THE GAME IS UP--THE TRAP--MARIE RETURNS WITH DESGRAIS TO THE
CONCIERGERIE
Any other officer than Desgrais would have given up further attempts
to arrest the Marchioness, now that she was in the sanctuary of a
convent--in a town, too, where any invasion of the privileges
belonging to a religious house would have been avenged with the most
unrelenting severity. But the exempt felt bitterly the manner in which
he had been more than once duped upon the road, at times when his prey
was completely within his grasp. He was exceedingly sensitive as
regarded his position, and reputation as the most vigilant officer of
the Maréchaussée, and he determined not to enter Paris again until
he could do so accompanied by the Marchioness.
To effect this, he took a lodging in a retired quarter of Liége, and
remained there for a few weeks, dismissing his archers and guards,
with orders to return to Givet, and be in readiness to join him at
Liége upon the shortest notice. To the Marchioness he was personally
unknown. She had not met him above once or twice, and then without
particularly regarding him; and this decided him as to the course he
would pursue. He was young and active; the very business in which he
was constantly engaged had given him admission into all ranks of
society; and he had tact and ready perception to profit by his
observations, and adopt the manners of any particular class which he
found it necessary to assume. He arranged his plans and, when he
imagined sufficient time had elapsed, proceeded to put them into
execution.
To effect the capture he disguised himself in the dress of an abbe,
and presented himself one evening at the gates of the convent in which
Marie had sought shelter, requesting to see her. The porter, after a
slight hesitation, admitted him to the parlour, and in a few minutes
the object of his venture appeared.
The Marchioness had entirely recovered from the fatigues of her
journey. Those who had known her intimately would have remarked a few
lines on her face, resulting from the agitation caused by recent
events; but to others there was still the same girlish, confiding
face--still the same blue lustrous eyes and smooth expansive forehead,
and the rosy lips still half-revealed the same beautiful teeth that
had so dazzled the sight of the gallants, and raised the envy of the
dames of the court at Versailles. She bowed gracefully to Desgrais as
she entered the room, and then in her softest tones inquired ‘to what
chance she was indebted for the honour of a visit from Monsieur
l’Abbé?’
‘I am a poor servant of the Church, madame,’ he replied, ‘and am
returning from a pilgrimage to Rome with relics to be deposited at the
Jacobins, in the Rue St. Honoré. Being detained at Liége upon
matters of ecclesiastical interest, I heard that you were here, and
came to offer my respects.’
‘I have done little to deserve this attention, my holy father,’ said
Marie.
‘You have suffered much undeserved misery, madame,’ answered Desgrais.
‘You were a supporter of our Church--a good and charitable lady, as
all Paris can vouch; and I should have taken blame unto myself had I
not paid this tribute to your goodness.’
‘Alas! _mon père!_’ cried Marie; ‘would that the world could think of
me as well as you do. Of what avail has been my past life? You will
find, on your return to Paris, the blackest stories current against
me. A woman, once fallen, has no hope; but every one--those who would
have cringed to her the lowest when she was in her position being the
foremost--will hurry to crush her more utterly, to beat her lower
down. I am lost--for ever!’
‘Yet you should hope that the consciousness of your own innocence will
one day prevail,’ returned the exempt.
‘I have no hope, monsieur. I am alone in this dreary place--alone,
even in the midst of its inmates, as though I were shut out entirely
from the world.’
Desgrais paused for an instant. ‘She has not mentioned her comrades,’
he said to himself, ‘and she was certainly accompanied on the road.
All accounts agree in this.’
‘You are mistaken, madame,’ he continued aloud. ‘Think. Is there no
one on whom you think you might rely?’
‘What mean you?’ inquired Marie eagerly.
For a few seconds they continued gazing at one another, each waiting
for the other to speak. Desgrais was waiting for some cue, from which
his tact might enable him to proceed, and the Marchioness was fearful
of committing herself by revealing more than the other knew. Two deep
and artful natures were pitted against each other.
Desgrais was the first to speak. With an assumed expression of
countenance, calculated to impress his companion with the idea that he
understood everything then passing in her mind, and in a voice of deep
meaning, he said--
‘Is there no one, think you, who feels an interest in you? You can
trust me. What communication have you held with the world since you
have been in this retreat?’
‘None, father--on my soul, none.’
‘And have you expected to hear from no one?’ continued Desgrais in the
same tone.
‘Camille!’ exclaimed the Marchioness eagerly. And then, as if aware
she had been indiscreet, she closed her lips forcibly together, and
remained silent.
‘Yes--Camille,’ replied Desgrais, quickly catching at the name. ‘Did
you think he had deserted you?’
And he looked cautiously round the parlour, and then placed his finger
on his mouth, as though he was fearful of being overheard.
‘I did not know in what quarter of the town he lived,’ she answered.
‘So,’ thought Desgrais, ‘he is in Liége, then.’
‘And besides,’ she went on, ‘circumstances are changed. He cares no
more for me.’
‘Would you see him?’ asked Desgrais.
The vanity of the woman triumphed over her caution. Camille Theria, it
was evident to Marie, had found his old attachment revive as they had
met again. He had forgotten his fiancée, and was anxious again to see
her.
‘Am I to believe you?’ she asked.
‘You may believe your eyes,’ replied the exempt. ‘He will be at the
tavern of the “Trois Rois” at curfew time to-night.’
‘Why will he not come here?’
‘Would it be advisable? You need fear nothing. I will escort you from
the convent and return with you.’
‘It will compromise your position,’ said Marie.
‘That will be my own affair, madame,’ replied Desgrais. ‘The weather
is unfavourable enough to drive the passengers from the streets, and
the night is dark. No harm can arrive.’
‘What can he want with me?’ said Marie, half speaking to herself, as
she appeared undecided how to act.
‘You will learn all,’ said Desgrais, not trusting himself to speak
further on a subject of which he was so utterly ignorant. ‘But time
presses, and the bells will soon ring out. Come, madame, come.’
Without any other covering than a cloak wrapped about her, and
concealing as much as possible her head and face, Marie yielded to the
persuasions of Desgrais, and, taking his arm, left the convent
unobserved, in the direction of the tavern he had mentioned. The
perfect quietude she had enjoyed since her arrival at the convent had
led her to believe that the French police had entirely given up their
intentions of arresting her. Sainte-Croix, in her fearful
heartlessness, had been already forgotten, and the prospect of a new
conquest--a new victim to her treacherous passions--drew her on with
irresistible attraction.
They traversed the steep and uneven streets of Liége until they came
to the door of the tavern, from whose windows the red firelights were
streaming across the thoroughfare. Desgrais muttered a few words of
excuse for the humble appearance of the place, and then conducted
Marie into the public room.
‘One instant,’ he said. ‘I will ask if he is here.’
He left the room, closing the door behind him, and Marie was a few
moments alone in the apartment. With some slight mistrust, she
listened for his return, and imagined she heard, for a few seconds,
the clank of arms. But this subsided almost immediately, and Desgrais
came back again.
‘Is he not yet here?’ she asked.
‘He is not, madame,’ said Desgrais in an altered tone; ‘nor is it
likely that he will come.’
‘What do you imply?’ exclaimed Marie, somewhat alarmed, and advancing
towards the door.
‘Pardon me, madame,’ said Desgrais, ‘but you cannot pass.’
‘Insolent!’ cried the Marchioness. ‘What does this outrage mean?’
‘That you are my prisoner, madame.’
‘Prisoner! And by whose orders?’
‘By order of his Majesty Louis XIV., King of France,’ cried Desgrais
loudly, as he threw aside his abbe’s robes, and appeared in his
under-clothing as exempt of the guard. ‘Madame, you are mine at last!’
The words had been the signal to those without, whom he had left the
room to put upon their guard. As he pronounced
[image: img_14.jpg
caption: ‘Then, Madame, you are mine at last!’]
them, they rushed into the room, and the Marchioness found herself
surrounded by the archers of the royal guard.
In an instant Marie perceived the trap that had been laid for her.
‘Miscreant!’ she cried, as she rushed at Desgrais in her rage. ‘You
have not yet got your prey within your fangs. I am in a country in
which your authority goes for nought. You cannot arrest me.’
‘Once more, you must pardon me, Madame la Marquise,’ replied Desgrais,
as he drew a paper from his belt. ‘The council of this town has
authorised your extradition, upon a letter from the King. You are as
much our prisoner as though we had arrested you in your own _hôtel_
in Paris.’
As quick as lightning, upon comprehending the meaning of the words,
Marie drew a poniard from its sheath at the side of one of the guards,
and endeavoured to plunge it into her breast. But her hand was
arrested by another of the party, and the weapon wrested from her.
Baffled in this intention, and in an agony of powerless rage, she
endeavoured to speak, but her mouth refused utterance to the words,
and with a terrible cry she fell senseless upon the ground.
Confiding her to the care of one of his men, and ordering the others
to keep guard without, Desgrais now returned to the convent in search
of further evidence, furnished with proper authority to bring away
whatever he could find. But Marie had little with her. A small case of
letters and papers was, however, discovered under her pillow, and of
this Desgrais immediately took possession. It contained most important
evidence against her--no less than a confession of the past actions of
her life.
In the meantime Marie gradually recovered; but it was some time before
she came completely to herself, from a succession of fainting-fits
supervening one upon another as the least degree of consciousness
returned, and the dreadful reality of her position broke in upon her.
The rough soldier with whom she had been left, unused to guard such
prisoners, and somewhat struck with her beauty and evidently superior
position in life, had been in great confusion of ideas as to what he
ought to do, and had at last called one of the females attached to the
establishment to the aid of the Marchioness. By some of those trifling
remedies which women only appear to have at command for their own sex,
in the like emergencies, Marie was gradually brought round, and then
the female departed, and she was left alone with her guard--pale and
trembling, resembling a corpse, but for the still bright eye, and the
convulsive quivering of every nerve in her delicate frame. She uttered
not a syllable, but remained in a corner of the room, on a rude settle
to which she had been carried by the soldiers; and the sentinel’s
heavy tread, as he paced backwards and forwards before the door of the
apartment, was the only sound that broke the dreary stillness.
In less than an hour Desgrais returned. He came accompanied by a
_voiture de poste_, having directly after the capture of his prisoner
ordered it to be in waiting, as well as despatched a courier with
commands to have everything in readiness along the road for fresh
relays. He now entered the room, and requested Marie to accompany him
into the carriage.
‘You have played a sorry part, monsieur, in this drama,’ she said to
him, ‘and you have triumphed: do not think I am stooping to you if I
make one request: could you see how deeply I feel myself to be
degraded in asking this favour, you--even you--might pity me and grant
it. You have played with the name of a person this evening, and won
your stake off it. Will you allow me to write to him?’
‘Provided I see the letter, and you can write it in ten minutes,’
replied Desgrais. ‘We must reach Dinant to supper, where also you will
rest the night.’
‘Half that time will be sufficient,’ said Marie. ‘Give me the means,
and for a few minutes leave me to myself.’
Desgrais produced his tablets, and tearing a few blank leaves from
them gave them to the Marchioness, as well as a style he carried; then
placing the sentinel again before the door, he withdrew.
As soon as he was gone Marie traced a few words upon the paper, and
then spoke to the guard.
‘What is your name?’ she asked in a low, hurried tone.
‘Antoine Barbier,’ replied the man gruffly, ‘archer in his Majesty’s
service.’
And he continued his march. In less than a minute she again addressed
him.
‘See!’ she exclaimed, taking a massive jewelled ornament from her
hair. ‘The sale of this will provide you with good cheer for many a
long day, and I will give it to you if you will forward this letter
for me to its address. There is nothing in this against your orders.
See,’ she continued, adding the address. ‘“M. Camille Theria, à
Liége;” he is an apothecary in the town. Will you do this for me?’
‘Give it to me,’ said the man. ‘I will find some one when I am
relieved who will pay attention to it.’
‘Take the wages, then, at the same time,’ added Marie.
‘No,’ replied the archer, as he put the proffered gift on one side. ‘I
do not want payment for this.’
In a minute or two Desgrais came back to know if the letter was
concluded, as the carriage was ready to start. Marie shrunk from him
when he entered as though he had been a serpent--her horror of the
exempt was not feigned.
‘I cannot write, monsieur,’ she said. ‘I am at your service.
_Allons!_’
She put away the arm of the officer as he held it forward for her to
take, and passed into the passage, which was lined with the archers.
As she passed the sentinel who had kept guard over her in the inn, she
whispered to him ‘Remember,’ and then entered the carriage without
another word, throwing herself into a corner and muffling her face in
her cloak.
Desgrais was about to follow, when Barbier slipped the note into his
hand. He read--
‘My dear Theria--I have been taken by Desgrais, and am on my road to
Paris: save me at all hazards.
‘Marie.’
‘Lose not an instant,’ cried the exempt, as he entered the carriage.
‘On--on with your horses as fast as whip and spur can urge them!’