Between the Rue de Lille and the Boulevard St. Germain, in the narrow
streets which to this day have survived the sweeping influence of
Baron Haussmann, once Prefect of the Seine, there are many houses which
scarcely seem to have opened door or window since the great Revolution.
One of these, to be precise, is situated in the Ruelle St. Jacob,
hardly wider than a lane--a short street with a blind end against high
walls--into which any vehicle that enters must needs do so with the
knowledge of having to back out again. For there is no room to turn.
Which is an allegory. All the windows, in fact, that look forlornly at
the blank walls or peep over the high gateways into the Ruelle St. Jacob
are Royalist windows looking into a street which is blinded by a high
wall and is too narrow to allow of turning.
Many of the windows would appear to have gathered dust since those days
more than a hundred years ago when white faces peeped from them and
trembling hands unbarred the sash to listen to the roar of voices in the
Rue du Bac, in the open space by the church of St. Germain des Pres, in
the Cite, all over Paris, where the people were making history.
To this house in the Ruelle St. Jacob, Dormer Colville and Loo Barebone
made their way on foot, on their arrival in Paris at the termination of
their long journey.
It was nearly dark, for Colville had arranged to approach the city and
leave their horses at a stable at Meudon after dusk.
“It is foolish,” he said, gaily, to his companion, “to flaunt a face
like yours in Paris by daylight.”
They had driven from Meudon in a hired carriage to the corner of
the Champ de Mars, in those days still innocent of glass houses and
exhibition buildings, for Paris was not yet the toy-shop of the world;
and from the Champ de Mars they came on foot through the ill-paved,
feebly lighted streets. In the Ruelle St. Jacob itself there was only
one lamp, burning oil, swinging at the corner. The remainder of the
lane depended for its illumination on the windows of two small shops
retailing firewood and pickled gherkins and balls of string grey with
age, as do all the shops in the narrow streets on the wrong side of the
Seine.
Dormer Colville led the way, picking his steps from side to side of
the gutter which meandered odoriferously down the middle of the street
toward the river. He stopped in front of the great gateway and looked
up at the arch of it, where the stone carving had been carefully
obliterated by some enthusiastic citizen armed with a hatchet.
“Ichabod,” he said, with a short laugh; and cautiously laid hold of the
dangling bell-handle which had summoned the porter to open to a Queen
in those gay days when Marie Antoinette light-heartedly pushed a falling
monarchy down the incline.
The great gate was not opened in response, but a small side door,
deep-sunken in the thickness of the wall. On either jamb of the door
was affixed in the metal letters ordained by the municipality the number
eight. Number Eight Ruelle St. Jacob had once been known to kings as the
Hotel Gemosac.
The man who opened carried a lantern and held the door ajar with a
grudging hand while he peered out. One could almost imagine that he had
survived the downfall and the Restoration, and a couple of republics,
behind the high walls.
The court-yard was paved with round cobble-stones no bigger than
an apple, and, even by the flickering light of the lantern, it was
perceptible that no weed had been allowed to grow between the stones or
in the seams of the wide, low steps that led to an open door.
The house appeared to be dark and deserted.
“Yes, Monsieur le Marquis--Monsieur le Marquis is at home,” muttered the
man with a bronchial chuckle, and led the way across the yard. He wore a
sort of livery, which must have been put away for years. A young man had
been measured for the coat which now displayed three deep creases across
a bent back.
“Attention--attention!” he said, in a warning voice, while he scraped a
sulphur match in the hall. “There are holes in the carpets. It is easy
to trip and fall.”
He lighted the candle, and after having carefully shut and bolted the
door, he led the way upstairs. At their approach, easily audible in the
empty house by reason of the hollow creaking of the oak floor, a door
was opened at the head of the stairs and a flood of light met the
new-comers.
In the doorway, which was ten feet high, the little bent form of the
Marquis de Gemosac stood waiting.
“Ah! ah!” he said, with that pleasant manner of his generation, which
was refined and spirituelle and sometimes dramatic, and yet ever
failed to touch aught but the surface of life. “Ah! ah! Safely
accomplished--the great journey. Safely accomplished. You permit--”
And he embraced Barebone after the custom of his day.
“From all sides,” he said, when the door was closed, “I hear that you
have done great things. From every quarter one hears your praise.”
He held him at arm's length.
“Yes,” he said. “Your face is graver and--more striking in resemblance
than ever. So now you know--now you have seen.”
“Yes,” answered Barebone, gravely. “I have seen and I know.”
The Marquis rubbed his white hands together and gave a little crackling
laugh of delight as he drew forward a chair to the fire, which was of
logs as long as a barrel. The room was a huge one, and it was lighted
from end to end with lamps, as if for a reception or a ball. The air
was damp and mouldly. There were patches of grey on the walls, which had
once been painted with garlands of roses and Cupids and pastoral scenes
by a noted artist of the Great Age.
The ceiling had fallen in places, and the woodwork of the carved
furniture gave forth a subtle scent of dry rot.
But everything was in an exquisite taste which vulgarer generations
have never yet succeeded in imitating. Nothing was concealed, but rather
displayed with a half-cynical pride. All was moth-ridden, worm-eaten,
fallen to decay--but it was of the Monarchy. Not half a dozen houses
in Paris, where already the wealth, which has to-day culminated in a
ridiculous luxury of outward show, was beginning to build new palaces,
could show room after room furnished in the days of the Great Louis.
The very air, faintly scented it would seem by some forgotten perfume,
breathed of a bygone splendour. And the last of the de Gemosacs scorned
to screen his poverty from the eyes of his equals, nor sought to hide
from them a desolation which was only symbolic of that which crushed
their hearts and bade them steal back from time to time like criminals
to the capital.
“You see,” he said to Colville and Barebone, “I have kept my promise,
I have thrown open this old house once more for to-night's meeting.
You will find that many friends have made the journey to Paris for the
occasion--Madame de Chantonnay and Albert, Madame de Rathe and many from
the Vendee and the West whom you have met on your journey. And to-night
one may speak without fear, for none will be present who are not vouched
for by the Almanac de Gotha. There are no Royalists pour rire or pour
vivre to-night. You have but time to change your clothes and dine.
Your luggage arrived yesterday. You will forgive the stupidity of old
servants who have forgotten their business. Come, I will lead the way
and show you your rooms.”
He took a candle and did the honours of the deserted dust-ridden house
in the manner of the high calling which had been his twenty years ago
when Charles X. was king. For some there lingers a certain pathos in
the sight of a belated survival, while the majority of men and women
are ready to smile at it instead. And yet the Monarchy lasted eight
centuries and the Revolution eight years. Perhaps Fate may yet exact
payment for the excesses of those eight years from a nation for which
the watching world already prepares a secondary place in the councils of
empire.
The larger room had been assigned to Loo. There was a subtle difference
in the Marquis's manner toward him. He made an odd bow as he quitted the
room.
“There,” said Colville, whose room communicated with this great
apartment by a dressing-room and two doors. He spoke in English, as they
always did when they were alone together. “There--you are launched. You
are lance, my friend. I may say you are through the shoals now and out
on the high seas--”
He paused, candle in hand, and looked round the room with a reflective
smile. It was obviously the best room in the house, with a fireplace as
wide as a gate, where logs of pine burnt briskly on high iron dogs.
The bed loomed mysteriously in one corner with its baldachin of Gobelin
tapestry. Here, too, the dim scent of fallen monarchy lingered in the
atmosphere. A portrait of Louis XVI. in a faded frame hung over the
mantelpiece.
“And the time will come,” pursued Colville, with his melancholy,
sympathetic smile, “when you will find it necessary to drop the
pilot--to turn your face seaward and your back upon old recollections
and old associations. You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs,
my friend.”
“Oh yes,” replied Barebone, with a brisk movement of the head, “I shall
have to forget Farlingford.”
Colville had moved toward the door that led to his own room. He paused,
examining the wick of the candle he carried in his hand. Then, though
glib of speech, he decided in favour of silence, and went away without
making reply.
Loo sat down in a grey old arm-chair in front of the fire. The house was
astoundingly noiseless, though situated in what had once been the heart
of Paris. It was one of the few houses left in this quarter with a large
garden. And the traffic passing in and out of the Ruelle St. Jacob went
slipshod on its own feet. The busy crackle of the wood was the only
sound to break a silence which seemed part of this vast palace of
memories.
Loo had ridden far and was tired. He smiled grimly at the fire. It is to
be supposed that he was sitting down to the task he had set himself--to
forget Farlingford.
There was a great reception at the Hotel Gemosac that night, and after
twenty years of brooding silence the rooms, hastily set in order, were
lighted up.
There was, as the Marquis had promised, no man or woman present who was
not vouched for by a noble name or by history. As the old man presented
them, their names were oddly familiar to the ear, while each face
looking at Loo seemed to be the face of a ghost looking out of a past
which the world will never forget so long as history lives.
And here, again, was the subtle difference. They no longer talked to
Loo, but stood apart and spoke among themselves in a hushed voice. Men
made their bow to him and met his smile with grave and measuring eyes.
Some made a little set speech, which might mean much or nothing. Others
embarked on such a speech and paused--faltered, and passed on gulping
something down in their throats.
Women made a deep reverence to him and glanced at him with parted lips
and white faces--no coquetry in their eyes. They saw that he was young
and good-looking; but they forgot that he might think the same of them.
Then they passed on and grouped themselves together, as women do in
moments of danger or emotion, their souls instinctively seeking the
company of other souls tuned to catch a hundred passing vibrations of
the heart-strings of which men remain in ignorance. They spoke together
in lowered voices without daring, or desiring perhaps, to turn and look
at him again.
“It only remains,” some one said, “for the Duchesse d'Angouleme to
recognise his claim. A messenger has departed for Frohsdorf.”
And Barebone, looking at them, knew that there was a barrier between him
and them which none could cast aside: a barrier erected in the past and
based on the sure foundations of history.
“She is an old woman,” said Monsieur de Gemosac to any who spoke to him
on this subject. “She is seventy-two, and fifty-eight of those years
have been marked by greater misfortunes than ever fell to the lot of a
woman. When she came out of prison she had no tears left, my friends.
We cannot expect her to turn back willingly to the past now. But we know
that in her heart she has never been sure that her brother died in the
Temple. You know how many disappointments she has had. We must not awake
her sleeping sorrow until all is ready. I shall make the journey to
Frohsdorf--that I promise you. But to-night we have another task before
us.”
“Yes--yes,” answered his listeners. “You are to open the locket. Where
is it?--show it to us.”
And the locket which Captain Clubbe's wife had given to Dormer Colville
was handed from one to another. It was not of great value, but it was
of gold with stones, long since discoloured, set in silver around it. It
was crushed and misshapen.
“It has never been opened for twenty years,” they told each other. “It
has been mislaid in an obscure village in England for nearly half a
century.”
“The Vicomte de Castel Aunet--who is so clever a mechanician--has
promised to bring his tools,” said Monsieur de Gemosac. “He will open it
for us--even if he find it necessary to break the locket.”
So the thing went round the room until it came to Loo Barebone.
“I have seen it before,” he said. “I think I remember seeing it long
ago--when I was a little child.”
And he handed it to the old Vicomte de Castel Aunet, whose shaking
fingers closed round it in a breathless silence. He carried it to the
table, and some one brought candles. The Vicomte was very old. He had
learnt clock-making, they said, in prison during the Terror.
“Il n'y a moyen,” he whispered to himself. “I must break it.”
With one effort he prised up the cover, but the hinge snapped, and the
lid rolled across the table into Barebone's hand.
“Ah!” he cried, in that breathless silence, “now I remember it. I
remember the red silk lining of the cover, and in the other side there
is the portrait of a lady with--”
The Vicomte paused, with his palm covering the other half of the locket
and looked across at Loo. And the eyes of all Royalist France were fixed
on the same face.
“Silence!” whispered Dormer Colville in English, crushing Barebone's
foot under the table.