"Oh, my God!" he thought, "am I walking the celestial gardens? Am I a spirit doomed to banishment? Am I at the same moment both ravished and damned?"
Once when they came to the end of the terrace they leaned on the balustrade and looked down at the water. Glossy dark in the shadows of the old castle which stood in its midst, and in those of the grove on the further side, it glittered tranquilly where the moonshine fell on its surface, and the foliage around it wore a soft, glittering veil. Some mighty witch, some spirit combining Beauty, Power, and the Centuries, seemed to reign over the lake, holding silent court in the peaked and clustered white walls and turrets of the ancient stronghold.
"Mademoiselle," he said very quietly, "Ihave reason to be silent; but tell me whyyouare so pensive?"
"I was sad for my friend Hélène. Love must be so sacred."
"Did you know her suitor?"
"Sillon—yes; he haddaredto speak to me."
They were silent. It was not he who next spoke. Her clear eyes looked as if into his soul as she said after a long time—
"Monsieur de Répentigny, what would you do were you Hélène's brother?"
Germain's sword in an instant slid half-drawn from its sheath, and he gasped, "I would find him."
She drew her slender figure up in the dusk and looked at him with an approving glance as if to say, "Youare of other fibre than the baseborn."
"Oh, sweet Cyrène!" he exclaimed, then checked himself, appalled at his presumption, and added, "Alas, what am I saying? Heaven knows I am mad."
"Hush, hush!" she shuddered, glancing back over her shoulder.
Germain turned and caught sight of a shadow advancing. It proved to be the Abbé.
"Excuse the messenger of Madame," said he. "She asks you, Baroness, to take a hand at piquet."
She courtesied graciously to Germain and moved away, followed by the Princess's black parasite. When she passed through the immense glass door which looked from the card-room upon the terrace, and his eyes could no longer follow her loveliness, Lecour turned towards the lake and exclaimed in a low voice—
"There must be some way to win the paradise on earth and this seraph. Castle of ages past, frown not too hardly upon me. You represent what I love—the grand, the brave, the historic, the fair."
* * * * *
As he paced his chamber after the household had retired, the recollection of the day became an elixir, exciting and delicious.
The room was in one of the four towers of the château. Sitting down, he looked out through an open window upon the peace of the night-world. There were the gardens, quiet, lovely and ghostly, the weird water, the stately grove beyond it. He sat by the window more than two hours, while the events just over crowded through his brain.
After a time the moonlight lit an unhappy countenance; next it grew fixed and studious. He paced the room, he threw himself back into his chair, rose once more, drew long breaths of cool air at the windows, and knelt at theprie-Dieuin the inmost corner. A violent tempest had arisen within. The sails and yards of the soul-ship were strained, and it was fleeing without a rudder.
At last he undressed quickly and got into bed. He could not sleep, but tossed from side to side. Finally he sprang up and sat on the side of the couch lost in swift, fevered thought.
"For her," he whispered in intensest passion—"yes, for her." Then he hesitated. Suddenly, with fierce decision, he added, "The leap is taken."
At once the inward storm subsided, sleep overpowered him, and he dropped back at rest. The moon laid its rays like bars of silver across the bed, and illuminated his unconscious face and flowing hair with a patch of brightness. Such is the serene look of heaven upon its wandering children.
THE ABBÉ'S DISASTER
The force of circumstances had proved too great. What strength had his training or his age to resist them? The old master, Love, the compeller of so many heroisms and so many crimes, from Eve and Helen to Manon Lescaut, had grasped him with his wizard power. Poor Germain, thitherto so worthy and so well-intentioned, rose in the morning an adventurer—an adventurer, it is true, driven by desperation and anguish into his dangerous part, and grasping the hope of nevertheless yet winning by some forlorn good deed the forgiveness of her who was otherwise lost to him.
As Dominique, the Auvergnat valet who had been assigned to him by de Bailleul—because he had been foster father to the Chevalier's son—tied his hair, put on his morning coat and sword, buckled the sparkling buckles on his shoes, and handed him his jewelled snuff-box, each process seemed to Germain a preparation for some unknown accident that might happen, and in which he must be ready to conquer. When he stepped down to meet his companions, it was distinctly and consciously to henceforth play arôle.
He saw Cyrène sitting on a seat in the garden, putting together, with the critical fingers of a girl, a large bouquet. There was a statue of Fame close by, and beside it a laurel. She had plucked some of the leaves to tie with her blossoms.
He went out to her and proffered a word of greeting. She was about to reply, but the meeting was interrupted by a voice, and the Abbé appeared from behind the pedestal.
"What! a laurel twig among your flowers, Baroness?" said he. "Excellent! for Fame herself is not a goddess more suited to distribute favours. Do I not in you Madame, see again Daphne, the friend of Apollo, who turned into that tree?" and, smiling atrociously over his classical sweet speech, he looked at Lecour.
"The insolence!" thought Germain, who also took it as a good opportunity to begin hisrôle. "Well, sir," he exclaimed sharply, "talking of Apollo, did you ever hear that this god flayed one Marsyas for presumption?"
Cyrène flashed him a surprised and grateful glance.
"I have heard, sir," replied Jude, "that the Princess de Poix desires me to find and conduct to her Madame the Baroness de la Roche Vernay."
So saying, he carried off Cyrène again, like some black piratical cruiser, and she reluctantly accompanied him, looking back regretfully over her shoulder.
Lecour could not understand the eternal use of the formal orders of the Princess. He watched the two in a vexed stupor until they disappeared. Then he recalled the inanity and exacting requests of the great lady, and guessed how her reader was able to so boldly play his annoying trick.
Just then Grancey laid his hand on Germain's shoulder. There was so much friendship in the face of the golden-haired Life Guard that Lecour at once raised the question uppermost in his mind.
"Baron," said he, "tell me, who is Madame de la Roche Vernay?"
Grancey's eyes twinkled intelligently.
"It is an affair, then? I can keep secrets."
"An affair only on my unfortunate side," Germain admitted gloomily.
"As on that of many another. Your Cyrène is the bearer of a very great name: she is a Montmorency."
"A Montmorency!"
"Yes; she is a widow, you see."
"Never."
"While an orphan. Her father, the Vicomte Luc de Montmorency, who was a madman of a spendthrift, ended up in two bankruptcies, and was banished from Court. Cyrène was brought up in a mouldy old château near St. Ouen. When only thirteen her hand was sought by an ambitious financier, Trochu, for his son, Baron la Roche Vernay, who was then with his regiment in Dominica. Money was necessary to the Vicomte, and, in short, Mademoiselle was sold for two million livres, and the marriage celebrated by proxy, as both the fathers were impatient to finish the bargain. It appeared by the mails that the young man died of fever two days after.
"She wears no mourning," said Germain.
"Her father forbade it, and he brought her back with her dowry at once to his own roof, away from the Trochus."
"But why is such a beautiful woman not married again?"
"Do you not know that at the Court nobody except the bald and toothless marries, except for fortune. There are plenty of lovers, but no husbands. Because she is poor she is passed about in the family, sometimes as lady of honour to the Princess, sometimes to the Maréchale de Noailles, her grand-aunt."
Germain's feelings were trebly disturbed by the history of the child-widow. He made an effort to speak to her once more by inviting her to the tennis-court, but the Abbé informed them just then that she was requested to read correspondence to the Princess.
When he was in his bedchamber having his hunting-boots pulled off after a badger hunt with the male guests, the valet, Dominique, began to talk.
"That is a queer priest—that Messire Jude, the Abbé."
"Yes, Dominique."
"Yes, Monsieur Germain. He talks very freely with us servants. This morning he inquired a great deal of me about your affairs. He said you were a close friend of his. Washea Canadian?"
"Not at all. What more, Dominique?"
"He asked how long you had been here; and what relationship you bore to our master; and what were your intentions about staying; and your fortune and your rank; and how many were your clothes and jewels. Then he proposed to see into your chamber here."
"Did you let him?"
"I told him it was against my duty, sir; but he told me I must never dispute the Church, so he walked in and examined everything—everything; he even opened the cupboards."
"The thief! If you allow that man in my apartment again I will spit you both. Remember!"
Grancey and d'Amoreau came in.
"Curses on that black beetle," exclaimed the latter.
"Amen," profoundly echoed the former. "If it were not for the Princess I would feed my rapier with him."
"He has no right to such an honour; I would have him whipped by the lackeys. Répentigny, he has got her to take us back to the Palace to-morrow morning, and spoilt all our pleasure."
"That seems to be his vocation," Germain answered with warmth. "I would undertake to punish him myself."
"On a wager of ten to two half-louis?"
"Accepted."
The two officers laughed uproariously at the prospect.
"Répentigny, if you do this," cried Grancey, "we will speak for you to the King for something good."
After dinner Madame proposed a promenade in the park. Strolling in procession, they came to some marble steps by the lakeside, where the host proposed that the young men should take boats and row the ladies about, and he assigned Germain to Cyrène.
They were entering one of the shallops, when Jude suggested that the Princess should be taken too. She objected; she detested water.
"Well, I will enjoy it myself," he said, and with the utmost assurance stepped into the stern; while d'Amoreau and Grancey chuckled and looked at each other and Germain. The latter smiled and rowed down the lake.
On the other side was a clearing in the grove, where a stone seat was placed near the bank. Here Lecour drew to shore, and handed out Cyrène. The two Guardsmen were watching him closely. When Jude rose from the stem seat he felt a sudden strong turn given to the boat. He clutched the air, it did not save him; one black silk leg kicked up, and he disappeared under the water.
The face of Cyrène, who had seated herself on the stone bench, was for a moment one of alarm.
The depth was not, however, above the Abbé's waist, and when he rose his look of furious misery was too comical for any pity. The water streamed in a cataract from his wig over his elongated countenance and ruined clothes. He had screwed his face into the black slime of the bottom; it was now besides distorted with his efforts to breathe, and he unconsciously held up his blackened hands in the attitude of blessing. The whole party could not contain their laughter. D'Amoreau, Grancey, and the other Guardsmen sent up continuous roars on roars from their boats. The Prince smiled; de Bailleul's efforts to control himself were ineffectual; the ladies all tittered, except Madame, who stood on shore, and even the considerate Cyrène could restrain herself no longer, but turned her head from the moving appeal of the unfortunate figure before her, and gave way to a silvery chime of undiluted enjoyment.
"Hush, cousin," cried the Princess de Poix, stilted as ever; "such a sad accident."
"Répentigny, by Castor and Pollux," swore d'Amoreau at the first moment of their meeting in private, "here are not five louis, but twenty. You were made for a Marshal of France."
"Dominique," Germain called out, "spend this with your fellows" (by instinct he knew it was part of hisrôleto be lavish), "and tell them to drink to that meddlesome blackleg."
"In cold water," d'Amoreau added.
A PHILOSOPHER BEHIND HORSE-PISTOLS
The procession of carriages containing the guests rolled back to the Palace through the forest.
The carriage of the Prince came last and in it sat the Prince and Princess, Cyrène and Jude, while Lecour rode alongside for some miles. How more and more he dreaded the revelation of his humble birth. He said his adieux at length and turned back with the keenest misery in his breast he had ever felt—such misery indeed that after a little he could not resist retracing his route.
The Prince's coach meanwhile had lagged behind the others at a point where the road cut through a small gorge. His Excellency was giving the ladies an account and history of the Chevalier's wounds, when in the middle of it the horses stopped with a jerk. A commotion without any words appeared to be going on outside. The Prince put his head out and found himself looking into the barrels of a horse-pistol, while a masked man of heavy build summoned him to be quiet. He saw moreover nine or ten half-naked fellows also disguised in rude masks, posted about, with muskets and pistols pointed at the grooms and himself. The Princess fell in a faint. The Abbé threw himself under the seat. Such scenes were being enacted every day on the highroads in that lumbering old handmade century.
The head of the man who had charge of the Prince was, as it were, thatched with a torn hat and his black hair straggled past his mask in tufts down to his shoulders.
"Purses!" he growled harshly, putting his head in at the window.
"Cut-throat!" cried the Prince. "You shall swing for this as sure as there is a Lieutenant of Police in Paris."
The big man's answer was a ferocious "Enough!"
And as his black finger twitched threateningly upon the trigger, Cyrène laid her restraining hand on her cousin's arm. She took out her purse with her other hand and passed it to the man. She promptly also pulled out that of the Princess. The Prince handed his own to her and it was passed over with that of his wife.
"Watches!" was the next order.
With the same coolness she passed these likewise.
He scowled next at the brooch Cyrène wore at her neck.
"Give me that," he commanded. She stopped and said firmly—
"Thou hast sufficient, thou."
"I must have that."
With a momentary impatience she tore it off.
"Consult thy best interests and go," she said in a stern voice.
He did not lack the necessary quickness of judgment, and signed to his mates who retreated into the woods, keeping the lackeys well covered with their firearms.
"My ladies and my Lord," said the big man, still holding his pistol aimed at the Prince. "We levy this tax inthe name of the King." That is what you say when you steal from us, the people. "We commend you the consolation of your formula."
Having made this singular speech, to the infinite fury of the Prince, who would have drawn his sword and leaped out at him had it not been for Cyrène, he retired backward into the forest.
Germain came into sight at this juncture. The scene shocked and astonished him, he drove his spurs into the flanks of his horse, which, with bounds of pain, flew forward, and leaping off, he peered anxiously into the carriage. The situation was clear enough to him, for its like was then only too common, so, placing aside for the time being his rage at the villains, he lifted and straightened the insensible lady into a position on the seat-cushions, and sent a groom forward for help.
The gratitude of the Prince was profuse. Cyrène spoke not a word. The shock to her had been intense, and burying her face in her handkerchief she burst into tears, which more than ever agitated Lecour.
In a few minutes d'Estaing and de Grancey drove up. They were astonished at the speed and audacity of the affair.
THE GALLEY-ON-LAND
At three o'clock a search party of friends and gendarmes from the Palace, at which the occurrence had aroused something of a flutter, came back to the place.
The Guardsmen offered to scour the woods in a body. Lecour soberly recommended a different plan, which they adopted, and placing his six friends and several royal gamekeepers in Indian file he started at their head. They followed him without speaking and watched him closely as, with an intentness quite un-French, he bent down to see farther through the trees, examined the branches for newly-broken twigs, the displaced stones, the crushed mosses, disturbed grass, and soft places of the ground, and the little indications read and looked for by trappers and Indians. As he entered the woods the traces of the first rush back of the robbers gave a mass of easy clues and an initial direction. Following on they came to a marsh, where they found footmarks, and readily put together the number of the thieves and the physical character of each. In an open place the trail would be an unconcealed track across the grass; in dry woods perhaps it would be lost for many yards. Its discovery, of course, was not altogether so marvellous a matter as they thought. But it helped Germain's reputation afterwards.
At last they came into a tangled and difficult region called Âpremont, where the rocky ridges were broken into intractable ruins—the most savage portion of the forest. Strange cliffs of shale, eaten by weather and earthquake into the most picturesque columns and caves, confronted them. Here the signs became rare and the advance tedious, but the little column still breathlessly followed the woodsman. They were rewarded by finding a neighbourhood where the damp mosses showed many tracks converging, and as Grancey thought he distinguished a distant sound Germain listened and heard what he judged to be the faint refrain of a song. He now adopted greater caution, placing his gamekeepers in a body to remain ready at call, and at different points setting his friends in easy reach of each other.
Grancey and he crept along, guided by the uncertain sounds of the song, but found that they grew fainter. On this they retraced their path and were gratified to hear the sound increase again. They discovered a point where it would not grow any louder, and here Germain paused. "I have the secret!" he whispered, and placed his ear to the ground. The Baron imitated him. True enough the singing wasbelow. They caught other voices now. Lecour pondered a few moments. He followed an irregular rent in the rock and disappeared to one side. Returning on tiptoe, excited for the first time, he beckoned Grancey to accompany him and led the way with the greatest precaution to a long crack in the side of a hill, scarcely discernible without the closest scrutiny, through which the accents came quite audibly, and they caught sight of the objects below in a grey light. They made out a narrow, oblique cavern, formed by the widening of what geologists call a "fault" in the shaly rock. Eight men, all in rags with one exception, were sitting and lying about. Stretched on the ground, drinking alternately from a bottle, were two, one of whom was singing snatches of a ramblingvaudeville.
Grancey touched Germain and pointed out that their firearms were in a heap at the entrance, and that a rope attached there and coiled loosely showed their means of exit down the face of the cliff.
The man who was not in rags was standing up, the centre of attraction. He appeared to be a visitor.
"Stay with us the night," said the leader, a big man of ferocious brows and keen black eyes. "Our friend, his Majesty, has sent us some of his venison."
"The Big Hog?" said the stranger.
A round of laughter echoed through the cavern. The stoutness of the King had given rise to this nickname among the people.
"When his head is ours it will be better than his venison," he added.
About this man's face there was something strikingly horrible and subtle. His countenance was the image of a grinning death's-head. Its intelligent, stealthy, and sinister sunken eyes, its depressed nose and heartless fixed grin aroused repulsion. Its bearing of distinct courage alone somewhat reclaimed it. His cloak was thrown back, showing a gold lace belt stuck with knives and pistols, while on his head was a green cap, which Grancey recognised as the cap of the galley felons.
"What news of the Galley-on-land, Admiral?" asked the robber leader.
"All goes well."
"How many at our oars?"
"Two hundred and forty-eight."
"Besides friends?"
"Besides thirty-four friends. We are all in the salt country now except yourselves and the bench at Paris. We reviewed in the pines of Morlaix last month. Such brave ragmen! Forty-seven had killed a hog."
The circle's eyes glistened.
"Yes, the hogs fear us, but the Galley is dark as wind."
"You should have seen the hogs to-day," cried the cave leader; "stupid beasts, too fat to jump."
"Why didn't you stick them?"
"Sacré Dieu! not here; it's too near the Big Hog."
"The Big Hog does not worry us at Morlaix. Since the salt-tax is raised foursousin the pound we are all in the Brittany marshes, passing salt into Maine. In Maine a poor man can eat no meat because he can have no brine. You can guess that where the people squeal so there is room for our profit. We lie in the marshes; we gather our piles of salt; we creep out by night through the woods, and—flip—past the salt-guards into Maine. Guards, guards, guards—blue men, black men, green men—all over France. Sacré! they are an itch—a leprosy. Do we hate them, we all?"
"By the oath of the Green Cap," they cried all together.
"Well, wewerevagabonds," he continued, "in the Morlaix woods. Our great fire lit up the pines at midnight and our men of rags crept up on all sides to the feast. Some brought white bread, some black, some a pigeon or two from the lord's dovecotes, and every one his bottle of wine. There we told what we were doing and planned the campaign. You may swear we were jolly that night. They have sent me to visit your bench of Fontainebleau, and pray you for the ransom-money of Blogue, who lies in Bordeaux prison to be hanged. Two of his guards can be settled for eighty livres. You are rich, they say, and can pay it."
"Yes, we can afford it," cried the cavern-chief boastfully.
"I thought so, handsome ragmen," returned the visitor. He dropped the point for a moment and suddenly throwing his right hand free from his cloak rose into a curious strain of eloquence which made manifest the nature of this strange organisation, or at least the aims which the man of the death's-head chose to claim for it.
"Let us never forget, comrades, who we are—that our Order is the avenger of the wrongs of the people. Give me each your sufferings that I may treasure them in the common treasury. Give me the tears that have been shed, the deaths, the starvations, the griefs, the insults, the cruelties, that I may heap them one upon another in a secret place, whence, on a day which I see rising very bright out of the days of this generation, we shall thrust them out all bleeding and dreadful to fly forth together swift as eagles for the hearts of the rich. Hugues de la Tour, what wrongs have you to tell?"
"Admiral," cried the young man hoarsely, after drinking a gulp from a bottle, his eyes bloodshot, and swinging his knife, "I have suffered till my blood runs like a current of fire against all who are in ease. I hate the King, the Church, the rich, the judges, the strong, the fair. My father was a noble of the Court, my mother a Huguenot, and wedded to him by the rite of the Reformed Religion, his own pretended faith. With this excuse he threw her off. He denied her the name of wife and us of his children. His servants pushed her from his door. She died in a garret at Dijon. I took my little sister by the hand, and travelling to my father's door in Versailles awaited his entry into his carriage. We caught his skirts and cried, "Our father!" With his own hands he threw us to the pavement. For years I felt, brothers, what you have felt—cold, hunger, and disdain—but I hoarded the thought of 'Justice' as the friend of the wronged.
"I at length petitioned the magistrature. My papers were unheeded. I appealed to the Minister. The Minister was silent. I found a way of presenting our griefs and claims to the King himself. For answer, a sealed warrant empowered the monster of our life to throw us into prison. There my poor sister died; I escaped. Join me to your galley-oars. I hate all monarchs, decrees, nobles, priests, courtiers. Crime is justice, justice is the system of crime!"
"Very good, Hugues la Tour," commended the Admiral, "you shall have your hands full of true justice."
"I," shouted a violent man of haggard countenance, "was a cultivator of Auvergne. By incredible hardship I made myself owner of a plot of ground. My woman and I lived scantily on our daily black bread and 'pepperpot'; we spent nothing; we had no comforts, but from year to year, as thesouswere piled away in our hoard, we kept our eyes on the neighbouring acre of moorland. One year a drought came. Oursouswere diminished by famine. It was then the tax gatherer came upon us, his claims heavier than in the years before, for one of the village tax commissioners was jealous of us. The rest of oursouswere not sufficient; we could not borrow. A bailiff, a 'blue man,' was placed in our cabin at our cost. The suit went through the Court: we were discomfited. They took my possessions, as at the commencement they had designed to do. They starved my wife; they killed my children. I, too, will kill."
"I also," shouted another. "The tithe was my ruin."
"The worse avarice is the cassock's," said the visitor. "A day of blood approaches, a day of cutting of priests' throats and burning of churches."
"I—I can say nothing," another grumbled. "I have always been in rags and a vagabond. Is it my fault? Who taught me to steal, to strike?"
"Brave rowers," exclaimed the visitor, "I thank you, and as Blogue has to be ransomed, let us see what you have restored to justice."
"Here is for Blogue, and a little more," exclaimed the cavern-chief, throwing over a packet he had been making up, "when the disciples are lucky, the apostle must not lack."
He then spread out a large black kerchief, and placed upon it, one by one, in the sight of all, the watches, jewels and purses taken from the coach.
There was one part of this which was perhaps the only thing in their power by which they could have disturbed Lecour's self control just then. When he saw Cyrène's brooch in these felonious hands his blood boiled up and he stamped his foot involuntarily on the rock.
Horror! The loose shaly stones gave way with a rush beneath him. Down he slid into the cavern, saved in his descent only by the slope and ledges of the "fault." The astonished bandits fled back with a shout. Before Germain could move, however, the robber captain sprang upon him, and, locking him in a desperate embrace, they quickly rolled to the doorway where, in their struggle, the pile of firearms was swept out into the gorge. The giant lifted him bodily and threw him out down the face of the cliff. At this terrible moment the Indian quickness of his early life came to his rescue, for even as he fell he caught the rope, and slid down to the bottom. There he shouted for the gamekeepers. He could see the robbers looking over the entrance and seeming to debate. Immediately after, two bodies shot down upon him from the cavern, and he found himself face to face with the big man and the Admiral. They sprang upon him in concert, and while the former held him, the second sped off up the gorge and was lost to sight. The robber captain detained him with a grip of immense power, until three more slid down and made off. Then, hearing the shouts of the gamekeepers close at hand, he sprang towards the opposite cliff, climbed straight up it from ledge to ledge with miracles of muscle, and disappeared over the top. Three wretches who were still in the cave were secured, fighting savagely. One was la Tour.
THE COURT
A week or so later, Germain sent his mother the following letter:—
"The Palace, Fontainebleau,8th September, 1786.
"My dear Mother,—My good fortune is inexpressible. The whole of your dreams for me are fulfilled: can you believe it, your son has—but I will not anticipate. I can scarcely trust it myself to be true. I informed you in mine of three days ago, which goes in the same mail as this, of our capture of the gentry of the cavern. It left me pretty scratched.
"The morning following, a courier in a grand livery came riding to the château to bear me a command to attend the King's hunt. This command, or invitation, is conveyed by a great card, which I have before me, engraved in a beautiful writing surrounded by a border exquisitely representing hounds, deer, and winding-horns with their straps. It begins: 'From the King.' Above are the arms of France, the signature is that of the chamberlain. You may think into what ecstasy it threw me when my valet handed me these. (You know everybody in society must have a valet here). My limbs seemed to lose their bruises, and I hastened to the Chevalier, who was much pleased with this testimony of the credit I appeared to have brought him, for, with the greatest affection and generosity, he continues to consider me in the light of a son. He told me how to act at the ceremonies and the hunt, and to take care not to ride across the path of the King, for that is a thing which makes his Majesty very angry. We talked it over perfectly. The only point to which he took objection was that the card was addressed to "Monsieur de Répentigny."
"'I hope,' he said, 'there will be no trouble about this. There was a Répentigny in the army of Canada. We must try to get rid of this name.'
"'If I am at fault with it,' returned I, 'I will make public at once how it has come to be attached to me without my seeking. Even if an owner of it should occur, he must as a man of honour accept my explanation.'
"'True,' answered he, 'I am here to witness that. Do not change it for a day or two. It would be excessively embarrassing for you were it to be altered on this occasion, for the decrees have of late years been very strict about birth.'
"'Would these decrees exclude me from this invitation?' I asked him.
"'Unquestionably,' he replied. 'And that would be too cruel; you are as good a man as any of them.'
"'Very well,' I answered. 'Afterwards I can return to my proper station.'
"But, dear mother, you cannot think what these words meant to me, notwithstanding that I ought to have known it to be so. I left him at once and fled into the park in order to hide my suffering. Oh, it is too beautiful to lose—this sphere of honour and refinement, this world of the lovely, the ancestral, this supreme enchantment of the earth. Having tasted it, how can I return to the common and despised condition of mankind in general! Mother, you who have taught me that this is my true world, I leave it to you to answer.
"That afternoon we drove into the town of Fontainebleau, where there was a very fine haberdasher, just come from Paris, who agreed to make me the proper suit and to supply all the accessories. Two days after, I put on the uniform of adébutant, which cost me pretty dear but made a fine figure. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I longed for your spirit to have been in the glass only to see your son in such an array. The coat was dove-grey satin; waistcoat of dark red, finely figured, with silver buttons; small clothes of red, white silk stockings, and jewelled shoes with the red heels which are worn at Court. I also bought a new dress sword. It has an openwork silver handle and guard; the blade sheathed in a white scabbard, which is silver-mounted. I wore large frills and a small French hat finely laced with gold; and I bought besides long hunting-boots.
"I drove in our coach to the Palace. As I entered the gates the officer of the guard espied the livery of the Chevalier, and immediately caused his company to salute me, observing which all the gentlemen standing near took off their hats and bowed to me. I drove into the Court of the White Horse, a great square, one of the five around which this vast palace is built, and at the entrance door I was met by my dear friend Baron de Grancey.
"The Baron said to me, 'Did you not tell us you had never been to Court before?'
"I answered that I had not; and, indeed, mydébutantdress and ignorance were sufficient witness to it.
"'You must, then, have all the honours,' he said. 'He who comes up for the first time registers his genealogy and has a right to ride in the King's carriages.'
"'Then it is a great thing to ride in the King's carriages?'
"'My dear friend, it is the right of the noble,' replied he, a little surprised.
"'Ah, yes, my mother once told me so,' said I. (Dear mother, is it not true that you said it?)
"'You shall also play cards with the Queen in the evening.'
"'Oh, no,' gasped I.
"'You must,' he returned. 'This honour also is indispensable. After yourdébutis over you can be as modest as you please.'
"We arrived by that time at the end of a corridor and before a lofty chamber, the doors of which were emblazoned in colours with the arms and devices of France. Within we found the royal genealogist sitting in his robes of office with the heralds of the royal orders. Round about were large volumes, the registers of thenoblesse, which they were consulting respecting the parchment titles produced by young gentlemen in person or through their secretaries; and I was told that before being presented one must show certificates of descent in both lines since the fourteenth century. I was so shocked at my situation that I became angry, so that, when the King's genealogist stretched out his hand for my papers, I answered proudly, 'I have none.'
"'What is my lord's name?' he asked most respectfully. Here my tongue refused to move. But the Baron interfered, replying—
"'Monsieur de Répentigny. He is far from home, and therefore cannot produce his titles; but I speak for him as a relative of the Chevalier de Bailleul.'
"'Monsieur,' replied the King's genealogist to me graciously, 'the name of Répentigny needs no parchments.'
"He ordered one of the secretaries to give me forthwith his brief of attestation (I still have it). Thus, dear mother, this Baron has won my gratitude for ever. But attend to what followed, for it is better still.
"It was in the great hall of the Palace, where the walls and the ceiling are tapestried with pictures of kings riding the chase. Baron de Grancey brought me to the Prince de Poix, who acceded to his request to present me to the Monarch. This Prince is, as I have told you, a very amiable man, and is obliged to me.
"The whole Court was there. There was the Archbishop of Paris; the King's elder brother, whom they call Monsieur; the Dukes and Peers of France, with their blue ribbons across their breasts; and a countless crowd of lords and great ladies dressed in state. Picture to yourself a garden full of the rarest flowers sparkling in the sun after a shower and bending gracefully to the wind; for such they resembled. I mentally named one my lord Violet, another my lady Rose, a third was the Eglantine, another the White Lily; so I pleased myself with distinguishing them.
"The trumpets sound, the music sweeps ravishingly into the air. In passes the King. He is attended by his guards of the sleeve and the princes of the blood. The Prince de Poix steps forward and speaks my name. I tremble. Everybody whispers and stares at us. Ah, mother, what a moment! I know not what passed. His Majesty said, 'You are the hero of the forest?' smiled, heard my incoherent whisper, and passed on with his train, smiling to others.
"Mother dear, I have seen the Sun-King! I have heard the voice to which Europe listens! I have spoken to Saint Louis and Charlemagne!
"I have not reserved enough money from the furs. Send me 3,000 livres as quickly as possible. I am writing this in my chamber here, for I am to be ready for the hunt early to-morrow morning. Every sound I hear tells of the presence of Majesty; every sight I get from the window of this dwelling of our ancient monarchs recalls a score out of the thousand legends which everybody has been telling me.
"Convey my deepest affection to my father and Angelique, and to Marie and Lacroix, and everybody in St. Elphège, and remember always that I am
"Your dear"Germain.
"To Madame F. X. Lecour,"Répentigny, in Canada."(By way of London.)
"Post Scriptum.—The Queen's Game took place last night after I wrote the above to you. Their Majesties sat at a great round green table, surrounded by all the Court.
"There were some smaller tables, at which several great ladies and lords sat and played; but everybody's eyes were on the Queen, who is so marvellously queenly, and on the King with his stars and his blue ribbon. They two put down their gold (which was in perfectly new pieces) and dealt the cards a little. I was given a turn with her Majesty, who smiled and addressed me, at which I almost fainted. And, mother, the Count de Vaudreuil, whom you used to see as a child, was there. I took special notice of him for you. He has a very fine figure and is one of the greatest courtiers.
"After that, we went off with our friends and had supper and played nearly all night.
"At daybreak everybody went to the hunt. I and the otherdébutantswere driven to the rendezvous in the carriages of the King, drawn by white horses. There the grooms gave me a magnificent golden mare, who knew her work so well that she carried me in at the death of the stag next after his Majesty. (I tremble at what would have happened had I got there before him.) The Queen came up among the first. She enjoys the hunt.
"G. L."
GERMAIN GOES TO PARIS
It appears from the foregoing letter that Germain, before his presentation, had vacillated in his purpose, so far as his using the name Répentigny was concerned. All such vacillation vanished in the excitement of his taste of Court life. The fresh fact—of which Grancey informed him—that Cyrène had been carried off to Versailles by the Princess (which he interpreted to mean by the Abbé) only enriched with a pensive strain, and allowed him to lend an undivided attention to, the fascinating scenes which surrounded him, full of rich life and colour like the splendid pictorial tapestries adorning the halls of Fontainebleau.
On his return to Eaux Tranquilles, the Chevalier advanced at the gate, where he had doubtless been waiting some time, and, drawing a small newspaper out of his coat, said in grave fashion—
"Germain, there is something in theGazette de France, which, I fear, means mischief."
Lecour took the paper with a heart-throb and read—
"The Marquis de Gruchy, the Count de Longueville, the Chevaliers des Trois-Maisons and de Réfsentigny, who had previously the honour of being presented to the King, had, on the 8th instant, that of entering the carriages of of his Majesty and following him to the chase."
His face crimsoned. He looked at the Chevalier.
"I have mentioned," said the latter, a troubled look appearing on his sensitive face, "that the name of Répentigny was that of an officer whom I knew when our army was in Canada. He was a Canadian of the family of Le Gardeur, who still lives, bearing the title of Marquis, and is, I believe, Governor of Pondicherry or Mahé in our Indian possesions. Should the name reach him through theGazetteas being worn by you, it might lead to the Bastille. That I would not willingly see befall you, dear boy."
Germain was touched with the kindness in his friend's voice.
"What should I do?" he asked, faltering.
"Remain at Eaux Tranquilles, resume your own name, and enjoy life quietly, with all I possess yours."
Tears rose in the young man's eyes. "Your goodness, my second father, is incredible."
"You remain, then?" asked de Bailleul eagerly. The conflict of the moonlight night was once more going on in Lecour's breast. The forces on both sides were strong.
"Give me an hour to think, sir. See, this paragraph does not contain any risk; the word is printed 'Réfsentigny.'"
The Chevalier scanned it anew.
"True," said he. "But," he continued, "did you not know there is a shadow over this name? Have you heard the story of the 'Golden Dog'?"
"Of Quebec?"
"Yes."
Germain's eyes opened with interest.
"I have passed a great stone house there with a golden dog and an inscription above its door. I could not but remember it, the more so that my father refused to utter a word concerning it, though it was clear he knew some explanation. It was a curious black-faced house three stories high, eight windows wide, a stiff row of peaked dormers along the attic. From the edge of the cliff it looked over the whole country. There were massive steps of stone before it as if gushing out of the door and spreading on every side; above the door, which was tall and narrow, was the stone with the sculpture of the dog. Is that the golden dog you mean?"
"It is. There happened the most luckless deed in New France. The man who built that house was the citizen Nicholas Philibert, who had risen to wealth out of his business of baker, and was respected throughout the whole town. Bigot, the Intendant of the colony, was bringing the public finances to appalling ruin by his thefts and extravagances—for we all knew he was a robber—and was driving the people to madness. The Bourgeois Philibert was their mouthpiece. If the château of St. Louis stood out as the castle of the military officialdom and the Intendants Palace as the castle of the civil officialdom, the house of the Bourgeois Philibert was the castle of the people, standing against them perched upon the cliff at the head of the artery of traffic which united the Upper and Lower towns. It was too marked a challenge. Bigot determined to harass him. He sent Pierre de Répentigny, then a lieutenant in the provincials and a young fellow of the rashest temper, to billet in Philibert's house, though he had no right to do so, as Philibert, being a King's Munitioner, was exempt from billeting. Bigot knew there would be a quarrel. It turned out as he had foreseen. Philibert stood at his door and refused to allow Répentigny to enter. Répentigny insisted. Philibert loudly claimed his right, and the protection of the law from the outrage. Répentigny covered him with sneers, and pushed inward across the threshold. The merchant upbraided him for his want of respect for grey hairs and the rights of the people. Répentigny thereupon flew into a rage. He rushed on Philibert, drew his sword with a curse and thrust him through the body, which fell out of the door upon the street, and the citizen died in a few minutes."
"How frightful!"
"Philibert's remains were followed into the cathedral by a weeping multitude. A number of us officers attended as a protest against Bigot. In the evening Répentigny was burnt in effigy by the masses in the square of Notre Dame des Victoires in the Lower Town. Philibert's son swore eternal vengeance, and had inserted the great stone over the door of the mansion which bore the figure that you have seen, of the golden dog crouching and gnawing a bone, and underneath it the legend:
"I am a dog who gnaws a bone,In gnawing it I take my rest;A day will come which has not come,When I shall bite him who bit me."
"Subsequently Répentigny was always held in disgrace, and after the loss of Canada he took refuge on the other side of the world. They say young Philibert has followed him thither. What do you think of the story?"
Germain shuddered and did not answer.
"Are you willing to wear the name?"
He shuddered again and hesitated. Finally he answered with a white face—
"I am willing to wear it long enough to see Versailles. But with your permission only."
"Not so, Germain, I entreat you as a free man."
"It is hard. It is to give up so much for ever."
"This sacrifice is the call of Honour, which stands above every consideration. Promise to remember that in deciding."
"I promise it," exclaimed Germain, who stood pondering. "Yet, sir, tell me one thing."
"Willingly."
"That should I decide to go, I am at least not to lose your affection."
"No, no, Germain, you have it for ever. Have no fear of that, whatever else. The heart of the father changes not towards the son. Nor shall ever your secret be lost through me. But, alas! I see you already resolving to do that that my honour, to which I refer every question, does not commend."
The old man turned away leaving him agitated and unable to answer. The tide of love swept over his miserable heart and the form of Cyrène rose in his thoughts. Her eyes turned the balance. How vast to him was their argument.
"I cannot," he exclaimed desperately.
The more he dwelt upon it the more he found this a settled point. Of us who think ourselves stronger, how many ever had such a temptation?
In a few hours he had left Eaux Tranquilles for Paris.
Dominique brought him to a house in the Quartier du Temple where there was an apartment which de Bailleul often occupied: there they installed themselves.
During the morning Germain would have in some obscure fencing or deportment master whose instructions he would adapt to suit himself. In the afternoon he would stroll off among the pleasure seekers who crowded the ramparts or the arcades of the Palais Royal, or would study the externals of high life in the Faubourg St Germain. His evenings were largely spent in theparterreof the opera.
His signature, in place of plain "Germain Lecour" now read: "LeCour de Répentigny," with the capital "C," or "Répentigny" alone, in a bold hand, with a paraph. And there appeared on his fob a seal cut with a coat of arms highly foliaged—azure with silver chevrons and three leopards' heads gold, which he had discovered to be the Répentigny device. With it he sealed the wax on his letters. He had bought indeed a pocketArmorial, the preface to which was as follows:—
"To the Incomparable French Noblesse.
"The Author presents to you, valiant and courageous Noblesse, theDiamond Armorial, which, despite the malice of the Times and the Flight of Centuries, will carefully preserve the Lustre of your name and the Glory of your Arms emblazoned in their true colours. This glorious heraldic material is a Science of State. Though it is not absolutely necessary that all gentlemen should know how to compose and blazon arms, it is Very Important for them to know their Own and not be ignorant of Those of Others. It is the office of the Heralds to form, charge, break, crown and add Supporters to, the coats of those who by some Brave and Generous action have shown their High and Lofty virtues; whereof Kings make use to recompense to their gentry this mark of Honour and Dignity; that so they may Impel each to goodly conduct on those occasions where Men of Stout Hearts acquire Glory for themselves, and Their Posterity...."
In his chamber, on the day when he bought it, he left it on the table and the open page began—
"The glorious house ofMONTMORENCYbeareth a shield of gold with a scarlet cross, cantoned with sixteen azure eagles, four by four."
A JAR IN ST. ELPHÈGE
At noon, on a day late in October, 1786, the Merchant of St. Elphège sat at the pine dinner-table in his kitchen, opposite his wife, resting his wooden soup spoon on its butt on the table. The windows, both front and rear, were wide open, for one of those rare fragrant golden days of late autumn still permitted it. He was listening, with some of the stolid Indian manner, to his wife reading Germain's letter. He vouchsafed only one remark, and that a mercantile one: "Seven weeks, mon Dieu! the quickest mail I ever got from France!" From time to time, while he listened, his eyes glanced out with contentment upon the possessions with which he was surrounded—upon the rich-coloured stubble of his clearings stretching as far as eye could see down the Assumption, with their flocks, herds, and brush fences; upon the hamlet to which his enterprise had given birth, and where he could see, in one cottage, hissabotiersbent over their benches adding to their piles of wooden shoes; in others, women at the spinning wheel or loom, making the cloths of which he had improved the pattern, or weaving the fine and beautiful arrow-sashes, thoseceintures fléchéesof which the art is now lost, yet still known as snowshoers' rareties by the name of "L'Assomption sashes"; his makers of carved elm-bottom chairs and beef mocassins; and, within his courtyard, the large and well stocked granaries, fur-attics and stores for merchandise contained in his four great buildings. His wife was dressed in cloth much more after the fashion of the world than the prunella waist, the skirt shot in colors and the kerchief on the head, which formed the Norman costume of the women seen through the cottage doors. Her silk stockings and buckled slippers marked a desire to be the gentlewoman. Her dark eyes struck one as clever. Her first husband had been the butler of the Marquis de Beauharnois when that nobleman was Governor of Canada, and she had never ceased to look back upon the recollections of high life stored away in those days in her experience.
"There!" she exclaimed, as she flourished the letter at the end of Germain's account of the reception—"Presented to the Court! Lecour, when you said I was my boy's ruin, when you grumbled at his abandoning the apothecary's shop to go to the Seminary and learn fine manners, did I not tell you my son was baked of Sèvres and not of clay? At the Court of France! and presented to his Most Christian Majesty! Among Princes, Counts, Duchesses and Cardinals! What do you say tothat, Lecour?"
Her husband's eyes twinkled: "That for the moment you are General Montcalm, victorious; though I remind you that General Montcalm afterwards had his Quebec."
"Quebec or no, my son is at the Court of France."
"I do not dispute that."
He began assiduously making away with his smoking pea-soup.
"Let us proceed with the letter," said she, for she had indeed shown her generalship in stopping where she did.
"Ah," she went on, pretending to scan the next words for the first time, "Germain needs three thousand livres."
"What!"
"Only three thousand."
"But he kept three thousand out of the beaver-skins; the last draft was for nine hundred; whither is this leading? Have we not to live and carry on the business? and you grow more fanciful every day, as if we were seigneurs and not peasants."
"Certainly we are not peasants—citizens, if you please: anybody will tell you that a merchant is not a peasant. There are citizens who arenoble, Lecour. Why shouldwenot make ourselves seigneurs? Who is it but the merchants who are buying up the seigniories and living in the manor-houses to-day? That is my plan."
"Three or four jackasses. Let them be jackasses. I remain François Xavier Lecour, the peasant."
"Well, François Xavier Lecour, the peasant,myson, the noble, must have these livres."
Her black eyes flashed. "Will you have the poor boy disgraced in the act of doing you credit? Look at me, unnatural father, and reflect that your child is to experience from you his earliest wrong."
Lecour quailed. His powers of spoken argument were not great. He said nothing, but rose, threw off his coat suddenly, and sat down again.
"Yes," she exclaimed, angry tears rolling down her cheeks. "Your wife will sell her wardrobe and her dowry—little enough it was—for my son shall not want while he has a mother, and that mother owns a stitch."
It was when it came to meeting clap-trap sentiment that trader's inferior grain showed, and he faltered.
"I will go as far as a thousand. It is all it is worth."
By that word he exposed the small side of an otherwise worthy nature. She sprang to the attack.
"Diable!am I linked to a skinflint?"
"A skinflint, forsooth, at a thousand livres!"
"Yes," she cried in a fresh flood of tears. "A wretch, a miser. You are unworthy, sir, to be linked to a family from whom Germain takes his gentlemanly qualities. Had he nothing but you in him, he would be a grovelling clod-hopper to-day instead of a favourite of kings."
Lecour laid down his wooden spoon in his pea-soup-bowl. He phlegmatically took his clasp knife from its pouch, hung round his neck by a string, struck his blade into the piece of cold pork upon the table and cut off a large corner, in defiant silence. But his heart was heavy. It was no pleasure to wrangle with so able a wife. He had no wish to quarrel. Only, he knew the value of a livre. Germain was really becoming a shocking expense. He felt that his wife would in the end persuade him against his better judgment. In truth he liked to hear of his son's successes, but it went against his prudence. There was to him something out of joint in the son of a man of his condition attempting to figure among the long-lined contemptuous elegants who had commanded him in the army during his youth. The gulf, he felt, was not passable with security nor credit.
Just as he was hacking off the piece of pork, a high-spirited black pony dashed into the courtyard, attached to a calash driven by a very stout, merry-eyed priest, who pulled up at the doorstep.
Lecour and Madame at once rose and hurried out to welcome him. At the same time an Indian dwarf in Lecour's service moved up silently and took the reins out of the Curé's hands. The latter came joyously in and sat down.
"Oho," he cried, surveying the preparations on the table. "My good Madame Lecour, I was right when I said an hour ago I knew where to stop at noon in my parish of Répentigny."
"Father, I have something extra for you this time," she replied laughing, and crossing to her cupboard, exhibited triumphantly a fine cold roast duck.
"You shall have absolution without confession," he cried. "Let me prepare for that with some of the magnificent pea-soup à la Lecour. Oh, day of days!"
She went to the crane at the fireplace, uncovered the hanging pot, and ladled out a deep bowl of steaming soup. At the same time she told him excitedly of Germain's presentation at Court.
"What! what! these are fine proceedings. The Lecours are always going up, up, up. Our Germain's distinction is a glory for the whole parish. Lecour here ought to be proud of it."
Flattery from his Curé weighed more with Lecourpèrethan bushels of argument. The wife saw her accidental advantage and took it.
"He does not like to pay for it," she remarked demurely.
"What! what! my rich friend Lecour. The owner of seventeen good farms, of three great warehouses, of four hundred cattle, of untold merchandise, and a credit of 500,000 livres in London, the best payer of tithes in the country, the father of the most brilliant son in the province, the husband of the finest wife, a woman fit to adorn the castle of the governor," cried the ecclesiastic, finishing his soup and attacking the duck.
Lecour thawed fast. But he reserved a doubt for the consideration of his confessor.
"Is it honest to pass for a noble when one is not one?"
"I do not see that he has done so. It is not his fault, in the manner that he has explained it. Let the young man enjoy himself a little and see a little of life. We are only young once, and you laics must not be too severely impeccable, otherwise what would become of us granters of absolution. Furthermore, we must not be too old-fashioned. Our people here are getting out of the strictness of the old social distinctions. It may be so too in France. On my advice, dear Lecour, accept every honour to your family your son may bring, and pay for it in the station fitted to your great means, that I may be proud of all the Lecour family when I go to Quebec and boast about my parish at the dinner-table of the Bishop. Come," exclaimed he, at length, pushing aside his plate with the ruins of the duck, "bring out that game of draughts, and let us see if the honours of Germain have not put new skill into the play of a proud father."
Madame brought out the checkerboard. She brought besides for the Curé a little glass of importedeau de vie, and her husband, taking out his bladder tobacco pouch, commenced to fill his pipe, and that of his Reverence, and to smoke himself into a condition of bliss.
THE OLD-IRON SHOP
An enormous yellow and black coach lumbered and strained along by the aid of six lean horses, and many elaborate springs, chains and straps, from Brittany towards Paris. The autumn roads were execrable, for the rains had been heavy, and the ruts made by the harvest-waggons were deep. The lateness of the season intensified the deserted look of rural France. Little else was to be seen along most of the route than rows of polled trees lining the highway, and here and there an old castle on a hill, or acommuneof a few whitewashed cottages, where the coach would pull up at the inn and perhaps change horses. The driver and guard remained the same; but various postillions took charge and then gave up their charges to others. Travellers of assorted ranks and occupations got in and out. Of the twelve for whom there were places in the coach some remained during long distances, some shorter, but only one was faithful from Brittany to the end. He was a short-statured, countrybourgeois, whose woollen stockings and faded hat gave to him a certain look of non-importance. Moreover, he was always wrapped unsociably in a brown cloak, of which he kept a fold over his lower face, and in which he snored in his corner even when all the others jumped up to escape an upset.
After several days the aspect of the country suddenly changed. Immense woods and parks rendered it even more solitary, yet strange to say the increased solitude was evidence that the hugest capital in Europe was near, for these were the hunting domains of the princes of the blood and great courtiers, which encircled Paris.
During the night there was another sudden change. The forest solitudes disappeared, the horses sped forward on fine broad roads; and soon the coach dashed with a triumphant blast into the lights and stir of Versailles, crossed its Place d'Armes and turned again into darkness along the Avenue of Paris.
At length, in the first grey of morning, it rumbled loudly over a stretch of cobbled pave, and pulled up at an iron railing inside the City wall. Here the officers of the municipal customs came out. One of the first passengers visited was thebourgeois, and his dingy black box and sleepy expression received exceptionally contemptuous usage.
"Haste, beast, open it! Dost thou think I have to wait all day? Take that," and the gendarme struck him a tap on the side with the flat of his sword.
For a second thebourgeoisseemed another man. He drew up with such an inhuman gleam in his cadaverous eyes that the customs man drew back.
"Quick, then, a little," said the latter in something of an apologetic tone. The short man as rapidly recovered his self-possession. He leered in a conciliatory way upon the official and pressed a livre into his palm. The official passed the box through the gate. The coach proceeded into the City until it arrived at its heart and stopped at the entrance of that great and wide bridge, the Pont Neuf, the main artery of Paris, where most of the passengers alighted. They found themselves engulfed in a yelling multitude of porters, who scrambled for passengers and baggage as if they would tear both to pieces, which indeed they had no great aversion to doing.
Thebourgeoissingled out a tall man who had mingled in the scrimmage as if only for his amusement. Cuffing the others aside like puppies with his long arms, the latter lifted the black box out of the tussle and started away, followed by its owner. They plunged into that maze of tall, narrow, medieval streets of older Paris which Méryon loved to picture before they disappeared in the improvements of Napoleon. They crossed the Latin Quarter and thence wending eastward, entered finally the Quarter of St. Marcel, the wretchedest of the city, and came into a lane named the Street of the Hanged Man; where dilapidated rookeries leaned across at each other, their upper floors occupied by swarms of human beings. Thebourgeoishere stopped alongside his porter and spoke to him in the tone of an intimate.
"Is it far now, Hache? It is already some distance from the old place."
"Here we are; come in quick," replied Hache. He was a bold-looking, black-haired man, red-faced, unshaven, and battered with the effects of brandy-drinking.
They turned into a grimy old-iron shop. A woman sitting in a corner fixed her eyes upon them like a watch-dog. They stumbled through, climbed a dark stair, and entered a room where the traveller, without speaking to a man who lay there on a bench, locked the door, and Hache dropped the box on the table with a thud, shaking off a cap and bottle which were on it.
The man on the bench started at the noise, and got up on his elbow, his eyes opening with an effort.
"Great God, the Admiral!" he exclaimed.
Thebourgeoishad thrown off his hat, wig, and cloak. He was the visitor to the cavern of Fontainebleau.
"It is I, Gougeon," he returned, his death's-head face smiling.
Gougeon wore the garb of an old-iron gatherer. His countenance was unkempt, pale, scowling, with black eyes embedded in it, his hair coarse and long, his mouth hard and drooping. He pushed back the greytuquewith which his head had been covered, and without readdressing the Admiral, got up, slowly unwound the cords which bound the black box, and raised the lid. Hache looked on.
Gougeon first took out a couple of coarse articles of clothing, and uttered a grunt. His next grasp brought up a brilliant article of apparel. He raised it to examine it at the window. The garment shone even in the meagre light. It was a waistcoat of flowered silk, sown with seed-pearls. The Admiral stood by, smiling.
With the other hand Gougeon pulled out and lifted a magnificent rose-coloured dress-coat with silver buttons.
Having gazed at them all round and grunted to his own satisfaction and to that of Hache, he dived again into the box, where he fumbled around a large lump covered with linen, and at length drew out a shining article—a goldensoleil, or sun-shaped stand for displaying the Host at the mass. Beside it was a finely embossed chalice of silver. His eyes and those of Hache were lost in wonder.
There came just then a tap at the door.
The articles were whipped back into their box and covered. The woman of the shop below walked in. All recovered self-possession. She bolted the door herself.
Gougeon's mate, who thus appeared among them, was a small woman of about forty, with the sharp grey eyes of a wild animal.
The coat and vessels were displayed to her by her husband.
"Admiral," she said, "where do these come from?"
The chief seemed to recognise in her a personage equal to himself. He bowed and said—
"Madame, thesoleiland chalice were the Abbey of Pontcalec's, and were politely removed for safe-keeping by seven marines of the Galley-on-land."
"And this fine waistcoat?" said Madame, smiling.
"Was one of which the owner had no longer need," he said, looking at her.
"Indeed," she returned nonchalantly.
"It was a troublesome marquis who ventured home one night by a short cut. He was one of the fellows who does not believe in the necessity of a poor man living. He saw a fire of ours in the waste, and what does he do but ride up and over us. Luckily there is no blood on the waistcoat."
Madame's smile expanded. She looked the article over, picked the seed-pearls and lace with her little skinny hands, turned out the pockets, and inspected the flower-pattern of the silk.
Gougeon held the glitteringsoleilfast in his hands. He could not keep his scowling eyes off it. Hache took up the bottle from the floor, and poured some wine into the chalice, whence he drank it off. Madame lifted the dress-coat, and inspected it with the same feminine closeness as the vest.
"It is a good package," remarked she.
"You have not seen all," vivaciously replied the Admiral, and diving his hand into the box he drew forth and opened the black kerchief of the cave of Fontainebleau. Gougeon's hand snatched the watch of the Prince de Poix. Hache caught up the chalice, and executed a jig round the room while drinking it empty; and Madame arranged her neck to great self-satisfaction with Cyrène's necklace, while the Admiral told with no small exaggeration the story connected with the plunder.
"This brings us," he continued, "to the object of my coming. Bec, Caron, and la Tour, the three taken in the cave, are now in Paris imprisoned in the Little Châtelet. What can be done for them?"
"Nothing," answered Gougeon.
"Be still," enjoined his wife, flashing her eyes at him.
"Were it I, I would go to the galleys and get away just as I did before," exclaimed Hache.
"Hache, you have no head."
"Not so good as yours, wife Gougeon, I admit; but I escaped from the galleys."
"To force the guards is impossible," said she speculating. "Who are the witnesses?"
"I fear they are out of the question."
"Who are they?"
"The Prince de Poix."
"He will not appear in the matter. It is not like your provincial tribunals."