AT MILHAU.
I met with many strange things on that journey. I found it strange to
see, as I went, armed peasants in the fields; to light in each village
on men drilling; to enter inns and find half a dozen rustics seated
round a table with glasses and wine, and perhaps an inkpot before
them, and to learn that they called themselves a Committee. But
towards evening of the third day I saw a stranger thing than any of
these. I was beginning to mount the valley of the Tarn which runs up
into the Cevennes at Milhau; a north wind was blowing, the sky was
overcast, the landscape grey and bare; a league before me masses of
mountain stood up gloomily blue. On a sudden, as I walked wearily
beside my horse, I heard voices singing in chorus; and looked about
me. The sound, clear and sweet as fairy's music, seemed to rise from
the earth at my feet.
A few yards farther, and the mystery explained itself. I found myself
on the verge of a little dip in the ground, and saw below me the roofs
of a hamlet, and on the hither side of it a crowd of a hundred or
more, men and women. They were dancing and singing round a great tree,
leafless, but decked with flags: a few old people sat about the roots
inside the circle, and but for the cold weather and the bleak outlook,
I might have thought that I had come on a May-day festival.
My appearance checked the singing for a moment; then two elderly
peasants made their way through the ring and came to meet me, walking
hand in hand. "Welcome to Vlais and Giron!" cried one. "Welcome to
Giron and Vlais!" cried the other. And then, before I could answer,
"You come on a happy day," cried both together.
I could not help smiling. "I am glad of that," I said. "May I ask what
is the reason of your meeting?"
"The Communes of Giron and Vlais, of Vlais and Giron," they answered,
speaking alternately, "are today one. To-day, Monsieur, old boundaries
disappear; old feuds die. The noble heart of Giron, the noble heart of
Vlais, beat as one."
I could scarcely refrain from laughing at their simplicity;
fortunately, at that moment, the circle round the tree resumed their
song and dance, which had even in that weather a pretty effect, as of
a Watteau _fete_. I congratulated the two peasants on the sight.
"But, Monsieur, this is nothing," one of them answered with perfect
gravity. "It is not only that the boundaries of communes are
disappearing; those of provinces are of the past also. At Valence,
beyond the mountains, the two banks of the Rhone have clasped hands
and sworn eternal amity. Henceforth all Frenchmen are brothers; all
Frenchmen are of all provinces!"
"That is a fine idea," I said.
"No son of France will again shed French blood!" he continued.
"So be it."
"Catholic and Protestant, Protestant and Catholic will live at peace!
There will be no law-suits. Grain will circulate freely, unchecked by
toils or dues. All will be free, Monsieur. All will be rich."
They said more in the same sanguine simple tone, and with the same
naive confidence; but my thoughts strayed from them, attracted by a
man, who, seated among the peasants at the foot of the tree, seemed to
my eyes to be of another class. Tall and lean, with lank black hair,
and features of a stern, sour cast, he had nothing of outward show to
distinguish him from those round him. His dress, a rough hunting suit,
was old and patched; the spurs on his brown, mud-stained boots were
rusty and bent. Yet his carriage possessed an ease the others lacked;
and in the way he watched the circling rustics I read a quiet scorn.
I did not notice that he heeded or returned my gaze, but I had not
gone on my way a hundred paces, after taking leave of the two mayors
and the revellers, before I heard a step, and looking round, saw the
stranger coming after me. He beckoned, and I waited until he overtook
me.
"You are going to Milhau?" he said, speaking abruptly, and with a
strong country accent; yet in the tone of one addressing an equal.
"Yes, Monsieur," I said. "But I doubt if I shall reach the town
to-night."
"I am going also," he answered. "My horse is in the village."
And without saying more he walked beside me until we reached the
hamlet. There--the place was deserted--he brought from an outhouse a
sorry mare, and mounted. "What do you think of that rubbish?" he said
suddenly as we took the road again. I had watched his proceedings in
silence.
"I fear that they expect too much," I answered guardedly.
He laughed; a horse-laugh full of scorn. "They think that the
millennium has come," he said. "And in a month they will find their
barns burned and their throats cut."
"I hope not," I said.
"Oh, I hope not," he answered cynically. "I hope not, of course. But
even so _Vive la Nation! Vive la Revolution!_"
"What? If that be its fruit?" I asked.
"Ay, why not?" he answered, his gloomy eyes fixed on me. "It is every
one for himself, and what has the old rule done for me that I should
fear to try the new? Left me to starve on an old rock and a dovecot;
sheltered by bare stones, and eating out of a black pot! While women
and bankers, scented fops and lazy priests prick it before the King!
And why? Because I remain, sir, what half the nation once were."
"A Protestant?" I hazarded.
"Yes, Monsieur. And a poor noble," he answered bitterly. "The Baron de
Geol, at your service."
I gave him my name in return.
"You wear the tricolour," he said; "yet you think me extreme? I
answer, that that is all very well for you; but we are different
people. You are doubtless a family man, M. le Vicomte, with a
wife----"
"On the contrary, M. le Baron."
"Then a mother, a sister?"
"No," I said, smiling. "I have neither. I am quite alone."
"At least with a home," he persisted, "means, friends, employment, or
the chance of employment?"
"Yes," I said, "that is so."
"Whereas I--I," he answered, growing guttural in his excitement,
"have none of these things. I cannot enter the army--I am a
Protestant! I am shut off from the service of the State--I am a
Protestant! I cannot be a lawyer or a judge--I am a Protestant! The
King's schools are closed to me--I am a Protestant! I cannot appear at
Court--I am a Protestant! I--in the eyes of the law I do not exist!
I--I, Monsieur," he continued more slowly, and with an air not devoid
of dignity, "whose ancestors stood before Kings, and whose
grandfather's great-grandfather saved the fourth Henry's life at
Coutras--I do not exist!"
"But now?" I said, startled by his tone of passion.
"Ay, now," he answered grimly, "it is going to be different. Now, it
is going to be otherwise, unless these black crows of priests put the
clock back again. That is why I am on the road."
"You are going to Milhau?"
"I live near Milhau," he answered. "And I have been from home. But I
am not going home now. I am going farther--to Nimes."
"To Nimes?" I said in surprise.
"Yes," he said. And he looked at me askance and a trifle grimly, and
did not say any more. By this time it was growing dark; the valley of
the Tarn, along which our road lay, though fertile and pleasant to the
eye in summer, wore at this season, and in the half-light, a savage
and rugged aspect. Mountains towered on either side; and sometimes,
where the road drew near the river, the rushing of the water as it
swirled and eddied among the rocks below us, added its note of
melancholy to the scene. I shivered. The uncertainty of my quest, the
uncertainty of everything, the gloom of my companion, pressed upon me.
I was glad when he roused himself from his brooding, and pointed to
the lights of Milhau glimmering here and there on a little plain,
where the mountains recede from the river.
"You are doubtless going to the inn?" he said, as we entered the
outskirts. I assented. "Then we part here," he continued. "To-morrow,
if you are going to Nimes---- But you may prefer to travel alone."
"Far from it," I said.
"Well, I shall be leaving the east gate--about eight o'clock," he
answered grudgingly. "Good-night, Monsieur."
I bade him good-night, and leaving him there, rode into the town:
passing through narrow, mean streets, and under dark archways and
hanging lanterns, that swung and creaked in the wind, and did
everything but light the squalid obscurity. Though night had fallen,
people were moving briskly to and fro, or standing at their doors; the
place, after the solitude through which I had ridden, had the air of a
city; and presently I became aware that a little crowd was following
my horse. Before I reached the inn, which stood in a dimly-lit square,
the crowd had grown into a great one, and was beginning to press upon
me; some who marched nearest to me staring up inquisitively into my
face, while others, farther off, called to their neighbours, or to dim
forms seen at basement windows, that it was he!
I found this somewhat alarming. Still they did not molest me; but when
I halted they halted too, and I was forced to dismount almost in their
arms. "Is this the inn?" I said to those nearest tome; striving to
appear at my ease.
"Yes! yes!" they cried with one voice, "that is the inn!"
"My horse----"
"We will take the horse! Enter! Enter!"
I had little choice, they flocked so closely round me; and, affecting
carelessness, I complied, thinking that they would not follow, and
that inside I should learn the meaning of their conduct. But the
moment my back was turned they pressed in after me and beside me, and,
almost sweeping me off my feet, urged me along the narrow passage of
the house, whether I would or no. I tried to turn and remonstrate; but
the foremost drowned my words in loud cries for "M. Flandre! M.
Flandre!"
Fortunately the person addressed was not far off. A door towards which
I was being urged opened, and he appeared. He proved to be an
immensely stout man, with a face to match his body; and he gazed at us
for a moment, astounded by the invasion. Then he asked angrily what
was the matter. "_Ventre de Ciel!_" he cried. "Is this my house or
yours, rascals? Who is this?"
"The Capuchin! The Capuchin!" cried a dozen voices.
"Ho! ho!" he answered, before I could speak. "Bring a light."
Two or three bare-armed women whom the noise had brought to the door
of the kitchen fetched candles, and raising them above their heads
gazed at me curiously. "Ho! ho!" he said again. "The Capuchin is it?
So you have got him."
"Do I look like one?" I cried angrily, thrusting back those who
pressed on me most closely. "_Nom de Dieu!_ Is this the way you
receive guests, Monsieur? Or is the town gone mad?"
"You are not the Capuchin monk?" he said, somewhat taken aback, I
could see, by my boldness.
"Have I not said that I am not? Do monks in your country travel in
boots and spurs?" I retorted.
"Then your papers!" he answered curtly. "Your papers! I would have you
to know," he continued, puffing out his cheeks, "that I am Mayor here
as well as host, and I keep the jail as well as the inn. Your papers,
Monsieur, if you prefer the one to the other."
"Before your friends here?" I said contemptuously.
"They are good citizens," he answered.
I had some fear, now I had come to the pinch, that the commission I
carried might fail to produce all the effects with which I had
credited it. But I had no choice, and ultimately nothing to dread; and
after a momentary hesitation I produced it. Fortunately it was drawn
in complimentary terms and gave the Mayor, I know not how, the idea
that I was actually bound at the moment on an errand of state. When he
had read it, therefore, he broke into a hundred apologies, craved
leave to salute me, and announced to the listening crowd that they had
made a mistake.
It struck me at the time as strange, that they, the crowd, were not at
all embarrassed by their error. On the contrary, they hastened to
congratulate me on my acquittal, and even patted me on the shoulder in
their good humour; some went to see that my horse was brought in, or
to give orders on my behalf, and the rest presently dispersed, leaving
me fain to believe that they would have hung me to the nearest
_lanterne_ with the same stolid complaisance.
When only two or three remained, I asked the Mayor for whom they had
taken me.
"A disguised monk, M. le Vicomte," he said. "A very dangerous fellow,
who is known to be travelling with two ladies--all to Nimes; and
orders have been sent from a high quarter to arrest him."
"But I am alone!" I protested. "I have no ladies with me."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Just so, M. le Vicomte," he answered. "But
we have got the two ladies. They were arrested this morning, while
attempting to pass through the town in a carriage. We know, therefore,
that he is now alone."
"Oh," I said. "So now you only want him? And what is the charge
against him?" I continued, remembering with a languid stirring of the
pulses that a Capuchin monk had visited Father Benoit before his
departure. It seemed to be strange that I should come upon the traces
of another here.
"He is charged," M. Flandre answered pompously, "with high treason
against the nation, Monsieur. He has been seen here, there, and
everywhere, at Montpellier, and Cette, and Albi, and as far away as
Auch; and always preaching war and superstition, and corrupting the
people."
"And the ladies?" I said smiling. "Have they too been corrupting----"
"No, M. le Vicomte. But it is believed that wishing to return to
Nimes, and learning that the roads were watched, he disguised himself
and joined himself to them. Doubtless they are _devotes_."
"Poor things!" I said, with a shudder of compassion; every one seemed
to be so good-tempered, and yet so hard. "What will you do with them?"
"I shall send for orders," he answered. "In his case," he continued
airily, "I should not need them. But here is your supper. Pardon me,
M. le Vicomte, if I do not attend on you myself. As Mayor I have to
take care that I do not compromise--but you understand?"
I said civilly that I did; and supper being laid, as was then the
custom in the smaller inns, in my bedroom, I asked him to take a glass
of wine with me, and over the meal learned much of the state of the
country, and the fermentation that was at work along the southern
seaboard, the priests stirring up the people with processions and
sermons. He waxed especially eloquent upon the excitement at Nimes,
where the masses were bigoted Romanists, while the Protestants had a
following, too, with the hardy peasants of the mountains behind them.
"There will be trouble, M. le Vicomte, there will be trouble there,"
he said with meaning. "Things are going too well for the people _la
bas_. They will stop them if they can."
"And this man?"
"Is one of their missionaries."
I thought of Father Benoit, and sighed. "By the way," the Mayor said
abruptly, gazing at me in moony thoughtfulness, "that is curious now!"
"What?" I said.
"You come from Cahors, M. le Vicomte?"
"Well?"
"So do these women; or they say they do. The prisoners."
"From Cahors?"
"Yes. It is odd now," he continued, rubbing his chin, "but when I read
your commission I did not think of that."
I shrugged my shoulders impatiently. "It does not follow that I am in
the plot," I said. "For goodness sake, M. le Maire, do not let us open
the case again. You have seen my papers, and----"
"Tut! tut!" he said. "That is not my meaning. But you may know these
persons."
"Oh!" I said; and then I sat a moment, staring at him between the
candles, my hand raised, a morsel on my fork. A wild extravagant
thought had flashed into my mind. Two ladies from Cahors? From Cahors,
of all places? "How do they call themselves?" I asked.
"Corvas," he answered.
"Oh! Corvas," I said, falling to eating again, and putting the morsel
into my mouth. And I went on with my supper.
"Yes. A merchant's wife, she says she is. But you shall see her."
"I don't remember the name," I answered.
"Still, you may know them," he rejoined, with the dull persistence of
a man of few ideas. "It is just possible that we have made a mistake,
for we found no papers in the carriage, and only one thing that seemed
suspicious."
"What was that?"
"A red cockade."
"A _red_ cockade?"
"Yes," he answered. "The badge of the old Leaguers, you know."
"But," I said, "I have not heard of any party adopting that."
He rubbed his bald head a little doubtfully. "No," he said, "that is
true. Still, it is a colour we don't like here. And two ladies
travelling alone--alone, Monsieur! Then their driver, a half-witted
fellow, who said that they had engaged him at Rodez, though he denied
stoutly that he had seen the Capuchin, told two or three tales.
However, if you will eat no more, M. le Vicomte, I will take you to
see them. You may be able to speak for or against them."
"If you do not think that it is too late?" I said, shrinking somewhat
from the interview.
"Prisoners must not be choosers," he answered, with an unpleasant
chuckle. And he called from the door for a lantern and his cloak.
"The ladies are not here, then?" I said.
"No," he answered, with a wink. "Safe bind, safe find! But they have
nothing to cry about. There are one or two rough fellows in the clink,
so Babet, the jailer, has given them room in his house."
At this moment the lantern came, and the Mayor having wrapped his
portly person in a cloak, we passed out of the house. The square
outside was utterly dark, such lights as had been burning when I
arrived had been extinguished, perhaps by the wind, which was rising,
and now blew keenly across the open space. The yellow glare of the
lantern was necessary, but though it showed us a few feet of the
roadway, and enabled us to pick our steps, it redoubled the darkness
beyond; I could not see even the line of the roofs, and had no idea in
what direction we had gone or how far, when M. Flandre halted
abruptly, and, raising the lantern, threw its light on a greasy stone
wall, from which, set deep in the stone-work, a low iron-studded door
frowned on us. About the middle of the door hung a huge knocker, and
above it was a small _grille_.
"Safe bind, safe find!" the Mayor said again with a fat chuckle; but,
instead of raising the knocker, he drew his stick sharply across the
bars of the _grille_.
The summons was understood and quickly answered. A face peered a
moment through the grating; then the door opened to us. The Mayor took
the lead, and we passed in, out of the night, into a close, warm air
reeking of onions and foul tobacco, and a hundred like odours. The
jailer silently locked the door behind us, and, taking the Mayor's
lantern from him, led the way down a grimy, low-roofed passage barely
wide enough for one man. He halted at the first door on the left of
the passage, and threw it open.
M. Flandre entered first, and, standing while he removed his hat, for
an instant filled the doorway. I had time to hear and note a burst of
obscene singing, which came from a room farther down the passage; and
the frequent baying of a prison-dog, that, hearing us, flung itself
against its chain, somewhere in the same direction. I noted, too, that
the walls of the passage in which I stood were dingy and trickling
with moisture, and then a voice, speaking in answer to M. Flandre's
salutation, caught my ear and held me motionless.
The voice was Madame's--Madame de St. Alais'!
It was fortunate that I had entertained, though but a second, the
wild, extravagant thought that had occurred to me at supper; for in a
measure it had prepared me. And I had little time for other
preparation, for thought, or decision. Luckily the room was thick with
vile tobacco smoke, and the steam from linen drying by the fire; and I
took advantage of a fit of coughing, partly assumed, to linger an
instant on the threshold after M. Flandre had gone in. Then I followed
him.
There were four people in the room besides the Mayor, but I had no
eyes for the frowsy man and woman who sat playing with a filthy pack
of cards at a table in the middle of the floor. I had only eyes for
Madame and Mademoiselle, and them I devoured. They sat on two stools
on the farther side of the hearth; the girl with her head laid wearily
back against the wall, and her eyes half-closed; the mother, erect and
watchful, meeting the Mayor's look with a smile of contempt. Neither
the prison-house, nor danger, nor the companionship of this squalid
hole had had power to reduce her fine spirit; but as her eyes passed
from the Mayor and encountered mine, she started to her feet with a
gasping cry, and stood staring at me.
It was not wonderful that for a second, peering through the reek, she
doubted. But one there was there who did not doubt. Mademoiselle had
sprung up in alarm at the sound of her mother's cry, and for the
briefest moment we looked at one another. Then she sank back on her
stool, and I heard her break into violent crying.
"Hallo!" said the Mayor. "What is this?"
"A mistake, I fear," I said hoarsely, in words I had already composed.
"I am thankful, Madame," I continued, bowing to her with distant
ceremony, and as much indifference as I could assume, "that I am so
fortunate as to be here."
She muttered something and leaned against the wall. She had not yet
recovered herself.
"You know the ladies?" the Mayor said, turning to me and speaking
roughly; even with a tinge of suspicion in his voice. And he looked
from one to the other of us sharply.
"Perfectly," I said.
"They are from Cahors?"
"From that neighbourhood."
"But," he said, "I told you their names, and you said that you did not
know them, M. le Vicomte?"
For a moment I held my breath; gazing into Madame's face and reading
there anxiety, and something more--a sudden terror. I took the leap--I
could do nothing else. "You told me Corvas--that the lady's name was
Corvas," I muttered.
"Yes," he said.
"But Madame's name is Correas."
"Correas?" he repeated, his jaw falling.
"Yes, Correas. I dare say that the ladies," I continued with assumed
politeness, "did not in their fright speak very clearly."
"And their name is Correas?"
"I told you that it was," Madame answered, speaking for the first
time, "and also that I knew nothing of your Capuchin monk. And this
last," she continued earnestly, her eyes fixed on mine in passionate
appeal--in appeal that this time could not be mistaken--"I say again,
on my honour!"
I knew that she meant this for me; and I responded to the cry. "Yes,
M. le Maire," I said, "I am afraid that you have made a mistake. I can
answer for Madame as for myself."
The Mayor rubbed his head.