Madame la Comtesse de Sucy never went to England. She was one of those
French women who would sooner endure misery in their own beloved country
than comfort anywhere else. She outlived the horrors of the Revolution
and speaks in her memoirs of the man Bertin. She never knew who he was
nor whence he came. All that she knew was that he came to her like some
mysterious agent of God, bringing help, counsel, a semblance of
happiness, at the moment when she was at the end of all her resources
and saw grim starvation staring her and her children in the face. He
appointed all sorts of strange places in out-of-the-way Paris where she
was wont to meet him, and one night she confided to him the history of
her diamonds, and hardly dared to trust his promise that he would get
them for her.
Less than twenty-four hours later he brought them to her, at the poor
lodgings in the Rue Blanche which she occupied with her children under
an assumed name. That same night she begged him to dispose of them. This
also he did, bringing her the money the next day.
She never saw him again after that.
But citizen Tournefort never quite got over his disappointment of that
night. Had he dared, he would have blamed citizen Chauvelin for the
discomfiture. It would have been better to have apprehended the man
Rateau while there was a chance of doing so with success.
As it was, the impudent ruffian slipped clean away, and was never heard
of again either at the "Bon Copain" or at the "Liberte." The customers
at the cabaret certainly corroborated the story of Jean Victor. The man
Rateau, they said, had been honest to the last. When time went on and
Jean Victor did not return, he said that he could no longer wait, had
work to do for the Government over the other side of the water and was
afraid he would get punished if he dallied. But, before leaving, he laid
the five gold pieces on the table. Every one wondered that so humble a
workman had so much money in his pocket, and was withal so lavish with
it. But these were not the times when one inquired too closely into the
presence of money in the pocket of a good patriot.
And citizen Rateau was a good patriot, for sure.
And a good fellow to boot!
They all drank his health in Jean Victor's sour wine; then each went his
way.