The bells of some shattered church were calling to vespers, the sun was
sinking behind the flaming autumn woods, as once more I entered the
St. Louis Gate, with the grenadiers and a detachment of artillery, the
British colours hoisted on a gun-carriage. Till this hour I had ever
entered and left this town a captive, a price set on my head, and in
the very street where now I walked I had gone with a rope round my
neck, abused and maltreated. I saw our flag replace the golden lilies
of France on the citadel where Doltaire had baited me, and at the top of
Mountain Street, near to the bishop’s palace, our colours also flew.
Every step I took was familiar, yet unfamiliar too. It was a disfigured
town, where a hungry, distracted people huddled among ruins, and begged
for mercy and for food, nor found time in the general overwhelming to
think of the gallant Montcalm, lying in his shell-made grave at the
chapel of the Ursulines, not fifty steps from where I had looked through
the tapestry on Alixe and Doltaire. The convent was almost deserted now,
and as I passed it, on my way to the cathedral, I took off my hat; for
how knew I but that she I loved best lay there, too, as truly a heroine
as the admirable Montcalm was hero! A solitary bell was clanging on
the chapel as I went by, and I saw three nuns steal past me with bowed
heads. I longed to stop them and ask them of Alixe, for I felt sure
that the Church knew where she was, living or dead, though none of all
I asked knew aught of her, not even the Chevalier de la Darante, who had
come to our camp the night before, accompanied by Monsieur Joannes, the
town major, with terms of surrender.
I came to the church of the Recollets as I wandered; for now, for
a little time, I seemed bewildered and incapable, lost in a maze of
dreadful imaginings. I entered the door of the church, and stumbled upon
a body. Hearing footsteps ahead in the dusk, I passed up the aisle, and
came upon a pile of debris. Looking up, I could see the stars shining
through a hole in the roof, Hearing a noise beyond, I went on, and
there, seated on the high altar, was the dwarf who had snatched the cup
of rum out of the fire the night that Mathilde had given the crosses
to the revellers. He gave a low, wild laugh, and hugged a bottle to his
breast. Almost at his feet, half naked, with her face on the lowest
step of the altar, her feet touching the altar itself, was the girl--his
sister--who had kept her drunken lover from assaulting him. The girl was
dead--there was a knife-wound in her breast. Sick at the sight I left
the place, and went on, almost mechanically, to Voban’s house. It was
level with the ground, a crumpled heap of ruins. I passed Lancy’s house,
in front of which I had fought with Gabord; it too was broken to pieces.
As I turned away I heard a loud noise, as of an explosion, and I
supposed it to be some magazine. I thought of it no more at the time.
Voban must be found; that was more important. I must know of Alixe
first, and I felt sure that if any one guessed her whereabouts it would
be he: she would have told him where she was going, if she had fled;
if she were dead, who so likely to know, this secret, elusive, vengeful
watcher? Of Doltaire I had heard nothing; I would seek him out when I
knew of Alixe. He could not escape me in this walled town. I passed on
for a time without direction, for I seemed not to know where I might
find the barber. Our sentries already patrolled the streets, and our
bugles were calling on the heights, with answering calls from the
fleet in the basin. Night came down quickly, the stars shone out in the
perfect blue, and, as I walked along, broken walls, shattered houses,
solitary pillars, looked mystically strange. It was painfully quiet, as
if a beaten people had crawled away into the holes our shot and shell
had made, to hide their misery. Now and again a gaunt face looked out
from a hiding-place, and drew back again in fear at sight of me. Once
a drunken woman spat at me and cursed me; once I was fired at; and
many times from dark corners I heard voices crying, “Sauvez-moi--ah,
sauvez-moi, bon Dieu!” Once I stood for many minutes and watched our
soldiers giving biscuits and their own share of rum to homeless French
peasants hovering round the smouldering ruins of a house which carcasses
had destroyed.
And now my wits came back to me, my purposes, the power to act, which
for a couple of hours had seemed to be in abeyance. I hurried through
narrow streets to the cathedral. There it stood, a shattered mass,
its sides all broken, its roof gone, its tall octagonal tower alone
substantial and unchanged. Coming to its rear, I found Babette’s little
house, with open door, and I went in. The old grandfather sat in his
corner, with a lighted candle on the table near him, across his knees
Jean’s coat that I had worn. He only babbled nonsense to my questioning,
and, after calling aloud to Babette and getting no reply, I started for
the Intendance.
I had scarcely left the house when I saw some French peasants coming
towards me with a litter. A woman, walking behind the litter, carried a
lantern, and one of our soldiers of artillery attended and directed. I
ran forward, and discovered Voban, mortally hurt. The woman gave a cry,
and spoke my name in a kind of surprise and relief; and the soldier,
recognizing me, saluted. I sent him for a surgeon, and came on with
the hurt man to the little house. Soon I was alone with him save for
Babette, and her I sent for a priest. As soon as I had seen Voban I
guessed what had happened: he had tried for his revenge at last. After a
little time he knew me, but at first he could not speak.
“What has happened--the Palace?” said I.
He nodded.
“You blew it up--with Bigot?” I asked.
His reply was a whisper, and his face twitched with pain: “Not--with
Bigot.”
I gave him some cordial, which he was inclined to refuse. It revived
him, but I saw he could live only a few hours. Presently he made an
effort. “I will tell you,” he whispered.
“Tell me first of my wife,” said I. “Is she alive?--is she alive?”
If a smile could have been upon his lips then, I saw one there--good
Voban! I put my ear down, and my heart almost stopped beating, until I
heard him say, “Find Mathilde.”
“Where?” asked I.
“In the Valdoche Hills,” he answered, “where the Gray Monk lives--by the
Tall Calvary.”
He gasped with pain. I let him rest awhile, and eased the bandages on
him, and at last he told his story:
“I am to be gone soon. For two years I have wait for the good time to
kill him--Bigot--to send him and his palace to hell. I can not tell you
how I work to do it. It is no matter--no. From an old cellar I mine, and
at last I get the powder lay beneath him--his palace. So. But he does
not come to the Palace much this many months, and Madame Cournal is
always with him, and it is hard to do the thing in other ways. But I
laugh when the English come in the town, and when I see Bigot fly to his
palace alone to get his treasure-chest I think it is my time. So I
ask the valet, and he say he is in the private room that lead to the
treasure-place. Then I come back quick to the secret spot and fire my
mine. In ten minutes all will be done. I go at once to his room again,
alone. I pass through the one room, and come to the other. It is a room
with one small barred window. If he is there, I will say a word to him
that I have wait long to say, then shut the door on us both--for I am
sick of life--and watch him and laugh at him till the end comes. If he
is in the other room, then I have another way as sure--”
He paused, exhausted, and I waited till he could again go on. At last he
made a great effort, and continued: “I go back to the first room, and
he is not there. I pass soft, to the treasure-room, and I see him kneel
beside a chest, looking in. His back is to me. I hear him laugh to
himself. I shut the door, turn the key, go to the window and throw it
out, and look at him again. But now he stand and turn to me, and then I
see--I see it is not Bigot, but M’sieu’ Doltaire!
“I am sick when I see that, and at first I can not speak, my tongue
stick in my mouth so dry. ‘Has Voban turn robber?’ m’sieu’ say. I put
out my hand and try to speak again--but no. ‘What did you throw from the
window?’ he ask. ‘And what’s the matter, my Voban?’ ‘My God,’ I say at
him now, ‘I thought you are Bigot!’ I point to the floor. ‘Powder!’ I
whisper.
“His eyes go like fire so terrible; he look to the window, take a quick
angry step to me, but stand still. Then he point to the window. ‘The
key, Voban?’ he say; and I answer, ‘Yes.’ He get pale; then he go and
try the door, look close at the walls, try them--quick, quick, stop,
feel for a panel, then try again, stand still, and lean against the
table. It is no use to call; no one can hear, for it is all roar
outside, and these walls are solid and very thick.
“‘How long?’ he say, and take out his watch. ‘Five minutes--maybe,’ I
answer. He put his watch on the table, and sit down on a bench by it,
and for a little minute he do not speak, but look at me close, and not
angry, as you would think. ‘Voban,’ he say in a low voice, ‘Bigot was
a thief.’ He point to the chest. ‘He stole from the King--my father.
He stole your Mathilde from you! He should have died. We have both been
blunderers, Voban, blunderers,’ he say; ‘things have gone wrong with us.
We have lost all.’ There is little time. ‘Tell me one thing,’ he go on:
‘Is Mademoiselle Duvarney safe--do you know?’ I tell him yes, and he
smile, and take from his pocket something, and lay it against his lips,
and then put it back in his breast.
“‘You are not afraid to die, Voban?’ he ask. I answer no. ‘Shake hands
with me, my friend,’ he speak, and I do so that. ‘Ah, pardon, pardon,
m’sieu’,’ I say. ‘No, no, Voban; it was to be,’ he answer. ‘We shall
meet again, comrade--eh, if we can?’ he speak on, and he turn away from
me and look to the sky through the window. Then he look at his watch,
and get to his feet, and stand there still. I kiss my crucifix. He
reach out and touch it, and bring his fingers to his lips. ‘Who can
tell--perhaps--perhaps!’ he say. For a little minute--ah, it seem like
a year, and it is so still, so still he stand there, and then he put his
hand over the watch, lift it up, and shut his eyes, as if time is all
done. While you can count ten it is so, and then the great crash come.”
For a long time Voban lay silent again. I gave him more cordial, and he
revived and ended his tale. “I am a blunderer, as m’sieu’ say,” he went
on, “for he is killed, not Bigot and me, and only a little part of the
palace go to pieces. And so they fetch me here, and I wish--my God in
Heaven, I wish I go with M’sieu’ Doltaire.” But he followed him a little
later.
Two hours afterwards I went to the Intendance, and there I found that
the body of my enemy had been placed in the room where I had last seen
him with Alixe. He lay on the same couch where she had lain. The flag
of France covered his broken body, but his face was untouched--as it
had been in life, haunting, fascinating, though the shifting lights were
gone, the fine eyes closed. A noble peace hid all that was sardonic; not
even Gabord would now have called him “Master Devil.” I covered up his
face and left him there--peasant and prince--candles burning at his head
and feet, and the star of Louis on his shattered breast; and I saw him
no more.
All that night I walked the ramparts, thinking, remembering, hoping,
waiting for the morning; and when I saw the light break over those far
eastern parishes, wasted by fire and sword, I set out on a journey to
the Valdoche Hills.