SEQUEL TO THE MISFORTUNES OF MARTIN-GUERRE
The roads of France were no safer for Gabriel than for his squire; and
he was obliged to exert all his wit and quickness of intellect to avoid
obstacles and delays. In fact, it was not till the fourth day after
leaving Calais, notwithstanding all his haste, that he finally reached
Paris.
But the dangers of the journey caused Gabriel less anxiety, on the
whole, than his uneasiness with regard to its termination. Although he
was not naturally much addicted to dreaming, his lonely journey almost
forced him to think unceasingly of his father's captivity and Diane's,
of his means of rescuing those dear and cherished beings, of the king's
promise, and of what he must do if Henri failed to keep it. But no! It
was not to such an end that Henri II. was the first gentleman of
Christendom. The fulfilment of his oath was, no doubt, painful to him;
very likely he was awaiting Gabriel's return to remind him of it before
issuing his pardon to the old count; but surely he would pardon him. And
if he did not?
Gabriel, whenever that desolating thought crossed his mind, felt as if a
sword were piercing his heart. He would drive his spurs into his horse,
and put his hand to his sword; and generally it was the sad and sweet
thought of Diane de Castro which would remove his anger and soothe his
troubled soul.
It was with a mind harrowed by doubt and anguish that he at last reached
the gates of Paris on the morning of the fourth day. He had travelled
all night; and the pale light of dawn was just beginning to break as he
rode through the streets in the neighborhood of the Louvre.
He drew rein before the royal mansion, still closed and silent, and
asked himself whether he should wait there or go on; but his impatience
made him loathe the thought of doing nothing. He determined to go at
once to his own house, Rue des Jardins St. Paul, where he might at least
hope to hear some tidings of what he feared at the same time that he
longed to know.
His road thither took him by the frowning turrets of the Châtelet.
He stopped for a moment before the sinister portal. A cold perspiration
bedewed his forehead. His past and his future lay hidden behind those
humid walls; but Gabriel was not the man to allow his feelings to
monopolize much time which he might usefully devote to action. He
therefore shook off his gloomy thoughts, and went on his way, saying
simply, "_Allons_!"
When he reached his home, which he had not seen for so long a time, a
light was shining through the windows of the lower hall. The zealous
Aloyse was already astir.
Gabriel knocked, uttering his name at the same time. Two minutes after
he was in the arms of the worthy soul who had been like a mother to him.
"Ah! is it really you, Monseigneur? Is it really you, my own dear boy?"
She could find strength to say no more than that. Gabriel, having
embraced her most affectionately, drew back a step or two, the better to
look at her.
There was in his look an unspoken question clearer than words could make
it.
Aloyse understood, and yet she hung her head, and made no reply.
"Is there no news from the court, then!" the viscount asked at length,
as if not content with the answer implied by her silence.
"Nothing, Monseigneur," replied the nurse.
"Oh, I expected as much! If anything had occurred, good or bad, you
would not have failed to tell me at the first kiss. Do you know
nothing!"
"Alas! no."
"I see how it is," rejoined the young man, bitterly. "I was a
prisoner,--dead perhaps! One does not pay his indebtedness to a
prisoner, much less to a dead man. But I am here now, alive and free,
and there must be a reckoning with me: whether willingly or by force, it
must and shall be!"
"Oh, be careful, Monseigneur!" cried Aloyse.
"Have no fear, nurse. Is Monsieur l'Amiral at Paris!"
"Yes, Monseigneur. He has called and sent here ten times to learn if you
had returned."
"Good! And Monsieur de Guise?"
"He also has returned. It is to him that the people are looking to
repair the misfortunes of France and the suffering of the citizens."
"God grant," said Gabriel, "that he find no sufferings for which there
is no remedy!"
"As to Madame de Castro, who was supposed to be dead," continued Aloyse,
hurriedly, "Monsieur le Connétable has discovered that she is a
prisoner at Calais; and they hope soon to effect her release."
"I knew it, and, like them, I hope so," said Gabriel, meaningly. "But,"
he resumed, "you say nothing of the reason why my captivity has been so
prolonged,--nothing of Martin-Guerre and his delayed return. What has
become of Martin, pray?"
"He is here, Monseigneur, the sluggard, the dolt!"
"What! Here? How long has he been here? What is he doing?"
"He is upstairs, in bed and asleep," said Aloyse, who seemed to speak of
Martin with some bitterness. "He says that he is not very well,
pretending that he has been hanged!"
"Hanged!" cried Gabriel. "For stealing the money for my ransom,--is that
it?"
"The money for your ransom, Monseigneur? You just say a word to that
threefold idiot about the money for your ransom! You will see what
answer he will make. He will not know what you mean. Just imagine,
Monseigneur, he arrived here, very eager, and in great haste; and after
reading your letter, I counted out to him ten thousand beautiful crowns.
Away he went again, without losing a moment. A few days later whom
should I see coming back but Martin-Guerre, crestfallen and with a most
pitiful expression. He claimed that he had not received a sou from me.
Having been taken prisoner himself some time before the fall of St.
Quentin, he had no idea, he said, of your whereabouts for three months
past. You had intrusted no mission to him. He had been beaten and hung!
He had succeeded in making his escape, and had just returned to Paris
for the first time since the war. Such are the romances with which
Martin-Guerre entertains us from morning till night when your ransom is
mentioned."
"Explain yourself, nurse," said Gabriel. "Martin-Guerre could not have
appropriated that money, I would take my oath. He surely is not a
dishonest man, and he is loyally devoted to me."
"No, Monseigneur, he is not dishonest; but he is mad, I am afraid,--so
mad that he hasn't an idea or a memory; sufficiently insane to require
care, believe me. Although he may not be vicious yet, he is dangerous,
to say the least. I am not the only one who saw him here either, for all
your people overwhelm him with their testimony. He really received the
ten thousand crowns, which Master Elyot had some difficulty in getting
together for me at such short notice."
"Nevertheless," said Gabriel, "Master Elyot must get together as much
more, and even more quickly; indeed, I must have a still larger sum. But
we need not worry about that at present. It is broad daylight at last. I
am going to the Louvre now to speak with the king."
"What, Monseigneur! without a moment's rest?" said Aloyse. "Besides, you
forget that it is only seven o'clock and that you would find the doors
closed; they are barely opened at nine."
"That's true," said Gabriel,--"two hours more to wait! Give me the
patience to wait two hours, O Lord, as I have already waited two months!
At all events, I shall be able to find Monsieur de Coligny and Monsieur
de Guise," he continued.
"No, for in all likelihood they are at the Louvre," said Aloyse.
"Besides, the king doesn't receive before noon, and you cannot see him
earlier than that, I fear. So you will have three hours to converse with
Monsieur l'Amiral, and Monsieur le Lieutenant-Général of the
kingdom,--that, you know, is the new title with which the king at the
present grave crisis has clothed Monsieur de Guise. Meanwhile, Monsieur,
you surely will not refuse to eat something, and to receive your old and
faithful servants, who have so long wished in vain for your return."
Just at this moment--as if to occupy the young man's mind and
effectually beguile his weary waiting--Martin-Guerre, apprised doubtless
of his master's arrival, burst into the room, paler even from joy than
from the suffering he had undergone.
"What! Is it you? Is it really yourself, Monseigneur?" he cried. "Oh,
what happiness!"
But Gabriel gave a very cold reception to the poor squire's transports
of delight.
"If by good luck I am here at last, Martin," said he, "you must agree
that it is not by your efforts: for you did your very best to leave me a
prisoner forever."
"What! you too, Monseigneur!" said Martin, in consternation. "You too,
instead of putting me right at the first word, as I hoped, accuse me of
having had those ten thousand crowns. Who knows what will come next?
Perhaps you will even go so far as to say that you commissioned me to
receive them and bring them to you?"
"Of course I did," said Gabriel, quite stupefied with surprise.
"So, then," rejoined the poor squire, in a dull voice, "you believe me,
Martin-Guerre, to be capable of basely appropriating money which did not
belong to me,--money designed to procure my master's liberty?"
"No, Martin, no," replied Gabriel, earnestly, touched by the tone in
which his faithful servant spoke. "My suspicions have never, I swear,
led me to suspect your honesty; and Aloyse and I were just saying that
very thing. But the money was stolen from you or you lost it on the road
when you were coming back to me."
"Coming back to you!" echoed Martin. "But where, Monseigneur? Since we
left St. Quentin together may God strike me dead if I know where you
have been! Where was I to come back to you?"
"At Calais. Martin. However light and foolish your brain may be, you
surely can't have forgotten Calais!"
"How in the world could I forget what I never knew?" said Martin-Guerre,
calmly.
"Why, you miserable wretch, do you mean to perjure yourself in that
matter?" cried Gabriel.
He said in a low voice a few words to the nurse, who thereupon left the
room. Then he approached Martin.
"How about Babette, ingrate?" said he.
"Babette! What Babette?" asked the wondering squire.
"The one you ruined, villain."
"Oh, yes!--Gudule!" said Martin. "You are wrong about the name. It is
Gudule, Monseigneur, not Babette. Oh, yes, poor girl! But I tell you
honestly that I did not lead her astray; she had fallen before. I swear
to that."
"What! still another?" rejoined Gabriel. "But this last one I know
nothing about; and whoever she may be, she can have no such cause of
complaint as Babette Peuquoy."
Martin-Guerre did not dare to lose his patience; but if he had been of
equal rank with the viscount, he would not have kept himself so well in
hand.
"One moment, Monseigneur," said he. "They all say here that I am mad;
and by Saint Martin! I verily believe I shall go mad just from hearing
myself called so. However, I still have my reason and my memory, or the
deuce take me! And in case of need, Monseigneur, although I have had to
undergo harsh treatment and misery sufficient for two,--still, in case
of need, I will narrate to you faithfully from point to point everything
that has befallen me during the three months that have elapsed since I
parted from you. At least," he hastened to add, "so much of it as I
remember in my own person."
"To tell the truth, I should be very glad to hear how you account for
your extraordinary conduct," said Gabriel.
"Very well! Monseigneur, after we left St. Quentin together to join
Monsieur de Vaulpergues's relieving party, and after we had separated,
each to take a different road (as you must remember), events happened
just as you had foreseen. I fell into the hands of the enemy. I tried,
as you had enjoined upon me, to pay my way with impudence; but a most
extraordinary thing occurred,--the soldiers claimed to recognize me as
having been their prisoner before!"
"Come, come!" said Gabriel, interrupting him; "see how you are wandering
already!"
"Oh, Monseigneur," resumed Martin, "in the name of mercy, let me tell my
story as I know it! It is difficult for me to understand matters myself.
You may criticise when I am done. As soon as the enemy recognized me,
Monseigneur, I confess that I resigned myself to my fate; for I
knew--and in reality you yourself know as well as I, Monseigneur--that
there are two of me, and that very often, and without giving me any
warning whatever, my other self makes me do his pleasure. Perhaps I
should say, then, '_We_ accepted _our_ fate;' for hereafter I shall
speak of myself--of _us_, that is--in the plural. Gudule--a pretty
little Flemish girl, whom we had carried off--also recognized us, which
cost us, I may say parenthetically, a perfect hailstorm of blows. Truly,
we ourselves alone failed to recognize ourselves. To tell you all the
misery which followed, and into the hands of how many different masters,
all endowed with different dialects, your unfortunate squire fell, one
after the other, would take too long, Monseigneur."
"Yes; pray shorten your self-condolence."
"I pass over these and worse sufferings. My number two, I was informed,
had already escaped once; and they beat me almost to a jelly for his
fault. My number one--whose conscience I have in my keeping, and whose
martyrdom I am relating to you--succeeded in escaping once more, but was
foolish enough to allow himself to be caught, and was left for dead on
the spot, notwithstanding which I ran away a third time; but being
entrapped a third time, by the double treason of too much wine and a
chance acquaintance, I showed fight, and laid about me with all the fury
of despair and drunkenness. In short, after having mocked me and
tortured me most of the night in most barbarous fashion, my executioners
hanged me toward morning."
"Hanged you!" exclaimed Gabriel, believing that the squire's mania was
surely becoming hopeless. "They hanged you, Martin! What do you mean by
that?"
"I mean, Monseigneur, that they hoisted me up between earth and sky at
the end of a hempen cord, which was firmly attached to a gibbet,
otherwise called a gallows; and in all the tongues and patois with which
they have belabored my ears that is commonly called being hanged,
Monseigneur. Do I make myself clear?"
"None too clear, Martin; for to tell the truth, for a man that has been
hanged--"
"I am in pretty good condition now, Monseigneur,--that's a fact; but you
have not heard the end of the story yet. My suffering and my rage, when
I saw myself being hanged, almost made me lose my consciousness. When I
came to myself, I was stretched on the fresh grass, with the cord, which
had been cut, still about my neck. Had some soft-hearted passer-by,
moved by my plight, chosen to relieve the gallows of its human fruit? My
misanthropy actually forbade my thinking that. I am more inclined to
believe that some thief must have longed to plunder me, and cut the cord
so that he might go through my pockets at his ease. The fact that my
wedding-ring and my papers had been stolen justify me, I think, in
making that assertion without doing injustice to the human race.
However, I had been cut down in time; and despite a slight dislocation
of my neck, I succeeded in escaping a fourth time, through woods and
across the fields, hiding all day, and travelling with the greatest care
at night, living on roots and wild herbs,--a most unsatisfactory diet,
to which even the poor cattle must find great difficulty in getting
accustomed. At last, after losing my way a hundred times, I succeeded in
reaching Paris at the end of a fortnight, and in finding this house,
where I arrived twelve days since, and where I have received rather a
less hearty welcome than I expected, after such a rough experience.
There is my story, Monseigneur."
"Well, now," said Gabriel, "as an offset to this story of yours, I can
tell you quite a different one (entirely different, in fact), the
details of which I have seen you perform with my own eyes."
"Is it the story of my number two, Monseigneur?" asked Martin, coolly.
"Upon my word, if I may make so bold, and if you would be so kind as to
tell it to me in a few words, I should be only too glad to hear it."
"Do you mock me, scoundrel?" said Gabriel.
"Oh, Monseigneur knows my profound respect for him! But, strangely
enough, this double of mine has caused me a vast deal of trouble, has he
not? He has led me into some cruel plights. Well, in spite of all that,
I don't know why, but I am greatly interested in him. I believe, upon my
word of honor, that in the end I shall be weak enough to love the
blackguard!"
"Blackguard indeed!" said Gabriel.
The viscount may have been about to enter upon a catalogue of Arnauld du
Thill's misdeeds; but he was interrupted by his nurse, who returned to
the room, followed by a man in the garb of a peasant.
"Well, what does _this_ mean?" said Aloyse. "Here is a man who claims
that he was sent here to announce your death, Martin-Guerre!"