CONTENTS
BOOK ICHAPTERPAGEI.The Duc de Choiseul’s Ball9II.The House of the Dubarrys21III.A Council of War37IV.The Methods of Monsieur De Sartines54V.Ferminard60VI.The Comtesse De Béarn75VII.The Artist82VIII.The Presentation84IX.The Reward97X.The Order of Arrest100XI.Flight106XII.A Duel of Wits110BOOK III.A Lodging for the Night115II.The Gratitude of the Dubarrys129III.The Pair of Spectacles137IV.The Arrest of Rochefort143V.Captain Roux154BOOK IIII.The Poisoning of Atalanta171II.Monsieur Brommard178III.Choiseul’s Letter191IV.The Declaration of Camus195V.The House of Count Camus201VI.The Laboratory210VII.The Fawn and the Serpent218VIII.The Catacombs of Paris222BOOK IVI.News from Vincennes227II.The Two Prisoners233III.The Two Prisoners(continued)242IV.The Two Prisoners(continued)249V.M. De Rochefort Reviews Himself254VI.The Escape259VII.Rochefort’s Plan265VIII.The Honour of Lavenne275IX.The Gathering Storm287X.The Duc De Choiseul’s Reception291XI.Rochefort and Choiseul301XII.Envoi312
The Duc de Choiseul’s Ball
The House of the Dubarrys
A Council of War
The Methods of Monsieur De Sartines
Ferminard
The Comtesse De Béarn
The Artist
The Presentation
The Reward
The Order of Arrest
Flight
A Duel of Wits
A Lodging for the Night
The Gratitude of the Dubarrys
The Pair of Spectacles
The Arrest of Rochefort
Captain Roux
The Poisoning of Atalanta
Monsieur Brommard
Choiseul’s Letter
The Declaration of Camus
The House of Count Camus
The Laboratory
The Fawn and the Serpent
The Catacombs of Paris
News from Vincennes
The Two Prisoners
The Two Prisoners(continued)
The Two Prisoners(continued)
M. De Rochefort Reviews Himself
The Escape
Rochefort’s Plan
The Honour of Lavenne
The Gathering Storm
The Duc De Choiseul’s Reception
Rochefort and Choiseul
Envoi
IT was the night of the Duc de Choiseul’s ball, that is to say, the night before the expected presentation of the Comtesse Dubarry at Court, and Versailles was in a ferment, the seething of which reached to the meanest streets of Paris.
France had long been accustomed to the rule, not of kings, but of favourites and ministers, and at the present moment in the year of our Lord, 1770, she was under the rule of the most kind-hearted of women since the harmless La Vallière and the most upright minister since Colbert.
The mistress was Dubarry and the minister de Choiseul.
It was a strange government. To-day Dubarry, who hated Choiseul much more than she hated the devil, would be in the ascendant over Louis the Voluptuous. To-morrow Choiseul would have the long ear of the King, who was, in fact, only the table on which these two gamblers played with loaded dice for the realm of France.
Behind the two gamblers stood their backers. Behind Choiseul, when he was winning, nearly the whole Court of Versailles. Behind Dubarry, when she waslosing, only her family, the Vicomte Jean, and a few inconsiderable people who had learned to love her for her own sake.
This adherence of the courtiers to Choiseul was caused less by the prescience of self-interest than by hatred of the Comtesse, and this hatred, always smouldering and ready to burst into flame, was one of the strangest features in the Court mind of France.
Why did they hate her, these people? Or, rather, why did they hate her with such intensity—they who had raised few enough murmurs against the rule of the frigid and callous Pompadour?
They hated her, perhaps, because she was an epitome of the virtues and the vices of the people whom they had trampled under foot for centuries. She had that goodness of heart and simplicity of thought rarer even than rectitude in Court circles, and her very vices had a robustness reminiscent of the soil.
Dubarry was, in fact, a charming woman who might have been a good woman but for Fate, the Maison Labille, and Louis of France.
The question of her presentation at Court, an act which would place her on the same social footing as her enemies, had been the main topic of conversation for a month past. The women had closed their ranks and united against the common enemy. Not one of them would act as sponsor. The King, who cared little enough about the business, had, still, interested himself in the matter. The Comtesse, her sister Chon, and the Vicomte Jean Dubarry had ransacked the lists of the most venial of the nobility. Bribes, threats, promises, all had been used in vain; not a woman would stir or raise a finger to further the ambition of the “shop girl,” so that the unfortunate Comtesse was onthe point of yielding to despair when a brilliant idea occurred to the Vicomte Jean.
Away down in the provinces, mouldering in a castle on the banks of the Meuse, lived a lady named the Comtesse de Béarn. A lady of the oldrégime, a litigant with a suit pending before the courts in Paris, poor as Job, proud as Lucifer, and seemingly created by Providence for the purpose of the presentation.
This lady had been brought to Paris by a trick, installed in the town house of Madame Dubarry, and wheedled into consenting to act as sponsor by pure and rank bribery. One can fancy the consternation of the Choiseul party when this news leaked out.
The presentation was assured; nothing, one might fancy, could possibly happen to prevent it, and yet to-night, standing with the Duchess to receive their guests, the face of Choiseul showed nothing of his threatened defeat.
The Rue de Faubourg St. Honoré was alight with the torches of the running footmen and filled with a crowd watching the carriages turning into the courtyard of the Hôtel de Choiseul from the direction of the Rue St. Honoré, the Rue de la Bonne Morue, the Rue d’Anjou, and the Rue de la Madeleine.
It was a great assemblage, for the Court for the moment was in Paris, the King having changed his residence for three days, returning to Versailles on the morrow, and the people, with that passion for display which helped them at times to forget their misery and hunger, watched the passing liveries of the Duc de Richelieu, M. de Duras, M. de Sartines, the Duc de Grammont, and the host of other notabilities, content if by the torchlight they caught a glimpse of some fairface, the glimmer of a jewel, or the ribbon of an order.
The Maréchal de Richelieu’s carriage had drawn away from the steps, having set down its illustrious occupant, when another carriage drew up, from which stepped two young men. The first to alight was short, dark, with a face slightly pitted with smallpox, and so repellent, that at first sight the mind recoiled from him. Yet such was the extraordinary vigour and personality behind that repulsive face that men, and more especially women, forgot the ugliness in the hypnotism of the power. This was the celebrated Comte Camus, a descendant of Nicholas Camus, who had arrived in France penniless in the reign of Louis XIII., married his daughter to Emery, superintendent of finance, and died leaving to his heirs fifteen million francs.
The gentleman with him, tall, fair complexioned, and with a laughing, devil-may-care face, marred somewhat by a sword-cut on the right side reaching from cheek-bone to chin, was the Comte de Rochefort.
Rochefort was only twenty-five, an extraordinary person, absolutely fearless, always fighting, one of those characters that, like opals, seem compounded of cloud and fire. Generous, desperate in his love and hate, a rake-hell and a roué, open-handed when his fist was not clenched, and always laughing, he was fittingly summed up in the words of his cousin, the Abbé du Maurier, “It grieves me to think that such a man should be damned.”
Rochefort, followed by Camus, passed up the steps and through the glass swing-doors to the hall. It was like entering a palace in fairy-land. Flowers everywhere, clinging to the marble pillars, gloated on by the soft yet brilliant lights of a thousand lamps, andbanking with colour the balustrades of the great staircase up which was passing a crowd of guests, or, one might better say, a profusion of diamonds, orders, blue ribbons, billowing satin, and the snow of lace and pearls. Over the light laughter and soft voices of women the music of Philidor drifted, faintly heard, from the band of violins in the ball-room, and, clear-cut and hard through the murmur and sigh of violins, voices and volumes of drapery, could be heard the business-like voice of the major-domo announcing the guests.
“Monsieur le Maréchal Duc de Richelieu!”
“Madame la Princesse de Guemenée!”
“Madame de Courcelles!” etc.
Camus and Rochefort, having made their bow to Madame de Choiseul and saluted the minister, lost each other completely. Each had a host of acquaintances, and Rochefort had not made two steps in the direction of the ball-room when a hand was laid on his arm and, turning, he found himself face to face with Monsieur de Sartines, the Lieutenant-General of Police.
“Is this an arrest, monsieur?” said Rochefort, laughing.
“Only of your attention,” replied de Sartines, laughing in his turn. “My dear Rochefort, how well you are looking. And what has brought you here to-night?”
“Just what brought you, my dear Sartines.”
“And that?”
“The invitation of Choiseul.”
“But I thought you were of the other party?”
“Which other party?”
“The Dubarry faction.”
“I—I belong to no faction—only my own, and that includes all the pretty women and pleasant fellows in Paris.Mordieu, Sartines, since when have you imagined me a man of factions and politics? I keep clear of all that simply because I wish to live. Look at Richelieu, he has aged more in the last six months with hungering after Choiseul’s portfolio than he aged in the whole eighty years of his life. Look at Choiseul grinning at Richelieu, whom he expects to devour him; he has no more wrinkles simply because he has no more room for them. Look at yourself. You are as yellow as a louis d’or, and your liver can’t grow any bigger on account of the size of your spleen—politics, all politics.”
“I!” said Sartines. “I have nothing to do with politicians—my business is with criminals.”
“They are the same thing, my dear man,” replied Rochefort. “The criminals stab each other in the front and the politicians in the back; that is all the difference. Ah, here we are in the ball-room. More flowers! Why, Choiseul must have stripped France of roses for this ball of his.”
“Yes, but there is a Rose that he has failed to pluck with all these roses.”
“Dubarry?”
“Precisely.”
Though Rochefort pretended to know nothing of politics, his acute mind told him at once a secret hidden from others. Sartines belonged to the Dubarry faction. He read it at once in the remark and the tone in which it was made.
Sartines moved through the circles of the Court, mysterious, secretive, professing no politics, yet with his thumb in every pie, and sometimes his whole hand.
He was Fouché with the aristocratic particle attached—a policeman and a noble rolled into one. With the genius of Mascarille for intrigue, of Tartuffe for hypocrisy, acting now with the feigned stupidity of a Sganarelle, and always ready to pounce with the pitilessness of a tiger, this extraordinary man exercised a power in the Court of Louis XV., equalled only by the power of the grey cardinal in the time of Richelieu—with this difference—he was feared less, on account of his assumed bonhomie, an attribute that made him even more dangerous thanson éminence gris.
He stood now with his hands behind his back, leaning slightly forward, his lips pursed, and his eyes upon the minuet that had just formed like a coloured flower crystallized from the surrounding atmosphere by the strains of Lully.
“Ah,” said the Minister of Police, catching sight of a familiar figure, “so the Comte Camus is among the dancers. He came with you to-night?”
“Yes; we arrived in the same carriage.”
“Then take care,” said Sartines, “that you do not end your life in the same carriage.”
“Pardon!”
“The carriage that takes men to the Place de la Grève.”
“Monsieur!” cried Rochefort.
“It is my joke; yet, all the same, a joke may have a warning in it. Rochefort, beware of that man.”
“Of Comte Camus?”
“Yes.”
“And why?”
“Mordieu, why! He is a poisoner—that’s all.”
“A poisoner!”
“Precisely. He poisoned his uncle with a plate ofsoup, he poisoned his wife with a pot of rouge, and he would poison me with all his heart if he could get into my kitchen. You ask me how I know all this? I know it. Yet I cannot touch him because my evidence is not as complete as my knowledge. But the rope is ready for him, and he will fall as surely as my name is Sartines, for he is an expert in the art, and my eye is always upon him.”
Rochefort, who had recovered from his shock, laughed. He did not entirely believe Sartines; besides, his attention was distracted from the thought of Camus by a face.
“Who is that lady seated in the alcove beside Madame de Courcelles?” asked he.
De Sartines turned.
“That?” said he. “Why, it is La Fleur de Martinique. How is it possible that you do not know her?”
“I have been away from Paris for two months. She must have bloomed in my absence, this flower of Martinique. Her name, my dear Sartines? I am burning to know her name.”
“Mademoiselle Fontrailles. But beware of her, Rochefort; she is even more dangerous than Camus.”
“Why, does she poison people?”
“No, she only makes eyes at them. It’s the same thing. Now, what can she be doing here to-night—for she is a friend of the Dubarrys?”
“What can she be doing here? Why, where are your eyes? She is making Choiseul’s ball-room more beautiful, of course.Mon Dieu, what a face; it makes every other face look like a platter. Sartines, introduce me.”
“That I will not.”
“Then I will introduce myself.”
“That is as may be.”
Rochefort turned on his heel and walked straight towards Mademoiselle Fontrailles, whilst Sartines looked on in horror. He knew that Rochefort would stick at nothing, but he did not dream that he would dare the act on which he was now evidently bent.
Rochefort walked straight up to Madame de Courcelles, with whom he had a slight acquaintance, and bowed.
“How delightful to find you here, and you, too, Mademoiselle Fontrailles. I was just complaining of the profusion of the flowers—I thought Choiseul must have gathered together a hundred million roses in this room—till, turning to your alcove, I found there were only two.”
He bowed, and Madame de Courcelles laughed as she rose to greet Sartines, with whom she wished a few minutes’ conversation.
“Since you two know each other, I will leave you to talk nonsense together,” said she. “Ah, Sartines, I thought you were eluding me. You looked twice in my direction, and not one sign of recognition.”
“I am growing short-sighted, madame,” replied de Sartines, as she took his arm, “and had it not been for the keen sight of Monsieur de Rochefort, I might altogether have missed you.”
They passed away in the crowd that now thronged the room, leaving Rochefort and Mademoiselle Fontrailles together.
She was very beautiful. Graceful as thefleur d’amourof her native land, dark, yet without a trace of the creole, and with eyes that had been compared to black pansies. Those same eyes when seen by daylightdiscovered themselves not as pansies, but as two wells of the deepest blue.
The Flower of Martinique looked at Rochefort, and Rochefort looked at the Flower of Martinique.
“Monsieur,” said the Flower, “I have met many surprising things in Paris; but nothing has surprised me more than your impertinence.”
“Not my impertinence, dear Mademoiselle Fontrailles,” replied Rochefort, “but my philosophy. Have you not noticed that when two people get to know each other they generally bore each other? Now in Paris society two people cannot possibly know each other without being introduced; and, since we have never been introduced, it follows logically that we can never bore each other.”
“I am not so sure of that,” replied the lady, looking at her companion critically. “Many people to whom I have never been introduced bore me by the expression of their faces and the tone of their voices. I was noticing that fact even whilst I was watching you talking to Monsieur de Sartines a moment ago.”
“Ah,” said Rochefort, “you noticed that about him! It is true he is a bit heavy.”
She laughed. In her Paris experience she had met no one like Rochefort. Impudence she had met, and daring, laughter, raillery, good looks and ugliness. Yet she had never met them all combined, as in the case of Rochefort. For it seemed to her that he was now almost ugly, now almost good-looking, and she set herself for a moment to try and read this man whose face had so many expressions, and whose mind had, seemingly, so many facets.
She was a keen reader of character, yet Rochefort baffled her. The salient points were easy enough todiscern. Courage, daring and sharp intelligence were there; but the retreating angles, what did they contain? She could not tell, but she determined, whatever his character might be, it would be improved by a check.
“I have not weighed Monsieur de Sartines,” she said, rising to rejoin Madame de Courcelles, who was approaching on the arm of the minister, “but I have weighed Monsieur Rochefort, and I find him——” she hesitated with a charming smile upon her lips.
“And you have found him——?”
“Wanting.”
Next moment she was passing away with Madame de Courcelles, and Rochefort found himself face to face with the Minister of Police.
At the word “wanting,” she had swept him from head to foot with her eyes, and the charming smile had turned into an expression of contemptuous indifference worse than a blow in the face. It was the secret of her loveliness that it could burn one up, or freeze one, or entrance one at will. Rochefort had been playing with a terrible thing, and for the first time in his life he felt like a fool. He had often been a fool, but he had never felt like a fool before.
“Well,” said de Sartines, with a cynical smile, “and what have we been talking about to Mademoiselle Fontrailles?”
“Why,” said the young man, recovering himself, “the last subject we were discussing was your weight, Sartines.”
“My weight?”
“She said that you impressed her as being rather heavy.”
He turned away and walked off, mixing with thecrowd, trying to stifle his mortification, his fingers clutching his lace ruffles and his eyes glancing hither and thither for someone to pick a quarrel with or say a bitter thing to. He found no one of this sort, but he found Mademoiselle Fontrailles. Twice in the crowd he passed her, and each time her eyes swept over him without betraying the least spark of recognition.
CAMUS, meanwhile, having finished dancing, went into the card-room. He seemed to be in search of someone, and passed from table to table like an uneasy spirit, till, reaching the farthest table, he found the man he wanted.
It was the Comte de Coigny.
Coigny was standing watching a game of picquet; when he raised his eyes and saw Camus, he gave a sign of recognition, left the game, and coming towards him, took his arm.
“Let us go into the ball-room,” said Coigny; “we can talk there without being overheard in the crush. Did you get my note asking you to be sure to come to-night?”
“Yes, I got your note. Why were you so anxious for me to come?”
“For a very good reason. There are great things in the air.”
“Ah! Something about the Dubarry, I wager.”
“You are right. The case is desperate, and you know the only cure for a desperate case is a desperate remedy.”
“Go on.”
“She is due at Versailles at nine o’clock to-morrowevening. Well, we are going to steal her carriage, her dress and her hairdresser.”
“Dubarry’s?”
“Yes, Dubarry’s.”
“And you want me——”
“To help.”
“And when is this theft to be made?”
“To-morrow, at six o’clock in the evening. We cannot entrust this business to servants. I have a friend who will look after the milliner, I myself will attend to the hairdresser, and you, my dear Camus, must look after the carriage.”
“Let us clearly understand each other,” said Camus. “You propose to suppress a hairdresser, a carriage and a gown. Is this to be done by brute force, or how?”
“By bribery.”
“Have you approached the milliner, the hairdresser, and the coachman on the subject?”
“Heavens no! The thing is to be done at the last moment; give them time to think and they would talk.”
“And who is to pay the bribes?”
“Choiseul; who else? It will cost three hundred thousand francs; but were it to cost a million, the million is there.”
“And suppose they resist?”
“That has also been taken into consideration. If they resist, then force must be used. You must have five companions ready to your call, should you need them.”
“I can easily find five men,” said Camus. “I have only to whisper the name of Dubarry, and they would spring from the pavement.”
“They must all be gentlemen,” said Coigny, “forin an affair of this sort, nothing must be trusted to servants.”
“Just so. Who are the coach people?”
“Landry, in the Rue de la Harpe. The carriage is finished, and the varnish is drying on it. But Landry has nothing to do with it. Your business concerns the coachman, Mathieu. You must get hold of this man, and, having put him out of the way, assume the Dubarry livery, call for the coach at Landry’s, and drive it to the devil—or anywhere you like but the Rue de Valois.”
“And the footmen?”
“Your genius must dispose of those. Send them into a cabaret for a drink, and drive off while they are drinking. That is all detail.”
“But Landry will recognize that I am not Mathieu.”
“You can easily meet that. You can say he is ill, or better, drunk. He has a reputation for getting drunk, and there is nothing like a bad reputation to help a good plan, sometimes.”
“Ma foi!” said Camus, “if that is the case, you ought to use Dubarry’s reputation. Well, I agree. But Choiseul ought to make me a duke at least, for it would be worth a dukedom to see Dubarry’s face when she finds out the trick, and I will be out of all that.”
“Rest assured,” said Coigny, “that Choiseul will not forget the men who have helped him; but your reward will come less from him than another quarter.”
“And where is that?”
“Why, all the women of the Court. And a man with the women on his side can do anything. Ah, there is Madame de Courcelles with the charming Fontrailles. Now, what can Mademoiselle Fontrailles bedoing here to-night, for, if I am not greatly mistaken, she is a friend of Dubarry’s?”
Camus caught sight of Mademoiselle Fontrailles.
“Mon Dieu!” said he, “what a lovely face! Where has she come from?”
“What?” said Coigny, “do you not know her? She is from Martinique. They call her the ‘Flower of Martinique’—but surely you have seen her before?”
“I have been away from Paris for some weeks, hunting with Rochefort,” said Camus, his eyes still on the girl.
“Ah! that accounts for it,” said Coigny. “She is a new arrival.”
“Introduce me.”
“Certainly.”
In a moment the introduction was made. Camus’s success with women was due less, perhaps, to his force and personality, than to his knowledge of them. Like Wilkes, he only wanted ten minutes’ start of the handsomest man in town to beat him. With Mademoiselle Fontrailles he was charming, courtly, deferential and graceful.
He knew nothing of Rochefort’s experience with the girl, but he needed no warning, and when the Duc de Soissons came up to claim her as partner, he fancied that he had made a very good impression, as, indeed, he had.
He watched her dancing. If he had made a good impression on her, she had made a deep impression upon him. He watched her with burning eyes, as one might fancy a tiger watching a gazelle, then, turning away, he passed through the crowd to the supper-room.
Here, drinking at a buffet, he met a friend, Monsieur de Duras, a stout gentleman—one of those personswho know everything about everyone and their affairs. Camus questioned him about Mademoiselle Fontrailles, and learned her origin and history. Her father was the chief banker in Martinique. She had come to Paris for her health. Attended by whom?
“Mon Dieu!” said de Duras, “now you ask me a question. She has come attended by no one but an old quadroon woman, and she lives, now in apartments in the Rue St. Dominic, and now at Luciennes. She is a friend of the Dubarry, to whom old Fontrailles owes many a concession that has helped to make his fortune. But you may save yourself trouble, my dear Camus—she is entirely unapproachable, one of those torches that turn out to be icicles when you take a hold of them.”
“Indeed!” said Camus. He stayed for a little while in the supper-room, talking to several people; then he returned to the ball-room.
Mademoiselle Fontrailles had disappeared. It took him some time to ascertain this fact, searching hither and thither among the hundreds of guests. The corridors, the landings, the hall, he tried them in succession without result. The lady had vanished.
The mind of Camus was of that type which can turn from one subject to another, leaving the most burning questions to await their answer whilst it is engaged in some alien consideration. Having failed to find the woman who had charmed him, he turned his attention to the Dubarry business.
He had to find five friends whom he could trust, men absolutely devoted to Choiseul, that is to say, sworn enemies of Dubarry. By midnight he had picked out four gentlemen fit for the purpose, that is to say, four titled rake-hells and blackguards, who wouldstick at nothing, and who held the honour of women and the life of men equally cheap. He made an appointment with these people to meet him at breakfast on the morrow at his house in the Rue de la Trône, and was casting about for a fifth when his eye fell on Rochefort, who, flushed with wine and winnings at cards, had almost recovered his temper.
Rochefort was just the man he wanted to complete his party. He thought that he knew Rochefort thoroughly, and, taking him by the arm, he turned to the entrance hall.
“It is after midnight,” said Camus, “and I am off. Will you walk part of the way with me, for I have something particular to say to you?”
“You are going home?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t mind coming with you. I have won two hundred louis, and if I stay I will be sure to lose them again. What is this you wish to say?”
“Wait till we are in the street,” replied Camus.
They got their cloaks and hats and left the hôtel, crossing the courtyard thronged with carriages, and turning to the right down the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré in the direction of the Rue St. Honoré.
“Look here,” said Camus, taking the other’s arm, “we have made a famous plan about the washerwoman.”
“Dubarry?”
“Who else? Her presentation is as good as cancelled.”
“Oh, I thought it was assured.”
“It was.”
“And what has happened to cancel it?”
“Nothing. But things are going to happen.”
“Explain yourself, my dear fellow; you are as mysterious as the Sibyl. Are you going to strangle the Comtesse de Béarn?”
“No, but we are going to steal Dubarry’s coach.”
“Steal her coach?”
“And not only her coach, but her gown and her hairdresser.”
“Are you serious?” said Rochefort.
“Perfectly. Is it not a splendid plan? It is all to take place at the last moment—that is to say, at six o’clock to-morrow, or rather, to-day, for it is now after midnight. Look you, this is the way of it.”
Camus, bursting with laughter, made a sketch of what he proposed to do. “I shall want five men at my back,” said he, “I have four; will you be the fifth?”
Rochefort made no reply for a moment. Then he said:
“You know I am no friend of the Dubarrys, and that I would give a good deal to see this shop-girl in her proper place. Yet what you propose to me does not seem a work I would care to put my hand to. I would carry off the Comtesse with pleasure, but to steal her carriage—well—to that I can only reply, I am not a thief.”
Camus withdrew his arm from that of Rochefort. He knew Rochefort as a man who cared absolutely nothing for consequences—as a gambler, a drinker, and a fighter who could have given points to most men and beaten them at those amusements. He had failed to take into his calculations the fact that Rochefort was a man of honour. This desperado of a Rochefort had mired his clothes with all sorts of filth, but his skin was clean. He always fought fair, and he never cheated at play. Even in love, though his record was bad enough,he played the game without any of those tricks with which men cheat women of their honour.
Camus, absolutely without scruple and with the soul of a footman, despite the power of his mind and personality, had utterly failed to read Rochefort aright, simply because, being blind to honour himself, he could not see it in others. One may say of a man like Camus that he may be clever as Lucifer, but he can never be a genius in affairs, simply because of that partial blindness which is one of the adjuncts of evil.
“Oh, oh,” said he, “we have suddenly become very strait-laced!”
“I?” said Rochefort. “Not at all! But your plan seems to me equivalent to robbing a person of his purse so as to prevent him from taking the stage to Versailles. It is a trick, but it is not a clever one, and if you will excuse me for saying so, it is not the trick of a gentleman. Coigny originated it, you say? I believe you. He has the mind of a lackey and the manners of one—he only wants the livery.”
“Ah!” said Camus, with a sneer, “it is easy to see you are for the Dubarry party. Why do you not wear their colours then, openly, instead of carrying them in your pocket with your conscience?”
Rochefort laughed.
“I do not wear my colours,” said he, “my servants wear them. They are grey and crimson, not rose. I have nothing to do with the Dubarrys, nor do I wish to have anything to do with them. The Comtesse can go to Versailles or go to the devil for all I care—but what is that?”
They had turned to the left up the broad way bordered by trees which cut the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, and led from the Pont Tournant of the Tuileriesto the Hôtel de Chevilly. Rochefort’s attention had been attracted by a woman’s screams coming from the narrow Rue de Chevilly that ran by the hôtel. The moon had risen, and by its light he could see a group of three people struggling; two men were attacking a woman.
Always ready for a fight, he whipped his sword from its scabbard, and calling on Camus to follow, ran at full speed towards the ruffians, who, dropping their hold on the woman, took to their heels, doubling down the road that led past the Bénédictines de la Ville l’Évêque. Rochefort, forgetting Camus, the woman and everything else, pursued hot-foot to the road corner, where the two men parted, one running down the Rue de la Madeleine towards the river, the other up the street leading to the Hôtel de Soyecourt.
Rochefort pursued the latter, and for a very good reason. The man was running into a cul-de-sac. The pursued one did not perceive this till suddenly he found himself faced by the barrier, closed at night, which extended from the wall of the Bénédictines to the wall of the cloister of the Madeleine. Then he turned like a rat and Rochefort in the moonlight had a full view of him.
He was quite young, perhaps not more than eighteen, with a white, degenerate, evil face—one of those faces that the Cour des Miracles invented and constructed, that the Revolution patented and passed on to thebanlieueof Paris, and that thebanlieuehanded to us under the title of “Apache.”
“Ah,” said Rochefort, “I have got you!”
The words were within an ace of being his last. The ruffian’s hand shot up and a knife whistled past Rochefort’s neck, almost grazing it. Instantly, andlike a streak of light, the sword of Rochefort passed through the chest of the knife-thrower, pinning him to the door of the barrier, where he dandled for a moment, flinging his arms about like a marionette. Then, unpinned, he fell all of a heap on the cobble-stones. The sword had gone clean through his heart. He was as dead as Calixtus.
Rochefort had done the only thing possible to do with him—put him out of existence; and feeling that the world was well rid of a ruffian, he looked about for something to wipe his sword upon. A piece of paper was blowing about in the wind and the moonlight; it was a scrap of an old ballad then being hawked about Paris. He used it to wipe his sword, returned the blade to its sheath, and, well content with the clean and very sharp-cut business he had completed, returned on his tracks.
Nearing again the Rue de Chevilly, he again heard the cries of a woman, and next moment, turning the corner at a run, he saw two forms struggling together, the form of a woman and the form of a man. Camus, with his arm round the waist of the woman they had rescued, was trying to kiss her. In a moment Rochefort was up to them. His quick blood was boiling. To rescue a woman and then to assault her would, in cold blood, have appeared to him the last act—in hot blood it raised the devil in him against Camus. He ran up to them, crooked his arm in that of the count, and, swinging him apart from his prey, struck him an open-handed blow in the face that sent him rolling in the gutter. Then he drew his sword.
Now Camus was reckoned a brave man, and undoubtedly he was, but courage has many qualities. Caught acting like a ruffian and smitten open-handedin the face and cast in the gutter, he sat for a moment as if stunned. Then, rising with his clothes and gloves soiled, he stood for a moment gazing at Rochefort, but he did not draw his sword. His spirit for the moment was broken.
He had been caught acting like a blackguard, and that knowledge, and the blow, and Rochefort’s anger, and the horrible indignity of the whole business, paralysed the man in him, quelled his fury, and disabled his arm.
“We will see about this later on,” he said, and stooping for his three-cornered hat, which was lying on the ground, he walked away in the direction of the Rue de la Madeleine. Twenty yards off he turned, gazed back at Rochefort, and then went on till the corner of the street hid him from sight.
Rochefort sheathed his sword, and turned to the woman, who was leaning, trembling and gasping, against the wall of the Hôtel de Chevilly.
“Oh,mon Dieu,” said she, “what a night! Ah! monsieur, how can I ever thank you for saving me!”
She was young and pretty. The hood of her cloak had fallen back, showing her dark hair and her face, on which the tears were still wet. She was evidently a servant returning from some message, or perhaps some rendezvous. Rochefort laughed as he stooped to pick up her handkerchief, which had fallen on the ground.
“There is nothing to thank me for,” said he. “Come, little one, pick up your courage. And here is the handkerchief which you dropped. Have they robbed you, those scamps?”
“No, monsieur,” replied the girl; “the letter which I was carrying is safe.”
“Ah, they were after a letter! But how did they know you had a letter in your possession? Have they been following you?”
“They followed me, monsieur, from my mistress’s home to the house where I went to receive the letter, and from that house they followed me, always at a distance, till I reached the street where they attacked me. They asked me for the letter——”
“Ah, they asked you for the letter!”
“Yes, monsieur, promising to let me go free if I gave it to them.”
“And you?”
“I refused, monsieur.”
“Well, mademoiselle, your courage does you credit; and now take my arm, and I will see you safe back to your home.Mordieu, many a man would have given up letter and purse as well to escape from ruffians like those. What is thy name, little one?”
“Javotte,” replied the girl, taking his arm.
“Well, Mademoiselle Javotte, your troubles are now at an end, and your letter will arrive safely at its destination. Which way shall we turn?”
“I am going to the Rue de Valois, monsieur.”
“Ah, well then, our quickest way is straight ahead and through the Rue des Capucines.En avant!”
As they went on their way they talked. Javotte was not a Parisienne by birth—she hailed from Poictiers—but she had a fresh and lively mind of her own, and to the Comte de Rochefort it came as a revelation that this girl of humble extraction could be both interesting and amusing.
The extraordinary circumstances attending their meeting and the fact that he was playing the rôle of her protector served to destroy, in part, those socialdifferences which would otherwise have divided them. The whole thing was new and strange, and to a mind like Rochefort’s, these elements were sufficiently captivating.
In the Rue de Valois, Javotte paused at a postern door and drew a key from her pocket.
“This is the house, then,” said Rochefort. “What an ugly door to be the end of our pleasant journey!”
Javotte with a little sigh put the key in the lock of the ugly door and opened it gently.
“Monsieur,” said she in a low voice, “I can never thank you enough. I am only a poor girl, and have few words; but you will understand.”
Something in the tone of her voice made Rochefort draw close to her, and as he took the step she retreated, so that now they were in the passage on which the door opened.
“You will say good-night?” he whispered.
“Yes,” she replied in a murmur, “Good-night, monsieur.”
“Ah! not in that way—this.”
She understood. Their lips met in the semi-darkness and his hand was upon her waist when the door behind them, as if resenting the business, closed with a snap. Almost on the sound, a door in front of them opened, a flood of light filled the passage, and Rochefort, drawing away from the girl, found himself face to face with a man, stout, well but carelessly dressed, and holding a lamp in his hand.
It was the Vicomte Jean Dubarry!
Rochefort was so astounded by the recognition that for a moment he said no word. The Vicomte, who did not recognize Rochefort at once, was so astonished at the sight of a man in the passage with Javottethat he was equally dumb. The unfortunate Javotte, betrayed by the bad luck that had dogged her all the evening, covered her face with her hands.
After the first second of surprise, Rochefort remembered that the Dubarry town house was situated in the Rue de Valois, and the fact that he must be standing in the Comtesse’s house, and that he had saved her maid and her letter, brought a laugh to his lips with his words.
“Mordieu!” cried he. “Here’s a coincidence.”
“Ah!” cried Dubarry, now recognizing his man. “Why, it is Monsieur le Comte de Rochefort!”
“At your service,” said Rochefort, with another laugh.
Dubarry bowed ironically. He knew Rochefort’s reputation, and he fancied that the presence of this Don Juan was due to some intrigue with Javotte. He had Rochefort at a disadvantage, but he did not wish to press it. Rochefort was not the man to press. As for Javotte, Jean Dubarry would not have cared had she a dozen intrigues on hand. He wanted the letter for which she had been sent.
“Monsieur,” said he, “the hour is rather late. To what do I owe the honour of this visit?”
“Why,” said Rochefort, “I believe you owe it to the letter which Mademoiselle Javotte has in her pocket and of which two men tried to rob her in the Rue de Chevilly half an hour ago.”
“Monsieur le Vicomte,” said Javotte, recovering herself, “I was followed to the address you gave me by two men. Then, when I was returning with this letter, they attacked me and would have taken it from me but for this brave gentleman, who beat them off. He escorted me home. I was saying good-night tohim here when the door shut to and you entered.” She took the letter from her pocket and handed it to him.
Jean Dubarry’s manner instantly changed as he took the letter. He knew that Rochefort belonged to no party, and to attach this powerful firebrand to the Dubarry faction would be a stroke of very good policy. Also, he wished to know more about the affair.
“Monsieur Rochefort,” said he, smiling, “you have done us a service. We are deeply beset by enemies, and if you wanted proof of that, the fact that our servant has been attacked to-night, on account of this letter, would supply you with it. In the name of the Comtesse, I thank you. And now, will you not come in? This cold passage is but the entrance to a house that is still warm enough, thank God, for the entertainment of our friends. And though the hour is late, it is of importance that I should have a word with you on the matter.”
“Thank you,” said Rochefort, “I shall be glad also to have a moment’s talk with you.”
He felt slightly disturbed in mind. If everything was as it appeared to be, then the man he had killed was not a common robber, but a creature of Choiseul’s; and, however vile this creature might have been, Choiseul would visit the man who had killed him with his vengeance, should he discover the fact.
Truly, this was a nice imbroglio, and he was even deepening it now by accepting an invitation to enter the house of Choiseul’s most bitter enemy. But Rochefort was a man who, when in a difficulty, always went forward, depending on the strength of his own arm to cut his way through. If he was bound to be involved in politics, and Court intrigue, fate had ordainedthat he would have to fight against Choiseul, and if that event came about, it would be better to have the Dubarrys at his back than no one.
En avant!was his motto, and, following the broad back of the Vicomte, and being followed, in turn, by little Javotte, he left the passage and entered the house of the Dubarrys.
THE Vicomte led the way along a corridor with painted walls and a ceiling wherefrom impossibly fat cupids pelted one in gesture with painted roses.
He opened a door, and with a courtly bow, ushered Rochefort into a small room exquisitely furnished, and lit by a swinging crystal lamp of seven points burning perfumed oil. This house of the Dubarrys had once belonged to Jean de Ségur, a forbear of General Philippe de Ségur, that ardent Royalist who, at the sight of Murat’s dragoons galloping through the gate of the Pont Tournant, forgot his grief at the destruction of the oldrégime, and became a soldier of Napoleon’s.
It was furnished regardless of expense. Boucher had supervised the paintings that adorned the ceilings, the Maison Grandier had produced the chairs and couches, Versailles had contributed porcelain idols, bonbonnières, and a hundred other knicknacks. Ispahan and Bussorah had contributed the carpets, at a price, through the great Oriental house of Habib, Gobelins the tapestry, Sèvres the china, and the glass manufactory of the Marquis de Louviers the glass. It was for this house, perhaps, rather than for Luciennes,that the Comtesse had refused Fragonard’s exquisite panels, “The Romance of Love and Youth,” a crime against taste which, strangely enough, found no place in theprocès-verbal.
Dubarry, excusing himself for a moment, closed the door, and Rochefort glanced round the room wherein he found himself.
Everything was in white or rose; the floor was of parquet, covered here and there with white fur rugs; on the rose-coloured silk of one of the settees lay a fan, as if cast there but a moment ago; and a volume of the poems of Marot, bound in white vellum and stamped with the Dubarry arms and their motto, “Boutez en avant” lay upon a chair, as if just put down in haste.
A white-enamelled door, half-hidden by rose-coloured silk curtains, faced the door by which he had entered, and from the room beyond, Rochefort, as he paced the floor and examined the objects of art around him, could hear a faint murmur of voices. Five minutes passed, and Rochefort, having glanced at the fan, peeped into the volume of poems, set the huge Chinese mandarin that adorned one of the alcoves wagging his head, and wound up and broken a costly musical-box, turned suddenly upon his heel.
The door leading into the next room had opened, and a woman stood before him, young, plump, fair-haired and very pretty, exquisitely dressed.
It was the Comtesse Dubarry.
Behind her, Jean Dubarry’s gross figure showed, and behind Jean the dark hair of a girl, who was holding a fan to her face as though to conceal her mirth or her features—or both.
“Monsieur le Comte de Rochefort, Madame laComtesse Dubarry,” came Jean’s voice across the Countess’s shoulder, and then the golden voice of the woman, as she made a little curtsey:
“Monsieur le Comte de Rochefort. Why, I know him!”
Rochefort bowed low. He had met Madame Dubarry at Versailles—that is to say, he had made his bow to her with the thousands of others who thronged the great halls, but he had never hung about the ante-chambers of her special apartment with the other courtiers. He fancied her recognition held more politeness than truth, but in this he was mistaken. Madame Dubarry knew everybody and everything about them. She had a marvellously retentive and clear memory, and an equally quick mind. An ordinary woman in her position would have been lost in a week.
“And though I have had no proof of his friendship before, I know him now to be my friend. Monsieur Rochefort, I thank you.”
She held out her hand, which he touched with his lips.
Raising his head from the act, he saw the girl with the fan looking at him; she had lowered the fan from her face. It was Mademoiselle Fontrailles!
“Madame,” said he, replying to the Comtesse, “it was nothing. If I have served you, it has been through an accident, yet I esteem it a very fortunate accident that has enabled me to use my sword in your service.”
Though he ignored Mademoiselle Fontrailles, his heart had leaped in him at the recognition. It seemed to him that Fate had willed that he should find his interests entangled in those of the beautiful woman who had smitten him in more ways than one. But,as yet, he did not know whether it was to be an entanglement of war or peace, an alliance or a feud.
“Camille,” said the Comtesse, “this is Monsieur de Rochefort.” She smiled as she said the words, and Rochefort, as he bowed, knew instantly that the Flower of Martinique had told of the incident at the ball, nor did he care, for the warm glance in her dark eyes and the smile on her lips said, as plainly as words: “Let us forget and forgive.” From that moment he was Dubarry’s man.
“I had the pleasure of seeing Mademoiselle Fontrailles at Monsieur de Choiseul’s to-night,” said he, “in the company of my friend, Madame de Courcelles.” Then, turning sharply to the Comtesse: “Madame, there are so many coincidences at work to-night, that it seems to me Fate herself must have some hand in the matter. Now, mark! I go to Monsieur de Choiseul’s, and I meet Mademoiselle Fontrailles, who is your friend; as if the alchemy of that friendship had touched me, on my walk home through the streets, I had the honour to be of service to you by protecting your messenger; I offer her my protection and escort and I find myself at your house; I meet the Vicomte Dubarry, and he invites me in to talk over the matter, and here, again, I meet Mademoiselle Fontrailles.”
He bowed to the girl, who bowed in return with a charming little laugh, whilst Jean Dubarry closed the door, and pushed forward chairs for the ladies to be seated.
“But that is not all,” continued Rochefort, addressing his remarks again to the Comtesse; “for if it has been my good luck to have served you in the matter of the letter, it will perhaps be my good fortuneto assist you on a matter more serious still. You know, or perhaps you do not know, that I am a man of no party and no politics, yet it would be idle for me to shut my eyes to the finger that points my way, and my ears to the voice that whispers to me that my direction is the direction of the Rue de Valois.”
He bowed slightly, and his bow included Mademoiselle Fontrailles. The Comtesse had been looking at him attentively all this while, and her quick mind divined something of importance behind his words.
“Monsieur Rochefort,” said she, indicating a chair, whilst she herself took her seat on a settee by the side of Mademoiselle Fontrailles, “you have something to tell me. I have the gift of second sight, and I guess that this something is of importance; in my experience, I find that the important things are always the unpleasant things of life, so put me out of my anxiety, I pray you.”
“I will, madame; you have divined rightly. My news is unpleasant, simply because it relates to a conspiracy against you.”
“Ah! ah!” said Jean Dubarry, who had not taken a seat, but was standing by the mantelpiece, snuff-box in hand. “A conspiracy.”
“Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte, a conspiracy.”
“Against my life?” asked the Comtesse, with a laugh. “It would be a bright idea for some of them to attack that instead of my poor reputation. Unfortunately, however, these gentlemen are incapable of a bright idea.”
“No, madame, they do not propose to take your life; they propose to steal your coachman, your hairdresser and the robe that you are to wear to-morrow evening.”
Jean Dubarry almost dropped his snuff-box; he swore a frightful oath; and the Countess, fully alive to the gravity of the news, stared open-eyed at Rochefort. Mademoiselle Fontrailles alone found words, other than blasphemies, to express her feelings.
“Ah, the wretches!” said she. “I thought they would leave no stone unturned by their vile hands.”
“Monsieur,” said the Comtesse, finding voice, “are you certain of what you say?”
“Why, madame, they invited me to take a part in the business.”
“And you refused?”
“I refused, madame, not because I was of your party—in fact, to be perfectly plain, at that moment I was rather against you—I refused because I considered the whole proceeding a trick dishonouring to a gentleman; and I told Monsieur Camus my opinion of the business in a very few words.”
“Comte Camus? Was he the agent who brought you this proposition?”
“He was, madame. I can say so now openly, since we are no longer friends. We quarrelled on a certain matter to-night, and if you are desirous of knowing the details of our little quarrel, Javotte will be able to supply them.”
But the Comtesse had no ears for anything but the immediate danger that threatened her, and Rochefort had to tell the whole story from the beginning to the end.
“Death of all the devils!” cried Jean Dubarry, when the story was finished. “What an escape!”
“The question is,” said Madame Dubarry, “have we escaped and shall we be able to prevent these infamous ones from carrying out their plan?”
“Prevent them!” cried Jean. “I will pistol the first man that lays hands on the carriage. I will lock the hairdresser up in the cellar till the moment comes when he is wanted. As for the modiste, we will arrange that she will be all right. Prevent them!Mordieu!Yes, we will prevent them.”
“Excuse me,” said Rochefort, “but if I may be allowed to give my advice, I would say to you, do not prevent them; let them carry out their plan.”
“And let them take my carriage?”
“And the dress!” cried Mademoiselle Fontrailles.
“And the hairdresser!” put in Jean.
“Precisely,” said Rochefort. “With that power which is at your disposal, madame, can you not have a new dress created, a new carriage obtained, and a new hairdresser found in the course of the few hours before us? My reason is this. Should they fancy that their plan is successful they will try nothing else. Should we thwart them openly, I would not say at what they would stop.”
“Certainly,” cried Jean, “there’s truth in that. Can we not find a carriage, a dress and a coiffeur! Let us think—let us think!” He walked up and down the room, twisting his ruffles.
“No one can dress my hair like Lubin,” said the Countess.
“Excuse me,” said Rochefort, “but I believe there is a man whom I know who is a genius in the art. He is unknown; but the day after to-morrow, should you employ him, I believe he will be known to all Europe.”
“As to the dress,” said Mademoiselle Fontrailles, “you know, dear madame, that I was to be presented also. And our figures, are they not nearly the same?”
“Dame!” cried Jean, hitting himself a smack onthe forehead. “I have the carriage! It is at Vaudrin’s, in the Rue de la Madeleine. I saw it yesterday. It has been made to the order of the Comtesse Walewski, who, it seems, has not arrived yet; and all it requires is that the Dubarry arms should be painted over those of the Comtesse. We only want a loan of it, and five thousand francs will pay the bill.”
The Comtesse turned to Rochefort.
“Monsieur Rochefort, I can trust your taste as I trust your friendship. All I ask you as a woman is this: Are you sure of your hairdresser?”
“Absolutely, madame; he is an artist to the tips of his fingers. I will stake my reputation on him.”
The Comtesse inclined her head. She turned to Mademoiselle Fontrailles.
“Camille, have you thought that this act of generosity will ruin your presentation, for if I am to wear your dress, which is divinely beautiful and has cost you a hundred thousand francs, how, then, are you to appear before his Majesty?”
“Madame,” said the girl, “I will have a cold; my presentation will be put off, that is all. And I esteem it a very small sacrifice to make for one who has benefited my family so deeply. Besides, madame, even if my presentation never occurred, it would not give me a sleepless night. The world has very few attractions for me.”
Her dark eyes met those of Rochefort for a moment. There are seconds of time that carry in them the essence of years, and it seemed to Rochefort, in these few seconds, that some magic in the dark gaze of the eyes that held him had seized upon his mind, indelibly altering it.