It was almost two in the morning when the Marquis de Souday proposed
to his guests to return to the salon. They left the table in that
satisfied condition which always follows a plenteous repast if the
master of the house is in good-humor, the guests hungry, and the
topics of conversation interesting enough to fill the spare moments of
the chief occupation.
In proposing to adjourn to the salon the marquis had probably no other
idea than change of atmosphere; for as he rose he ordered Rosine and
the cook to follow him with the liqueurs, and to array the bottles
with a sufficient number of glasses on a table in the salon.
Then, humming the great air in "Richard, C[oe]ur-de-Lion," and paying
no heed to the fact that the general replied by a verse from the
"Marseillaise," which the noble panels of the castle of Souday heard,
no doubt, for the first time, the old gentleman, having filled all
glasses, was preparing to resume a very interesting controversy as to
the treaty of Jaunaye, which the general insisted had only sixteen
articles, when the latter, pointing to the clock, called his attention
to the time of night.
Dermoncourt said, laughing, that he suspected the marquis of intending
to paralyze his enemies by the delights of a new Capua; and the
marquis, accepting the joke with infinite tact and good-will, hastened
to yield to his guests' wishes and took them at once to the bedrooms
assigned to them, after which he betook himself to his own.
The Marquis de Souday, excited by the warlike inclinations of his mind
and by the conversation which enlivened the evening, dreamed of
combats. He was fighting a battle, compared to which those of Torfou,
Laval, and Sanmur were child's play; he was in the act of advancing
under a shower of shot and shell, leading his division to the assault
of a redoubt, and planting the white flag in the midst of the enemy's
intrenchments, when a rapping at his door interrupted his exploits.
In the dozing condition which preceded his full awakening, the dream
continued, and the noise at his door was the roar of cannon. Then,
little by little, the clouds rolled away from his brain, the worthy
old gentleman opened his eyes, and, instead of a battlefield covered
with broken gun-carriages, gasping horses, and dead bodies, over which
he thought he was leaping, he found himself lying on his narrow camp
bed of painted wood draped with modest white curtains edged with red.
The knocking was renewed.
"Come in!" cried the marquis, rubbing his eyes. "Ha! bless me,
general, you've come just in time," he cried; "two minutes more, and
you were dead."
"How so?"
"Yes, by a sword-thrust I was just putting through you."
"By way of retaliation, my good friend," said the general, holding out
his hand.
"That's how I take it. But I see you are looking rather puzzled by my
poor room; its shabbiness surprises you. Yes, there is some difference
between this bare, forlorn place, with its horsehair chairs and
carpetless floor, and the fine apartments of your Parisian lords. But
I can't help it. I spent one third of my life in camps and another
third in penury, and this little cot with its thin mattress seems to
me luxury enough for my old age. But what in the world brings you here
at this early hour, general? It is hardly light yet."
"I came to bid you good-bye, my kind host," replied the general.
"Already? Ah, see what life is! I must tell you now that only
yesterday I had all sorts of prejudices against you before your
arrival."
"Had you? And yet you welcomed me most cordially."
"Bah!" said the marquis, laughing; "you've been in Egypt. Did you
never receive a few shots from the midst of a cool and pleasant
oasis?"
"Bless me, yes! The Arabs regard an oasis as the best of ambuscades."
"Well, I was something of an Arab last night; and I say my _mea
culpa_, regretting it all the more because I am really and truly sorry
you leave me so soon."
"Is it because there is still an unexplored corner of your oasis you
want me to see?"
"No; it is because your frankness, loyalty, and the community of
dangers we have shared (in opposite camps) inspired me--I scarcely
know why, but instantly--with a sincere and deep regard for you."
"On your word as a gentleman?"
"On my word as a gentleman and a soldier."
"Well, then, I offer you my friendship in return, my dear enemy,"
replied Dermoncourt. "I expected to find an old _émigré_, powdered
like a white frost, stiff and haughty, and larded with antediluvian
prejudices--"
"And you've found out that a man may wear powder and have no
prejudices,--is that it, general?"
"I found a frank and loyal heart and an amiable,--bah! let's say the
word openly,--jovial nature, and this with exquisite manners, which
might seem to exclude all that; in short, you've seduced an old
veteran, who is heartily yours."
"Well, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to hear you say so. Come,
stay one more day with me!"
"Impossible!"
"Well, I have nothing to say against that decisive word; but make me a
promise that you will pay me a visit after the peace, if we are both
of us still living."
"After the peace!" cried the general, laughing. "Are we at war?"
"We are between peace and war."
"Yes, the happy medium."
"Well, let us say after the happy medium. Promise you will come and
see me then?"
"Yes, I give you my word."
"And I shall hold you to it."
"But come, let us talk seriously," said the general, taking a chair
and sitting down at the foot of the old _émigré's_ bed.
"I am willing," replied the latter, "for once in a way."
"You love hunting?"
"Passionately."
"What kind?"
"All kinds."
"But there must be one kind you prefer?"
"Yes, boar-hunting. That reminds me most of hunting the Blues."
"Thanks."
"Boars and Blues,--they both charge alike."
"What do you say to fox-hunting?"
"Peuh!" exclaimed the marquis, sticking out his underlip like a prince
of the House of Austria.
"Well, it is a fine sport," said the general.
"I leave that to Jean Oullier, who has wonderful tact and patience in
watching a covert."
"He is good at watching other game than foxes, your Jean Oullier,"
remarked the general.
"Yes, yes; he's clever at all game, no doubt."
"Marquis, I wish you would take a fancy to fox-hunting."
"Why?"
"Because England is the land for it; and I have a fancy that the air
of England would be very good just now for you and your young ladies."
"Goodness!" said the marquis, sitting up in bed.
"Yes, I have the honor to tell you so, my dear host."
"Which means that you are advising me to emigrate? No, thank you."
"Do you call an agreeable little trip emigration?"
"My dear general, those little trips, I know what they are,--worse
than a journey round the world; you know when they begin, but nobody
knows when they'll end. And, besides, there is one thing--you will
hardly, perhaps, believe it--"
"What is that?"
"You saw yesterday, I may say this morning, that in spite of my age I
have a very tolerable appetite; and I can certify that I never had an
indigestion in my life. I can eat anything without being made
uncomfortable."
"Well?"
"Well, that devilish London fog, I never could digest it. Isn't that
curious?"
"Very good; then go to Italy, Spain, Switzerland, wherever you please,
but don't stay at Souday. Leave Machecoul; leave La Vendée."
"Ha! ha! ha!"
"Yes, yes."
"Can it be that I am compromised?" said the marquis, half to himself,
and rubbing his hands cheerfully.
"If you are not now, you will be soon."
"At last!" cried the old gentleman, joyously.
"No joking," said the general, becoming serious. "If I listened to my
duty only, my dear marquis, you would find two sentries at your door
and a sub-lieutenant in the chair where I am now sitting."
"Hey!" cried the marquis, a shade more serious.
"Yes, upon my word, that's the state of things. But I can understand
how a man of your age, accustomed as you are to an active life in the
free air of the forests, would suffer cooped up in a prison where the
civil authorities would probably put you; and I give you a proof of my
sympathetic friendship in what I said just now, though in doing so I
am, in a measure, compromising with my strict duty."
"But suppose you are blamed for it, general?"
"Pooh! do you suppose I can't find excuses enough? A senile old man,
worn-out, half-imbecile, who tried to stop the column on its march--"
"Of whom are you speaking, pray?"
"Why, you, of course."
"I a senile old man, worn-out, half-imbecile!" cried the marquis,
sticking one muscular leg out of bed. "I'm sure I don't know, general,
why I don't unhook those swords on the wall and stake our breakfast on
the first blood, as we did when I was a lad and a page forty-five
years ago."
"Come, come, old child!" cried Dermoncourt; "you are so bent on
proving I have made a mistake that I shall have to call in the
soldiers after all."
And the general pretended to rise.
"No, no," said the marquis; "no, damn it! I am senile, worn-out,
half-imbecile, wholly imbecile,--anything you like, in short."
"Very good; that's all right."
"But will you tell me how and by whom I am, or shall be, compromised?"
"In the first place, your servant, Jean Oullier--"
"Yes."
"The fox man--"
"I understand."
"Your servant, Jean Oullier,--a thing I neglected to tell you last
night, supposing that you knew as much about it as I did,--your man,
Jean Oullier, at the head of a lot of seditious rioters, attempted to
stop the column which was ordered to surround the château de Souday.
In attempting this he brought about several fights, in which we lost
three men killed, not counting one whom I myself did justice on, and
who belongs, I think, in these parts."
"What was his name?"
"François Tinguy."
"Hush! general, don't mention it here, for pity's sake. His sister
lives in this house,--the young girl who waited on you at table last
night,--and her father is only just buried."
"Ah, these civil wars! the devil take them!" said the general.
"And yet they are the only logical wars."
"Maybe. However, I captured your Jean Oullier, and he got away."
"He did well,--you must own that?"
"Yes; but if he falls into my grip again--"
"Oh, there's no danger of that; once warned, I'll answer for him."
"So much the better, for I shouldn't be indulgent to him. I haven't
talked of the great war with him, as I have with you."
"But he fought through it, though, and bravely, too."
"Reason the more; second offence."
"But, general," said the marquis, "I can't see, so far, how the
conduct of my keeper can be twisted into a crime of mine."
"Wait, and you will see. You said last night that imps came and told
you all I did between seven and ten o'clock that evening."
"Yes."
"Well, I have imps, too, and they are every bit as good as yours."
"I doubt it."
"They have told me all that happened in your castle yesterday."
"Go on," said the marquis, incredulously; "I'm listening."
"On the previous evening two persons came to stay at the château de
Souday."
"Good! you are better than your word. You promised to tell me what
happened yesterday, and now you begin with the day before yesterday."
"These two persons were a man and a woman."
The marquis shook his head, negatively.
"So be it; call them two men, though one of them had nothing but the
clothes of our sex."
The marquis said nothing, and the general continued:
"Of these two personages, one, the smaller, spent the whole day at the
castle; the other rode about the neighborhood, and gave rendezvous
that evening at Souday to a number of gentlemen. If I were indiscreet
I would tell you their names; but I will only mention that of the
gentleman who summoned them,--namely, the Comte de Bonneville."
The marquis made no reply. He must either acknowledge or lie.
"What next?" he said.
"These gentlemen arrived at Souday, one after the other. They
discussed various matters, the most calming of which was certainly not
the glory, prosperity, and duration of the government of July."
"My dear general, admit that you are not one whit more in love than I
with your government of July, though you serve it."
"What's that you are saying?"
"Eh? good God! I'm saying that you are a republican, blue, dark-blue;
and a true dark-blue is a fast color."
"That's not the question."
"What is it then?"
"I am talking of the strangers who assembled in this house last night
between eight and nine o'clock."
"Well, suppose I did receive a few neighbors, suppose I even welcomed
two strangers, where's the crime, general? I've got the Code at my
fingers' ends,--unless, indeed, the old revolutionary law against
suspected persons is revived."
"There is no crime in neighbors visiting you; but there is crime when
those neighbors assemble for a conference in which an uprising and
resort to arms is discussed."
"How can that be proved?"
"By the presence of the two strangers."
"Pooh!"
"Most certainly; for the smaller and fairer of the strangers, the one
who, being fair, wore a black wig to disguise herself, was no less a
person than the Princess Marie-Caroline, whom you call regent of the
kingdom,--her Royal Highness Madame la Duchesse de Berry, who is now
pleased to call herself Petit-Pierre."
The marquis bounded in his bed. The general was better informed than
he, and what he was now told entered his mind like a flash of light.
He could hardly contain himself for joy at the thought that he had
received Madame la Duchesse de Berry under his roof; but, unhappily,
as joy is never perfect in this world, he was forced to repress his
satisfaction.
"Go on," he said; "what next?"
"Well, the next is that just as you had reached the most interesting
part of the discussion, a young man, whom one would scarcely expect to
find in your camp, came and warned you that I and my troops were on
our way to the château. And then you, Monsieur le marquis (you won't
deny this, I am sure), you proposed to resist; but the contrary was
decided on. Mademoiselle, your daughter, the dark one--"
"Bertha."
"Mademoiselle Bertha took a light. She left the room, and every one
present, except you, Monsieur le marquis, who probably set about
preparing for the new guests whom Heaven was sending you,--every one
present followed her. She crossed the courtyard and went to the
chapel; there she opened the door, passed in first, and went straight
to the altar. Pushing a spring hidden in the left forepaw of the lamb
carved on the front of the altar, she tried to open a trap-door. The
spring, which had probably not been used for some time, resisted. Then
she took the bell used for the mass, the handle of which is of wood,
and pressed it on the button. The panel instantly yielded, and opened
the way to a staircase leading to the vaults. Mademoiselle Bertha then
took two wax-tapers from the altar, lighted them, and gave them to two
of the persons who accompanied her. Then, your guests having gone down
into the vault, she closed the panel behind them, and returned, as did
another person, who did not immediately enter the house, but, on the
contrary, wandered about the park for some time. As for the fugitives,
when they reached the farther end of the subterranean passage, which
opens, you know, among the ruins of the old château that I see from
here, they had some difficulty in forcing their way through the piles
of stones that cover the ground. One of them actually fell. However,
they managed to reach the covered way which skirts the park wall;
there they stopped to deliberate. Three took the road from Nantes to
Machecoul, two followed the crossroad which leads to Légé, and the
sixth and seventh doubled themselves,--I should rather say, made
themselves into one--"
"Look here! is this a fairy tale you are telling me, general?"
"Wait, wait! You interrupt me at the most interesting part of all. I
was telling you that the sixth and seventh doubled up; that is, the
larger took the smaller on his back and went to the little brook that
runs into the great rivulet flowing round the base of the Viette des
Biques. Now as they are the ones I prefer among your company, I shall
set my dogs of war on them."
"But, my dear general," cried the Marquis de Souday, "I do assure you
all this exists only in your imagination."
"Come, come, my old enemy! You are Master of Wolves, are not you?"
"Yes."
"Well, when you see the print of a young boar's paw sharply defined in
soft earth,--a clear trail as you call it,--would you let any one
persuade you into thinking it was only the ghost of a tusker? Well,
marquis, that trail, I have seen it, or rather, I should say, I have
read it."
"The devil!" cried the marquis, turning in his bed with the admiring
curiosity of an amateur; "then I wish you'd just tell me how you did
it."
"Willingly," replied the general. "But we have still a good half-hour
before us. Order up a pâté and a bottle of wine, and I'll tell you the
rest between two mouthfuls."
"On one condition."
"And that is?"
"That I may share the meal."
"At this early hour?"
"Real appetites don't carry a watch."
The marquis jumped out of bed, put on his flannel trousers, slipped
his feet into his slippers, rang, ordered up a breakfast, covered a
table, and sat down before the general with an interrogating air.
The general, put to the test of proving his words, began, as he said,
between two mouthfuls. He was a good talker, and a better eater than
even the marquis.