want of me, ungrateful that he is?”
“It is this, Mme. la Duchesse,” the good man exclaimed, “you have a
hundred thousand crowns belonging to us.”
“Yes,” began she. “What does it signify----?”
“The money was gained by a forgery, for which we are going to the hulks,
a forgery which we committed for love of you,” Chesnel said quickly.
“How is it that you did not guess it, so clever as you are? Instead
of scolding the boy, you ought to have had the truth out of him, and
stopped him while there was time, and saved him.”
At the first words the Duchess understood; she felt ashamed of her
behavior to so impassioned a lover, and afraid besides that she might be
suspected of complicity. In her wish to prove that she had not touched
the money left in her keeping, she lost all regard for appearances; and
besides, it did not occur to her that the notary was a man. She flung
off the eider-down quilt, sprang to her desk (flitting past the lawyer
like an angel out of one of the vignettes which illustrate Lamartine’s
books), held out the notes, and went back in confusion to bed.
“You are an angel, madame.” (She was to be an angel for all the world,
it seemed.) “But this will not be the end of it. I count upon your
influence to save us.”
“To save you! I will do it or die! Love that will not shrink from a
crime must be love indeed. Is there a woman in the world for whom such a
thing has been done? Poor boy! Come, do not lose time, dear M. Chesnel;
and count upon me as upon yourself.”
“Mme. la Duchesse! Mme. la Duchesse!” It was all that he could say, so
overcome was he. He cried, he could have danced; but he was afraid of
losing his senses, and refrained.
“Between us, we will save him,” she said, as he left the room.
Chesnel went straight to Josephin. Josephin unlocked the young Count’s
desk and writing-table. Very luckily, the notary found letters which
might be useful, letters from du Croisier and the Kellers. Then he took
a place in a diligence which was just about to start; and by dint of
fees to the postilions, the lumbering vehicle went as quickly as the
coach. His two fellow-passengers on the journey happened to be in as
great a hurry as himself, and readily agreed to take their meals in
the carriage. Thus swept over the road, the notary reached the Rue du
Bercail, after three days of absence, an hour before midnight. And
yet he was too late. He saw the gendarmes at the gate, crossed the
threshold, and met the young Count in the courtyard. Victurnien had been
arrested. If Chesnel had had the power, he would beyond a doubt
have killed the officers and men; as it was, he could only fall on
Victurnien’s neck.
“If I cannot hush this matter up, you must kill yourself before the
indictment is made out,” he whispered. But Victurnien had sunk into such
stupor, that he stared back uncomprehendingly.
“Kill myself?” he repeated.
“Yes. If your courage should fail, my boy, count upon me,” said Chesnel,
squeezing Victurnien’s hand.
In spite of the anguish of mind and tottering limbs, he stood firmly
planted, to watch the son of his heart, the Comte d’Esgrignon, go out of
the courtyard between two gendarmes, with the commissary, the justice
of the peace, and the clerk of the court; and not until the figures had
disappeared, and the sound of footsteps had died away into silence, did
he recover his firmness and presence of mind.
“You will catch cold, sir,” Brigitte remonstrated.
“The devil take you!” cried her exasperated master.
Never in the nine-and-twenty years that Brigitte had been in his service
had she heard such words from him! Her candle fell out of her hands, but
Chesnel neither heeded his housekeeper’s alarm nor heard her exclaim. He
hurried off towards the Val-Noble.
“He is out of his mind,” said she; “after all, it is no wonder. But
where is he off to? I cannot possibly go after him. What will become of
him? Suppose that he should drown himself?”
And Brigitte went to waken the head-clerk and send him to look along the
river bank; the river had a gloomy reputation just then, for there had
lately been two cases of suicide--one a young man full of promise, and
the other a girl, a victim of seduction. Chesnel went straight to the
Hotel du Croisier. There lay his only hope. The law requires that a
charge of forgery must be brought by a private individual. It was still
possible to withdraw if du Croisier chose to admit that there had been
a misapprehension; and Chesnel had hopes, even then, of buying the man
over.
M. and Mme. du Croisier had much more company than usual that evening.
Only a few persons were in the secret. M. du Ronceret, president of the
Tribunal; M. Sauvager, deputy Public Prosecutor; and M. du Coudrai, a
registrar of mortgages, who had lost his post by voting on the wrong
side, were the only persons who were supposed to know about it; but
Mesdames du Ronceret and du Coudrai had told the news, in strict
confidence, to one or two intimate friends, so that it had spread
half over the semi-noble, semi-bourgeois assembly at M. du Croisier’s.
Everybody felt the gravity of the situation, but no one ventured to
speak of it openly; and, moreover, Mme. du Croisier’s attachment to the
upper sphere was so well known, that people scarcely dared to mention
the disaster which had befallen the d’Esgrignons or to ask for
particulars. The persons most interested were waiting till good Mme. du
Croisier retired, for that lady always retreated to her room at the same
hour to perform her religious exercises as far as possible out of her
husband’s sight.
Du Croisier’s adherents, knowing the secret and the plans of the great
commercial power, looked round when the lady of the house disappeared;
but there were still several persons present whose opinions or interests
marked them out as untrustworthy, so they continued to play. About half
past eleven all had gone save intimates: M. Sauvager, M. Camusot, the
examining magistrate, and his wife, M. and Mme. du Ronceret and their
son Fabien, M. and Mme. du Coudrai, and Joseph Blondet, the eldest of an
old judge; ten persons in all.
It is told of Talleyrand that one fatal day, three hours after midnight,
he suddenly interrupted a game of cards in the Duchesse de Luynes’ house
by laying down his watch on the table and asking the players whether the
Prince de Conde had any child but the Duc d’Enghien.
“Why do you ask?” returned Mme. de Luynes, “when you know so well that
he has not.”
“Because if the Prince has no other son, the House of Conde is now at an
end.”
There was a moment’s pause, and they finished the game.--President
du Ronceret now did something very similar. Perhaps he had heard the
anecdote; perhaps, in political life, little minds and great minds
are apt to hit upon the same expression. He looked at his watch, and
interrupted the game of boston with:
“At this moment M. le Comte d’Esgrignon is arrested, and that house
which has held its head so high is dishonored forever.”
“Then, have you got hold of the boy?” du Coudrai cried gleefully.
Every one in the room, with the exception of the President, the deputy,
and du Croisier, looked startled.
“He has just been arrested in Chesnel’s house, where he was hiding,”
said the deputy public prosecutor, with the air of a capable but
unappreciated public servant, who ought by rights to be Minister
of Police. M. Sauvager, the deputy, was a thin, tall young man of
five-and-twenty, with a lengthy olive-hued countenance, black frizzled
hair, and deep-set eyes; the wide, dark rings beneath them were
completed by the wrinkled purple eyelids above. With a nose like the
beak of some bird of prey, a pinched mouth, and cheeks worn lean with
study and hollowed by ambition, he was the very type of a second-rate
personage on the lookout for something to turn up, and ready to do
anything if so he might get on in the world, while keeping within the
limitations of the possible and the forms of law. His pompous expression
was an admirable indication of the time-serving eloquence to be expected
of him. Chesnel’s successor had discovered the young Count’s hiding
place to him, and he took great credit to himself for his penetration.
The news seemed to come as a shock to the examining magistrate,
M. Camusot, who had granted the warrant of arrest on Sauvager’s
application, with no idea that it was to be executed so promptly.
Camusot was short, fair, and fat already, though he was only thirty
years old or thereabouts; he had the flabby, livid look peculiar to
officials who live shut up in their private study or in a court of
justice; and his little, pale, yellow eyes were full of the suspicion
which is often mistaken for shrewdness.
Mme. Camusot looked at her spouse, as who should say, “Was I not right?”
“Then the case will come on,” was Camusot’s comment.
“Could you doubt it?” asked du Coudrai. “Now they have got the Count,
all is over.”
“There is the jury,” said Camusot. “In this case M. le Prefet is sure
to take care that after the challenges from the prosecution and the
defence, the jury to a man will be for an acquittal.--My advice would be
to come to a compromise,” he added, turning to du Croisier.
“Compromise!” echoed the President; “why, he is in the hands of
justice.”
“Acquitted or convicted, the Comte d’Esgrignon will be dishonored all
the same,” put in Sauvager.
“I am bringing an action,”[*] said du Croisier. “I shall have Dupin
senior. We shall see how the d’Esgrignon family will escape out of his
clutches.”
[*] A trial for an offence of this kind in France is an
action brought by a private person (partie civile) to
recover damages, and at the same time a criminal prosecution
conducted on behalf of the Government.--Tr.
“The d’Esgrignons will defend the case and have counsel from Paris; they
will have Berryer,” said Mme. Camusot. “You will have a Roland for your
Oliver.”
Du Croisier, M. Sauvager, and the President du Ronceret looked at
Camusot, and one thought troubled their minds. The lady’s tone, the way
in which she flung her proverb in the faces of the eight conspirators
against the house of d’Esgrignon, caused them inward perturbation,
which they dissembled as provincials can dissemble, by dint of lifelong
practice in the shifts of a monastic existence. Little Mme. Camusot saw
their change of countenance and subsequent composure when they scented
opposition on the part of the examining magistrate. When her husband
unveiled the thoughts in the back of his own mind, she had tried to
plumb the depths of hate in du Croisier’s adherents. She wanted to find
out how du Croisier had gained over this deputy public prosecutor, who
had acted so promptly and so directly in opposition to the views of the
central power.
“In any case,” continued she, “if celebrated counsel come down from
Paris, there is a prospect of a very interesting session in the Court of
Assize; but the matter will be snuffed out between the Tribunal and the
Court of Appeal. It is only to be expected that the Government should do
all that can be done, below the surface, to save a young man who comes
of a great family, and has the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse for a friend. So
I think that we shall have a ‘sensation at Landernau.’”
“How you go on, madame!” the President said sternly. “Can you suppose
that the Court of First Instance will be influenced by considerations
which have nothing to do with justice?”
“The event proves the contrary,” she said meaningly, looking full at
Sauvager and the President, who glanced coldly at her.
“Explain yourself, madame,” said Sauvager, “you speak as if we had not
done our duty.”
“Mme. Camusot meant nothing,” interposed her husband.
“But has not M. le President just said something prejudicing a case
which depends on the examination of the prisoner?” said she. “And
the evidence is still to be taken, and the Court had not given its
decision?”
“We are not at the law-courts,” the deputy public prosecutor replied
tartly; “and besides, we know all that.”
“But the public prosecutor knows nothing at all about it yet,” returned
she, with an ironical glance. “He will come back from the Chamber of
Deputies in all haste. You have cut out his work for him, and he, no
doubt, will speak for himself.”
The deputy prosecutor knitted his thick bushy brows. Those interested
read tardy scruples in his countenance. A great silence followed, broken
by no sound but the dealing of the cards. M. and Mme. Camusot, sensible
of a decided chill in the atmosphere, took their departure to leave the
conspirators to talk at their ease.
“Camusot,” the lady began in the street, “you went too far. Why lead
those people to suspect that you will have no part in their schemes?
They will play you some ugly trick.”
“What can they do? I am the only examining magistrate.”
“Cannot they slander you in whispers, and procure your dismissal?”
At that very moment Chesnel ran up against the couple. The old notary
recognized the examining magistrate; and with the lucidity which comes
of an experience of business, he saw that the fate of the d’Esgrignons
lay in the hands of the young man before him.
“Ah, sir!” he exclaimed, “we shall soon need you badly. Just a word with
you.--Your pardon, madame,” he added, as he drew Camusot aside.
Mme. Camusot, as a good conspirator, looked towards du Croisier’s house,
ready to break up the conversation if anybody appeared; but she thought,
and thought rightly, that their enemies were busy discussing this
unexpected turn which she had given to the affair. Chesnel meanwhile
drew the magistrate into a dark corner under the wall, and lowered his
voice for his companion’s ear.
“If you are for the house of d’Esgrignon,” he said, “Mme. la Duchesse
de Maufrigneuse, the Prince of Cadignan, the Ducs de Navarreins and de
Lenoncourt, the Keeper of the Seals, the Chancellor, the King himself,
will interest themselves in you. I have just come from Paris; I knew
all about this; I went post-haste to explain everything at Court. We
are counting on you, and I will keep your secret. If you are hostile, I
shall go back to Paris to-morrow and lodge a complaint with the
Keeper of the Seals that there is a suspicion of corruption. Several
functionaries were at du Croisier’s house to-night, and no doubt, ate
and drank there, contrary to law; and besides, they are friends of his.”
Chesnel would have brought the Almighty to intervene if he had had the
power. He did not wait for an answer; he left Camusot and fled like a
deer towards du Croisier’s house. Camusot, meanwhile, bidden to reveal
the notary’s confidences, was at once assailed with, “Was I not
right, dear?”--a wifely formula used on all occasions, but rather more
vehemently when the fair speaker is in the wrong. By the time they
reached home, Camusot had admitted the superiority of his partner
in life, and appreciated his good fortune in belonging to her; which
confession, doubtless, was the prelude of a blissful night.
Chesnel met his foes in a body as they left du Croisier’s house, and
began to fear that du Croisier had gone to bed. In his position he was
compelled to act quickly, and any delay was a misfortune.
“In the King’s name!” he cried, as the man-servant was closing the hall
door. He had just brought the King on the scene for the benefit of
an ambitious little official, and the word was still on his lips.
He fretted and chafed while the door was unbarred; then, swift as a
thunderbolt, dashed into the ante-chamber, and spoke to the servant.
“A hundred crowns to you, young man, if you can wake Mme. du Croisier
and send her to me this instant. Tell her anything you like.”
Chesnel grew cool and composed as he opened the door of the brightly
lighted drawing-room, where du Croisier was striding up and down. For
a moment the two men scanned each other, with hatred and enmity, twenty
years’ deep, in their eyes. One of the two had his foot on the heart
of the house of d’Esgrignon; the other, with a lion’s strength, came
forward to pluck it away.
“Your humble servant, sir,” said Chesnel. “Have you made the charge?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When was it made?”
“Yesterday.”
“Have any steps been taken since the warrant of arrest was issued?”
“I believe so.”
“I have come to treat with you.”
“Justice must take its course, nothing can stop it, the arrest has been
made.”
“Never mind that, I am at your orders, at your feet.” The old man knelt
before du Croisier, and stretched out his hands entreatingly.
“What do you want? Our lands, our castle? Take all; withdraw the charge;
leave us nothing but life and honor. And over and besides all this, I
will be your servant; command and I will obey.”
Du Croisier sat down in an easy-chair and left the old man to kneel.
“You are not vindictive,” pleaded Chesnel; “you are good-hearted, you
do not bear us such a grudge that you will not listen to terms. Before
daylight the young man ought to be at liberty.”
“The whole town knows that he has been arrested,” returned du Croisier,
enjoying his revenge.
“It is a great misfortune, but as there will be neither proofs nor
trial, we can easily manage that.”
Du Croisier reflected. He seemed to be struggling with self-interest;
Chesnel thought that he had gained a hold on his enemy through the
great motive of human action. At that supreme moment Mme. du Croisier
appeared.
“Come here and help me to soften your dear husband, madame?” said
Chesnel, still on his knees. Mme. du Croisier made him rise with every
sign of profound astonishment. Chesnel explained his errand; and when
she knew it, the generous daughter of the intendants of the Ducs de
Alencon turned to du Croisier with tears in her eyes.
“Ah! monsieur, can you hesitate? The d’Esgrignons, the honor of the
province!” she said.
“There is more in it than that,” exclaimed du Croisier, rising to begin
his restless walk again.
“More? What more?” asked Chesnel in amazement.
“France is involved, M. Chesnel! It is a question of the country, of the
people, of giving my lords your nobles a lesson, and teaching them that
there is such a thing as justice, and law, and a bourgeoisie--a lesser
nobility as good as they, and a match for them! There shall be no
more trampling down half a score of wheat fields for a single hare; no
bringing shame on families by seducing unprotected girls; they shall not
look down on others as good as they are, and mock at them for ten
whole years, without finding out at last that these things swell into
avalanches, and those avalanches will fall and crush and bury my lords
the nobles. You want to go back to the old order of things. You want
to tear up the social compact, the Charter in which our rights are set
forth---”
“And so?”
“Is it not a sacred mission to open the people’s eyes?” cried du
Croisier. “Their eyes will be opened to the morality of your party when
they see nobles going to be tried at the Assize Court like Pierre
and Jacques. They will say, then, that small folk who keep their
self-respect are as good as great folk that bring shame on themselves.
The Assize Court is a light for all the world. Here, I am the champion
of the people, the friend of law. You yourselves twice flung me on the
side of the people--once when you refused an alliance, twice when you
put me under the ban of your society. You are reaping as you have sown.”
If Chesnel was startled by this outburst, so no less was Mme. du
Croisier. To her this was a terrible revelation of her husband’s
character, a new light not merely on the past but on the future as well.
Any capitulation on the part of the colossus was apparently out of the
question; but Chesnel in no wise retreated before the impossible.
“What, monsieur?” said Mme. du Croisier. “Would you not forgive? Then
you are not a Christian.”
“I forgive as God forgives, madame, on certain conditions.”
“And what are they?” asked Chesnel, thinking that he saw a ray of hope.
“The elections are coming on; I want the votes at your disposal.”
“You shall have them.”
“I wish that we, my wife and I, should be received familiarly every
evening, with an appearance of friendliness at any rate, by M. le
Marquis d’Esgrignon and his circle,” continued du Croisier.
“I do not know how we are going to compass it, but you shall be
received.”
“I wish to have the family bound over by a surety of four hundred
thousand francs, and by a written document stating the nature of the
compromise, so as to keep a loaded cannon pointed at its heart.”
“We agree,” said Chesnel, without admitting that the three hundred
thousand francs was in his possession; “but the amount must be deposited
with a third party and returned to the family after your election and
repayment.”
“No; after the marriage of my grand-niece, Mlle. Duval. She will very
likely have four million francs some day; the reversion of our property
(mine and my wife’s) shall be settled upon her by her marriage-contract,
and you shall arrange a match between her and the young Count.”
“Never!”
“_Never_!” repeated du Croisier, quite intoxicated with triumph.
“Good-night!”
“Idiot that I am,” thought Chesnel, “why did I shrink from a lie to such
a man?”
Du Croisier took himself off; he was pleased with himself; he had
enjoyed Chesnel’s humiliation; he had held the destinies of a proud
house, the representatives of the aristocracy of the province, suspended
in his hand; he had set the print of his heel on the very heart of the
d’Esgrignons; and, finally, he had broken off the whole negotiation on
the score of his wounded pride. He went up to his room, leaving his wife
alone with Chesnel. In his intoxication, he saw his victory clear before
him. He firmly believed that the three hundred thousand francs had been
squandered; the d’Esgrignons must sell or mortgage all that they had to
raise the money; the Assize Court was inevitable to his mind.
An affair of forgery can always be settled out of court in France if
the missing amount is returned. The losers by the crime are usually
well-to-do, and have no wish to blight an imprudent man’s character. But
du Croisier had no mind to slacken his hold until he knew what he was
about. He meditated until he fell asleep on the magnificent manner in
which his hopes would be fulfilled by the way of the Assize Court or by
marriage. The murmur of voices below, the lamentations of Chesnel and
Mme. du Croisier, sounded sweet in his ears.
Mme. du Croisier shared Chesnel’s views of the d’Esgrignons. She was
a deeply religious woman, a Royalist attached to the noblesse; the
interview had been in every way a cruel shock to her feelings. She, a
staunch Royalist, had heard the roaring of that Liberalism, which, in
her director’s opinion, wished to crush the Church. The Left benches for
her meant the popular upheaval and the scaffolds of 1793.
“What would your uncle, that sainted man who hears us, say to this?”
exclaimed Chesnel. Mme. du Croisier made no reply, but the great tears
rolled down her checks.
“You have already been the cause of one poor boy’s death; his mother
will go mourning all her days,” continued Chesnel; he saw how his words
told, but he would have struck harder and even broken this woman’s heart
to save Victurnien. “Do you want to kill Mlle. Armande, for she would
not survive the dishonor of the house for a week? Do you wish to be the
death of poor Chesnel, your old notary? For I shall kill the Count in
prison before they shall bring the charge against him, and take my
own life afterwards, before they shall try me for murder in an Assize
Court.”
“That is enough! that is enough, my friend! I would do anything to put a
stop to such an affair; but I never knew M. du Croisier’s real character
until a few minutes ago. To you I can make the admission: there is
nothing to be done.”
“But what if there is?”
“I would give half the blood in my veins that it were so,” said she,
finishing her sentence by a wistful shake of the head.