THE GASCON GOES THROUGH FIRE AND WATER TO ATTRACT ATTENTION--THE
BROTHER AND SISTER
During the stormy interview we have just narrated, the festivities
were proceeding with unflagging splendour. The repast in the Bosquet
de la Salle de Bal had finished, and the company were now thronging
along the Tapis Vert, towards the Bassin de Neptune, whereon some
magnificent fireworks were to be displayed. Beyond this the canal was
illuminated by coloured lights placed round its edge, and quivering in
the water by reflection; and a number of small boats, similarly
decorated, passed to and fro, until they were almost lost in the
distance. A species of vast tent, open towards the water, had been
erected at the extremity of the Tapis Vert for the reception of Louis
and his court; the inferior guests, who were not supposed to be
sensible of any difference of temperature, stood about upon the grass,
wherever the best view of the _feu d’artifice_ was to be
obtained,--for to witness this portion of the fete the people were
admitted to the gardens indiscriminately; the royal guard, however,
forming a sufficiently impregnable barrier to keep them from intruding
too closely upon the presence of the monarch and his favourites.
Amongst the crowd was Jean Blacquart, who had escaped from the abbe,
and having discovered Maître Picard, was pressing forward to obtain a
front place, where his martial dress and gay ribbons could be seen to
the best advantage, even at the risk of being pushed into the basin.
Several of his old acquaintances were near him--_bourgeoisie_ of the
Quartier Latin, and students at the schools. Amongst these latter
Philippe Glazer had mounted on to one of the urns, which stood on
pedestals surrounding the basin, for the double purpose of obtaining a
better view of the exhibition, and addressing, from time to time,
those amongst the crowd whom he knew, and a great many more whom he
did not; and as the court had not yet arrived, his verbal tournaments
with such as he chose to joke with, or at, produced great mirth
amongst the bystanders.
‘Maître Picard,’ cried Philippe, ‘take care of your feather; you are
burning it against the lamp.’
The little bourgeois, who was below, turned hurriedly round, and took
off his hat to look at it. Of course nothing was the matter. The
people began to laugh.
‘Pardon, bourgeois,’ continued Philippe; ‘I mistook your red face for
a flame, as it was reflected in your halberd. I forgot you had been
used for a lamp yourself before now. Do you remember the “Lanterne” in
the Rue Mouffetard? I’m afraid the rain almost put you out.’
‘_Polisson!_’ cried Maître Picard very angrily, as he recalled the
adventure. ‘I shall trounce you and your graceless fellows yet. You
will all come to the gallows.’
‘Of course we shall--the day you are hung,’ replied Glazer. ‘You may
count upon our attendance.’
There was another burst of laughter from the bystanders, and Maître
Picard waxed wrathful exceedingly. He turned the halberd upside down,
and made a blow at Philippe with the long wooden handle of it. But the
student, as he was perched upon the urn, caught up his sword in its
scabbard, and warded off the blow, so that it was turned on one side,
and the pikestaff descended with all its weight upon the head of Jean
Blacquart, who was directly underneath, crushing his fine hat, and
nearly sending him into the water.
‘_Ohé, messieurs!_’ shouted Philippe, without giving the bourgeois
time to recover himself. ‘The King! the King! He is coming to the
pavilion.’
‘The King! the King!’ echoed the people, imagining, from Glazer’s
elevated position, that he could see what was going on. Maître Picard
immediately bustled through the crowd, and the mob pushing after him
effectually prevented him for the time from returning; which, however,
he attempted to do as soon as he found the announcement was a false
alarm.
‘That was a spiteful blow, Blacquart, and, of course, done on
purpose,’ continued Philippe to the Gascon, who was, with a rueful
countenance, rearranging his hat. ‘Maître Picard is jealous of you.’
‘The women certainly do come to the shop very often when I am sitting
in the parlour,’ replied Jean, whose temper was smoothed at once by
what he considered a compliment. ‘Madame Beauchesne, the young widow
of the Rue Hautefeuille, is smitten, I am sure; but, betwixt
ourselves, talks to Maître Picard as a cloak to her true sentiments.
Mass! what a neck and shoulders she used to display!’
‘And why does she not now, Jean?’
‘_Pardieu!_ the _curé_ of Saint Etienne-du-Mont attacked her suddenly
during mass for going to church _gorge découverte_. He told her from
the pulpit that such display was wrong, for priests were mortal after
all. How the congregation shouted again with laughter!’
‘I will swear that you are here to captivate some of the court
ladies,’ continued Theria.
‘Nay, hardly that,’ replied the Gascon conceitedly, as he cocked his
hat and drew himself up as high as he could; ‘although I did fancy De
Montespan eyed me as I stood by the door in the theatre. She has a
goodly presence.’
Glazer was about to make some reply, calculated to draw forth a fresh
outpouring of Jean’s Gascon conceit, when he was interrupted by a
stranger, who advanced hastily towards the spot where Blacquart was
standing, and at once addressed him. His dress was little suited to
the festival. He wore large riding-boots, which were dusty, as though
he had just come from a journey. His dress too was disordered, his
hair carelessly arranged, and his general appearance sufficiently
marked to attract attention amongst the gay crowd about him, even in
the semi-obscurity of the illumination.
‘Are you on guard here, monsieur?’ he said to Blacquart, scarcely
noticing his eccentric accoutrements, which might have prevented him
from asking the question.
Jean was flattered at being evidently taken for a real soldier. He
boldly admitted at once that he was.
‘Can you tell me if the Marchioness of Brinvilliers is at Versailles
this evening?’
‘She is,’ returned Jean. ‘I saw her arrive with Madame Scarron--de
Maintenon, as they now call her. And not ten minutes back she crossed
the Tapis Vert on the arm of M. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix.’
The stranger uttered a subdued oath, as Blacquart pronounced the name.
‘Which way were they going?’ he asked quickly.
‘Towards the pavilion,’ answered Jean. ‘I have no doubt you will find
them there by this time.’
The new-comer returned no answer, but turning hastily away, passed on
to the pavilion, which had been erected at the edge of the basin. It
was hung with lamps, and he could discern the features of all the
company who were assembled in it. His eye ran anxiously along the
lines of plumed and jewelled head-dresses, until at last his glance
fell upon Marie and Sainte-Croix, who were seated in a corner of the
building near one of the entrances. He started slightly as he saw
them; and then hurriedly tracing a few lines upon his tablets, he
pointed the Marchioness out to one of the pages, who were in waiting
at the pavilion, and told him to give the message to her. The boy
immediately obeyed his orders. As the Marchioness read the note her
features underwent a rapid change; but the next instant they recovered
their wonted unfathomable calmness; and whispering a few words to
Sainte-Croix, she rose from her seat and left the pavilion. Gaudin
waited until she had quitted the building, and then, as if moved by a
sudden impulse, followed her.
As she reached the outer entrance she found the stranger waiting to
receive her. It was her brother. She held out her hand to greet him;
but he refused to take it, and retreating a step or two, raised his
hat, as he received her with a cold salute.
‘François!’ exclaimed the Marchioness; ‘what brings you here! Has
anything happened to our father? Tell me!’
‘He is _dead_, Marie!’ replied her brother, with a solemn earnestness,
that would have shivered the feelings of any other human being but the
one he addressed. ‘I have left the body not an hour and a half ago, to
bring you the intelligence in the midst of the heartless glitter of
Versailles.’
‘Dead!’ repeated the Marchioness, feigning the same surprise with
which she had received the self-same words from Sainte-Croix such a
short time previously. ‘Dead! and I was not there!’
‘No, Marie!’ returned François d’Aubray; ‘and I come to find you at
Versailles--in this licentious court, not with females in whom you
might have confided your reputation, after what has already occurred,
but with the man by whose wretched acquaintance with you the last days
of your father’s life were poisoned.’
Marie started at the words: could it be possible that the cause of
death was suspected?
‘Ay, poisoned,’ continued her brother, ‘as fatally as though real
venom had been used, instead of this abandoned heartlessness.’
The Marchioness breathed again.
‘To whom do you refer?’ she asked coldly.
‘To Monsieur de Sainte-Croix,’ replied her brother.
‘Who is here to answer any charge you may have to make against him,
monsieur,’ interrupted Gaudin, who just now joined the party.
‘You shall have the opportunity afforded you, monsieur,’ replied
François d’Aubray; ‘but this is neither the time nor the place.
Marie, you will return with me immediately to Paris.’
‘With you, François?’
‘This instant! I have your father’s dying words yet echoing in my
brain, committing you to _our_ care. Are you ready?’
‘Surely the Marchioness of Brinvilliers is her own mistress?’ observed
Gaudin, scarcely knowing how to act.
‘She will obey me, monsieur,’ replied the other. ‘Come, Marie; you
know me.’
As he spoke he seized his sister’s arm, and bowing to Sainte-Croix,
drew her away.
‘You still live in the Place Maubert, I believe,’ he continued: ‘you
will receive a message from me in the morning. _Viens!_’
He spoke in a tone of authority that Marie felt was only to be
disputed by an instant encounter between François and Sainte-Croix,
where they were then standing. So, throwing an expression full of
intense meaning to Gaudin, she allowed her brother to lead her along
the Tapis Vert, towards the entrance of the palace. Gaudin saw them
depart, and then going to the stables had his horse resaddled, and
rode at a desperate pace back to Paris, passing the _calèche_ in
which the Marchioness had been placed by her brother on the road.
Meanwhile the King and his immediate suite had arrived at the
pavilion, and the fireworks were about to commence. Water-serpents and
floating pieces of fire were already whizzing and spinning about on
the surface of the basin; and one or two men had crossed the water
from the opposite side of the fountain to the well-known group, where
they were arranging the cases for the grand bouquet. Philippe saw this
from his perch upon the urn, and determined to turn the Gascon’s
vanity to some account.
‘Your dress is really very handsome, Jean,’ he observed. ‘It is a pity
that its beauty is lost in the mob.’
‘I think so myself, indeed,’ replied Blacquart; ‘but I have been
allowed no opportunity of showing it off. At court everything goes by
interest; and--hem!--I can excuse a little jealousy on the part of the
Garde Royale.’
‘Now, if they will let you light the _feu d’artifice_,’ said Philippe,
‘you will be seen by everybody.’
‘But how can I get to do it?’ asked Blacquart.
‘Come with me,’ said Glazer.
And tumbling from his post, purposely, on the head of Maître Picard,
who had returned to his position, he shot amongst the crowd, before
the bourgeois could contrive to aim another blow at him, and, followed
by Jean, got to the other side of the fountain. Here he claimed
acquaintance with one of the artificers, who, it appeared, had been
under his care at the Hôtel Dieu with an accident; and by his
interest Jean was furnished with a link, and directed what to do,
being inducted into the group along a slight temporary bridge of
boards.
In the interim before the grand piece was lighted, Jean arranged and
rearranged his cloak and hat a hundred times; and when at last he
applied the light to the quickmatch, and the horses began to blow out
fire from their nostrils, apparently in the centre of the water, and
the points of Neptune’s trident also went off in a brilliant discharge
of sparks, Jean was in ecstasies. The people applauded; all of which
he took to himself, and would even have bowed in return to them, had
not the presence of the King restrained him. But he felt satisfied
that, in the glare of the fire, he was plainly visible to all, and
this for the time consoled him.
But his evil genius was about to triumph. A number of changes had
taken place in the bouquet, when suddenly, and simultaneously from
every point of the statues, a column of fire shot up high in the air,
and fell again in a shower of flame upon the group, threatening to
exterminate the Gascon in its descent. His first impulse was to
retreat to the planks and get to the edge of the basin, but a
formidable blazing wheel, forming the back-work of the entire piece,
cut off his flight, so that he was driven back again. Thicker and
thicker fell the flakes, as the tawdry dabs of lace which hung about
his dress caught fire; and his thin, half-starved feather, which
gained in height what it lost in substance, also took light. Philippe
Glazer, who had foreseen all this, set up a loud huzza, in which those
near him joined; the remainder fancied that the figure of the Gascon,
as he danced amidst the glowing shower, was a part of the exhibition,
and intended to represent one of the allegorical personages who always
figured in the masques and tableaux of the period. But at last he
could bear it no longer. His cloak was just bursting into a flame
when, in the agony of his despair, he threw himself into the basin,
amidst the renewed hilarity of the spectators, including Louis
himself, who, with La Montespan, and even the pale pensive La
Vallière, was more amused than if everything had gone on in its
proper way.
The reservoir was not very deep, but the Gascon had lost all
self-possession, and he floundered about like a water-god, to the
great detriment of so much of his finery as yet remained, until he got
near enough to the edge of the basin for Maître Picard to hook him
out with his halberd, and drag him half-drowned and half-roasted to
dry ground.