PART THREE
CHAPTER VIDIANE’S OPINION
IT was one thing to catch the Duke of Belgarde and another thing to keep him. Exactly one week from the night of his arrest and imprisonment he was once more at large, and all through the courage, resource, and seductive powers of his quiet, sombre-eyed, shrinking young wife. Trimousette under a sharp spur became articulate, and the latent vast energy and spirit she possessed was instantly developed by blows and hammerings as sparks are struck fromthe dull black flint. The night of the duke’s arrest Trimousette shed not one tear on parting with the man she loved. The duke thought her rather insensate and would have relished a few tears from her. Nevertheless, Trimousette straightway set her wits, which were not inconsiderable, to work in order to help her husband. She determined to see him. Dressing herself in her simplest gown, for she accorded best with the note of simplicity, and going straight to Marat, the most hideous and abominable of men, she sweetly and calmly asked him to permit her to see her husband for one half hour to settle some family affairs. Marat thought he had never seen a simpler, more democratic young person than this little duchess. He was very artfully flattered by Trimousette, who had little or no experience in that line, but who being all a woman, succeeded admirably at the first attempt. Marat, admiring Trimousette’s large black eyes, agreed to do what he could. These eyes, usuallyso tragic, assumed a smiling and brilliant expression as soon as Trimousette was brought face to face with danger. Within twenty-four hours after her meeting with Marat, she was admitted to an interview with her husband in the prison of the Temple.
Of course she was searched on entering and leaving the prison. It was an ordeal which brought most great ladies to tears and reproaches, but Trimousette bore it with something that savored both of dignity and coquetry, and actually smiled when the ruffians who searched her complimented her charming little feet. They did not observe, around the bottom of her petticoat, yards and yards of flat silk braid, which made really a good strong rope, nor did they discover, hidden in her thick black hair, some gold pieces. When she was admitted to the cell of the duke, he was the most surprised man in Paris, and more so still when Trimousette, having suddenly found a very eloquent tongue, laidbefore him a clever plan of escape, along with all the braid she was ripping off her petticoat and the money out of her hair. The duke thought he knew women—certainly he had seen a great deal of them ever since he was a pretty page at the court of Louis the Fifteenth. But he had not been much in the way of knowing true love, nor the magic which it works in the heart of a woman.
He gazed at his wife with something like admiration for the first time, and was very gallant to her, kissing her hand. Trimousette did not now mistake gallantry for love. She had grown wise upon disappointments. She remained a short half hour, and then proudly, for all her humility, would not wait to be notified, but left her husband’s cell, bidding him good-by again without a tear. Certainly the duke shed no tears. He was deeply grateful to his wife and profoundly astonished at the new attitude she assumed. Immediately hebusied himself with the schemes for his escape planned by his wife.
Three nights later, just before daylight, he dropped out of his prison window into the garden of the Temple, and scampered off, the sentry very obligingly turning his back until the duke was well out of sight.
Great was the hue and cry raised after the Duke of Belgarde. No suspicion attached to his little duchess, who was then on her way to the small castle on the Breton coast. True, she had seen the duke, but those who knew about these things, or thought they did, declared that she was too timid, too silent, too young to assist in the bold plan of escape which had freed her husband.
Trimousette arrived at Boury under instructions from the duke to remain there until she should get further directions from him. She reckoned upon remaining a month; and stayed three years and a half.
Never in the same space of time had somuch happened in any country as in France from 1789 to 1794. The old order that had lasted a thousand years was engulfed, and black chaos reigned. The little duchess in the old stone castle by the sea heard the reverberating thunders, and felt the earth rocking under her feet, and saw the crashing wreck of monarchy. She stirred not, having been told to remain tranquilly at Boury until her lord should send her word otherwise. The duke was in the thick of the tumult and was in danger every hour of the day and night. He was sometimes a fugitive for his life; again he appeared boldly in Paris and defied arrest. He was not one of those who would have saved poor Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette by flight. On the contrary, being of inextinguishable courage, he advised using the strong hand, and would have had Louis the Sixteenth show something of the spirit of Henry the Fourth. The thing which Fernand, Duke of Belgarde, hated most wascowardice, and through this was he absolved from the spell of Madame de Valençay. She had fled to England and never ceased importuning the duke by letter to run away from France. The duke on reading these letters would dash them under foot and trample upon them in his fury. Nor would he answer them, considering himself insulted by them. This did not keep Madame de Valençay from writing them, because, unlike Trimousette, she was without pride.
The duke made the handsomest possible thanks to his duchess for her share in his escape, and really meant to show his appreciation of the fact that she was the only woman who had ever helped him and never bothered him. But too much was happening; rivers of blood were flowing everywhere, and only those things which were insistent made any impression on the duke, and Trimousette was the least insistent person on earth.
Nothing more unlike the sweet dream whichTrimousette had planned for Boury could be imagined than the life she led there for more than three years. She was quite alone, except for herdame de compagnie, a sour old lady of whom Trimousette was mortally afraid. True, she had with her Diane, the broken-legged hound, now blind and scarcely able to creep at Trimousette’s heel when the two walked together upon the rocky shore at sunset to dream of the absent one. For Trimousette felt sure Diane dreamed of her beautiful, brilliant master. In the long evenings spent in the gloomy old saloon Trimousette would take in her hands Diane’s trembling paws and whisper:
“Diane, do you think he ever remembers us? Do you think he will ever send for us?”
And Diane would give a melancholy whine, indicating that she did not believe the duke ever would. Sure enough the duke did not send for either his wife or his dog, and poor Diane, weary of waiting, at last lay downquietly one night by Trimousette’s bed and was found dead next morning.
Trimousette felt more alone than ever in her life when the poor lame dog was dead. Soon after, she got news that Madame de Floramour had died of chagrin at the disasters and irreligion into which France was plunged; and last—ah, cruel stroke!—Victor fell fighting gallantly in La Vendée.
The young duchess bore these blows in patience and silence. The duke managed to contrive a letter of sympathy to his duchess when the soul of Victor de Floramour was called away. The letter was very ill-spelled and ill-written, for the duke’s accomplishments were those of Henry the Fourth—he could drink, he could fight, and he could be gallant to the ladies, but he could not write, although he could think excellently well. Trimousette treasured this rude scrawl. It was the nearest to a love letter she had ever received from any man.