A FEW days after, and just as evening was falling, a travelling-carriage
halted at the park gate of the Cardinal’s villa. Some slight injury to
the harness occasioned a brief delay, and the travellers descended and
proceeded leisurely at a walk towards the house. One was a very large,
heavily-built man, far advanced in life, with immense bushy eyebrows
of a brindled grey, giving to his face a darksome and almost forbidding
expression, though the mouth was well rounded, and of a character that
bespoke gentleness. He was much bent in the shoulders, and moved with
considerable difficulty; but there was yet in his whole figure and air
a certain dignity that announced the man of condition. Such, indeed, was
Sir Capel Crosbie, once a beau and ornament of the French court in the
days of the Regency. The other was a spare, thin, but yet wiry-looking
man of about sixty-five or six, deeply pitted with small-pox, and
disfigured by a strong squint, which, as the motions of his face were
quick, imparted a character of restless activity and impatience to his
appearance, that his nature, indeed, could not contradict. He was known
as--that is, his passport called him--Mr. Simon Purcell; but he had
many passports, and was frequently a grandee of Spain, a French abbé, a
cabinet courier of Russia, and a travelling monk, these travesties being
all easy to one who spoke fluently every dialect of every continental
language and seemed to enjoy the necessity of a deception. You could
mark at once in his gestures and his tone as he came forward the stamp
of one who talked much and well. There was ready self-possession, that
jaunty cheerfulness dashed with a certain earnest force, that bespoke
the man who had achieved conversational success, and felt his influence
in it.
The accident to the harness had seemingly interrupted an earnest
conversation, for no sooner was he on the ground than Purcell resumed:
‘Take _my_ word for it, baronet; it is always a bad game that does not
admit of being played in two ways---the towns to which only one road
leads are never worth visiting.’
The other shook his head; but it was difficult to say whether in doubt
of the meaning or dissent from the doctrine.
‘Yes,’ resumed the other, ‘the great question is what will you do
with your Prince if you fail to make him a king? He will always be a
puissance; it remains to be seen in whose hands and for what objects.’
The baronet sighed, and looked a picture of hopeless dullness.
‘Come, I will tell you a story, not for the sake of the incident, but
for the illustration; though even as a story it has its point. You knew
Gustave de Marsay, I think?’
‘_Le beau Gustave_? to be sure I did. Ah! it was upwards of forty years
ago,’ sighed he sorrowfully.
‘It could not be less. He has been living in a little Styrian village
about that long, seeing and being seen by none. His adventure was this:
He was violently enamoured of a very pretty woman whom he met by chance
in the street, and discovered afterward to be the wife of a “dyer,” in
the Rue de Marais. Whether she was disposed to favour his addresses or
acted in concert with her husband to punish him, is not very easy to
say; the result would recline to the latter supposition. At all
events, she gave him a rendezvous at which he was surprised by the dyer
himself--a fellow strong as a Hercules and of an ungovernable temper. He
rushed wildly on De Marsay, who defended himself for some time with his
rapier; a false thrust, however, broke the weapon at the hilt, and the
dyer springing forward, caught poor Gustave round the body, and actually
carried him off over his head, and plunged him neck and heels into an
enormous tank filled with dye-stuff. How he escaped drowning--how he
issued from the house and ever reached his home he never was able to
tell. It is more than probable the consequences of the calamity absorbed
and obliterated all else; for when he awoke next day he discovered that
he was totally changed--his skin from head to foot being dyed a deep
blue! It was in vain that he washed and washed, boiled himself in hot
baths, or essayed a hundred cleansing remedies, nothing availed in the
least--in fact, many thought that he came out only bluer than before.
The most learned of the faculty were consulted, the most distinguished
chemists--all in vain. At last a dyer was sent for, who in an instant
recognised the peculiar tint, and said, “Ah! there is but one man in
Paris has the secret of this colour, and he lives in the Rue de Marais.”
‘Here was a terrible blow to all hope, and in the discouragement it
inflicted three long months were passed, De Marsay growing thin and
wretched from fretting, and by his despondency occasioning his friends
the deepest solicitude. At length, one of his relatives resolved on a
bold step. He went direct to the Rue de Marais and demanded to speak
with the dyer. It is not very easy to say how he opened a negotiation of
such delicacy; that he did so with consummate tact and skill there can
be no doubt, for he so worked oh the dyer’s compassion by the picture
of a poor young fellow utterly ruined in his career, unable to face
the world, to meet his regiment, even to appear before the enemy, being
blue! that the dyer at last confessed his pity, but at the same time
cried out, “What can I do? there is no getting it off again!”
‘“No getting it off again! do you really tell me that?” exclaimed the
wretched negotiator.
‘“Impossible! that’s the patent,” said the other with an ill-dissembled
pride. “I have spent seven years in the invention. I only hit upon it
last October. Its grand merit is that it resists all attempts to efface
it.”
‘“And do you tell me,” cries the friend, in terror, “that this poor
fellow must go down to his grave in that odious--well, I mean no
offence--in that unholy tint?”
‘“There is but one thing in my power, sir.”
‘“Well, what is it, in the name of mercy? Out with it, and name your
price.”
‘“I can make him a very charming green! _un beau vert_, monsieur.”’
When the baronet had ceased to laugh at the anecdote, Purcell resumed:
‘And now for the application. It is always a good thing in life to be
able to become _un beau vert_, even though the colour should not quite
suit you. I say this, because for the present project I can augur no
success. The world has lived wonderfully fast, Sir Capel, since you and
I were boys. That same Revolution in France that has cut off so many
heads, has left those that still remain on men’s shoulders very much
wiser than they used to be. Now nobody in Europe wants this family
again; they have done their part; and they are as much bygones as
chain-armour or a battle-axe.’
‘The rightful and the legitimate are never bygone--never obsolete,’ said
the other resolutely.
‘A’n’t they, faith! The guillotine and the lantern are the answers to
that. I do not mean to say it must be always this way. There may, though
I see no signs of it, come a reaction yet; but for the present men have
taken a practical turn, and they accept nothing, esteem nothing, employ
nothing that is not practical. Mirabeau’s last effort was to give this
colour to the Bourbons, and _he_ failed. Do not tell me, then, that
where Gabriel Riquetti broke down, a Jesuit father will succeed!’
The other shook his head in dissent, but without speaking.
‘Remember, baronet, these convictions of mine are all opposed to my
interest. I should be delighted to see your fairy palace made habitable,
and valued for the municipal taxes. Nothing could better please me
than to behold your Excellency Master of the Horse except to see
myself Chancellor of the Exchequer. But here we are, and a fine
princely-looking pile it is!’
They both stopped suddenly, and gazed with wondering admiration at one
noble façade of the palace right in front of them. A wide terrace of
white marble, ornamented with groups or single figures in statuary,
stretched the entire length of the building, beneath which a vast
orangery extended, the trees loaded with fruit or blossom, gave but
slight glimpses of the rockwork grottoes and quaint fountains within.
‘This is not the Cardinal’s property,’ said Purcell. ‘Nay, I know well
what I am saying; this belongs, with the entire estate, down to San
Remo, yonder, to the young Countess Ridolfi. Nay more, she is at this
very moment in bargain with Cæsare Piombino for the sale of it. Her
price is five hundred thousand Roman scudi, which she means to invest in
this bold scheme.’
‘She, at least, has faith in a Stuart,’ exclaimed the baronet eagerly.
‘What would you have? The girl’s in love with your Prince. She has paid
seventy thousand piastres of Albizzi’s debts that have hung around his
neck these ten or twelve years back, all to win him over to the cause,
just because his brother-in-law is Spanish Envoy here. She destined some
eight thousand more as a present to Our Lady of Ravenna, who, it would
seem, has a sort of taste for bold enterprises; but Massoni stopped her
zeal, and suggested that instead of candles she should lay it out in
muskets.’
‘You scoff unseasonably, sir,’ said the baronet, indignant at the tone
he spoke in.
‘Nor is that all,’ continued Purcell, totally heedless of the rebuke;
‘her very jewels, the famous Ridolfi gems, the rubies that once were
among the show objects of Rome, are all packed up and ready to be sent
to Venice, where a company of Jews have contracted to buy them. Is not
this girl’s devotion enough to put all your patriotism to the blush?’
A slight stir now moved the leaves of the orange-trees near where
they were standing. The evening was perfectly still and calm: Purcell,
however, did not notice this, but went on--
‘And she is right. If there were a means of success, that means would
be money. But it is growing late, and this, I take it, is the chief
entrance. Let us present ourselves, if so be that we are to be honoured
with an audience.’
Though the baronet had not failed to remark the sarcastic tone of
this speech, he made no reply but slowly ascended the steps toward the
terrace.
Already the night was closing in, and as the strangers reached the
door they did not perceive that a figure had issued from the orangery
beneath, and mounted the steps after them. This was the Chevalier, who
usually passed the last few moments of each day wandering among the
orange-trees. He had thus, without intending it, heard more than was
meant for his ears.
The travellers had but to appear to receive the most courteous reception
from a household already prepared to do them honour. They were conducted
to apartments specially made ready for them; and being told that the
Countess hoped to have their company at nine o’clock, when she supped,
were left to repose after their journey.