The Comtesse’s only reply was to lay her hand in acaressing way upon the beautiful arm of her friend. She turned to Jean:
“Jean, are you sure of the carriage?”
“Mordieu, yes. Vaudrin is ours entirely.”
“Will it be possible to have the arms altered in this short time?”
“He will do it. I will call upon him to-morrow morning at six o’clock.”
“Well,” said the Comtesse, “I accept. I accept everything—your advice, Monsieur de Rochefort, and your sacrifice, Camille. But it is a debt I can never repay.”
This sweet sentence was suddenly broken upon by a shriek of laughter from Jean. Dubarry rarely laughed, but when he did so it took him like convulsions—a very bad sign in a man. He flung himself on a couch and slapped his thigh.
“Their faces,” cried he, “when you appear, when the usher cries, ‘Madame la Comtesse de Béarn, Madame la Comtesse Dubarry.’ Choiseul’s face!”
“And Polastron’s!” cried the Comtesse, catching up the laugh. “And de Guemenée’s!”
Mademoiselle Fontrailles clasped her hands and laughed too. One might have fancied that they were quite assured of their victory over the profound and duplex Choiseul. They were laughing like this when a man-servant appeared. He had knocked at the door, but as he had received no answer and his business was urgent, he entered.
“Madame,” said the servant, “Monsieur de Sartines has arrived, and would speak a word with you on a matter of importance.”
“Monsieur de Sartines,” said the Comtesse, rising, “at this hour! Show him in.”
Everyone rose, and as they stood waiting, the little clock on the mantel chimed the hour. It was two o’clock in the morning. A minute passed, and then the servant returned, opening wide the door.
“Monsieur de Sartines.”
Sartines bowed to the Comtesse, and then, individually, to each present. He showed scarcely any surprise at the presence of Rochefort.
Sartines was the burning centre of this conspiracy to present the Comtesse Dubarry at Court in the teeth of all the opposition of the nobles, and he wished his part in it to be as secret as possible; yet he did not question Rochefort’s presence. He knew quite well that, Rochefort being there, he must have joined hands with the Comtesse. He was a man who never wasted time.
“Madame,” said he, “I have grave news to tell you.”
“Aha!” said the Comtesse, “more bad news. But stay, perhaps we know it. Is it the plot to rob me of my carriage and my hairdresser?”
“No, madame, I know nothing of any plot to rob you of your carriage. It is about the Comtesse de Béarn I have come to speak. Did she not receive a present to-day?”
“Yes, a basket of flowers from an old lady who belongs to her province. A Madame Turgis.”
“Yes,” said de Sartines, “and a Secret Service agent has just brought me news that amidst the flowers in that basket was a note.”
“A note!”
“A letter, I should say, giving the Comtesse de Béarn a full and true account of the little plan by which she was induced to come to Paris.”
“Oh,mon Dieu!” cried Madame Dubarry. “If the old fool only gets to know that, we are ruined! I know her as well as if I had constructed her. Once her pride and self-esteem are touched, she is hopeless to deal with.”
“At what hour did this basket of flowers arrive?” asked de Sartines.
“At four o’clock.”
“It has been in her private apartments ever since?”
“Yes.”
De Sartines looked at the clock on the mantel.
“Ten hours and seven minutes. Well, madame, if in that time the Comtesse de Béarn has not discovered the note, you are saved. Go at once, madame, to her apartments, and if you can capture the accursed basket and its contents, for Heaven’s sake do so. We must give her no chance to find it in the morning.”
Madame Dubarry left the room without a word. She passed through the next room and down a corridor, where, taking a small lamp from a table, she turned with it in her hand to a narrow staircase leading to the next floor. Here she paused at a doorway, listened, and then, gently opening the door, entered the Comtesse de Béarn’s sitting-room.
On a table near the window stood the fateful basket of flowers. The folding-doors leading to the bedroom were slightly open, and the intruder was approaching to seize the basket, when a sound from the bedroom made her pause, a low, deep groan, as if from someone in mortal pain.
“Help!” cried a muffled voice. “Who is that with the light? Ah! how I suffer!”
Without a word the Comtesse passed to the folding-doors, opened them, and next moment was in the bedroom.On the bed, half-covered with the clothes, lay the Comtesse de Béarn, on the floor near the stove lay a chocolate-pot upset, and the contents staining the parquet.
“Mon Dieu!” cried Madame Dubarry. “What has happened?”
“Ah, madame!” cried the old woman, “I am nearly dead. Here have I lain for hours in my misery. The pot of chocolate which I was heating on the stove upset—and look at my leg!”
She protruded a leg, and Madame Dubarry drew back with a cry. Foot and ankle and the leg half-way up to the shin bone were scalded in a manner that would be unpleasant to describe; but it was not the scalded leg that evoked Madame Dubarry’s cry of anguish. It was the knowledge that her presentation was now hopeless. For the Comtesse de Béarn to undertake the journey to Versailles with a leg like that was clearly impossible.
The Choiseuls had taken all precautions, their bow had many strings. This was the fatal one. The old woman on the bed, though suffering severely, could not suppress the gleam of triumph that showed in her eyes, now fixed on those of the Comtesse.
“Ah, madame!” said Dubarry, “this was ill done. Had you known what personal issues to yourself were involved, you would have been more careful!” Then, lest she should lose all restraint over herself, and fling the lamp in her hand at the head of the scalded one, she rushed from the room, seized the basket of flowers, and with basket in one hand and lamp in the other reached the ground floor, taking this time the grand staircase. She broke into the room, where de Sartines and the others were seated, flung the basket ona chair, so that it upset and the contents tumbled pell-mell over the floor, and broke into tears.
Everyone knew.
“Has she found out?” cried Jean.
“Madame,” said de Sartines, waving the Vicomte aside, “calm yourself; all may not yet be lost.”
“Ah, monsieur, you do not know,” sobbed the unfortunate woman. “Not only has she found out, but she has scalded her leg, so that the affair is now absolutely hopeless.” She told her tale, and as she told it her sobs ceased, her eyes grew bright, and she finished standing before them with clenched hands and sparkling eyes, more beautiful than ever.
Mademoiselle Fontrailles had been collecting the flowers; there was no sign of a letter among them. Jean Dubarry, white and beyond speech and unable to vent his spleen on anything else, had cuffed the China mandarin on to the floor, where it lay shattered. Rochefort, carried away by the tragedy, was cursing. De Sartines only was calm.
“It is impossible, then, for her to appear at Versailles?” said he.
“Utterly, monsieur.”
“Well, madame,” said de Sartines, “courage; all is not yet lost.”
“Ah, Monsieur de Sartines,” said the Comtesse, “what do you mean? Do you not know as well as I do that, failing the Comtesse de Béarn, the thing is impossible? Even were I to find someone qualified to take the place of this old woman, there would still be all the formalities of the application. Monsieur de la Vrillière would have to inquire into the antecedents of the lady, and Monsieur de Coigny wouldhave to receive the request, only to lose it for Monsieur to find and cancel on account of the delay.”
“Madame,” cut in de Sartines, “the plan which has just occurred to me has nothing to do with the finding of a substitute. Madame la Comtesse de Béarn shall present you; or, let us put it in this way: to-morrow evening at ten o’clock you will be presented to his Majesty at the Court of Versailles. I am only mortal, and therefore fallible; but if you will leave the matter in my hands the thing shall be done, always saving the direct interposition of God.”
“You are, then, a magician?” cried the Comtesse.
“No, madame; or only a white magician who works through human agency.”
“Ah, Monsieur de Sartines,” cried the Comtesse, hope appearing again in her eyes, “if you can only help me in this, I shall pray for you till my dying day!”
“Oh, madame,” replied de Sartines, with a laugh, “I would never dream of imposing such a task upon the most beautiful lips in the world. I only ask you now to work with me, for this immediate end.”
“And what can I do?”
“Carry on all your preparations for to-morrow night. Monsieur Rochefort has explained to me the plot for the stealing of the carriage, the dress and the coiffeur. Let the Vicomte attend to the carriage, let Mademoiselle Fontrailles supply you with her dress, and let your most trusted servant fetch the coiffeur that Monsieur Rochefort knows of.”
“I will fetch him myself,” said Rochefort.
“No, Rochefort,” said de Sartines, “I have need of you for something else. May I put my reliance on your obedience in this crisis?”
“Implicitly, Sartines,” replied the Comte. “Call upon me for what you will.Mordieu!I have fought many a duel, but never has a fight stirred my blood like this. I will act any part or dress for any part except the part of spectator.”
“I will find enough for you to do, and now I must be going. It is after three o’clock, and if you will take a seat in my carriage, I will give you a lift on your way home, and explain what I want.”
“And I will see you again, monsieur?” said the Comtesse, addressing the Minister of Police.
“Not till after the presentation, Madame, when I hope to have the honour of kissing your hand. You understand, I have nothing to do with this affair. You must even abuse me to your friends, who are absolutely sure to be in communication with your enemies. And now, if I were you, I would send for your physician to attend to Madame de Béarn’s leg.”
He bade his adieux.
Rochefort, having scribbled the name of the coiffeur on a piece of paper supplied by Jean, gazed into the eyes of Mademoiselle Fontrailles, as he lifted his lips from her hand. He fancied that her glance told him all that he wished, and more than he had hoped.
In the hall Sartines enveloped himself in a black cloak, put on a broad-brimmed hat, and, followed by Rochefort, entered the carriage that was waiting in the courtyard. It was a carriage, perfectly plain, without adornment, such as the Minister used when wishing to mask his movements.
“You did not come in your own carriage, then?” said Rochefort, as they drove away.
“Oh, dear, no,” said Sartines. “My carriage is still waiting at Choiseul’s. I slipped away, having alreadysent an agent for this plain carriage to meet me at the third lamp-post on the right, as you go up the Rue St. Honoré from the Rue du Faubourg.”
“You had an agent in attendance, then?”
“My dear Rochefort, three of Choiseul’s servants are my agents, and it was from one of them that I learned of this precious plot about the basket of flowers. You live in the Rue de Longueville!”
“Ah, you know my new address!” said Rochefort, laughing.
“I know everything about you, my dear Rochefort. Now, will you put your head out of the window, and tell the coachman to drive to the Rue de Longueville? I cannot go back to the Hôtel de Sartines at once. I must crave the shelter of your apartments; we are being followed.”
“Followed?”
“Mordieu, yes! The Dubarrys’ house has been watched all day. When I drove up in this carriage, I saw one of Choiseul’s agents, who, without doubt, tried to question my coachman whilst I was in the house; a perfectly useless proceeding, as my coachman is Sergeant Bonvallot. I know quite well, now, that there is a man running after us, so do as I say.”
Rochefort put his head out and gave the direction.
“My faith!” said he, as he resumed his place, “but they are keen, the Choiseuls.”
“They are more than that. You cannot guess at all the way this matter has stirred the whole court. Of course, when the thing is over and done with, and the presentation an accomplished matter, the Comtesse will not be able to number her friends. But she is lost if Choiseul succeeds, and if she succeeds Choiseul is lost. Once give her an accredited place atcourt, and the breaking of Choiseul will be only the matter of a few months.”
“Sartines,” said the young man with that daring which gave him permission to say things other men would not have dreamed of saying, “you are not doing this for love of the Dubarry?”
“I?” said de Sartines. “I am doing it to break Choiseul.”
The carriage which had entered the Rue de Longueville stopped at a house on the left, and the two men got out.
DE SARTINES said a word to his coachman and, without even glancing down the street to see if he were followed or not, entered the house, the door of which Rochefort had opened with a key. They passed upstairs to the apartments of the Count. In the sitting-room de Sartines cast off his cloak, flung it on a chair with his hat, and took his seat.
“Now let us talk for a moment,” said he. “And first, a word about yourself. It is unfortunate that you killed that man, considering that he was one of Choiseul’s agents.”
“I killed him in self-defence,” said Rochefort; “or at least, I can say that he attempted my life before I took his.”
“Oh, the killing is nothing,” said de Sartines. “The vermin is well out of the way. What really matters is, that you balked Choiseul in his attempt to spy upon Dubarry’s secrets. Of course, he may never know the truth of the matter; but, if he does—well, you will need a lot of protection, and we will endeavour to find it for you. Now to the Comtesse’s business. It is quite clear that the old Béarn woman is literally out of court. Every other woman in Paris or Versailles is equally impossible, or, at least, seemingly so. I, asMinister of Police, have great power; but I am powerless to help, for to help I would have to declare my hand openly, which, as you well may guess, is impossible to one in my position. Besides, my power has limits. I cannot say to one of these Court women: ‘Youshallpresent Madame Dubarry to-night.’ No; yet all the same, I am powerful enough to ensure that presentation, I believe.”
Rochefort listened with interest. It was rarely that de Sartines unbosomed himself, and when he did it was generally only to show a cuirass of steel painted to imitate flesh; but to-night was different. He knew Rochefort to be absolutely reliable to those who trusted him.
“You talk in enigmas, my dear Sartines,” said the young man. “You say you are powerless, and then you say you are powerful enough to assure the presentation. Please explain yourself.”
“No man can explain himself, with the exception, perhaps, of Monsieur Rousseau, whose ‘Confessions’ you have perhaps read. But a man may explain his methods. Well, my methods are these. Being by nature a rather stupid and lazy man, I seek out the cleverest and most active men I can find to act for me. People fancy that my life is spent in searching for criminals, political offenders, and so forth; on the contrary, it is spent in looking for clever men. I have one gift, without which no man can hold a position like mine. I know men.
“More than that, I hunt for men and buy them just as M. Boehmer hunts for and buys diamonds. The consequence is that I have more genius at my command in the Hôtel de Sartines than his Majesty has at Versailles or Choiseul at the Ministry. I have Escritain,the greatest linguist in France, who knows not only all European languages, but all dialects. I have Fremin, the first cryptographer. I have Jumeau, the first accountant, who could reduce the value of the universe to francs and sous and, more important, discover an error in his work of one centime. I have Beauregard, the bravest man in France; Verpellieux, the best swordsman; Valjean, whose tongue would talk him into the nether regions and whose hand, if it caught hold of some new Eurydice, would bring her out, even though it fetched everything else with her. I have Formineux, a blind man whose sense of smell is phenomenal; and I have Lavenne, the greatest Secret Service agent in the world. Bring me a book you can’t translate, the name of a man you can’t find, a crime you can’t fathom, a suspicion you want verified, you will find the answer at the Hôtel de Sartines. One of these brave men, who are mine, will read the riddle.
“But outside the Hôtel de Sartines I have other men at my service. Yes, you will find a lot of people attached to us. You yourself, my dear Rochefort, have just become one of us. The Hôtel de Sartines has touched you.”
Rochefort laughed. “If it does not touch me any more unpleasantly than now, I shall not mind,” said he. “But you have not yet explained.”
“What?”
“Your plans as to the Dubarry.”
“Oh, that. I was coming to that; let me come to it in my own way. I have shown you the power at my disposal. I have all sorts of brains ready to work for me, all sorts of hands ready to do my bidding; but all those brains and hands would be useless to me had I not an intimate knowledge of their capacities,and had I not the power of selection. More than that, my dear Rochefort; I have, I believe, the dramatist’s gift of valuing and using shades of character. Dealing, as I do, with the most complex and highly civilized society in the world, I would be lost without this gift, which might have made me a good dramatist if Fate had not condemned me to be a policeman. In fact, my work at Versailles and in Paris has mainly to do with the reading backwards through plots, far more complicated than the plots of Molière, to find the authors’ names.
“Now I come to the Dubarry business. This woman must be presented to-morrow night. Choiseul has as good as stolen her carriage and her dressmaker—that will be put right. Choiseul has succeeded in making Madame de Béarn half boil herself to death. But Choiseul, who fancies that he has the whole business in the palm of his hand, has reckoned without the Hôtel de Sartines and the geniuses whom I have collected for years past, just as Monsieur d’Anjou collects seals or Monsieur de Duras Roman coins.
“I am about to employ one of these geniuses to work a miracle for Madame Dubarry. His name is Ferminard. He lives at the Maison Gambrinus—which is a tavern in the Porcheron quarter—and, as you have promised to serve us, you will go there to-morrow at noon, or a little before, with my agent Lavenne, and conduct this Ferminard to the Rue de Valois. Lavenne will not go to the Rue de Valois, for I will have other work for him to do, and besides, it is just as well for him not to go near the Dubarrys’ house, for, clever as he is in the art of disguise, Choiseul will have men watching all day who have the scent of hounds. We must run no risks.”
“Let us understand,” said Rochefort. “I am to meet your agent, Lavenne—where?”
“He will call for you here.”
“Good! Then I am to go with him to the Maison Gambrinus, find Ferminard, and conduct him to Madame Dubarry’s house in the Rue de Valois—all that seems very simple.”
“Perhaps. But you must be on your guard, for this Ferminard is abon viveur. Taverns simply suck him in, and were he to get lost in one, you would find him next drunk and useless.”
“A drunkard?”
“No, a man who drinks. Never look down on these people, Rochefort. Drink may be simply the rags a beggar walks in, or the robes and regalia that a royal mind adorns itself with to enter the kingdom of dreams.”
“And what am I to tell this Ferminard to do?”
“You are to tell him nothing, simply because you are a stranger to him, and he would look on orders from a stranger as an impertinence. Lavenne, however, knows him to the bone, and is a friend of his. Lavenne will give him private instructions, and then hand him over to you.”
“Very well. I will obey your orders, though they completely mystify me.”
“I assure you,” said de Sartines, “that I have no intention of mystifying you; but I cannot explain my idea to you simply because I have to explain it to Lavenne. It is after four in the morning, and I must get back to the Hôtel de Sartines. There is a man still watching at the corner of the street; he must not follow me. Now, do as I tell you. Take my black cloak and broad-brimmed hat, and put them on.We are both about the same size. Go out, walk down the street, go down the Rue de la Tour, and then through the Rue Picpus, returning here by the Rue de la Vallière. The fool will follow you all the time.”
“And you?”
“And I,” said de Sartines, putting on Rochefort’s cloak and hat, “will slip away to the Hôtel de Sartines, whilst you are leading thatsothis dance.”
“But he will follow me back here.”
“Of course he will, and he will see you go in and shut the door. Lavenne will bring you back your cloak and hat in a parcel. The point is, that they will never know that the man in the black cloak and hat, who left the Hôtel Dubarry with Monsieur Rochefort, returned to the Hôtel de Sartines.”
“But your carriage?”
“I told the coachman to take the carriage back to the place it came from. They will not follow an empty carriage; were they to do so, they would get nothing for their pains, as it came from a livery stable managed by the wife of Jumeau, that accountant of whom I spoke just now.”
Rochefort looked in astonishment at this man, whose methods were as intricate and minute as the reasoning power that directed them; whose life was a maze to which he alone possessed the clue, and whose path was never in a straight line.
He followed implicitly the instructions he had received, conscious all the time that he was being tracked, and once glimpsing a stealthy form that slipped from house-shadow to house-shadow. When he returned, de Sartines had vanished, and, casting himself on his bed dressed as he was, wearied with the night’s work, he fell asleep.
WHEN he awoke, with the full daylight staring into the room, the first remembrance that came to him was that of Mademoiselle Fontrailles. The whole of the past night seemed like some page torn from a romance; only this girl from the South seemed real. He was in love, for the first time in his life, and he did not recognize the fact that his passion had bound him openly to the Dubarrys, cast him head over heels into politics, to sink or swim with that exceedingly dubious family.
Rochefort had a big stake to lose; he had estates in Auvergne, his youth and his position in society. He had no political ambitions, but he had an ambition, ever living and always being gratified, to shine in his own peculiar way. He set the fashion in coats and morals, his sayings were repeated, even though many of them were scarcely worth repetition; his eccentricities, which were genuine and not assumed, were a feature of Paris life. Paris was his true home, and though he was seen frequently at Versailles, he was seen more often at the Café de Régence. He was the first of the dandies, the predecessor of theboulevardierof the Boulevard de Gand and the Café deParis, the prefiguration in flesh of Tortoni’s and the Second Empire.
Our present utilitarian age could no more produce a Rochefort than one of our engineers could produce a butterfly; only the full summer of social life which fell on Athens four hundred years before Christ, which fell on France in the time of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., and which brushed England with its wing in the time of the Regency, can produce these rare and useless human flowers. Useless, that is to say, as fine pictures, Ming figures, and live dragon-flies are useless.
He had, then, a big stake to lose by venturing into the stormy arena of politics, for the hand of de Choiseul was a heavy hand, and with the famous diamond-rimmed snuff-box held many things, including confiscation, exile, and even imprisonment. But Rochefort never thought of this, and, if he had thought of it, he would have pursued his present course absolutely unchecked. This dandy and trifler with life had no thought at all for danger, and the prudence that arises from self-interest was not one of his possessions. Leaving all that aside, he was in love, and the object of his love was in the path of his present progress.
He rang for Lermina, his valet, and bathed and dressed himself with most scrupulous care. It was now half-past eleven. He ordereddéjeunerto be served a quarter of an hour earlier than its usual time, and was seated at the meal when Lavenne was announced. He told the servant to show the visitor up, and when Lavenne entered rose from the table to greet him.
Lavenne formed a striking contrast to the elegant Rochefort. Lavenne was a man who, at first sight,seemed a young man, and at second sight, a man of middle age, soberly dressed, of middle height, and remarkable only for eyes wonderfully bright and luminous. Rochefort, who did not possess de Sartines’ power of reading men, had still the gift of deciding at once whether a person pleased him or not. He liked this man’s manner and appearance and face, and received him in a manner that at once made the newcomer at home.
Rochefort had not two manners, one for the rich and one for the poor. Whilst always rigidly keeping his own place, he would talk familiarly with anyone, from the king to the beggar at the corner of the street. But it would go hard with the man who presumed on this fact. Lavenne knew Rochefort quite well by name and appearance, had ranked him among the titled larvæ of the Court who were always passing under his eyes, and was surprised to find, after a few minutes’ talk, what a pleasant person he was.
“I have left the hat and cloak, monsieur, with your servant,” said Lavenne. “My master, the Comte de Sartines, gave me instructions to bring them with me.
“Ah, the hat and cloak!” said Rochefort. “I had forgotten them. Thanks. Will you not be seated? I have just finisheddéjeuner, and shall be quite at your disposal when the carriage arrives. I ordered it for twelve, as I suppose we had better drive to this place, which is in the Porcheron district. Will you not have a glass of wine?” He poured out a glass of Beaune, and whilst Lavenne drank it, finished his breakfast, chatting all the time, but saying nothing at all on the object of their journey till they were in the carriage and driving to their destination.
“You expect to find him in, this Monsieur Ferminard?” asked Rochefort.
“Yes, monsieur. He is very poor just now, and when in that state he avoids the streets and cafés.”
“Ah, ah!” said Rochefort, wondering how this very poor man, who avoided even the streets, could be of help to the powerful Comtesse Dubarry at one of the most critical moments of her life. But he said nothing more; he did not like to appear as though he were trying to draw Lavenne out.
The Porcheron quarter lay between the Faubourg Montmartre and La Ville l’Évêque. It was sparsely populated, and here, at a tavern whose sign represented a hound running down a hare amidst long grass, the carriage drew up.
This was the Maison Gambrinus, a house of considerable repute for the excellence of its wine. Founded in the year 1614 by William Gambrinus, a Dutchman from Dordrecht, it was famous for three things—the excellence of its cookery, the goodness of its wine, and the modesty of its charges. Turgis, who now owned the place, possessed a wife who had been kitchenmaid at the Hôtel Noailles under the famous Coquellard; being a pretty girl, she had obtained from him, as a mark of his favour and as a wedding gift, a recipe for stewing veal, that he reckoned as one of his chief possessions. This same recipe brought people to the Maison Gambrinus from all over Paris, so that Turgis did a fair enough business.
As the carriage drew up, a big man appeared at the door of the inn; he was so broad that he nearly filled the doorway, which was by no means narrow. One might have fancied that the mould for his face had been cast on that great and jovial day when Nature,tired of making ordinary folk, took thought and said to herself: “Now let us make an innkeeper.”
It was an ideal face of its kind—fat, material, smiling—and promising everything in the way of good cheer and comfort. Yet to-day, to Lavenne’s surprise, this face, ordinarily so jovial, wore an expression that sat ill upon it, or rather, one might say, it had lost somewhat the natural expression that sat so well upon it.
“Turgis,” said Lavenne, as they followed him into the big room with a sanded floor, which formed thesalle-à-mangerand bar combined, “we have come to see Monsieur Ferminard. Is he in?”
“Oh,mon Dieu!” cried Turgis, “is he in? Why, Monsieur Lavenne, he has not been out for a fortnight; he has driven half my customers away, and his bill is still owing. Three hams, six dozen eggs, thirty-seven bottles of wine of Anjou, bread, salt, olives; a bill for sixty-five francs, to say nothing of the money I have lost through him. Before I take another poet as a guest, I will set light with my own hand to the Máison Gambrinus. Listen to him!”
From an adjoining room came the sound of a loud and high-pitched voice, laughing, talking, bursting out now and then into snatches of song, and now low-pitched and seemingly engaged in argument. Then, all at once, came a furious stamping, a cry, and the sound of a table being overset.
“Pardieu!” cried Rochefort, “he seems busy. What on earth is he doing?”
“Doing, monsieur!” replied the host. “Nothing. He is writing a play.”
“Does he write with his feet, then, this Monsieur Ferminard?”
“Aye, does he,” replied Turgis, bending to lift a bottle from the floor and placing it on one of the tables, “and with his tongue and fists and head. Gascon that he is, he acts all his tragedies as he writes them. He has been writing a duel since noon, and has smashed, God knows how much of my furniture. Sixty-five francs he owes me, which will not be paid till his tragedy is finished; by which time, Heaven help me! I fear he will have devoured and drunk the contents of my cellar and destroyed my inn. And, were it not that he is the best fellow going and once did me a service, I would bundle him out of my place neck and crop, poems, plays and all.”
The noise from the adjoining room suddenly ceased, as if the poet had become aware of the voices of the innkeeper and the new-comers. The door burst open, and a man in his shirt-sleeves—a short, rather stout, clean-shaved individual, with a mobile face and bright, piercing eyes—appeared. He held a pen in his hand.
“Morbleu!” cried this apparition, in a testy voice, speaking to the landlord without even a glance at the others. “Have you no thought for the comfort of your guests? With your chatter, chatter, chatter, you have spoilt one of the finest of my passages.”
“And what about my tables?” burst out Turgis, suddenly flying into a rage, “and my glasses? Four broken this day, and my wainscoting pierced with the point of your rapier, and my room half wrecked—and you talk to me of your passages! What about my custom driven away? For one may not sneeze, it appears to me, without your poems being upset and your passages spoilt. What about my sixty-five francs?”
“They shall be paid,” said the poet, taking a minorkey. “Ah, Monsieur Lavenne!” His eye had just fallen on Lavenne.
“Pardon me,” said Lavenne to Rochefort. He went towards the tragedian, took him by the arm and drew him into the adjoining room. Then he shut the door.
Turgis wiped his forehead. “His passages! I wish he would find a passage to take him to the devil. What may I get for monsieur?”
“Get me a bottle of that wine for which you are so famous,” said Rochefort, taking a seat at a table, “and two glasses—that is right. He seems a strange customer, this Monsieur Ferminard.”
“Oh, monsieur,” replied Turgis, opening the wine and filling the glasses, “he would be right enough were he only to stick to his trade.”
“And what is his trade?”
“An actor, monsieur; he is a great actor. He belonged to the Théâtre Molière; but he quarrelled with the director, and the quarrel came to blows, and Ferminard wounded the director. Yes, monsieur, he would now be in prison only for Monsieur de Sartines, who took an interest in him, having seen him act. Ah, monsieur, he was a great actor. But he was not content to be an actor. Oh, no! What does he do but write a comedy himself, to beat Molière? And what does he do but get the ear of the Duc de la Vrillière and his permission to produce this precious comedy at Versailles, with Court ladies and gentlemen to act in it. If he had acted himself in it, the thing would have been saved, but belonging to the Théâtre Molière, he was bound by agreement not to act elsewhere.
“Well, monsieur, the thing went so badly that he abused the actors and actresses when they came offthe stage, and, as a result, he was caned by Monsieur de Coigny.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, “I heard something of that; but I was away from Paris, and I did not hear the details. He abused them.Mordieu!that’s good.”
“Yes, monsieur. I had the story from his own mouth. He told Madame de Duras, who was acting as one of his precious shepherdesses, that her head was as wooden as her legs. As for me, I would have been a mouse among all that company; but he—he does not care for the King himself; and so outraged does he feel even still, that could he burn Versailles down and all it contains he would be happy. He is not the man to forgive the strokes of Monsieur de Coigny’s cane. Your health, monsieur! Still the pity is that the fault was not with the actors, but with the play. It is common sense, besides. I, for instance, am a very good man at selling that wine you are drinking. But if I were to go to Anjou and try to make that wine, I would not be good at the business. Just so! A man may be a very good actor, and yet may not be able to write a play that another man could act well in.”
A sudden burst of laughter from the adjoining room cut Turgis short.
“What is up now, I wonder?” said he.
“He seems laughing at something that Monsieur Lavenne is telling him,” said Rochefort, whose interest in the whole affair had suddenly taken on an extra keenness, and who was deeply puzzled by a business of which he could find no possible explanation. “Come, refill your glass! You deserve to drink such good wine since you choose to sell it.”
The landlord did as he was told without the slightesttrace of unwillingness, and they sat talking on indifferent matters till the door of the next room suddenly opened and Lavenne appeared.
He took Rochefort outside the inn to the roadway, where the carriage was still in waiting.
“Monsieur,” said Lavenne, “I have arranged everything with Ferminard. But it is absolutely necessary that he should go to the Rue de Valois in such a fashion that no one can recognize him. Will you, therefore, take your seat in the carriage, and he will join you in a few minutes.”
“Certainly,” said Rochefort, who had drunk enough wine and on whom the conversation of the innkeeper had begun to pall. “And here is a louis to pay the score. He can keep the change.”
“Thank you, monsieur,” said Lavenne. “You will see me no more, for my part in this business is now over.”
“Well, then, good-day to you,” said the Comte, “and thank you for your pleasant company.”
Lavenne bowed and returned to the inn, and Rochefort, telling his coachman to wait, got into the carriage. Five minutes passed, and then ten. He was becoming impatient, when from the inn door emerged an old man of miserable appearance who blinked at the sun, blinked at the carriage, and then came towards it and placed his hand on the door-handle.
Rochefort, who did not care for the appearance of this person, was on the point of asking him what the devil he wanted, when he caught a glimpse of Lavenne at the inn door, nodding to him to indicate that all was right. Then he grasped the fact that this incredible mass of decrepitude was Ferminard. He helped the old fellow in, and the driver, who alreadyhad his instructions, turned his horses, whipped them up, and started off in the direction of the Faubourg St. Honoré.
“Well, Monsieur Ferminard,” said Rochefort, laughing, “if I had not had the honour of seeing you when comparatively young, I would not have known you in your old age.”
“Oh, that is nothing, monsieur,” said Ferminard; “to turn oneself into an old man is an easy matter. The great difficulty is for an actor to turn himself into a youth. Has Monsieur ever seen me act?”
“Often,” said Rochefort, who, in fact, had little care for the theatre, and had never seen him act, “and I was charmed.”
“Monsieur is very good to say so. As for me, I have never been charmed by my own acting, though ’twas passable enough; but the fact is, monsieur, I was not born an actor. I was born a dramatist.”
“Oh, ho!”
“Yes, monsieur, that is how fate treats one. My head is full of my creations; they seize me, and make me write. Ah! whilst I am writing, then I can act; if I were impersonating one of my own characters on the stage, then I could act. But when I have to play the part of some other man’s creation in character, then I feel a stick.”
“You have written many plays?”
“Numerous, monsieur,” said the greatest actor and worst dramatist in France.
“I hear you had one staged in Versailles.”
“Oh,mon Dieu!” said Ferminard. “All France knows that tale. Ah,dame, when I think of it, I could kick this coach to pieces—I could eat the world. Well,they shall be rewarded. Ferminard will have his revenge.”
He laughed and slapped his thigh.
They had entered the Rue de Pontoise, which led into the Rue de Valois.
“And now, monsieur,” said Ferminard, “I will forget, if you please, that I am an actor, and remember that I am an old man.”
He did, with strange effect. As the carriage turned into the courtyard of the Hôtel Dubarry, had any spy been watching the antique face of Ferminard at the window of the coach, he would have sent a report absolutely confusing to the Choiseul faction. He alighted, leaning on Rochefort’s arm. In the hall, when they were admitted, Jean Dubarry, who was waiting and who evidently had been advised by de Sartines of what to expect, seized upon Ferminard as though he had been a long-lost treasure, and spirited him away down a corridor, apologizing to Rochefort, and calling back to him over his shoulder to wait for a moment until he returned.
Rochefort, left alone, was turning to look at a stand of arms, supposed to contain the pikes and swords and spears of vanished Dubarrys slain in warfare, when a step drew his attention, and turning, he found himself face to face with Javotte. He had completely forgotten Javotte. But she had not forgotten him. She had a tray of glasses in her hand, and as their eyes met she blushed, looked down, and then glanced up again with a charming smile.
He had kissed her the night before; but she was only one of the thousand girls that the light-hearted Rochefort had kissed in passing, so to speak, and without ulterior intent. The pleasantest thingin the world is to kiss a pretty girl, just as one of the pleasantest things in the world is to draw a rose towards one, inhale its perfume, and release it unharmed; but very few men have the art of doing the thing successfully. Rochefort had. Just as some old gentlemen, by sheer power of personality, can say the mostrisquéand terrible things without giving offence, so could Rochefort with women do things and say things that another man would not have dared. It was the touch of irresponsibility in his nature that gave him, perhaps, this power.
It was not the kiss lightly given the night before that made Javotte blush; it was the presence of Rochefort. Since his rescue of her, he completely filled her mind.
“Ah! little one,” said he, “good-morning!”
“Good-morning, monsieur.”
“And where are you going?”
“To the room of Madame la Comtesse, though I am no longer in her service.”
“No longer in her service?”
“No, monsieur.”
“And in whose service are you now,petite?”
“I belong to Mademoiselle Fontrailles, monsieur. I was only temporarily with Madame la Comtesse; and as her maid, Jacqueline, has returned to her this morning, and as I seemed to please Mademoiselle Fontrailles, who is staying here till after the presentation, I entered her service.”
“Ah, ha!” said Rochefort. “And where does mademoiselle live?”
“She has apartments in the Rue St. Dominic, monsieur, where she lives with her nurse.”
“Her nurse!”
“Yes, monsieur, an old Indian woman, who is as black as my shoe.”
The lively Javotte was proceeding to a vivacious description of her black sister from Martinique when a step on the stairs checked her; she vanished with the glasses, and Rochefort, turning, found himself face to face with Mademoiselle Fontrailles, who had just entered the hall.
They bowed to one another ceremoniously. It seemed to Rochefort that, beautiful as she had appeared on the night before, she was even more beautiful by daylight, here in the deserted hall of the Hôtel Dubarry.
“Well, mademoiselle,” said he, “and how are things progressing?”
“Marvellously, monsieur; but do not let us talk here of state secrets.” She led the way into the little room where they had parted but a few hours before.
“The carriage has been arranged for, your coiffeur will, I am sure, prove a success; he has arrived, and the Vicomte Jean has put him under lock and key, with a pocketful of louis to play with, and the promise of an equal amount when his work is done; my poor dress is now being altered and promises a perfect fit. We are saved, in fact, and thanks to you.”
“No, mademoiselle, thanks to luck; for if I had not gone to Choiseul’s ball I would not have met you.”
“You mean, you would not have discovered the plot to steal the carriage and the dress.”
“But for you the plot would have lain in my mind unrevealed. I have a horror of Court intrigue. As it is, I have set myself against Choiseul, and killedone of his agents, and thwarted his best hopes; but I count all that nothing in your service.”
Mademoiselle Fontrailles gazed at him steadily as he stood there with this patent declaration of homage on his lips, and all the laughter and lightness gone from his happy-go-lucky and defiant face.
She guessed now from his face and manner what was in his mind, and that the slightest weakening on her part would bring him down on his knee before her.
“I thank you, monsieur,” said she. “And now to the question of the Comtesse de Béarn.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, inwardly cursing the Comtesse de Béarn, “I had forgotten the Comtesse. And how is she this morning?”
“She is still very bad.”
“And to-night?”
“She will be quite unable to attend at Versailles.”
Rochefort was about to make a remark when the door leading to the adjoining room opened, and Madame Dubarry herself appeared, young, fresh, triumphant and laughing.
“Did I hear you speaking of the Comtesse de Béarn?” asked she, as she extended her hand to Rochefort.
“Yes, madame, and I am grieved to hear that she is still indisposed.”
“Then, monsieur, you have heard false news. Madame la Comtesse has nearly recovered, and will be quite well enough to act for me to-night.”
Mademoiselle Fontrailles smiled, and Rochefort, not knowing what to make of these contradictory statements, stood glancing from one to the other of his informers.
“Not only that,” continued Madame Dubarry, “but you may tell everyone the news. That Madame la Comtesse has had a slight accident and has now perfectly recovered. And now I must dismiss you, dear Monsieur Rochefort, for I have a world of business before me; but only till to-night, when we will meet at Versailles. You will be there, will you not?”
“Yes,” said Rochefort, “I shall be there to see your triumph—and Mademoiselle Fontrailles?”
“I shall not be there,” said the girl, “or only in spirit; but my dress will be there.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, “even that is something.”
Then off he went. Light-hearted now and laughing, for it seemed to him that, though his affair had seemingly not made an inch of progress, all was well between him and Camille Fontrailles.
TO present the mentality of the Comtesse de Béarn one would have to reconstruct the lady, and rebuild from all sorts of medieval constituents her mind, person and dress. Feudal times have left us cities such as Nuremberg and Vittoria standing just as they stood in the twilight of the Middle Ages, but the people have vanished, only vaguely to be recalled.
The Comtesse de Béarn was medieval, and carried the twelfth century clinging to her coif and mantelet right into the heart of the Paris of 1770. Arrogant, narrow, superstitious and proud as Lucifer, this old lady, impoverished by years of litigation with the family of Saluce, inveigled up to Paris by a false statement that her lawsuit was about to be settled to her advantage, entertained by the Dubarrys and filled by them with promises and hopes, had agreed to act as introducer to the Comtesse. She disliked the business, but was prepared to swallow it for the sake of the lawsuit.
Choiseul’s note conveyed in the basket of flowers had acted with withering effect. It was written by a master mind that understood finely the mind it was addressing, and its one object was to convey the sentence: “You have been tricked.”
She saw the truth at once; she had been fetched up to Paris to act as a servant in the Dubarrys’ interests; she had been outwitted, played with. In an instant, twenty obscure and dubious happenings fell into their proper place, and she saw in a flash not only the deception but the fact that when she was done with she would be cast aside like a sucked orange; returned to her castle on the banks of the Meuse.
The unholy anger that filled the old lady’s mind might have led her at once to open revolt had she not possessed a lively sense of the power of the Dubarrys, and an instinctive fear of the Vicomte Jean. To revolt and say: “I will take no part in the presentation,” would have led to a pitched battle, in which she felt she would be worsted. She was too old and friendless to fight all these young, vigorous people who were on their own ground. But she would not present the woman who had tricked her at the Court of Versailles.
She boiled a pot of chocolate, and poured the contents over her foot and leg. The physical agony was nothing to the satisfaction of her mind. Madame Dubarry’s face when she saw the wound was more soothing than all the cold cream that Noirmont, the Dubarrys’ doctor, applied to the scald; and this morning, stretched on her back, with her leg swathed in cotton and the pain eased, she revelled in the thought of her enemy’s discomfiture. She felt no fear; they could not kill her; they could not turn her out of the house; she was an honoured guest, and she lay waiting for the distraction and the wailing and tears of the Dubarry woman, and the storming of the Vicomte Jean.
Instead of these came, at twelve o’clock or thereabouts,Noirmont, the physician, accompanied by Chon Dubarry, who had just arrived from Luciennes. The charming Chon seemed in the best spirits, and was full of solicitation and pity for her “dear Comtesse.”
Noirmont examined the leg, declared that his treatment had produced a decidedly beneficial effect, and, without a word as to when the patient might expect to be able to walk again, bowed himself out, leaving Chon and the Comtesse together.
“You see, my dear lady,” said the old woman, “how fallible we all are to accident. But for that unlucky pot of chocolate, I would now be dressed, and ready to pay mydevoirsto Madame la Comtesse; as it is, if I am able to leave my bed in a week’s time I will be fortunate, and even then I will, without doubt, have to be carried from this house to my carriage.”
“Madame,” said Chon devoutly, “we are all in the hands of Providence, whose decrees are inscrutable. Let us, then, bear our troubles with a spirit, and hope for the best.”
“Oh,mon Dieu!” cried the old woman, irritated at the extraordinary cheerfulness of the other, and feeling instinctively that some new move of the accursed Dubarrys was in progress, “it is easy for the whole in body and limb to dictate cheerfulness to the afflicted. Here am I laid up, and my affairs needing my attention in the country; but I think less of them than of the Court to-night, which I am unable to attend, and of the presentation which I am debarred from taking my part in. Not on my own account, for I have long given up the vanities of the world, but on account of Madame la Comtesse Dubarry.”
“Truly, there seems a fate in it,” said Chon, with great composure and cheerfulness. “Everythingseemed going on so happily for your interests and ours. Well, it cannot be helped; there is no use in grumbling. The great thing now, dear Madame de Béarn, is your health, which is, after all, more important to you than money or success in lawsuits. Can I order you anything that you may require?”
The only thing Madame de Béarn could have wished for at the moment was Madame Dubarry’s head on a charger, but she did not put her desire in words. She lay watching with her bright old eyes whilst Chon, with a curtsey, turned and left the room. Then she lay thinking.
She was beaten. The Dubarrys had in some way found a method of evading defeat. Unfortunate Comtesse! When she had put herself to all this pain and discomfort she little knew that she was setting herself, not against the Dubarrys alone, but against de Sartines, and all the wit, ingenuity and genius of the Hôtel de Sartines. Moss-grown in her old château by the Meuse, she knew nothing of Paris, its trickery and its artifice. She had all this yet to learn.
All that she knew now was the fact that the plans of her enemies were prospering, and the mad desire to thwart them would have given her energy and fortitude enough to leave her bed, and hobble from the house, had she not known quite well that such a thing was impossible. The Dubarrys would not let her go.
Then a plan occurred to her. She rang the bell which had been placed on the table beside her, and when the maid entered, ordered her to fetch at once Madame Turgis, the old lady from her province who had sent her the basket of flowers.
“She lives in the Rue Petit Picpus, No. 10,” said she. “And ask her to come at once, for I feel worse.”
The maid left the room, promising to comply with the order. Five minutes passed, and then came a knock at the door, which opened, disclosing the Vicomte Jean. He was all smiles and apologies and affability. Did the Comtesse feel worse? Should they send again for Noirmont? The maid had gone to fetch Madame Turgis, who would be here no doubt immediately. Would not Madame la Comtesse take some extra nourishment? Some soup?
Then he retired as gracefully as he had entered, and the Comtesse de Béarn waited. At one o’clock the maid came back. Madame Turgis was from home, but the message had been left, asking her to call at once on her return.
“Ah,mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” cried the old woman recognizing at once that she had been tricked again, and that the maid had doubtless never left the house, seeing also her great mistake in not having used bribery. “And here am I lying in pain, and perhaps before she comes I may be gone, and my dying bequests will never be known. But wait.”
She took something from under her pillow. It was a handkerchief tightly rolled up. She unrolled the handkerchief carefully. There were half a dozen gold coins in it—louis d’or, stamped with the stately profile of the fourteenth Louis. It was part of the hoard which she kept at the Château de Béarn, on which she had drawn for travelling contingencies. Taking a louis, and folding up the rest, she held it out between finger and thumb.
“For you,” said she.
The maid advanced to take the coin.
“When Madame Turgis arrives,” finished the old woman, with a snap, withdrawing the coin and hidingher hand under the bed-clothes. “So go now, like a good girl, or find some messenger to go for you. Tell Madame Turgis that the Comtesse de Béarn has need for her at once. Then the louis will be yours to do what you like with, eh? ’Tis not often a louis is earned so cheap. You’ll have a young man of your own, and nothing holds ’em like a bit of fine dress; and I’ll look among my things and see if I can’t find you a bit of lace, or a trinket to put on top of the louis. And—put your pretty ear down to me—don’t let anyone know I’ve sent to Madame Turgis. It’s a secret between us about some property in the country.You understand me?”
Jehanneton, the maid, assented, and left the room, nodding her head, to acquaint immediately the powers below of this attempt at bribery and corruption.
At five o’clock a new maid arrived with a tray containing soup and minced chicken.
“What has become of Jehanneton?” asked the old woman.
“Jehanneton went out, and has not yet come back,” replied the other. “I do not know where she has gone to. Does Madame feel better?”
The invalid drank her soup and ate her chicken. She had been duped again, and she knew it. Her only consolation was the fact that she had not parted with the louis.
At six she rang for a light. The maid who answered the summons not only brought a lamp, but put a lighted taper to all the candles about the dressing-table.
“Ma foi!” cried the Comtesse. “I did not tell you to light those.”
“It is by my mistress’s orders,” replied the maid,lighting, as she spoke, several more candles that stood on the bureau, till the room had almost the appearance of achapelle ardente—an appearance that was helped out by the corpse-like figure on the bed. Then the maid went out.
FIVE minutes later a knock came to the door, and a man entered. It was Ferminard. He was carrying the stiff brocade dress of Madame de Béarn over his left arm. In his right hand he carried a wig-block, on which was a wig such as then was worn by the elderly women of the Court.
The thing carried by Ferminard was less a wig than a structure of hair, a prefiguration of those towers and bastions with which the ladies of the sixteenth Louis’ reign adorned their heads. Hideous bastilles, which one would fancy did not require arming with guns to frighten Love from making any attack on the wearers.
Under his right arm Ferminard also carried a rolled-up parcel. He made a bow to the occupant of the bed as he entered, and then advanced straight to the dressing-table, where he deposited the wig-block and the parcel, whilst the door closed, drawn to by someone in the corridor outside.
“My hair! My dress! And,mon Dieu!A man in the room with me!” cried the Comtesse, seizing the bell on the table beside her and ringing it. “And the door shut! Monsieur, open that door, or I will cry for help.”
“Madame,” said Ferminard, placing the dress ona chair, “we are both of an age. Calm yourself, and regard me as though I were not here. Besides, I am not a man; I am an artist, and, so far from molesting you, I have come to pay you the greatest compliment in my power by producing your portrait.”
He drew a chair to the dressing-table, and proceeded to unroll the bundle, which contained bottles of pigment, some brushes and a host of other materials. The old woman on the bed lay watching him like a mesmerized fowl. Her portrait, at her time of life, and in her condition! What trick was this of the Dubarrys? She was soon to learn.
THE Versailles of to-day stands alone in desolation among all the other buildings left to us by the past. That vast courtyard through whose gates the dusty and travel-stainedberlinesof the ambassadors used to pass; those thousand windows, vacant and cleaned by the municipality; those fountains and terraces, and statues and vistas—across all these lies written the word which is at once their motto and explanation:Fuimus—we have been.
It is the palace of echoes.
But it is more than this. It is France herself. Not the France of to-day—banker and bourgeois-ridden; nor the France of the Second Empire—vulgar and painted; nor the Napoleonic France—half a brothel, half a barrack. Across all these and the fumes of the Revolution, Versailles calls to us: “I am France. Before I was built I was born in the dreams of the Gallic people. I am the concretion in stone of all the opulence and splendour and licence of mind which found a focus in the reign of Le Roi Soleil; the Hôtel St. Pol and the Logis d’Angoulême foreshadowed me, and Chambord and all those châteaux that mirror themselves in the Loire. I am the wealth of Jacques Cœur, the bravery of Richelieu and Turenne, thelaughter of Rabelais, the songs of Villon, the beauty of Marion de l’Orme, the licentiousness of Montpensier, the arrogance of Fouquet. Of all that splendour I remain, an echo and a dream.”
But to-night, in the year of our Lord 1770, Versailles, living and splendid, a galaxy of lights that might have been seen from leagues away, the huge park filled with the sound of the wind in the trees and the waters of the fountains, the great courtyard ablaze with lamps and torches, and coloured with the uniforms of the Guards and the Swiss—to-night Versailles was drawing towards herself the whole world in the form of the ambassadors of Europe, the whole Court of France, and a majority of the population of Paris.
The Place d’Armes was thronged, and the Paris road, a league from the gates; bourgeois and beggar, the hungry and well-fed, the maimed, the halt and the blind, apprentice and shop-girl—all were there, a seething mass attracted to the festivity as moths are attracted by a lamp, and all filled with one idea: the Dubarry.
The news of the friction at Court had gone amongst the people. It was said that the Dubarry had been forbidden at the last moment to attend; that the presentation had been cancelled, that she was ill, that the Vicomte Jean had insulted M. le Duc de Choiseul, that the arrival of the Dauphiness had been hurried, and that she was already at Versailles, and that she had refused to see the favourite. All of which statements, and a hundred others more wild and improbable, were bandied about during the glorious excitement to be got by watching the blazing windows of the palace, the uniformed figures of the Guards, and the steadystream of carriages coming from the direction of Paris.
Rochefort arrived at nine o’clock—that is to say, an hour before the time of the ceremony; his carriage immediately followed that of the Duc de Richelieu. The entrance-hall was crowded, and the Escalier des Ambassadeurs thronged. This great staircase, now removed, led by a broad, unbalustraded flight of eleven marble steps to a landing where, beneath the bust of Louis XV., a fountain played, gushing its waters into a broad basin supported by tritons, dolphins and sea-nymphs; from here a balustraded staircase swept up to right and left, and here, just by the fountain, Rochefort found himself cheek by jowl with de Sartines, who had arrived just before M. de Richelieu.
“Ah!” said de Sartines, recognizing the other, “and when did you arrive?”
“Why, it seems to me an hour ago,” replied the other, “judging by the time I have been getting thus far; to be more precise, I came immediately after M. de Richelieu. And how are your dear thieves and people getting on? I should imagine they are mostly at Versailles to-night, to judge by the crowds on the Paris road.”
“Oh,” replied de Sartines, “I daresay there are enough of them left in Paris to keep my agents busy. And how did you like Lavenne?”
“He was charming. If all your thief-catchers were such perfect gentlemen, I would pray God to turn a few of our gentlemen into thief-catchers. But he was not so charming as your dramatist, Monsieur Ferminard, the gentleman who writes plays with his feet, it seems to me.”
Sartines nudged him to keep silence. They had reached the corridor leading to the Hall of Mirrors, and here the Minister of Police drew his companion into an alcove.
“Do not mention the name Ferminard here; the walls have ears and the statues have tongues. Forget it, my dear Rochefort. Remember M. d’Ombreval’s maxim: ‘Forget so that you may not be forgotten.’”
“In other words, that you may not be put in the Bastille?”
“Precisely.”
“Then I will forget the name Ferminard. But, before Heaven, I will never be able to forget the person. He amused me vastly. And now, my dear Sartines, without mentioning names, how are things going?”
“What things?”
“Why, the presentation.”
“Admirably.”
“Then the lady with the scalded leg——”
“Hush!”
“There is no one near, and, besides, I was only inquiring after her health.”
“Well, her health is still bad.”
“Will she be here to-night?”
“You will see. Ask me no more about her. Besides, I have something else to talk of. Your man, whom you put out of action the night before last, has been found.”
“The man I killed?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Rochefort, laughing, “I don’t envy the finder—that is to say, if he has any sense of beauty.”
“Rochefort,” said de Sartines, “it would not troubleme adernierwere forty like him found every morning in the streets of Paris; but, in this case, you have to be on your guard, for he was found, not by one of my agents, but by one of Choiseul’s. The news came to me through Choiseul.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, becoming serious. “Is that so?”
“With a request that I should investigate the matter. If that were all it would be nothing; the danger to you is that Choiseul, no doubt, has started investigating the matter for himself.”
Sartines, having delivered himself of this warning, turned to the Comte d’Egmont, who was passing, and walked off with him, leaving Rochefort to digest his words.
Rochefort for a moment was depressed; he did not like the idea of this dead man turning up, arm-in-arm, so to speak, with Choiseul. He had no remorse at all about the ruffian, but he had a lively feeling that, should Choiseul discover the truth, he would avenge the death of this villain, deserved even though it was. Then he put the matter from his mind, and passed with the throng through the Hall of Mirrors towards thesalon, where the presentations took place.