THE FOX AND THE GOOSE.
"M. Jean Buvat," said the usher. Dubois stretched out his viper's head,
darted a look at the opening which was left between the usher and the
door, and, behind the official introducer, perceived a little fat man,
pale, and whose legs shook under him, and who coughed to give himself
assurance. A glance sufficed to inform Dubois the sort of person he had
to deal with.
"Let him come in," said Dubois.
The usher went out, and Jean Buvat appeared at the door.
"Come in, come in," said Dubois.
"You do me honor, monsieur," murmured Buvat, without moving from his
place.
"Shut the door, and leave us," said Dubois to the usher.
The usher obeyed, and the door striking the posterior part of Buvat,
made him bound a little way forward. Buvat, shaken for an instant,
steadied himself on his legs, and became once more immovable, looking at
Dubois with an astounded expression.
In truth, Dubois was a curious sight. Of his episcopal costume he had
retained the inferior part; so that he was in his shirt, with black
breeches and violet stockings. This disagreed with all Buvat's
preconceived notions. What he had before his eyes was neither a minister
nor an archbishop, but seemed much more like an orang-outang than a man.
"Well, monsieur," said Dubois, sitting down and crossing his legs, and
taking his foot in his hand, "you have asked to speak to me. Here I am."
"That is to say," said Buvat, "I asked to speak to Monseigneur the
Archbishop of Cambray."
"Well, I am he."
"How! you, monseigneur?" cried Buvat, taking his hat in both hands, and
bowing almost to the ground: "excuse me, but I did not recognize your
eminence. It is true that this is the first time I have had the honor of
seeing you. Still--hum! at that air of majesty--hum, hum--I ought to
have understood--"
"Your name?" asked Dubois, interrupting the good man's compliments.
"Jean Buvat, at your service."
"You are--?"
"An employe at the library."
"And you have some revelations to make to me concerning Spain?"
"That is to say, monseigneur--This is how it is. As my office work
leaves me six hours in the evening and four in the morning, and as
Heaven has blessed me with a very good handwriting, I make copies."
"Yes, I understand," said Dubois; "and some one has given you suspicious
papers to copy, so you have brought these suspicious papers to me, have
you not?"
"In this roll, monseigneur, in this roll," said Buvat, extending it
toward Dubois.
Dubois made a single bound from his chair to Buvat, took the roll, and
sat down at a desk, and in a turn of the hand, having torn off the
string and the wrapper, found the papers in question. The first on which
he lighted were in Spanish; but as Dubois had been sent twice to Spain,
and knew something of the language of Calderon and Lopez de Vega, he saw
at the first glance how important these papers were. Indeed, they were
neither more nor less than the protestation of the nobility, the list of
officers who requested commissions under the king of Spain, and the
manifesto prepared by the Cardinal de Polignac and the Marquis de
Pompadour to rouse the kingdom. These different documents were addressed
directly to Philip V.; and a little note--which Dubois recognized as
Cellamare's hand writing--announced that the denouement of the
conspiracy was near at hand; he informed his Catholic majesty, from day
to day, of all the important events which could advance or retard the
scheme. Then came, finally, that famous plan of the conspirators which
we have already given to our readers, and which--left by an oversight
among the papers which had been translated into Spanish--had opened
Buvat's eyes. Near the plan, in the good man's best writing, was the
copy which he had begun to make, and which was broken off at the words,
"Act thus in all the provinces."
Buvat had followed all the working of Dubois's face with a certain
anxiety; he had seen it pass from astonishment to joy, then from joy to
impassibility. Dubois, as he continued to read, had passed,
successively, one leg over the other, had bitten his lips, pinched the
end of his nose, but all had been utterly untranslatable to Buvat, and
at the end of the reading he understood no more from the face of the
archbishop than he had understood at the end of the copy from the
Spanish original. As to Dubois, he saw that this man had come to furnish
him with the beginning of a most important secret, and he was meditating
on the best means of making him furnish the end also. This was the
signification of the crossed legs, the bitten lips, and the pinched
nose. At last he appeared to have taken his resolution. A charming
benevolence overspread his countenance, and turning toward the good man,
who had remained standing respectfully--
"Take a seat, my dear M. Buvat," said he.
"Thank you, monseigneur," answered Buvat, trembling; "I am not
fatigued."
"Pardon, pardon," said Dubois, "but your legs shake."
Indeed, since he had read the proces-verbal of the question of Van der
Enden, Buvat had retained in his legs a nervous trembling, like that
which may be observed in dogs that have just had the distemper.
"The fact is, monseigneur," said Buvat, "that I do not know what has
come to me the last two hours, but I find a great difficulty in
standing upright."
"Sit down, then, and let us talk like two friends."
Buvat looked at Dubois with an air of stupefaction, which, at any other
time, would have had the effect of making him burst out laughing, but
now he did not seem to notice it, and taking a chair himself, he
repeated with his hand the invitation which he had given with his voice.
There was no means of drawing back; the good man approached trembling,
and sat down on the edge of his chair; put his hat on the ground, took
his cane between his legs, and waited. All this, however, was not
executed without a violent internal struggle as his face testified,
which, from being white as a lily when he came in, had now become as red
as a peony.
"My dear M. Buvat, you say that you make copies?"
"Yes, monseigneur."
"And that brings you in--?"
"Very little, monseigneur, very little."
"You have, nevertheless, a superb handwriting, M. Buvat."
"Yes, but all the world does not appreciate the value of that talent as
your eminence does."
"That is true, but you are employed at the library?"----"I have that
honor."
"And your place brings you--?"
"Oh, my place--that is another thing, monseigneur; it brings me in
nothing at all, seeing that for five years the cashier has told us at
the end of each month that the king was too poor to pay us."
"And you still remained in the service of his majesty? that was well
done, M. Buvat; that was well done."
Buvat rose, saluted Dubois, and reseated himself.
"And, perhaps, all the while you have a family to support--a wife,
children?"
"No, monseigneur; I am a bachelor."
"But you have parents, at all events?"
"No, monseigneur; but I have a ward, a charming young person, full of
talent, who sings like Mademoiselle Berry, and who draws like Greuze."
"Ah, ah! and what is the name of your ward, M. Buvat?"
"Bathilde--Bathilde du Rocher, monseigneur; she is a young person of
noble family, her father was squire to Monsieur the Regent, when he was
still Duc de Chartres, and had the misfortune to be killed at the battle
of Almanza."
"Thus I see you have your charges, my dear Buvat."
"Is it of Bathilde that you speak, monseigneur? Oh no, Bathilde is not a
charge; on the contrary, poor dear girl, she brings in more than she
costs. Bathilde a charge! Firstly, every month M. Papillon, the colorman
at the corner of the Rue Clery, you know, monseigneur, gives her eighty
francs for two drawings; then--"
"I should say, my dear Buvat, that you are not rich."
"Oh! rich, no, monseigneur, I am not, but I wish I was, for poor
Bathilde's sake; and if you could obtain from monseigneur, that out of
the first money which comes into the State coffers he would pay me my
arrears, or at least something on account--"
"And to how much do your arrears amount?"
"To four thousand seven hundred francs, two sous, and eight centimes,
monseigneur."
"Is that all?" said Dubois.
"How! is that all, monseigneur?"
"Yes, that is nothing."
"Indeed, monseigneur, it is a great deal, and the proof is that the king
cannot pay it."
"But that will not make you rich."
"It will make me comfortable, and I do not conceal from you,
monseigneur, that if, from the first money which comes into the
treasury--"
"My dear Buvat," said Dubois, "I have something better than that to
offer you."
"Offer it, monseigneur."
"You have your fortune at your fingers' ends."
"My mother always told me so, monseigneur."
"That proves," said Dubois, "what a sensible woman your mother was."
"Well, monseigneur! I am ready; what must I do?"
"Ah! mon Dieu! the thing is very simple, you will make me, now, and
here, copies of all these."
"But, monseigneur--"
"That is not all, my dear Monsieur Buvat. You will take back to the
person who gave you these papers, the copies and the originals, you will
take all that that person gives you; you will bring them to me directly,
so that I may read them, then you will do the same with other papers as
with these, and so on indefinitely, till I say enough."
"But, monseigneur, it seems to me that in acting thus I should betray
the confidence of the prince."
"Ah! it is with a prince that you have business, Monsieur Buvat! and
what may this prince be called?"
"Oh, monseigneur, it appears to me that in telling you his name I
denounce--"
"Well, and what have you come here for, then?"
"Monseigneur, I have come here to inform you of the danger which his
highness runs, that is all."
"Indeed," said Dubois, in a bantering tone, "and you imagine you are
going to stop there?"
"I wish to do so, monseigneur."
"There is only one misfortune, that it is impossible, my dear Monsieur
Buvat."
"Why impossible?"
"Entirely."
"Monseigneur, I am an honest man."
"M. Buvat, you are a fool."
"Monseigneur, I still wish to keep silence."
"My dear monsieur, you will speak."
"And if I speak I shall be the informer against the prince."
"If you do not speak you are his accomplice."
"His accomplice, monseigneur! and of what crime?"
"Of the crime of high treason. Ah! the police have had their eyes on you
this long time, M. Buvat!"
"On me, monseigneur?"
"Yes, on you; under the pretext that they do not pay you your salary,
you entertain seditious proposals against the State."
"Oh! monseigneur, how can they say so?"
"Under the pretext of their not paying you your salary, you have been
making copies of incendiary documents for the last four days."
"Monseigneur, I only found it out yesterday; I do not understand
Spanish."
"You do understand it, monsieur?"
"I swear, monseigneur."
"I tell you you do understand it, and the proof is that there is not a
mistake in your copies. But that is not all."
"How, not all?"
"No, that is not all. Is this Spanish? Look, monsieur," and he read:
"'Nothing is more important than to make sure of the places in the
neighborhood of the Pyrenees, and the noblemen who reside in the
cantons.'"
"But, monseigneur, it was just by that that I made the discovery."
"M. Buvat, they have sent men to the galleys for less than you have
done."
"Monseigneur!"
"M. Buvat, men have been hanged who were less guilty than you."
"Monseigneur! monseigneur!"
"M. Buvat, they have been broken on the wheel."
"Mercy, monseigneur, mercy!"
"Mercy to a criminal like you, M. Buvat! I shall send you to the
Bastille, and Mademoiselle Bathilde to Saint Lazare."
"To Saint Lazare! Bathilde at Saint Lazare, monseigneur! Bathilde at
Saint Lazare! and who has the right to do that?"----"I, M. Buvat."
"No, monseigneur, you have not the right!" cried Buvat, who could fear
and suffer everything for himself, but who, at the thought of such
infamy, from a worm became a serpent. "Bathilde is not a daughter of the
people, monseigneur! Bathilde is a lady of noble birth, the daughter of
a man who saved the life of the regent, and when I represent to his
highness--"
"You will go first to the Bastille, M. Buvat," said Dubois, pulling the
bell so as nearly to break it, "and then we shall see about Mademoiselle
Bathilde."
"Monseigneur, what are you doing?"
"You will see." (The usher entered.) "An officer of police, and a
carriage."
"Monseigneur!" cried Buvat, "all that you wish--"
"Do as I have bid you," said Dubois.
The usher went out.
"Monseigneur!" said Buvat, joining his hands; "monseigneur, I will
obey."
"No, M. Buvat. Ah! you wish a trial, you shall have one. You want a
rope, you shall not be disappointed."
"Monseigneur," cried Buvat, falling on his knees, "what must I do?"
"Hang, hang, hang!" continued Dubois.
"Monseigneur," said the usher, returning, "the carriage is at the door,
and the officer in the anteroom."
"Monseigneur," said Buvat, twisting his little legs, and tearing out the
few yellow hairs which he had left, "monseigneur, will you be pitiless!"
"Ah! you will not tell me the name of the prince?"
"It is the Prince de Listhnay, monseigneur."
"Ah! you will not tell me his address?"
"He lives at No. 110, Rue du Bac, monseigneur."
"You will not make me copies of those papers?"
"I will do it, I will do it this instant," said Buvat; and he went and
sat down before the desk, took a pen, dipped it in the ink, and taking
some paper, began the first page with a superb capital. "I will do it, I
will do it, monseigneur; only you will allow me to write to Bathilde
that I shall not be home to dinner. Bathilde at the Saint Lazare?"
murmured Buvat between his teeth, "Sabre de bois! he would have done as
he said."
"Yes, monsieur, I would have done that, and more too, for the safety of
the State, as you will find out to your cost, if you do not return these
papers, and if you do not take the others, and if you do not bring a
copy here every evening."
"But, monseigneur," cried Buvat, in despair, "I cannot then go to my
office."
"Well then, do not go to your office."
"Not go to my office! but I have not missed a day for twelve years,
monseigneur."
"Well, I give you a month's leave."
"But I shall lose my place, monseigneur."
"What will that matter to you, since they do not pay you?"
"But the honor of being a public functionary, monseigneur; and,
moreover, I love my books, I love my table, I love my hair seat," cried
Buvat, ready to cry; "and to think that I shall lose it all!"
"Well, then, if you wish to keep your books, your table, and your chair,
I should advise you to obey me."
"Have I not already put myself at your service?"
"Then you will do what I wish?"
"Everything."
"Without breathing a word to any one?"
"I will be dumb."
"Not even to Mademoiselle Bathilde?"
"To her less than any one, monseigneur."
"That is well. On that condition I pardon you."
"Oh, monseigneur!"
"I shall forget your fault."
"Monseigneur is too good."
"And, perhaps, I will even reward you."
"Oh, monseigneur, what magnanimity!"
"Well, well, set to work."
"I am ready, monseigneur. I am ready."
And Buvat began to write in his most flowing hand, and never moving his
eyes, except from the original to the copy, and staying from time to
time to wipe his forehead, which was covered with perspiration. Dubois
profited by his industry to open the closet for La Fillon, and signing
to her to be silent, he led her toward the door.
"Well, gossip," whispered she, for in spite of his caution she could not
restrain her curiosity; "where is your writer?"
"There he is," said Dubois, showing Buvat, who, leaning over his paper,
was working away industriously.
"What is he doing?"
"Guess."
"How should I know?"
"Then you want me to tell you?"
"Yes."
"Well, he is making my cardinal's hat."
La Fillon uttered such an exclamation of surprise that Buvat started and
turned round; but Dubois had already pushed her out of the room, again
recommending her to send him daily news of the captain.
But the reader will ask what Bathilde and D'Harmental were doing all
this time. Nothing--they were happy.