"What fools," said Doltaire presently, "to burn the bread and oven
too! If only they were less honest in a world of rogues, poor moles!"
Coming nearer, we saw that La Friponne itself was safe, but one
warehouse was doomed and another threatened. The streets were full
of people, and thousands of excited peasants, laborers, and sailors
were shouting, "Down with the palace! Down with Bigot!"
We came upon the scene at the most critical moment. None of the
Governors soldiers were in sight, but up the Heights we could hear
the steady tramp of General Montcalm's infantry as they came on.
Where were Bigot's men? There was a handful--one company--drawn up
before La Friponne, idly leaning on their muskets, seeing the great
granary burn, and watching La Friponne threatened by the mad crowd
and the fire. There was not a soldier before the Intendant's
palace, not a light in any window.
"What is this weird trick of Bigot's?" said Doltaire, musing.
The Governor, we knew, had been out of the city that day. But
where was Bigot? At a word from Doltaire we pushed forward towards
the palace, the soldiers keeping me in their midst. We were not
a hundred feet from the great steps when two gates at the right
suddenly swung open, and a carriage rolled out swiftly and dashed
down into the crowd. I recognized the coachman first--Bigot's,
an old one-eyed soldier of surpassing nerve, and devoted to his
master. The crowd parted right and left. Suddenly the carriage
stopped, and Bigot stood up, folding his arms, and glancing round
with a disdainful smile without speaking a word. He carried a paper
in one hand.
Here were at least two thousand armed and unarmed peasants, sick
with misery and oppression, in the presence of their undefended
tyrant. One shot, one blow of a stone, one stroke of a knife--to
the end of a shameless pillage. But no hand was raised to do the
deed. The roar of voices subsided--he waited for it--and silence
was broken only by the crackle of the burning building, the tramp
of Montcalm's soldiers in Mountain Street, and the tolling of the
cathedral bell. I thought it strange that almost as Bigot came out
the wild clanging gave place to a cheerful peal.
After standing for a moment, looking round him, his eye resting on
Doltaire and myself (we were but a little distance from him), Bigot
said in a loud voice: "What do you want with me? Do you think I may
be moved by threats? Do you punish me by burning your own food,
which, when the English are at our doors, is your only hope? Fools!
How easily could I turn my cannon and my men upon you! You think to
frighten me. Who do you think I am?--a Bostonnais or an Englishman?
You--revolutionists! T'sh! You are wild dogs without a leader. You
want one that you can trust; you want no coward, but one who fears
you not at your wildest. Well, I will be your leader. I do not fear
you, and I do not love you, for how have you deserved my love? By
ingratitude and aspersion? Who has the King's favour? Francois Bigot.
Who has the ear of the Grande Marquise? Francois Bigot. Who stands
firm while others tremble lest their power pass to-morrow? Francois
Bigot. Who else dare invite revolution, this danger"--his hand
sweeping to the flames--"who but Francois Bigot?" He paused for a
moment, and looking up to the leader of Montcalm's soldiers on the
Heights, waved him back; then he continued:
"And to-day, when I am ready to give you great news, you play the
mad dog's game; you destroy what I had meant to give you in our hour
of danger, when those English came. I made you suffer a little, that
you might live then. Only to-day, because of our great and glorious
victory--"
He paused again. The peal of bells became louder. Far up on the
Heights we heard the calling of bugles and the beating of drums;
and now I saw the whole large plan, the deep dramatic scheme. He
had withheld the news of the victory that he might announce it when
it would most turn to his own glory. Perhaps he had not counted on
the burning of the warehouse, but this would tell now in his favour.
He was not a large man, but he drew himself up with dignity, and
continued in a contemptuous tone:
"Because of our splendid victory, I designed to tell you all my
plans, and, pitying your trouble, divide among you at the smallest
price, that all might pay, the corn which now goes to feed the
stars."
At that moment some one from the Heights above called out shrilly,
"What lie is in that paper, Francois Bigot?"
I looked up, as did the crowd. A woman stood upon a point of the
great rock, a red robe hanging on her, her hair free over her
shoulders, her finger pointing at the Intendant. Bigot only glanced
up, then smoothed out the paper.
He said to the people in a clear but less steady voice, for I could
see that the woman had disturbed him, "Go pray to be forgiven for
your insolence and folly. His most Christian Majesty is triumphant
upon the Ohio. The English have been killed in thousands, and their
General with them. Do you not hear the joy-bells in the Church of
Our Lady of the Victories? and more--listen!"
There burst from the Heights on the other side a cannon shot, and
then another and another. There was a great commotion, and many ran
to Bigot's carriage, reached in to touch his hand, and called down
blessings on him.
"See that you save the other granaries," he urged, adding, with a
sneer, "and forget not to bless La Friponne in your prayers!"
It was a clever piece of acting. Presently from the Heights
above came the woman's voice again, so piercing that the crowd
turned to her.
"Francois Bigot is a liar and a traitor!" she cried. "Beware of
Francois Bigot! God has cast him out."
A dark look came upon Bigot's face; but presently he turned, and
gave a sign to some one near the palace. The doors of the courtyard
flew open, and out came squad after squad of soldiers. In a moment,
they, with the people, were busy carrying water to pour upon the
side of the endangered warehouse. Fortunately the wind was with
them, else it and the palace also would have been burned that night.
The Intendant still stood in his carriage watching and listening to
the cheers of the people. At last he beckoned to Doltaire and to
me. We both went over.
"Doltaire, we looked for you at dinner," he said. "Was Captain
Moray"--nodding towards me--"lost among the petticoats? He knows
the trick of cup and saucer. Between the sip and click he sucked
in secrets from our garrison--a spy where had been a soldier, as
we thought. You once wore a sword, Captain Moray--eh?"
"If the Governor would grant me leave, I would not only wear,
but use one, your excellency knows well where," said I.
"Large speaking, Captain Moray. They do that in Virginia, I am
told."
"In Gascony there's quiet, your excellency."
Doltaire laughed outright, for it was said that Bigot, in his
coltish days, had a shrewish Gascon wife, whom he took leave to
send to heaven before her time. I saw the Intendant's mouth twitch
angrily.
"Come," he said, "you have a tongue; we'll see if you have a
stomach. You've languished with the girls; you shall have your
chance to drink with Francois Bigot. Now, if you dare, when
we have drunk to the first cockcrow, should you be still on your
feet, you'll fight some one among us, first giving ample cause."
"I hope, your excellency," I replied, with a touch of vanity, "I
have still some stomach and a wrist. I will drink to cockcrow, if
you will. And if my sword prove the stronger, what?"
"There's the point," he said. "Your Englishman loves not fighting
for fighting's sake, Doltaire; he must have bonbons for it. Well,
see: if your sword and stomach prove the stronger, you shall go your
ways to where you will. Voila!"
If I could but have seen a bare portion of the craftiness of this
pair of devils artisans! They both had ends to serve in working ill
to me, and neither was content that I should be shut away in the
citadel, and no more. There was a deeper game playing. I give them
their due: the trap was skillful, and in those times, with great
things at stake, strategy took the place of open fighting here and
there. For Bigot I was to be a weapon against another; for Doltaire,
against myself.
What a gull they must have thought me! I might have known that,
with my lost papers on the way to France, they must hold me tight
here till I had been tried, nor permit me to escape. But I was sick
of doing nothing, thinking with horror on a long winter in the
citadel, and I caught at the least straw of freedom.
"Captain Moray will like to spend a couple of hours at his lodgings
before he joins us at the palace," the Intendant said, and with a
nod to me he turned to his coachman. The horses wheeled, and in a
moment the great doors opened, and he had passed inside to applause,
though here and there among the crowd was heard a hiss, for the
Scarlet Woman had made an impression. The Intendant's men essayed to
trace these noises, but found no one. Looking again to the Heights,
I saw that the woman had gone. Doltaire noted my glance and the
inquiry in my face, and he said:
"Some bad fighting hours with the Intendant at Chateau Bigot, and
then a fever, bringing a kind of madness: so the story creeps about,
as told by Bigot's enemies."
Just at this point I felt a man hustle me as he passed. One of the
soldiers made a thrust at him, and he turned round. I caught his
eye, and it flashed something to me. It was Voban the barber, who
had shaved me every day for months when I first came, while my arm
was stiff from a wound got fighting the French on the Ohio. It was
quite a year since I had met him, and I was struck by the change in
his face. It had grown much older; its roundness was gone. We had
had many a talk together; he helping me with French, I listening
to the tales of his early life in France, and to the later tale
of a humble love, and of the home which he was fitting up for his
Mathilde, a peasant girl of much beauty, I was told, but whom I had
never seen. I remembered at that moment, as he stood in the crowd
looking at me, the piles of linen which he had bought at Ste. Anne
de Beaupre, and the silver pitcher which his grandfather had got
from the Duc de Valois for an act of merit. Many a time we had
discussed the pitcher and the deed, and fingered the linen, now
talking in French, now in English; for in France, years before, he
had been a valet to an English officer at King Louis's court. But my
surprise had been great when I learned that this English gentleman
was no other than the best friend I ever had, next to my parents and
my grandfather. Voban was bound to Sir John Godric by as strong ties
of affection as I. What was more, by a secret letter I had sent to
George Washington, who was then as good a Briton as myself, I had
been able to have my barber's young brother, a prisoner of war,
set free.
I felt that he had something to say to me. But he turned away
and disappeared among the crowd. I might have had some clue if I
had known that he had been crouched behind the Intendant's carriage
while I was being bidden to the supper. I did not guess then that
there was anything between him and the Scarlet Woman who railed at
Bigot.
In a little while I was at my lodgings, soldiers posted at my door
and one in my room. Doltaire gone to his own quarters promising
to call for me within two hours. There was little for me to do but
to put in a bag the fewest necessaries, to roll up my heavy cloak,
to stow safely my pipes and two goodly packets of tobacco, which
were to be my chiefest solace for many a long day, and to write some
letters--one to Governor Dinwiddie, one to George Washington, and
one to my partner in Virginia, telling them my fresh misfortunes,
and begging them to send me money, which, however useless in my
captivity, would be important in my fight for life and freedom.
I did not write intimately of my state, for I was not sure my
letters would ever pass outside Quebec. There were only two men I
could trust to do the thing. One was a fellow-countryman, Clark,
a ship-carpenter, who, to save his neck and to spare his wife and
child, had turned Catholic, but who hated all Frenchmen barbarously
at heart, remembering two of his bairns butchered before his eyes.
The other was Voban. I knew that though Voban might not act, he
would not betray me. But how to reach either of them? It was clear
that I must bide my chances.
One other letter I wrote, brief but vital, in which I begged the
sweetest girl in the world not to have uneasiness because of me;
that I trusted to my star and to my innocence to convince my
judges; and begging her, if she could, to send me a line at the
citadel. I told her I knew well how hard it would be, for her
mother and her father would not now look upon my love with favour.
But I trusted all to time and Providence.
I sealed my letters, put them in my pocket, and sat down to smoke
and think while I waited for Doltaire. To the soldier on duty,
whom I did not notice at first, I now offered a pipe and a glass
of wine, which he accepted rather gruffly, but enjoyed, if I might
judge by his devotion to them.
By-and-bye, without any relevancy at all, he said abruptly, "If a
little sooner she had come--aho!"
For a moment I could not think what he meant; but soon I saw.
"The palace would have been burnt if the girl in scarlet had come
sooner--eh?" I asked. "She would have urged the people on?"
"And Bigot burnt, too, maybe," he answered.
"Fire and death--eh?"
I offered him another pipeful of tobacco. He looked doubtful,
but accepted.
"Aho! And that Voban, he would have had his hand in," he growled.