As he spoke he stepped towards the door communicating with the landing-place, as if to carry his threat into execution. Marie laid her hand upon his arm.
‘Do not go in, Gaudin,’ she said; ‘there will be bloodshed. He is surrounded by his friends and neighbours. You will be murdered!’
‘I care not,’ exclaimed Sainte-Croix, ‘I shall not fall alone,’ and he pressed on towards the door.
‘There is another way,’ said Marie, as she pointed to the casket which still stood on her table. ‘This.’
Sainte-Croix gazed at her with a gloomy and meaning smile. ‘This time,’ he said, ‘the suggestion is yours. Be it so: there will be no blood spilled, at all events; and we may rid ourselves of one who, whilst he lives, must ever be a serpent in our path. Is Henri with him?’
‘He is,’ answered Marie.
‘There is enough for two,’ muttered Sainte-Croix, who had taken a phial from its compartment, and was holding it up to the light of the candle.
‘Must Henri die too?’ said the Marchioness. ‘He is so young—so gay—has been so kind to me. We were almost playmates.’
And a trace of emotion passed over her brow.
‘Both or neither,’ replied Sainte-Croix; ‘decide at once. I shall await your determination.’
And he seated himself at the table, coolly humming the burden of achanson à boire.
There was a fearful struggle in Marie’s mind. But the fiend triumphed, and no agitation was perceptible in her voice when, after a moment’s reflection, she replied, ‘Both.’
‘Now for an agent in the work. You cannot trust any of your own domestics. I foresaw something like this, and have brought my instrument,’ said Gaudin. He rose, and drawing aside the curtain beckoned from the window. The signal was answered by a cough from below, and followed by the appearance of Lachaussée, who had evidently expected the summons. He clumsily greeted the Marchioness, and dropping his hat awaited Gaudin’s orders.
‘Let Françoise find a livery of your brothers’ people, and give it to this honest fellow, Marie,’ said Sainte-Croix.
Marie went to give the order, and Gaudin developed his plan briefly, but clearly, to Lachaussée. It was, to mix with the attendants at the carouse, furnished with the phial, which Sainte-Croix took from the box and gave him; then, watching his opportunity, he was to mix a few drops of its contents with the wine of the brothers. Assuming the dress which Françoise soon brought, Lachaussée left the apartment, leaving Sainte-Croix and the Marchioness to await the result.
The room in which François and Henri d’Aubray with their country friends were assembled was large and handsome. Lights sparkled upon the table, and played brilliantly among the flasks, cups, and salvers which covered it, in all the rich profusion of one of those luxurious suppers, which, although not carried to perfection until the subsequent reign, were already admirably organised, and most popular among the gay youth of the Parisian noblesse.
François d’Aubray was seated at the head of a long table; his stern and somewhat sullen features contrasting strongly with the boyish and regular face of his younger brother Henri, who sat on his right. The company consisted almost entirely of provincial aristocracy—those whose estates joined that of D’Aubray at Offemont, in Compiègne. There was more of splendour than taste in their costumes; the wit was coarser, too, and the laughter louder than Parisian good-breeding would have sanctioned.
‘And so you have run down your game at last,’ said the Marquis of Villeaume, one of the guests, to François.
‘Yes—thanks to Desgrais,’ was the reply. ‘Sainte-Croix is at this moment in the hands of the lieutenant-civil, and, if I know aught of his affairs, he will not soon reappear to trouble the peace of our family.’
‘Mon dieu!François, you are too severe,’ gaily interrupted Henri. ‘Gaudin de Sainte-Croix is abon garçon, after all; and I am half inclined to quarrel with you for tracking him down as if he were a paltry bourgeois.’
‘Henri,’ said François, turning sharply towards him; ‘no more of this. Our sisters honour must not be lightly dealt with. Sainte-Croix is a villain, and deserves a villain’s doom.’
‘A truce to family grievances!’ roared a red-faced Baron, heavily booted and spurred; one of those Nimrods who were quite as ridiculous, and much more numerous in the France of Louis Quatorze, than their imitators of the ‘Jockey Club’ of the present day. ‘Debtor-hunting is a bourgeois sport compared to stag-hunting, after all; the only amusement for young gentlemen.’
‘Where is Antoine Brinvilliers?’ asked another guest of François. ‘He ought to be very grateful to you, for your care of Madame la Marquise’s reputation.’
‘Once for all, messieurs,’ said François, who turned crimson at the implied taunt: ‘no more words of our sister, or our family concerns, or harm may come of it.’
‘A toast!’ cried Henri, rising. ‘Aux Amours!’
‘In Burgundy!’ roared a chorus of voices. ‘Andles hanapes.’
The large cups so called—heirlooms in the family of D’Aubray, were brought forward by the attendants. Lachaussée had entered the room whilst the conversation we have narrated was in progress; and, taking his place at the buffet, had silently and sedulously officiated amongst the other attendants, without exciting notice. Almost every guest had his servants there, and such was the confusion of liveries that the presence of a strange valet, wearing the Brinvilliers’ colours, was not likely to call forth remark. He it was who, taking a bottle of Burgundy, now stationed himself behind the chair of François, who, mechanically lifting his cup, did not observe that the hand which filled it held a phial, and that some drops of the contents mingled with the wine.
The number ofhanapeswas four, and they were passed from hand to hand. François, after drinking, handed his to Henri, who honoured his own toast like a hardy drinker. As he passed it to De Villeaume, Lachaussée, pretending to reach over him for something, contrived to knock the goblet from his hand and spill its contents. A storm of abuse for his awkwardness was the result, under which he managed to leave the room with as little notice as he had caused by entering it.
Chafed by the wine they had drunk, the mirth of the party waxed wilder and louder. Songs were sung; games at tennis and ombre arranged; bets settled;parties de chassesorganised. The revelry was at its highest pitch, when a series of loud and sudden shrieks was heard from the staircase. It was a woman’s voice that uttered them, and a rush was directly made by the guests in the direction of the sound.
They found Louise Gauthier struggling in the hands of some of the valets on the landing-place. The room into which she had been hurried by the Marchioness had another exit, which was unlocked. This she had soon discovered on regaining her presence of mind, and in attempting to leave thehôtelby it, she had been seen and rudely seized by the servants, who were amused by her terror. To D’Aubray’s guests, flushed as they were with wine, the sight of a woman was a new incentive, and poor Louise would have fared worse at the hands of the masters than of the servants had it not been for the interposition of François d’Aubray, who, pressing through the crowd that surrounded the frightened and fainting girl, bade all stand back in a tone that enforced obedience.
‘Who are you?’ he asked, ‘and what business brings you here?’
‘I am a poor girl; brought here for what reason I know not, by Madame la Marquise, not an hour since,’ replied Louise, reassured by the calmness of his manner, which contrasted strangely with the wildness and recklessness of all around.
‘Mort de ma vie!by Madame la Marquise!’ cried Henri. ‘She is here, then?’
‘We entered together,’ said Louise.
‘Ha!’ exclaimed François, with a savage ferocity, that made him fearful to look upon, ‘she is playing fast and loose with us. On your life, girl, is this the truth?’
‘It is the truth,’ replied Louise.
‘And where is the Marchioness?’ he asked thickly, and in a voice almost inarticulate from passion.
‘In her apartment, when I left her,’ said the Languedocian.
‘Alone?’ asked François.
‘Some one entered the room as I quitted it,’ was the answer.
Francois d’Aubray hardly awaited her reply. Springing like a tiger across the landing-place to the door of Marie’s boudoir he cried—
‘Stand by me, gentlemen, for the honour of Compiègne! De Villeaume! down into the court-yard, and see that no one leaves thehôtelby that way. You, messieurs, guard the issues here. Henri! come you with me.’
And he attempted to pass into his sister’s apartment.
‘Open!’ he roared, rather than shouted,—‘open! harlot! adultress!—open!’
There was no reply. He shook the door, but it was locked within, and resisted his frantic efforts to break it open.
‘By the ante-chamber!’ said Henri, pointing to the open door by which Louise had arrived. François comprehended the direction, although rage had almost mastered his senses. Rapidly the brothers entered, and, passing through the apartment of Louise’s captivity, found the entrance communicating with Marie’s boudoir unfastened. Flinging it open, they rushed into the room.
Marie de Brinvilliers was standing by the fireplace; pale, but calm. By the secret door, which he held open, listening to the steps and voices in the court, stood Sainte-Croix, his sword drawn, his teeth set—a desperate man at bay.
François d’Aubray strode across the room, and with his open hand struck his sister on the face, hissing through his clenched teeth, ‘Fiend!’
Marie uttered no cry, made no motion, though Gaudin, with a terrible oath, sprang forward, and would have run François through the body had not a sign from the Marchioness restrained him.
‘You—you—Sainte-Croix!’ cried Henri, crossing swords immediately with the other, as his brother, stopping short in his progress towards him, reeled, and stumbled against the chimney-piece.
‘Look to your brother,’ said Sainte-Croix, as he put by the furious thrusts of Henri—‘and to yourself,’ he muttered, as with a sudden expert wrench he disarmed him.
Marie crossed to Sainte-Croix. ‘It works!’ she whispered.
‘Henri!’ gasped François, as the froth gathered round his leaden lips, and the cold sweat rose in thick beads upon his forehead, ‘what is this?—Give me some water.’
He made a spring at a glass vase that stood on a bracket near him filled with water; but, as if blinded at the instant, missed his mark, and fell heavily on the floor. His brother raised his arm, and on letting it go sank passively by his side.
‘He is dead!’ exclaimed Henri, as a pallor, far beyond that which horror would have produced, overspread his own features.
‘It is apoplexy!’ said one of the bystanders. ‘In his passion he has ruptured a vessel of the brain.’
The guests crowded round the body. Sainte-Croix and Marie looked at one another as they awaited the pangs of the other victim.
A fewweeks passed, and the terrible events of the last chapter were almost forgotten by the volatile people of Paris, and even by the provincials who had been present at the double tragedy—for Henri d’Aubray had followed his brother, although, from his robust health and strong constitution, he had battled more vigorously against the effects of the poison, his sufferings being prolonged in consequence. It is unnecessary to follow the horrid details of the effect of the Aqua Tofana, or to describe the last agonies, when ‘il se plaignait d’avoir un foyer brûlant dans la poitrine, et la flamme intérieure qui le devorait semblait sortir par les yeux, seule partie de son corps qui demeurât vivante encore, quand le reste n’était déjà plus qu’un cadavre.’ It will suffice to say that no suspicion, as yet, rested upon the murderers. The bodies were examined, in the presence of the first surgeons of Paris, as well as the usual medical attendants of the D’Aubray family; and although everywhere in the system traces of violent organic lesion were apparent, yet none could say whether these things had been produced by other than mere accidental morbid causes. Tests would, as in the present day, have soon detected the presence of the poisons—the more readily as they were mostly mineral that were used—but the secret of these reagents remained almost in the sole possession of those who made them; and the subtlety of some of their toxicological preparations proves that the disciples of Spara were chemists of no mean order.18People wondered for a little while at the coincidence of the several deaths occurring in one family, and in a manner so similar, and then thought no more of the matter. The cemetery received the bodies of the victims; and the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, now her own mistress, and the sole possessor of a magnificent income, shared it openly with Sainte-Croix; and thehôtelin the Rue St. Paul vied with the most celebrated of Paris in the gorgeous luxury of its festivities. But the day of reckoning and heavy retribution was fast approaching.
We have before alluded to the Palais des Thermes—the remains of which ancient edifice may still be seen from the footway of the Rue de la Harpe, between the Rue du Foin and the Rue des Mathurins—as being the most important ruins marking the occupation of Paris by the Romans. The researches of various individuals from time to time have shown that this palace was once of enormous size, extending as far as the small stream of the Seine which flows beneath the Hôtel Dieu; and, indeed, in the cellars of many of the houses, between the present site of the largesalleand the river, pillars and vaulted ways, precisely similar to those in the Rue de la Harpe, have been frequently discovered; added to which, before the demolition of the Petit-Châtelet, a small fortress at the bottom of the Rue St. Jacques, the remains of some ancient walls were visible running towards the Palais from the banks of the Seine.
There weresouterrainsstretching out in many other directions; the whole of the buildings adjoining were undermined by them, the entrance to the largest having been discovered, by accident, in the court-yard of the Convent des Mathurins, within a few months of the date of our romance. And these must not be confounded with the rough catacombs to which we have been already introduced, hewn in the gypsum as chance directed, but were regularly arched ways from ten to sixteen feet below the surface of the ground, communicating with one another by doors and supported by walls four feet thick.
The ruins of the Palais des Thermes and the adjoining vaults, although not open to the street as they are at present, had long been the resort of that class of wanderers about Paris now classified asBohemiens, until an edict drove them to the catacombs of the Biévre and the Cours des Miracles to establish their colonies. The shelter of the Palais, ‘favorisent les fréquentes défaites d’une pudeur chancelante,’ was ordered to be abolished, and the entire place was, in a measure, enclosed and let, at some humble rate, as a storehouse or cellar for the tradesmen in the Rue de la Harpe.
The winter’s evening was closing in, cold and dismal, as Gaudin de Sainte-Croix was traversing the streets between the Place Maubert and the Rue de la Harpe, a short time after the events we have described. The front of the Palais des Thermes was at this period concealed from the street by an old dwelling-house, but theporte-cochérewas always open, and he passed across the court, unchallenged, to the entrance of the large hall that still exists. Here he rang a rusty bell, which had the effect of bringing a man to the wicket, who wore the dress of a mechanic. He appeared to know Sainte-Croix, as he admitted him directly, without anything more than a humble recognition; and then giving him a small end of lighted candle in a split lath, similar to those used in cellars, he left him to go on at his own will.
Gaudin crossed the largesalle, the sides of which were covered by wine-casks piled one on the other, and entered a small archway at the extremity, which was at the top of a dozen steps. Descending, he went along a vaulted passage, and at last reached a species of cellar, which was fitted up as a laboratory. By the light of the fire alone, which was burning in the furnace, he discovered Exili.
‘You have brought my money,’ said the physician, half interrogatively, as he turned his ghastly features towards Sainte-Croix. ‘Five thousand crowns is light payment for the services I have rendered you. It should have been here before.’
‘I regret that I have not yet got it,’ answered Gaudin. ‘The greater part of the possessions which have fallen to Madame de Brinvilliers cannot yet be made available. I went this morning to the Jew who before aided me, on the Quai des Orfèvres, to get some money, but he was from home.’
It is true that Sainte-Croix had been in that direction during the day, but it was with a far different object. To elude the payment of Exili’s bond he had determined upon destroying him, running the risk of whatever might happen subsequently through the physician’s knowledge of the murders. And he had therefore ordered a body of the Garde Royal to attend at the Palais des Thermes that evening, when they would receive sufficient proof of the trade Exili was driving in his capacity of alchemist.
‘It must be paid, however,’ said Exili, ‘and by daybreak to-morrow morning. Look you, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix, I am not to be put off like your grovelling creditors have been, with your dull, ordinary debts. To-morrow I start for England, and I will have the money with me.’
‘I tell you I cannot procure it by that time,’ said Gaudin. ‘A day can be of no consequence to you.’
‘No more than it may be a matter of life or death—a simple affair, I grant you, with either of us, but still worth caring for. Ha! what is this?’
He had purposely brushed his hand against Sainte-Croix’s cloak, and in the pocket of it he felt some weighty substance. The chink assured him it was gold.
‘You cannot have that,’ said Gaudin confusedly; ‘it is going with me to the gaming-table this evening. Chavagnac has promised me my revenge at De Lauzun’s.’
‘You have rich jewels, too, about you,’ continued Exili, peering at him with a fearful expression. ‘The carcanet, I see, has been redeemed, and becomes you well. That diamond clasp is a fortune in itself.’
The gaze of the physician grew every moment more peculiar, as he gazed at Gaudin’s rich attire.
‘Beware!’ cried Sainte-Croix; ‘if you touch one, I will hew you down as I would a dog. Not one of them is mine. They belong to the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’
‘Nay,’ replied Exili, changing his tone, ‘I did but admire them. Come, then, a truce to this. Will you promise me the sum named in the bond to-morrow?’
‘To-morrow you shall have it,’ said Sainte-Croix.
‘I am satisfied,’ said the physician. ‘I was annoyed at the moment, but it has passed.’
And he turned round to the furnace to superintend the progress of some preparation that was evaporating over the fire.
‘What have you there?’ asked Gaudin, who appeared anxious to prolong the interview, and carry on the time as he best might.
‘A venom more deadly than any we have yet known—that will kill like lightning and leave no trace of its presence to the most subtle tests. I have been weeks preparing it, and it approaches perfection.’
‘You will give me the secret?’ asked Gaudin.
‘As soon as it is finished, and the time is coming on apace. You have arrived opportunely to assist me.’
He took a mask with glass eyes from a shelf, and tied it round his face.
‘Its very sublimation, now commencing, is deadly,’ continued Exili; ‘but there is a medicated veil in the nostrils of this mask to decompose its particles. If you would see the preparation completed you must wear one as well.’
Another visor was at his side. Under pretence of rearranging the string he broke it from the mask, and then fixed it back with some resinous compound that he used to cover the stoppers of his bottles, and render them air-tight. All this was so rapidly done that Sainte-Croix took no notice of it.
‘Now, let me fix this on,’ said Exili, ‘and you need not dread the vapour. Besides, you can assist me. I have left some drugs with the porter which I must fetch,’ he continued, as he cautiously fixed the visor to Sainte-Croix’s face.
‘I will mind the furnace whilst you go,’ said Gaudin, as he heard an adjacent bell sound the hour at which he had appointed the guard to arrive. ‘There is no danger in this mask, you say?’
‘None,’ said Exili. ‘You must watch the compound narrowly as soon as you see particles of its sublimation deposited in that glass bell which overhangs it. Then, when it turns colour, remove it from the furnace.’
Anxious to become acquainted with the new poison, and in the hope that, as soon as he acquired the secret of its manufacture, the guard would arrive, Gaudin promised compliance gladly. Exili, on some trifling excuse, left the apartment; but, as soon as his footfall was beyond Sainte-Croix’s hearing, he returned, treading as stealthily as a tiger, and took up his place at the door to watch his prey. Gaudin was still at the furnace, fanning the embers with the cover of a book, as he watched the deadly compound in the evaporating dish. At last, the small particles began to deposit themselves on the bell glass above, as Exili had foretold, and Gaudin bent his head close to the preparation to watch for the change of colour. But in so doing, the heat of the furnace melted the resin with which the string had been fastened. It gave way, and the mask fell on the floor, whilst the vapour of the poison rose full in his face, almost before, in his eager attention, he was aware of the accident.
One terrible scream—a cry which once heard could never be forgotten—not that of agony, or terror, or surprise, but a shrill and violent indrawing of the breath, resembling rather the screech of some huge, hoarse bird of prey, irritated to madness, than the sound of a human voice, was all that broke from Gaudin’s lips. Every muscle of his face was at the instant contorted into the most frightful form; he remained for a second, and no more, wavering at the side of the furnace, and then fell heavily on the floor. He was dead!
Exili had expected this. His eagerness would hardly restrain him from rushing upon Sainte-Croix as he fell; and scarcely was
img_12.jpgThe Death of Sainte-Croix
The Death of Sainte-Croix
he on the ground when the physician, dashing the rest of the poison from the furnace, darted on him like a beast of prey, and immediately drew forth the bag of money from his cloak and transferred it to his own pouch. He next tore away every ornament of any value that adorned Gaudin’s costly dress; finally taking the small gold heart which hung round his neck, enclosing the morsel of pink crystal which had attracted Exili’s attention the first night of his sojourn in the Bastille. As he opened it to look at the beryl, he observed a thin slip of vellum folded under it within the case, on which were traced some faint characters. By the light which Sainte-Croix had brought with him, and which was burning faintly in the subterraneous atmosphere, he read the following words with difficulty:—
‘Beatrice Spara to her child, on the eve of her execution. Rome, A.D. 1642. An amulet against an evil eye and poisons.’
‘Beatrice Spara to her child, on the eve of her execution. Rome, A.D. 1642. An amulet against an evil eye and poisons.’
A stifled exclamation of horror, yet intense to the most painful degree of mental anguish, escaped him as the meaning came upon him. For a few seconds his eyes were riveted on the crystal, as if they would start from his head; his lips were parted, and his breath suspended. Then another and another gasping cry followed; again he read the lines, as though he would have altered their import; but the simple words remained the same, and fearful was their revelation—until, covering his face with his hands, he fell on his knees beside the body. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix—the unknown adventurer—the soldier of fortune, whom nobody had ever dared to question respecting his parentage, was his own son!—the fruit of his intimacy with the Sicilian woman, from whom at Palermo he had learned the secrets of his hellish trade, in the first instance to remove those who were inimical to the liaison. The child was not above two years old when he himself had been compelled to fly from Italy, and he had imagined that, after the execution of Beatrice, the infant had perished unknown and uncared for in the streets of Rome.
For some minutes he remained completely stupefied, but was aroused at last by a violent knocking at the door of the vault; and immediately afterwards the man who owned the house in the Rue de la Harpe rushed in, and announced the presence of the guard, who, not finding Sainte-Croix to meet them as they expected, had made the cooper conduct them to Exili’s laboratory. He had scarcely uttered the words when their bristling halberds, mingling with torches, appeared behind him.
‘Back!’ screamed Exili as he saw the guard, ‘keep off! or I can slay you with myself, so that not one shall live to tell the tale.’
The officer in command told the men to enter; but one or two remembered the fate of those in the boat-mill whom the vapour had killed, and they hung back.
‘Your lives are in my hands,’ continued the physician, ‘and if you move one step they are forfeited. I am not yet captured.’
He darted through a doorway at the end of the room as he spoke, and disappeared. The guard directly pressed onward; but as Exili passed out at the arch, a mass of timber descended like a portcullis and opposed their further progress. A loud and fiendish laugh sounded in thesouterrain, which grew fainter and fainter until they heard it no more.
‘Ah!’ said Maître Picard, with a long expression of comfortable fatigue, and the same shudder of extreme enjoyment which he would have indulged in had he just crept into a bed artificially warmed, ‘Ah! it is a great thing to enjoy yourself, having done your duty as a man and a Garde Bourgeois!’
And he sank into an easy chair in which he would have been hidden but for his rotundity, and propping up his little legs with another seat, lighted a mighty pipe, the bowl whereof was fashioned like a dragon’s head, which vomited forth smoke from its nostrils in a manner terrible to behold.
It was a cold night. There were large logs of wood blazing and crackling up the chimney from the iron dogs, and amongst the glowing embers that surrounded them various culinary utensils were embedded, some of which sent forth fragrant odours of strong drinks or savoury extracts, whilst on a spit, formed of an old rapier, was impaled a pheasant, which the Gascon, Jean Blacquart, was industriously turning round as he sat upon the floor with his back against the chimney-projection, humming a student’s song, to which he made the bird revolve, in proper measure.
Everything looked very comfortable. The cloth was laid for supper, and bright pewter vessels and horn mugs with silver rims caught the light from the fire, which likewise threw its warm glow upon the ceiling and made the shadows dance and flicker on the walls. It was not so pleasant without. The frost was hard; the snow fell heavily; and the cold wind came roaring up the narrow streets, chasing all the cut-purses and evil company before it, much faster than all the guards of the night could have done even at the points of their halberds.
‘I think you might change your love-song for a sprightly dance, Jean,’ said Maître Picard. ‘Your tender pauses, during which the spit stops, do but scorch the breast of the bird, whilst the back profits not.’
‘It is an emblem of love, in general,’ replied the Gascon; ‘seeing that our breast is doubly warmed thereby, whilst our back comes off but badly, especially if our sweetheart is expensive, and requires of one the price of three doublets to make one robe.’
‘I was in love once,’ said Maître Picard, ‘but it is a long time ago. It wastes the substance of a portly man. Had I not eaten twice my ordinary allowance I should have fallen under the attack. The presents, too, which I offered to my lady were of great value, and none were ever returned.’
‘I never give presents,’ observed the Gascon, ‘for I have found in many hundred cases that my affection is considered above all price, and received as such.’
‘But suppose a rival of more pretensions comes to oppose you?’ said Maître Picard.
‘I never had a rival,’ said Blacquart grandly; ‘and I never shall. Admitting one was to presume and cross my path, he would find no ordinary antagonist. With this stalwart arm and a trusty blade I would mince him before he knew where he was.’ And in his enthusiasm he caught hold of the handle of the rapier, which formed the spit, and brandished it about, perfectly forgetting the presence of the pheasant, and firmly convinced that his chivalric energies were really in action. He took no heed of the remonstrance of Maître Picard, until a sudden and violent knocking at the street door so frightened him in the midst of his imaginary bravery that he let the rapier fall, and bird, spit, and all tumbled on the floor.
‘Cap de dis!it made me jump,’ observed the Gascon. ‘What can it be, at this time of night?’
‘You can find out if you go and see,’ replied Maître Picard from behind his pipe.
‘Suppose it should be some wickedly-disposed students come again to vex us?’ suggested Blacquart, ‘and they were to bind me hand and foot. What would become of you without my protection?—Ugh!’
The last exclamation was provoked by a repetition of the knocking more violent than ever.
‘Go and open the door!’ roared Maître Picard, until he looked quite apoplectic. ‘No one is out to-night for their own amusement, depend upon it.’
With a great disinclination to stir away from the fireplace, the Gascon advanced towards the door. But, before he opened it, he inquired with much assumption of courage—
‘Who’s there?’
‘It is I, Philippe Glazer,’ said a well-known voice. ‘Are you dead or deaf, not to let me in? Open the door; quick!—quick!’
Reassured by the announcement, Blacquart soon unbarred the door, and Glazer hastened into the apartment. He was scarcely dressed, having evidently hurried from home in great precipitancy.
‘Maître Picard!’ he exclaimed, ‘you must come over with me directly to the Place Maubert. A terrible event has come about. M. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix——’
‘Well, what of him?’ asked the bourgeois, aroused from his half-lethargy of comfort and tobacco by Glazer’s haggard and anxious appearance.
‘He is dead!’ replied Philippe. ‘He lodged with us, or rather had a room to carry on his chemical experiments, and we have just heard that his body has been found lifeless in the vaults of the Palais des Thermes.’
‘Murdered?’ asked both the Gascon and Maître Picard at once.
‘I know not,’ answered Glazer; ‘a hundred stories are already about, but we are too bewildered to attend to any. However, he has left nearly all his possessions in our keeping, and we must immediately seal them up until the pleasure of the authorities be known.’
‘It is the office of the Commissary of Police of thequartier,’ said Maître Picard.
‘I know it,’ answered Glazer impatiently. ‘But M. Artus is ill in bed, and he has deputed you to witness the process, as a man of good report in his jurisdiction. His clerk, Pierre Frater, has started to our house. I pray you come, without more loss of time.’
It was a sad trial for Maître Picard to leave his intended banquet, especially to the mercies of the Gascon, whose appetite, in common with that pertaining to all weakened intellects, was enormous. But the urgency of the case, and Philippe Glazer’sempressement, left him no chance of getting off the duty; and hastily gathering together his cloak, arms, and other marks of his authority, he turned out, not without much grumbling, to accompany Glazer to his father’s house in the Place Maubert, which was not above ten minutes’ walk from the Rue des Mathurins.
Late as it was, the news of Sainte-Croix’s death had travelled over that part of Paris contiguous to the scene of the event, and when Philippe and the bourgeois arrived the court was filled with people who had collected, in spite of the inclemency of the weather, to gain some authentic intelligence connected with the catastrophe. The fact that Exili was, in some way or another, connected with the accident, had already given rise to the most marvellous stories, the principal one being that the devil had been seen perched on the northern tower of Notre Dame with the wretched physician in his grasp, preparatory to carrying him off to some fearful place of torment, the mention of which provoked more crossings and holy words than all the masses which the gossipers had attended for the last week.
Elbowing his way through the throng, Maître Picard assumed all his wonted importance, whilst he ordered Philippe to admit no one but the members of his household; and then, accompanied by Pierre Frater, the Commissary’s clerk, he ascended to the room which Gaudin had occupied.
It teemed with that fearful interest which sudden death throws around the most unimportant objects connected with the existence of the victim. The pen lay upon the half-finished letters; a list of things to be attended to on the morrow was pinned to the wall; and the watch was ticking on its stand, although the hand that had put it in action was still and cold. On the table were some dice, at which their owner had evidently been working, to render their cast a certainty at the next game of hazard he engaged in. A flagon of wine, half-emptied, a book marked for reference, a cloak drying before the expiring embers of the fireplace, each inanimate article spoke with terrible meaning.
‘You have the seals, Maître Frater,’ said the bourgeois; ‘we will secure everything until we have further orders.’
The clerk of the Commissary produced the official seal, together with some long strips of parchment to bind them together, and assisted by Philippe they proceeded to attach them to everything of importance in the room. But whilst they were thus engaged, a confused murmur was heard in the court below, and Maître Picard, looking from the window, saw a carriage drive through theporte-cochèreas hastily as the snow would permit. A man sprang from it, closed the door after him, and the next minute came up the staircase hurriedly, and almost forced his way into the room.
‘There is no admittance, monsieur,’ said the little bourgeois, presenting his halberd.
But the intruder was already in the centre of the chamber.
‘I am the valet of M. de Sainte-Croix, and my name is Lachaussée,’ he said. ‘I oppose this proceeding of sealing up his effects.’
‘On what grounds?’ asked the clerk, Frater.
‘Because there is much that is my own property,’ replied Lachaussée. ‘You will find one hundred pistoles, and the same number of silver crowns in a canvas bag, in that bureau. My master gave them to me, and promised still further to transfer three hundred livres to me. You will, without doubt, find that he has done so; if he has not, you may depend upon my word that everything is right which I have stated.’19
‘We do not doubt your word, monsieur,’ said the clerk; ‘but we cannot, at present, give up to you so much as a pin from this room. When the seals are broken by the authorities, whose servants we merely are, and under whose orders we now act, you may rest assured that the interests of no one will be overlooked.’
‘But this is such a trifle; you surely will not put me to such great inconvenience, for such it will be,’ answered Lachaussée, changing his tone.
‘We regret it,’ answered Maître Picard with much grandeur—now he had heard from Pierre Frater what he was to say; ‘we regret it; but, at present, the law is peremptory.’
‘If I have no influence with you,’ said Lachaussée, ‘I will bring hither one who, possibly, may have some.’
Before they had time to reply he left the room, and in the course of a minute returned, bringing back with him, to the astonishment of every one present, the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.
Marie was pale as marble. Her beautiful hair, usually arranged with such careful taste, was hanging about her neck and shoulders in wild confusion; her eyes glistened, and her lips were blanched and quivering. She had evidently left home hurriedly, wrapping about her the first garments that came to hand, which she drew closely round her figure from the inclemency of the weather. And yet, looking as she then did the picture of agony and consternation, from time to time she made visible efforts to master her excitement and, with that habitual duplicity which had long become her nature, to deceive those with whom she was confronted, respecting the real state of her feelings.
She looked wildly at the assembled party as she entered, and at last her eye fell upon young Glazer, whom she was well acquainted with, as we have already seen. Glad to meet with any one who knew her, under such circumstances, she directly went towards him, and caught his arm for support, exclaiming in a hollow and trembling voice—
‘O Philippe!—you know all—this is indeed terrible!’
Glazer addressed a few commonplace words of consolation to her; but ere she had finished, an access of violent hysterics placed the terrified woman beyond the comprehension of his words. He supported her to a chair, and Frater, Picard, and their attendants gathered round her in silence, as they watched her convulsed form with feelings of real pity; for the attachment existing between Gaudin and herself was now no secret. The only one perfectly unmoved was Lachaussée, and he regarded her with an expression of unconcern, showing that he doubted the reality of the attack.
In a few minutes she recovered; and starting up from her seat, addressed herself to Pierre Frater, who, from his clerkly look, her perception enabled her to tell was the chief person in authority.
‘Monsieur,’ she said, ‘I know not what Lachaussée has sought to obtain; but there is a small box here belonging to me alone, which I presume there will be no objection to my carrying away with me. Philippe Glazer may divine the nature of the papers it contains. He will explain it to you.’
‘Madam,’ replied the clerk, ‘it pains me to repeat the same answer to you which I gave to the valet of M. de Sainte-Croix; but nothing can be moved except with the consent of the Commissary, my master.’
‘Nothing of M. de Sainte-Croix’s property, I am aware,’ replied the Marchioness: ‘but this is mine—my own—do you understand? See! there it is!—you must give it to me—indeed, indeed you must.’
As she spoke she pointed to the small inlaid cabinet which has been before alluded to, and which was visible behind the glass-front of a secretary between the windows. She repeated her request with renewed energy. And well, indeed, she might; for it was that box which had furnished the most terrible poisons to her victims.
‘Indeed, madam,’ answered Frater, firmly but respectfully, ‘you cannot have it at this moment.’
‘You must give it to me!’ she exclaimed, seizing the clerk by the hand. ‘It contains a matter of life and death, and you cannot tell whom it may affect. Give me the box; my position and influence will free you from any responsibility for so doing. You see, the seals have not yet been put on the bureau; it can be of no consequence to you in the discharge of your duty. Let me have it.’
She let go his hand and went towards the bureau. But Frater stepped before her, as he exclaimed—
‘Pardon me, madam; and do not oblige me to forget my gallantry, or that politeness which is due to a lady of your station, by forgetting your own proper sense. The cabinet can only be delivered up to you upon the authority of M. Artus.’
‘And where is he?’ she inquired hurriedly.
‘He is ill—at his house in the Rue des Noyers,’ answered the clerk, ‘To-morrow he will, without doubt, give you every assistance.’
‘To-morrow will be too late!’ exclaimed Marie. ‘I must see him now—this instant.Au revoir, messieurs; I shall hope in a few minutes to bring you his order that you may deliver me my cabinet.’
And without any further salute she turned and left the room, requesting Lachaussée to await her return.
Her exceeding anxiety was placed to the score of her attachment to Sainte-Croix; and as she quitted the apartment the others went on with their duties in silence. Lachaussée seated himself in a recess of the chamber and watched their proceedings; and Philippe collected a few things together which belonged to his father, and consisted principally of some chemical glasses and evaporating dishes, placing them in a box by themselves to be moved away as soon as it was permitted.
But scarcely five minutes had elapsed ere another carriage drove into the court, and Desgrais, the active exempt of the Maréchaussée, came upstairs to the apartment, followed by one or two agents of the police. As he entered the room, he cast his eye over the different pieces of furniture, and perceiving that the judicial seal was already upon many of them, nodded his head in token of approval. Then turning to Philippe he said—
‘Monsieur Glazer, there will be no occasion to inconvenience you by detaining your own goods. Whatever you will describe as yours, shall be at once made over to you on your signature.’
‘You are very good,’ replied Philippe; ‘but everything belonging to us, in the care of this poor gentleman, was of little consequence. There is, however, that little cabinet, which may be returned to its owner, who is most anxious to have it. It has been earnestly claimed by the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’
‘The Marchioness of Brinvilliers!’ exclaimed Desgrais with some emphasis. ‘And you say she was anxious to carry it away?’
‘Just as I have told you; in fact her solicitude was remarkable.’
Desgrais was silent for a minute.
‘Stop!’ at length he said; ‘we will examine this cabinet that appears so precious. I have reasons for it.’
By his directions Pierre Frater took down the inlaid box from its shelf, Maître Picard being too short, and placed it on the table. The others collected eagerly round, especially Lachaussée, who at the first mention of it had left his seat. Sainte-Croix’s keys were discovered in one of the drawers of the table, and Desgrais, selecting one of curiously-wrought steel, applied it to the lock. The lid instantly flew open.
‘Here is a false top,’ said Desgrais, ‘with a written paper lying open upon it. Let us see what it says.’
And taking the document, he read as follows:—
‘“I humbly ask of those into whose hands this cabinet may fall, whoever they may be, to deliver it to the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, at present living in the Rue Neuve St. Paul; since its contents are of importance to her alone, and her welfare apart, cannot be of the slightest interest to any one in the world. Should she have died before me, let the cabinet be burnt, exactly as it is, without opening it or disturbing its contents.”
‘“I humbly ask of those into whose hands this cabinet may fall, whoever they may be, to deliver it to the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, at present living in the Rue Neuve St. Paul; since its contents are of importance to her alone, and her welfare apart, cannot be of the slightest interest to any one in the world. Should she have died before me, let the cabinet be burnt, exactly as it is, without opening it or disturbing its contents.”
‘The paper concludes,’ continued Desgrais, ‘with an appeal to God respecting the sincerity of this request, and a half-implied malediction upon those who may refuse to grant it.’
‘I presume, monsieur, now that your curiosity is satisfied thus far, I may take the box with me to Madame de Brinvilliers,’ said Lachaussée.
‘Stop!’ replied the exempt, as the other stretched forth his hand, ‘here is another paper. It is a receipt for a sum of money delivered on account of work performed, and signed “Lachaussée.”’
As his name was pronounced, Lachaussée fell back from the table, and, muttering a few indistinct words, approached the door; but Desgrais cried out—
‘You appear interested in this affair, monsieur, and cannot yet leave us. Guards, place yourselves at the doorway, and let no one pass but with my orders.’
Two of the patrol who had entered with the exempt took up their station at the door, crossing their halberds before it. A dead silence reigned, and the curiosity of all was raised to the most painful intensity. Lachaussée leant back against the bureau, and folding his arms gazed steadily at the proceedings, but no visible token betrayed his emotion.
‘This affair requires some little extra investigation,’ said Desgrais. ‘This false lid must open with a spring, as there is neither lock nor handle to it.’ He held the cabinet up, and turning it round, discovered one of the studs that ornamented it of a darker colour than the rest, as if from constant handling. His experienced eye told him that this should be the one; he pressed it accordingly, and the partition turned up with a jerk against the side. A single and hurried expiration escaped his lips. He inverted the cabinet, and turned its contents on the table; they consisted of a number of little packets, boxes, and phials, mostly sealed up, and distinguished by various inscriptions.
‘“Sublimate!” “Vitrol!” “Opium!”’ exclaimed Desgrais, as he read each aloud. ‘Mort bleu!messieurs, we are about to make some strange discoveries!’
‘Will you allow me to pass,’ said Philippe Glazer to Desgrais, ‘I think there is no one below, and I fancied I heard the bell sound?’
‘Of course,’ replied the exempt; ‘but return as soon as you conveniently may. We shall, perhaps, hereafter need you as a witness to these revelations.’
Philippe hastily promised compliance, and then quitting the apartment, hastily flew downstairs to his father’s shop. The old man had retired to rest early, but his man Panurge was fast asleep upon one of the tables—so soundly that it required no very gentle treatment from Philippe to waken him.
‘Ho! Panurge!’ cried his young master, in a sharp but low voice, ‘awake, man, unless you wish every wretched bone in your miserable carcase broken. Do you hear me?’
‘Hippocrates sayeth that erysipelas upon the baring of a bone is evil,’ muttered Panurge, who mixed up his sleeping studies with his waking faculties.
‘Pshaw!’ cried Philippe, ‘I will give you cause for it, all over you, if you do not attend. Rouse up, I tell you.’
And he gave Panurge such a mighty shake as would have aroused him had he been in a trance. As it was, it immediately restored the assistant to the full exhibition of what faculties he possessed, and he awaited Glazer’s further orders.
‘You know the house of Monsieur Artus, the Commissary of Police, in the Rue des Noyers?’
‘I do,’ replied Panurge; ‘he hath been ill of a choleric gout, for which we gave him the juice of danewort——’
‘The pest on what you gave him!’ said Philippe, ‘so long as you know where he is to be found. Now look you; go off there directly, and if you lose no time on the way you will probably find the Marchioness of Brinvilliers at his house. Give this note to her, and only to her, as you value your useless life.’
He hastily wrote on a scrap of paper:—
‘The police have found some articles in a cabinet belonging to M. de Sainte-Croix, which may cause you much embarrassment from the publicity it will give to your acquaintance. Be careful how you proceed.‘P. G.’
‘The police have found some articles in a cabinet belonging to M. de Sainte-Croix, which may cause you much embarrassment from the publicity it will give to your acquaintance. Be careful how you proceed.
‘P. G.’
‘Now, off!’ said Philippe, hastily folding the note; ‘and return here as soon as you leave this in her own hands. Poor lady!’ he continued, half speaking to himself; ‘it would be sorrow indeed if mere gallantry should link her with the deeds of which her cavalier appears to have been the perpetrator.’
Without another syllable Panurge set off, and Glazer was returning to the room when he met Desgrais descending the stairs, carrying the cabinet and followed by two of the police, who had Lachaussée in custody between them. He addressed him—
‘We shall require the services of your father and yourself to-morrow, M. Glazer, to analyse these different articles. I have put a seal upon them, and must hold you answerable for their safe keeping.’
‘I denounce my being kept a prisoner,’ exclaimed Lachaussée, ‘as informal and unjust. You have no right to detain me upon the mere circumstance of my name appearing on that piece of paper.’
‘I will make ample reparation for any wrong I may do you,’ answered Desgrais, coolly. Then, turning to the guards, he added—
‘You will conduct this person to the Châtelet. And now, M. Frater, you can accompany me, with Maître Picard, to the Rue des Noyers without loss of time. We shall probably there light upon the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’
Philippe’s heart was in his throat as he heard the name pronounced. He immediately endeavoured to contrive some delay in Desgrais’s departure, offering him refreshment, begging him to stop whilst the cressets of the watch were retrimmed, and pressing articles of outer wear upon him, by reason of the cold, which he pretended he could not find. A few minutes were gained in this manner, and then the guard departed across the Place Maubert, Philippe’s only hope being that Panurge had already got there.
Whilst this scene of fearful interest was being enacted at Glazer’s, Marie had reached the house of the Commissary of Police. Some of the domestics were sitting up for further orders from Desgrais, and by them she was informed that M. Artus could not be disturbed. By dint, however, of heavy bribes, giving them all the money she had about her, which was no inconsiderable sum, she was ushered into the apartment of the Commissary, and to him, in a few hurried words, she made known the object of her visit. But her earnestness was so strange that M. Artus requested she would wait until the next day, when he should have received the report of the proceedings from his agents. Had she shown less anxiety, he would doubtless have granted what she so urgently desired.
Finding there was no chance of assistance from this quarter, she left the room in an agony of terror, and, scarcely knowing what course to pursue, was about to return to the Place Maubert, when Panurge arrived with Glazer’s note. She hastily read it, and the contents struck her like a thunderbolt. ‘Then all is over!’ she exclaimed; and without exchanging another word with the assistant, or any of the officials, she flew through the streets, half clad as she was, with the snow deep on the ground, and the thoroughfares wrapped in the obscurity of a winter night, in the direction of herhôtelin the Rue St. Paul.
Midnightwas sounded upon the heavy bell of the Bastille by the sentinel on guard but a few minutes before the Marchioness of Brinvilliers—terrified, breathless, and, in spite of her hurry, shivering in her light dress beneath the intense cold—arrived at the Hôtel d’Aubray. There were no signs of life in that quarter of Paris, for the inhabitants had long retired to rest; a faint light, gleaming from the front windows of Marie’s residence upon the snow that covered the thoroughfare, alone served to guide her to the door. The drowsy concierge admitted her, and she hurried across the inner court and upstairs to her own apartment.
Françoise Roussel, her servant, was waiting up for her. Her mistress had left in such an extreme of anxiety, and half-undressed, that Françoise saw at once an affair of great moment had disturbed her; and now, as Marie returned, the girl was frightened by her almost ghastly look. As she entered the room she fell panting on one of thecauseuses, and then her servant perceived that she had lost one of her shoes, and had been walking, perhaps nearly the whole distance from the Place Maubert, with her small naked foot upon the snow, without discovering it. In her hurried toilet, she had merely arisen from her bed and drawn her shoes on, without anything else, and throwing a heavy loose robe about her had thus hurried with Lachaussée to Glazer’s house; for from Gaudin’s accomplice she had learned the first tidings of his death and the dangerous position in which she stood. And now, scarcely knowing in the terror and agony of the moment what course to adopt, she remained for some minutes pressing her hands to her forehead, as if to seize and render available some of the confused and distracting thoughts which were hurrying through her almost bewildered brain. A few offers of assistance on the part of her domestic were met with short and angry refusals; and Françoise, almost as frightened as the Marchioness herself, remained gazing at her, not knowing what measures she ought next to adopt.
Meanwhile, Desgrais, with the important casket, and accompanied by the clerk Frater and Maître Picard, had reached the house of M. Artus, the Commissary of Police, in the Rue des Noyers, arriving there not two minutes after Marie had quitted it to regain her own abode. Philippe Glazer had accompanied them, partly from being in a measure an implicated party in the affair, but chiefly out of anxiety for the position of the Marchioness, in whose guilt he had not the slightest belief. He was aware of her connection with Sainte-Croix; but this was a matter of simple gallantry, and in the time of Louis Quatorze much more likely to enlist the sympathies of the many on the side of the erring party than to excite their indignation.
‘I suppose you have no further occasion for me?’ observed Maître Picard, as he stood at the foot of M. Artus’s bed, after having awaited the conclusion of Desgrais’s account of the discovery; ‘because, if you have not, I would fain go home.’
The little bourgeois was thinking of the roast pheasant which he had abandoned to the voracity of the Gascon. He had a wild hope that it might be yet untouched.
‘Stop,mon brave,’ said Desgrais. ‘You cannot leave me until we have found Madame de Brinvilliers. I have only missed her by a few seconds. You must come on with me to her house, where she most likely is by this time.’
‘I suppose there is no necessity for me to remain here longer,’ said Philippe Glazer.
‘None whatever, monsieur,’ replied the exempt. ‘You will take care of M. de Sainte-Croix’s property; and we may call upon you to-morrow to analyse the contents of this casket.’
Philippe bowed, and left the room. The moment he was clear of the house, having borrowed a lighted lantern from one of the guard, who was at the door, he set off as fast as his legs would carry him towards the Rue St. Paul, having heard enough to convince him that the Marchioness was in danger of being arrested. Upon reaching the Hôtel d’Aubray he clamoured loudly for admission. At the sound of the first knock he perceived a form, which he directly recognised to be that of Marie, peep from behind the edge of the curtain and immediately disappear. Some little delay took place before his summons was answered, and then the concierge, peering through the half-opening of the door, told him that Madame de Brinvilliers was not within. Pushing the menial on one side, with a hurried expression of disbelief, Philippe forced his way into the court, and perceived, as he entered, the figure of the Marchioness hurrying upstairs. He bounded after her, and stood by her side upon the landing.
‘Philippe!’ exclaimed Marie, as she recognised his features. ‘I was afraid it was Desgrais, and I had gone down to give orders that no one might be admitted.’
‘You have not an instant to lose,’ replied young Glazer hurriedly, ‘and must leave the house in reality. I have just now left them with M. Artus, about to come on and arrest you. You must fly—instantly.’
‘Fly! by what means?’ asked Marie; ‘my horses are at Offemont, except the one at—athishouse in the Rue des Bernardins. O Philippe!’ she continued, ‘tell me what to do in this fearful extremity. I know not how to act—I am nearly dead.’
All her self-possession, all her duplicity, gave way beneath the crushing agony of the moment. She burst into tears, and would have fallen to the ground had not Philippe caught her in his arms.
‘Is there nothing in the stables that we can depart with?’ asked he of Françoise, who had been watching this short scene with trembling attention. ‘It will not do to hire a carriage, as that would give a certain clue to our route.’
‘A man brought a tumbrel here this afternoon, with some things from the country. He has left it, with the horse, in the stables, and sleeps himself at the Croix d’Or, in the Rue St. Antoine.’
‘Bring this light with you, and show me the way,’ said Philippe, as he placed the Marchioness in a fauteuil, and hurried downstairs, followed by thefemme de chambre.
As soon as the girl had indicated the spot, Glazer told her to return to her mistress and bid her prepare as quickly as she could to leave Paris, taking with her only such few things as were immediately necessary. Next, pulling the drowsy horse from his stall, he proceeded to harness him, as well as his acquaintance with such matters allowed him to do, to the rude country vehicle which Françoise had spoken about. All this was not the work of five minutes; and he then returned to Marie’s apartment.
But, brief as the interval had been, Marie had in the time recovered her wonted firmness, and aided by her servant had rapidly made her toilet, wrapping herself in her warmest garments for protection against the inclemency of the weather. When Philippe entered, he found Françoise occupied in making up a small parcel, half unconscious, however, of what she was doing, from flurry at the evident emergency of the circumstances; and Marie was standing before the fire, watching the destruction of a large packet of letters and other papers, which were blazing on the hearth.
‘I am ready, madame,’ said Philippe; ‘do not delay your departure an instant longer, or you cannot tell into what perplexities you may fall. Every moment is of untold value.’
‘Where do you propose to take me?’ asked the Marchioness earnestly.
‘I see no better refuge for the instant than your château at Offemont.’
‘Offemont!’ exclaimed Marie; ‘it is twenty leagues from Paris; and in this dreadful weather we should perish on the route.’
‘It must be attempted,’ said Philippe; ‘you say your horses are there; and if we can once reach them, your means of getting to the frontier will be comparatively easy. We must brave everything. Your enemies I know to be numerous in Paris, and you cannot tell what charges they might bring against you when in their power, which it would be next to impossible to refute. Come, come!’
He took her by the hand and led her to the door, the servant following them closely, and receiving from the Marchioness a number of hurried directions and commissions, which it was next to impossible she could remember. As he quitted the room, with some forethought Philippe blew out the candles and collected the pieces; for the night would be long and dark; there were seven or eight hours of obscurity yet before them. When they got to the court where the horse and tumbrel were, the former evidently in no hurry to depart, young Glazer fastened the lantern he had borrowed from the guard to the side of the vehicle, and then assisted the Marchioness to mount and take her seat upon some straw.
‘It is a rude carriage, madame,’ he said; ‘but the journey would be less pleasant if it was going to the Place de Grêve.’
Marie shuddered as he spoke; but it was unobserved in the obscurity. As soon as she was seated, Philippe drew a coarse awning over some bent sticks which spanned the interior, and making this tight all round, prepared to start.
‘Stop!’ he exclaimed, as if struck by a sudden thought; ‘it will be as well to see all clear before us.’
And he advanced to theporte-cochèrethat opened into the street, when to his dismay he perceived the lighted cressets of the Guet Royal coming down the Rue Neuve St. Paul. In an instant he closed the door and barred it; and turning to Françoise, exclaimed—
‘Go up to the window of your mistress’s room, which looks into the road, and when the guard comes, say she is from home.’
‘There is a court which leads from the stables to the Rue St. Antoine,’ said the Marchioness from the vehicle. ‘You can get out that way.’
‘It is lucky,’ said Philippe, ‘or we should otherwise have been trapped. Françoise! up—up, and detain them every instant that you can. I will prevent the concierge from replying.’
He took his handkerchief and hurriedly tied it round the clapper of the bell, which hung within his reach over the porter’s lodge. Then, turning round the cart, he led the horse through the inner court and stabling to the passage indicated by the Marchioness. Fortunately the snow was on the ground, and there was little noise made beyond the creaking of the vehicle, which in half a minute emerged into the Rue St. Antoine, and Philippe closed the gate behind him.
The thoroughfare was dark and silent; but the snow was falling heavily, as its twinkling by the side of the lantern proved. This was so far lucky, because it would cover the traces of their route almost as soon as they were made. The fugitives could plainly hear the sound of voices and the clatter of arms in the Rue Neuve St. Paul; and aware that the delay could only last for a few minutes, Philippe urged on the animal as well as he could, and turned up a small street which ran in a northerly direction from the Rue St. Antoine.
‘You are passing the gate,’ said Marie, who all along had been looking anxiously from the vehicle, as she pointed towards the Bastille, where one or two lights could be seen, apparently suspended in the air, from the windows of the officials and the guard-room.
‘I know it, madame,’ replied Philippe. ‘It would not be safe for us to leave the city by that barrier. It is the nearest to your house; and if they suspect or discover that you have left Paris, they will directly conclude it is by the Porte St. Antoine there, and follow you. Besides, we might be challenged by the sentinels.’
‘You are right,’ said the Marchioness; ‘the Porte du Temple will be better.’
And shrouding herself in her cloak, she withdrew under the rough shelter of the tilt; whilst Philippe kept on, still leading the horse, through a labyrinth of small narrow streets, which would have been cut by a line drawn from the Bastille to the Temple. At last he emerged upon the new road formed by the destruction of the fortifications, which we now know as the boulevards, and reached the gate in question, which he passed through unquestioned by thegardien, who merely regarded the little party as belonging to one of the markets. Had he been entering the city instead, he would have been challenged; but, as the authorities did not care what any one took out of it, he was allowed to go on his way amidst a few houses immediately beyond the barrier, forming the commencement of the faubourg, until he came into the more open country. Here the reflected light from the white ground in some measure diminished the obscurity. The snow, too, had drifted into the hollows, leaving the road pretty clear; and Philippe clambered on to the front of the tumbrel, taking the reins in his hand, and drove on as he best might towards thegrande route. Not a word was exchanged between these two solitary travellers. Marie kept in a corner of the vehicle, closely enveloped in her mantle; and her companion had enough to do to watch the line they were taking, and keep his hearing on the stretch to discover the first sounds of pursuit.
‘Peste!’ exclaimed Philippe at length, as one of the wheels jolted into a deep rut, and the lantern was jerked off and its light extinguished; ‘this is unlucky. We did not see too well with it, and I don’t know how we shall fare now.’
He jumped down as he spoke, and tried to rekindle the light with his breath; but it was of no use; he entirely extinguished the only spark remaining. In this dilemma he looked around him, to see if there was a chance of assistance. Marie also was aroused from her silence by the accident, and gazed earnestly from the cart with the same purpose. At last, almost at the same instant, they perceived a thin line of light, as though it shone through an ill-closed shutter, but a little way ahead of them; and the stars, which had been slowly coming out, now faintly showed the outline of a high and broken ground upon their right. At the top of this some masonry and broken pillars were just observable, supporting cross-beams, from which, at certain distances, depended dark, irregularly-shaped objects. It was a gloomy locality, and Philippe knew it well, as he made out the crumbling remains of the gibbet at Montfaucon.
‘I should have taken this as a bad omen,’ said he, half joking, ‘if thefourchehad been still in use. It would have looked as though the beam was meant for our destination.’
As they approached the small cabin from which the light came, Philippe shouted to awaken the attention of those within; but no answer being returned, he jumped down, and knocked furiously at the door. He heard some whispers for a minute or two, and then a woman’s voice demanded, ‘Who is there?’
‘A traveller, who wants a light,’ cried Philippe, ‘to guide him safely to Bourget. For pity, madame, don’t keep me here much longer, or I must be ungallant, and kick in the door.’
There was evidently another conference within, and then the door was cautiously opened. Philippe entered, and his eyes directly fell upon Exili, whilst the female proved to be a woman who was practising fortune-telling in Paris—it was supposed as a cloak for darker matters—and was known to some of the people, and to the whole of the police, as La Voisin. The physician and the student recognised each other immediately, for they had often met on the carrefours, and each uttered a hurried exclamation of surprise at the rencontre.
‘Monsieur Glazer,’ said Exili, as Philippe took a light from the fire, ‘you have seen me here, and possibly are acquainted with what has taken place in the Quartier Latin this evening.’
‘I know everything,’ replied Glazer.
‘Then I must ask you, on your faith, to keep my secret,’ said Exili. ‘You have discovered me in coming here to serve yourself; but this refuge is to me an affair of life and death. You will not betray me?’
‘You may trust me,’ said Philippe carelessly; ‘and in return, madame,’ he continued, turning to La Voisin, ‘if any others should come up, let your story be that you have seen no one this night. Mine also is a case of emergency, and a lady—high-born, rich, and beautiful—is concerned in it.’
The woman assured Philippe he might depend upon her secrecy; and he was about to depart with his lantern, when Exili stopped him.
‘Stay!’ he exclaimed earnestly. ‘Who is it you have with you?’ And as he spoke the strange fire kindled in his falcon eyes that always bespoke the working of some terrible passion within.
‘It cannot concern you,’ replied Philippe. ‘I have got my light, and our interview is concluded.’
‘Not yet,’ answered Exili quickly. ‘A woman—rich, high-born, and beautiful. It is the Marchioness of Brinvilliers!’
And before Philippe could stop him, he rushed forward and threw open the covering of the cart, discovering Marie still crouching in the corner of the vehicle.
‘I have you, then, at last,’ he cried, in a voice choking with rage, as he recognised her. ‘Descend!—fiend! demon! murderess of my son! Descend! for you are mine—mine!’
He was about to climb up the vehicle, when Marie, to whom part of the speech was entirely incomprehensible, shrank to the other side of the tumbrel, and called upon Philippe to defend her. But this was not needed. The young student had clutched the physician by the neck, and pulled him back on to the ground.