CHAPTER I.

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THE RED COCKADE

_WORKS BY STANLEY WEYMAN_.

The House of the Wolf.

A Gentleman of France.

Under the Red Robe.

My Lady Rotha.

The New Rector.

The Story of Francis Cludde.

The Man in Black.

From the Memoirs of a Minister of France.

The Red Cockade.

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS

[Illustration: "'MESSIEURS,' HE CRIED." _See page_ 21.]

THE RED COCKADE

BY

STANLEY WEYMAN

AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," ETC.

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

1895

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. The Marquis de St. Alais.

II. The Ordeal.

III. In the Assembly.

IV. L'ami du Peuple.

V. The Deputation.

VI. A Meeting in the Road.

VII. The Alarm.

VIII. Gargouf.

IX. The Tricolour.

X. The Morning after the Storm.

XI. The Two Camps.

XII. The Duel.

XIII. A la Lanterne.

XIV. It Goes Ill.

XV. At Milhau.

XVI. Three in a Carriage.

XVII. Froment of Nimes.

XVIII. A Poor Figure.

XIX. At Nimes

XX. The Search.

XXI. Rivals.

XXII. Noblesse Oblige.

XXIII. The Crisis.

XXIV. The Millennium.

XXV. Beyond the Shadow.

THE RED COCKADE.

CHAPTER I.

THE MARQUIS DE ST. ALAIS.

When we reached the terraced walk, which my father made a little

before his death, and which, running under the windows at the rear of

the Chateau, separates the house from the new lawn, St. Alais looked

round with eyes of scarcely-veiled contempt.

"What have you done with the garden?" he asked, his lip curling.

"My father removed it to the other side of the house," I answered.

"Out of sight?"

"Yes," I said; "it is beyond the rose garden."

"English fashion!" he answered with a shrug and a polite sneer. "And

you prefer to see all this grass from your windows?"

"Yes," I said, "I do."

"Ah! And that plantation? It hides the village, I suppose, from the

house?"

"Yes."

He laughed. "Yes," he said. "I notice that that is the way of all who

prate of the people, and freedom, and fraternity. They love the

people; but they love them at a distance, on the farther side of a

park or a high yew hedge. Now, at St. Alais I like to have my folks

under my eye, and then, if they do not behave, there is the _carcan_.

By the way, what have you done with yours, Vicomte? It used to stand

opposite the entrance."

"I have burned it," I said, feeling the blood mount to my temples.

"Your father did, you mean?" he answered, with a glance of surprise.

"No," I said stubbornly, hating myself for being ashamed of that

before St. Alais of which I had been proud enough when alone. "I did.

I burned it last winter. I think the day of such things is past."

The Marquis was not my senior by more than five years; but those five

years, spent in Paris and Versailles, gave him a wondrous advantage,

and I felt his look of contemptuous surprise as I should have felt a

blow. However, he did not say anything at the moment, but after a

short pause changed the subject and began to speak of my father;

recalling him and things in connection with him in a tone of respect

and affection that in a moment disarmed my resentment.

"The first time that I shot a bird on the wing I was in his company!"

he said, with the wonderful charm of manner that had been St. Alais'

even in boyhood.

"Twelve years ago," I said.

"Even so, Monsieur," he replied with a laughing bow. "In those days

there was a small boy with bare legs, who ran after me, and called me

Victor, and thought me the greatest of men. I little dreamed that he

would ever live to expound the rights of man to me. And, _Dieu!_

Vicomte, I must keep Louis from you, or you will make him as great a

reformer as yourself. However," he continued, passing from that

subject with a smile and an easy gesture, "I did not come here to talk

of him, but of one, M. le Vicomte, in whom you should feel even

greater interest."

I felt the blood mount to my temples again, but for a different

reason. "Mademoiselle has come home?" I said.

"Yesterday," he answered. "She will go with my mother to Cahors

to-morrow, and take her first peep at the world. I do not doubt that

among the many new things she will see, none will interest her more

than the Vicomte de Saux."

"Mademoiselle is well?" I said clumsily.

"Perfectly," he answered with grave politeness, "as you will see for

yourself to-morrow evening, if we do not meet on the road. I daresay

that you will like a week or so to commend yourself to her, M. le

Vicomte? And after that, whenever Madame la Marquise and you can

settle the date, and so forth, the match had better come off--while I

am here."

I bowed. I had been expecting to hear this for a week past; but from

Louis, who was on brotherly terms with me, not from Victor. The latter

had indeed been my boyish idol; but that was years ago, before Court

life and a long stay at Versailles and St. Cloud had changed him into

the splendid-looking man I saw before me, the raillery of whose eye I

found it as difficult to meet as I found it impossible to match the

aplomb of his manner. Still, I strove to make such acknowledgments as

became me; and to adopt that nice mixture of self-respect, politeness,

and devotion which I knew that the occasion, formally treated,

required. But my tongue stumbled, and in a moment he relieved me.

"Well, you must tell that to Denise," he said pleasantly; "doubtless

you will find her a patient listener. At first, of course," he

continued, pulling on his gauntlets and smiling faintly, "she will be

a little shy. I have no doubt that the good sisters have brought her

up to regard a man in much the same light as a wolf; and a suitor as

something worse. But, _eh bien, mon ami!_ women are women after all,

and in a week or two you will commend yourself. We may hope, then, to

see you to-morrow evening--if not before?"

"Most certainly, M. le Marquis."

"Why not Victor?" he answered, laying his hand on my arm with a touch

of the old _bonhomie_. "We shall soon be brothers, and then,

doubtless, shall hate one another. In the meantime, give me your

company to the gates. There was one other thing I wanted to name to

you. Let me see--what was it?"

But either he could not immediately remember, or he found a difficulty

in introducing the subject, for we were nearly half-way down the

avenue of walnut trees that leads to the village when he spoke again.

Then he plunged into the matter abruptly.

"You have heard of this protest?" he said.

"Yes," I answered reluctantly and with a foresight of trouble.

"You will sign it, of course?"

He had hesitated before he asked the question; I hesitated before I

answered it. The protest to which he referred--how formal the phrase

now sounds, though we know that under it lay the beginning of trouble

and a new world--was one which it was proposed to move in the coming

meeting of the _noblesse_ at Cahors; its aim, to condemn the conduct

of our representatives at Versailles, in consenting to sit with the

Third Estate.

Now, for myself, whatever had been my original views on this

question--and, as a fact, I should have preferred to see reform

following the English model, the nobles' house remaining separate--I

regarded the step, now it was taken, and legalised by the King, as

irrevocable; and protest as useless. More, I could not help knowing

that those who were moving the protest desired also to refuse all

reform, to cling to all privileges, to balk all hopes of better

government; hopes, which had been rising higher, day by day, since the

elections, and which it might not now be so safe or so easy to balk.

Without swallowing convictions, therefore, which were pretty well

known, I could not see my way to supporting it. And I hesitated.

"Well?" he said at last, finding me still silent.

"I do not think that I can," I answered, flushing.

"Can support it?"

"No," I said.

He laughed genially. "Pooh!" he said. "I think that you will. I want

your promise, Vicomte. It is a small matter; a trifle, and of no

importance; but we must be unanimous. That is the one thing

necessary."

I shook my head. We had both come to a halt under the trees, a little

within the gates. His servant was leading the horses up and down the

road.

"Come," he persisted pleasantly: "you do not think that anything is

going to come of this chaotic States General, which his Majesty was

mad enough to let Neckar summon? They met on the 4th of May; this is

the 17th of July; and to this date they have done nothing but wrangle!

Nothing! Presently they will be dismissed, and there will be an end of

it!"

"Why protest, then?" I said rather feebly.

"I will tell you, my friend," he answered, smiling indulgently and

tapping his boot with his whip. "Have you heard the latest news?"

"What is it?" I replied cautiously. "Then I will tell you if I have

heard it."

"The King has dismissed Neckar!"

"No!" I cried, unable to hide my surprise.

"Yes," he answered; "the banker is dismissed. In a week his States

General or National Assembly, or whatever he pleases to call it, will

go too, and we shall be where we were before. Only, in the meantime,

and to strengthen the King in the wise course he is at last pursuing,

we must show that we are alive. We must show our sympathy with him. We

must act. We must protest."

"But, M. le Marquis," I said, a little heated, perhaps, by the news,

"are you sure that the people will quietly endure this? Never was so

bitter a winter as last winter; never a worse harvest, or such

pinching. On the top of these, their hopes have been raised, and their

minds excited by the elections, and----

"Whom have we to thank for that?" he said, with a whimsical glance at

me. "But, never fear, Vicomte; they will endure it. I know Paris; and

I can assure you that it is not the Paris of the Fronde, though M. de

Mirabeau would play the Retz. It is a peaceable, sensible Paris, and

it will not rise. Except a bread riot or two, it has seen no rising to

speak of for a century and a half: nothing that two companies of Swiss

could not deal with as easily as D'Argenson cleared the Cour des

Miracles. Believe me, there is no danger of that kind: with the least

management, all will go well!"

But his news had roused my antagonism. I found it more easy to resist

him now.

"I do not know," I said coldly; "I do not think that the matter is so

simple as you say. The King must have money, or be bankrupt; the

people have no money to pay him. I do not see how things can go back

to the old state."

M. de St. Alais looked at me with a gleam of anger in his eyes.

"You mean, Vicomte," he said, "that you do not wish them to go back?"

"I mean that the old state was impossible," I said stiffly. "It could

not last. It cannot return."

For a moment he did not answer, and we stood confronting one

another--he just without, I just within, the gateway--the cool foliage

stretching over us, the dust and July sunshine in the road beyond him;

and if my face reflected his, it was flushed, and set, and determined.

But in a twinkling his changed; he broke into an easy, polite laugh,

and shrugged his shoulders with a touch of contempt.

"Well," he said, "we will not argue; but I hope that you will sign.

Think it over, M. le Vicomte, think it over. Because"--he paused, and

looked at me gaily--"we do not know what may be depending upon it."

"That is a reason," I answered quickly, "for thinking more before

I----

"It is a reason for thinking more before you refuse," he said, bowing

very low, and this time without smiling. Then he turned to his horse,

and his servant held the stirrup while he mounted. When he was in the

saddle and had gathered up the reins, he bent his face to mine.

"Of course," he said, speaking in a low voice, and with a searching

look at me, "a contract is a contract, M. le Vicomte; and the

Montagues and Capulets, like your _carcan_, are out of date. But, all

the same, we must go one way--_comprenez-vous?_--we must go one

way--or separate! At least, I think so."

And nodding pleasantly, as if he had uttered in these words a

compliment instead of a threat, he rode off; leaving me to stand and

fret and fume, and finally to stride back under the trees with my

thoughts in a whirl, and all my plans and hopes jarring one another in

a petty copy of the confusion that that day prevailed, though I

guessed it but dimly, from one end of France to the other.

For I could not be blind to his meaning; nor ignorant that he had, no

matter how politely, bidden me choose between the alliance with his

family, which my father had arranged for me, and the political views

in which my father had brought me up, and which a year's residence in

England had not failed to strengthen. Alone in the Chateau since my

father's death, I had lived a good deal in the future--in day-dreams

of Denise de St. Alais, the fair girl who was to be my wife, and whom

I had not seen since she went to her convent school; in day-dreams,

also, of work to be done in spreading round me the prosperity I had

seen in England. Now, St. Alais' words menaced one or other of these

prospects; and that was bad enough. But, in truth, it was not that, so

much as his presumption, that stung me; that made me swear one moment

and laugh the next, in a kind of irritation not difficult to

understand. I was twenty-two, he was twenty-seven; and he dictated to

me! We were country bumpkins, he of the _haute politique_, and he had

come from Versailles or from Paris to drill us! If I went his way I

might marry his sister; if not, I might not! That was the position.

No wonder that before he had left me half an hour I had made up my

mind to resist him; and so spent the rest of the day composing sound

and unanswerable reasons for the course I intended to take; now

conning over a letter in which M. de Liancourt set forth his plan of

reform, now summarising the opinions with which M. de Rochefoucauld

had favoured me on his last journey to Luchon. In half an hour and the

heat of temper! thinking no more than ten thousand others, who that

week chose one of two courses, what I was doing. Gargouf, the St.

Alais' steward, who doubtless heard that day the news of Neckar's

fall, and rejoiced, had no foresight of what it meant to him. Father

Benoit, the cure, who supped with me that evening, and heard the

tidings with sorrow--he, too, had no special vision. And the

innkeeper's son at La Bastide, by Cahors--probably he, also, heard the

news; but no shadow of a sceptre fell across his path, nor any of a

_baton_ on that of the notary at the other La Bastide. A notary, a

_baton_! An innkeeper, a sceptre! _Mon Dieu!_ what conjunctions they

would have seemed in those days! We should have been wiser than

Daniel, and more prudent than Joseph, if we had foreseen such things

under the old _regime_--in the old France, in the old world, that died

in that month of July, 1789!

And yet there were signs, even then, to be read by those with eyes,

that foretold something, if but a tithe of the inconceivable future;

of which signs I myself remarked sufficient by the way next day to

fill my mind with other thoughts than private resentment; with some

nobler aims than self-assertion. Riding to Cahors, with Gil and Andre

at my back, I saw not only the havoc caused by the great frosts of the

winter and spring, not only walnut trees blackened and withered, vines

stricken, rye killed, a huge proportion of the land fallow, desert,

gloomy and unsown: not only those common signs of poverty to which use

had accustomed me--though on my first return from England I had viewed

them with horror--mud cabins, I mean, and unglazed windows, starved

cattle, and women bent double, gathering weeds. But I saw other things

more ominous; a strange herding of men at cross-roads and bridges,

where they waited for they knew not what; a something lowering in

these men's silence, a something expectant in their faces; worst of

all, a something dangerous in their scowling eyes and sunken cheeks.

Hunger had pinched them; the elections had roused them. I trembled to

think of the issue, and that in the hint of danger I had given St.

Alais, I had been only too near the mark.

A league farther on, where the woodlands skirt Cahors, I lost sight of

these things; but for a time only. They reappeared presently in

another form. The first view of the town, as, girt by the shining Lot,

and protected by ramparts and towers, it nestles under the steep

hills, is apt to take the eye; its matchless bridge, and time-worn

Cathedral, and great palace seldom failing to rouse the admiration

even of those who know them. But that day I saw none of these things.

As I passed down towards the market-place they were selling grain

under a guard of soldiers with fixed bayonets; and the starved faces

of the waiting crowd that filled all that side of the square, their

shrunken, half-naked figures, and dark looks, and the sullen

muttering, which seemed so much at odds with the sunshine, occupied

me, to the exclusion of everything else.

Or not quite. I had eyes for one other thing, and that was the

astonishing indifference with which those whom curiosity, or business,

or habit had brought to the spot, viewed this spectacle. The inns were

full of the gentry of the province, come to the Assembly; they looked

on from the windows, as at a show, and talked and jested as if at home

in their chateaux. Before the doors of the Cathedral a group of ladies

and clergymen walked to and fro, and now and then they turned a

listless eye on what was passing; but for the most part they seemed to

be unconscious of it, or, at the best, to have no concern with it. I

have heard it said since, that in those days we had two worlds in

France, as far apart as hell and heaven; and what I saw that evening

went far to prove it.

In the square a shop at which pamphlets and journals were sold was

full of customers, though other shops in the neighbourhood were

closed, their owners fearing mischief. On the skirts of the crowd, and

a little aloof from it, I saw Gargouf, the St. Alais' steward. He was

talking to a countryman; and, as I passed, I heard him say with a

gibe, "Well, has your National Assembly fed you yet?"

"Not yet," the clown answered stupidly, "but I am told that in a few

days they will satisfy everybody."

"Not they!" the agent answered brutally. "Why, do you think that they

will feed you?"

"Oh, yes, by your leave; it is certain," the man said. "And, besides,

every one is agreed----"

But then Gargouf saw me, saluted me, and I heard no more. A moment

later, however, I came on one of my own people, Buton, the blacksmith,

in the middle of a muttering group. He looked at me sheepishly,

finding himself caught; and I stopped, and rated him soundly, and saw

him start for home before I went to my quarters.

These were at the Trois Rois, where I always lay when in town; Doury,

the innkeeper, providing a supper ordinary for the gentry at eight

o'clock, at which it was the custom to dress and powder.

The St. Alais had their own house in Cahors, and, as the Marquis had

forewarned me, entertained that evening. The greater part of the

company, indeed, repaired to them after the meal. I went myself a

little late, that I might avoid any private talk with the Marquis; I

found the rooms already full and brilliantly lighted, the staircase

crowded with valets, and the strains of a harpsichord trickling

melodiously from the windows. Madame de St. Alais was in the habit of

entertaining the best company in the province; with less splendour,

perhaps, than some, but with so much ease, and taste, and good

breeding, that I look in vain for such a house in these days.

Ordinarily, she preferred to people her rooms with pleasant groups,

that, gracefully disposed, gave to a _salon_ an air elegant and

pleasing, and in character with the costume of those days, the silks

and laces, powder and diamonds, the full hoops and red-heeled shoes.

But on this occasion the crowd and the splendour of the entertainment

apprised me, as soon as I crossed the threshold, that I was assisting

at a party of more than ordinary importance; nor had I advanced far

before I guessed that it was a political rather than a social

gathering. All, or almost all, who would attend the Assembly next day

were here; and though, as I wound my way through the glittering crowd,

I heard very little serious talk--so little, that I marvelled to think

that people could discuss the respective merits of French and Italian

opera, of Gretry and Bianchi, and the like, while so much hung in the

balance--of the effect intended I had no doubt; nor that Madame, in

assembling all the wit and beauty of the province, was aiming at

things higher than amusement.

With, I am bound to confess, a degree of success. At any rate it was

difficult to mix with the throng which filled her rooms, to run the

gauntlet of bright eyes and witty tongues, to breathe the atmosphere

laden with perfume and music, without falling under the spell, without

forgetting. Inside the door M. de Gontaut, one of my father's oldest

friends, was talking with the two Harincourts. He greeted me with a

sly smile, and pointed politely inwards.

"Pass on, Monsieur," he said. "The farthest room. Ah! my friend, I

wish I were young again!"

"Your gain would be my loss, M. le Baron," I said civilly, and slid by

him. Next, I had to speak to two or three ladies, who detained me with

wicked congratulations of the same kind; and then I came on Louis. He

clasped my hand, and we stood a moment together. The crowd elbowed us;

a simpering fool at his shoulder was prating of the social contract.

But as I felt the pressure of Louis' hand, and looked into his eyes,

it seemed to me that a breath of air from the woods penetrated the

room, and swept aside the heavy perfumes.

Yet there was trouble in his look. He asked me if I had seen Victor.

"Yesterday," I said, understanding him perfectly, and what was amiss.

"Not to-day."

"Nor Denise?"

"No. I have not had the honour of seeing Mademoiselle."

"Then, come," he answered. "My mother expected you earlier. What did

you think of Victor?"

"That he went Victor, and has returned a great personage!" I said,

smiling.

Louis laughed faintly, and lifted his eyebrows with a comical air of

sufferance.

"I was afraid so," he said. "He did not seem to be very well pleased

with you. But we must all do his bidding--eh, Monsieur? And, in the

meantime, come. My mother and Denise are in the farthest room."

He led the way thither as he spoke; but we had first to go through the

card-room, and then the crowd about the farther doorway was so dense

that we could not immediately enter; and so I had time--while

outwardly smiling and bowing--to feel a little suspense. At last we

slipped through and entered a smaller room, where were only Madame la

Marquise--who was standing in the middle of the floor talking with the

Abbe Mesnil--two or three ladies, and Denise de St. Alais.

Mademoiselle had her seat on a couch by one of the ladies; and

naturally my eyes went first to her. She was dressed in white, and it

struck me with the force of a blow how small, how childish she was!

Very fair, of the purest complexion, and perfectly formed, she seemed

to derive an extravagant, an absurd, air of dignity from the formality

of her dress, from the height of the powdered hair that strained

upwards from her forehead, from the stiffness of her brocaded

petticoat. But she was very small. I had time to note this, to feel a

little disappointment, and to fancy that, cast in a larger mould, she

would have been supremely handsome; and then the lady beside her,

seeing me, spoke to her, and the child--she was really little

more--looked up, her face grown crimson. Our eyes met--thank God! she

had Louis' eyes--and she looked down again, blushing painfully.

I advanced to pay my respects to Madame, and kissed the hand, which,

without at once breaking off her conversation, she extended to me.

"But such powers!" the Abbe, who had something of the reputation of a

_philosophe_, was saying to her. "Without limit! Without check!

Misused, Madame----"

"But the King is too good!" Madame la Marquise answered, smiling.

"When well advised, I agree. But then the deficit?"

The Marquise shrugged her shoulders. "His Majesty must have money,"

she said.

"Yes--but whence?" the Abbe asked, with answering shrug.

"The King was too good at the beginning," Madame replied, with a

touch of severity. "He should have made them register the edicts.

However, the Parliament has always given way, and will do so again."

"The Parliament--yes," the Abbe retorted, smiling indulgently. "But it

is no longer a question of the Parliament; and the States General----"

"States General pass," Madame responded grandly. "The King remains!"

"Yet if trouble comes?"

"It will not," Madame answered with the same grand air. "His Majesty

will prevent it." And then with a word or two more she dismissed the

Abbe and turned to me. She tapped me on the shoulder with her fan.

"Ah! truant," she said, with a glance in which kindness and a little

austerity were mingled. "I do not know what I am to say to you!

Indeed, from the account Victor gave me yesterday, I hardly knew

whether to expect you this evening or not. Are you sure that it is you

who are here?"

"I will answer for my heart, Madame," I answered, laying my hand upon

it.

Her eyes twinkled kindly.

"Then," she said, "bring it where it is due, Monsieur." And she turned

with a fine air of ceremony, and led me to her daughter. "Denise," she

said, "this is M. le Vicomte de Saux, the son of my old, my good

friend. M. le Vicomte--my daughter. Perhaps you will amuse her while I

go back to the Abbe."

Probably Mademoiselle had spent the evening in an agony of shyness,

expecting this moment; for she curtesied to the floor, and then stood

dumb and confused, forgetting even to sit down, until I covered her

with fresh blushes by begging her to do so. When she had complied, I

took my stand before her, with my hat in my hand; but between seeking

for the right compliment, and trying to trace a likeness between her

and the wild, brown-faced child of thirteen, whom I had known four

years before--and from the dignified height of nineteen immeasurably

despised--I grew shy myself.

"You came home last week, Mademoiselle?" I said at last.

"Yes, Monsieur," she answered, in a whisper, and with downcast eyes.

"It must be a great change for you!"

"Yes, Monsieur."

Silence: then, "Doubtless the Sisters were good to you?" I suggested.

"Yes, Monsieur."

"Yet, you were not sorry to leave?"

"Yes, Monsieur."

But on that the meaning of what she had last said came home to her, or

she felt the banality of her answers; for, on a sudden, she looked

swiftly up at me, her face scarlet, and, if I was not mistaken, she

was within a little of bursting into tears. The thought appalled me. I

stooped lower.

"Mademoiselle!" I said hurriedly, "pray do not be afraid of me.

Whatever happens, you shall never have need to fear me. I beg of you

to look on me as a friend--as your brother's friend. Louis is my----"

Crash! While the name hung on my lips, something struck me on the

back, and I staggered forward, almost into her arms; amid a shiver of

broken glass, a flickering of lights, a rising chorus of screams and

cries. For a moment I could not think what was happening, or had

happened; the blow had taken away my breath. I was conscious only of

Mademoiselle clinging terrified to my arm, of her face, wild with

fright, looking up to me, of the sudden cessation of the music. Then,

as people pressed in on us, and I began to recover, I turned and saw

that the window behind me had been driven in, and the lead and panes

shattered; and that among the _debris_ on the floor lay a great stone.

It was that which had struck me.