CHAPTER VII.
Scarcely half an hour had elapsed after the intimation conveyed by Ludovico, when two municipal officers, arrayed in their tri-coloured scarfs of office, presented themselves, accompanied by the commandant, before the Count de Charney, and requested him to accompany them to his own chamber; on arriving in which, the commandant addressed his prisoner with considerable pomposity and deliberation.
The commandant was a man of dignified corpulency, having a round bald head, and gray and bushy whiskers. A deep scar, extending from his left eyebrow to the upper lip, seemed to divide his face in two. A long, blue, uniform coat, with prodigious skirts, buttoned closely to the chin, top-boots over his pantaloons, a slight tint of powder on his remnant of a braided pigtail, and scanty side-curls, spurs to his boots (by way of distinction, doubtless, for the rheumatism had long constituted him chief prisoner in his own citadel)—such were the outward and visible signs of the dignitary, whose only warlike weapon was the cane on which his gouty limbs leaned for support.
Appointed to the custody of prisoners of state alone, most of whom were members of families of distinction, the commandant piqued himself on his good breeding, in spite of frequent outbreaks of fury: and, in spite of certain infractions of prosody and syntax, on the chosen elegance of his language. He was upright, moreover, as a pikestaff; rejoiced in an emphatic and sonorous voice; flourished his hand when he attempted a bow, and scratched his head when he attempted a speech. Thus qualified and endowed, the brave Morand, captain and commandant of Fenestrella, passed for a fine soldierlike-looking man, and an efficient public functionary.
From the courteous tone assumed in his initiatory address, and the professional attitude of the two commissaries by whom he was accompanied, Charney fancied that their sole business was to deliver to him a reprieve for his unhappy Picciola. But the commandant’s next sentence consisted in an inquiry, whether, upon any specific occasion, the prisoner had to complain of his want of courtesy or abuse of authority. The Count, still flattering himself that such a preamble augured well for the accomplishment of his hopes, certified all, and more than all, that civility seemed to require in reply to this leading question.
“You cannot, I imagine, sir, have forgotten,” persisted the commandant, “the care and kindness lavished upon you during your illness? If it was not your pleasure to submit to the prescriptions of the physicians appointed to visit you, the fault was neither theirs nor mine, but your own. When it occurred to me that your convalescence might be accelerated by a greater facility for taking air and exercise, you were instantly allowed, at all times and seasons, access to the prison-court?”
Charney inclined his head in token of grateful affirmation. But impatience of the good man’s circumlocution already caused him to compress his lips.
“Nevertheless, sir,” resumed the commandant, in the tone of a man whose feelings have been wounded, and whose advances were repaid with ingratitude, “you have not scrupled to infringe the regulations of the fortress, of the tenorof which you could not have been ignorant; compromising me thereby in the eyes of General Menon, the governor of Piedmont; nay, perhaps, of his gracious majesty the Emperor himself. The memorial which you have contrived to place before him——”
“Place before him!” interrupted Charney; “has he then received it?”
“Of course he has received it.”
“And the result—the result!” cried the Count, trembling with anxiety; “what has been decreed?”
“That, as a punishment for your breach of discipline, you are to be confined a month in the dungeon of the northern bastion of the fortress of Fenestrella.”
“But what said the Emperor to my application?” cried the Count, unable to resign at once all his cherished hopes of redress.
“Do you suppose, sir, that the Emperor has leisure for the consideration of any such contemptible absurdities?” was the disdainful reply of the commandant; on which Charney, throwing himself in complete abstraction into the only chair the chamber happened to contain, became evidently unconscious of all that was passing around him.
“This is not all!” resumed the commandant; “your communications with the exterior of the fortress, being thus ascertained, it is natural to suppose that your correspondence may have been more extensive than we know of, and I beg to inquire whether you have addressed letters to any person besides his majesty the Emperor?”
To this address Charney vouchsafed no reply.
“An official examination of your chamber and effects isabout to take place,” added the man in authority. “These gentlemen are appointed by the governor of Turin for the inquisitorial duty, which they will discharge punctually, according to legal form, in your presence. But previous to the execution of the warrant, I request to know whether you have any personal revelations to make? Voluntary disclosures, sir, might operate favourably in your behalf.”
Still, however, the prisoner remained obstinately silent; and the commandant, knitting his brows and contracting his high forehead into a hundred solemn wrinkles, assumed an air of severity, and motioned to the delegates of General Menon to proceed with their duty. They immediately began to ransack the chamber, from the chimney and palliasse of the bed, to the linings of the coats of the prisoner; while Morand paced up and down the narrow chamber, tapping with his cane every square of the flooring, to ascertain whether excavations existed for the concealment of papers or preparations for flight. He called to mind the escape of Latude and other prisoners from the Bastille; where moats, both deep and wide, walls ten feet thick—gratings, counterscarps, drawbridges, ramparts bristled with cannon and palisades, sentinels at every postern, on every parapet—had proved insufficient to baffle the perseverance of a man armed with a cord and a nail! The Bastille of Fenestrella was far from possessing the same iron girdle of strength and security. Since the year 1796, the fortifications had been in part demolished, and the citadel was now defended only by a few sentries, planted on the external bastion.
After a search prolonged as far as the limited space would allow, nothing of a suspicious nature was brought to light, with the exception of a small vial, containing a blackish liquid, which had probably served the prisoner for ink. Interrogated as to the means by which it came into his possession, Charney turned towards the window, and began tapping with his fingers on the glass, without condescending to reply to the importunate querists.
The dressing-case still remained to be examined, but, onbeing required to give up the key, the Count, instead of presenting it with becoming respect to the commandant, almost threw it into the hand extended towards him.
Thus boldly defied in presence of his subordinates, the commandant disdained all farther attempts at conciliation. He was, in fact, suffocating with rage. His eyes sparkled, his complexion became livid, and he bustled up and down the little chamber, buttoning and unbuttoning his coat, as if to exhaust the transports of his repressed indignation.
At length, by a spontaneous movement, the two sbirri, occupied in the examination of the casket, holding it in one hand and turning over its contents with the other, advanced towards the window, to ascertain whether it contained secret drawers, and immediately exclaimed, in tones of triumph, “All’s right! The mystery is in our hands.”
Drawing out from beneath the false bottom of the case a number of cambric handkerchiefs, closely scribbled over and carefully folded, they were satisfied of having obtained possession of the proofs of a widely organized conspiracy; for at this profanation of the sacred archives so dear to him, Charney started up and extended his hand to snatch back the treasures of which he saw himself despoiled. Then, struck by the consciousness of his own incapacity of resistance, he reseated himself in his chair, without uttering a syllable of remonstrance.
But the impetuosity of his first movements was not lost upon the governor; who saw at once that the documents which had fallen into his hands were of the highest importance in the estimation of the Count. The handkerchiefs,therefore, were deposited, on the spot, in a government despatch-bag, duly sealed and docketed. Even the soot-bottle and tooth-pick were confiscated to the state! A report was drawn up of the proceedings which had taken place, to which the signature of Charney was formally demanded—impatiently refused—and the refusal duly recorded at the end of the document; after which, the commandant issued his mandate for the immediate transfer of the prisoner to the northern bastion.
What vague, confused, and painful emotions prevailed, meanwhile, in the mind of the prisoner! Charney was alive only to a single stroke of his afflictions; a stroke which deadened his consciousness of all the rest. He had not so much as a smile of pity to bestow upon the imaginary triumph of the blockheads who were carrying off what they supposed to be the groundwork of a criminal impeachment; but which consisted in a series of scientific observations upon the growth and properties of his plant. Yes, even his tenderest recollections snatched from his possession, and an impassioned lover required to give up the letters of his mistress, can alone enter into the despair of the captive. To preserve Picciola from destruction, he had tarnished his honour, his self-esteem; broken the heart of a benevolent old man; destroyed the happiness of a gentle and lovely girl; and of all that had sufficed to attach him to a life of wretchedness. Every trace is now effaced—every record destroyed—the very journal of those happy hours which he had enjoyed in the presence of his idol, is torn for ever from his possession!