XXXIX.

A few lines of the article consecrated to Martial in the “General

Biography of Men of the Time,” fittingly epitomize the history of his

public life. “Martial de Sairmeuse,” says the writer, “placed at the

service of his party a highly cultivated intellect, unusual penetration,

and extraordinary abilities. A leader at the time when political passion

was raging highest, he had the courage to assume the sole responsibility

of the most unpopular measures. But the hostility he encountered, the

danger in which he placed the throne, compelled him to retire from

office, leaving behind him animosities which will only be extinguished

with his life.” In thus summing up Martial’s public career, his

biographer omits to say that if the Duke de Sairmeuse was wrong in his

policy--and that depends entirely on the point of view from which his

conduct is regarded--he was doubly wrong, since he was not possessed of

that ardent conviction verging on fanaticism which makes men, fools,

heroes, and martyrs. He was not even truly ambitious. When those

associated with him witnessed his passionate struggles and unceasing

activity, they thought him actuated by an insatiable thirst for power.

But, in reality, he cared little or nothing for it. He considered its

burdens heavy; its compensations slight. His pride was too lofty to feel

any satisfaction in applause; and flattery disgusted him. Often, during

some brilliant fete, his acquaintances and subordinates, finding him

thoughtful and pre-occupied, respectfully refrained from disturbing him.

“His mind is occupied with momentous questions,” they fancied. “Who can

tell what important decisions may result from his reverie.” But in this

surmise they were mistaken. And, indeed, at the very moment when royal

favour filled his rivals’ hearts with envy, when occupying the highest

position a subject can aspire to, and it seemed he could have nothing

left to wish for in this world, Martial was saying to himself, “What an

empty life! What weariness and vexation of spirit! To live for

others--what a mockery!”

He looked at his wife, radiant in her beauty, worshipped like a queen,

and sighed. He thought of her who was dead--Marie-Anne--the only woman

he had ever loved. She was never absent from his mind, and after all

these years he saw her yet, stretched cold, rigid, lifeless, on the

canopied bedstead, in that luxurious room at the Borderie. Time, far

from effacing from his heart the image of the fair girl whose beauty

unwittingly had wrought such woe--had only intensified youthful

impressions, endowing the lost idol with almost superhuman grace of

person and character. Ah! if fate had but given him Marie-Anne for his

wife! Thus said Martial, again and again, picturing the happiness which

then would have been his. They would have remained at Sairmeuse. They

would have had children playing round them! And he would not be

condemned to this continual warfare--to this hollow, unsatisfying

restless life. The truly happy are not those who parade their dignities

and opulence before the eyes of the multitude. They rather hide

themselves from the curious gaze, and they are right; for here on earth

happiness is almost a crime. So thought Martial; and he, the envied

statesman, often said to himself, with a feeling of vexation: “To love,

and to be loved--that is everything! All else is vanity.”

He had really tried to love his wife; he had done his best to

resuscitate the feeling of admiration with which she had inspired him at

their first meeting; but he had not succeeded. It seemed as if there was

between them a wall of ice which nothing could melt, and which only grew

and expanded as time went on. “Why is it?” he wondered, again and again.

“It is incomprehensible. There are days when I could swear she loves me.

Her character, formerly so irritable, is entirely changed; she is

gentleness itself.” But still he could not conquer his aversion; it was

stronger than his own will.

These unavailing regrets, the disappointment and sorrow that preyed upon

his mind undoubtedly aggravated the bitterness and severity of Martial’s

policy. At least he knew how to fall nobly. He passed, even without a

change of countenance, from all but omnipotence to a position so

compromising that his very life was endangered. On perceiving his

ante-chambers, formerly thronged with flatterers and place-hunters, now

empty and deserted, he laughed--naturally, sincerely, without the least

affectation. “The ship is sinking,” said he: “the rats have deserted

it.” He did not even turn pale when the mob gathered outside his house,

hurling stones at his windows, and hooting and cursing the fallen

statesman; and when Otto, his faithful valet de chambre, entreated him

to assume a disguise, and make his escape through the gardens, he

quietly replied, “By no means! I am simply odious; I don’t wish to

become ridiculous!” They could not even dissuade him from going to a

window and looking down on the rabble in the street below. A singular

idea had just occurred to him. “If Jean Lacheneur is still alive,” he

thought, “how much he would enjoy this! And if he is alive, no doubt he

is there in the foremost rank, urging on the crowd.” And he wished to

see. But Jean Lacheneur was in Russia at that epoch.

The excitement eventually subsided; and the Hotel de Sairmeuse was not

seriously threatened. However, Martial realized that it would be better

for him to go away for awhile, and allow people to forget him. He did

not ask the duchess to accompany him. “The fault has been mine

entirely,” he said to her, “and it would be most unjust to make you

suffer for it by condemning you to exile. Remain here; I think it will

be much better for you to remain.” She did not offer to go with him,

although she longed to do so, but then she dared not leave Paris. She

knew that she must remain in order to secure her persecutor’s silence.

On the two occasions when she had left Paris before, everything was near

being discovered, and yet then she had had Aunt Medea to take her place.

Martial went away, accompanied only by his servant, Otto. In

intelligence, this man was decidedly superior to his position; he was

indeed decently off, and he had a hundred reasons--one, by the way, was

a very pretty one--for desiring to remain in Paris; but his master was

in trouble, and so he did not hesitate. During four years the Duke de

Sairmeuse wandered through Europe, always chafing beneath the burden of

a life no longer animated by interest or sustained by hope. He remained

for a time in London, then he went to Vienna, and afterwards to Venice.

One day he was seized by an irresistible desire to see Paris again, and

he returned. It was not a very prudent step, perhaps, for his bitterest

enemies--personal enemies, whom he had mortally offended and

persecuted--were in power; but still he did not hesitate. Besides, how

could they injure him, since he had no favours to ask, no cravings of

ambition to satisfy?

The exile which had weighed so heavily on him, the loneliness he had

endured had softened his nature and inclined his heart to tenderness:

and he returned firmly resolved to overcome his aversion to his wife,

and seek a reconciliation. “Old age is coming,” he thought. “If I have

not the love of youth by my fireside, I may at least have a friend.”

Blanche was astonished by his manner towards her when he returned. She

almost believed she had found again the Martial of the old days at

Courtornieu, but the realisation of the dream, so fondly cherished and

so long deferred, now proved only another torture added to all the

others. Still, Martial was striving to carry his plan into execution,

when one day the following brief note came to him through the post:

“Monsieur le Duc--If I were in your place, I would watch my wife.”

It was only an anonymous letter, and yet on perusing it Martial’s blood

mounted to his forehead. “Can she have a lover?” he thought. Then

reflecting on his own conduct towards his wife since their marriage, he

said to himself: “And if she has, what right have I to complain? Did I

not tacitly give her back her liberty?” However, he was greatly

troubled; and yet he did not once think of playing the spy.

A few mornings afterwards, at about eleven o’clock, he was returning

from a ride on horseback, and was not thirty paces from the Hotel de

Sairmeuse when he suddenly perceived a lady hurriedly emerge from the

house. She was very plainly dressed--entirely in black--but her whole

appearance recalled that of the duchess in a striking fashion. “That’s

certainly my wife,” thought Martial, “but why is she dressed in that

fashion?” Then, yielding to a sudden impulse, he walked his horse up the

Rue de Grenelle behind the woman in black. Blanche it was. She was

tripping swiftly over the pavement, keeping her face shrouded by a thick

veil and she never once turned her head. On reaching the Rue Taranne,

she spoke hurriedly to a cab-driver on the stand, and then sprung into

his vehicle. The Jehu was already on his box and he at once gave his

bony horse such a vigorous cut of the whip that it was evident he had

just been promised a princely gratuity. The cab had already turned into

the Rue du Dragon, and Martial, ashamed of what he had already done and

irresolute as to what he should do now was still tarrying at the corner

of the Rue des Saints-Peres, where he had originally stopped his horse.

Scarcely daring to entertain the suspicions that flitted across his

mind, he tried to deceive himself. “After all,” he muttered, “it is of

no use advancing. The cab’s a long way off by now, and I couldn’t

overtake it.” Still he mechanically gave his horse the rein and when he

reached the Croix Rouge he espied Blanche’s vehicle among a crowd of

others. He recognized it by its green body and wheels striped with

white. This decided him. The cab-driver had just managed to extricate

himself from the block which traffic so frequently causes hereabouts,

and whipping up his horse once more turned literally at a gallop up the

Rue du Vieux Colombier--leading into the Place St. Sulpice. Thence he

took the shortest cut to gain the outer boulevards.

Martial’s thoughts were busy as he trotted along a hundred yards or so

behind the vehicle. “She’s in a terrible hurry,” he said to himself.

“But this is scarcely the quarter for a lover’s rendezvous.” The cab had

indeed now reached the squalid region extending beyond the Place

d’Italie. It turned into the Rue du Chateau-des-Rentiers and soon drew

up before a tract of waste ground. The Duchess de Sairmeuse then hastily

alighted, and, without stopping to look to the right or to the left,

hurried across the open space. Martial had prudently paused in the rear.

Not far from him he espied a man sitting on a block of stone and

apparently immersed in the task of colouring a clay-pipe. “Will you hold

my horse a moment?” inquired Martial.

“Certainly,” answered the man, rising to his feet. He wore a workman’s

blouse and a long beard, and his aspect altogether was scarcely

prepossessing. Had Martial been less pre-occupied, his suspicions might

have been aroused by the malicious smile that curved the fellow’s lips;

and had he scrutinized him closely, he would perhaps have recognized

him. For the seeming vagrant was Jean Lacheneur. Since forwarding that

anonymous letter to the Duke de Sairmeuse, he had compelled the Duchess

to multiply her visits to the Widow Chupin’s den, and on each occasion

he had watched for her arrival. “So, if her husband decides to follow

her I shall know it,” he thought. It was indispensable for the success

of his plans that Blanche should be watched by her husband. For from

among a thousand schemes of revenge, Jean had chosen the most frightful

his fevered brain could conceive. He longed to see the haughty Duchess

de Sairmeuse subjected to the vilest ignominy, and Martial in the hands

of the lowest of the low. He pictured a bloody struggle in this

miserable den; the sudden arrival of the police, summoned by himself,

and the indiscriminate arrest of all the parties present. He gloated

over the thought of a trial in which the crime committed at the Borderie

would be brought to light; he saw the duke and the duchess in prison,

and the great names of Sairmeuse and Courtornieu shrouded in eternal

disgrace. And he believed that nothing was wanting to ensure the success

of his plans. He had two miserable wretches who were capable of any

crime at his disposal; and an unfortunate youth named Gustave, whom

poverty and cowardice had made his willing slave, was intended to play

the part of Marie-Anne’s son. These three accomplices had no suspicions

of Lacheneur’s real intentions, while, as for the Widow Chupin and her

son, if they suspected some infamous plot all they really knew in regard

to it was the duchess’s name. Moreover, Jean held Polyte and his mother

completely under his control by the wealth he had promised them if they

served them faithfully. If Martial decided to follow his wife into the

Poivriere the first time he watched her, Jean had, moreover, so arranged

matters that the duke would at first suppose that Blanche had been led

there by charity. “But he will not go in,” thought the seeming vagrant,

as, holding Martial’s horse some little distance off, he looked in the

direction of the hovel. “Monsieur le Duc is too cunning for that.”

And Martial did not go in. Though he was horrified when he saw his wife

enter so vile a den, as if she were at home there, he said to himself

that he should learn nothing by following her. He, therefore, contented

himself by making a thorough examination of the hovel from outside, and

then remounting his horse and throwing Lacheneur a silver coin he

started back home at a gallop. He was completely mystified: he did not

know what to think, what to imagine, what to believe. But, at the same

time, he was fully resolved to fathom the mystery; and as soon as he

returned home he sent Otto out in search of information. He could

confide everything to this devoted servant from whom he had no secrets.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, the faithful valet de chambre returned

with an expression of consternation on his face. “What is it?” asked

Martial, divining some great misfortune.

“Ah, sir, the mistress of that wretched den is the widow of Chupin’s

son--”

Martial’s face turned ghastly pale. He knew life well enough to

understand that since the duchess had been compelled to submit to these

peoples’ power, they must be masters of some secret which she was

anxious at any price to keep unrevealed. But what secret could it be?

The years which had furrowed Martial’s brow, had not cooled the ardour

of his blood. He was, as he had always been, a man of impulse, and so,

without pausing he rushed to his wife’s apartments.

“Madame has just gone downstairs to receive the Countess de Mussidan and

the Marchioness d’Arlange,” said the maid whom he met on the landing.

“Very well; I will wait for her here. You may retire.”

So saying, Martial entered Blanche’s dressing-room. It was in disorder

for, after returning from the Poivriere, the duchess was still engaged

at her toilette when visitors were announced. The wardrobe-doors stood

open, two or three chairs were encumbered with wearing apparel, and

Blanche’s watch, her purse, and several bunches of keys were lying on

the dressing-table and the mantel-piece. Martial did not sit down. His

self-possession was returning. “I will commit no act of folly,” he

thought, “if I question her, I shall learn nothing. I must be silent and

watchful.”

He was about to retire, when, on glancing round the room, he noticed a

large casket, inlaid with silver, which had belonged to his wife ever

since she was a girl, and which accompanied her everywhere. “That, no

doubt, contains the solution of the mystery,” he said to himself. This

was one of those moments when a man obeys the dictates of passion

without pausing to reflect. Seeing the keys on the mantelpiece, he

seized them, and endeavoured to find one that would fit the lock of the

casket. The fourth key opened it. It was full of papers. With feverish

haste, Martial examined their contents. He had thrown aside several

unimportant letters, when he came to a bill that read as follows:

“Search made for Madame de Sairmeuse’s child. Expenses for the third

quarter of the year 18--.” Martial’s brain reeled. A child! His wife had

a child! But he read on: “For the services of two agents at

Sairmeuse, ----. For expenses attending my own journey, ----. Divers

gratuities, ----. Etc., etc.” The total amounted to six thousand francs;

and it was receipted “Chefteux.” With a sort of cold rage, Martial

continued his examination of the casket’s contents, and found a

miserably-written note, which said; “Two thousand francs this evening,

or I will tell the duke the history of the affair at the Borderie.” Then

there were several more of Chefteux’s bills; next, a letter from Aunt

Medea, in which she spoke of prison and remorse; and, finally, at the

bottom of the casket, he found the marriage certificate of Marie-Anne

Lacheneur and Maurice d’Escorval, drawn up by the cure of Vigano and

signed by the old physician and Corporal Bavois.

The truth was as clear as daylight. Stunned, frozen with horror, Martial

scarcely had strength enough to place the letters in the casket again,

and restore it to its place. Then he tottered back to his own room,

clinging to the walls for support. “It was she who murdered Marie-Anne,”

he murmured. He was confounded, terror-stricken, by the perfidy of this

woman who was his wife--by her criminal audacity, cool calculation and

assurance, and her marvellous powers of dissimulation.

Still he swore he would discover everything, either through the duchess

or through the Widow Chupin; and he ordered Otto to procure him a

costume such as was generally worn by the frequenters of the Poivriere.

He did not know how soon he might have need of it. This happened early

in February, and from that moment Blanche did not take a single step

without being watched. Not a letter reached her that her husband had not

previously read. And she had not the slightest suspicion of the constant

supervision to which she was subjected. Martial did not leave his room;

he pretended to be ill. He felt he could not meet his wife and remain

silent. He remembered the oath of vengeance which he had sworn over

Marie-Anne’s lifeless form only too well. However, the watch which Otto

kept over the duchess, and the perusal of the letters addressed to her,

did not yield any fresh information, and for this reason: Polyte Chupin

had been arrested on a charge of theft, and this accident caused a

delay in the execution of Lacheneur’s plans.

But at last the latter prepared everything for Shrove Sunday, the 20th

of February. On the previous day, in accordance with her instructions,

the Widow Chupin wrote to the duchess that she must come to the

Poivriere on Sunday night at eleven o’clock. On that same evening, Jean

was to meet his accomplices at a ball at the Rainbow--a wine-shop

bearing a very unenviable reputation--and give them their final

instructions. These accomplices were to open the scene; he was only to

appear at the _denouement_. “All is well arranged; the mechanism will

work of its own accord,” he said to himself. But, as is already known,

the “mechanism,” as he styled it, failed to act.

On receiving the Widow Chupin’s summons, Blanche revolted for a moment.

The lateness of the hour, the distance, the isolation of the appointed

meeting place, frightened her. Still, she was obliged to submit, and on

Sunday evening she furtively left the house, accompanied by Camille, the

same maid who had been present when Aunt Medea died. The duchess and

Camille were attired like women of the lowest order, and felt no fear of

being recognized. And yet a man was watching who quickly followed them.

This was Martial. He had perused the note appointing this rendezvous

even before his wife, and had disguised himself in the costume Otto had

procured for him--that of a labourer about the quays. Then, in hope of

making himself absolutely unrecognizable, he had soiled and matted his

hair and beard; his hands were grimed with dirt; and he really seemed to

belong to the class of which he wore the attire. Otto had begged to be

allowed to accompany his master; but the duke refused, remarking that

his revolver would prove quite sufficient protection. He knew Otto well

enough, however, to feel certain he would disobey him.

Ten o’clock was striking when Blanche and Camille left the house, and it

did not take them five minutes to reach the Rue Taranne. There was only

one cab on the stand, which they at once hired. This circumstance drew

from Martial an oath worthy of his costume. But he reflected that, since

he knew where to find his wife, a slight delay in obtaining a vehicle

would not matter. He soon found one, and, thanks to a gratuity of ten

francs, the driver started off to the Rue du Chateau-des-Rentiers as

fast as his horse could go. However, the duke had scarcely alighted

before he heard the rumbling of another vehicle which pulled up abruptly

a little distance behind. “Otto is evidently following me,” he thought.

And he then started across the open space in the direction of the

Poivriere. The prevailing silence and absence of life were rendered

still more oppressive by a chill fog which heralded an approaching thaw.

Martial stumbled and slipped at almost every step he took over the

rough, snow-covered ground; but at last through the mist he

distinguished a building in the distance. This was the Poivriere. The

light burning inside, filtered through the heart-shaped apertures cut in

the upper part of the shutters, and it almost seemed as if a pair of

lurid eyes were striving to peer through the fog.

Could it really be possible that the Duchess de Sairmeuse was there!

Martial cautiously approached the window, and clinging to the hinges of

the shutters, raised himself up so that he could glance through one of

the apertures. Yes, there was no mistake. His wife and Camille were

seated at a table before a large punch-bowl, in the company of two

ragged, leering scoundrels, and a soldier of youthful appearance. In the

centre of the room stood the Widow Chupin, with a small glass in her

hand. She was talking with great volubility, and punctuating her

sentences with occasional sips of brandy. The impression this scene

produced on Martial was so acute that his hold relaxed and he dropped to

the ground. A ray of pity stole into his soul, for he vaguely realized

the frightful suffering which had been the murderess’s chastisement. But

he wished for another glance, and so once more he lifted himself up to

the opening and looked in. The old woman had disappeared; the young

soldier had risen from the table, and was talking and gesticulating

earnestly. Blanche and Camille were listening to him with the closest

attention. The two men who were sitting face to face, with their elbows

on the table, were looking at each other; and Martial saw them exchange

a significant glance. He was not wrong. The scoundrels were plotting “a

rich haul.” Blanche, who had dressed herself with much care, and to

render her disguise perfect had encased her feet in large coarse shoes,

that were causing her well nigh intolerable agony--Blanche had

neglected to remove her superb diamond ear-rings. She had forgotten

them, but Lacheneur’s accomplices had noticed them, and were now

glancing at them with eyes that glittered more brilliantly than the

diamonds themselves. While awaiting Lacheneur’s coming, these wretches

as had been agreed upon, were playing the part which he had imposed upon

them. For this, and their assistance afterwards, they were to receive a

certain sum of money. But they were thinking that this sum did not

represent a quarter of the value of these jewels, and their looks only

too plainly said: “What if we could secure them and go off before

Lacheneur comes!” The temptation was too strong to be resisted. One of

the scoundrels suddenly rose, and, seizing the duchess by the back of

the neck, forced her head down on the table. The diamonds would have

been at once torn from her ears if it had not been for Camille, who

bravely came to her mistress’s assistance. Martial could endure no more.

He sprang to the door of the hovel, opened it, and entered, bolting it

behind him.

“Martial!” “Monsieur le Duc!” cried Blanche and Camille in the same

breath, for, despite his disguise, they had both recognised him. Their

exclamations turned the momentary stupor of their assailants into fury;

and both ruffians precipitated themselves on Martial, determined to kill

him. But, springing on one side, the duke avoided them. He had his

revolver in his hand; he fired twice, and both the scoundrels fell.

However, he was not yet safe, for the young soldier rushed forward and

attempted to disarm him. Then began a furious struggle, in the midst of

which Martial did not leave off crying, in a panting voice, “Fly!

Blanche, fly! Otto is not far off. The name--save the honour of the

name!”

The two women obeyed him, making their escape through the back door,

which opened into the garden; and they had scarcely done so, before a

violent knocking was heard at the front entry. The police were coming!

This increased Martial’s frenzy; and in a supreme effort to free himself

from his assailant, he hurled him backwards so violently, that, striking

his head against a corner of the table, the young soldier fell on to the

floor, and lay there to all appearance dead. In the meanwhile, the

Widow Chupin, who had hastened from the room above on hearing the

uproar, was shrieking on the staircase, while at the front door a voice

was crying: “Open in the name of the law!” Martial might have fled; but

if he fled, the duchess might be captured, for he would certainly be

pursued. He saw the peril at a glance, and determined to remain. Shaking

the Widow Chupin by the arm, he said to her, in an imperious voice: “If

you know how to hold your tongue you shall have a hundred thousand

francs.” Then, drawing a table before the door opening into the back

room, he intrenched himself behind it as behind a rampart, and awaited

the enemy’s approach.

The next moment the door was forced open, and a squad of police agents,

headed by Inspector Gevrol, entered the room. “Surrender!” cried the

inspector.

Martial did not move; his revolver was turned towards the intruders. “If

I can parley with them and hold them in check only two minutes, all may

yet be saved,” he thought. He obtained the required delay; then throwing

his weapon to the ground, he was about to bound through the back door,

when a police agent, who had gone round to the rear of the house, seized

him about the body, and threw him to the floor. From this side he

expected only assistance, hence he exclaimed: “Lost! It is the Prussians

who are coming!”

In the twinkling of an eye he was bound; and two hours later he was an

inmate of the station-house at the Place d’Italie. He had played his

part so perfectly, that he had deceived even Gevrol. His assailants were

dead, and he could rely upon the Widow Chupin. But he knew that the trap

had been set for him by Jean Lacheneur; and he read a whole volume of

suspicion in the eyes of the young officer who had cut off his retreat,

and who was called Lecoq by his companions.