arena
of politics, for the hand of de Choiseul was a heavy hand, and with
the famous diamond-rimmed snuff-box held many things, including
confiscation, exile, and even imprisonment. But Rochefort never thought
of this, and, if he had thought of it, he would have pursued his
present course absolutely unchecked. This dandy and trifler with life
had no thought at all for danger, and the prudence that arises from
self-interest was not one of his possessions. Leaving all that aside,
he was in love, and the object of his love was in the path of his
present progress.
He rang for Lermina, his valet, and bathed and dressed himself
with most scrupulous care. It was now half-past eleven. He ordered
_déjeuner_ to be served a quarter of an hour earlier than its usual
time, and was seated at the meal when Lavenne was announced. He told
the servant to show the visitor up, and when Lavenne entered rose from
the table to greet him.
Lavenne formed a striking contrast to the elegant Rochefort. Lavenne
was a man who, at first sight, seemed a young man, and at second
sight, a man of middle age, soberly dressed, of middle height, and
remarkable only for eyes wonderfully bright and luminous. Rochefort,
who did not possess de Sartines’ power of reading men, had still the
gift of deciding at once whether a person pleased him or not. He liked
this man’s manner and appearance and face, and received him in a manner
that at once made the newcomer at home.
Rochefort had not two manners, one for the rich and one for the poor.
Whilst always rigidly keeping his own place, he would talk familiarly
with anyone, from the king to the beggar at the corner of the street.
But it would go hard with the man who presumed on this fact. Lavenne
knew Rochefort quite well by name and appearance, had ranked him among
the titled larvæ of the Court who were always passing under his eyes,
and was surprised to find, after a few minutes’ talk, what a pleasant
person he was.
“I have left the hat and cloak, monsieur, with your servant,” said
Lavenne. “My master, the Comte de Sartines, gave me instructions to
bring them with me.
“Ah, the hat and cloak!” said Rochefort. “I had forgotten them. Thanks.
Will you not be seated? I have just finished _déjeuner_, and shall be
quite at your disposal when the carriage arrives. I ordered it for
twelve, as I suppose we had better drive to this place, which is in the
Porcheron district. Will you not have a glass of wine?” He poured out a
glass of Beaune, and whilst Lavenne drank it, finished his breakfast,
chatting all the time, but saying nothing at all on the object of
their journey till they were in the carriage and driving to their
destination.
“You expect to find him in, this Monsieur Ferminard?” asked Rochefort.
“Yes, monsieur. He is very poor just now, and when in that state he
avoids the streets and cafés.”
“Ah, ah!” said Rochefort, wondering how this very poor man, who avoided
even the streets, could be of help to the powerful Comtesse Dubarry at
one of the most critical moments of her life. But he said nothing more;
he did not like to appear as though he were trying to draw Lavenne out.
The Porcheron quarter lay between the Faubourg Montmartre and La Ville
l’Évêque. It was sparsely populated, and here, at a tavern whose sign
represented a hound running down a hare amidst long grass, the carriage
drew up.
This was the Maison Gambrinus, a house of considerable repute for the
excellence of its wine. Founded in the year 1614 by William Gambrinus,
a Dutchman from Dordrecht, it was famous for three things—the
excellence of its cookery, the goodness of its wine, and the modesty
of its charges. Turgis, who now owned the place, possessed a wife who
had been kitchenmaid at the Hôtel Noailles under the famous Coquellard;
being a pretty girl, she had obtained from him, as a mark of his favour
and as a wedding gift, a recipe for stewing veal, that he reckoned as
one of his chief possessions. This same recipe brought people to the
Maison Gambrinus from all over Paris, so that Turgis did a fair enough
business.
As the carriage drew up, a big man appeared at the door of the inn;
he was so broad that he nearly filled the doorway, which was by no
means narrow. One might have fancied that the mould for his face had
been cast on that great and jovial day when Nature, tired of making
ordinary folk, took thought and said to herself: “Now let us make an
innkeeper.”
It was an ideal face of its kind—fat, material, smiling—and promising
everything in the way of good cheer and comfort. Yet to-day, to
Lavenne’s surprise, this face, ordinarily so jovial, wore an expression
that sat ill upon it, or rather, one might say, it had lost somewhat
the natural expression that sat so well upon it.
“Turgis,” said Lavenne, as they followed him into the big room with a
sanded floor, which formed the _salle-à-manger_ and bar combined, “we
have come to see Monsieur Ferminard. Is he in?”
“Oh, _mon Dieu_!” cried Turgis, “is he in? Why, Monsieur Lavenne, he
has not been out for a fortnight; he has driven half my customers away,
and his bill is still owing. Three hams, six dozen eggs, thirty-seven
bottles of wine of Anjou, bread, salt, olives; a bill for sixty-five
francs, to say nothing of the money I have lost through him. Before I
take another poet as a guest, I will set light with my own hand to the
Máison Gambrinus. Listen to him!”
From an adjoining room came the sound of a loud and high-pitched voice,
laughing, talking, bursting out now and then into snatches of song, and
now low-pitched and seemingly engaged in argument. Then, all at once,
came a furious stamping, a cry, and the sound of a table being overset.
“_Pardieu_!” cried Rochefort, “he seems busy. What on earth is he
doing?”
“Doing, monsieur!” replied the host. “Nothing. He is writing a play.”
“Does he write with his feet, then, this Monsieur Ferminard?”
“Aye, does he,” replied Turgis, bending to lift a bottle from the floor
and placing it on one of the tables, “and with his tongue and fists and
head. Gascon that he is, he acts all his tragedies as he writes them.
He has been writing a duel since noon, and has smashed, God knows how
much of my furniture. Sixty-five francs he owes me, which will not
be paid till his tragedy is finished; by which time, Heaven help me!
I fear he will have devoured and drunk the contents of my cellar and
destroyed my inn. And, were it not that he is the best fellow going
and once did me a service, I would bundle him out of my place neck and
crop, poems, plays and all.”
The noise from the adjoining room suddenly ceased, as if the poet
had become aware of the voices of the innkeeper and the new-comers.
The door burst open, and a man in his shirt-sleeves—a short, rather
stout, clean-shaved individual, with a mobile face and bright, piercing
eyes—appeared. He held a pen in his hand.
“_Morbleu_!” cried this apparition, in a testy voice, speaking to the
landlord without even a glance at the others. “Have you no thought for
the comfort of your guests? With your chatter, chatter, chatter, you
have spoilt one of the finest of my passages.”
“And what about my tables?” burst out Turgis, suddenly flying into a
rage, “and my glasses? Four broken this day, and my wainscoting pierced
with the point of your rapier, and my room half wrecked—and you talk
to me of your passages! What about my custom driven away? For one may
not sneeze, it appears to me, without your poems being upset and your
passages spoilt. What about my sixty-five francs?”
“They shall be paid,” said the poet, taking a minor key. “Ah, Monsieur
Lavenne!” His eye had just fallen on Lavenne.
“Pardon me,” said Lavenne to Rochefort. He went towards the tragedian,
took him by the arm and drew him into the adjoining room. Then he shut
the door.
Turgis wiped his forehead. “His passages! I wish he would find a
passage to take him to the devil. What may I get for monsieur?”
“Get me a bottle of that wine for which you are so famous,” said
Rochefort, taking a seat at a table, “and two glasses—that is right.
He seems a strange customer, this Monsieur Ferminard.”
“Oh, monsieur,” replied Turgis, opening the wine and filling the
glasses, “he would be right enough were he only to stick to his trade.”
“And what is his trade?”
“An actor, monsieur; he is a great actor. He belonged to the Théâtre
Molière; but he quarrelled with the director, and the quarrel came to
blows, and Ferminard wounded the director. Yes, monsieur, he would now
be in prison only for Monsieur de Sartines, who took an interest in
him, having seen him act. Ah, monsieur, he was a great actor. But he
was not content to be an actor. Oh, no! What does he do but write a
comedy himself, to beat Molière? And what does he do but get the ear
of the Duc de la Vrillière and his permission to produce this precious
comedy at Versailles, with Court ladies and gentlemen to act in it.
If he had acted himself in it, the thing would have been saved, but
belonging to the Théâtre Molière, he was bound by agreement not to act
elsewhere.
“Well, monsieur, the thing went so badly that he abused the actors and
actresses when they came off the stage, and, as a result, he was caned
by Monsieur de Coigny.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, “I heard something of that; but I was away from
Paris, and I did not hear the details. He abused them. _Mordieu_!
that’s good.”
“Yes, monsieur. I had the story from his own mouth. He told Madame
de Duras, who was acting as one of his precious shepherdesses, that
her head was as wooden as her legs. As for me, I would have been a
mouse among all that company; but he—he does not care for the King
himself; and so outraged does he feel even still, that could he burn
Versailles down and all it contains he would be happy. He is not the
man to forgive the strokes of Monsieur de Coigny’s cane. Your health,
monsieur! Still the pity is that the fault was not with the actors, but
with the play. It is common sense, besides. I, for instance, am a very
good man at selling that wine you are drinking. But if I were to go to
Anjou and try to make that wine, I would not be good at the business.
Just so! A man may be a very good actor, and yet may not be able to
write a play that another man could act well in.”
A sudden burst of laughter from the adjoining room cut Turgis short.
“What is up now, I wonder?” said he.
“He seems laughing at something that Monsieur Lavenne is telling him,”
said Rochefort, whose interest in the whole affair had suddenly taken
on an extra keenness, and who was deeply puzzled by a business of which
he could find no possible explanation. “Come, refill your glass! You
deserve to drink such good wine since you choose to sell it.”
The landlord did as he was told without the slightest trace of
unwillingness, and they sat talking on indifferent matters till the
door of the next room suddenly opened and Lavenne appeared.
He took Rochefort outside the inn to the roadway, where the carriage
was still in waiting.
“Monsieur,” said Lavenne, “I have arranged everything with Ferminard.
But it is absolutely necessary that he should go to the Rue de Valois
in such a fashion that no one can recognize him. Will you, therefore,
take your seat in the carriage, and he will join you in a few minutes.”
“Certainly,” said Rochefort, who had drunk enough wine and on whom the
conversation of the innkeeper had begun to pall. “And here is a louis
to pay the score. He can keep the change.”
“Thank you, monsieur,” said Lavenne. “You will see me no more, for my
part in this business is now over.”
“Well, then, good-day to you,” said the Comte, “and thank you for your
pleasant company.”
Lavenne bowed and returned to the inn, and Rochefort, telling his
coachman to wait, got into the carriage. Five minutes passed, and
then ten. He was becoming impatient, when from the inn door emerged
an old man of miserable appearance who blinked at the sun, blinked
at the carriage, and then came towards it and placed his hand on the
door-handle.
Rochefort, who did not care for the appearance of this person, was on
the point of asking him what the devil he wanted, when he caught a
glimpse of Lavenne at the inn door, nodding to him to indicate that
all was right. Then he grasped the fact that this incredible mass of
decrepitude was Ferminard. He helped the old fellow in, and the driver,
who already had his instructions, turned his horses, whipped them up,
and started off in the direction of the Faubourg St. Honoré.
“Well, Monsieur Ferminard,” said Rochefort, laughing, “if I had not had
the honour of seeing you when comparatively young, I would not have
known you in your old age.”
“Oh, that is nothing, monsieur,” said Ferminard; “to turn oneself into
an old man is an easy matter. The great difficulty is for an actor to
turn himself into a youth. Has Monsieur ever seen me act?”
“Often,” said Rochefort, who, in fact, had little care for the theatre,
and had never seen him act, “and I was charmed.”
“Monsieur is very good to say so. As for me, I have never been charmed
by my own acting, though ’twas passable enough; but the fact is,
monsieur, I was not born an actor. I was born a dramatist.”
“Oh, ho!”
“Yes, monsieur, that is how fate treats one. My head is full of my
creations; they seize me, and make me write. Ah! whilst I am writing,
then I can act; if I were impersonating one of my own characters on the
stage, then I could act. But when I have to play the part of some other
man’s creation in character, then I feel a stick.”
“You have written many plays?”
“Numerous, monsieur,” said the greatest actor and worst dramatist in
France.
“I hear you had one staged in Versailles.”
“Oh, _mon Dieu_!” said Ferminard. “All France knows that tale. Ah,
_dame_, when I think of it, I could kick this coach to pieces—I could
eat the world. Well, they shall be rewarded. Ferminard will have his
revenge.”
He laughed and slapped his thigh.
They had entered the Rue de Pontoise, which led into the Rue de Valois.
“And now, monsieur,” said Ferminard, “I will forget, if you please,
that I am an actor, and remember that I am an old man.”
He did, with strange effect. As the carriage turned into the courtyard
of the Hôtel Dubarry, had any spy been watching the antique face of
Ferminard at the window of the coach, he would have sent a report
absolutely confusing to the Choiseul faction. He alighted, leaning on
Rochefort’s arm. In the hall, when they were admitted, Jean Dubarry,
who was waiting and who evidently had been advised by de Sartines
of what to expect, seized upon Ferminard as though he had been a
long-lost treasure, and spirited him away down a corridor, apologizing
to Rochefort, and calling back to him over his shoulder to wait for a
moment until he returned.
Rochefort, left alone, was turning to look at a stand of arms, supposed
to contain the pikes and swords and spears of vanished Dubarrys slain
in warfare, when a step drew his attention, and turning, he found
himself face to face with Javotte. He had completely forgotten Javotte.
But she had not forgotten him. She had a tray of glasses in her hand,
and as their eyes met she blushed, looked down, and then glanced up
again with a charming smile.
He had kissed her the night before; but she was only one of the
thousand girls that the light-hearted Rochefort had kissed in passing,
so to speak, and without ulterior intent. The pleasantest thing in
the world is to kiss a pretty girl, just as one of the pleasantest
things in the world is to draw a rose towards one, inhale its perfume,
and release it unharmed; but very few men have the art of doing the
thing successfully. Rochefort had. Just as some old gentlemen, by sheer
power of personality, can say the most _risqué_ and terrible things
without giving offence, so could Rochefort with women do things and
say things that another man would not have dared. It was the touch of
irresponsibility in his nature that gave him, perhaps, this power.
It was not the kiss lightly given the night before that made Javotte
blush; it was the presence of Rochefort. Since his rescue of her, he
completely filled her mind.
“Ah! little one,” said he, “good-morning!”
“Good-morning, monsieur.”
“And where are you going?”
“To the room of Madame la Comtesse, though I am no longer in her
service.”
“No longer in her service?”
“No, monsieur.”
“And in whose service are you now, _petite_?”
“I belong to Mademoiselle Fontrailles, monsieur. I was only temporarily
with Madame la Comtesse; and as her maid, Jacqueline, has returned to
her this morning, and as I seemed to please Mademoiselle Fontrailles,
who is staying here till after the presentation, I entered her service.”
“Ah, ha!” said Rochefort. “And where does mademoiselle live?”
“She has apartments in the Rue St. Dominic, monsieur, where she lives
with her nurse.”
“Her nurse!”
“Yes, monsieur, an old Indian woman, who is as black as my shoe.”
The lively Javotte was proceeding to a vivacious description of her
black sister from Martinique when a step on the stairs checked her; she
vanished with the glasses, and Rochefort, turning, found himself face
to face with Mademoiselle Fontrailles, who had just entered the hall.
They bowed to one another ceremoniously. It seemed to Rochefort that,
beautiful as she had appeared on the night before, she was even more
beautiful by daylight, here in the deserted hall of the Hôtel Dubarry.
“Well, mademoiselle,” said he, “and how are things progressing?”
“Marvellously, monsieur; but do not let us talk here of state secrets.”
She led the way into the little room where they had parted but a few
hours before.
“The carriage has been arranged for, your coiffeur will, I am sure,
prove a success; he has arrived, and the Vicomte Jean has put him under
lock and key, with a pocketful of louis to play with, and the promise
of an equal amount when his work is done; my poor dress is now being
altered and promises a perfect fit. We are saved, in fact, and thanks
to you.”
“No, mademoiselle, thanks to luck; for if I had not gone to Choiseul’s
ball I would not have met you.”
“You mean, you would not have discovered the plot to steal the carriage
and the dress.”
“But for you the plot would have lain in my mind unrevealed. I have a
horror of Court intrigue. As it is, I have set myself against Choiseul,
and killed one of his agents, and thwarted his best hopes; but I count
all that nothing in your service.”
Mademoiselle Fontrailles gazed at him steadily as he stood there with
this patent declaration of homage on his lips, and all the laughter and
lightness gone from his happy-go-lucky and defiant face.
She guessed now from his face and manner what was in his mind, and that
the slightest weakening on her part would bring him down on his knee
before her.
“I thank you, monsieur,” said she. “And now to the question of the
Comtesse de Béarn.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, inwardly cursing the Comtesse de Béarn, “I had
forgotten the Comtesse. And how is she this morning?”
“She is still very bad.”
“And to-night?”
“She will be quite unable to attend at Versailles.”
Rochefort was about to make a remark when the door leading to the
adjoining room opened, and Madame Dubarry herself appeared, young,
fresh, triumphant and laughing.
“Did I hear you speaking of the Comtesse de Béarn?” asked she, as she
extended her hand to Rochefort.
“Yes, madame, and I am grieved to hear that she is still indisposed.”
“Then, monsieur, you have heard false news. Madame la Comtesse has
nearly recovered, and will be quite well enough to act for me to-night.”
Mademoiselle Fontrailles smiled, and Rochefort, not knowing what to
make of these contradictory statements, stood glancing from one to the
other of his informers.
“Not only that,” continued Madame Dubarry, “but you may tell everyone
the news. That Madame la Comtesse has had a slight accident and has
now perfectly recovered. And now I must dismiss you, dear Monsieur
Rochefort, for I have a world of business before me; but only till
to-night, when we will meet at Versailles. You will be there, will you
not?”
“Yes,” said Rochefort, “I shall be there to see your triumph—and
Mademoiselle Fontrailles?”
“I shall not be there,” said the girl, “or only in spirit; but my dress
will be there.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, “even that is something.”
Then off he went. Light-hearted now and laughing, for it seemed to him
that, though his affair had seemingly not made an inch of progress, all
was well between him and Camille Fontrailles.
CHAPTER VI
THE COMTESSE DE BÉARN
To present the mentality of the Comtesse de Béarn one would have
to reconstruct the lady, and rebuild from all sorts of medieval
constituents her mind, person and dress. Feudal times have left us
cities such as Nuremberg and Vittoria standing just as they stood in
the twilight of the Middle Ages, but the people have vanished, only
vaguely to be recalled.
The Comtesse de Béarn was medieval, and carried the twelfth century
clinging to her coif and mantelet right into the heart of the Paris of
1770. Arrogant, narrow, superstitious and proud as Lucifer, this old
lady, impoverished by years of litigation with the family of Saluce,
inveigled up to Paris by a false statement that her lawsuit was about
to be settled to her advantage, entertained by the Dubarrys and filled
by them with promises and hopes, had agreed to act as introducer to the
Comtesse. She disliked the business, but was prepared to swallow it for
the sake of the lawsuit.
Choiseul’s note conveyed in the basket of flowers had acted with
withering effect. It was written by a master mind that understood
finely the mind it was addressing, and its one object was to convey the
sentence: “You have been tricked.”
She saw the truth at once; she had been fetched up to Paris to act as
a servant in the Dubarrys’ interests; she had been outwitted, played
with. In an instant, twenty obscure and dubious happenings fell into
their proper place, and she saw in a flash not only the deception but
the fact that when she was done with she would be cast aside like a
sucked orange; returned to her castle on the banks of the Meuse.
The unholy anger that filled the old lady’s mind might have led her at
once to open revolt had she not possessed a lively sense of the power
of the Dubarrys, and an instinctive fear of the Vicomte Jean. To revolt
and say: “I will take no part in the presentation,” would have led to a
pitched battle, in which she felt she would be worsted. She was too old
and friendless to fight all these young, vigorous people who were on
their own ground. But she would not present the woman who had tricked
her at the Court of Versailles.
She boiled a pot of chocolate, and poured the contents over her foot
and leg. The physical agony was nothing to the satisfaction of her
mind. Madame Dubarry’s face when she saw the wound was more soothing
than all the cold cream that Noirmont, the Dubarrys’ doctor, applied
to the scald; and this morning, stretched on her back, with her leg
swathed in cotton and the pain eased, she revelled in the thought of
her enemy’s discomfiture. She felt no fear; they could not kill her;
they could not turn her out of the house; she was an honoured guest,
and she lay waiting for the distraction and the wailing and tears of
the Dubarry woman, and the storming of the Vicomte Jean.
Instead of these came, at twelve o’clock or thereabouts, Noirmont,
the physician, accompanied by Chon Dubarry, who had just arrived from
Luciennes. The charming Chon seemed in the best spirits, and was full
of solicitation and pity for her “dear Comtesse.”
Noirmont examined the leg, declared that his treatment had produced a
decidedly beneficial effect, and, without a word as to when the patient
might expect to be able to walk again, bowed himself out, leaving Chon
and the Comtesse together.
“You see, my dear lady,” said the old woman, “how fallible we all are
to accident. But for that unlucky pot of chocolate, I would now be
dressed, and ready to pay my _devoirs_ to Madame la Comtesse; as it is,
if I am able to leave my bed in a week’s time I will be fortunate, and
even then I will, without doubt, have to be carried from this house to
my carriage.”
“Madame,” said Chon devoutly, “we are all in the hands of Providence,
whose decrees are inscrutable. Let us, then, bear our troubles with a
spirit, and hope for the best.”
“Oh, _mon Dieu_!” cried the old woman, irritated at the extraordinary
cheerfulness of the other, and feeling instinctively that some new move
of the accursed Dubarrys was in progress, “it is easy for the whole in
body and limb to dictate cheerfulness to the afflicted. Here am I laid
up, and my affairs needing my attention in the country; but I think
less of them than of the Court to-night, which I am unable to attend,
and of the presentation which I am debarred from taking my part in. Not
on my own account, for I have long given up the vanities of the world,
but on account of Madame la Comtesse Dubarry.”
“Truly, there seems a fate in it,” said Chon, with great composure
and cheerfulness. “Everything seemed going on so happily for your
interests and ours. Well, it cannot be helped; there is no use in
grumbling. The great thing now, dear Madame de Béarn, is your health,
which is, after all, more important to you than money or success in
lawsuits. Can I order you anything that you may require?”
The only thing Madame de Béarn could have wished for at the moment was
Madame Dubarry’s head on a charger, but she did not put her desire in
words. She lay watching with her bright old eyes whilst Chon, with a
curtsey, turned and left the room. Then she lay thinking.
She was beaten. The Dubarrys had in some way found a method of evading
defeat. Unfortunate Comtesse! When she had put herself to all this
pain and discomfort she little knew that she was setting herself, not
against the Dubarrys alone, but against de Sartines, and all the wit,
ingenuity and genius of the Hôtel de Sartines. Moss-grown in her old
château by the Meuse, she knew nothing of Paris, its trickery and its
artifice. She had all this yet to learn.
All that she knew now was the fact that the plans of her enemies were
prospering, and the mad desire to thwart them would have given her
energy and fortitude enough to leave her bed, and hobble from the
house, had she not known quite well that such a thing was impossible.
The Dubarrys would not let her go.
Then a plan occurred to her. She rang the bell which had been placed on
the table beside her, and when the maid entered, ordered her to fetch
at once Madame Turgis, the old lady from her province who had sent her
the basket of flowers.
“She lives in the Rue Petit Picpus, No. 10,” said she. “And ask her to
come at once, for I feel worse.”
The maid left the room, promising to comply with the order. Five
minutes passed, and then came a knock at the door, which opened,
disclosing the Vicomte Jean. He was all smiles and apologies and
affability. Did the Comtesse feel worse? Should they send again for
Noirmont? The maid had gone to fetch Madame Turgis, who would be here
no doubt immediately. Would not Madame la Comtesse take some extra
nourishment? Some soup?
Then he retired as gracefully as he had entered, and the Comtesse de
Béarn waited. At one o’clock the maid came back. Madame Turgis was from
home, but the message had been left, asking her to call at once on her
return.
“Ah, _mon Dieu, mon Dieu_!” cried the old woman recognizing at once
that she had been tricked again, and that the maid had doubtless never
left the house, seeing also her great mistake in not having used
bribery. “And here am I lying in pain, and perhaps before she comes I
may be gone, and my dying bequests will never be known. But wait.”
She took something from under her pillow. It was a handkerchief tightly
rolled up. She unrolled the handkerchief carefully. There were half a
dozen gold coins in it—_louis d’or_, stamped with the stately profile
of the fourteenth Louis. It was part of the hoard which she kept at the
Château de Béarn, on which she had drawn for travelling contingencies.
Taking a louis, and folding up the rest, she held it out between finger
and thumb.
“For you,” said she.
The maid advanced to take the coin.
“When Madame Turgis arrives,” finished the old woman, with a snap,
withdrawing the coin and hiding her hand under the bed-clothes. “So
go now, like a good girl, or find some messenger to go for you. Tell
Madame Turgis that the Comtesse de Béarn has need for her at once. Then
the louis will be yours to do what you like with, eh? ’Tis not often
a louis is earned so cheap. You’ll have a young man of your own, and
nothing holds ’em like a bit of fine dress; and I’ll look among my
things and see if I can’t find you a bit of lace, or a trinket to put
on top of the louis. And—put your pretty ear down to me—_don’t let
anyone know I’ve sent to Madame Turgis. It’s a secret between us about
some property in the country._ You understand me?”
Jehanneton, the maid, assented, and left the room, nodding her head, to
acquaint immediately the powers below of this attempt at bribery and
corruption.
At five o’clock a new maid arrived with a tray containing soup and
minced chicken.
“What has become of Jehanneton?” asked the old woman.
“Jehanneton went out, and has not yet come back,” replied the other. “I
do not know where she has gone to. Does Madame feel better?”
The invalid drank her soup and ate her chicken. She had been duped
again, and she knew it. Her only consolation was the fact that she had
not parted with the louis.
At six she rang for a light. The maid who answered the summons not only
brought a lamp, but put a lighted taper to all the candles about the
dressing-table.
“_Ma foi_!” cried the Comtesse. “I did not tell you to light those.”
“It is by my mistress’s orders,” replied the maid, lighting, as she
spoke, several more candles that stood on the bureau, till the room had
almost the appearance of a _chapelle ardente_—an appearance that was
helped out by the corpse-like figure on the bed. Then the maid went
out.
CHAPTER VII
THE ARTIST
Five minutes later a knock came to the door, and a man entered. It was
Ferminard. He was carrying the stiff brocade dress of Madame de Béarn
over his left arm. In his right hand he carried a wig-block, on which
was a wig such as then was worn by the elderly women of the Court.
The thing carried by Ferminard was less a wig than a structure of hair,
a prefiguration of those towers and bastions with which the ladies of
the sixteenth Louis’ reign adorned their heads. Hideous bastilles,
which one would fancy did not require arming with guns to frighten Love
from making any attack on the wearers.
Under his right arm Ferminard also carried a rolled-up parcel. He made
a bow to the occupant of the bed as he entered, and then advanced
straight to the dressing-table, where he deposited the wig-block and
the parcel, whilst the door closed, drawn to by someone in the corridor
outside.
“My hair! My dress! And, _mon Dieu_! A man in the room with me!” cried
the Comtesse, seizing the bell on the table beside her and ringing it.
“And the door shut! Monsieur, open that door, or I will cry for help.”
“Madame,” said Ferminard, placing the dress on a chair, “we are both
of an age. Calm yourself, and regard me as though I were not here.
Besides, I am not a man; I am an artist, and, so far from molesting
you, I have come to pay you the greatest compliment in my power by
producing your portrait.”
He drew a chair to the dressing-table, and proceeded to unroll the
bundle, which contained bottles of pigment, some brushes and a host
of other materials. The old woman on the bed lay watching him like
a mesmerized fowl. Her portrait, at her time of life, and in her
condition! What trick was this of the Dubarrys? She was soon to learn.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PRESENTATION
The Versailles of to-day stands alone in desolation among all
the other buildings left to us by the past. That vast courtyard
through whose gates the dusty and travel-stained _berlines_ of the
ambassadors used to pass; those thousand windows, vacant and cleaned
by the municipality; those fountains and terraces, and statues and
vistas—across all these lies written the word which is at once their
motto and explanation: _Fuimus_—we have been.
It is the palace of echoes.
But it is more than this. It is France herself. Not the France of
to-day—banker and bourgeois-ridden; nor the France of the Second
Empire—vulgar and painted; nor the Napoleonic France—half a brothel,
half a barrack. Across all these and the fumes of the Revolution,
Versailles calls to us: “I am France. Before I was built I was born
in the dreams of the Gallic people. I am the concretion in stone of
all the opulence and splendour and licence of mind which found a
focus in the reign of Le Roi Soleil; the Hôtel St. Pol and the Logis
d’Angoulême foreshadowed me, and Chambord and all those châteaux that
mirror themselves in the Loire. I am the wealth of Jacques Cœur,
the bravery of Richelieu and Turenne, the laughter of Rabelais, the
songs of Villon, the beauty of Marion de l’Orme, the licentiousness of
Montpensier, the arrogance of Fouquet. Of all that splendour I remain,
an echo and a dream.”
But to-night, in the year of our Lord 1770, Versailles, living and
splendid, a galaxy of lights that might have been seen from leagues
away, the huge park filled with the sound of the wind in the trees and
the waters of the fountains, the great courtyard ablaze with lamps
and torches, and coloured with the uniforms of the Guards and the
Swiss—to-night Versailles was drawing towards herself the whole world
in the form of the ambassadors of Europe, the whole Court of France,
and a majority of the population of Paris.
The Place d’Armes was thronged, and the Paris road, a league from the
gates; bourgeois and beggar, the hungry and well-fed, the maimed,
the halt and the blind, apprentice and shop-girl—all were there, a
seething mass attracted to the festivity as moths are attracted by a
lamp, and all filled with one idea: the Dubarry.
The news of the friction at Court had gone amongst the people. It
was said that the Dubarry had been forbidden at the last moment to
attend; that the presentation had been cancelled, that she was ill,
that the Vicomte Jean had insulted M. le Duc de Choiseul, that the
arrival of the Dauphiness had been hurried, and that she was already at
Versailles, and that she had refused to see the favourite. All of which
statements, and a hundred others more wild and improbable, were bandied
about during the glorious excitement to be got by watching the blazing
windows of the palace, the uniformed figures of the Guards, and the
steady stream of carriages coming from the direction of Paris.
Rochefort arrived at nine o’clock—that is to say, an hour before the
time of the ceremony; his carriage immediately followed that of the
Duc de Richelieu. The entrance-hall was crowded, and the Escalier des
Ambassadeurs thronged. This great staircase, now removed, led by a
broad, unbalustraded flight of eleven marble steps to a landing where,
beneath the bust of Louis XV., a fountain played, gushing its waters
into a broad basin supported by tritons, dolphins and sea-nymphs; from
here a balustraded staircase swept up to right and left, and here,
just by the fountain, Rochefort found himself cheek by jowl with de
Sartines, who had arrived just before M. de Richelieu.
“Ah!” said de Sartines, recognizing the other, “and when did you
arrive?”
“Why, it seems to me an hour ago,” replied the other, “judging by
the time I have been getting thus far; to be more precise, I came
immediately after M. de Richelieu. And how are your dear thieves and
people getting on? I should imagine they are mostly at Versailles
to-night, to judge by the crowds on the Paris road.”
“Oh,” replied de Sartines, “I daresay there are enough of them left in
Paris to keep my agents busy. And how did you like Lavenne?”
“He was charming. If all your thief-catchers were such perfect
gentlemen, I would pray God to turn a few of our gentlemen into
thief-catchers. But he was not so charming as your dramatist, Monsieur
Ferminard, the gentleman who writes plays with his feet, it seems to
me.”
Sartines nudged him to keep silence. They had reached the corridor
leading to the Hall of Mirrors, and here the Minister of Police drew
his companion into an alcove.
“Do not mention the name Ferminard here; the walls have ears and
the statues have tongues. Forget it, my dear Rochefort. Remember M.
d’Ombreval’s maxim: ‘Forget so that you may not be forgotten.’”
“In other words, that you may not be put in the Bastille?”
“Precisely.”
“Then I will forget the name Ferminard. But, before Heaven, I will
never be able to forget the person. He amused me vastly. And now, my
dear Sartines, without mentioning names, how are things going?”
“What things?”
“Why, the presentation.”
“Admirably.”
“Then the lady with the scalded leg——”
“Hush!”
“There is no one near, and, besides, I was only inquiring after her
health.”
“Well, her health is still bad.”
“Will she be here to-night?”
“You will see. Ask me no more about her. Besides, I have something else
to talk of. Your man, whom you put out of action the night before last,
has been found.”
“The man I killed?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Rochefort, laughing, “I don’t envy the finder—that is to
say, if he has any sense of beauty.”
“Rochefort,” said de Sartines, “it would not trouble me a _dernier_
were forty like him found every morning in the streets of Paris; but,
in this case, you have to be on your guard, for he was found, not by
one of my agents, but by one of Choiseul’s. The news came to me through
Choiseul.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, becoming serious. “Is that so?”
“With a request that I should investigate the matter. If that were all
it would be nothing; the danger to you is that Choiseul, no doubt, has
started investigating the matter for himself.”
Sartines, having delivered himself of this warning, turned to the Comte
d’Egmont, who was passing, and walked off with him, leaving Rochefort
to digest his words.
Rochefort for a moment was depressed; he did not like the idea of this
dead man turning up, arm-in-arm, so to speak, with Choiseul. He had no
remorse at all about the ruffian, but he had a lively feeling that,
should Choiseul discover the truth, he would avenge the death of this
villain, deserved even though it was. Then he put the matter from his
mind, and passed with the throng through the Hall of Mirrors towards
the _salon_, where the presentations took place.
On the way he passed Camus, who, with his wife, was speaking to the
Comte d’Harcourt. Madame Camus was rather plain, older than her
husband, and afflicted with a slight limp—an impediment in her walk,
to quote M. de Richelieu. Camus’ marriage with this woman was a
mystery. She was the third daughter of the Comte de Grigny, who owned a
château in Touraine, and little else, if we except numerous debts. She
was plain, without dowry, and had a limp. It may have been the comment
of Froissart on women so affected, or that her plainness appealed to
him in some curious way; the fact remained that Camus had married her,
and—so people said—was heartily sick of his bargain.
The Hall of Mirrors gave one eyes at the back of one’s head; and
Camus, though his back was half-turned to Rochefort, saw his mirrored
reflection approach and pass; but he did not take the slightest notice
of his enemy, continuing his conversation, whilst Rochefort passed on
towards the wide-open door of the Salon of Presentations.
Rochefort was one of those implacable men who never apologize, even
if they are in the wrong. Camus had been his friend, or, at least, a
very close acquaintance, and he had struck Camus in the face. If Camus
did not choose to wipe out the insult it was no affair of Rochefort’s.
He was ready to fight. He was not angry now with Camus; his attitude
of mind was entirely one of contempt, and he passed on haughtily to
the Hall of Presentations, where he soon found enough to distract his
attention from personal matters.
The Hall of Presentations—vast, lit by a thousand lights—gave to the
eye a picture of magnificence and splendour sufficient to quell even
the most daring imagination. The Escalier des Ambassadeurs had been
thronged, the corridors and the Hall of Mirrors crowded; but here, so
wide was the floor, so lofty the painted ceiling, that the idea “crowd”
vanished, or at least became subordinated to the idea of magnificence.
One would not dream of associating the word “solemnity” with the
word “butterfly”; yet, could one see the congregation of a million
butterflies, variegated and gorgeous, drawn from all quarters of the
earth towards one great festival, the word “solemnity” on the lips of
the gazer might not be out of place.
So, to-night, at Versailles, all these butterflies of the social world
of France—coloured, jewelled, beautiful—filling the vast Salon of
Presentations with a moving picture, brilliant as a painting by Diaz,
all these men and women, individually insignificant, produced by their
setting and congregation that effect of solemnity which Versailles
alone could produce from the frivolous.
That was, in fact, the calculated effect of Versailles; to give the
_fainéant_ the value of the strenuous, the trivial the virtue of the
vital; to give great echoes to the sound of a name, to raise the usher
on the shoulders of the Suisse, the grand master of the ceremonies on
the shoulders of the usher, the noble on the shoulders of the grand
master of the ceremonies, and the King on the shoulders of the noble.
A towering structure, as absurd, when viewed philosophically, as a
pyramid of satin-breeched monkeys, but beautiful, gorgeous, solemn
under the alchemy of Versailles.
The great clock of the Hall of Presentations pointed to ten minutes to
ten. The King had not appeared yet, nor would he do so till the stroke
of the hour.
The presentation was fixed for ten. Rochefort knew everybody, and the
man who knows everybody knows nobody. That was Rochefort’s position
at the Court of Versailles; he belonged to no faction, and so had no
especial enemies—or friends. He did not fear enemies, nor did he
want friends. Outside the Court, in Paris, he had several trusty ones
who would have let themselves be cut in pieces for him; they were
sufficient for him, for it was a maxim of his life that out of all
the people a man knows, he will be lucky if he numbers two who are
disinterested. He did not invent this maxim. Experience had taught it
to him.
He passed now from group to group, nodding to this person and talking
to that; and everywhere he found an air of inattention, an atmosphere
of restlessness, such as may be noticed among people who are awaiting
some momentous decision.
They were, in fact, awaiting the decision of Fate as to the
presentation of the Dubarry. Among the majority of the courtiers
nothing was definitely known, but a great deal was suspected. Rumours
had gone about that it was now absolutely certain that the presentation
would not take place, and all these rumours had come, funnily enough,
not from the Choiseuls, but from the Vicomte Jean. The Choiseul
faction, or rather the head centre of it, said nothing; for them the
thing was assured. They had robbed the Comtesse, not only of her dress,
her coiffeur and her carriage, but of her sponsor.
Camus, who had stolen the carriage, had followed Rochefort into the
Hall of Presentations, and was now speaking to Coigny, Choiseul’s
right-hand man. Coigny, who when he saw Camus had experienced a shock
of surprise at seeing him so early, interrupted him.
“The carriage?”
“It is quite safe,” replied Camus. “The deed is accomplished.”
“But how are you here so soon?”
“Oh, _ma foi_!” said Camus, “am I a tortoise? Having placed the thing
in the coach-house of a well-trusted friend, I went home, dressed, and
came on here.”
“Ah, but suppose this well-trusted friend of yours were to betray you
at the last moment, harness his horses to the precious carriage, and
drive it to the Rue de Valois?”
Camus laughed. “Can you drive a carriage without wheels? It took
seventeen minutes only to remove the wheels and make firewood of
them with a sharp axe, to knock the windows to pieces, strip out the
linings, and rip to pieces the cushions. If the Dubarry drives to
Versailles in that carriage—well, my friend, all I can say is, the
vehicle will match her reputation.”
“Thanks!” said Coigny. “You have worked well, and you have Choiseul’s
thanks.” He moved away, drawn by the sight of another of his
confederates who had just appeared.
It was the Marquis Monpavon, twenty years of age, cool, insolent, a
bully and scamp of the first water, with a smooth, puerile, egg-shaped
face that made respectable fingers itch to smack it.
“The dressmaker?” said Coigny.
“She was charming,” replied Monpavon. “I have quite lost my heart to
her. I have made an arrangement to meet her to-morrow evening at the
corner of the Rue Picpus.”
“But the dress?”
“What dress?”
“The Dubarry’s! Good God! You did not forget about the dress?”
“No,” replied Monpavon. “I did not forget about the dress. The next
time you see that dress will be on a mermaid in the Morgue. It is now
in the Seine. What’s more, it is in a sack, which also encloses a few
stones.”
“Thanks, Monpavon. I will tell Choiseul.” He hurried away, attracted
by another new-comer. This time it was Monsieur d’Estouteville, an
exquisite, who seemed to have no bones, so indolently did he carry
himself.
“The coiffeur?” asked Coigny, in a low voice, as he ranged alongside of
this person. “What have you done with him?”
“He is safe,” replied d’Estouteville.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“But, heavens! Did you not undertake to have him guarded? Yet you do
not know where he is?”
“I only know that he is in Paris somewhere. My dear Coigny, I could
have given him no better guardian than the guardian he has chosen for
himself—drink.”
“Oh, you made him drunk!”
“Oh, no. It was a happy accident. It was this way. I had him brought to
my house on an urgent summons. He was shown into a room where some wine
was set out, quite by accident, and when I came to interview him with a
purse full of gold for his seduction, I found he had been at the wine.
He was talkative and flushed. Now, said I to myself, why should I pay
five thousand francs for what I can obtain for a bottle of wine or two?
So I ordered up some Rousillon, and made him drunk.”
“Ah!”
“He quite forgot that he was a hairdresser at the end of the first
bottle; before he had finished the second, he grew quarrelsome, and
would have drawn his sword.[A] Then he fell asleep, and my servants
took him and laid him out by the wall that borders the Cemetery of the
Innocents. It was then half-past six o’clock. No man, not even his
Majesty’s physician, could turn him into a hairdresser again before
to-morrow morning. So, you see, by a stroke of luck I saved five
thousand francs, and avoided the implication in this affair that a
bribe given to a barber might have occasioned all of us.”
“Good!” said Coigny. He knew quite well that the apparently boneless
d’Estouteville was one of the elect of chicanery, was as good a
swordsman almost as Beauregard, and could outslang a fish-fag on the
Petit Pont were he called to the test; but he had not expected such
a brilliant piece of work as this. “Good. I will tell Choiseul that
story. By the way, you are expected in his private apartments after
this affair is over. You will not find him ungenerous, I think. Tell
Monpavon and the others that they are expected also.”
He walked away to where the Duc de Choiseul was standing, talking
to some gentleman. It was now after ten, and the King had not yet
appeared, though the hour for the presentation had arrived. He drew the
Minister aside, and informed him of the reports he had just received
from d’Estouteville, Monpavon and Camus; and Choiseul was in the act
of congratulating him when the whole brilliant assemblage turned as if
touched by a magician’s wand; conversation died away, and silence fell
upon the Chamber of Presentations.
The King had entered by the door leading from his apartments. He
wore the Order of the Golden Fleece. Glancing from right to left, he
advanced, followed by his suite, till, seeing Choiseul, he paused
whilst the Minister advanced, bowing before him.
Choiseul saw that his Majesty was in a temper. He knew quite well that
the King had made his appearance thus late, not because of laziness or
indifference, but simply because he had been waiting the arrival of
Madame Dubarry. The King, in fact, had been kept informed of all the
guests who had arrived. Ten o’clock was the hour for the presentation,
and now at a quarter past ten, his Majesty, never patient of delay, had
left his apartments to seek the truth for himself.
“The Comtesse is late, Choiseul,” said the King.
“The journey from Paris is a long one, Sire,” replied the Minister,
“and some delay might have occurred on the way.”
“Or some accident,” said the King. “Well, Choiseul, should some
accident have happened to the poor Comtesse upon the road, we shall
inquire into the cause of it, and I shall place the matter in your
hands to find out and to punish, if necessary. But should the accident
have happened in Paris, our Minister of Police will take the matter
in his hands. Ah, there is de Sartines. Sartines, it seems that the
Comtesse is late.”
“Yes, Sire,” replied the Minister of Police. “The carriage may have
been delayed by the crowds that throng the Paris roads. But she will
arrive in safety, if I am not much mistaken, before the half-hour has
struck.”
Choiseul smiled inwardly, and those members of the Choiseul faction who
were within earshot of this conversation glanced at one another. The
half-hour struck, and Choiseul, freed from his Majesty, who had passed
on, turned to de Sartines.
“Well, monsieur,” said Choiseul, “it seems that the clock has declared
you a false prophet.”
“Monsieur,” replied de Sartines, looking at his watch, “the clock of
the Chamber of Presentations, as you ought very well to know, is always
kept five minutes in advance of the hour, by an order given by his
late Majesty to Noirmont, the keeper of the clocks of the Palace of
Versailles. It is now twenty-four and a half minutes past ten. Ah! what
is this?”
A hush had fallen on the assembly; around the door leading to the
corridor of entrance the people had drawn back as the waves of the Red
Sea drew back before the rod of Moses.
The usher had appeared. He stood rigid as a statue, his profile to the
room, then turning and fronting the great assembly and the lake of
parquet floor where his Majesty stood in sudden and splendid isolation,
he grounded the butt of his wand, and announced to the grand master of
the ceremonies:
“The Comtesse Dubarry. The Comtesse de Béarn.”
Never had Madame Dubarry looked more beautiful than now, as she
advanced, led by this lady of the old _régime_—stiff, as though
awakened from some tomb of the past; proud, as though she carried with
her the memory of the Austrian; remote from the present day as the wars
of the Fronde and the beauty of Madame de Chevreuse. It was the youth
and age of France; and de Sartines, gazing at Madame de Béarn as one
gazes at a great actor, murmured to Himself:
“What a masterpiece!”
FOOTNOTE
[A] Hairdressers alone amongst tradesmen were permitted to wear swords.
CHAPTER IX
THE REWARD
The presentation was over. The Choiseuls were defeated. Madame Dubarry
was passing hither and thither, speaking to this one and that, and
poisoning her enemies with her sweetest smiles. The King was delighted;
and Choiseul, devouring his own heart, was kissing the favourite’s
hand. Smiles, smiles everywhere, and poisonous hatred so wonderfully
masked that the washerwoman to the Duc d’Aiguillon might have thought
herself the best-loved woman in France.
And Madame de Béarn? Madame de Béarn had vanished. Sartines had
enveloped her in a cloud, and escorted her to her carriage; she had
injured her leg that day, and required rest; she had braved pain and
discomfort to obey the wish of his Majesty.
The Dubarry had triumphed, and they were paying their court to her.
Rochefort, who had been following the whole proceedings of the evening
with an interest which he had rarely experienced before in his life,
approached de Sartines, who had just returned from escorting Madame
de Béarn to her carriage; with that lightness of heart with which men
sometimes approach their fate, he drew the Minister of Police a bit to
one side.
“And Ferminard?” said he.
“Pardon me,” said de Sartines, “I do not understand your meaning. What
about Ferminard?”
“Oh,” said Rochefort, laughing, “I was only intending to compliment you
on having discovered so consummate an actor.”
The other said nothing for a moment. Then he said, speaking slowly and
in a voice so low that it was only just audible to his companion:
“Rochefort, by accident you have been drawn into a little conspiracy of
the Court; by luck you are able to escape from it if you choose to hold
your tongue for ever on what you have seen and heard. You imagine that
Ferminard came here to-night and laid his genius at the feet of Madame
la Comtesse by acting for her the part of Madame de Béarn. All I can
say is, imagine what you please, but say nothing; for, mark you, should
anything of this be spoken of by you, friend though I am to you, my
hand would fall automatically on you, and the future of M. de Rochefort
would be four blank walls.”
“You threaten?” said Rochefort haughtily.
“Monsieur, I never threaten; I only advise. You have acted well in this
affair; act still better by forgetting it all. And now that it is over,
I am deputed to hand you your reward.”
“My reward!”
Sartines took a little note from his pocket and handed it to Rochefort,
who opened it and read:
“You will not receive this until and unless all is successful. In
that case I wish to thank you both in my own name and that of the
dear Comtesse. The presentation will be over by eleven, at which
time this note will be handed to you. Should you care to receive
my thanks, you can reach Paris by midnight. I live at No. 9, Rue
St. Dominic, and my door will be opened to you should you knock to
receive my thanks.
“CAMILLE FONTRAILLES.”
Rochefort stood for a moment with this note in his hand. She had been
thinking of him; she had guessed his feelings towards her; and she in
her turn loved him!
He glanced at the clock. It pointed to half-past eleven. A swift horse
would take him in less than an hour to Paris. He turned to the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Sartines.
“To Paris, monsieur,” replied Rochefort, with a bow.
CHAPTER X
THE ORDER OF ARREST
At a quarter past eleven, that is to say, a quarter of an hour before
Rochefort received the note from Mademoiselle Fontrailles, Choiseul,
who had kissed the hand of the Dubarry, congratulated her on her dress,
compared her to a rose in an epigram that had the appearance of being
absolutely new, and watched her vanishing with his Majesty triumphantly
towards the apartments lately occupied by the Princess Adélaïde, and
now occupied by the favourite—at a quarter past eleven, Choiseul,
furious under his mask of calm, turned towards his own apartments.
The fixed smile on his face never altered as he bowed to right and
left, and as he passed along through the crowd several members of the
assemblage detached themselves from the mass and fell into his train.
Choiseul’s apartments in the Palace of Versailles were even more
sumptuous than those relegated to the use of the Dubarry. He passed
from the corridor to the _salon_, which he used for the private
reception of ambassadors, and all that host of people, illustrious and
obscure, which it was the duty of the Minister to receive, in the name
of France.
This _salon_ was upholstered in amber satin and white and gold, with
a ceiling of yellow roses and joyful cupids. Ablaze with lights, as
now, the place seemed like a great cell, the most gorgeous and the most
brilliantly lit in that great honeycomb, Versailles.
Choiseul sat down at a table and dashed off a letter which he
addressed, sealed, and sent by a servant to M. de Beautrellis, captain
of the Gardes, for delivery. Then he turned to Coigny who had followed
him.
“You told the others to come here to-night?”
“Yes, monsieur; they are even now waiting outside the door.”
“Well, we will have them in. Coigny, how has this happened?”
“I don’t know, monsieur, unless it was the devil. Everything was
secure, everything was assured. Madame de Béarn was out of action, and
you know what other measures we took. Yet at the last moment we are
overthrown.”
“Well,” said Choiseul, “it only remains for us to find out the secret
of our reverse, and the name of the person who has upset our plans.
Call in the others.”
Coigny went to the side door giving entrance to the apartments, opened
it, and ushered in a number of gentlemen who had been standing outside.
First came Camus, the chief of the executive of the broken-down
conspiracy; after him Monpavon, cool, smug and impudent as ever, and
after him, d’Estouteville, a trifle flushed; after these, the others
who had helped in one way or the other in the great fiasco, as Monpavon
had already named the business. Seven gentlemen in all entered to
receive Choiseul’s felicitations on their failure to outwit a woman,
and Choiseul’s tongue in a matter of this sort was sure.
“Ah, Monsieur Camus!” said he. “Good evening. Good evening, Monsieur
Monpavon; Monsieur d’Estouteville, good evening. Ah! I see Monsieur
d’Est, Monsieur Beaupré, Monsieur Duras—well, gentlemen, we have not
succeeded in lending as much colour to his Majesty’s presentation
to-night as I might have wished. We have not been very brilliant,
gentlemen. Monsieur Monpavon, I believe you have a very small opinion
of women. Their value, of course, viewed philosophically, is an
academic question; but viewed practically—well, viewed practically,
the brains of those women you despise, Monsieur Monpavon, have
a certain value, though you may not imagine it. Yes, Monsieur
d’Estouteville, the brain of a woman has proved itself a better article
to-night than all the brains in Versailles. Monsieur Camus, what
explanation have you to offer?”
He expected to see Camus discomfited, but the dark, pitted face of the
Count showed nothing of his feelings.
“Monsieur,” said Camus, “we have been betrayed.”
“That is very evident,” said Choiseul. “_Mon Dieu_, Monsieur Camus,
what next will you come here to tell me? That the sun does not shine at
night?”
“Monsieur,” said Camus, “I have not yet finished. I know the name of
the man who has betrayed us.”
“Ah, you know his name!”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“And this man?”
“It is the Comte de Rochefort.”
“Rochefort!”
“Monsieur, it is Rochefort, and no other. He alone knew of our plan.”
“Who told him?”
“I did, monsieur.”
“You told him?”
“He was my friend. I reckoned him a man of honour. I swore him to
secrecy.” As he told this lie his hand went to his pocket and produced
a piece of paper. “And entrusted him with the full details of the
business in hand. He refused to assist, we quarrelled. It was just
after we left your ball last night, and we parted in the Rue de
Chevilly.
“I turned and walked slowly away, intending to return to the Hôtel de
Choiseul and inform you of the matter. Then I altered my mind, as the
idea occurred to me of calling on my friend, the Marquis de Soyecourt,
and I did not want to trouble you at that late hour, engaged as you
were with the duties of hospitality. I came down the street leading
past the Bénédictines de la Ville l’Évêque, and sought the side way to
the Hôtel de Soyecourt that runs between the wall of the Bénédictines
and the wall of the cloister of the Madeleine, forgetting that this
side way is closed by a barrier at night. Before I had reached it a man
came out hurriedly. It was M. Rochefort.
“He was carrying his sword naked in his hand and wiping it upon a piece
of paper; he cast the paper away, and, sheathing his sword, walked off
hurriedly in the direction of the river. He did not see me, as I had
taken shelter in an alcove. I picked the piece of paper up; then I
glanced down the passage to the Hôtel de Soyecourt, and there, lying by
the barricade, was a man. He was dead, still warm, and he had died from
a sword-thrust through the heart. I thought in him I recognized one
of our agents. I walked away, and in the Rue de la Madeleine I took
counsel with myself, went home, and sent a servant to apprise your
major-domo of the occurrence. To-day I have been so busy ever since six
in the morning that I had no time to trouble in the matter. But those
are the facts, and here is the piece of paper which I picked up. And
see, here are the blood marks.”
Choiseul took the page of the _ballade_ between finger and thumb; the
marks were plain and bore out Camus’ statement.
It did not matter to him two buttons whether Camus’ statement were true
or false, as long as his statement about the betrayal was true, and
he knew now that it must be true, for his agents had brought him the
report that the man in the cloak and hat who had left the Dubarrys’
house the night before had been accompanied by a man like Rochefort,
that they had driven to a house in which Rochefort had apartments, a
report of the whole story which we know.
And you will observe that, though Rochefort had stamped himself on
the spy’s report in letters of fire, Sartines, the core of the whole
conspiracy, was not even suspected. Sartines had managed to shovel the
whole onus of the business on to the shoulders of Rochefort; he had not
set out wilfully so to do, perhaps—or perhaps he had; at all events,
his success was due entirely to his faultless methods. No one suspected
him, and he had not made an enemy of Choiseul, despite the fact that he
alone had wrecked Choiseul’s most cherished plan.
Choiseul, certain that Rochefort had been the means of his defeat,
turned suddenly and faced the group of gentlemen standing before him.
“M. Camus, M. de Monpavon, M. d’Estouteville,” cried he, “I commission
you. M. de Rochefort has not yet left the palace. Seize him and bring
him here. If he has left the palace, pursue him and bring him here. I
place the Gardes, and the Suisses and the police of M. Sartines at your
disposal.”
He turned rapidly to a writing-table, sat down, and dashed off three
warrants in the following terms:
“URGENCY.
“The bearer is empowered to seize and arrest the person of Charles
Eugène Montargis, Comte de Rochefort, and to call on all French
citizens to assist in such arrest.
“Signed, DE CHOISEUL,
“Minister.”
He sanded each paper when written and passed it over his shoulder
to the hands waiting to receive it. “If possible,” said he, “make
the arrest yourselves, without the help of Sartines’ men. You are my
accredited agents.”
When the three gentlemen had each received his commission and warrant
they turned, led by Camus, and left the room swiftly and without a
word. They entered the Chamber of Presentations, divided, passed
through the room from door to door, through the thinning crowd, and
drew it blank. Rochefort had left. The great clock of the chamber
pointed to seven minutes past the half-hour.
CHAPTER XI
FLIGHT
When Rochefort took his leave of Sartines and left the Chamber of
Presentations, he made full speed for the corridor leading to the
Escalier des Ambassadeurs, passed down the great staircase rapidly,
pushed his way through the crowd thronging the hall, found Jaquin, the
usher, on duty, and seizing him:
“Where is Monsieur Bertrand?” asked Rochefort.
“He is, no doubt, in the Cabinet of the Equipages, monsieur,” replied
the usher.
“Good,” said Rochefort.
His carriage was waiting in the courtyard, but a carriage was too slow
for his present purpose. He wanted a horse, and a swift horse, for the
journey to Paris—wings, if possible, failing them, the swiftest horse
in his Majesty’s stables.
Bertrand was the keeper of his Majesty’s horses, and Rochefort’s
friend. The Cabinet of the Equipages was a moderately sized apartment.
Here the King arranged each day what horses, what carriages and
attendants he would require, and here Rochefort found his friend, deep
in accounts and reports.
“My dear Bertrand,” said the Comte, “you see a man in a most desperate
hurry. I must get to Paris at once. My carriage is too slow, and I
have come to beg or steal a horse.”
Bertrand threw up his hands.
“Impossible! I have already been called to account for lending horses
to my friends in a hurry. Ask me anything else, my dear Rochefort—my
purse, my life, my heart—but a horse, no, a thousand times, no.”
“Ah, well,” said Rochefort, “I must tell a lie, and you will know the
desperate urgency of my business from the fact that it makes me lie to
you. Well, then, I come from de Sartines with an order of urgency. I am
commanded to ask for your swiftest horse on a matter of State business.”
“So be it,” said Bertrand. “I cannot resist that order, and you must
settle with Sartines.” He scribbled some words on a piece of paper,
and, calling an attendant, gave it to him.
“The horse will be in the courtyard in a few minutes,” said Bertrand.
“Well, I am sure to be interrogated over this, and M. de Sartines will
give you the lie. You have weighed all that?”
“Sartines will support me,” said Rochefort. “We are very good friends;
you need fear nothing. And now, adieu! And thank you for your good
offices in this matter.”
He bade good-bye to Bertrand and returned through the still crowded
hall to the door that gave exit from the palace.
Carriage after carriage was leaving, and the courtyard, as Rochefort
came out, was ablaze with light. Burning with impatience, Rochefort
watched the endless stream of carriages, the servants, and the guards,
till, catching sight of a groom in the royal livery, leading a horse
by the bridle, he was about to descend the steps when a hand fell
upon his shoulder. He turned and found himself face to face with
Camus. Behind Camus appeared the egg-shaped face of Monpavon—a man he
hated—and beside Monpavon the boneless form of d’Estouteville.
“Monsieur,” said Rochefort, “you have taken a strange liberty with me.”
“Monsieur,” replied Camus, “I have come to take your freedom.”
He handed Rochefort the warrant of Choiseul. Rochefort read it by the
light of the doorway, comprehended instantly the desperate seriousness
of his position and the danger of resistance—besides the bad policy.
But M. de Rochefort was going to Paris, and policy, and danger, and
even Choiseul himself, would not interfere with his purpose. He handed
the paper back to Camus with a smile.
“Present it to-morrow at my apartments in Paris, Monsieur Camus. I
shall be there at noon. If I am late, my servants will entertain you
till my return. _Au revoir._”
He descended a step, and Camus, putting out a hand to seize him,
received a blow on the belt that felled him as effectually as a blow
on the head would have done. Next moment, Rochefort, dipping under the
horses’ heads of the carriage that had just stopped to take up, reached
the groom in royal livery and the horse which he was leading, seized
the bridle, mounted, and plunged his spurless heels into its flanks.
Valmajour, for so was the big roan horse named, was not of a temper
to stand treatment like this without marking his resentment of it. He
bucked, as much as a French horse can, filled the yard with the sound
of his hoofs on the great cobble-stones; then he came to hand and
struck for the gate.
But Rochefort had reckoned without Monpavon and d’Estouteville. They
had raised the hue and cry, the lackeys and soldiers had taken it up.
Twenty voices were crying, “Bar the gate!” and as Rochefort approached
the great gateway, he saw the Suisses crossing their pikes before the
gateway, pike-head across pike-head at a level four feet from the
ground. Valmajour checked slightly at the pull of the bridle, rose to
the touch of Rochefort’s heel, and passed over the crossed pikes like a
bird. A shout rose from the on-lookers as horse and rider disappeared
from the zone of torchlight at the gate into the blacknesses beyond,
and on the shout and like the materialized fury of it, a horse and
rider shot out across the courtyard in pursuit.
It was d’Estouteville. That limp and enigmatic personage had, alone,
perceived, standing amongst the equipages, the horse of M. de
Beautrellis, captain of the Gardes; a groom was holding it for the
gallant captain, who had entered the palace on some urgent business.
D’Estouteville had seized the horse, mounted, and was now in pursuit.
He knew Rochefort perfectly, and that Rochefort, in his present mood,
would not be taken without a battle to the death. This, however, did
not check him in the least; rather, perhaps, it was the mainspring of
his suddenly found energy.
The Suisses, recognizing a pursuer, and in a pursuer authority, did not
attempt to check him, and next moment he too had passed the zone of
torchlight and was swallowed up by the darkness beyond.
CHAPTER XII
A DUEL OF WITS
Clouds were drifting across the moon’s face, casting alternately light
and shadow on the country; the people, attracted by the fête at the
palace, had long vanished. The road was clear, and Rochefort gave free
rein to Valmajour.
For two miles or so he kept at full speed; then he reined in, leaped
from the saddle, eased the girths a bit, and stood for a moment gazing
backwards along the road, and listening and watching to see if he were
pursued.
As he listened, he heard on the breeze a faint and rhythmical sound;
it was the great clock of Versailles striking midnight. It passed, and
then in the silence of the night his quick ear caught another sound,
also rhythmical, but continuous. It was the sound of a horse at full
gallop. He was pursued.
Even as he listened and looked, the shadow of a cloud drew off, leaving
to view the distant figure of a horseman and his horse, as though it
had dropped them on the road. He tightened the girths and remounted,
only to discover the tragic fact that Valmajour, the brave Valmajour,
was lame.
Now Rochefort was a man to whom the riding of a lame horse brought more
suffering than to the horse itself. It was clearly impossible to urge
Valmajour into any pace, but there was a good horse behind him to be
had for the taking. He turned Valmajour’s head and advanced to battle.
Instantly his quick eye recognized d’Estouteville, who, advancing
at a gallop, was fully exposed to view by the moonlight now strong
on the road, and instantly his quick mind changed its plan. He was
only too eager for a fight, but what he wanted even more was a horse.
D’Estouteville was a good swordsman, and might place him, by chance,
_hors de combat_, and this chance did not suit him. For M. de Rochefort
was going to Paris, and he had sworn to himself that nothing should
stop him.
When d’Estouteville was only a hundred yards away, Rochefort drew rein,
leaped from his horse and ran away. He struck across a fence and across
some park-land lying on the right of the road, and d’Estouteville,
scarcely believing his eyes at the sight of his cowardice, flung
himself from the saddle, left the two horses to fraternize, and gave
chase.
Rochefort was striking across the grass towards some trees. One of
the swiftest runners in France, he now seemed broken down and winded.
D’Estouteville overhauled him rapidly as he ran, making for a small
clump of trees standing in the middle of the park-land. He doubled
round this clump, d’Estouteville’s hand nearly on his shoulder, and
then, having turned and having the road again for his goal, a miracle
happened.
The tired and broken-down runner became endowed with the swiftness of
a hare; d’Estouteville, furious and hopelessly outpaced, followed,
cursing no less deeply because he had no breath to curse with. On the
road Rochefort, with a good thirty yards between him and his pursuer,
seized the bridle of d’Estouteville’s horse, which was quietly cropping
the grass at the road edge, mounted, and, waving his hand to the
emissary of de Choiseul, struck off for Paris.
D’Estouteville, still perfectly sure of his prey, mounted Valmajour and
turned in pursuit. Then he found out the truth. Rochefort had exchanged
a broken-down horse for a sound one; his flight had not been dictated
by cowardice but by astuteness, and the fooled one in his fury would
have driven his sword through the heart of Valmajour had not Valmajour
been the King’s horse and under royal protection.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT
The horse Rochefort had captured was a powerful roan, fully caparisoned
after the fashion of the officers’ horses of the cavalry, with pistols
in the holsters and a saddle-bag for despatches.
Having ridden half a league at full gallop, Rochefort drew rein and
glanced back. He was no longer pursued. He hugged himself at the
thought of d’Estouteville’s position. D’Estouteville would have to
return to Versailles, on a lame horse, and with what explanation? Were
he to tell people that Rochefort had run away from him, he would be
laughed at, for Rochefort’s reputation for courage was too well founded
to be shaken by a tale like that.
Then as Rochefort proceeded swiftly on his way, the saddle-bag
attracted him; he was at open war with the Choiseul faction; Choiseul
was in power, the Gardes were the servants of Choiseul, and the horse
belonged to an officer in the Gardes. It and its trappings were loot,
and to examine his loot he opened the saddle-bag as he rode, plunged
in his hand, and found nothing but a letter. A large, official letter,
sealed with a red seal and addressed in a big firm hand to
“Mademoiselle La Bruyère,
“In the Suite of Her Royal Highness
“At Compiègne.
“To be left with Madame de La Motte.”
This was the letter which we saw Choiseul writing.
“Oh, ho!” cried Rochefort, “M. de Choiseul writing to a young lady,
and that young lady in the suite of the Dauphiness. Well, I have no
quarrel with Choiseul’s private affairs and the letter shall go to its
destination or be returned to him—but first, let me get to Paris.”
He returned the letter to its place, closed the saddle-bag and urged
the horse into a canter.
He did not know that Choiseul had specially commissioned M. de
Beautrellis to take this letter, written immediately after the
presentation, to its destination, nor the special urgency and secrecy
necessary to the business, and with which Choiseul had impressed the
servant. Nor would he have had time to think of these things had he
known, for he was now catching up with the crowd of Parisians who had
returned on foot from Versailles, and his eyes and ears and tongue were
fully occupied in avoiding stragglers and warning them out of his way.
At the Octroi of Paris he was stopped by the soldiers for a moment,
but he had no difficulty in passing them, despite the fact that he was
in full court dress, without spurs, and riding a guard’s horse. He was
M. de Rochefort, known to all of them, and this was doubtless one of
his many freaks. Then, with the streets of Paris before him, he struck
straight for his home in the Rue de Longueville.
Burning as he was to keep his appointment, he knew the vital
necessity of money and a change of clothes. Though he had outwitted
d’Estouteville, he was still pursued. Choiseul would ransack Paris
for him, and failing to find him there—France. He guessed Camus’s
part in the business, he guessed that his action in killing Choiseul’s
villainous agent had been traced to him, and worse than that, he
guessed that the part he had played in disclosing the plan which Camus
had put before him to Madame Dubarry was now perfectly well known to
Choiseul.
Choiseul would never forgive him for that.
It was absolutely necessary for him to leave France for a time till
things blew over, or Choiseul was out of power. Of course in a just
age, he might have stood up to the business of the killing, called
Javotte as a witness to the facts of the case, and received the thanks
of society, not its condemnation; but in the age of the _Lettre de
Cachet_ and of Power without mercy, flight was the only safe course,
and this child of his age knew his age, and none better.
It was two o’clock when he reached the Rue de la Harpe, adjoining the
Rue de Longueville. Here he left the horse tied to a post for anyone
to find who might, and taking the letter from his saddle-bag, repaired
to his apartments. He let himself in with his private key, and without
disturbing his valet changed his clothes, took all the money he could
find, some three thousand francs in gold, tore up and burned a few
letters and left the house, closing the door gently behind him.
A nice position, truly, for the man who had sworn never to touch
politics, alone in the streets of Paris at half-past two in the
morning, with only a few thousand francs in his possession and the
whole of France at his heels.
But Rochefort, now that he was in the midst of the storm he had always
avoided, did not stop to think of the fury of the wind. So far from
cursing his folly and his position, he found some satisfaction in it.
It seemed to him that he had never lived so vividly before.
It was only a few minutes’ walk from the Rue de Longueville to the
Rue St. Dominic, where Mademoiselle Fontrailles lived; one had to go
through the Rue de la Harpe, and as he entered that street he saw the
horse, which he had left tied to a post, being led away by a man.
“Well, my friend,” said the Count, as he overtook the man, “and where
are you going with that fine horse?”
“Monsieur,” replied the other, “I found him tied to a post, and
thinking it a pity to leave him there to be misused maybe, or stolen by
the first thief, I am taking him home.”
“Just so,” replied the Count, taking a louis from his pocket, “and, as
I may be in want of a horse in a few hours, here is a louis for you
if you will take him home, give him a feed, change his saddle and be
with him on the road that leads from the Porte St. Antoine at eleven
o’clock, that is, nine hours from now. Be a quarter of a mile beyond
the gate, and if you will do this, I will pay you ten louis for your
trouble.”
“Monsieur, I will do it.”
“Can you obtain a plain saddle in exchange for this one?”
“I will try, monsieur.”
“Do not try, simply rip all this stuff off and take the saddle-bag
away, then it will be plain enough, take off the chain bridle and leave
the leather, and remember ten louis for your trouble.”
He handed the louis to the man, and went on his way.
It was a good idea, though risky; Rochefort, however, took risks; he
was of the temper of Jean Bart, who, it will be remembered, once reefed
his sails with seaweed, trusting to the wind to blow them loose at the
proper moment.
In the Rue St. Dominic he paused at the house indicated in the letter.
It was a medium-sized house of good appearance, and all the windows
were in darkness, with the exception of the second window on the first
floor. He stopped and looked up at this window. To knock at the door
would mean rousing the porter. He was quite prepared to do that, but
the lit window fascinated him, something told him that the person he
sought was there.
He looked about to see if he could find a pebble, but the moon had gone
and the roadway was almost invisible in the darkness; he rubbed the
sole of his boot about on the ground, but could find nothing, so taking
a louis from his pocket and taking careful aim, he flung it up at the
window.
The casement was open a few inches, and, as luck would have it, the
coin instead of hitting the glass, entered, struck the curtain and fell
on the floor.
He waited for a moment, and was just on the point of taking another
louis from his pocket, when a shadow appeared on the curtain, the
curtain was drawn aside, and the window pushed open. He could see
the vague outline of a form above the sill, and then came a woman’s
whisper:
“Who is it?”
“Rochefort,” came the answer. He dared not say more, fearing that it
might be some servant: then, as the form disappeared with the word,
“Wait,” he knew that all was right.
He searched for the door, found it, and stood waiting, his heart
beating as it never had beaten before. Choiseul, Camus, his own
position, everything, was forgotten.
He heard a step in the passage and then the bolts carefully withdrawn;
he could scarcely believe in his luck: Camille Fontrailles, with her
own hand, was opening the door for him, at dead of night, secretively,
and in a way that cast everything to the winds.
Next moment he was in the hall, holding a warm hand in the darkness,
whilst the other little hand of the woman who had admitted him was
replacing the bolts.
“Come,” whispered a voice.
He followed, still holding her hand and led as a blind man is led, up
the stairs, to a landing, to a door.
The woman pushed the door open, and they entered a room lit by a lamp
and with the remnants of a fire in the grate.
The light of the lamp struck on the woman’s face. It was Javotte.
Rochefort dropped her hand, stared round him, and then at the girl who
was standing before him with a smile on her lips.
Never had Javotte looked prettier. Though a girl of the people, she had
a refinement of her own; compared to Camille, she was the wild violet
compared to the cultivated violet, the essential charm was the same;
but to Rochefort, suddenly disillusioned, she had neither charm nor
grace.
“You!” said he, drawing back and walking towards the window.
The smile vanished from her lips, they trembled, and then, just as if
it had started from her lips, a little shiver went all through her.
In a flash, she understood all; he had not discovered her window by
some miraculous means, he had not come to see her, he did not care for
her. It was her mistress for whom this visit was intended. Ever since
he had kissed her in the corridor of the Hôtel Dubarry, she had dreamed
of him, looked for him, fancied that he would come to seek her. He had
come, but not for her.
The blow to her love, her pride, and her life was brutal in its
directness, yet she took it standing, and after the first moment almost
without flinching. She had come of a race to whom pride had been
denied, a race accustomed to the _Droit de Seigneur_, the whip of the
noble and the disdain of the aristocrat, yet the woman in her found the
pride that hides suffering, and can find and place its hand even on
disdain.
“Monsieur,” said Javotte, “I am sorry, but my mistress is from home.”
Rochefort, standing by the window, had recovered himself. He guessed
quite well that little Javotte had a more than kindly feeling for him,
that at a look or a touch she would be his, body and soul, and that she
had led him upstairs thinking that his visit was to her. But he was
moving under the dominion of a passion that held his mind from Javotte
as steadily as centrifugal force holds the moon from the earth.
“From home?” said he. “Has she not been here, then, to-night?”
“Yes, monsieur, she was here till half-past twelve, then she left for
the Rue de Valois with Mademoiselle Chon Dubarry.”
“Mademoiselle Dubarry was with her here, then?”
“Yes, monsieur, and they left together.”
He saw at once that the appointment Camille had given him was no
lover’s tryst—or, at least, a lover’s tryst with a chaperon attached
to it. This pleased him, somehow. Despite the fact that his heart had
leaped in him whilst under the dominion of the thought that Camille had
flung all discretion to the winds, the revelation of the truth that it
was Javotte who was flinging discretion to the winds came to him as a
satisfaction, despite the check to his animal nature. Camille was not
to be conquered as easily as that.
She had waited for him till half-past twelve, there was some comfort
in that thought; the question now arose as to what he should do. It
was clearly impossible to knock the Dubarrys up at that hour in the
morning. He must wait, and where better than here; he wanted a friend
to talk to, and whom could he find better than Javotte?
There was a chair by the bed, and he sat down on the chair, and then
what did he do but take Javotte on his knee.
He told her to come and sit on his knee whilst he explained all his
worries and troubles, and she came and sat on his knee like a child.
She would have resisted him now as a lover, yet there in that bedroom,
in that deserted house, she let him caress her without fear and without
thought. There was something great about Rochefort at times, when he
forgot Rochefort the _flaneur_ and Rochefort the libertine, or perhaps
it would be nearer the mark to say there was nothing little about him,
and nothing base.
“It is this way, Javotte,” said he. “Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul, of
whom you have no doubt heard, is pursuing me, and I am running away
from Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul, and as I am not used to running
away, I run very badly, but still I do my best. Now, you remember the
other night when those bad men attacked you?—well, when I chased them
away, I followed one of them and he threw a knife at me and I killed
him. He was an agent of Monsieur de Choiseul, who, having discovered
that I killed his agent, would like very much to kill me. He tried to
arrest me at the Palace of Versailles some hours ago, and the agent he
employed was Monsieur Camus, the same man whose face I smacked before
you——”
“Oh, monsieur,” said Javotte, “that is an evil man; his face, his very
glance, took the life away from me.”
“Just so,” said Rochefort; “and I struck that evil man in the stomach,
and left him kicking his heels on the steps of his Majesty’s palace,
whilst I made my escape. I got a horse and came to Paris, but I cannot
stay in Paris. To-morrow I am going to the Rue de Valois to keep that
appointment with your mistress, which I failed to keep to-night. Well,
I may be taken prisoner or killed before I reach the Hôtel Dubarry. In
that case, you will tell your mistress all, and that the fault was not
mine, in that I did not arrive here in time. You will be my friend in
this, Javotte?”
“Yes, monsieur,” replied Javotte, “I will, indeed, be your friend.”
She who had hoped only to be his lover cast away that hope, or
imagined that she cast away that hope, in taking up the reality of
friendship.
“I trust you,” he said; “and now to another thing. I have here a letter
belonging to Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul; it is addressed to a lady at
Compiègne, it was in the saddle-bag of the horse which I took to carry
me to Paris, and it must be delivered to the lady it is intended for.”
He took the letter from his pocket and gave it to Javotte, who had now
risen and was standing before him.
“You must find someone to take it for me, and that someone will expect
to be paid for his trouble, so here are two louis——”
“Monsieur,” said Javotte, “I do not need money.”
Rochefort returned the coins to his pocket and stood up. He had not
offered Javotte money for herself, but he should not have offered it at
all. The brutality that spoils a butterfly’s wing may be a touch that
would not injure a rose-leaf.
“Nor did I offer it to you,” said he, placing his hand on her shoulder.
“One does not offer money to a friend—or only as a loan—I meant you
to give it to some footman or other as a reward for his services. But
should you ever need a loan, my little Javotte, why, then, Rochefort
will be your banker, offering you his life and his services without
interest. But there is one thing he will never lend you—and can you
guess what that thing is?”
“No, monsieur.”
“His friendship—for it is yours, now and always.”
Javotte bowed her pretty head as if in confirmation and acknowledgment.
Still holding the letter in her hand, she turned it over, glancing now
at the superscription, now at the seals. Then, moving towards the
chair, she sat down. Rochefort watched her, wondering what was in her
mind, and waiting for her to speak.
“Monsieur,” said Javotte at last, “you ask me to take this letter to
its destination. To do so, I must first read the address, and I find it
is addressed to Mademoiselle La Bruyère. You say Monsieur de Choiseul
is the writer of it. You say Monsieur de Choiseul is pursuing you.
Well, monsieur, is it not possible that, in parting with this letter,
you are parting with a weapon that may be very useful to you?”
“Oho!” said Rochefort, laughing, amused at Javotte’s seriousness and
her air of subtlety and intrigue, as though some dove were suddenly to
assume the garb of a serpent’s wisdom. “What is this you say?”
“Simply, monsieur, that Mademoiselle La Bruyère is one of the greatest
enemies of Madame la Comtesse Dubarry. I have heard my mistress say
that she obtained her place in the entourage of the Dauphiness In order
to poison the mind of the Dauphiness against her. Here is Monsieur de
Choiseul writing to Mademoiselle La Bruyère——”
“Ah!” cried Rochefort, striking himself on the forehead, and speaking
as though oblivious of Javotte’s presence, “I see. Choiseul writes a
despatch to Mademoiselle La Bruyère—and last night of all nights,
immediately after the presentation, to tell her, without doubt, of the
plan and its failure—and the plan was directed against his Majesty as
well as against the Countess. Certainly, that letter may prove a very
terrible weapon against Choiseul.”
“And you will use it, monsieur?”
“The letter?”
“Yes, monsieur, the letter.”
“I—no, I cannot use it. I do not even know that it would help me. I
may be wrong even in my suspicion. The thing may have no value at all;
how do I know that it is not a love-letter?”—he laughed at the idea of
Love coupled with the idea of Choiseul—“or about some private matter?
No, it is impossible. I cannot open Monsieur de Choiseul’s letter to
see if it concerns me, and even were I to open it, and were I to find
the blackest conspiracy under the handwriting of Choiseul, I could not
use it against him.”
“Monsieur,” said Javotte, “I am only a poor girl, but I have seen
much in the service of Madame la Comtesse. I have kept my mind about
me, and I have been employed in many things that have taught me many
things. Living at Luciennes and Versailles, I have observed Monsieur
de Choiseul—Look at the affair of yesterday—and there are other
things—— Well, I know that if you were Monsieur de Choiseul, you
would open this letter.”
Rochefort laughed.
“You have touched the spot,” said he. “If I were Monsieur de Choiseul,
I would do as you say, but since I am Monsieur de Rochefort, I cannot.
I am only a poor gentleman of Auvergne, without any head for political
intrigue or any hand for political matters, and were I to open that
letter, I would do the business so badly, that my unaccustomed hand
would betray itself.”
“Monsieur, I did not ask you to open this letter.”
“Mademoiselle, had you done so, I would have obeyed you without murmur,
for your lightest request would be for me a command. And now put the
accursed thing away that it may not tempt us any more, and if you
will show me to some room where I may snatch a couple of hours’ sleep,
I will lie down, for I have a heavy day before me if I am not very
greatly mistaken.”
Javotte rose up and placed the letter in the drawer of a bureau by the
door. Then she ran out of the room and returned with a rug of marten
skin, which she spread on the bed; she turned the rug back and arranged
the pillows. She was offering him her bed.
“I will call you at six o’clock,” said she.
She glanced round the room like a careful housewife who wishes to see
that everything is in order, smiled at Rochefort, nodded, and vanished,
closing the door behind her.
Rochefort removed his coat and sword-belt, got under the rug, rested
his head on the pillow and in five minutes was snoring.
Javotte, crossing the landing, entered her mistress’s bedroom, where a
lamp was burning.
She turned the lamp full on and sat down in a chair by the fire-place.
She was in love and her love was hopeless, and her power of love may
be gauged from the fact that she was thinking less of herself than of
Rochefort, and less of Rochefort than his position.
She knew Camille Fontrailles as only a woman can know a woman. That
beautiful face, those eyes so capable of betraying interest and love,
that charm, that grace—all these had no influence with Javotte. She
guessed Camille to be heartless, not cruel, but acardiac, if one may
use the expression, without impulse, negative towards men, yet exacting
towards them, requiring their homage, yet giving in return no pay—or
only promissory notes; capable of real friendship towards women, and
more than friendship—absolute devotion to a chosen woman friend. This
type of woman is exceedingly common in all high civilizations; it
is the stand of the ego against the Race instinct, a refusal of the
animal by the sensibilities, a development of the finer feelings at the
expense of the natural passions—who knows—— Javotte reasoned only by
instinct, and it was instinct that made her guess Rochefort’s passion
for Camille to be a hopeless passion, and it was this guess that now
brought some trace of comfort to her human and wicked heart.
She was capable of dying for Rochefort, of sacrificing all comfort in
life for his comfort, yet of treasuring the thought of his discomfiture
at the hands of Camille.
She rose up, and, taking the lamp, stood before the mirror that had so
often reflected the beauty of her mistress.
What she saw was charming, yet she saw it through the magic of
disenchantment.
It was the wild flower gazing at her reflection in the brook where the
lordly dragon-fly pauses for a second, heedless of her, on his way
towards the garden of the roses.
Then she placed the lamp on the table again, and went downstairs to
make coffee for the dragon-fly, to give him strength on his journey.
CHAPTER II
THE GRATITUDE OF THE DUBARRYS
Rochefort was pursuing Camus through Dreamland, when the touch of a
hand upon his shoulder brought him wide awake. It was Javotte. She
had placed the tray with the coffee on a table by the window, and was
standing beside him. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, burst out laughing as
though the world he had awakened to was a huge joke, and, casting the
marten-skin rug aside, rose to his feet.
“_Ma foi_,” said he, “I was chasing a man through the palace of
Versailles, when Monsieur de Choiseul laid his hand on my shoulder—and
the hand was yours. It is a good omen.”
He kissed the hand that had brought him the coffee, slipped on his coat
and sword-belt, laughing and talking all the time, and then, coffee-cup
in hand, stood still talking and at the same time glancing out of the
window every now and then.
He had remembered, a most important fact, that he owed his valet a
month’s wages.
Javotte at once offered to take it for him, and placing five louis in a
piece of paper, he gave them to her for the purpose.
“That will keep him going till things clear up,” said Rochefort. “He
is faithful enough, but without money he would be driven to seek
another master. And now good-bye, little one, nay, not good-bye—_au
revoir_. We will meet soon again, of that I am sure, and in happier
circumstances.”
“Are you going to the Rue de Valois, monsieur?”
“I am going to the Rue de Valois, and that as quick as my feet can take
me.”
“But, monsieur, have you not thought of the danger?”
“What danger?”
“Oh, _ma foi_! What danger? If Monsieur de Choiseul is pursuing you,
will he not have the streets watched?”
“Undoubtedly; but as Paris is under Monsieur de Sartines, Monsieur de
Choiseul must first put Monsieur de Sartines in motion. Now, Monsieur
de Sartines is my friend and he will delay, I am perfectly sure; he
will be bound to act, but he will not be bound to break his neck
running after me. So I feel pretty safe till noon.”
Javotte sighed. She said nothing more, but accompanied him down the
stairs to the door, which she unlatched for him. The _concierge_, a
discreet person, no doubt observed this letting out of a man whom he
had not let in. However, that was nothing to him, and as for Javotte,
she did not think of the matter, so filled was her mind with other
things.
Having closed the door on Rochefort, she came up again to her room,
and taking the letter from the drawer in the bureau looked at it long
and attentively. Rochefort had refused to open it, but Javotte had no
scruples at all on the matter. She argued with herself thus: “If I
were to open this from curiosity, I would be on the level with those
spying servants whom I detest, like Madame Scudery’s maid or the maid
of Madame du Close. But I am not doing it from curiosity. I am doing
it for the sake of another person, who is too proud and too fine to
take precautions for himself. And who is Monsieur de Choiseul that one
should trouble about opening his letters? Does he not do the very same
himself—and who is Mademoiselle La Bruyère that one should not open
her letters? Does she not do much worse in many and many a way? And
what are they writing to one another about, these two? Well, we will
see.”
She procured a knife and heated it over the still burning lamp in her
mistress’ bedroom. Then, with a dexterity which she had often seen
exhibited in the Dubarry _ménage_, she slid the hot knife under the
seals of the letter.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Rochefort was walking briskly towards the Rue de Valois.
It was a perfect morning, the sky was stainless and the new-risen sun
was flooding the city with his level beams, pouring his light on the
mansions and gardens of the Faubourg St. Honoré, on the churches and
spires of the cité, on the Montagne Ste. Genevieve and on the grim,
black towers of the Bastille.
His way lay through the Rue de Provençe, a street that might have been
named after its inhabitants, for here, amidst the early morning stir of
life, you might hear the Provençal patois, the explosive little oaths,
the shrill tongues of the women of the Camargue; and here you might buy
Arles sausages, and Brandade, from swarthy shopkeepers with red cotton
handkerchiefs tied round their heads and with gold rings in their
ears, and here you might see the Venus of Arles in the flesh at every
corner.
He passed from here into the Rue d’Artois, and then into the Rue de
Valois.
Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte was at home, and Rochefort, following the
servant, passed into the hall and was shown into the identical room
where, only the night before last, he had assisted at the council of
war, and where the Countess had protested her devotion to him and the
Vicomte Jean had sworn eternal friendship.
The servant had drawn the blinds, and the morning light entered,
illuminating the place and striking the white and gold decorations, the
painted ceiling and the crystal of the candelabrum. The chairs were set
about just as they had been left by the last persons who had occupied
the place, and on one of the chairs was lying a woman’s glove.
From the next room could be heard voices; men’s voices, laughter and
the clink of money. The Vicomte Jean and some of his disreputable
companions were, no doubt, playing at cards, had been playing, most
likely, all night, or, at all events, since news came that the
presentation was a success, for the Vicomte had not turned up at
Versailles, he had been too busy in Paris arranging matters.
Now, as Rochefort listened, he heard the servant entering to announce a
visitor; the voices of the card-players ceased, then came the sounds of
voices grumbling. A minute later, and the door giving on the corridor
opened, and Jean Dubarry made his appearance.
He had never looked worse. His face was stiff from drink and
sleeplessness, his coat was stained with wine, and one stocking was
slipping down and wrinkled. He had been taking huge pinches of snuff
to pull himself together, and the evidence of it was upon him.
“Ha, Rochefort,” cried the man of pleasure. “You are early, hey! You
see me—I have not been to bed—when the good news came by special
messenger, I had some friends here, they are here still——” He yawned
and flung himself on a couch, stretched out his legs, put his hands in
his pockets, and yawned again.
“Your special messenger did not come quicker from Versailles than I
did,” said Rochefort. “Dubarry, I’m in the pot this time. I have always
avoided politics, but they have got me at last, it seems.”
“What are you saying?” asked Dubarry.
“I am saying that Choiseul is after me.”
“Choiseul after you!” echoed Dubarry, rousing himself. “What is this
you say? What has he found out? _Dame_! I thought all this business was
happily ended, and now you come and disturb me with this news—what is
it?”
“Oh, _ma foi_, you may well ask what is it!” replied Rochefort,
irritated by the manner of the other. “It is this precious business
of yours that has fallen on me, and it seems to me now that I am the
only one to pay. Choiseul has discovered my part in it; he tried to
arrest me at Versailles last night, he failed and I am here. I am
pursued—that is all.”
Dubarry rose to his feet thoroughly sobered; he walked a few steps up
and down the room, as if trying to pull his thoughts together. Then he
turned to Rochefort.
“You will excuse me for saying it, my dear Rochefort, but, considering
the delicate position of the Comtesse and the fact that Choiseul is in
pursuit of you—it would have been wiser of you to have sought shelter
elsewhere. We are quite ready to help, but it is imperative now that
this affair has blown over that we should resume friendly relationship
with Choiseul. Of course, we are not friends, still, you can very well
understand the necessity of our keeping up an appearance of friendship
with the man who is the first man in France after his Majesty. It is
diplomacy—that is all.”
“Excuse me,” said Rochefort, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“In what way?”
“I did not come here to take shelter.”
“You came, then, to see me?”
Rochefort looked Dubarry up and down, then he broke into a laugh.
“No, my dear man, I did not come here to see you. I came here to see
Mademoiselle Fontrailles, and to take my leave of her before I leave
France or enter the Bastille.”
“To see Mademoiselle Fontrailles?”
“Precisely.”
“At this hour?”
“The matter is urgent.”
“But it is impossible. She is not up yet.”
“She will get up when she learns that I am here.”
“You think so. Well, I tell you no. Put off your visit to her, for
she came back last night not well disposed towards you; you kept her
waiting, it seems, and then you did not arrive.”
“I wish to explain all that.”
“Wait, then,” said Jean.
He left the room in an irritable manner, and returned in a minute or
two.
“Mademoiselle Fontrailles is unable to see you; she will not be visible
before noon.”
“Ah, then at noon she will not be visible to me, for at noon I must be
out of Paris. You did not give her my message.”
“Oh, _ma foi_!” cried Jean, swelling like a turkey-cock. “You say that
to my face! You give me the lie direct!”
“I give you nothing. I say you did not explain to her fully my
position.”
“Explain to her your position? _Mon Dieu_! I explained it as well as
I could, shouting through her closed bedroom door, and her reply was,
‘Tell Monsieur Rochefort I am unable to see him, and in any event I
will not come down till noon.’ So you see, she did not even say she
would see you at noon.”
“The devil!” said Rochefort. “I don’t know what to make of you all. I
say nothing about any help I have given you, but I will say this, the
man I have pitted myself against, Monsieur de Choiseul, is at least a
gentleman who looks after the interests of his friends. Good-day.”
He turned to the door.
“Where are you going to?” asked Jean.
“I am going to breakfast at the Café de Régence.”
“In your position?”
“Precisely. What do I care? I will leave Paris at my own time, and in
my own way.”
“But, my dear Rochefort,” cried Jean, now very eager and friendly, “if
you are pursued by Choiseul, and if you do not leave Paris at once, you
will be simply playing into his hands; you will be caught, imprisoned,
they may even torture you to make you tell.”
“About the presentation?”
“About anything—everything. You know Choiseul, he is pitiless.”
“Make your mind easy,” said Rochefort, “I will tell without letting
them torture me. What are you all to me that I should care? Now you
have used me, you have done with me, and you are anxious that I should
escape, not because you care a _denier_ for my safety, but because you
fear that they may extract the story of Ferminard from me——. That is
what I think of you, Monsieur le Vicomte, what I think of Madame la
Comtesse, what I think of Mademoiselle Fontrailles; you can tell them
so with my regards.”
He turned on his heel, pushed the door open and walked out.
He was furious. Certain that Jean had told him the truth as to
Camille’s message—for Jean had indeed told the truth, and his
sincerity was patent—he could have pulled the house of Dubarry down on
the heads of its inmates.
Instead, however, of making such an attempt, he walked into the street
and strode off without looking back.
Jean, left alone, rushed back to the room where the gamblers were still
playing, drank off a glass of wine, excused himself, and then went to
the servants’ quarters, ordered a carriage to be brought at once to
the door, rushed upstairs, changed his clothes, and the carriage being
ready, drove to the Hôtel de Sartines.
CHAPTER III
THE PAIR OF SPECTACLES
The Hôtel de Sartines was situated in the Faubourg St. Germain. Jean
Dubarry’s carriage drove into the courtyard as half-past eight was
striking, he descended, went up the steps, and entered the great hall,
where already the bustle and the business of the day was in full swing.
The door was guarded by soldiers, a Suisse stood as sentry at the foot
of the great staircase, and soldiers sat about on the benches, whilst
crossing the hall from department to department went clerks, and men
with papers in their hands, messengers and agents.
Dubarry gave his name to the usher on duty, and asked him to take it
to the Comte de Sartines, with a message that his business was urgent.
In less than five minutes, the man reappeared and asked the visitor to
follow him.
He led the way up the broad staircase to the first floor, past the
entrance of the famous octagon chamber, down a corridor to the bedroom
of his Excellency, who was at that moment being finished off by his
valet, Gaussard, the same who, though a valet, claimed the right to
wear a sword by virtue of the fact that he was also a hairdresser.
Sartines, released from the valet’s hands, was in the act of rising
from his chair, when Dubarry was announced.
The Minister of Police was in an ill temper that morning, and as the
cause of his bad humour has an important bearing on our story, we will
refer to it.
Briefly, then, some days ago a tragedy had occurred at Luciennes.
Atalanta, the King’s favourite hound, had been poisoned. Louis XV., to
give him his due, had a not unkindly feeling for animals. He tolerated
Mizapouff, the little dog of Madame Dubarry, that cut such quaint
capers at a celebrated dinner-party, he fed the carp in the pond
at Luciennes with his own royal hand—when he could find no better
amusement, and he was fond of Atalanta. Besides, she was his dog, the
only dog of all the dogs in France who had the entrée of his private
apartments. She was on a footing with the Duc de la Vrillière, her coat
had the royal arms embroidered on it, and she knew it; she was fed with
minced chicken, and she had her own personal attendant.
Some days ago, this aristocrat had been found in the courtyard at
Luciennes, stiff and stark, poisoned by some miscreant or some
mischance. The King was furious. He took it as a personal matter.
Sartines was fetched over from Versailles, where he was on a visit of
inspection, and Sartines had the unpleasant task of inspecting the
corpse and questioning the cooks, the scullions, the chambermaids,
the grooms, the gardeners—everyone, in short, who might have had a
hand in the business, or who might have been able to cast some light
on the affair. The result was absolute darkness and much worry for
the unfortunate Sartines. The matter had become a joke at Court, and
Sartines might have measured the extent to which he was hated by the
way in which he was tormented.
Everyone asked him about the dog, and whether he had made any further
advance into the mystery; a ballad was written about it, and he
received a copy. The whole business gave him more worry and caused him
more irritation than any other of the numerous affairs that were always
annoying and irritating him, and, to cap the business, he had received
this morning a neat little parcel containing a pair of spectacles.
Nothing more.
The Vicomte bowed to Sartines and then, when the valet had taken his
departure, plunged into the business at hand:
“My dear Sartines, that fool of a Rochefort has complicated matters in
the most vile way; he called an hour ago and knocked me up to tell me
the pleasant news that Choiseul is in pursuit of him. More than that,
he has taken a grudge against us. He is in love with the Fontrailles,
she refused to see him. I advised him to leave Paris at once, and all
I got for my advice was an accusation of ingratitude. He is against us
now; he knows all about the Ferminard affair, and he frankly threatened
me that, were Choiseul to capture him and question him in any
unpleasant way, he would tell all he knew. Even were Choiseul simply to
imprison him, he would most likely tell, just from spite against us and
to obtain his release.”
“The devil!” said Sartines. “Things seem to have a habit of going wrong
these days—but he would not tell. I have great faith in Rochefort,
though I am not given to having faith in people. He is a very proud
man. He would not betray us.”
“Has he promised secrecy?”
“No, he has promised nothing.”
“There you are. He may be a proud man, an honourable man—what you
will, but he fancies we have used him and cast him away. There is
the Fontrailles business as well. He is angry, and I tell you, when
Rochefort is like that, he cares for nothing. He said Choiseul was at
least a gentleman who could look after his friends. He will join arms
with Choiseul.”
“Well, suppose he does?”
“Then Choiseul will be in power for ever. Once he gets hold of the
true tale of the Ferminard business, he will flatten us out. I will be
exiled, for one, his Majesty could never allow such an affront to the
Monarchy to go unpunished; and you, Sartines, what will become of you?
Who originated the whole idea but you, yourself?”
Sartines produced his snuff-box and took a pinch. Then he turned to the
window and looked out on the courtyard.
He felt himself badly placed.
He had guarded against everything but this—Rochefort turned an enemy.
He knew quite well that the Dubarrys had used Rochefort just as they
had used the old Comtesse de Béarn, for their own ends, and would throw
him away when used; what angered him was the fact that this fool of a
Vicomte Jean had clearly let Rochefort perceive this; there was the
business of the girl, too. Rochefort had promised no secrecy.
“Before we talk of Rochefort,” said he, “how about Madame de Béarn?”
“We have nothing to fear from her,” said Jean. “She was furious, but
the thing is over, and were she to make a fuss, she would gain nothing
and lose a good deal. She has come in, and her price, between you and
me, was not a low price. She has cost us two hundred thousand francs.
By the way, I suppose Ferminard is safe?”
“Yes; when his work was done, he was driven to Vincennes very securely
guarded. When Choiseul is gone from the Ministry, we will let him out.
Now, as to Rochefort, we must deal with that gentleman in a drastic
way. That is to say, we must save him from Choiseul. For, if Choiseul
once takes him into his hands, we are lost.”
“How do you propose to act?”
“Very simply. I shall arrest him and hide him in Vincennes.”
“And Choiseul, when he hears the news, will visit him in Vincennes.”
“Choiseul will not hear the news. We will pretend he has escaped. Early
this morning I had a letter from Choiseul, asking me to drag Paris
with a seine net for Rochefort. He is accused of having killed a man.
Well, I will drag Paris with a seine net, imprison Rochefort, under the
name of Bonhomme, or any name you please, and once we have him tightly
tucked away in Vincennes, all will be smooth. Captain Pierre Cousin,
the governor of Vincennes, is entirely mine.”
“It is a good idea,” said Jean; “and really, seeing how Rochefort is
placed as regards Choiseul, it would be the best act we could do for
him.”
“It’s the best we can do for ourselves,” said Sartines. “Has Rochefort
gone back to his rooms, do you think?”
“I don’t know. He told me he would go to the Café de Régence for
breakfast.”
“If he said that, he will be there, it’s just like his bravado, and
there I shall arrest him.”
“He will resist, and he will be surrounded by friends.”
“Dubarry,” said Sartines, “you talk as though you were talking to a
police agent. If you had been with me the other night, you would have
heard me giving Rochefort a little lecture on my ways and methods; you
would have heard me say, amongst other things, that I hold my position
not by cleverness—though, indeed, perhaps I am not a fool—but by my
knowledge of men and how they reason and think and act. Of course, if
I were to arrest Rochefort in the ordinary way, he would resist; his
friends would help him, blood would be spilt, and the Parisians would
cry out, ‘Ah! there is that cursed de Sartines again.’ Rochefort is a
popular figure, and a popular figure only requires to be arrested to
make it a popular idol. I do not intend to make an idol of Rochefort.”
He went to the table by the window, and struck a bell.
“Send Lavenne to me,” said he, when the servant answered the summons.
“Has he arrived yet?”
“Yes, monsieur, he is here.”
“Then send him up.”
CHAPTER IV
THE ARREST OF ROCHEFORT
Rochefort, when he left the Hôtel Dubarry, reached the Rue St. Honoré
and walked up it, past the Hôtel de Noailles, and in the direction of
the Palais Royal.
The Rue St. Honoré is the old main artery of the business and social
world of Paris on the right bank of the Seine. In one direction, it
led to the palaces of the Faubourg St. Honoré, in the other to the
Bastille. In the eighteenth century it was as bustling and alive with
business as it is now, and its side streets led even to more important
places. Walking up it from the Faubourg St. Honoré, you had the Place
Vendôme opening from it on the left, beyond the Place Vendôme the great
door giving entrance to the Jacobins, beyond that, as you advanced, the
Rue de l’Échelle, on the right, leading to the Place de Carrousel and
the Tuileries; on the left, further along, the Rue de Richelieu, and on
the right three streets leading directly to the Louvre. Beyond that the
Rue de Poulies leading to St. Germain l’Auxerrois, and much further on,
the Halles to the left. The river was much less accessible from the Rue
St. Honoré than it is to-day, being barred off by the Tuileries, the
buildings on the Quai des Galeries du Louvre, and the Louvre itself.
Nothing was more remarkable in this old Paris than the way in which
public convenience was sacrificed to the convenience of the King,
the nobles and the religious orders. You entered a street and found
yourself face to face with a barrier—as in that street where Rochefort
encountered and killed de Choiseul’s agent; a way that ought to have
led you to the river, brought you to the back door of a monastery;
a road that ought to have been a short cut, such as the Court St.
Vincent, landed you to the gateway of Le Manége. Streets like the Rue
du Brave led you into culs-de-sac like the Foire St. Germain.
The religious orders showed large over the city. One might say that it
was a city of churches, monasteries, convents and religious houses,
palaces and royal residences. If every religious house had offered
sanctuary to the unfortunates pursued by the King or the nobles, then
Paris would have been the best city in the world for a man who was
trying to escape; this not being so, it was the worst, as Rochefort
would have found to his cost had he been on that business. But M. de
Rochefort was not making his escape. He was going to breakfast at the
Café de Régence, despite Choiseul and the world, or rather because of
them.
Anger had worked him up into a mood of absolute recklessness. He had
never been famed for carefulness; wine made him mad—reckless; but
anger and thwarted desire were to prove themselves even more potent
than wine. As he went on his way, he expected arrest at each street
corner, or rather attempted arrest; for, in his present temper, he
would have resisted all of Choiseul’s agents and all de Sartines’
guards, even had they been led by Choiseul and Sartines in person.
He wanted to hit the Dubarrys, he wanted to strike at Camille
Fontrailles; failing them, it would content him to hit Choiseul or his
creatures should he come across them, or Sartines—or even his best
friend.
Of course, the whole centre of this passionate fury was Camille
Fontrailles. She would not see him; very well, he would see what he
would not do.
As he walked along the Rue St. Honoré, he glanced from right to left,
after the manner of a man who seeks to pick a quarrel even if he has
to pick it with a stranger. But at that comparatively early hour, the
Rue St. Honoré was not the place for a bully’s business. People were
too busy to give cause for offence, and too lowly to take it with a
nobleman, and Rochefort, if the matter had been an absolute necessity
with him, would have been condemned to skewer a shopboy, a market
porter, or a water-carrier.
But at the Café de Régence, when he reached it, he found what he
imagined to be the _hors-d’œuvre_ for a regular banquet.
The Café de Régence, at that period, was the meeting-place of the
intellectuals, and at the same time the meeting-place of the bloods.
Rousseau might have been seen there of an evening, Jean Dubarry
took breakfast there sometimes, Rochefort, and many others like
him, frequented the place. At this hour, that is to say about ten
o’clock, Rochefort found a couple of bald-headed men and several
rather seedy ones sipping coffee and discussing the news of the day.
They were Philosophers—Intellectuals, and like all Philosophers and
Intellectuals of all ages, untidy, shabby, and making a great noise.
Rochefort, drinking the wine he had ordered and talking to the waiter
who had served it, spoke in so loud a voice and made such free remarks
about things in general, and the habitués of the café in particular,
that faces were turned to him from the surrounding tables and then
turned away again. No one wished to pick a quarrel with M. de
Rochefort, his character was too well known, and his tongue.
He ordered _déjeuner_ for half-past eleven, and then he sat drinking
his wine, his virulence, like a sheathed sword, only waiting to be
drawn. But no one came to draw it. People entered and spoke to him, but
they were all Amiables. There was M. de Duras, rubicund and portly,
with whom one could no more quarrel than with a cask of port; there was
M. de Jussieu, the botanist and friend of Rousseau, beautifully dressed
and carrying a book, his head full of flowers and roots, long Latin
terms and platitudes; there was M. de Champfleuri, eighty years old,
yet with all his teeth, dressed like a May morning, and fragile-looking
as a Dresden china figure. He would damn your soul for the least
trifle, but you could not quarrel with him for fear of breaking him.
There was Monsieur Müller, who was finding his way in Paris as an
exponent—by means of a translator—of the theories of Mesmer. You
could not quarrel with him, as he only knew three words of French.
There were others equally impossible. Ah! if only M. d’Estouteville had
turned up, or Monpavon; Camus or Coigny!
Rochefort turned to the breakfast that was now served to him, and as
he ate continued to grumble. If only some of these people whom he
hated would come, that he might insult them; if only one of Choiseul’s
agents, or even a dozen of them, would come to arrest him, so that he
might fight his way to the door and fight his way out of Paris; but no
one came, till—as he was in the middle of his meal—an inconspicuous
and quietly-dressed man entered, looked round, saw M. de Rochefort
sitting at his breakfast, and came towards him.
It was Lavenne.
Lavenne came up to the table, bowed, and taking an empty chair at the
opposite side of the table, sat down.
“Monsieur de Rochefort,” said Lavenne, “I have come to arrest you.”
He spoke with a friendly smile, and in a manner so urbane, and even
deferential, that Rochefort was quite disarmed. He broke into a laugh
as though someone had told him a good joke, refilled his glass, took a
sip, and placed the glass down again.
“Oh, you have come to arrest me, Monsieur Lavenne; good. But where is
your sword, and where are your assistants?”
“Monsieur,” said Lavenne, “I never carry a sword, and I always act
single-handed.”
“Ah, you always act single-handed—So do I. _Mordieu_! Monsieur
Lavenne, it is a coincidence.”
“Call it a happy accident, monsieur.”
“As how?”
“Simply because, monsieur, that as I come to do you a service, and to
do it single-handed, your thanks will be all mine and I shall not have
to divide it with others.”
“Now, upon my faith,” cried Rochefort, laughing and filling a glass
with wine, “you have a way of putting things which is entirely new;
and what I have observed in you before does not lose in value at all,
I assure you, on further acquaintance. May I offer you this glass of
wine? To your health—a strange wish enough, as I believe before many
minutes are over—as many minutes, in fact, as I take in finishing
my breakfast and rising from this table—I shall have the honour of
spitting you on my sword.”
“To your health, monsieur,” replied Lavenne, perfectly unmoved and
raising the glass to his lips. “One can only do one’s duty, and as it
is my duty to arrest you, I must take the risk of your sword, which I
believe, monsieur, not to be sharper than your tongue to those who have
offended you; a risk which I reckon as slight, inasmuch as I have no
intention of offending you.”
“Eh! no intention of offending me, and yet you talk of arrest!”
“That is the fault of our language, monsieur, which compels us
sometimes to use words which carry unpleasant meanings to express
our thoughts. Now the word Arrest is not a pleasant word, yet in my
mouth and used at this table, it is not unpleasant—It means, in fact,
Protection.”
“And how?”
“It is necessary for you to leave Paris immediately, monsieur—is that
not so?”
“I am going.”
“No, monsieur, you are not. It is absolutely impossible to leave the
walls of Paris, and were you by some miracle to do so, Monsieur de
Choiseul would place his hand on you before you left France.”
“I will risk it.”
“You cannot—It is not a question of risk, it is a question of
certainty. Now, monsieur, you are young, you have forty years more of
good life before you, and you are in great danger of losing them.”
“I do not fear death.”
“Everyone knows that, but it is not death that you have to fear at the
hands of Monsieur de Choiseul; it is something much worse.”
“And that?”
“La Bastille, monsieur. She is a terrible person, who rarely lets go
what she once lays a hold on. You say to yourself, ‘Bah! I will fight
my way from Paris, I will escape somehow.’ Well, I tell you, you will
not. I will prove it to you. Last night, you ordered a horse to be kept
waiting for you at noon to-day a quarter of a mile beyond the Porte St.
Antoine.”
“How do you know that?”
“The Hôtel de Sartines knows everything, monsieur—— Well, Monsieur de
Sartines would be very happy not to interfere with this way of escape
for you, were it not that he knows Monsieur de Choiseul’s plans as well
as yours. In short, monsieur, the Porte St. Antoine is guarded so well
by Monsieur de Choiseul’s orders, that no one can leave Paris even in
disguise; every other gate is guarded as strictly.”
“_Diable_!” said Rochefort. “It seems, then, that I must convert myself
into a bird to fly over the walls.”
“Monsieur de Choiseul would set his falcons on you, monsieur.”
“Into a rat, then, to crawl out through the sewers.”
“The Hôtel de Choiseul contains many cats, monsieur.”
“My faith, that’s true,” cried Rochefort, with a laugh, “since it
contains Madame de Choiseul and her friend, Madame la Princesse de
Guemenée. Well, then, I must stay in Paris. I will go and live with
Monsieur Rousseau and help him to write poetry—or is it music that he
writes?”
“Neither, monsieur—but time is passing, and my business is urgent. I
am here to arrest you, and I call on you, monsieur, to follow me.”
“And where?—to the Bastille?”
“No, monsieur, to Vincennes, where we will hide you away from Monsieur
de Choiseul till this business has blown over, and where you will be
treated as a prisoner, but as a gentleman.”
“But were I to fall in with this mad plan of yours, Monsieur Lavenne, I
would simply be running down Choiseul’s throat, it seems to me. As the
first Minister of France, he will easily find me in Vincennes.”
“No, monsieur, he will not hunt in the prisons for a man whom he
fancies to be running on the roads. Monsieur de Sartines, even, will
have no official knowledge of your arrest. I am not arresting you under
your own name. I have, in fact, mistaken you for one Justin La Porte,
a gentleman under suspicion of conspiracy and of being a frequenter
of certain political clubs. Should Monsieur de Choiseul, by some ill
chance, find you at Vincennes, the whole blame would fall on me. I
would be dismissed the service for my ‘mistake.’”
Rochefort, as he listened to all this, began to take counsel with
himself. His madness and anger against the world had received a
check under the hand of Lavenne. Lavenne was perhaps the only person
in the world who had ever called him to order, thwarted his will
without raising his anger, and made him think. Lavenne himself, in his
person, his manner and his life was a criticism on Rochefort. This
man who never drank—or only sipped half a glass of wine as a matter
of ceremony—who belonged to the people, who dressed soberly, and
whose life was very evidently one of hard work and devotion to duty,
commanded respect just as he commanded confidence. But there was more
than that. Lavenne had about him something of Fate, and an Authority
beyond even that of the Hôtel de Sartines. One could never imagine
this man reasoning wildly or acting foolishly, nor could one very well
imagine him allowing a personal motive to rule his line of action.
There was something disturbing in his calmness, as though one discerned
beneath everything a mechanism moving with the unswerving aim of a
mechanism towards the goal appointed by its constructor.
“Even now, monsieur,” continued Lavenne, “you would have Monsieur de
Choiseul’s hand upon your shoulder had you not, urged by some good
fairy, taken refuge in the very last place where his agents and spies
would look for you; they are ransacking the streets, they are posted at
the gates, they are all hunting for a man who is running away, and you
have outwitted them simply by not running away, but coming to breakfast
at the Café de Régence.”
“And yet you found me,” said Rochefort.
“Because, monsieur, I belong to the Hôtel de Sartines, not to the Hôtel
de Choiseul.”
“Let us be perfectly clear,” said Rochefort. “The agents of Choiseul
are hunting for me, the agents of Sartines are trying to hide me.”
“Not quite so, monsieur: the agents of Choiseul are hunting for you,
and all the agents of the Hôtel de Sartines must assist the agents
of Choiseul if they are called upon by them to arrest Monsieur de
Rochefort. But _one_ agent of the Hôtel de Sartines, that is to say I,
myself, is trying to hide Monsieur de Rochefort, and he is doing so at
the instigation of Monsieur de Sartines.”
“I see,” said Rochefort. “The matter is of such a delicate nature,
that Sartines dare not give a general order to his police to thwart
Choiseul’s men and to hide me, so he entrusts it to one man, and that
man is Monsieur Lavenne.”
“Precisely, monsieur. You have put the whole thing in a nutshell.”
“Well, Monsieur Lavenne, the last time I played chess, it was with
Monsieur de Gondy. I was stalemated by the move of a bishop. To-day,
playing chess with Monsieur de Sartines, I am stalemated by the move
of a knight. You are the knight, Monsieur Lavenne. You have closed in
on me and shown me my position, and I do not kick the board over in a
temper, simply because you have come to me as a gentleman comes to a
gentleman, and spoken to me as a gentleman speaks to a gentleman. I
cannot move, it seems, without being taken by either you or Choiseul.
I prefer you to Choiseul, not so much because you offer me Vincennes
in exchange for La Bastille, but because you are the better gentleman.
Monsieur Lavenne, I place myself and my sword in your hands. Arrest me.”
He rose from the table, flung a louis on the cloth to pay his score.
Then, taking his hat, he left the café with his captor.
In this fashion did de Sartines rope in and tame without
resistance a man whose capture, by Choiseul, might have involved
his—Sartines’—destruction. For Rochefort, angry with the Dubarrys and
incensed against Camille Fontrailles, was now the danger spot in the
surroundings of the Minister of Police, Rochefort and Ferminard—who
was already in the safe custody of Captain Pierre Cousin, the governor
of Vincennes.
CHAPTER V
CAPTAIN ROUX
Lavenne left the café, followed by Rochefort. They passed down the
street to the corner, where, drawn up at the pavement, stood a closed
carriage.
“Monsieur,” said Lavenne, “this is a police carriage, and as such will
be able to leave the Porte St. Antoine—which, as you know, is the gate
leading to Vincennes—without question or examination.”
“So I am to make my escape from the Bastille in a police carriage,”
laughed Rochefort. “Well, let us enter.”
“Pardon me, monsieur, but I cannot go with you. I have to go to your
rooms and make a perquisition, an examination for papers, and so
on. Were I not to do this in person, it would be done by some fool,
perhaps, who might find undesirable things and talk, or play in some
other way into the hands of Monsieur de Choiseul. As for me, you may
trust that I will respect all your private correspondence.”
“It is all burnt, my dear Monsieur Lavenne. However, make what search
you will. But am I to go alone to Vincennes—and what shall I say to
this charming governor you spoke of?”
“No, monsieur, you are to go under strict arrest and masked. Captain
Roux is in the carriage; he is rather dull-witted, but has no tongue,
so he will not bore you.”
“And will I see you at Vincennes?”
“Possibly, monsieur. And now let me say at once that my advice to
you is patience. I do not hide at all from you, monsieur, that I am
your friend. That morning when you invited me to drink wine with you
whilst you breakfasted, showed me a gentleman, whom I am delighted to
be of service to, always remembering that my first services are due
to Monsieur de Sartines, my master. I will look after your interests
whilst not disregarding his. And now, monsieur, into the carriage,
quick, for delay is full of danger here in the open street.”
“I thank you,” said Rochefort, “I have absolute confidence in all
you do and say. Well, _au revoir_, Monsieur Lavenne, and now for the
acquaintance of Monsieur le Capitaine Roux.”
He entered the carriage, the door of which Lavenne had opened.
“Captain Roux,” said Lavenne, “this is the prisoner, La Porte. Whilst
using him as a gentleman, keep him strictly guarded; and, above all,
let no man see his face till he is safely at Vincennes. You have the
mask. Monsieur La Porte will not object to your putting it upon him for
the journey.”
He shut the door and called to the driver, “Vincennes.”
Rochefort, face to face with the redoubtable Captain Roux, broke into a
laugh, which found no echo from the other.
Roux was a stout man who never laughed, an earnest-minded machine, if
I may be allowed the term; he had also, to use Lavenne’s expression,
no tongue. The genius of de Sartines was never better shown than in
his selection of these two men for the arrest of Rochefort—Lavenne to
persuade him to accept arrest and be conveyed to Vincennes, Roux to
convey him.
“Well, Monsieur le Capitaine,” said Rochefort, as the carriage started,
“it seems that we are to make a little journey together.”
“Monsieur,” replied the other, “I wish to be in every way agreeable to
you and so fulfil my orders in that respect, but I am forbidden to talk
to you.”
“And yet you are talking to me, my dear sir.”
“I was only making a statement of my orders, monsieur. And now, if you
will permit me, this is the mask.”
Rochefort took the grey silk mask and examined it, then, with a laugh,
he put it on. It was fixed with strings which tied behind the head, and
he had good reason to thank de Sartines’ forethought in supplying it;
for at the Porte St. Antoine, when the carriage stopped for a moment,
one of the guards, despite the warning of the coachman, pushed aside
the curtain of the window and popped his head in.
“Whom have we here?” said he.
Roux, in reply, struck the man a blow on the face with his clenched
fist.
Then, leaning out of the window, he talked to the guards. He asked them
did they not know a carriage of the Hôtel de Sartines when they saw it,
and spoke to them about their intelligence, questioned their ancestry
and ordered the arrest of the unfortunate, whose nose was streaming
blood. Then he sank back, and the carriage drove on.
“Ah, monsieur,” cried the delighted Rochefort, from behind his mask,
“I have never heard anything quite like that before. I would give the
liberty which I do not possess to be able to curse like that—and they
said you had no tongue! Tell me, was it by training you arrived at this
perfection, or was it a natural gift?”
“Monsieur,” said Roux, “I am forbidden to speak to you.”
The carriage rolled on, leaving the old Hôtel of the Black Musketeers
on the right, and the Bastille and the Porte St. Antoine safely behind.
Rochefort, seated beside his silent companion, said nothing more, at
least with his tongue. The silence of Captain Roux might be a check
to conversation, but it lent itself completely to that form of mental
conversation which Villon has so well exemplified in the Debate between
his heart and body.
Commonsense and M. de Rochefort were having a few words together, and
commonsense was doing most of the talking.
“Well, Monsieur de Rochefort,” said Commonsense, “and here we are in
a police carriage, at last, being driven to his Majesty’s fortress of
Vincennes; and all on account of Politics—that is to say, a woman. You
have known a hundred women, yet they have never succeeded in dragging
you into Politics. How did this one manage it? You lost your heart
to her. That is precisely what happened, and now you have lost your
liberty as well as your heart; next thing, you will lose your estates,
then you will take this Choiseul by the neck and strangle him, and then
you will lose your head—and all through a woman.
“You have made a fool of yourself, Monsieur de Rochefort. Yesterday,
you were free as a butterfly, the whole world lay before you, you did
not know the meaning of the word Liberty. Well, you are to learn the
meaning of that word, and the lesson promises to be a curious one. You
are not Choiseul’s prisoner, you are not Sartines’ prisoner, you are
not even yourself. You are Monsieur La Porte, and you are being tucked
away in Vincennes, hidden, just as a man might hide an incriminating
letter in a desk. Why is Sartines so anxious to hide you? Is it not
that he fears that you may be found, and if this fear does not fade
away in his mind, it is quite on the cards that you may never be found.
“And you can do nothing as yet, only wait. Monsieur Lavenne is your
friend, and it seems to me he is the only friend you have got in the
world.”
Commonsense is sometimes wrong, as in this instance.
It had forgotten Javotte.
Rochefort was aroused from his reverie by the stoppage of the carriage.
They had arrived at the main gate of Vincennes. The great fortress
towered above them, the battlements cutting the sky and showing the
silhouette of a passing sentry against the free blue of heaven.
Rochefort heard the harsh voices of the guards interrogating the
coachman. Then the carriage passed on, rumbling across the drawbridge,
and drew up in the courtyard before the door of the entrance for
prisoners.
Rochefort got out and, following Captain Roux and being followed in
turn by a soldier, passed through the doorway down a corridor to the
reception-room. This was a bleak and formal place, the old guard-room
of the fortress, where the stands for pikes still remained and the
slings for arquebuses; but of pikes and pikemen, arquebuses or
arbalètes, nothing now remained, their places being taken by desks,
books and manuscripts, and a clerk dry as parchment, who was seated
behind one of the desks, and who, having entered all particulars in
a book, handed Captain Roux a receipt for Monsieur de Rochefort, as
though that gentleman had been a bundle of goods.
Roux, having put the receipt in his belt, turned on his heel and,
without a word, left the room. Rochefort, left alone with the clerk and
the soldier, turned to the clerk.
“Well, monsieur,” said Rochefort, “it seems to me that Monsieur le
Capitaine Roux has left his good manners with his tongue at the Hôtel
de Sartines; and he is in such a hurry back to find them that he has
forgotten to introduce us properly. I do not even know your name.”
The clerk wrote something on a piece of paper, and handed it to the
soldier.
“Come, monsieur,” said the soldier, touching Rochefort on the arm.
“Monsieur,” said Rochefort, still addressing the clerk, “there is a
mistake somewhere.”
“In what way?”
“In this way, monsieur. When I consented to come here as the guest of
Monsieur de Sartines, I did so on the understanding that I was to be
treated as a gentleman. I demand to see Captain Pierre Cousin, the
governor of Vincennes.”
“He is absent.”
“When does he return?”
“Monsieur,” said the clerk, “it is not for a prisoner to ask questions.”
“But it is for a clerk to reply. _Mordieu_! it seems to me you do not
know to whom you are talking. Come, your master, when does he return?”
The man of parchment half rose from his chair. Then he sat down again.
He had, in fact, a special despatch from Sartines on his table giving
instructions as to Rochefort’s treatment. He swallowed his anger, and
took a different tone.
“The governor of Vincennes returns this evening; he will be informed
that you wish to see him. And now, monsieur, our interview is ended. I
am busy.”
“Good,” said Rochefort, turning on his heel. Following the soldier, he
left the room.
This same soldier was the gaoler on duty by day, whose business it was
to receive prisoners, accompany them before the governor or clerk,
and then to see them safely incarcerated according to the orders of
the governor. Vincennes was much more of a military prison than the
Bastille. Soldiers were the gaolers, and the day went to the roll of
drums and the blare of bugles, rather than to the clang of bells.
Vincennes was more cheerful than the Bastille, but was reckoned less
healthy. Madame de Rambouillet it was who said that the cell in which
Marshal Ornano died was worth its weight in arsenic; yet of the two
prisons, Vincennes was preferable, if there can be such a thing as
choice between prisons.
Rochefort followed his guide down the corridor, and then up a circular
stone staircase to the floor above. Here they passed down another
corridor, till they reached a door on the right which the sergeant
opened, disclosing a room, barely furnished, yet not altogether
cheerless.
The grated window gave a sweeping view of the country; to the left,
pressing one’s nose against the glass, one could get a glimpse of the
outskirts of Paris; immediately below lay the castle moat, and running
past the moat, the Paris road bordered with poplar trees.
Rochefort went to the window and looked out, whilst Sergeant Bonvallot,
for that was the name of his guardian, dismissed the soldier who had
followed them, closed the door, and began to make arrangements for the
comfort of his visitor.
He inspected the water-pitcher to see if it were filled, the bed
coverings to see if they were thick enough, and the sheets to see
if they were clean. He knew perfectly well that all was in order,
but Rochefort had the appearance of a man who would pay for little
attentions, and they were cheap.
“There, monsieur,” said Bonvallot, when he had finished, “I have
made you as comfortable as I can. Your dinner will be served at five
o’clock, your supper at nine, and should you feel cold a fire is
permitted, also writing materials, should you need them—but for those
you will have to pay.”
Rochefort turned from the window and contemplated his gaoler fully, and
for the first time.
Bonvallot was a large man, with small eyes and a face that suggested
good-humour. He would have made a capital innkeeper.
“Why, upon my word,” said Rochefort, who knew at once how to tackle his
man, “you seem to me an admirable fellow. My own servant could not have
done better, and when I come to leave here, you will not have cause to
regret your efforts on my behalf. Your name?”
“Bonvallot, monsieur.”
“Well, Monsieur Bonvallot, here is a half louis to drink my health, and
when my dinner is served, let me have a bottle of your best Beaune,
and a fire, certainly, there is no companion like a fire, and as for
writing materials, we will see about that to-morrow. Should there be
any books in this old inn of yours, Monsieur Bonvallot, you may bring
them to me. I am not a great reader, but who knows what one may become
with so much time on one’s hands, as it is likely I may have here—Is
your inn pretty full?”
“Fairly so, monsieur,” replied Bonvallot, falling into the vein of the
other. “Though no guests have arrived for some days, still, those who
are here remain a long time.”
“Ah! they could not pay any better compliment to the house. Am I alone
on this corridor?”
“No, monsieur, in the room next to yours there is another guest. _Ma
foi_! he is not difficult to feed either; he seems to live on pens, ink
and paper.”
“He must suffer from indigestion, this guest of yours.”
“I do not know what he suffers from, monsieur, but this I do know: when
I bring him his food he makes me listen to what he has written, which I
cannot understand in the least.”
“Ah, he must be a philosopher, then.”
“I do not know, monsieur. I only know that I do not understand him.”
“Then he is most certainly a philosopher. Well, Monsieur Bonvallot,
I will not keep you from your duties. Do not forget the Beaune; and
presently, perhaps, you will be able to assist me in getting clean
linen and so forth, for I came here in such a hurry, that I forgot to
order my valet to pack my valise.”
“We will arrange about that, monsieur,” replied Bonvallot.
He went out, shutting and locking the door, and Rochefort was left
alone with his thoughts. He walked to the window again and looked out.
Then he opened the glass sash. The walls at the openings of these upper
windows were bevelled, else each window would have been but the opening
of a tunnel six feet long. They were guarded each by a single iron
bar, and the glass sash opened inwardly. Rochefort had as yet no idea
of flight, and he was, perhaps, the only prisoner who had ever looked
through that window without measuring the thickness of the bar, or
estimating the height of the window from the ground.
He was quite content with his position for the moment. Lavenne’s words
were still ringing in his ears, and Lavenne’s face was still before
him. Rochefort had never feared a man in his life, yet Lavenne had
brought him almost to the point of fearing Choiseul.
At bottom, M. de Rochefort was not a fool, and he recognized that
whilst Life and Death are simply toys for a brave man to play with,
imprisonment for life is a thing for the bravest man to dread.
Vincennes was saving him from Choiseul, and as he stood at the window
whistling a tune of the day, he followed Choiseul with his mind’s eye,
Choiseul ransacking Paris, Choiseul posting spies on all the roads,
Choiseul urging on the imperturbable and sphinx-like de Sartines, and
Sartines receiving Choiseul’s messages without a smile.
He was standing like this, when a voice made him start and turn round.
“Monsieur de Rochefort,” said the voice, which sounded as though the
speaker were in the same room as the prisoner.
“_Mon Dieu_!” cried Rochefort. “Who is that speaking, and where are
you?”
“Here, Monsieur de Rochefort, in the next chamber to yours. I heard
your voice and recognized it talking to that fat-headed Bonvallot, and
I said there must be a hole in the wall somewhere to let a voice come
through like that; so I searched for it and found it. The hole is under
my bed. A large stone has been removed, evidently by some industrious
rat of a prisoner, who never could complete his business. Search for
the hole on your side, Monsieur de Rochefort.”
Rochefort pulled his bed out from the wall, and there, surely enough,
was a hole about a foot square in the wainscoting. He lay down on his
face and tried to look through into the next chamber, but the wall was
three feet thick and the head of his interlocutor on the other side
blocked the light, so that he could see nothing.
“Here is the hole,” said he, “but I can see nothing. Who are you?”
“Who am I? Did you not recognize my voice? _Hé, pardieu_, I am
Ferminard. Who else would I be?”
“Ferminard! Just heaven! and what on earth are you doing here?”
“Doing here? I am hiding from Monsieur de Choiseul. What else would I
be doing here?”
“Hiding from Choiseul! Explain yourself, Monsieur Ferminard.”
“Well, Monsieur Rochefort, it was this way. After that confounded
presentation, I had an interview with Monsieur Lavenne, one of Monsieur
de Sartines’ agents, and as a result of that interview, I consented to
place myself under the protection of Monsieur de Sartines for a short
time. You can very well guess, monsieur, the reason why, especially as
it was brought to my knowledge that Monsieur de Choiseul had wind of
my hand in that affair, and was about to search for me.”
“Oho!” said Rochefort. “That is why you are here.”
“Yes, monsieur, and now in return for my confidence, may I ask why you
are in the same position and under the same roof?”
“Well, I am here for just the same reason, Monsieur Ferminard.”
“You are hiding from Monsieur de Choiseul.”
“Precisely.”
“_Mordieu_, that is droll.”
“You think so?”
“It is more than droll. For, see here, Monsieur de Rochefort, we are
two prisoners, we neither of us wish to escape, yet we have the means.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Well, monsieur, I have only been here a very short time, yet, being an
indefatigable worker, the moment I arrived I demanded writing materials
and set to work upon a drama that has long been in my mind. Now it is
my habit when working to walk to and fro and to act, as it were, my
work even before it is on paper.”
“Yes,” said Rochefort, laughing, “I heard you once; go on.”
“Well, monsieur, I chanced to stamp upon the floor whilst impersonating
the character of Raymond, the villain of my piece, and the floor, where
I stamped upon it, sounded hollow. ‘Ah ha!’ said I, ‘what is this?’ I
found a flag loose and raised it, and what did I find there but a hole.”
“Yes?”
“And in the hole, a knotted rope some forty feet long, a staple, and a
big sou.”
“_Ma foi_! But what do you mean by a big sou?”
“Why, monsieur, a big sou is a sou that has been split in two pieces
and hollowed out, then a thread is made round the edges so that the two
halves can be screwed together, so as to form a little box.”
“And what can be held in a box so small?”
“A saw, monsieur, made from a watch-spring, a little thing enough, but
able to cut through the thickest bar of iron.”
“And does your big sou hold such a saw?”
“It does, monsieur.”
“_Ciel_! what a marvel, what industry; and to think that some poor
devil of a prisoner made all that, and got his rope ready, and then
perhaps died or was removed before he could use it!”
“Yes, monsieur, he had everything ready. The thing is a little tragedy
in itself, and is even completed by this hole.”
Rochefort laughed.
“And how can a hole complete a tragedy, Monsieur Ferminard?”
“Why, quite simply, Monsieur de Rochefort. The window in this chamber
is too narrow to permit the passage of a man’s body, so, doubtless, the
prisoner was anxious to reach your chamber. Of what dimensions is your
window?”
“Large enough to get through for an ordinary-sized man.”
“There, you see that the unfortunate was justified, and we may even say
that the unfortunate must have had some knowledge of your chamber and
the dimensions of your window. Well, Monsieur de Rochefort, his labour
was not all lost, for though neither of us wish to escape, we both
wish to talk to the other. We will have much pleasant conversation
together, you and I. Up to this, I have had no one to speak to but
that fat-head of a Bonvallot, a man absolutely destitute of parts,
who does not know the difference, it seems to me, between a tragedy
and a comedy, and to whom a strophe of poetry and the creaking of a
cart-wheel amount to the same thing.”
“I assure you, Monsieur Ferminard, the good Bonvallot and I are much
in the same case. I know nothing about poetry, and I cannot tell a
stage-play from a washing-bill. So in whatever conversations we have
together, let us talk of anything but the theatre.”
“On the contrary, Monsieur de Rochefort, since you confess yourself
ignorant of one of the most sublime branches of art, it will be my
pleasure to open for you the doors of a Paradise where all may enter,
so be that they are properly led. But, hush! I hear a sound in the
corridor. Replace your bed.”
Rochefort rose to his feet and replaced the bed. Scarcely had he done
so, when the door opened, and Bonvallot appeared, bearing some clean
linen, two towels, and some toilet necessaries.
“Here, monsieur,” said Bonvallot, “are several shirts new laundered,
and other articles, which I have scraped together for your comfort.
Half a louis will pay for them.”
“Thanks, put them on the bed; and now tell me, which of the guests of
your precious inn occupied my chamber last.”
“Why, monsieur, this chamber has not had a tenant for two years and a
half. Then it was occupied by Monsieur de Thumery.”
“And what became of Monsieur de Thumery?”
“He was removed to the next chamber, monsieur.”
“Ah, and is he there still?”
“No, monsieur, he died a month ago.”
“What sort of man was he, this Monsieur de Thumery?”
“A very delicate man, monsieur, and very pious—one who scarcely ever
spoke.”
“He never tried to escape, I suppose.”
“Oh, _mon Dieu_! no, Monsieur, he was as gentle as a lamb. He did
nothing but read the lives of the saints.”
“Thank you, and here is your half louis. And what is that book on the
bed?”
“Why, I brought it with the clothes, monsieur, as you said you wished
for books. It belonged to Monsieur de Thumery. It is not much, some
religious book or other—still, it is a book.”
He went off, and Rochefort picked up M. de Thumery’s religious book. It
was the works of François Rabelais, printed by Tollard of the Rue de la
Harpe, in the year 1723.
BOOK III
CHAPTER I
THE POISONING OF ATALANTA
Meanwhile, Lavenne, having watched the carriage containing Rochefort
and Captain Roux taking its departure, turned and took his way to
Rochefort’s rooms in the Rue de Longueville. The Rochefort affair was
only an incident in his busy profession, yet whilst he was upon it, it
held his whole life and ambition in life. He was made in such a manner,
that the moment filled all his purview without blinding him. He could
see the moment, yet he could also see consequences—that is to say, the
future, and causes—that is to say, the past.
In his seven years’ work under Sartines, he had learned the fact
that these social and political cases like that of Rochefort almost
invariably produce, or are allied to, other cases, either engaging
or soon to engage the attention of the police. Even in the spacious
Court of France, people were too tightly packed for one to move in an
eccentric manner without producing far-reaching disturbances, and he
was soon to prove this fact in the case of M. de Rochefort.
Having reached Rochefort’s house, he was admitted by the concierge. He
passed upstairs to the rooms occupied by the Count, ordered the valet
to take his place on the stairs, and should any callers arrive, to
show them up. Then, having shown his credentials as an agent of the
Hôtel de Sartines, he began his perquisition.
There was nothing to find and he expected nothing, yet he proceeded on
his business with the utmost care and the most painstaking minuteness.
In the middle of his work, he was interrupted by the valet, who knocked
at the door.
“Monsieur,” said the valet, “there is a young girl who has called. She
is waiting outside.”
“Ah, she is waiting—well, show her in.”
The man disappeared, and returned in a moment ushering in Javotte.
Lavenne looked up from some papers which he was examining. Javotte’s
appearance rather astonished him. Young, fresh, and evidently
respectable, he could not for a moment place her among possible
visitors to Rochefort. Then it occurred to him that she might be the
maid of some society woman sent with a message, and, without rising
from his seat, he pointed to a chair.
“What is your business here, mademoiselle?” asked Lavenne.
“My business, monsieur, is to pay the last month’s wages of Monsieur de
Rochefort’s valet. I have the money here with me. May I ask whom I have
the pleasure of addressing?”
“You are addressing an agent of the Hôtel de Sartines. Place the money
on the table, mademoiselle, and it shall be handed to the valet. And
now a moment’s conversation with you, please. Who, may I ask, entrusted
you with this commission?”
“Monsieur,” replied Javotte, “that is my business entirely.”
Lavenne leaned back in his chair.
“Mademoiselle, I am going to ask you a question. Are you a friend of
Monsieur de Rochefort?”
“Indeed, I am, monsieur.”
“Well, then, if you are a friend of his, I may tell you that I also am
his friend, though I am, at the present moment, making an examination
of his effects. So in his interests please be frank with me.”
Javotte looked at the quiet and self-contained man before her. Youth
and Innocence, those two great geniuses, proclaimed him trustworthy,
and she cast away her reserve.
“Well, monsieur, what do you want me to say?”
“Just this, I want you to tell me what you know of this gentleman. What
you say may not be worth a _denier_ to me, or it may be useful. You
need say, moreover, nothing to his disadvantage, if you choose. Well?”
“I know nothing to his disadvantage, monsieur. He is the bravest man in
the world, the most kind, and he saved me but the other night from two
men who would have done me an injury——” Then catching fire, she told
volubly the whole story of the occurrence on the night of the Duc de
Choiseul’s ball.
Lavenne listened attentively.
Sartines had already given him Camus’ story of the killing of
Choiseul’s agent. Javotte was now giving him the true story. He
instantly saw the facts of the case, and the character of Camus.
“And you say, mademoiselle, that Monsieur de Rochefort, returning from
the chase of those ruffians, one of whom he killed, by the way, found
Monsieur Camus offering you an insult and struck him to the ground.
Did Monsieur Camus not resent that action?”
“Monsieur, he did nothing, but he turned when he was going away and
shook his finger at Monsieur de Rochefort.”
“Well, Mademoiselle Javotte, one question more: on whose service were
you carrying that letter of which the robbers wished to relieve you?
Speak without fear, whatever you say will do Monsieur de Rochefort no
harm.”
“Monsieur, it was a letter addressed to Madame Dubarry.”
“Ah ha! That is all I wish to know. Well, say nothing of all this
to anyone else, and should you have anything more to communicate to
me, come to my private address, No. 10, Rue Picpus; ask for Monsieur
Lavenne. That is my name. And remember this, as far as it is in my
power, I am the friend of Monsieur de Rochefort.”
“Thank you, monsieur—and may I ask one question? Do you know where
Monsieur de Rochefort is now, and is he safe?”
“I cannot tell you where he is, but I believe he is safe. In fact, I
may be as frank with you as you have been with me, and say he is safe.”
“Thank you, monsieur.”
“One moment,” said Lavenne, as she rose to go. “May I ask your address,
should I by any possibility need it?”
“I am in the service of Mademoiselle Fontrailles, monsieur.”
“Ah, you are in the service of Mademoiselle Fontrailles. Well,
Mademoiselle Javotte, say nothing to anyone of our meeting, say
nothing of our conversation, say nothing of Monsieur de Rochefort;
but keep your eyes and ears open, and if you wish to serve Monsieur de
Rochefort, let me have any news you may be able to bring me concerning
him.”
“Now, I will swear that girl is in love with the Count,” said Lavenne
to himself, when she had departed, “and the Count, according to
my master, is in love with Mademoiselle Fontrailles, who has the
reputation of being incapable of love. Mademoiselle Fontrailles is a
bosom friend of Madame Dubarry, and Madame Dubarry’s letter it was
which caused the agents of Monsieur de Choiseul to attack Mademoiselle
Javotte, and Monsieur de Rochefort to kill one of those precious
agents. Mademoiselle Javotte has already proved to me that Monsieur
le Comte Camus has lied in giving his evidence against Monsieur de
Rochefort. The case widens, like those circles that form when one
throws a stone into a pond. Well, let it continue to widen, and we will
see what we will see.”
He finished his examination of Rochefort’s rooms, paid the valet off,
locked the place up and started for the Hôtel de Sartines.
Monsieur de Sartines was seated in the octagon chamber on the first
floor; he was busy writing at the famous bureau of a hundred drawers,
which contained in its recesses half the secrets of France, and which
had belonged to his predecessor, Monsieur D’Ombreval.
He looked up when Lavenne was announced, finished the letter on which
he was engaged, and then turned to the agent.
“Well,” said de Sartines, “what about Monsieur de Rochefort?”
“He is at Vincennes by this time, monsieur. The affair was a little
difficult, but I made him see reason, and he made no objection to
accompanying Captain Roux. I have examined his rooms and found nothing.
I have also discovered that the evidence given against him by Count
Camus is far from being truthful.”
He told of Javotte and her story in a few words.
“Quite so,” replied Sartines; “and you know perfectly well that it does
not matter a button whether this agent was killed by foul or fair play,
or whether Count Camus has lied or not. The case is just as bad against
Monsieur Rochefort from Monsieur de Choiseul’s point of view, and that
is everything. No matter, we have Rochefort in safe keeping.
“Now to another business. Prepare to start at once for Versailles.
You will inquire into the poisoning of this dog, which has given me
more trouble and annoyance than the poisoning of Monsieur de Choiseul
himself would have given me. I have inquired into it personally. I
have put Valjean on the affair; the matter is as dark as ever, so
just see what you can make of it. Here are all the papers relating
to the business, reports and so forth, study them on the way and use
expedition.”
“Monsieur will give me a free hand in the matter?”
“Absolutely. And here is a thousand francs in gold; you may need money.
Order a carriage for the journey, and tell them not to spare the
horses. I am in a hurry for your report, find wings; but, above all,
find the criminal.”
“Yes, monsieur. It will be a difficult matter. The poisoning of a
man is a simple affair, the evidence simply shouts round it for the
person who has ears to hear. A dog is different. But I will find the
criminal—unless——”
“Unless?”
“Unless, monsieur, the dog poisoned itself by eating some garbage.”
“Oh, no. Atalanta was very delicate in her feeding. No, it was the work
of some scoundrel, of that I am sure.”
“Well, monsieur, we will see,” said Lavenne.
He bowed to the Minister of Police, and left the room.
CHAPTER II
MONSIEUR BROMMARD
De Sartines had no need to urge expedition on Lavenne. Lavenne always
moved as quickly as possible between two points. After the King and
de Sartines, Lavenne was perhaps the best and most quickly served man
in France. The carriages of the Hôtel de Sartines were always ready
and never broke down, the horses of the Hôtel de Sartines never went
lame, the grooms, the veterinary surgeons, and the coachmen employed by
the Ministry of Police, were men who had been tried and tested, men,
moreover, who knew that drunkenness, insubordination or neglect would
be visited by imprisonment, not dismissal.
The Minister of Police knew the value of speed, and since the safety of
France might depend upon the horses of the Minister of Police, he did
not boast when he made the statement that his horses were the swiftest
in France.
In five minutes’ time, after giving the order, Lavenne was seated in
a closed carriage drawn by two powerful Mecklenburg horses, and the
carriage was leaving the courtyard of the Hôtel de Sartines and taking
its way towards the Faubourg St. Honoré. During the journey, Lavenne
studied the papers given to him by his master, pages and pages of
reports. One might have fancied that the matter had to do with the
assassination of an emperor, rather than the poisoning of a dog.
Lavenne read the whole of these papers and reports carefully, and then,
folding them, placed them in his pocket.
According to them, everyone possible in connection with Versailles, the
Trianons, and even with Luciennes, had been questioned and examined
without result. The whole thing seemed to Lavenne rather clumsy. This
questioning of individuals could bring little result. To the question,
“Did you poison the dog?” could come but one answer, “No.” And the
poisoner was unlikely to have acted in the presence of a witness. The
thing that did strike Lavenne as peculiar, was the fact that there had
been no accusations; it was just the case for false accusations, yet
there were none.
At Versailles, having ordered the carriage to be kept in waiting, he
crossed the park to the Trianons. Arrived at the Grand Trianon, he
walked round to the kitchen entrance. Here there was great bustle
and movement, goods arriving from tradesmen in Versailles and being
received by the steward, scullions darting hither and thither, and
everyone talking. In the kitchen, it was the same.
Lavenne knew everyone, or at least was known by everyone, especially
by Brommard, the master cook, who, magnificent in paper cap and white
apron, was directing operations.
“Ah, Monsieur Lavenne,” said Brommard, “and what happy chance brings
you here to-day?”
“Why, I had some business at the Petit Trianon, and I just walked
across to see if you were alive and well. _Ma foi_! Monsieur Brommard,
but you are not growing thinner these days.”
Brommard heaved a sigh.
“No, Monsieur Lavenne, I am not growing thinner, though if worry made
a man thin, I would be a rake, what between tradesmen who do not send
provisions in time and cooks who spoil them when they arrive. I have
to supervise everything, and I have only two eyes instead of the two
hundred that I require.”
“Well, Monsieur Brommard, we all have our worries, even his Majesty,
who, I fear, is in trouble over the death of his favourite hound,
Atalanta.”
Brommard made a motion with his hand.
“Oh, _ma foi_! don’t speak to me about that business. Why, Monsieur
Lavenne, I was had up myself and questioned on the matter by Monsieur
de Sartines. As though I had poisoned the brute! I said to him, ‘I know
nothing of the matter, but since Atalanta was served every day at the
King’s table when he was at Versailles, she may have died of Ribot’s
cookery’; for Ribot, as you know, is now the chef at Versailles, a
gentleman who stole the recipe of my Sauce Noailles and gave it forth
under the name of Sauce à la Ribot. Put his name to my sauce! God’s
death, Monsieur Lavenne, a man who will steal another man’s sauce is
not above poisoning another man’s dog. Not that I accuse Ribot, poor
fool; he has not the spirit to poison a louse, and they say his wife
beats him with his own rolling-pin. I accuse him of nothing but theft
and stupidity, certainly not of poisoning his Majesty’s dog wilfully.
Besides, Monsieur Lavenne, the dog was not poisoned, in my opinion.”
“Give us your opinion, Monsieur Brommard.”
“Well, it is this way, Monsieur Lavenne—What does all cookery rest
on?”
“I am sure I don’t know, unless it is the shoulders of the chef.”
“No, Monsieur Lavenne, all cookery rests on an egg. The egg is the
atlas that supports the world of gastronomy, the chef is the slave
of the egg. Think, Monsieur Lavenne, what is the masterpiece of
French cookery, the dish that outlives all other dishes, the thing
that is found on his Majesty’s table no less than upon the tables
of the Bourgeoisie, the thing that is as French as a Frenchman, and
which expresses the spirit of our people as no other article of food
could express it—the Omelette. Could you make an Omelette without
breaking eggs? Aha! tell me that. Then cast your mind’s eye over this
extraordinary Monsieur Egg and all his antics and evolutions. Now he
permits himself to be boiled plain, and even like that, without frills,
naked and in a state of nature, he is excellent, for you will remember
that the Marquis de Noailles, when he was dying and almost past food,
called for what?—an egg, plainly boiled.
“Now he consents to appear in all ways from poached to _perdu_—an
excellent recipe for which is to be found in my early edition of the
works of Taillevent, who, as you know, was master-cook to his Majesty
King Charles V.
“Now he is the soul of a _vol-au-vent_, now of a sauce; not a pie-crust
fit to eat but stands by virtue of my lord the egg, and should all the
hens in the world commit suicide, to-morrow every chef in France worthy
of the name would fall on his spit, as Vatel fell on his sword, and
with more reason, for fish is but a course in a dinner, whereas the egg
is the cement that holds all the castle of cookery together.”
“_Pardieu_, Monsieur Brommard,” said Lavenne, laughing, “you are
quite a philosopher, and I shall certainly take off my hat to the next
hen I meet. But, tell me, what has an egg to do with the poisoning of
Atalanta?”
“Nothing, Monsieur Lavenne; God forbid that it should. I was about to
say that, just as all cookery stands on an egg, so does the whole world
stand on commonsense; and it is not commonsense to think that any man
would poison Atalanta, who was a gentle beast, on purpose to spite his
Majesty. Atalanta, in my opinion, poisoned herself. Dogs are not like
cats. If you will observe, a cat is very nice in her feeding. Offer her
even a piece of fish, and she will sniff it to make sure that it is in
good condition and not poisonous, before she will touch it. Whereas
dogs eat everything.”
“Dogs eat roses,” said a small voice.
It was Brommard’s little son, who, dressed in a white cap and apron,
was serving his apprenticeship as a scullion. He had drawn close to his
father, and had listened solemnly to the discourse about eggs.
Brommard glanced down and laughed, then he excused himself for a moment
to supervise the work of one of the under-cooks, who was larding a fowl.
“Oh,” said Lavenne, “dogs eat roses, do they? And how do you know?”
“Monsieur,” said the child, “I have seen Atalanta, the beautiful dog
of his Majesty, snap at a rose. I told my father when they were saying
that Atalanta was poisoned, and I said that I had seen Atalanta eat a
rose, and that perhaps the rose had killed her, and he laughed. But
dogs do eat roses.”
“And where did you see Atalanta eat this rose?”
“It was near Les Onze Arpents, monsieur. A gentleman and a lady were
walking together, and he was holding a rose in his hand. The rose was
hanging down, so, and the dog, who was following them, sniffed at the
rose and then bit it.”
“Yes—yes?”
“Well, monsieur, the gentleman, when he saw what the dog had done,
threw the rose away behind his back into some bushes; the lady did not
see, she was talking and laughing.”
“What day was this?”
“The day before Atalanta died, monsieur.”
“What was the gentleman like?”
“Very ugly, monsieur, and pitted with the smallpox.”
“And the lady?”
“Oh, I don’t know, monsieur, but she walked with a limp.”
“Ah, well,” said Lavenne, “dogs may eat roses, but roses do not poison
dogs; so I would advise you to forget what you saw, or the ugly
gentleman may be angry with you. You seem a bright boy, and here is
something to buy sweets with. You are learning to be a cook, I suppose?”
“Monsieur,” said the child, gravely, “I am a cook. I can lard a fowl
and make an omelette and a mayonnaise, and I have committed to memory
the rules and recipes of twenty-three sauces out of the two hundred
and twenty-three that my father knows. Yet, all the same, I must serve
my apprenticeship as a scullion, cleaning pots and pans and preparing
vegetables and fish and game. But I do not grumble.”
Little Brommard—destined to be the cook of Napoleon—put the coin
Lavenne had given him in his pocket, and, thanking the latter, went
off to supervise another scullion who was at work on some vegetables,
whilst Lavenne, bidding good-bye to Brommard _père_, took his departure.
He took a side-path that led to the cottage of the chief gardener of
Trianon.
That official happened to be in, and Lavenne invited him to put on his
hat and to come out for a moment’s conversation.
“Well, Monsieur Lavenne, what can I do for you?” said the man, putting
on his coat as he came out, and latching the door behind him.
“You can get a spade and take me to the place where you buried the dog
belonging to his Majesty. I see by the report that you were ordered to
bury it.”
“You mean Atalanta, monsieur?”
“The same.”
The gardener, without a word, went to the tool-house by the cottage
and took out a spade, then, shouldering the spade, he led the way to a
clear space amidst some bushes.
“Now,” said Lavenne, “dig me up the remains of the animal. I wish to
examine them.”
The gardener did as he was told, and Lavenne, on his knees, made a
minute examination of the mouth of the dog. The body of the animal,
lying in a light, dry soil, showed no trace of putrefaction, being, so
the gardener said, as fresh as when he buried it.
Lavenne, having finished his inspection, rose to his feet, dusted
the soil from his knees, and having paid the man liberally for his
trouble, took his way to where the carriage was waiting to convey him
back to Paris. On the journey, he made some notes with a pencil in his
pocket-book.
He had discovered the poisoner of Atalanta. Led by the luck that
sometimes attends genius, or perhaps by the commonsense which made him
conduct his inquiry, not by direct interrogation, but by conversation
on things in general, he had accomplished in a few hours what Sartines
had failed to accomplish in several days.
Arrived at the Hôtel de Sartines, he found his master absent and
Monsieur Beauregard acting in his stead. Beauregard was a big,
fine-looking man, one of the best swordsmen in France, fearless and
honest, but not of the highest intelligence as far as detective work
was concerned. Nor did Sartines use him for that business. Sartines
had made Beauregard his chief of staff because the latter had all the
qualities of a good organizer, the fidelity of a hound, and the rigid
business methods in which Sartines was lacking. He was also a fine
figure of a man, and so upheld the dignity of his position in the eyes
of the Court and the populace.
Beauregard was a great friend of Lavenne.
“So his Excellency is out,” said Lavenne. “Well, that is a pity, as I
have some news for him, and a request to make.”
“And the news?” said Beauregard.
“The news is, simply that I have found an indication as to the poisoner
of Atalanta.”
“Oh, _mon Dieu_! My dear Lavenne, if you can only put your finger on
that person, you will own the thanks of the entire staff. It is not
that a dog has been poisoned, or that the dog is the favourite dog of
the King, or rather, I should say, was the favourite dog of the King.
It is that the Hôtel de Sartines has been put to shame by a small
matter like this. Other failures one can hush up; other failures,
though, indeed, we make few enough, are forgotten; but the smell of
this business seems to permeate everywhere; and the thing will not be
forgotten, simply because it is so small that it gives such a splendid
field for the little wits of Paris and the Court to exercise themselves
in.”
“Well, Captain Beauregard,” said Lavenne, “the poisoning of Atalanta,
though seemingly a small enough affair, will, if I am not greatly
mistaken, be the centre of an affair big enough to satisfy even the
Hôtel de Sartines. I hope to put my hand on the poisoner, and in doing
so to clear Monsieur de Rochefort from the charge of being an assassin,
and also I hope to save a woman’s life.”
“_Mordieu_!” said Beauregard, “you are going to do a great many clever
things, then—— Tell me, am I in your secret?”
“Why, yes, I don’t mind letting you know what is in my mind, though you
know how I hate telling of what I propose to do or propose to find. As
a matter of fact, you are the only man in France to whom I can talk,
and yet feel that I have not lost energy in so doing; for it is a
strange thing, but once one opens one’s mind to an ordinary person, a
blight seems to creep in on the precious thoughts, hopes or ambitions
that one cherishes in darkness. And I will tell you why it is different
with you. You do not criticize or throw doubts upon budding fancies.
Were I to open my mind to Monsieur de Sartines quite fully, he would
put his hand in and take out my most precious thoughts, turn them over,
criticize them, throw cold water upon them, perhaps, and put them
back—then they would be dying—or dead.”
“I do not criticize you, Lavenne, because I have a lively feeling that
any criticism of mine would be an impertinence, at least on the work
of so close a reasoner as you are. Tell me, then, and I will repeat
nothing—Who was the poisoner of Atalanta?”
“Count Camus.”
Beauregard whistled.
“And who is the lady whose life you are going to save?”
“The Comtesse Camus.”
“The man’s wife?”
“Precisely.”
“Good God!—and how is it threatened?”
“By poison.”
“And who is the prospective poisoner?”
“Count Camus.”
“Just heavens! Tell me, for I am vastly interested, how you found this
out?”
“A few days ago—or, to be more precise, the day after Count Camus had
returned from a hunting expedition with Monsieur de Rochefort, he was
walking with his wife in the grounds of Trianon. He had brought with
him a prepared rose.”
“A prepared rose?”
“A rose poisoned with one of those subtle poisons, whose secret was
brought to France by the Italians in the time of King Charles IX. Once
prepared, these roses have to be kept under cover, enclosed in a box.
So kept, their virtue, or rather their vice, remains unimpaired for a
considerable time, but once removed from the box, it disappears in the
course of a few hours.”
“Yes, yes, but what is their power, and how is it used?”
“Quite simply. The person who smells the perfume of the rose dies.”
“Dies, simply from the perfume?”
“Absolutely, and as certainly as though he had drunk the Aqua Tofana of
the Florentines.”
“Go on.”
“Well, our man, walking with his wife in the grounds of the Trianon
close to Les Onze Arpents, took this rose from its box unseen by his
companion, and carrying it very gingerly, you may be sure, by the tip
of the stalk with the flower hanging downwards, was about to present
it laughingly to her, when Atalanta, who was following them, out of
caprice, or playfulness, or perhaps attracted by something in the scent
of the flower, made a snap at it. Camus, on feeling what had happened,
threw the ruined flower away behind his back into some bushes—and
Atalanta paid the penalty instead of the lady.”
“You are sure of this?”
“Absolutely.”
“Can you prove it against the Count?”
“Not in the least. Or, that is to say, not effectually. I could cover
him with suspicion, but that is useless.”
“How, then, do you propose to proceed?”
“Ah, my dear captain, if I were to tell you that, I would tell you what
I don’t exactly know.”
“You don’t know what you are going to do?”
“Pardon me. I do, but not in an exact manner. But I will tell you this.
My first move is to get into the house of Count Camus.”
“On a warrant from de Sartines?”
“Heavens, no, as a servant. We have a man in all the important houses,
and I believe one in the house of the Count.”
“Certainly we have. You know that Sartines suspects him, and where
suspicion goes there our servants go also. Stay.” He rang a bell.
When a clerk answered the summons, he gave him an order, and the clerk
returned in a few minutes with a huge book, bound in vellum and with a
brass lock.
Beauregard took a bunch of keys from his pocket, selected one and
opened the book.
He turned to the pages marked C, and ran his finger down the first
column for the space of three inches.
“Yes. Jumeau is acting as pantry-man in the service of the Count.”
“He is almost useless,” said Lavenne; “but let us be thankful that
he is there. Now let us send at once, and tell him that his mother
is dying and that he must come at once; his cousin—that is to say,
myself—is ready to take on his duties. As the cousin, I will take the
message myself. I have just left the service of Monsieur—shall we say,
Monsieur Gaston Le Roux?—he belongs to us. You will send a man round
to him at once for a testimonial. The pantry-man’s duty is to look
after the plate, to clean it, keep it in order, be responsible for it,
and to do a few light duties.”
“Very well,” said Beauregard, “all that shall be done.”
“And now,” said Lavenne, “I must go and dress for the part, and in an
hour, when the testimonial arrives, I will be ready. Let it be dated
last month, and let it be for two years’ service. I may not even want
it at all; they will be very glad, I should think, to accept Jumeau’s
cousin’s service whilst Jumeau is seeing after his sick mother, and so
save themselves the trouble of doing without a servant or hunting for
one. Still, it is as well to be prepared at all points.”
“Yes, you are right,” said Beauregard. “Well, good luck to you.”
Lavenne took his departure and hurried round to his rooms in the Rue
Picpus. It was now seven o’clock in the evening. It had been a busy day
for him, but the work of that day was not over yet. When he arrived at
the house in the Rue Picpus, he found someone waiting for him. It was
Javotte.
“Monsieur,” said Javotte, “when I spoke to you this morning, I did
not tell you quite all that I knew about the affairs of Monsieur de
Rochefort. There was something I held back, and I would like to tell
you it now.”
“Come in,” said Lavenne, with a smile. The eternal feminine was the
same in his day as ours—that is to say, it might be summed up in the
same words: “The animal with a postscript.”
CHAPTER III
CHOISEUL’S LETTER
Lavenne inhabited very modest apartments in the Rue Picpus, a street
of that old Paris which, always dying and vanishing, never seems quite
to die, which showed the towers of Philip Augustus to the people who
lived in the time of Charles V. and the old houses of Louis XI. to
the subjects of Louis XV., which shows, even to-day, glimpses of the
remotest past in odd corners left unswept by the tide of Time.
The room into which he ushered Javotte was as old as the street and
house that contained it. Beamed and wainscoted, its only furniture
a few chairs, a table, a stove and a number of volumes piled on a
shelf, it had, still, a fairly comfortable appearance. Rooms have
personalities, and there are some rooms tolerable to live in even when
stripped almost bare of furniture, others intolerable, furnish them how
you please. Lavenne’s belonged to the first order.
He took his seat at the table, pointed out a chair to Javotte, and
ordered her in a good-humoured way to be quick with her business, as he
had a pressing matter on hand.
“It is this way, monsieur,” said Javotte. “I did not tell you all this
morning, simply because what I left untold relates to an affair of
which I am rather ashamed in one way, and not the least ashamed of in
another.”
“And this affair?”
“Relates to the opening of a letter addressed by Monsieur de Choiseul
to a lady in Compiègne.”
“And who opened the letter?”
“I did, monsieur.”
“And how did it fall into your hands?”
Javotte explained how Rochefort had found it in the saddle-bag of the
horse he had used in his escape from Versailles.
“He would not open it himself, monsieur. He gave it to me to deliver to
the lady at Compiègne; when I said to him, ‘Monsieur de Choiseul would
open the letter were it one of yours,’ he only replied—‘You see, I am
not Monsieur de Choiseul, but simply Monsieur de Rochefort.’ That was
the reply of a great noble; but I, monsieur, am simply a servant, and,
what is more, the servant of Monsieur de Rochefort’s interests, seeing
that he saved me from those men of Monsieur de Choiseul, who might have
killed me. I do not love Monsieur de Choiseul and——”
“You do love Monsieur de Rochefort,” finished Lavenne, with a laugh.
Javotte flushed, her eyes sparkled, as though the words had been an
insult, then she calmed down.
“Perhaps you are right, monsieur, perhaps you are wrong. In any case,
my feelings have nothing to do with the matter.”
“Pardon me,” said Lavenne, “you are right. I have been indiscreet. Let
us forget it—and accept my apology. Now, as to this letter. May I ask
you to tell me its contents?”
“I can do better, monsieur, I can show you the letter itself.”
She took the letter from her breast and handed it to Lavenne, who
spread it open on the table before him and began to read, his elbows
upon the table and his head between the palms of his hands.
It was a terrible document for Choiseul to have put his name to.
Written in a moment of fury immediately after the presentation of
Madame Dubarry, it consisted of only twelve lines. Yet it told of the
failure of his plot against Dubarry, and it spoke of the King in a
sentence that was at once indecent and almost treasonable.
“_Mordieu_!” said Lavenne. “What a letter! What a letter! What a
letter!” He glanced at the back of it, then he cast his eyes again over
the contents.
It will be remembered that Choiseul was the enemy of Sartines, and
that the overthrow of Choiseul was, at that moment, the central desire
of the heart of Sartines. Lavenne knew this fact, and he knew that
the weapon lying before him on the table was of so deadly a nature,
that were he to hand it to his master, both honour and money would be
handed to him in return; he was no opportunist, however, nor could the
prospects of personal advantage blind him to the fact that the weapon
before him on the table was not his to sell. It belonged to Javotte. To
serve Rochefort, she had sullied her integrity by opening Choiseul’s
letter; trusting to Lavenne, she had brought him the letter, and not
a man, perhaps, in the Hôtel de Sartines other than Lavenne but would
have put her off with promises or threats and carried the letter to his
master, after the fashion of a dog retrieving game.
But Lavenne was not a common man. With a villain, he would use every
art and subtlety; but with the straightforward and simple, he was
always honest and straightforward. Your modern police or political
agent is supposed to be a man who excels in his profession according
to his capacity for the detection of crime; this is but a half truth,
for the detection of innocence is just as important to the police
agent, and to feel the innocence in others one requires a mind that can
attune itself to innocence as well as to villainy. A mind, in other
words, that can keep its freshness, even though its possessor dwells on
the dust-heap of crime.
Lavenne could not betray Javotte over this matter without running
contrary to his nature. He recognized at once that this weapon, when
it was used, would have to be used in defence of Rochefort, not in
furtherance of the desires of Sartines. He recognized, also, that with
this weapon both purposes might be served; Rochefort might be defended
and Sartines’ ambition furthered at the same stroke. But the time had
not yet come, and even when it did arrive, this lethal instrument
would require to be used by a master hand. Turning to Javotte, he gave
her, in the course of five minutes, his whole opinion on the business,
showing her his whole mind on the matter with a frankness which she
knew by instinct to be genuine.
“And you will keep that letter, then, monsieur?”
“With your permission, I will keep it, and I will use it, if use it I
must, to further the interests both of Monsieur de Rochefort and of my
master. But I promise you, it shall be used in Monsieur de Rochefort’s
interests first.”
“Very well, then, monsieur,” replied Javotte. “I will leave it with
you.”
Then she took her departure, and Lavenne, placing the letter in a
secret compartment of the panelling, began to dress for the part he was
to play in the household of Count Camus.
CHAPTER IV
THE DECLARATION OF CAMUS
Javotte, when she left the Rue Picpus, took her way to the Rue de
Valois. It will be remembered that Camille Fontrailles had slept at the
Dubarrys’ house in the Rue de Valois, and as Javotte was now in her
service, she had to follow her mistress.
Immediately on Rochefort quitting her that morning, she had gone to the
Rue de Valois, helped her mistress to dress, and then slipped out on
her mission to Rochefort’s rooms, where she had first met Lavenne.
Troubled in mind at not having made a clear breast of the affair about
Choiseul’s letter, and feeling sure that Lavenne would be the best
person to help Rochefort in that matter, she had slipped out again at
half-past six. She was now returning to help her mistress to dress for
the evening.
An ordinary girl, knowing that the Dubarrys were the enemies of
Choiseul, would have put the letter in their hands; but Javotte had a
mind of her own, and a knowledge of Court life, and the Dubarrys in
particular, which prevented her from putting the slightest trust in any
person belonging to the Court, and more especially in the Dubarrys.
She knew that were they to use the letter against Choiseul, they would
do so in their own interests, not in the interests of Rochefort. How
right she was in this, we shall presently see.
When she arrived at the Hôtel Dubarry, she found the house _en fête_.
The Countess was not there, she was still at Versailles, but Chon and
Jean were in evidence, and they were receiving friends to supper; and
amongst those friends, who should be first and foremost but Count
Camus. The man who had engineered, or partly engineered, the plot
against the presentation was among the first to call on Jean that day
to congratulate him on the success of the Countess. Jean had received
him with open arms. Nothing pleased Jean better now than to smooth
things over, and make up to the Choiseul faction. The Countess had
triumphed; she had beaten Choiseul, and she would break him. The duel
was not over by any means, but she had scored the first hit, and it was
politic to smile on Choiseul and his followers, just as Choiseul and
his followers had found it politic to kiss her hand on the night of her
triumph.
“Come to supper this evening, my dear fellow,” said Jean. “I am
expecting one or two people. Madame de Duras and a few others. Have I
heard about Rochefort?—no, what about him?”
Camus told, in a few words, of Rochefort’s crimes, and of how he had
escaped the night before just as he, Camus, had laid his hand upon him
in the name of Choiseul.
“I always said he was a mad fool,” replied Jean; “and has he escaped
for good?”
“Oh, _mon Dieu_, no,” said Camus, “not whilst there is a frontier.
Choiseul is scouring the roads, Paris is watched, and a reward of a
thousand louis is offered for him, dead or alive.”
“Well, if he is taken dead, we will be saved from his future
_gasconades_,” said Jean.
“I would sooner he were taken alive,” replied Camus, “for I have a very
particular desire to see that gentleman hanged; and hanged he will be,
if I know anything of the mind of Choiseul.”
Jean Dubarry showed Camus out, and opened the door for him with his own
hand. He would not have minded the hanging of Rochefort in the least,
if Rochefort could only be hanged before he could speak his mind and
tell his tale; but he greatly dreaded the catching of Rochefort by
Choiseul, and comforted himself with the thought that Rochefort must
now be in the safe custody of the governor of Vincennes.
At eight o’clock, the first of the guests arrived in the person of
Madame de Duras. Chon Dubarry and Camille Fontrailles were waiting to
receive her, and Jean entered just as Camus was announced; on the heels
of Camus came M. de Joyeuse, a young fop and spendthrift, and scarcely
had he entered when the wheels of Madame d’Harlancourt’s carriage were
heard in the courtyard. She came in with M. d’Estouteville, whom she
had brought with her.
Jean Dubarry was as pleased to receive d’Estouteville as he had been
to welcome Camus. Nothing could underscore the Countess’s success
more deeply than the evident anxiety of these members of the Choiseul
faction to be well with her.
“_Mordieu_!” said Jean to himself, “Choiseul himself will be coming
next—well, let us wait and see.”
He was in the highest spirits, complimenting Madame d’Harlancourt on
her appearance, jesting with Joyeuse, with a word for everyone except
Camus, who was deep in conversation with Camille Fontrailles.
“Ah, mademoiselle,” Camus was saying, “it seems an age since I met you
at Monsieur de Choiseul’s, and yet, by the almanac, it was only the
other night.”
“Why, monsieur, since that night so many things have happened, that the
time may well seem long—the Presentation, for instance.”
“Ah, yes, the Presentation,” said Camus, with a laugh. “We have all
been deeply absorbed by that event.”
“Deeply,” said Camille.
“You are a friend of the Countess, mademoiselle?”
“Absolutely, monsieur.”
“Well,” said Camus, with an air of the greatest ingenuousness, “I have
not been her friend. I have never been her enemy, still, I must confess
I have not been her friend in the strict sense of the word. Court life
is like a game of chess, and I daresay you are aware that, during the
last few days, a great game of chess has been going forward between my
friend Choiseul and the Countess. I was on Choiseul’s side all through
it; I even helped in some of the moves. She won, and I must say her
courage has made me her admirer.”
“And not her friend?”
“Mademoiselle, I am the friend of Monsieur de Choiseul, and I do not
easily separate myself from my friends. Still, I am content to remain
his friend, and yet to stand aside and take no part in any further move
that he may make against the Countess.”
“And why, monsieur, do you impose this inaction upon yourself?”
“Simply for this reason. I cannot take an active part in any move
against a person who is a friend of yours.”
“And why not, monsieur?”
“Ah, you ask me a question now that is very difficult to answer.”
“How so?”
“Because the reply may make you angry.”
“Then you had better not answer the question, monsieur.”
“On the contrary, it is better to say what is in my mind, since to
leave it unsaid would be an act of cowardice, and it is better that we
should both know a secret that is tormenting me like fire. I cannot act
against a friend of yours, simply for this reason—I have learned to
love you.”
He had risen before finishing the sentence, and at the last word,
bowing profoundly, he moved away to where Jean, de Joyeuse and Madame
d’Harlancourt were talking together, and joined in their conversation.
Camille followed him with her eyes. He had attracted her at the ball,
his action against Madame Dubarry had turned her against him, his
frank confession of the part he had taken had somewhat modified her
resentment, his declaration that in future he would remain neutral had
modified it still more; his declaration of love had stunned her.
He was a married man.
The thing amounted to an insult, yet she did not feel insulted, nor did
she feel angry; her being was stirred to its depths for the first time
in her life. Unconscious of the fact that a declaration of love from
Camus had about as much meaning as a declaration of pity from a tiger,
or perhaps half-conscious of it, she was held now by the mesmerism of
the man, and sat watching him as he conversed with the others; till
Madame de Duras, coming up to her, broke the spell.
At supper, her eyes kept continually meeting those of Camus, and she
was half conscious of the fact that a wordless conversation was going
on between her almost unwilling mind and the mind of the Count.
Men like Camus do most of their murderous work against women without
speech. They have the art of making women think about them, and they
know that they have the art.
Camus all that evening kept aloof from the girl to whom he had made his
declaration of love. He wore a brooding and meditative air at times. He
knew that she was observing him closely, and he acted the part of the
eternal lover to perfection.
Yet, despite his acting, he was desperately in earnest.
When the card-tables were being set out, it was found that Camille had
vanished from the room. She did not appear again that night.
CHAPTER V
THE HOUSE OF COUNT CAMUS
Meanwhile, Lavenne, when Javotte had taken her departure, set out on
the business of dressing himself for the part he was about to perform.
In a cupboard opening off his bedroom he had all sorts of disguises,
from the dress of an abbé to the rags of a beggar-man. He was a master
in the art of disguise, and knew quite well that every profession and
station in life has its voice and manner and walk, as well as its
dress; that dress, in fact, is only part of the business of disguise,
deportment, manner and voice being equally essential, and even perhaps
more so.
In fifteen minutes, or less, he had converted himself into a perfect
representation of a servant out of a place, slightly seedy, and seeking
a situation. Then, having glanced round his rooms to see that all was
in order, he locked his door, put the key in his pocket and started for
the Hôtel de Sartines. Here he received the written character, which
had been prepared for him under the name of Jouve, and he started for
Camus’ house in the Rue du Trône.
It was a large house, decorated in the Italian style, and the
_concierge_, who opened to Lavenne’s ring, did not receive him too
civilly; but he passed him on to the kitchen premises, and here
Lavenne, finding Jumeau, gave him the news of his mother’s mortal
illness; and the distress of Jumeau was so well done and so natural,
that Lavenne formed a better opinion of his capabilities than he had
hitherto held, and made a mental note of the fact, afterwards to be
incorporated in a report to de Sartines.
Jumeau, having dried his eyes, took Lavenne down a passage and,
lighting a candle, drew him into the small bedroom which he occupied,
and which was situated immediately beside the plate pantry. Jumeau had
not only to clean the plate, but to act as a watchdog at night in case
of thieves.
When the bedroom door was closed, Lavenne turned to Jumeau:
“Have you anything to report?”
“No, Monsieur Lavenne, nothing political at all has taken place in the
house. Monsieur de Sartines told me to be especially watchful of any
friends of Monsieur de Choiseul, or messengers, and to do my utmost
to intercept any letter from the Duc. Not a scrap of paper of that
description have I seen.”
“Well, you have done your duty evidently with care, and I shall note
that in my report. I have come to take your place, as you guessed
by this; so now take yourself off to the major-domo, get leave of
absence to see your mother, and say that your cousin, Charles Jouve, is
prepared to take your place, that he is an excellent servant, and has
the highest testimonials; then come back here and tell me what he says.”
“Yes, Monsieur Lavenne.”
“What sort of a man is this major-domo, and what is his name?”
“His name is Brujon, Monsieur Lavenne, and he is rather stupid, fond
of talk, and very fond of his glass of wine.”
“Good! He is a gossip?”
“You may say that.”
“Well, off you go; and use all your wits, now, so that he may accept me
in your place.”
Jumeau left the bedroom, closing the door behind him, and Lavenne sat
on the bed waiting his return, and glancing about him at the poorly
furnished room, dimly lit by a candle tufted with a “letter,” like a
miniature cauliflower.
In five minutes, Jumeau returned.
“Well,” said Lavenne, “what luck?”
“The best, Monsieur Lavenne. He is in a good humour. He asked me all
sorts of questions as to my mother, spoke of filial duty and gave me
leave of absence for three days. He wishes to see you.”
Lavenne rose from the bed.
“Let us go at once, then,” said he, “before his good-humour changes.
Lead the way, introduce me to him, and then say nothing more. I will do
the talking.”
They left the room.
Monsieur Brujon’s office was situated on the same floor, that is to
say, the basement.
It was a fairly large room, with an old bureau in one corner, where
Monsieur Brujon kept his receipted bills, his correspondence, his
keys and a hundred odds and ends that had no place in a bureau; old
playbills, ballades, wine labels, a questionable book or two, corks,
shoe-buckles and so forth.
He was a character, Monsieur Brujon. Untidy as his bureau, stout,
rubicund, with a fatherly manner and an eye for a pretty girl, he was a
fine example of the old French servant that flourished in feudal times,
the servant who became a part of the family, drank his master’s wine,
knew his master’s secrets, and through other servants of his kind the
secrets of half the town or countryside where he lived.
“Ah,” said Brujon, “this is the young man who has come to take your
place. He has some knowledge of his work, then?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“In whose service did you say he was last?”
“Monsieur,” said Lavenne, “I was in the service of Monsieur Le Roux,
and to expedite matters, I have brought with me the testimonial that he
gave me on my leaving him?”
“And why did you leave him?”
“Oh, monsieur,” said Lavenne, remembering Monsieur Brujon’s instinct
for gossip, “it was not that he had any fault to find with me, or I
with him; it was on account of madame.”
“Eh, madame! Had she a temper, then?”
“It was not her temper so much as other things, monsieur.”
Monsieur Brujon read the testimonial and expressed himself satisfied,
told Jumeau that he might take his departure, and Lavenne that he might
remain; then when the door was shut, he turned to the new-comer.
“Well,” said he, “what was the matter with madame?”
When Lavenne had finished his revelations, M. Brujon, chuckling and
gloating, rose to conduct the new-comer round the house, so that he
might have the lie of the premises. He took him through the basement,
showed him the kitchen, the plate pantry, the room he was to occupy by
the pantry, and the other offices. Then upstairs, that the new servant
might see the dining-room, to which it was his duty to convey the
plate. As they went on their way, Brujon conversed, and Lavenne, who
had already taken the measure of his man, led the talk to Camus.
“I need not hide it from you,” said he, “that I look on it as a feather
in my cap taking service, even for a short time, under your master. I
have heard much about him; it is even said that his cleverness is so
great that he knows Arabic and all the secrets of the East.”
“You may well say that,” replied Brujon, pompously, “not only is he of
one of the oldest families, but he has here—” and he tapped his empty
forehead—“what all the others have not got. I, who know him so well,
and whom he trusts, can speak of that.”
“_Ma foi_!” said Lavenne, in an awed voice, “is it a fact, then, that
he is an alchemist?”
Brujon pursed out his lips as he closed the door of the dining-room,
having shown the place to his companion. “It is not for me to say
anything of his secrets, but I can tell you this, he is clever enough
to put Monsieur Mesmer in his pocket.”
“_Mon Dieu_! but he must be even a greater man than I thought, and to
think that you have seen him at work, perhaps. Why, it would frighten
me to death—and where does he do these wonderful things?”
“Come here,” said Brujon.
He led the way down the corridor, leading from the dining-room, paused
at a door, took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and, choosing a key,
opened the door.
The lamp which he was carrying disclosed a room lined with shelves
containing bottles, glass cupboards containing bottles and flasks stood
in the corners, and in the centre, on a heavy bench-like table, were
more bottles, some retorts, and a lamp. Heavy red curtains hung before
the window.
It was a chemist’s laboratory.
“This is the room where my master works,” said Brujon, “he and I only
have access to it. I am exceeding my duties, even, in showing it to
you; though, indeed, he has never given me orders on that matter. Now
you may see the truth of what I say—but never say that you have seen
it.”
“Oh, _mon Dieu_, no! The place frightens me. You see, I am not clever
like you, Monsieur Brujon; indeed, all my schooling taught me was just
to repeat the _Credo_, and to read a few words of print.”
“Well, if it taught you also to hold your tongue,” replied the most
inveterate gossip in Paris, “it has taught you enough to make you a
good servant. Well, it is now time for bed. You know your duties, and
should any noise awaken you in the night, your first thought will be
of the plate under your keeping. You will give the alarm, call me and
hold the thief should you be able to seize him. But I may tell you at
once that there is little need of fear. All the doors are impossible
to open, there are no windows on the ground floor, and there is always
a watchman in the courtyard. Still, it is your duty to be on the _qui
vive_.”
“You may trust that I will do my duty, Monsieur Brujon; and now, where
is your bedroom, so that, in the event of anything happening, I may
call you?”
“I will show you,” replied Brujon.
He led the way downstairs and showed the room, which was situated off
the same passage as that on which Lavenne’s opened.
“The menservants sleep in the basement, the maids under the roof,” said
Brujon, with a fat smile.
He bade good-night to the new man and shuffled off to his office,
whilst Lavenne retired to his room. Lavenne had a theory that every
mind is like a safe in this particular: that the strongest safe can be
picked if only the locksmith is clever enough. He knew that to get at
a man’s secrets all questioning is useless, unless you bring your mind
in tune with his. He knew that men run in tribes, and that there is a
quite unconscious freemasonry between members of the same tribe.
His instinct told him the tribe to which M. Brujon belonged, and his
marvellous power of adaptability made him for the moment a member of
the same tribe. In short, his scandalous stories about the unfortunate
Madame Le Roux had put him at once _en rapport_ with the jovial,
easy-going, scandal-loving and eminently Gallic mind of M. Brujon.
That mind had opened without any difficulty to the skilful pick-lock,
giving up the fact as to the situation of the room where his master
busied himself with his strange chemistry.
Lavenne had captured the situation of the room; it was now his
business, and a much more difficult business, to capture the key, or,
failing that, to pick the lock. He had brought with him an instrument
similar to the old _crochet_ used by the burglars of France ever since
the time of the Coquillards—the instrument that is used still under
the name of the Nightingale. With this he could unlock and lock a door
as easily as with a key. It remained to be seen whether the door of
Camus’ room could be opened by this means.
He blew out the candle, lay down on the bed, and closing his eyes
began, as a pastime, to review the whole situation.
It was a difficult situation enough. If Camus caught him in the act
of making an examination of his room, Camus would certainly kill him,
unless he killed Camus. Even in the latter event he would almost
certainly be lost, unless he could make his escape, which was very
unlikely. For if he killed Count Camus in his own house, he would, if
caught, be most certainly hanged by de Sartines; it being the unwritten
law of the Hôtel de Sartines that an agent caught on a business of
this sort must never reveal his identity, or seek protection from the
Law which employed him, suffering even death, if necessary, in the
execution of his duty.
But this consideration did not deflect our man a hair’s-breadth from
the course he had mapped out for himself. The thing that was now
occupying his mind was the room itself, of which he had caught a
glimpse, its contents and its possible secrets.
It was the dark centre of Camus’ life, the depository, without doubt,
of his secrets. What he would find there in the way of written or other
evidence, Lavenne did not know; of how he would prosecute his search,
he had no definite plan; yet he knew that here was the only place
where Justice might rest her lever as on a fulcrum, and with one swift
movement send the Poisoner crashing to the pit that awaited him.
As he lay in the darkness revolving these matters in his mind, he heard
the great clock of the Hôtel chiming the hour of eleven. He determined
to wait till midnight. Jumeau had told him that Camus had gone to the
Hôtel Dubarry and would not be home, most likely, till the small hours,
if then.
Lavenne felt that he had the whole night before him, unconscious of
the fact that Camus’ hour of return that night was not at all to be
counted on, simply for the reason that Camus, when Camille Fontrailles
left the party, had become restless, and though he had taken his place
at the card-table, showed such absence of mind that Luck, who hates a
cold lover, declared herself dead against him.
Meanwhile Monsieur Brujon retired to rest, but not before sending a
special messenger to Monsieur Gaston Le Roux with a note, enclosing the
testimonial, and an inquiry as to whether the man mentioned in it was
to be trusted.
M. Le Roux’s reply consisted of only one word, “Absolutely.”
CHAPTER VI
THE LABORATORY
At twelve o’clock, Lavenne, slipping from the bed, felt in his pockets
to make sure that the _crochet_, the tinder-box and steel and the three
special candles which he had brought with him, short and thick like
modern night-lights, were to hand. Then he opened his door.
The passage was in black darkness, yet he felt sure of finding his way.
He had noted the length of the passage, the position of the doors,
and the position of the staircase leading to the upper floor; he had
counted the number of steps in the stairs, the form of the landing
to which they led was mapped in his mind, and also the point in the
landing from which opened the passage leading to the dining-room
corridor and to the laboratory of Camus.
He closed the door of the bedroom carefully, and groping his way,
passed down the passage to the stairs. The stairs creaked under his
foot, some stairways seem to creak the louder the more softly they are
trodden on. Lavenne knew this idiosyncrasy and went boldly, reached the
landing, found the passage to the dining-room corridor, and in a moment
more was spreading his fingers on the door of Camus’ private room in
search of the key-hole.
Then, taking the _crochet_ from his pocket, he inserted it in the lock.
Lavenne possessed a vast fund of special knowledge without which,
despite his genius and fertility of resource, he would have been lost
a hundred times in the course of a year. Not only had he a quick
mind to receive knowledge, he had also a memory to retain it. Again,
that kindness and rectitude of spirit which made so many men his
friends, opened for him a living library in the Hôtel de Sartines.
For instance, he had learned much of the science of Cryptography from
Fremin. Jondret, who would certainly have been hanged some day as a
housebreaker, had not de Sartines recognized his genius and drawn him
into the police, had taught him the science of picking locks, whilst
Cabuchon, a little old man, who in the year 1767 had placed his dirty
forefinger on the poisoner of M. Terell, the haberdasher of the Rue St.
Honoré, had taught him many of the tricks of poisoners.
The art of poisoning, first studied in Europe seriously by the
Italians, had been imported into France in the days of the infamous
Catherine de Medicis. The Revolution put its heel definitely on the
last remnants of this fine product of the Middle Ages, but in the time
of the fifteenth Louis there were still a few practitioners of the
business, as witness the case of M. Terell poisoned by a candle.
Cabuchon had disclosed many of the secrets of this horrible science to
the eager Lavenne. He had not only given him considerable knowledge of
the methods used by the practitioners of the Italian art, such as the
poisoning of gloves and flowers, but he had also given his pupil an
insight into the psychology of the poisoner who uses recondite means,
showing clearly and by instance that these people develop a passion
for the business, and are sometimes held under the sway and fascination
of the demon who presides over it so firmly that they will poison their
fellow men and women for the slightest reason, and sometimes for no
perceptible reason at all.
It was this knowledge derived from Cabuchon that disclosed to Lavenne
at one stroke the poisoner of Atalanta, and the intending poisoner of
Madame Camus.
It was the knowledge derived from Jondret that was now guiding his
dexterous hand in the use of the _crochet_. Feeling and exploring the
wards, examining the construction of the lock, using the delicacy
and gentleness of a surgeon who is probing a wound, he worked, till,
assured of the mechanism, with a powerful and sudden turn of the wrist
he forced the bolt back and the door was open.
He entered the room, shut the door, and proceeded to examine the lock.
The bolt was a spring bolt, that is to say, that whilst it required a
key to open, it required none to lock it again. He pressed the door to,
and it closed with a click scarcely audible and speaking well for the
perfection of the mechanism.
Then he struck a spark from the tinder and steel, and lit one of his
candles. The lamp was standing on the table, but he would have nothing
to do with it. It was necessary to be prepared for instant concealment
should anyone arrive to interrupt him, and a lamp takes a perceptible
time to extinguish. He placed the lighted candle on the table, and
turned to the curtains hiding the window. They were of heavy corded
silk, and there was space enough behind them for a man to hide if
necessary. Sure of the fact, he turned again to the table. He scarcely
glanced at the bottles and retorts upon it; hastily, yet thoroughly,
he examined it for drawers or secret compartments, but the table was
solid throughout, made of English oak, roughly constructed and showing
no sign of the French cabinet-makers’ art.
Leaving the table, he examined the cabinets in the corners of the
room. They held nothing but the bottles and retorts visible through
their glass doors. He examined the walls for concealed cupboards and
_caches_, auscultating them here and there, just as a physician sounds
the chest of a patient nowadays. But the walls made no response, they
were of solid stone behind the stucco. He turned his attention to the
flooring, sounding the solid parquet here and there, and had reached to
a spot halfway between the table and the window-curtains, when a hollow
note gave answer to his knock, a deep, resonant note, showing that a
fairly large area of floor space was involved. He was going on both
knees to examine this space more carefully when a step sounded in the
corridor outside, a key was put into the lock of the door; and Lavenne,
who, at the first sound of the step had blown out the candle, placed it
in his pocket and whipped behind the curtains veiling the window.
It was Camus. He entered, lamp in hand, closed the door, placed the
lamp on the table, and from it lit the other lamp. The Count evidently
required plenty of light this evening, either to assist his thoughts or
his studies. Lavenne, behind the curtains, had a good view of the room,
its occupant, the table, the walls leading to the door and the door
itself.
Camus, turning from the table, began to pace the floor. He seemed
plunged in deep thought as he walked up and down, his hands behind his
back, his head bent, the light now striking his face, now his hands
knotted together, delicate yet powerful hands, remarkable, had you
examined them closely, for the size of the thumbs.
Could you imagine yourself in the room with a man-eating tiger, and
nothing separating you in the way of barrier but a curtain, you would
feel somewhat as Lavenne felt alone thus with Count Camus. Looking
through the small space between the curtains, he noted for the first
time fully the powerful build of the man.
Camus, unconscious that he was being watched, continued to pace the
floor. Then, pausing before one of the corner cupboards, he took a
key from his pocket, opened the cupboard and drew out a wooden stand,
holding two narrow tubes shaped like test-tubes. The tubes were corked,
and one was half-filled with a violet-coloured solution, the other with
a crystal-clear white liquid.
Camus closed the cupboard door with his left hand, and carrying the
tubes carefully placed them and the stand containing them on the table.
Then going to another cupboard, he took from it an object which held
the watcher behind the curtain fascinated as he gazed on it. It was a
mask made of glass, with black ribbons attached at the edge, so that it
could be tied securely to the head of the wearer, the ribbons passing
above and below the ears.
“Ah ha!” said Lavenne to himself, “we are going to see something now.”
He watched whilst Camus, having placed the mask on the table, went to
the cupboard and produced a glass slab, a rod of glass and a small
brush of camel-hair, such as artists use for water-colour painting.
Also, from the same cupboard, he produced a tiny bottle with a gold
stopper; this bottle was not made of glass, but of metal.
Having arranged his materials on the table, the Count drew from his
pocket an object which caused the watcher behind the curtain much
searching of mind. The object was a dagger, or rather a sheath knife,
small, of exquisite design, and with scabbard and pommel crusted with
gems.
He drew the blade from the sheath, which he placed carefully on one
side. The blade was of silver, double-edged and damascened, about an
inch broad and four inches long.
He placed the blade by the sheath. Then he put on the mask, took the
tube containing the violet liquor and poured a few drops on the glass
slab, then, as swiftly as light, a few drops from the tube containing
the crystal-clear liquid, stirring the two together with the point of
the glass rod. He reached out his left hand for the small metal bottle,
uncorked it, and poured a few drops on the slab.
Instantly a cloud of vapour rose up, the liquid on the slab seemed
to boil; dipping the little brush in the seething fluid, he drew the
dagger blade to him and began to paint the silver with swift strokes,
reaching from the haft to the point.
He only painted one side of the blade, and when the business was
completed, instead of returning the blade to the sheath, he laid it on
the table as if to dry.
Then he rose from the chair and removed the mask from his face.
A faint sickly odour filled the room. Lavenne, who had a pretty
intimate knowledge of most perfumes, pleasant or unpleasant, and who
in the course of his duties in the old quarters of Paris had learned
the art of possessing no nose, drew back slightly from this effluvium,
the effect of which was mental rather than physical. It might have been
likened to an essence distilled from an evil dream. But it did not seem
to trouble Camus. He was now putting away the bottle and the tubes,
the rod and the slab of glass. He returned the mask to the cabinet he
had taken it from, and then, coming back to the table, he took up the
dagger, examined it attentively and returned it to its sheath.
Going to the right-hand wall, he touched a spot about four feet from
the ground; a tiny door, the existence of which Lavenne had failed to
detect, flew open. He placed the dagger in the _cache_ thus disclosed,
shut the door, extinguished one of the lamps on the table, and carrying
the other in his hand, left the room.
Lavenne drew a deep breath.
The situation was saved. Relieved of that terrible presence, his mind
could now work freely. Up to this, he had been unable to guess the
meaning of Camus’ labours.
Why had Camus used this terrible fluid to poison the knife only on one
side? Why had he used such immense precaution that the other side of
the steel should remain untainted.
The answer came now in a flash. Cabuchon had told him of this old
medieval trick, only Cabuchon had used the word knife, not dagger.
Camus would use his dagger in this way. Laughingly, at some festival or
banquet, he would take out his beautiful dagger, and, cutting a pear or
a peach or an apple in two, offer half to his companion, whoever he or
she might be.
And the half offered to his companion would be poisoned, inasmuch as it
would have come closely in contact with the poisoned side of the knife,
whereas the half retained for himself would be innocuous.
And who could say to him, “Madame Camus died after eating that peach
you offered her,” considering the fact that he had also eaten of it?
CHAPTER VII
THE FAWN AND THE SERPENT
Lavenne, considering this matter in his mind, still remained behind the
curtain standing in absolute darkness and waiting so as to give Camus
time to remember anything that he might possibly have forgotten.
After the lapse of ten minutes, fairly assured that the Count would not
return, he pushed the curtains aside and struck a light.
This time, he boldly lit the lamp on the table and with it in his hand
approached the wall on the right and began to hunt for the spring of
the secret opening. He was not long in finding it; a tiny disc, the
same colour as the wall and only revealed by its thread-like edge,
showed itself to the light of the lamp. He pressed on it, the door of
the _cache_ flew open, and in a moment the dagger was in his hand.
There was nothing else in the _cache_. Already he had formulated a plan
in his mind, a plan which at first sight might seem diabolical, but
which he considered, and with justice, the only means with which to
meet the case.
Camus was no ordinary villain. This room was evidently his stronghold
and the _cache_ was evidently his most secret hiding-place. Yet there
were no incriminating papers to be found in the room, no papers
whatever; nor in the _cache_. This gentleman evidently kept his
secrets in his soul. He made no mistakes. Justice, Lavenne felt, might
search for ever without finding a tittle of evidence against him, and
indeed this fact, de Sartines, who had long known his proclivities, had
proved to the hilt. But there is such a thing as Retribution, and in
the name of Retribution Lavenne had declared in his own mind that the
knife of Camus should be Camus’ undoing.
Lavenne, replacing the lamp on the table, examined the dagger minutely
without drawing the blade. The design was different on the two sides of
the sheath. On one side a fawn trod boldly on jewelled grapes, on the
other a serpent of six curves extended itself from the blade-entrance
to the point. The pommel on both its sides was of the same design.
Nothing could be more striking than the difference between the two
sides of this dagger-sheath. One could have told them one from the
other in the dark and just by the sense of touch.
Lavenne verified this fact with a grim pursing of his lips. The dagger
and sheath had been constructed for a set purpose, so that the poisoner
who had poisoned one side of the blade might know at once, and before
drawing it from its sheath, which was the lethal side. A mistake on
this point would have meant death to the poisoner instead of the
intended victim. Now Lavenne did not know which side of the blade Camus
had poisoned, for the sheath had been covered by the Count’s hand when
he put the blade back in it.
Lavenne, however, did not in the least require to know which was the
poisoned side, or whether it faced to the serpent or the fawn. Camus
knew this and that was sufficient.
To destroy Camus, Lavenne had only to draw the double-edged blade from
the sheath and insert it again, the other way about.
That being done, this presenter of fruit to ladies would, when he cut
his apple or pear in two, present himself with the poisoned half.
Lavenne drew the blade from the sheath, noticed that the poison, which
doubtless was only soluble in an acid solution, like, for instance,
the juice of a fruit, showed no sign of its presence on the silver,
inserted the blade again in the sheath the other way about, and
returned the dagger to the _cache_, which he then closed. His work was
now done, there was nothing left but to extinguish the lamp and leave
the room. He looked about to see that everything was in perfect order,
and then, taking the _crochet_ from his pocket, he approached the door.
The lock turned quite easily to the instrument, but the door did not
open.
He withdrew the _crochet_, reinserted it, and made the turn with his
wrist, and again with the same result.
The door was bolted now as well as locked. Lavenne drew the back of his
hand across his forehead, which was covered with sweat. It was quite
useless to try again. It was not the fault of the lock. He remembered
now that Brujon, before he opened the door to show him the room,
had placed one hand on the wall beside the door. Brujon was stout,
and Lavenne had fancied that he leaned his hand on the wall to rest
himself. He knew now that Brujon must have touched a spring withdrawing
a secret bolt, without the release of which the door would not open.
When Brujon had closed the door, he must have forgotten to touch
another spring which would have re-shot the bolt. Owing to this
forgetfulness, Lavenne had been able to enter the room simply by
picking the lock. But Camus, who seemed never to forget precaution, had
not forgotten to touch the bolting spring, with the result that Lavenne
was now a prisoner in a prison that threatened to be his tomb.
He knew that it was quite futile, with the means at his disposal,
to make any further attempt upon the lock; even had he possessed a
crow-bar and all the tools necessary, the noise of the breaking open of
the door would arouse the house.
The doorway being impossible, he turned to the window, which he had
not yet examined. The lamp held close to the window showed nothing of
the dark world outside, but it showed very definitely strong iron bars
almost touching the glass.
The window being impossible, he turned to the floor.
There was just a chance that the hollow-sounding portion of the parquet
between the table and the window curtains might disclose a means of
exit. There was, in fact, more than a chance, for a man like Camus, who
forgot nothing, would be the least likely man to forget to provide a
secret way of escape from this chamber of secrecy.
Lavenne was not wrong; the parquet on close examination showed
the outline of a trap-door so well constructed as to be perfectly
indistinguishable to the gaze of a person who was not searching for it.
In five minutes, or less, he had discovered the button of the opening
spring. He pressed on it, and the flap, instead of rising, as in the
ordinary trap-door, sank, disclosing a perpendicular ladder leading
down into absolute darkness.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS
Here was a way of escape, but escape to where? He did not consider the
latter question for an instant. Replacing the lamp on the table, he
glanced round to make sure that everything was in exact order, counted
all the articles in his possession, the _crochet_, the two extra
candles which he carried, etc., just as a surgeon counts the sponges
which he has used during an operation, and having satisfied himself
that he had disturbed nothing and left nothing behind, he extinguished
the lamp, found the trap-door opening in the darkness and came down the
ladder. It had fifteen rungs. When he felt the solid ground under his
feet, he lit one of his candles and looked about him.
He was standing in a passage that led to a flight of steps descending
into darkness, above was the square opening of the trap-door, and
shining in the wall on his right, a brass handle. He guessed its use
and pulling on it, the flap of the door above rose steadily and slowly
and closed with a faint sucking sound like that of a piston driven home
in a perfectly fitting cylinder.
It seemed to Lavenne that everything was favouring him, for had he been
forced to leave the door open, his plan might have been ruined, as
Camus would undoubtedly have suspected a spy on his movements.
With the lighted candle in his hand, he came towards the flight of
steps. At the top of this stone stairway, he paused for a moment almost
daunted. It seemed to have no end. The light of the candle became
swallowed up in the darkness before revealing the last step. There were
over a hundred of these steps leading to a passage, or rather a tunnel,
which ended by opening into a corridor. The tunnel struck the corridor
at right angles, and Lavenne, holding his light to the walls, looked in
vain for an indication as to whether he should turn to the right or the
left. Failing to find any, he turned to the right.
He had gone only a few yards when an opening in the corridor wall gave
him a glimpse of something more daunting than the darkness. It was a
skull resting on a heap of bones. The skull, from which the lower jaw
was missing, was yet not wholly without speech. It told Lavenne at once
where he was.
Pursuing his way and casting the light of the candle into several more
of these lidless sarcophagi, he reached a large open space, where over
the piles of bones heaped against the walls, the candle-light revealed
a Latin inscription cut into the stone.
From this open space to the right, to left, in front and behind of the
man who had just entered it, the candle-light showed four corridors
each leading to darkness.
Lavenne had left the laboratory of Count Camus only to find himself
entangled in the Catacombs of Paris.
Camus’ house seemed built in conformity with his mind, secure, secret,
containing many things unrevealable to the light of day, and based on a
maze of dark passages offering a means of escape to the mind that knew
them and bewilderment and despair to the mind that did not.
Lavenne knew something of the catacombs, but not much. They lay outside
his province.
The Catacombs of Paris are to-day just as they were in the time of the
fifteenth Louis, with this difference: they are more fully occupied,
since they contain the bones of many of the victims of the Terror. This
vast system of tunnelling which extends from the heart of Paris to the
plain of Mont Souris is in reality a city where rock takes the place of
houses, galleries the place of streets, dead men the place of citizens,
and eternal darkness the place of day and night.
It has been closed now for some years on account of the danger to
explorers arising from the huge army of rats that have made it their
camping-ground. Some years ago a man was attacked and eaten by rats in
one of the galleries.
Few inhabitants of the gay city of Paris ever give a thought to the
city of Death that lies beneath their feet, and fewer still to the
motto that is written on the walls of this vast tomb—just as it is
written everywhere:
“Remember, Man, that thou art Dust, and that unto Dust thou shalt
return.”
It was in this terrific place that Lavenne found himself, with the
choice of exploring it to find a way out or returning to encounter
Camus.
BOOK IV
CHAPTER I
NEWS FROM VINCENNES
One morning, four days later, the Comte de Sartines, working in his
official room in the Hôtel de Sartines, was informed that a person
wished to see him on urgent business.
“What is the name?” asked he.
“Brujon, monsieur. It is the steward of M. le Comte Camus.”
“Show him in,” replied the Minister.
He continued writing; then, when the visitor was announced, he turned
in his chair, pen in hand.
“Well, monsieur,” said the Minister of Police, “you wish to see me?
What is your business?”
“Monsieur,” said Brujon, “I am in great perplexity and distress. For
three nights I have not slept, and the thing has worked so on my mind
that I said to myself, I will go to Monsieur de Sartines, who is
all-powerful, and place this case before him.”
“Yes?”
“Monsieur, four days ago, our pantry-man, Jumeau, who has charge of the
silver belonging to my master, asked leave of absence on account of the
illness of his mother; he introduced to me a young man, his cousin,
named Jouve, in order that Jouve might take his place during the time
of his absence. Jouve had an excellent reference, and I engaged him.
Well, that night Jouve disappeared. At least, in the morning he was
nowhere to be found. Yet he could not have left the house.”
“And why could not he have left the house?”
“Because, monsieur, all the doors are locked, and, what is more, barred
on the inside, yet no bar had been removed. My master, when he comes
in late, is always admitted by the _concierge_, who re-bars the door,
all the other doors are equally barred, and that night I examined the
fastenings myself. If Jouve had left the house by any door, how could
he have replaced the bars?”
“He may have had an accomplice in the house,” replied de Sartines,
deeply interested and wondering what new move of Lavenne’s this might
be, for Beauregard had told him of Lavenne’s suspicions as to Camus,
and the whole business, in fact.
“Yes, monsieur,” replied Brujon. “But no silver was taken, no valuables
of any sort, why should he have entered the house just to leave it in
that manner? Monsieur, I have a feeling that he is still in the house,
though, God knows, I have searched diligently enough to find him.”
“Well,” said de Sartines, “what can I do?”
“I do not know, monsieur, but I thought it my duty to consult you.”
“Have you told your master of this affair?”
Brujon hesitated.
“No, monsieur, I have not—he is of such a violent temper——.”
“Precisely. But the fact remains that you have hidden the thing from
him, and that fact would not calm the violence of his temper should you
disclose the affair now. He might even do you an injury, so, for the
sake of peace and your own skin, I would advise you to say nothing, but
keep a vigilant watch. Should Jouve turn up, hidden anywhere, lock him
up in a room, and send here at once and I will send a man to arrest
him.”
“Thank you, monsieur,” replied Brujon, who seemed relieved by Sartines’
manner and advice. “I will do what you say. Good day, your Excellency.”
When he was gone Sartines rang a bell and ordered Beauregard to be sent
to him.
“_Ma foi_!” said Beauregard, “there is more in this than I can fathom.
What can he be doing all these four days?”
“Who knows?” replied the Minister. “But I am quite confident he has
not been idle. He will turn up, and I dare swear he will bring with
him the rope to hang Monsieur Camus. It has been spinning for a long
time and is overdue. Now here is a commission for you. Since I can’t
put hands on Lavenne for the business, go yourself to Vincennes and see
how Rochefort is doing. They have had orders to make him comfortable,
see that these orders have been carried out. We must keep him in a good
temper.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Have a chat with him; and you might say that the Dubarrys are working
in his interests to smooth matters with Choiseul—which, in fact, they
are not.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“See that he is allowed plenty of exercise—tennis and so forth, but
always strictly guarded, for I know this devil of a Rochefort, one
can’t count on his whims, and should prison gall him he may, even
against his own interests, try to break out and fly into the claws of
Choiseul.”
“Yes, monsieur.”
Beauregard went off on his mission, and as he left the room, the
Vicomte Jean Dubarry was announced.
“My dear Sartines,” cried Jean as they shook hands, “I just called to
see if you were going to Choiseul’s reception to-night.”
“I have been invited,” replied Sartines.
“And you will go?”
“Yes, I think I will go—why are you so pressing?”
“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Jean, “Choiseul asked me to make sure
of your coming. He wishes peace all round now that the Dauphiness is to
arrive so shortly.”
“You are great friends with Choiseul now, you and Madame la Comtesse?”
“We are at peace, for the moment. I do not trust him one hair’s
breadth, but we are at peace.”
“Just so,” said Sartines; “and how is Mademoiselle Fontrailles?”
“As beautiful as ever.”
“And as cold?”
“Oh, _ma foi_!” said Jean, laughing, “I think the ice is broken in that
direction—Camus——”
“You mean to say she cares for Camus?”
Jean laughed. “I say nothing. I only know what the Countess told me
this morning. Mind this is between ourselves—well, she is Camus’,
heart and soul.”
“_Peste_! What does she see in that fellow?—Are you sure of what you
say?”
“I am sure of nothing, but the Countess is. Camille has made her her
confidante. I do not know what women see in Camus, but they seem to
see something that attracts them.”
“But he is married—Oh, _mon Dieu_!” cried Sartines, suddenly
interrupting himself and breaking into a laugh. “What am I saying—it
is well known that Madame Camus is delicate—and should she die——”
“Then our gentleman would be free to marry Camille,” said Jean.
“No, monsieur,” replied Sartines, “I doubt if it would all be as simple
as that. However, we will not consider the question of Camus’ marriage
with this girl in any event. She is a fool.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because if the Devil had allowed her to care for Rochefort, and
she had thrown in her part with him, it would have assisted to smooth
matters with Choiseul. The Countess would have worked more earnestly
for a _démarche_, and the Fontrailles would have kept Rochefort
contented in Vincennes with a few notes sent to him there— Well, one
cannot make up a woman’s mind for her and there is no use in trying.
She is going to-night, I suppose, to this affair at Choiseul’s?”
“Oh, you may be sure. Camus will be there.”
The Vicomte went off and Sartines returned to his writing.
But this was to be an eventful morning with him. Five minutes had
scarcely passed when the door burst open without knock or warning, and
Beauregard, who by this ought to have been on the road to Vincennes,
entered, flushed and breathing hard.
“Monsieur,” cried Beauregard, “Rochefort has escaped.”
“Escaped! _Mordieu_! When did he escape?”
“In the early hours of this morning or during the night. Here is
Capitaine Pierre Cousin himself who has brought the story.”
“Show him in,” said Sartines.