A cry of recognition broke from two or three of the guard, and the Italian, as a last chance, caught hold of a beam which overhung the wheels, contriving, at an imminent risk, to pass himself across the channel of the current by swinging one hand before the other. Those who had regarded his general appearance, would scarcely have given him credit for so much power.
img_03.jpgThe Capture
The Capture
He gained the other side. One of the guard immediately attempted to follow him, and seized the beam; but he had not crossed half-way before his strength failed him, his armour proving too heavy, together with his body, for his arms to sustain; and he fell upon the wheel as it turned, entangling his legs in the float-boards. He was borne beneath the current, and immediately afterwards re-appeared on the wheel, throwing his arms wildly about for help. Scarcely had a cry escaped his lips, when he again passed beneath the surface; the water disentangled him and bore him down the stream for an instant, until he sank, and was seen no more.
Meanwhile Exili was endeavouring to unfasten his boat, and the Garde Bourgeois passing round the other side of the mill had arrived close to where he was stationed, cutting off his retreat in that direction. There was now no chance but the river; and without a moment’s hesitation he plunged into the boiling current, trusting to the darkness for his escape. At the same moment a bourgeois threw off his upper garments, and letting himself down the outer side of the lighter into the river, where the stream was somewhat less powerful, called for a torch, which he contrived to keep above the water in his left hand, striking out vigorously with his right.
It was a singular chase. Both were evidently practised swimmers, and more than once Exili eluded his pursuer by diving below the surface and allowing him to pass beyond the mark. Several times, as they approached, he made a clutch at the torch, or tried to throw back a palm-full of water at its light, knowing if he could but reach any of the houses on the site of the present Quai Desaix, he should be sheltered in some of the secret refuges of the city. And once, indeed, he turned at bay in deep water, locking on to the guard in a manner which would soon have proved fatal to both, when the boat containing Sainte-Croix shot across the river, and came up to where they were struggling. His capture was the work of half a minute, and he was dragged into the boat.
‘So,mon enfant,’ said Gaudin, as the dripping object of all this turmoil was placed, breathless and dripping, in the stern, ‘you thought we stood in somewhat different positions, I will be bound, this afternoon.’
Then addressing himself to the men who were rowing, he added—
‘The Port au Foin is the nearest landing-place for the Rue St. Antoine. And then to the Bastille!’
The stream was violent below the bridge; for the mill-boats obstructed the free course of the river, and the Seine was still swollen and turbid from the spring floods. But the rowers plied their oars manfully, and, directed by one of the guard, who kept at the head of the boat with the torch, were not long in arriving at the landing-place indicated by Sainte-Croix, which was exactly on the site of the present Pont Louis Philippe, conducting from the Place de la Grêve to the back of Notre Dame.
Exili remained perfectly silent, but was trembling violently—more, however, from his late immersion than from fear. His countenance was pale and immovable, as seen by the glare of the torch; and he compressed his under lip with his teeth until he nearly bit it through. Neither did Sainte-Croix exchange another word with any of his party; but, shrouded in his cloak, remained perfectly silent until the boat touched the rude steps of the Pont au Foin.
A covered vehicle, opening behind, and somewhat like a modern deer-cart, was waiting on the quay, with some armed attendants. The arrival of the prisoner was evidently expected. By the direction of Sainte-Croix he was carefully searched by the guard, and everything being taken from him, he was placed in the vehicle, whither his captor also followed him. The doors were then closed, and the men with torches placing themselves at the sides and in front of the vehicle, the cortege moved on.
It was a rough journey, then, to make from the Seine to the Bastille; and it would have been made in perfect darkness but for the lights and cressets of the watch. For the night was advancing; the lanterns in the windows had burned out, or been extinguished; and the tall glooming houses, which rose on either side of the Rue Geoffry Lanier, by which thoroughfare they left the river side, threw the road into still deeper obscurity, their only lights being observable in the windows high up, where some industrious artisan was late at work. A rude smoky lamp hung from the interior of the vehicle, and by its gleam Sainte-Croix was watching his prisoner in silence. At length Exili spoke.
‘You have been playing a deep game; and this time Fortune favours you. But you took her as the discarded mistress of many others; and she will in turn jilt you.’
‘Say rather we have both struggled for her, and you lost her by your own incautious proceedings,’ replied Sainte-Croix. ‘We were both at the brink of a gulf, on a frail precipice, where the fall of one was necessary to the safety of the other. You are now my victim; to-morrow I might have been yours.’
‘And whence comes thelettre de cachet?’
‘From those who have the power to give it. Had you been more guarded in your speech on thecarrefourto-day, you might have again practised on the credulity of the dupes that surrounded you.’
‘For what term is my imprisonment?’
‘During the pleasure of the Minister of Police; and that may depend upon mine. Our secrets are too terrible for both to be free at once. You should not have let me know that you thought me in your power.’
‘Has every notion of honour departed from you?’ asked Exili.
‘Honour!’ replied Sainte-Croix, with a short contemptuous laugh; ‘honour! and between such as we have become! How could you expect honour to influence me, when we have so long despised it—when it is but a bubble name with the petty gamesters of the world—the watchword of cowardice fearing detection?’
There was a halt in the progress of the carriage as it now arrived at the outer gate of the Bastille. Then came the challenge and the answer; the creaking of the chains that let down the huge drawbridge upon the edge of the outer court; and the hollow rumbling of the wheels over its timber. It stopped at the inner portal; and when the doors were opened, the governor waited at the carriage to receive the new prisoner.
But few words were exchanged. The signature of thelettre de cachetonce recognised was all that was required, and Exili was ordered to descend. He turned to Sainte-Croix as he was about to enter the gate, and with a withering expression of revenge and baffled anger, exclaimed—
‘You have the game in your own hands at present. Before the year is out my turn will have arrived. Remember!’
Nightcame on, dark, cold, tempestuous. The fleeting beauty of the spring evening had long departed; the moon became totally invisible through the thick clouds that had been soaring onwards in gloomy masses from the south; and the outlines of the houses were no longer to be traced against the sky. All was merged in one deep impenetrable obscurity. There were symptoms of a turbulent night. The wind whistled keenly over the river and the dreary flats adjoining; and big drops of rain fell audibly upon the paved court and drawbridge of the Bastille.
The heavy gates slowly folded upon each other with a dreary wailing sound, which spoke the hopeless desolation of all that they enclosed. And when the strained and creaking chains of the drawbridge had once more lowered the platform, Sainte-Croix entered the vehicle by which he had arrived, and, giving some directions to the guard, left the precincts of the prison.
As the carriage lumbered down the Rue St. Antoine, a smile of triumph gleamed across the features of its occupant, mingled with the expression of satire and mistrust which characterised every important reflection that he gave way to. A dangerous enemy had been, as he conceived, rendered powerless. There was but one person in the world of whom he stood in awe; and that one was now, on the dark authority of alettre de cachet, in the inmost dungeon of the Bastille. The career of adventures that he had planned to arrive at the pinnacle of his ambitious hopes—and Gaudin de Sainte-Croix was an adventurer in every sense of the word—now seemed laid open before him without a cloud or hindrance. The tempestuous night threw no gloomy forebodings upon his soul. The tumult of his passions responded wildly to that of the elements, or appeared to find an echo in the gusts of the angry wind, as it swept, loud and howling, along the thoroughfares.
The carriage, by his orders, passed the Pont Marie, and, crossing the Ile St. Louise, stopped before a house, still existing, in the Rue des Bernardins, where his lodging was situated. The street leads off from the quay on the left bank of the Seine, opposite the back of Notre Dame; but, at the date of our story, was nearly on the outskirts of the city. Here he discharged the equipage with the guard; and, entering the house for a few minutes, returned enveloped in a large military cloak, and carrying a lighted cresset on the end of a halberd.
He pressed hurriedly forward towards the southern extremity of the city, passing beside the abbey of Sainte Geneviève, where the Pantheon now stands. Beyond this, on the line of streets which at present bear the name of the ‘Rues des Fosses,’ the ancient walls of Paris had, until within a year or two of this period, existed; but the improvements of Louis XIV., commenced at the opposite extremity of the city, had razed the fortifications to the ground. Those to the north, levelled and planted with trees, now form the Boulevards; the southern line had, as yet, merely been thrown into ruins; and the only egress from the town was still confined to the point where the gates had stood, kept tolerably clear for the convenience of travellers, and more especially those dwelling in the increasing faubourgs. Even these ways were scarcely practicable. The water, for want of drains, collected into perfect lakes, and the deep ruts were left unfilled, so that the thoroughfare, hazardous by day, became doubly so at night; in fact, it was a matter of some enterprise to leave or enter the city at its southern outlet.
The rain continued to fall; and the cresset that Gaudin carried, flickering in the night winds, oftentimes caused him to start and put himself on his guard, at the fitful shadows it threw on the dismantled walls and towers that bordered the way. At last a violent gust completely extinguished it, and he would have been left in a most unpleasant predicament, being totally unable to proceed or retrace his steps in the perfect obscurity, had not a party of the marching watch opportunely arrived. Not caring to be recognised, Sainte-Croix slouched his hat over his face, and giving the countersign to thechevalier du guet, requested a light for his cresset. The officer asked him a few questions as to what he had seen; and stated that they were taking their rounds in consequence of the increasing brigandages committed by the scholars dwelling in the Quartier Latin, as well as the inhabitants of the Faubourgs St. Jacques and St. Marcel, between whom an ancient rivalry in vagabondising and robbery had long existed. And, indeed, as we shall see, many high in position in Paris were at this period accustomed to ‘take the road’—some from a reckless spirit of adventure; others with the desire of making up their income squandered at the gaming-table, or in the lavish festivals which the taste of the age called forth.
He passed the counterscarp, and had reached the long straggling street of the faubourg, when two men rushed from between the pillars which supported the rude houses, and ordered him to stop. Gaudin was immediately on his defence. He hastily threw off his cloak, and drew his sword, parrying the thrust that one of the assailants aimed at him, but still grasping his cresset in his left hand, which the other strove to seize. They were both masked; and pressed him somewhat hardly, as the foremost, in a voice he thought he recognised, demanded his purse and mantle.
‘Aux voleurs!’ shouted Sainte-Croix, not knowing how many of the party might be in ambush. There was no reply, except the echo to his own voice. But, as he spoke, his chief assailant told the other, who had wrested the light away, to desist; and drawing back, pulled off his mask and revealed the features of the Marquis of Brinvilliers—the companion of Sainte-Croix that afternoon on the Carrefour du Châtelet.
‘Gaudin’s voice, a livre to a sou!’ exclaimed the Marquis.
‘Antoine!’ cried his friend as they recognised each other. ‘It is lucky I cried out, although no help came. It takes a sharper eye and a quicker arm than mine to parry two blades at once.’
The two officers looked at each other for a minute, and then broke into a burst of laughter; whilst the third party took off his hat and humbly sued for forgiveness.
‘And Lachaussée, too!’ continued Sainte-Croix, as he perceived it was one of his dependants. ‘The chance is singular enough. I was even now on my way to the Gobelins to find you, rascal.’
‘Then we are not on the same errand?’ asked the Marquis.
‘If you are out as acoupe-bourse, certainly not. What devil prompted you to this venture? A woman?’ asked Sainte-Croix.
‘No devil half so bad,’ replied Brinvilliers; ‘but the fat Abbe de Cluny. He goes frequently to the Gobelins after dark; it is not to order tapestry only for hishôtel. Since the holy sisterhood of Port-Royal have moved to the Rue de la Bourbe, he seeks bright eyes elsewhere.’
‘I see your game,’ answered Gaudin; ‘you are deeper in debt than in love. But it is no use waiting longer. This is not the night for a man to rest by choice in the streets; and my cry appears at last to have had an effect upon the drowsy faubourgs.’
As he spoke, he directed the attention of Brinvilliers to one of the upper windows of a house whence a sleepy bourgeois had at last protruded his head, enveloped in an enormous convolution of hosiery. He projected a lighted candle before him, as he challenged the persons below; but, ere the question reached them, it was extinguished by the rain, and all was again dark and silent.
Sainte-Croix directed Lachaussée to pile together the embers in the cresset, which the brief struggle had somewhat disarranged; and then, as the night-wind blew them once more into a flame, he took the arm of the Marquis, and, preceded by the overlooker of the Gobelins, passed down the Rue Mouffetard.
They stopped at an old and blackened house, supported like the others upon rough pillars of masonry, which afforded a rude covered walk under the projecting stories; and signalised from the rest by a lantern projecting over the doorway. Such fixed lights were then very rare in Paris; and this was why the present was raised to the dignity of an especial sign: and the words ‘A la Lanterne’ rudely painted on its transparent side betokened a house of public entertainment. Within the range of its light the motto ‘Urbis securitas et nitor’ was scrawled along the front of the casement.
‘I shall give up my plan for to-night,’ said Brinvilliers as they reached the door. ‘The weather has possibly kept the Abbe in the neighbourhood of the Gobelins. You can shelter here: there are somemauvais garçonsstill at table, I will be bound, that even Bras-d’Acier himself would shrink from grappling with.’
Thus speaking, he knocked sharply at the door with the handle of his sword, which he had kept unsheathed since his rencontre with Sainte-Croix. A murmur of voices, which had been audible upon their arriving, was instantly hushed, and, after a pause of a few seconds, a challenge was given from within. Brinvilliers answered it: the door was opened, and Sainte-Croix entered the cabaret, followed by Lachaussée.
‘You are coming too, Antoine?’ asked Gaudin of his companion, as the latter remained on the sill.
‘Not this evening,’ replied the Marquis. ‘You wished to see Lachaussée, and this is the nearest spot where you could find shelter without scrambling on through the holes and quagmires to the Gobelins.’
‘But I know nobody here.’
‘Possibly they may know you, and my introduction is sufficient. I have other affairs which must be seen to this evening, since my first plan has failed. You will be with us to-morrow?’
‘Without fail,’ replied Gaudin.
Brinvilliers commended his companion to the care of the host, and took his leave; whilst Sainte-Croix and Lachaussée were conducted into an inner apartment in the rear of the house.
It was a low room, with the ceiling supported by heavy blackened beams. The plaster of the walls was, in places, broken down; in others covered with rude charcoal drawings and mottoes. A long table was placed in the centre of the apartment; and over this was suspended a lamp which threw a lurid glare upon the party around it.
This was composed of a dozen young men whom Sainte-Croix directly recognised to be scholars of the different colleges. They were dressed in every style of fashion according to their tastes—one would not have seen appearances more varied in the Paris students of the present day. Some still kept to the fashions of the preceding reigns—the closely-clipped hair, pointed beard and ring of moustache surrounding the mouth. Others had a semi-clerical habit, and others again assimilated to the dress of the epoch; albeit the majority wore their own hair. But in one thing they appeared all to agree. Large wine-cups were placed before each, and flagons passed quickly from one to the other round the table.
They stared at Sainte-Croix as he entered with his attendant, and were silent. One of them, however, recognised him, and telling the others that he was a friend, made a place for him at his side, whilst Lachaussée took his seat at the chimney corner on a rude settle.
‘Your name, my worthy seigneur?’ exclaimed one of the party at the head of the table; ‘we have no strangers here. Philippe Glazer, tell your friend to answer.’
‘My name is Gaudin de Sainte-Croix. I am a captain in his Majesty’s Normandy regiment. Yours is——?’
The collected manner in which the new-comer answered the question evidently made an impression on the chairman. He was a good-looking young man, with long dark hair and black eyes, clad in a torn mantle evidently put on for the nonce, with an old cap adorned with shells upon his head, and holding a knotty staff, fashioned like a crutch, for a sceptre. He made a slight obeisance, and replied—
‘Well—you are frank with me; I will be the same. I have two names, and answer to both equally. In this society of Gens de la Courte Épée,1I am called “Le Grand Coësre;” at the Hôtel Dieu they know me better as Camille Theria, of Liége, in the United Netherlands.’
At a sign from the speaker, one of the party took a bowl from before him and pushed it along the table towards Sainte-Croix. There were a few pieces of small money in it, and Gaudin directly perceiving their drift threw in some more. A sound of acclamation passed round the table, and he immediately perceived that he had risen to the highest pitch in their estimation.
‘He is one of us!’ cried Theria. ‘Allons!Glazer—the song—the song.’
The student addressed directly commenced; the others singing the chorus, and beating time with their cups.
Glazer’s Song.I.Ruby bubbling from the flask,Send the grape’s bright blood around;Throw off steady life’s cold mask,Every earthly care confound.Here no rules are known,Buvons!Here no schools we own,Trinquons!Let wild glee and revelrySober thought dethrone.Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!II.Would you Beauty’s kindness prove?Drink! faint heart ne’er gain’d a prize.Hath a mistress duped your love?Drink! and fairer forms will rise.Clasp’d may be the zone,Buvons!Even to the throne.Trinquons!But full well the students knowBeauty is their own.Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!III.Soaring thoughts our minds entrance,Now we seem to spurn the ground.See,—the lights begin to dance,Whirling madly round and round.Still the goblet drain,Buvons!Till each blazing veinTrinquons!Sends fresh blood in sparkling floodTo the reeling brain.Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!
Glazer’s Song.
I.
Ruby bubbling from the flask,
Send the grape’s bright blood around;
Throw off steady life’s cold mask,
Every earthly care confound.
Here no rules are known,
Buvons!
Here no schools we own,
Trinquons!
Let wild glee and revelry
Sober thought dethrone.
Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!
II.
Would you Beauty’s kindness prove?
Drink! faint heart ne’er gain’d a prize.
Hath a mistress duped your love?
Drink! and fairer forms will rise.
Clasp’d may be the zone,
Buvons!
Even to the throne.
Trinquons!
But full well the students know
Beauty is their own.
Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!
III.
Soaring thoughts our minds entrance,
Now we seem to spurn the ground.
See,—the lights begin to dance,
Whirling madly round and round.
Still the goblet drain,
Buvons!
Till each blazing vein
Trinquons!
Sends fresh blood in sparkling flood
To the reeling brain.
Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!
‘Your voice ought to make your fortune, Philippe,’ said Sainte-Croix, who appeared to know the student intimately.
‘Pardieu!it does me little service. Theria, there, who cannot sing a note, keeps all thegalanteriesto himself. Ho! Maître Camille! here I pledge your last conquest.’ And he raised his cup as he added, ‘Marie-Marguerite de Brinvilliers!’
Sainte-Croix started at the name; his eyes, flashing with anger, passed rapidly from one to the other of the two students.
‘Chut!’ cried another of the students, a man of small stature, who was dressed in the court costume of the period, but shabbily, and with every point exaggerated. ‘Chut!Monsieur perchance knows la belle Marquise, and will not bear to hear her name lipped amongst us?’
The student had noticed the rapid change and expression of Sainte-Croix’s countenance.
‘No, no—you are mistaken,’ said Gaudin. ‘I am slightly acquainted with the lady. I served with her husband.’
‘Jean Blacquart,’ said Glazer, with much solemnity, to the scholar who had last spoken, ‘if you interrupt the conversation again, I shall let out your Gascon blood with the cook’s spit, and then drop you into the Bièvre. Remember it runs underneath the window.’
The Gascon—for so he was—was immediately silent.
‘The Captain Gaudin cannot know less of La Brinvilliers than I do,’ continued Theria, ‘save by report, as a charitable and spirited lady. I met her at mass a fortnight since, at the Jacobins in the Rue St. Honoré, and escorted her from a tumult that rose in the church. I might have improved on my acquaintance had that senseless Blacquart permitted me.’
The scholars looked towards Blacquart, and simultaneously broke into the same kind of noise they would have made in chasing an animal from the room. The Gascon was evidently the butt of the society.
‘Explain!’ cried several to Theria. ‘What was the tumult owing to?’
‘A woman, of course,’ answered Camille. ‘You know La Duménil?’
‘Proceed, proceed,’ exclaimed the others. The name was apparently well known amongst the scholars.
‘Well—her lackey stumbled against the chair on which Madame de la Beaume was kneeling, and got a box on the ears from the latter for his stupidity, that rang all through the church. La Duménil took part with her servant, and soundly abused the other, to which La Beaume replied as heartily, and the service was stopped.’
‘The quarrel must have been amusing,’ observed Glazer.
‘Ventrebleu!the women in thehallesand markets would have turned pale at their salutations. At last La Duménil threw a missal at her opponent’s head, which well-nigh brought her to the ground. The people collected about them, and Madame de Brinvilliers was nearly crushed by the crowd, when I rescued her and led her to the porch.’
‘And what said she, Camille?’ inquired Glazer.
‘She was thanking me earnestly, and might have expressed something more, when that no-witted Blacquart spoilt everything by calling me back again. In his Gascon chivalry to defend La Beaume he had drawn his sword against Duménil.’
‘I think that was somewhat courageous though,’ returned Glazer with mock approbation. ‘Did you really do this, Jean?’
‘On my faith I did,’ answered the Gascon, brightening up; ‘and would do it again. I should like to see the woman in Paris that I am afraid of.’
A roar of applause greeted Blacquart’s heroism, and the attention of the party was immediately turned towards the Gascon, to the great relief of Sainte-Croix, who during the anecdote had been ill at ease. He could have added that he had himself escorted the marchioness from the Jacobins when Theria was recalled.
‘I propose,’ cried Camille, ‘that, for his bravery, Jean Blacquart be invested with the ancient Order of Montfauçon.’
‘Agreed,’ cried the others, rising and surrounding the Gascon, whose countenance betrayed a mixed expression of self-conceit and apprehension.
‘Ho, messire!’ exclaimed Theria to Lachaussée, who had remained all the time sitting near the fire; ‘we appoint you Master of the Halter. Take it, and tie it round that beam.’
He threw a cord to Sainte-Croix’s attendant as he spoke, who fastened it to the point indicated, with its running noose hanging down.
‘What are you going to do?’ demanded Blacquart, getting somewhat terrified.
‘To hang you,’ replied Camille: ‘but only for a little time. Glazer and myself will mind your pulse carefully; and when you are nearly dead you may depend upon it that we shall cut you down.’
‘But—I say—Theria—Philippe!’ cried Jean in an agony of fright. He had witnessed so many of their wild pranks that he did not know what they were about to do.
‘Père Camus,’ cried the master of the Gens de la Courte Épée to one of the party bearing a costume of the church—a broken-down and dissipated abbe. ‘Père Camus, chant a mass for the departing courage of Jean Blacquart.’
‘Au secours!’ shrieked the Gascon; ‘au feu! aux voleurs! au——’
His further cries for help were cut short by one of the scholars thrusting a baked apple into his mouth, and immediately tying his scarf over it. The miserable little Gascon was directly seized and hoisted on to the table, in spite of his violent struggles; whilst the abbe commenced a profane chant, intended as a parody upon some religious service.
Where their frolic might have ended cannot be defined. The consequences of the orgies in the time of Louis XIV., in every position of life, were little cared for; and the unhappy Jean might have been strangled by accident with very little compunction, had not a violent knocking at the door alarmed the revellers, and caused them to desist for the minute from their lawless proceedings. A silence ensued, unbroken except by the efforts of the Gascon to release himself, in the course of which he kicked the flagons and goblets about in all directions.
‘Open to the Garde Bourgeois!’ cried a voice outside.
There was no resisting the command. The host unbarred the door, and a little pursy man, who looked like a perambulating triumphal car of apoplexy, entered the cabaret.
‘Master Poncelet,’ he said to the host, as he shook his head, until his face was a deep crimson; ‘this is against the law, and I must look to it, as answerable for the morality of the faubourgs. We cannot allow this brawling four hours after curfew—we cannot allow it.’
‘If you had come two minutes later,’ said Blacquart, as he forced himself from his tormentors, ‘you would have seen me a——’
Under what guise the Garde Bourgeois would have seen Jean Blacquart was never made known to him. A back-handed blow from Theria overturned the Gascon into the corner of the room, from whence he did not care to arise, not knowing what reception might next await him.
‘Maître Picard,’ said the host with respect, addressing the patrol; ‘these are learned clerks—scholars of Mazarin and of Cluny; with some from the Hôtel Dieu. They seek the faubourgs for quiet and study.’
‘I cannot help it, Master Poncelet,’ replied the bourgeois; ‘the morality of St. Marcel requires the utmost vigilance of its superintendents. Messieurs, you must respect my authority, and put out all the lights directly.’
‘Call in your guard to do it,’ said Philippe Glazer; ‘we are not lackeys.’
‘My guard is now going round the Rue du Puits qui Parle,’ replied the bourgeois, ‘wherein is much evil congregated. I am here. Our good king Louis is The State. I am The Guard.’
‘Thank you—thank you, Maître Picard,’ said Theria. ‘I respect you, although you made me a cap last year of a villainous fabric, and told me that it was the best cloth of Louvain; you forgot I breathed my first gasp of air in Brabant. And you are sure that the guard cannot put out our lights?’
‘I have told you they are not near us,’ said the bourgeois, offended at being obliged to repeat the intelligence.
‘Excellent!’ observed Theria. ‘Philippe, close the door, and let Maître Picard take us all into custody.’
Glazer immediately obeyed the command of their chairman, whilst the others huddled round the luckless little bourgeois, who began to feel remarkably uncomfortable.
‘Respite the Gascon and hang Maître Picard in his stead, by his heels,’ said Theria.
‘I give you all warning!’ cried Picard; ‘I give you all warning! I am aquartenierand can punish you all. Keep your hands away!’
Sainte-Croix, at the first appearance of the bourgeois, had thrown his cloak over his shoulders, not wishing to be recognised in his military dress, and had retreated with Lachaussée into a corner of the room, whither Maître Picard followed him with an appealing glance, noting that his appearance was somewhat more respectable than that of the scholars.
‘I tell you, you do this at your peril,’ screamed Picard. ‘The police show no mercy to the vagabonds andmauvais garçonswho maltreat an enlightened bourgeois.’
‘We thank you for the hint,’ said Theria. ‘Ho!mes enfants; in consideration of Maître Picard’s enlightenment we incline to mercy and utility. Let us hang him before the door, and save our host’s candles. La Reinie never thought of so grand an illumination as an enlightened bourgeois.’
‘Agreed!’ cried the scholars. ‘A la lanterne! à la lanterne!’
img_04.jpgThe Students Enlightening Maître Picard
The Students Enlightening Maître Picard
Thecry had not the terrible meaning which it carried a century afterwards, but it was sufficiently mischievous to offer but little relief to Maître Picard. In an instant he was borne off his legs, and hoisted on the shoulders of the scholars; whilst Philippe Glazer thrust a link into the fire, and when it was kindled preceded the procession to the door. Some of his companions dragged out a table and a chair, in spite of the rain, into the street; and forming a kind of scaffold they rapidly took down the lantern and perched Maître Picard, link in hand, upon its iron support, directly removing every means of escape from beneath him.
The poor little bourgeois was in a lamentable position. The ironwork of the lamp was anything but trustworthy; and, albeit a man of small stature, he was heavily inclined. With one hand he grasped his unenviable seat and with the other he sustained the link, not daring to put it out, for fear of some new infliction that his tormentors might invent.
‘Salut!Maître Picard,’ cried Theria, doffing his bonnet. ‘Who arrested Jean Sauval, at the Sorbonne, for taking the cloak from Bussi-Rabuten on the Pont Neuf?’
‘Filou!’ cried the bourgeois.
‘Who pointed out to the watch where François de Chanvalon, the archbishop, went, instead of to Notre Dame?Salut, bourgeois!’ cried Philippe Glazer, with another pretended obeisance.
And then the scholars joined their hands, and performed a wild dance around him.
‘Stay awhile, stay awhile!’ exclaimed Maître Picard. ‘Now you shall see what I can do. Here comes theGuet Royal.Aux voleurs! aux voleurs!!’
The little man was right. From his elevated position he had seen the guard with their lights turning round the corner of the Rue Mouffetard, and he now hailed them with all the force of his lungs, kicking his legs in nervous anxiety until one of his shoes fell off upon Glazer’s head, who directly returned it, flinging it at the little man with a force that almost upset him from his treacherous position.
The scholars instantly took the alarm (for some of the mounted guard were riding down the street), and fled in all directions along the narrow and dark outlets of the Faubourg St. Marcel. Lachaussée, who, with Sainte-Croix, had been a spectator of the scene, seized the officer by the arm and drew him into the house.
‘It will not do for you to be found here, monsieur,’ he said; ‘follow me—we can get off by the Bièvre.’
He closed the door after them, and telling the host not to admit the guard, but let them break in if they chose, passed through the room lately occupied by the scholars, and throwing open the window, stepped out upon the bank of the Bièvre—a small stream running from the south, which flows into the Seine a little above the present Pont d’Austerlitz by the Jardin des Plantes. It was now swollen with the rains, and was rushing angrily by the narrow path, along which Lachaussée led the way, having once more closed the window.
They crept along, clinging like bats to the walls of the houses that bordered the stream, at the risk of falling into it every minute, until Lachaussée stopped at a small gate, to which he applied a pass-key. It opened, and Sainte-Croix found himself in an outer court of the Gobelins. This they crossed, and were immediately afterwards in one of the apartments apportioned to the superintendents.
Lachaussée raked together some embers on the hearth, which he soon blew into a flame, and then lighted a lamp; whilst Sainte-Croix once more threw off his cloak and took his place on one of the settles.
‘So,’ he exclaimed, ‘we are once more housed. Your night’s adventure is so far to be considered fortunate, as I might have looked for you long enough here, it seems.’
‘The purse of the Marquis wanted replenishing,’ replied Lachaussée in an easy tone. ‘You did not let me know you were coming, or I might have stayed at home.’
‘I am chilled and wearied,’ said Sainte-Croix; ‘have you no wine?’
‘Better than ever paid duty in the city,’ said Lachaussée, producing a bottle from a closet. ‘They watch the town, but forget the river.’
‘That is right good Burgundy,’ observed Sainte-Croix, as he tasted it.
‘The best that the vineyards of Auxerre can produce. One needs it in such a dismal outskirt, Heaven knows!’
‘Your position might be worse.’
‘It might be much better,’ returned Lachaussée carelessly. ‘I am glad you have come. I spoke to the Marquis about entering his service, for I am somewhat weary of the faubourgs; and he referred me to you. You do not want a character, I presume, or a reference?’
He gave out these words full of meaning, and looked earnestly at Sainte-Croix as he uttered them.
‘You will remain here during my pleasure,’ replied the other, refilling his glass.
‘And suppose it wearies me?’
‘I shall tell you a story to amuse you and beguile the time,’ Gaudin answered. ‘But possibly you know it: it relates to an event that occurred some three years back at Milan.’
Lachaussée was pouring out some wine for himself. He placed the cup down on the table, and regarded Sainte-Croix with a look of mingled fear and mistrust. Gaudin cast his eye round, and perceiving that the attention of the other was arrested, continued—
‘There were two soldiers staying at the Croce Bianca: one was an officer in the French service, the other a renegade who turned his back upon the Fronde with the Prince de Condé; went with him into Spain to take up arms against his own country; and then, when the chances turned, deserted again and joined the French army. He must have been a double knave. What think you?’
Lachaussée gave no answer. He moved his lips in reply, but no sound escaped them.
‘The resources of these two were nearly exhausted,’ resumed Sainte-Croix—‘for they led a gallant life, when a French nobleman, rich and young, arrived at Milan. He was courted, feted, in all circles; and he became introduced to the officer and his companion. They marked him for their prey; and one night, at the gaming-table, carried off a large sum of money, offering the noble his revenge on the following evening at the Croce Bianca. He embraced the chance, and came alone; fortune once more patronised him, and he gained back, not merely what he had lost, but every sou the others possessed in the world.
‘There was a grand festival that evening given by one of the Borromeo family, and the officer departed to it, leaving the renegade and the nobleman still playing. In the middle of the fete, a mask approached the officer and slipped a letter into his hand, immediately quitting the assembly.’
Sainte-Croix took a small pouncet-box from his breast, and opened it. He then unfolded a scrap of paper, and continued—
‘It read as follows: “Exili’s potion has done its work. I have started with everything to the frontier. Do not return to the Croce Bianca until after daybreak.” The officer followed the advice; and when he went back to the inn the noble had been found dead in the room, with an empty phial of the terrible “Manna of St. Nicholas de Barri”2clutched in his hand. He was presumed to have committed suicide, and the crime was in twenty-four hours hidden by the grave. The officer soon afterwards left Milan and joined the other in Paris. His name was Gaudin de Sainte-Croix; the renegade and real murderer was called Lachaussée.’
‘What is the use of thus recalling all that has long past?’ said Lachaussée, who, during Gaudin’s story, had recovered his composure. ‘The same blow that strikes one, must hurl the other as well to damnation. Exili, who is known to be in Paris, could crush us both.’
‘Exili has been this night conveyed to the Bastille by alettre de cachet,’ replied Sainte-Croix; ‘and this small piece of writing is enough to send you to join him. You were grumbling at your position: a subterranean cell in St. Antoine is less pleasant than this room at the Gobelins.’
‘I am as much at your disposal as at your mercy,’ returned Lachaussée, swallowing down a large draught of wine. ‘What next do you require of me?’
‘No very unpleasant task,’ said Sainte-Croix. ‘It regards a woman, young, and fair enough, in all conscience. She has been working here, it seems, until a very short period since. Have you the name of Louise Gauthier amongst the artists of your ateliers?’
‘Surely,’ replied Lachaussée; ‘a haughty minx enough. She left a day or two back, displeased with my attention; at least, she said so. I know not where she is gone.’
A spasm crossed the features of Sainte-Croix during this speech of the superintendent, as he eyed him with an expression of contempt, amounting to disgust: but this passed, and he continued—
‘I can tell you: she is staying at the boat-mill below the Pont Notre Dame. You must go to-morrow and ascertain if she is still there. In the event of finding her, contrive so that she may be under your control; place her in some situation where she can never see me, or follow me, again. Do you understand?’
‘Perfectly,’ returned Lachaussée; ‘though mine would not be the advice she would the soonest follow.’
And then he added, as he regarded Sainte-Croix with a piercing look—
‘You have sent Exili to the Bastille. He might have aided us.’
‘No more!’ cried Sainte-Croix, as he perceived the meaning of the other. ‘No more! I must be freed from her annoyance. Other prospects are opening to me, which her presence would cloud and destroy—but remember, you will be held answerable for the slightest injury that may affect her. If you want money, you have only to apply to me for it; but, by Heaven! if every sou of what you draw is not appropriated to her sole use, your life shall answer for it. Am I understood?’
‘You may count upon me,’ answered Lachaussée. ‘She shall never trouble you more. I believe the girl is entirely destitute. Perhaps she may look upon me with more favour when she finds how utterly dependent she will be upon my liberality.’
‘I shall not return to the Rue des Bernardins to-night,’ said Sainte-Croix. ‘You must accommodate me here, and to-morrow we will leave together on our separate missions.’
There was a small apartment opening from the chamber wherein this conversation had taken place, to which Lachaussée conducted his companion. In the corner was a truckle bed, without furniture. Gaudin threw his cloak upon it; and ordering the other to bring in the embers from the fire-place, and place them upon the hearth, closed the door as the task was finished, and prepared to retire to rest. He merely took off his upper garments, and then lay carelessly down upon the rude couch, placing his sword and pistols within his grasp upon a chair by the side. He heard the steps of Lachaussée retiring, and then all was still as the grave. The cold air of the room rushed up the chimney and fanned thebraiseinto a light flame, which threw the mouldings of the room in flitting and grotesque shadows upon the walls and ceiling. As slumber came upon him, these assumed regular forms in his fevered imagination. He fancied Exili and Lachaussée appeared, and were dragging him down into a gulf, when Louise Gauthier stretched out her arm, and they could not pass her; and then another female, almost equally young and beautiful, with a countenance that was ever before him, sleeping and waking, in the rich apparel of a grand lady, drew him away from the rest, and told him to escape with her. He attempted to fly, but his feet were riveted to the ground, and the others were already in pursuit. They came nearer and nearer, and were about to lay hands on him once more, when in his agony he awoke, and starting up on the bed glared wildly about the room. By the light of the declining embers he perceived some one moving in the chamber, and in the alarmed voice of a person suddenly aroused from a frightful dream he challenged the intruder.
‘It is I, Lachaussée,’ cried the superintendent, for it was he. ‘I—I came to see what you wanted. You have been moaning bitterly in your sleep; I knew not what might happen to you.’
‘It was nothing,’ returned Gaudin. ‘I have drunk deeply this evening, and my sleep is fevered and troubled. Get you to bed yourself, and do not enter this room again except I summon you.’
Lachaussée departed without a word; and, as soon as he was gone, Sainte-Croix moved the bed from the wall and placed its foot against the door; he then once more lay down, but not for sleep. Every night-noise caused him to start up and listen anxiously for some minutes, in the apprehension that the treachery of Lachaussée might once more bring him to the room.
Daylight came slowly through the window, and the sound of the early artisans assembling in the court-yards for their work was heard below, when he at last sank into a deep and unbroken morning slumber.
Therewas plenty to occupy the gossips the morning after the events of the preceding chapters, in the good city of Paris. The capture of Exili, with all the additions and exaggerations that word of mouth could promulgate, formed the only topic of conversation; nothing else was canvassed by the little knots of idlers who collected at the corners of the Pont Neuf and on the quays.
There were few newspapers then to spread their simultaneous intelligence over the city. The first important journal, established under the auspices of Colbert, as yet appealed to a very limited number of the citizens beyond the scientific, and those interested in manufacturing and commercial improvements. There was a weekly paper, to be sure, from which the eager populace might have gained some news, had the occurrences come within the range of its time of publication; and the subject would have been dilated upon with especial care, for its originator was a physician. Le Docteur Renaudot had found, as the medical men of the present day are aware, that a knowledge of the current events of the time was thought as much of in a physician, by his patients, as a knowledge of his profession; and so he cultivated its acquisition to his great profit. But when a healthy season came, and he had less to do and talk about, it struck him that some advantage might accrue from distributing his news generally, in a printed form. He did so; the plan succeeded; and to this circumstance is the origin of the French press to be traced.
But all news connected with assaults and offences found a loquacious Mercury in every member of the Garde Bourgeois. Not one who had assisted, on the antecedent evening, at the capture of Exili omitted to take all the credit to himself, as he babbled to a crowd of gasping auditors from his shop-window. Maître Picard, who had arrived, boiling over with indignation, at the office of the Prévôt in the Châtelet, found even his complaint against the scholars overlooked, in the more important excitement. The exposition of the horrible means, so long suspected, by which the Italian gained his living, and the strange death of thechevalier du guetby the poisoned atmosphere of the chamber, absorbed all other attention.
And well indeed it might. The frightful effects of the ‘Acquetta di Napoli,’ to which rumour had assigned the power of causing death at any determinate period, after weeks, months, or even years of atrophy and wasting agony,—this terrible fluid, tasteless, inodorous, colourless,—so facile in its administration, and so impossible to be detected, had been for half a century the dread of southern Europe. Once administered, there was no hope for the sufferer, except in a few antidotes, the secret of which appeared to rest with the poisoners alone. A certain indescribable change crept on; a nameless feeling of indisposition, as the powers of life gradually sank beneath the influence of its venom, but one that offered no clue whereby the most perceptive physician could ascertain the seat of evil or the principal organ affected. Then came anxiety and weariness; the spirits broke down, hope departed, and a constant gnawing pain, that appeared to run in liquid torment through all the arteries of the body, passing even by the capillaries, to bring fresh pain and poisoned vital fluid to the heart, left the helpless victim without ease or slumber; and as time advanced, in misery and anguish that evaded every remedy, so did the poison fasten itself deeper and deadlier on the system, until the last stage of its effects arrived, and life departed in a manner too horrible to describe.
Respecting this fearful scourge little technical information that is left can be relied upon. It appears to have been a preparation of arsenic; and, if this be true, the ignorance of the age might have allowed the deadly metal to pass undetected by analysis; but, as we have before stated, toxicology is now more certain in its researches after hidden poison, and in this deadly drug especially. The merest trace of it, in whatever form it may be administered, even when to the eye of the vulgar affording no more attributes than pure water for analysis, can be reduced to its mineral state. The grave itself refuses to conceal the crime; and the poison has the remarkable property of embalming the body, as it were, and by its antiseptic virtue giving back the vital organs to the light of day, should exhumation be required, in such a state as to place all matter of detecting its presence beyond the slightest doubt, even in the quantity of the most minute atom.
It was about the shop of Maître Glazer, the apothecary, in the Place Maubert, at the river boundary of the Quartier Latin, that the principal collection of gossipers clustered all day long. He had acquired some renown in Paris for compounding and vending antidotes to the dreaded poisons: and it was reported that his unhappy assistant, Panurge, as he was nicknamed by the acquaintances of the apothecary—albeit his real name was Martin—was the subject of all his experiments. Panurge was a tall, spare creature, whose skeleton appeared to be composed of nothing but large joints, and chiefly resembled his predecessor of the same name in being a wonderful coward as well as boaster; and herein he closely assimilated in his nature to the Gascon scholar, Blacquart. And when the latter sometimes accompanied his master’s son, Philippe Glazer, to the house, these two would outlie one another in a marvellous manner, until they had well-nigh quarrelled and fought, but for very cowardice.
On the evening subsequent to the events of the last chapter, Maître Glazer was holding forth to a crowd of anxious auditors, even until after dark; whilst his man was busied in distilling some water of rare merit in all diseases. His shop had never held a larger meeting. It was known by the sign ‘Au Basilisk,’ and had the ‘effigies’ of that fabulous serpent painted over the door, done from the book of Ambrose Paré, which formed his entire medical library.
‘Look you, Maître Glazer,’ said a bystander; ‘though Exili be taken, we are none of us yet sure of our lives. For are there not devil’s drinks of Italy that will kill at any certain and definite time?’
‘Theophrastus thus answers that question,’ replied Glazer, giving his authority first, that his statement might have more weight. ‘Of poisons some more speedily perform their parts, others more slowly; yet you may find no such as will kill in set limits of time. And when one hath lingered long, then hath he been fed little by little, and so tenderly nursed, as it were, into his grave.’
‘I have felt ill long,’ said a portly bourgeois. ‘Pray heaven I am not fed with poison in such manner! How may I avoid it?’
‘By ceasing to eat, Michel,’ replied Maître Glazer. ‘Yet there are other methods of killing, which no man may combat but with antidotes on their effects being known. Pope Clement, the seventh of that name, and uncle to the mother of one of our kings, was poisoned by the fume of a medicated torch carried before him, and died thereof; and Mathiolus tells us that there were two mountebanks in the market-place of Sienna, the one of which, but smelling to a poisoned gillyflower given him by the other, presently fell down dead.’
‘And a certain man not long ago,’ said Panurge, ‘when he had put his nose and smelled a little unto a pomander which was secretly poisoned, did presently swell so that he almost filled the room, and would have died, but I gave him an antidote. Then he shrunk rapidly, and went on his way healed.’
There was an expression of disbelief amongst the crowd, and a young artisan laughed aloud derisively; at which Panurge inquired bravely ‘Who it was?’
But when the artisan said it was himself, the ire of Panurge relaxed; and he said, if it had been any one else he should have taken up the affront warmly. And then, on a reproving sign from Maître Glazer, he continued his work.
The evening soon warned the last of the talkers home, after Maître Glazer had held forth for some time longer on his favourite theme. When the latest idler had departed, Panurge closed the shop, and they retired into the small apartment behind for supper.
The shop was at the corner of theporte-cochèreleading to the court-yard, and one window looked upon the passage, so that everybody who passed to the other apartments of the house could be seen. The meal was soon arranged by the concierge of the establishment—for Maître Glazer was a widower—and he sat down with his assistant to enjoy it.
‘Has my boy come back?’ asked the apothecary, as they took their places.
‘I have not seen him,’ replied Panurge. ‘His neighbour Theria, the Brabantian, is at home though, for there is a light in his window high up.’
‘They are great friends of Philippe’s,’ said Maître Glazer; ‘both Theria and his wife—a modest, well-favoured body.’
‘Mère Jobert says it is not his wife,’ replied the assistant; ‘but merely a grisette of the city. Oh, the corrupt state of Paris!’
‘She is outwardly well-behaved, and of mild manners,’ returned the apothecary; ‘and we wish to know no further. There is more vice at court than in thatmansarde, which is approved of by the world.’
‘Theria does not like her to see much of me,’ said Panurge, conceitedly smoothing three or four hairs that straggled about his chin, where his beard ought to have been.
‘Why not—for fear you should frighten her?’
‘Frighten her! by the mass, it is far otherwise,’ answered the assistant. ‘There are not many gallants in Paris who have been so favoured as myself, or can show such a leg.’
He stretched out the bony limb, and was gazing at it in admiration when the attention of the apothecary was drawn off from some sharp reply he was about to make to Panurge’s vanity, by a hurried tap at the door—a side one leading into the court. The rhapsodies of Panurge were stopped short, and he rose to let in the supposed patient—for there was small chance of its being any one else at that hour.
As he opened the door, a female entered hurriedly, and threw off a common cloak—one such as those worn in winter by the sisters of the hospitals. She was a young and handsome woman, in reality about thirty years of age, but her countenance bore an expression of girlish simplicity and freshness which rather belonged to nineteen. Her eyes were blue and lustrous; her hair, dark chestnut, arranged in curls, according to the fashion of the period, on each side of her white expansive forehead; and her parted lips, as she breathed rapidly from hurry or agitation, disclosed a row of teeth singularly perfect and beautiful. One might have looked long amidst the fair dames of Paris to have found features similarly soft and confiding in their aspect; the nose, which wasretroussé, alone giving an expression—but a very slight one—of coquetry. Her figure was under the middle size, delicate and perfect in its contour; and, but for the mantle which she had worn over her other handsome apparel, a spectator would have wondered at seeing one so gentle in the streets of Paris by herself after dark, and during one of the most licentious epochs of French history. As Maître Glazer recognised his visitor, he rose and saluted her respectfully, with a reverence due to her rank; for it was Marie-Marguerite d’Aubray, Marchioness of Brinvilliers.
‘I am paying you a late visit to-night, Maître Glazer,’ she said laughingly; ‘it is lucky your assistant is here, or we might furnish scandal for our good city of Paris.’
‘Your reputation would be safe with so old a man as myself, madame,’ replied the apothecary; ‘even with your most bitter enemy. Is M. the Marquis well?’
‘Quite well, Maître Glazer, I thank you. As to my enemy, I hope I cannot reckon even one.’
‘Report is never idle now, madame; but you have little to dread; few have your enviable name.’
The Marchioness fixed her bright eyes on Glazer as she bowed in reply to the old man’s speech, allowing a smile of great sweetness to play over her fair face.
‘Is your son Philippe at home?’ she continued. ‘I wished to inquire after some of our charges at the Hôtel Dieu.’
‘I was asking but just now. There is a light with his friend Theria.’
‘I will go over to hisétageand see,’ replied the lady. ‘We are old friends, you know; he will not mind my intrusion.’
She gathered the cloak once more around her, and then, with another silvery laugh, nodded kindly to Glazer and Panurge, and tripped across the court, leaving the apothecary and his assistant to finish their meal.
‘An excellent lady,’ said Glazer, as she left; ‘good and charitable. Would we had many more in Paris like her! And she has hard work, too, at the hospitals at present, as Philippe tells me; some evil demon seems to breathe a lingering sickness into her patients’ frames the minute she takes them under her devoted care.’
Panurge spoke but little, contenting himself with gradually clearing everything digestible that was upon the table; and at last the heavy curfew betokened to Maître Glazer that his usual hour of retiring for the night had arrived. The old man, preceded by his assistant with a lamp, made a careful survey of his establishment, putting out the remnant of fire in his laboratory, and Panurge prepared his couch, which was a species of berth under the counter. From their occupation they were both startled by a second knocking at the door, hurried and violent; and, on challenging the new-comer, a voice without inquired, ‘if Philippe had come in?’
‘My son seems in request to-night,’ said Glazer. ‘That should be the Chevalier de Sainte-Croix’s voice.’
‘You are right, Maître,’ cried Gaudin without, for it was he. ‘Do not disturb yourself. Shall I find your son in his apartment?’
‘I cannot say, monsieur. Madame de Brinvilliers asked the same question but a few minutes since.’
‘She is here, then?’ asked Sainte-Croix with an eagerness that betokened the Marchioness was chiefly concerned in his visit.
‘She crossed the court just now, and has scarcely had time to return.’
‘Enough, Maître Glazer,’ replied Sainte-Croix. ‘I am sorry to have disturbed you. Good-night!’
Without waiting for a return of the salutation, Gaudin left the door and hurried along the archway towards the staircase, evidently impelled by no ordinary excitement. He had called that evening upon Madame de Brinvilliers, at her hotel in the Rue des Cordeliers, to seek an interview with her upon the subject of her acquaintance made with Theria at the Jacobins, which since last evening had been rankling in his heart. For some of the busy tongues of Paris had long whispered of a liaison that passed the bounds of friendship, between Gaudin and the Marchioness; nor were the reports unfounded. Sainte-Croix was madly, deeply devoted to her; but jealous at the same time, to a point which rendered every word or look that she bestowed upon another a source of raging torture to his mind. He found the Marchioness had left word with herfemme de chambrethat she had gone to see Philippe Glazer respecting her hospital patients, whom she was accustomed to serve as asainte fille; and, knowing that Theria occupied the same flat with the young student, his suspicions were immediately aroused. She had, beyond doubt, made an appointment with him.
With his brain on fire he left the hotel; and rapidly threading the dark and wretched streets that led to the Place Maubert, rather by instinct than the slightest attention to the localities, he reached theporte-cochèreby the side of Glazer’s shop. Here he gained the information just alluded to, and immediately proceeded to the floor on which the rooms of the scholars were placed, flying up the stairs three and four at a time, until he came to the landing. There was no light in Glazer’s chamber; he listened, and all was quiet; he was evidently not within. But from Theria’s he thought he heard the murmur of voices proceeding, mingled now and then with light laughter which he recognised; whose sound made his blood boil again. He seized the handle of thesonnetteand pulled it violently. In less than half a minute, during which time he was chafing up and down the landing like an infuriated animal, the summons was answered. A small window in the wall was opened, and a female face appeared at it—that of a young and tolerably good-looking woman, apparently belonging to the class of grisettes.
‘Is Camille within?’ asked Sainte-Croix, with an assumption of intimacy with Theria.
An answer was given in the negative.
‘The Marchioness of Brinvilliers is here, I believe?’ continued Gaudin. And, without waiting for a reply, he added, ‘Will you tell her she is wanted on most pressing business?’
The woman retired and closed the window. Immediately afterwards he heard footsteps approaching; the outer door opened, and Madame de Brinvilliers appeared.
A stifled scream of fear and surprise, yet sufficiently intense to show her emotion at the presence of Gaudin, broke from her lips as she recognised him. But, directly, she recovered her impassibility of features—that wonderful calmness and innocent expression which afterwards was so severely put to the proof without being shaken—and asked, with apparent unconcern—
‘Well, monsieur, what do you want with me?’
‘Marie!’ exclaimed Gaudin; ‘let me ask your businesshere, at this hour, unattended, and in the apartment of a scholar of the Hôtel Dieu?’
‘You are mad, Sainte-Croix,’ said the Marchioness; ‘am I to be accountable to you for all my actions? M. Theria is not here, and I came to see his wife on my own affairs.’
‘Liar!’ cried Gaudin, as he quivered with jealous rage, seizing the arm of the Marchioness with a clutch of iron. ‘Theria is within, and you came to meet him only. You know that woman is not his wife; though many there be less constant. You would wean his love from her, and make him cast her upon the world, that you might be installed as his paramour. You see, I know all—in another moment she also shall be acquainted with everything.’
Sainte-Croix had spoken much of this upon mere chance, but it proved to be correct. In an instant the accustomed firmness of the Marchioness deserted her, and she fell upon her knees at his feet, on the cold, damp floor of the landing.
‘In the name of mercy, leave this house, Gaudin!’ she exclaimed hurriedly. ‘I have been very, very wrong. I confess I ought to have been more candid. But leave this house—on my bended knees I implore it. I will explain everything.’
‘I shall not stir, Marie,’ replied Sainte-Croix; and through all his excitement a sarcastic smile played upon his lip as he saw the trembling woman at his feet. ‘The tumult of this interview will reach your new favourite’s ears; possibly the police of to-morrow will exhibit strange prisoners.’
In an agony of terror the Marchioness clung to Sainte-Croix and again besought him to depart. But Gaudin saw, as she quailed before his determined aspect, that he had gained a temporary triumph over her haughty disposition; and he enjoyed her distress in proportion as it increased.
‘Gaudin!’ she cried; ‘pray, pray quit this place. I will do