"The Vicomte de Cambes!" cried the traveller.
"Ah! the name seems to make an impression upon you. Do you happen to know him?"
"A very young man, almost a child?"
"Seventeen or eighteen years old, at most."
"Very fair?"
"Very fair."
"Large blue eyes?"
"Very large, very blue."
"Is he here?"
"He is here."
"And you say that he is—"
"Disguised as a woman, the rascal,—as you are as a man, slyboots."
"Why is he here, pray?" cried the young man, vehemently, and with evident distress, which increased perceptibly as Cauvignac assumed a more serious tone, and became more sparing of his words.
"Why," he replied, enunciating every syllable with great distinctness, "he claims to have an appointment with one of his friends."
"One of his friends?"
"Yes."
"A gentleman?"
"Probably."
"A baron?"
"Perhaps."
"And his name is—"
Cauvignac's brow contracted beneath a weighty thought which then first presented itself to his mind, and caused a perceptible commotion in his brain.
"Oho!" he muttered, "that would be a pretty kettle offish."
"And his name?" the traveller repeated.
"Wait a moment," said Cauvignac; "wait a moment—his name ends inolles."
"Monsieur de Canolles!" cried the traveller, whose lips became deathly pale, making a ghastly contrast with the black silk mask.
"That's the name! Monsieur de Canolles," said Cauvignac, following, upon the visible portions of the young man's face and in the convulsive movement of his whole body, the revolution which was taking place in his mind. "Do you know Monsieur de Canolles, too? In God's name, do you know everybody?"
"A truce to jesting," faltered the young man, who was trembling all over, and seemed on the point of fainting.
"Where is this lady?"
"In that room yonder; look, the third window from this,—where the yellow curtains are."
"I want to see her!" cried the traveller.
"Oho! have I made a mistake, and can it be that you are this Monsieur de Canolles whom she expects? Or, rather, isn't this Monsieur de Canolles, this gallant cavalier just trotting up, followed by a lackey who looks to me like a consummate idiot?"
The young traveller jumped forward so precipitately to look through the glass in the front of the carriage that he broke it with his head.
"'T is he! 'tis he!" he cried, utterly regardless of the fact that the blood was flowing from a slight wound. "Oh! the villain! he is here to meet her; I am undone!"
"Ah! didn't I say that you were a woman?"
"They meet here by appointment," the young man continued, wringing his hands. "Oh! I will have my revenge!"
Cauvignac would have indulged in some further pleasantry; but the young man made an imperious gesture with one hand, while with the other he tore off his mask, and the pale, threatening face of Nanon was revealed to Cauvignac's impassive gaze.
"Good-day to you, little sister," said Cauvignac, offering the young woman his hand with imperturbable phlegm.
"Good-day! So you recognized me, did you?"
"The instant I laid my eyes on you. It wasn't enough to hide your face; you should have covered up that charming dimple, and your pearly teeth. When you wish to disguise yourself, coquette, cover your whole face! but you were not careful—et fugit ad salices—"
"Enough!" said Nanon, imperiously; "let us talk seriously."
"I ask nothing better; only by talking seriously can business be properly transacted."
"You say that the Vicomtesse de Cambes is here?"
"In person."
"And that Monsieur de Canolles is entering the inn at this moment?"
"Not yet; he dismounts and throws his rein to his servant. Ah! he has been seen yonder also. See, the window with the yellow curtains opens, and the viscountess puts out her head. Ah! she gives a little shriek of delight. Monsieur de Canolles darts into the house; get out of sight, little sister, or all will be lost."
Nanon threw herself back, convulsively pressing Cauvignac's hand, as he gazed at her with an air of paternal compassion.
"And I was going to Paris to join him!" cried Nanon. "I risked everything for the sake of seeing him again!"
"Ah! such a sacrifice, little sister, and for an ingrate, into the bargain! Upon my word, you might bestow your favors to better purpose."
"What will they say to each other, now they are together? What will they do?"
'Faith, dear Nanon, you embarrass me sorely by putting such a question to me; they will—pardieu!they will love each other dearly, I suppose."
"Oh! that shall not be!" cried Nanon, frantically gnawing at her nails, which shone like polished ivory.
"On the contrary, I fancy that it will be," rejoined Cauvignac. "Ferguzon has orders to let no one come out, but not to keep anybody out. At this moment, in all probability, the viscountess and Baron de Canolles are exchanging all sorts of endearing terms, each more charming than the last.Peste!dear Nanon, you are too late."
"Do you think so?" retorted the young woman with an indefinable expression of irony and malignant cunning; "do you think so? Very good; just come in and sit beside me, you wretched diplomatist."
Cauvignac obeyed.
"Bertrand," said Nanon to one of her retainers, "tell the coachman to turn quietly about, and draw up under the clump of trees we left at the right as we entered the village.—Won't that be a safe place to talk?" she asked Cauvignac.
"There could be no better. But permit me to take a few precautions on my own account."
"Go on."
Cauvignac made signs to four of his men, who werestrutting about the inn, buzzing and puffing like hornets in the sun, to follow him.
"You do well to take those men," said Nanon, "and if you follow my advice you will take six rather than four; there may be work cut out for them."
"Good!" said Cauvignac; "work of that kind is what I want."
"Then you will be content," said Nanon.
The coachman turned the carriage, and drove away, with Nanon, red with the flame of her thoughts, and Cauvignac, apparently calm and cold, but ready, nevertheless, to lend an attentive ear to his sister's suggestions.
Meanwhile, Canolles, attracted by the joyous cry uttered by Madame de Cambes when she caught sight of him, had darted into the inn, and to the viscountess's room, without noticing Ferguzon, whom he passed in the corridor, but who made no objection to his entering, as he had received no instructions concerning him.
"Ah! monsieur," cried Madame de Cambes, "come in quickly; I have been so impatient for you to come!"
"Those words would make me the happiest man in the world, madame, if your pallor and your evident distress did not tell me as plainly as words could do that you were not expecting me for myself alone."
"Yes, monsieur, you are right," said Claire with her charming smile, "and I desire to lay myself under still greater obligation to you."
"How so?"
"By begging you to save me from some peril, I know not what, which threatens me."
"Peril?"
"Yes. Wait."
She went to the door, and threw the bolt.
"I have been recognized," she said, returning to Canolles.
"By whom?"
"By a man whose name I do not know, but whose face and voice are familiar to me. It seems as if I heard his voice the evening that you, in this very room, received the order to repair at once to Mantes. It seems also as if I had seen his face at the hunting party at Chantilly, the day that I took Madame de Condé's place."
"Whom do you take the man to be?"
"An agent of Monsieur le Duc d'Épernon, and therefore an enemy."
"The devil!" exclaimed Canolles. "You say that he recognized you?"
"Yes; he called me by name, although he insisted that I was a man. There are officers of the king's party all over the country hereabout; I am known to belong to the party of the princes, and it may be that they proposed to make trouble for me. But you are here, and I no longer have any fear. You are an officer yourself, and belong to the same party that they do, so you will be my safeguard."
"Alas!" said Canolles, "I greatly fear that I can offer you no other defence or protection than that of my sword."
"How is that?"
"Because from this moment I cease to belong to the king's party."
"Do you mean what you say?" cried Claire, delighted beyond measure.
"I promised myself that I would forward my resignation from the place where I next met you. I have metyou, and my resignation will be forwarded from Jaulnay."
"Oh! free! free! you are free! you can embrace the cause of justice and loyalty; you can join the party of the princes, that is to say, of all the nobility. Oh! I knew that you were too noble-hearted not to come to it at last."
Canolles kissed with transport the hand Claire offered him.
"How did it come about?" she continued. "Tell me every detail."
"Oh! it's not a long story. I wrote Monsieur de Mazarin to inform him of what had taken place. When I arrived at Mantes, I was ordered to wait upon him; he called me a poor fool, I called him a poor fool; he laughed, I lost my temper; he raised his voice, I bade him go to the devil. I returned to my hôtel; I was waiting until he thought fit to consign me to the Bastille; he was waiting until prudence should bid me begone from Mantes. After twenty-four hours prudence bade me take that course. And even that I owe to you, for I thought of what you promised me, and that you might be waiting for me. So it was that I threw away all responsibility, all thought of party, and with my hands free, and almost without preference, I remembered one thing only, that I loved you, madame, and that at last I might tell you so, aloud and boldly."
"So you have thrown away your rank for me, you are disgraced, ruined, all for my sake! Dear Monsieur de Canolles, how can I ever pay my debt? How can I prove my gratitude to you?"
With a smile and a tear which gave him back a hundred times more than he had lost, Madame de Cambes brought Canolles to her feet.
"Ah! madame," said he, "from this moment I am rich and happy; for I am to be always with you, I am never to leave you more, I shall be happy in the privilege of seeing you, and rich in your love."
"There is no further obstacle, then?"
"No."
"You belong to me absolutely, and, while keeping your heart, I may offer your arm to Madame la Princesse?"
"You may."
"You have sent your resignation, do you say?"
"Not yet; I wished to see you first; but, as I told you, now that I have seen you again, I propose to write it here, instantly. I preferred to wait until I could do it in obedience to your orders."
"Write, then, before anything else! If you do not write, you will be looked upon as a turncoat; indeed, you must wait, before taking any decisive step, until your resignation is accepted."
"Dear little diplomatist, have no fear that they will not accept it, and very gladly. My bungling at Chantilly will spare them any great regret. Did they not tell me," laughed Canolles, "that I was a poor fool?"
"Yes; but we will make up to you for any opinion they may entertain, never fear. Your affair at Chantilly will be more thoroughly appreciated at Bordeaux than at Paris, I assure you. But write, baron, write, so that we may leave this place! for I confess that I am not at ease by any means in this inn."
"Are you speaking of the past; is it the memory of another time that terrifies you so?" said Canolles, gazing fondly about the room.
"No. I am speaking of the present, and you do not enter into my fears to-day."
"Whom do you fear, pray? What have you to fear?"
"Mon Dieu!who knows?"
At that moment, as if to justify the viscountess's apprehension, three blows were struck upon the door with appalling solemnity.
Claire and Canolles ceased their conversation and exchanged an anxious, questioning glance.
"In the king's name!" said a voice outside. "Open!"
The next moment the fragile door was shattered. Canolles attempted to seize his sword, but a man had already stepped between his sword and him.
"What does this mean?" he demanded.
"You are Monsieur le Baron de Canolles, are you not?"
"I am."
"Captain in the Navailles regiment?"
"Yes."
"Sent upon a confidential mission by the Duc d'Épernon?"
Canolles nodded his head.
"In that case, in the names of the king, and her Majesty the Queen Regent, I arrest you."
"Your warrant?"
"Here it is."
"But, monsieur," said Canolles, handing back the paper after he had glanced over it rapidly, "it seems to me that I know you."
"Know me!Parbleu!Wasn't it in the same village where I arrest you to-day, that I brought you an order from Monsieur le Duc d'Épernon to betake yourself to the court? Your fortune was in that commission, my young gentleman. You have missed it; so much the worse for you!"
Claire turned pale, and fell weeping upon a chair; she had recognized the impertinent questioner.
"Monsieur de Mazarin is taking his revenge," muttered Canolles.
"Come, monsieur, we must be off," said Cauvignac.
Claire did not stir. Canolles, undecided as to the course he should pursue, seemed near going mad. The catastrophe was so overpowering and unexpected that he bent beneath its weight; he bowed his head and resigned himself.
Moreover, at that period the words "In the king's name!" had not lost their magic effect, and no one dared resist them.
"Where are you taking me, monsieur?" he said.
"Are you forbidden to afford me the poor consolation of knowing where I am going?"
"No, monsieur, I will tell you. We are to escort you to ÃŽle-Saint Georges."
"Adieu, madame," said Canolles, bowing respectfully to Madame de Cambes; "adieu!"
"Well, well," said Cauvignac to himself, "things aren't so far advanced as I thought. I will tell Nanon; it will please her immensely."
"Four men to escort the captain!" he cried, stepping to the door. "Forward, four men!"
"And where am I to be taken?" cried Madame de Cambes, holding out her arms toward the prisoner. "If the baron is guilty, I am still more guilty than he."
"You, madame," replied Cauvignac, "are free, and may go where you choose." And he left the room with the baron.
Madame de Cambes rose, with a gleam of hope, and prepared to leave the inn at once, before contrary orders should be issued.
"Free!" said she. "In that case I can watch over him; I will go at once."
Darting to the window, she was in time to see Canolles in the midst of his escort, and to exchange a farewell wave of the hand with him. Then she called Pompée, who, hoping for a halt of two or three days, had established himself in the best room he could find, and bade him make ready for immediate departure.
It was an even more melancholy journey for Canolles than he had anticipated. The most carefully guarded prisoner has a false feeling of freedom in the saddle, but the saddle was soon succeeded by a carriage, a leathern affair, the shape of which and its capacity for jolting are still retained in Touraine. Furthermore, Canolles' knees were interlocked with those of a man with the beak of an eagle, whose hand rested lovingly on the butt of a pistol. Sometimes, at night, for he slept during the day, he hoped to be able to elude the vigilance of this new Argus; but beside the eagle's beak were two great owl's-eyes, round, flaming, and most excellently adapted for nocturnal observations, so that, turn which way he would, Canolles would always see those two round eyes gleaming in that direction.
While he slept, one of the two eyes also slept, but only one. Nature had endowed this man with the faculty of sleeping with one eye open.
Two days and two nights Canolles passed in gloomy reflections; for the fortress of Île Saint-Georges—an inoffensive fortress enough, by the way—assumed terrifying proportions in the prisoner's eyes, as fear and remorse sank more deeply into his heart.
Remorse, because he realized that his mission to Madame la Princesse was a confidential mission, which he had made the most of to further his own interests,and that he had committed a terrible indiscretion on that occasion. At Chantilly, Madame de Condé was simply a fugitive. At Bordeaux, Madame de Condé was a rebel princess. Fear, because he knew by tradition the appalling vengeance of which Anne of Austria, in her wrath, was capable.
There was another source of perhaps even keener remorse than that we have mentioned. There was, somewhere in the world, a young woman, a beautiful, clever young woman, who had used her great influence solely to put him forward; a woman who, through her love for him, had again and again imperilled her position, her future, her fortune; and that woman, not only the most charming of mistresses, but the most devoted of friends, he had brutally abandoned, without excuse, at a time when her thoughts were busy with him, and instead of revenging herself upon him she had persistently bestowed additional tokens of her favor upon him; and her voice, instead of sounding reproachfully in his ears, had never lost the caressing sweetness of an almost regal favor. It is true that that favor had come to him at an inauspicious moment, at a moment when Canolles would certainly have preferred disgrace; but was that Nanon's fault? Nanon had looked upon that mission to his Majesty as a method of augmenting the fortune and worldly position of the man with whom her mind was constantly filled.
All those who have loved two women at once,—and I ask pardon of my lady-readers, but this phenomenon, which they find it so hard to understand, because they never have but one love, is very common among us men,—all those who have loved two women at once, I say, will understand that as Canolles reflected more and more deeply, Nanon recovered more and more of the influenceover his mind which he thought she had lost forever. The harsh asperities of character which wound one in the constant contact of daily intercourse, and cause momentary irritation, are forgotten in absence; while, on the other hand, certain sweeter memories resume their former intensity with solitude. Fair and lost to him, kind and ill-treated,—in such guise did Nanon now appear to Canolles.
The fact was that Canolles searched his own heart ingenuously, and not with the bad grace of those accused persons who are forced to a general confession. What had Nanon done to him that he should abandon her? What had Madame de Cambes done that he should follow her? What was there so fascinating and lovable in the little cavalier of the Golden Calf? Was Madame de Cambes so vastly superior to Nanon? Are golden locks so much to be preferred to black that one should be a perjured ingrate to his mistress, and a traitor to his king, all for the sake of exchanging black locks for golden? And yet, oh, pitiable human nature! Canolles brought all these eminently sensible arguments to bear upon himself, but Canolles was not convinced. The heart is full of such mysteries, which bring happiness to lovers and despair to philosophers. All this did not prevent Canolles from hating himself, and berating his own folly soundly.
"I am going to be punished," he said, thinking that the punishment effaces the crime; "I am going to be punished, and so much the better. I suppose I shall have to do with some very rough-spoken, very insolent, very brutal captain, who will read to me, from the supreme height of his dignity as jailer-in-chief, an order from Monsieur de Mazarin, who will point out a dungeon for me, and will send me to forgather with the ratsand toads fifteen feet underground, while I might have lived in the light, and flourished in the sun's rays, in the arms of a woman who loved me, whom I loved, and whom it may be that I still love. Cursed little viscount! why need you have served as envelope to such a fascinating viscountess? But is there anywhere in all the world a viscountess who is worth what this particular one is likely to cost me? For it's not simply the governor, and the dungeon fifteen feet under ground; if they think me a traitor, they won't leave matters half-investigated; they will pick a quarrel with me about that Chantilly affair, which I could not pay too heavy a penalty for, if it had been more fruitful of results for me; but it has brought me in just three kisses upon her hand. Triple idiot, when I had the power, not to use it! Poor fool! as Monsieur de Mazarin says,—to be a traitor, and not collect the pay for his treason! Who will pay me now?"
Canolles shrugged his shoulders contemptuously in reply to this mental question.
The man with the round eyes, clear-sighted as he was, could not understand this pantomime, and gazed at him in amazement.
"If they question me," Canolles continued, "I'll not answer; for what answer can I make? That I was not fond of Monsieur de Mazarin? In that case I was under no obligation to enter his service. That I did love Madame de Cambes? A fine reason that to give a queen and a first minister! So I won't reply at all. But these judges are very sensitive fellows; when they ask questions they like to be answered. There are brutal wedges in these provincial jails; they'll shatter my slender knees, of which I was so proud, and send me back to my rats and my toads a perfect wreck. I shallbe bandy-legged all my life, like Monsieur le Prince de Conti, and that would make me extremely ugly, even supposing that his Majesty would cover me with his wing, which he will take good care not to do."
Besides the governor and the rats and toads and wedges, there were certain scaffolds whereon rebels were beheaded, certain gallows whereon traitors were hanged, and certain drill grounds where deserters were shot. But all this was of small consequence to a well-favored youth like Canolles, in comparison with bandy legs.
He resolved, therefore, to keep his mind clear and to question his companion upon the subject.
The round eyes, the eagle's beak, and the frowning expression of that personage gave him but slight encouragement to accost him. However, no matter how stolid a man's face may be, it must soften a little at times, and Canolles took advantage of an instant when a grimace resembling a smile passed across the features of the subaltern who watched him so sharply.
"Monsieur!" said he.
"Monsieur?" was the reply.
"Excuse me if I take you away from your reflections."
"Make no excuses, monsieur, for I never reflect."
"The devil! you are surely endowed with a fortunate mental organization, monsieur."
"And therefore I never complain."
"Ah, well, you're not like me in that; for I am very much inclined to complain."
"Of what, monsieur?"
"Because I was arrested just when I was least expecting it, to be taken I don't know where."
"Oh! yes, monsieur, you do know, for you were told."
"So I was. We are going to ÃŽle Saint-Georges, aren't we?"
"Precisely."
"Do you think I shall remain there long?"
"I have no idea, monsieur; but from the way in which you were recommended, I think it's likely."
"Oho! Is it a very forbidding place, this ÃŽle Saint-Georges?"
"Don't you know the fortress?"
"On the inside, no; I have never been inside."
"It's not very attractive, monsieur; and, aside from the governor's apartments, which have been newly furnished and are very pleasant, as I am informed, it's rather a gloomy abode."
"Very good. Do you suppose they will question me?"
"It's the custom."
"And suppose I don't answer?"
"Suppose you don't answer?"
"Yes."
"The devil! in that case there's the torture, you know."
"Ordinary?"
"Ordinary or extraordinary, according to the charge. What is the charge against you, monsieur?"
"Why," said Canolles, "I am much afraid that I am accused of offences against the State."
"Oho! in that case you will enjoy the extraordinary torture. Ten pots—"
"What's that? ten pots?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you will have the ten pots of water poured down your throat."
"So the torture by water is in vogue at ÃŽle Saint-Georges, is it?"
"Dame!monsieur, you understand that on the Garonne—"
"To be sure, where the water is right at hand. How many pailfuls in the ten pots?"
"Three to three and a half."
"I shall swell up in that case."
"A little. But if you take the precaution to arrange matters with the jailer—"
"What then?"
"You will have an easy time of it."
"In what does the service that the jailer has it in his power to render me consist, I beg to know?"
"He can give you oil to drink."
"Is oil a specific?"
"Of sovereign efficacy."
"Do you think so?"
"I speak from experience. I have drunk (bu)—"
"You have drunk?"
"Pardon me; I meant to say, I have seen (vu). The habit of talking with Gascons makes me pronouncevlikebsometimes, andvice versa."
"You were saying," said Canolles, unable to repress a smile, notwithstanding the gravity of the conversation,—"you were saying that you had seen—?"
"Yes, monsieur, I have seen a man drink the ten pots of water with great facility, thanks to the oil which he had taken to put the canals in proper condition. To be sure, he swelled up, as they all do; but with a good fire they disinflated him without much damage. That is the essential thing in the second part of the operation. Be sure and remember these words:to heat without burning."
"I understand," said Canolles. "Mayhap monsieur was the executioner?"
"No, monsieur," replied his interlocutor, with courtesy seasoned with modesty.
"His assistant, perhaps?"
"No, monsieur; an onlooker, simply."
"Ah! and monsieur's name is—?"
"Barrabas."
"A fine name, an old name, too; made famous in the Scriptures."
"In the Passion, monsieur."
"That's what I meant; but from habit I used the other expression."
"Monsieur prefers to say 'the Scriptures.' Is monsieur a Huguenot?"
"Yes, but a very ignorant Huguenot. Would you believe that I know hardly three thousand verses of the Psalms?"
"Indeed, it is very little."
"I succeeded better in remembering the music. There has been much hanging and burning in my family."
"I hope that no such fate is in store for monsieur."
"No, there is a much more tolerant spirit to-day; they will submerge me probably, nothing more."
Barrabas began to laugh.
Canolles' heart leaped for joy; he had won over his keeper. If this jailerad interimshould become his permanent jailer, he stood a fair chance to obtain the oil; he determined, therefore, to take up the conversation where he had left it.
"Monsieur Barrabas," said he, "are we destined to be soon separated, or shall you do me the honor to continue to bear me company?"
"Monsieur, when we arrive at ÃŽle Saint-Georges, I shall be obliged, I deeply regret to say, to leave you; I must return to our company."
"Indeed; do you belong to a company of archers?"
"No, monsieur, to a company of soldiers."
"Levied by the minister?"
"No, monsieur, by Captain Cauvignac, the same man who had the honor of arresting you."
"Are you in the king's service?"
"I think so, monsieur."
"What the devil do you mean by that? Are you not sure?"
"One is sure of nothing in this world."
"Well, if you are in doubt there is one thing that you should do, in order to set your doubts at rest."
"What is that?"
"Let me go."
"Impossible, monsieur."
"But I will pay you handsomely for your kindness."
"With what?"
"Pardieu!with money,"
"Monsieur has none."
"I have no money?"
"No."
Canolles hastily felt in his pockets.
"Upon my word, my purse has disappeared," he said. "Who has taken my purse?"
"I, monsieur," replied Barrabas with a low bow.
"Why did you do it?"
"So that monsieur could not corrupt me."
Canolles stared at the honest keeper in open-mouthed admiration, and as the argument seemed to admit of no reply, he made none.
The result was that the travellers relapsed into silence, and the journey, as it drew near its close, resumed the depressing characteristics which marked its beginning.
Day was breaking when the clumsy vehicle reached the village nearest to its island destination. Canolles, feeling that it had ceased to move, passed his head through the little loophole intended to furnish air to those who were free, and conveniently arranged to shut it off from prisoners.
A pretty little village, consisting of some hundred houses grouped about a church on a hillside, and overlooked by a château, was sharply outlined in the clear morning air, gilded by the first rays of the sun, which put to flight the thin, gauzy patches of vapor.
Just then the wagon started on up the incline, and the coachman left the box and walked beside the vehicle.
"My friend," said Canolles, "are you of this province?"
"Yes, monsieur, I am from Libourne."
"In that case you should know this village. What is yonder white house, and those pretty cottages?"
"The château, monsieur," was the reply, "is the manor house of Cambes, and the village is one of its dependencies."
Canolles started back, and his face instantly changed from the deepest red to deathly white.
"Monsieur," interposed Barrabas, whose round eye nothing escaped, "did you hurt yourself against the window?"
"No—thanks," said Canolles, and continued his examination of the peasant."To whom does the property belong?" he asked.
"The Vicomtesse de Cambes."
"A young widow?"
"Very beautiful and very rich."
"And, consequently, much sought after?"
"Of course; a handsome dowry and a handsome woman; with that combination one doesn't lack suitors."
"Of good reputation?"
"Yes, but a furious partisan of the princes."
"I think I have heard so."
"A demon, monsieur, a downright demon!"
"An angel!" murmured Canolles, whose thoughts, whenever they recurred to Claire, recurred to her with transports of adoration,—"an angel!"
"Does she live here some of the time?" he inquired, raising his voice.
"Rarely, monsieur; but she did live here for a long while. Her husband left her here, and as long as she remained, her presence was a blessing to the whole countryside. Now she is said to be with the princess."
The carriage, having reached the top of the hill, was ready to go down again on the other side; the driver made a motion with his hand to ask permission to resume his place upon the box, and Canolles, who feared that he might arouse suspicion by continuing his questions, drew his head back into the lumbering vehicle, which started down hill at a slow trot, its most rapid gait.
After a quarter of an hour, during which time Canolles, still under the eye of Barrabas, was absorbed in gloomy reflection, the wagon halted again.
"Do we stop here for breakfast?" Canolles asked.
"We stop here altogether, monsieur. We have reached our destination. Yonder is ÃŽle Saint-Georges. We have only the river to cross now."
"True," muttered Canolles; "so near and yet so far!"
"Monsieur, some one is coming to meet us," said Barrabas; "be good enough to prepare to alight."
The second of Canolles' keepers, who was sitting on the box beside the driver, climbed down and unlocked the door, to which he had the key.
Canolles removed his eyes from the little white château, upon which he had kept them fixed, to the fortress which was to be his abode. He saw in the first place, on the other side of a swiftly flowing arm of the river, a ferry-boat, and beside it a guard of eight men and a sergeant. Behind them were the outworks of the citadel.
"Ah!" said Canolles to himself, "I am expected, it seems, and due precautions are taken.—Are those my new guards?" he asked Barrabas, aloud.
"I would be glad to answer monsieur's question intelligently; but really I have no idea."
At that moment, after exchanging signals with the sentinel on duty at the entrance to the fortress, the eight soldiers and the sergeant entered the ferry-boat, crossed the Garonne, and stepped ashore just as Canolles stepped to the ground.
Immediately the sergeant, seeing an officer, approached him and gave the military salute.
"Have I the honor of addressing Monsieur le Baron de Canolles, captain in the Navailles regiment?" he asked.
"Himself," replied Canolles, marvelling at the man's politeness.
The sergeant turned to his men, ordered them to present arms, and pointed with the end of his pike to the boat. Canolles took his place between his two guards, the eight men and the sergeant embarked after him, and the boat moved away from the shore, while Canolles casta last glance at Cambes, which was just passing out of sight behind some rising ground.
The island was almost covered with scarps, counter-scarps, glaces, and bastions; a small fort in reasonably good condition overlooked all these outworks. The entrance was through an arched gateway, in front of which a sentinel was pacing back and forth.
"Qui vive?" he cried.
The little troop halted, the sergeant walked up to the sentinel, and said a few words to him.
"To arms!" cried the sentinel.
Immediately a score of men, who composed the picket, issued from a guard-house, and hastily drew up in line in front of the gateway.
"Come, monsieur," said the sergeant to Canolles. The drum began to beat.
"What does this mean?" said the young man to himself.
He walked toward the fort, quite at a loss to understand what was going on; for all these preparations resembled military honors paid to a superior much more than precautionary measures concerning a prisoner.
Nor was this all. Canolles did not notice that, just as he stepped from the carriage, a window in the governor's apartments was thrown open, and an officer stationed thereat watched attentively the movements of the boat and the reception given to the prisoner and his two keepers.
This officer, when Canolles stepped from the boat upon the island, hastily left the window, and hurried down to meet him.
"Aha!" said Canolles, as his eye fell upon him, "here comes the commandant to inspect his new boarder."
"I should say, monsieur," said Barrabas, "judgingfrom appearances, that you'll not be left to languish a week in the anteroom like some people; you will be entered on the books at once."
"So much the better!" said Canolles.
Meanwhile the officer was drawing near. Canolles assumed the haughty, dignified attitude of a persecuted man.
A few steps from Canolles the officer removed his hat.
"Have I the honor of addressing Monsieur le Baron de Canolles?" he asked.
"Monsieur," the prisoner replied, "I am truly overwhelmed by your courtesy. Yes, I am Baron de Canolles; treat me, I beg you, as one officer might treat another, and assign me as comfortable quarters as possible."
"Monsieur," said the officer, "the place is not in the best of condition, but, as if in anticipation of your wishes, all possible improvements have been made."
"Whom should I thank for such unusual attention?" Canolles asked with a smile.
"The king, monsieur, who does well all that he does."
"To be sure, monsieur, to be sure. God forbid that I should slander his Majesty, especially on this occasion; I should not be sorry, however, to obtain certain information."
"If you so desire, monsieur, I am at your service; but I will take the liberty of reminding you that the garrison is waiting to make your acquaintance."
"Peste!" muttered Canolles, "a whole garrison to make the acquaintance of a prisoner who is to be shut up! Here's a deal of ceremony, I should say."
He added, aloud:—
"I am at your service, monsieur, and ready to follow you wherever you choose to take me."
"Permit me then to walk in advance to do the honors."
Canolles followed him, congratulating himself upon having fallen into the hands of so courteous a gentleman.
"I fancy you will be let off with the ordinary question, only four pots of water," Barrabas whispered in his ear.
"So much the better," said Canolles. "I shall swell up only half as much."
When they reached the court-yard of the citadel, Canolles found part of the garrison under arms. Thereupon the officer who escorted him drew his sword and saluted him.
"Mon Dieu!how tedious!" muttered Canolles.
At the same instant a drum beat under an archway near by. Canolles turned, and a second file of soldiers issued from the archway and took up a position behind the first.
The officer thereupon handed Canolles two keys.
"What does this mean?" the baron demanded; "what are you doing?"
"We are going through with the customary formalities in accordance with the most rigorous laws of military etiquette."
"For whom do you take me, in God's name?" exclaimed Canolles, amazed beyond expression.
"Why, for who you are,—for Monsieur le Baron de Canolles, Governor of Île Saint-Georges."
A cloud passed before Canolles' eyes, and he was near falling.
"I shall have the honor in a moment," continued the officer, "of turning over to Monsieur le Gouverneur his commission, which arrived this morning, accompanied by a letter announcing monsieur's arrival for to-day."
Canolles glanced at Barrabas, whose round eyes werefixed upon him with an expression of speechless amazement impossible to describe.
"So I am Governor of ÃŽle Saint-Georges?" faltered Canolles.
"Yes, monsieur, and his Majesty has made us very happy by his choice."
"You are sure that there's no mistake?"
"If you will deign to go with me to your apartments, monsieur, you will find there your commission."
Canolles, completely staggered by a dénouement so utterly different from that which he anticipated, followed the officer without a word, amid the beating of drums, soldiers presenting arms, and all the inhabitants of the fortress, who made the air resound with acclamations. Pale and excited, he saluted to right and left, and questioned Barrabas with dismayed glance.
At last he was introduced into a salon furnished with some pretensions to elegance, from the windows of which he noticed first of all that he could see the château de Cambes; and there he read his commission, drawn up in proper form, signed by the queen, and countersigned by the Duc d'Épernon.
At that sight Canolles' legs altogether failed him, and he fell helplessly upon a chair.
After all the fanfares and presenting arms and noisy demonstrations of respect in the military fashion, and after the first feeling of surprise which these demonstrations produced in him, Canolles was anxious to know just what to think with reference to the office the queen had bestowed upon him, and raised his eyes which for some time had been fastened upon the floor.
He then saw standing in front of him, no less thunderstruck than himself, his former keeper, become his very humble servant.
"Ah! is it you, Master Barrabas?" said he.
"Myself, Monsieur le Gouverneur."
"Will you explain what has happened? for I have all the difficulty in the world not to take it for a dream."
"I will explain to you, monsieur, that when I talked about the extraordinary question and the ten pots of water I thought, on my honor, that I was gilding the pill."
"You mean to say that you were convinced—?"
"That I was bringing you here to be broken on the wheel, monsieur."
"Thanks!" said Canolles, shuddering in spite of himself. "But have you any opinion now as to what has happened?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Do me the favor to tell me what it is, monsieur."
"It is this, monsieur. The queen must have realized what a difficult mission it was that she intrusted to you. As soon as the first angry outburst had spent itself, she must have repented, and as you are not a repulsive fellow, all things considered, her gracious Majesty has thought fit to reward you because she had punished you too severely."
"Impossible!" said Canolles.
"Impossible, you think?"
"Improbable, at least."
"Improbable?"
"Yes."
"In that case, monsieur, it only remains for me to offer you my very humble respects. You can be as happy as a king at Île Saint-Georges,—excellent wine, abundance of game, and fresh fish at every tide, brought by boats from Bordeaux and by the women of Saint-Georges. Ah, monsieur, this is a miraculous ending!"
"Very good; I will try to follow your advice. Takethis order signed by myself, and go to the paymaster, who will give you ten pistoles. I would give them to you myself, but since you took all my money as a measure of precaution—"
"And I did well, monsieur," cried Barrabas; "for if you had succeeded in corrupting me you would have fled, and if you had fled you would naturally have sacrificed the elevated position which you have now attained, and I should never have forgiven myself."
"Very cleverly argued, Master Barrabas. I have already noticed that you are a past master in logic. But take this paper as a token of my appreciation of your eloquence. The ancients, you know, represented Eloquence with chains of gold issuing from her mouth."
"Monsieur," rejoined Barrabas, "if I dared I would remark that I think it useless to call upon the paymaster—"
"What! you refuse?" cried Canolles.
"No, God forbid! I have no false pride, thank Heaven! But I can see certain strings, which look to me much like purse-strings, protruding from a box on your chimney-piece."
"You are evidently a connoisseur in strings, Master Barrabas," said Canolles. "We will see if your previsions are correct."
There was a casket of old faience, incrusted with silver, upon the chimney-piece. Canolles raised the lid, and found within, a purse, and in the purse a thousand pistoles with this little note:—
"For the privy purse of Monsieur le Gouverneur of ÃŽle Saint-Georges."
"Corbleu!" said Canolles, blushing; "the queen does things very well."
Instinctively the thought of Buckingham came into his mind. Perhaps the queen had seen the handsome features of the young captain from behind some curtain; perhaps a tender interest in him led her to extend her protecting influence over him. Perhaps—We must remember that Canolles was a Gascon.
Unfortunately, the queen was twenty years older than in Buckingham's time.
Whatever the explanation, wherever the purse came from, Canolles put his hand in it and took out ten pistoles, which he handed to Barrabas, who left the room with a profusion of most respectful reverences.
When Barrabas had gone, Canolles summoned the officer, and requested him to act as his guide in the inspection he proposed to make of his new dominions.
The officer at once placed himself at his command.
At the door he found a sort of staff composed of the other principal functionaries of the citadel. Escorted by them, talking with them, and listening to descriptions of all the half-moons, casemates, cellars, and attics, the morning wore away, and about eleven o'clock he returned to his apartments, having made a thorough inspection. His escort disappeared, and Canolles was left alone with the officer whose acquaintance he had first made.
"Now," said that officer, drawing near him with an air of mystery, "there remains but a single apartment and a single person for Monsieur le Gouverneur to see."
"I beg your pardon?" said Canolles.
"That person's apartment is yonder," said the officer, pointing to a door which Canolles had not yet opened.
"Ah! it is yonder, is it?"
"Yes."
"And the person too?
"Yes."
"Very well. Pardon me, I beg, but I am greatly fatigued, having travelled night and day, and my head's not very clear this morning; so pray explain your meaning a little more fully."
"Well, Monsieur le Gouverneur," rejoined the officer, with a most knowing smile, "the apartment—"
"—of the person—" said Canolles.
"—who awaits you, is yonder. You understand now, don't you?"
Canolles started, as if he were returning from the land of dreams.
"Yes, yes. Very good," said he; "and I may go in?"
"To be sure, as you are expected."
"Here goes, then!" said Canolles; and with his heart beating fit to burst its walls, hardly able to see, his fears and his desires inextricably confused in his mind, he opened the door and saw behind the hangings, with laughing face and sparkling eyes, Nanon de Lartigues, who cried out with joy, as she threw her arms around the young man's neck.
Canolles stood like a statue, with his arms hanging at his sides, and lifeless eye.
"You?" he faltered.
"I!" said she, redoubling her smiles and kisses.
The remembrance of the wrong he had done her passed through Canolles' mind, and as he divined instantly that he owed to this faithful friend his latest good-fortune, he was utterly crushed by the combined weight of remorse and gratitude.
"Ah!" said he; "you were at hand to save me while I was throwing myself away like a madman; you were watching over me; you are my guardian angel."
"Don't call me your angel, for I am a very devil," said Nanon; "but I appear only at opportune times, you will admit."
"You are right, dear friend; in good sooth, I believe that you have saved me from the scaffold."
"I think so too. Ah! baron, how could you, shrewdand far-sighted as you are, ever allow yourself to be taken in by those conceited jades of princesses?"
Canolles blushed to the whites of his eyes; but Nanon had adopted the plan of not noticing his embarrassment.
"In truth," said he, "I don't know. I can't understand myself."
"Oh, they are very cunning! Ah, messieurs, you choose to make war on women! What's this I have heard? They showed you, in place of the younger princess, a maid of honor, a chambermaid, a log of wood—what was it?"
Canolles felt the fever rising from his trembling fingers to his confused brain.
"I thought it was the princess," he said; "I didn't know her."
"Who was it, pray?"
"A maid of honor, I think."
"Ah, my poor boy! it's that traitor Mazarin's fault. What the devil! when a man is sent upon a delicate mission like that, they should give him a portrait. If you had had or seen a portrait of Madame la Princesse, you would certainly have recognized her. But let us say no more about it. Do you know that that awful Mazarin, on the pretext that you had betrayed the king, wanted to throw you to the toads?"
"I suspected as much."
"But I said: 'Let's throw him to the Nanons.' Did I do well? Tell me!"
Preoccupied as he was with the memory of the viscountess, and although he wore the viscountess's portrait upon his heart, Canolles could not resist the bewitching tenderness, the charming wit that sparkled in the loveliest eyes in the world; he stooped and pressed his lips upon the pretty hand which was offered him.
"And you came here to await me?"
"I went to Paris to find you, and bring you here. I carried your commission with me. The separation seemed very long and tedious to me, for Monsieur d'Épernon alone fell with his full weight upon my monotonous life. I learned of your discomfiture. By the way, I had forgotten to tell you; you are my brother, you know."
"I thought so from reading your letter."
"Yes, somebody betrayed us. The letter I wrote you fell into bad hands. The duke arrived in a rage. I told him your name, and that you were my brother, poor Canolles; and we are now united by the most legitimate bond. You are almost my husband, my poor boy."
Canolles yielded to her incredible powers of fascination. Having kissed her white hands he kissed her black eyes. The ghost of Madame de Cambes should have taken flight, veiling her eyes in sorrow.
"After that," continued Nanon, "I laid my plans, and provided for everything. I made of Monsieur d'Épernon your patron, or rather your friend. I turned aside the wrath of Mazarin. Lastly, I selected Saint-Georges as a place of retirement, because, dear boy, you know, they are forever wanting to stone me. Dear Canolles, you are the only soul in the whole world who loves me ever so little. Come, tell me that you love me!"
And the captivating siren, throwing her arms about the young man's neck, gazed ardently into his eyes, as if she would read to the very depths of his heart.
Canolles felt in his heart, which Nanon was seeking to read, that he could not remain insensible to such boundless devotion. A secret presentiment told him that there was something more than love in Nanon's feeling for him, that there was generosity too, and that she not only loved him, but forgave him.
He made a motion of his head which answered her question; for he would not have dared to say with his lips that he loved her, although at the bottom of his heart all his memories pleaded in her favor.
"And so I made choice of Île Saint-Georges," she continued, "as a safe place for my money, my jewelry, and my person. 'What other than the man I love,' I said to myself, 'can defend my life? What other than my master can guard my treasures?' Everything is in your hands, my own love,—my life and my wealth. Will you keep a jealous watch over it all? Will you be a faithful friend and faithful guardian?"
At that moment a bugle rang out in the court-yard, and awoke a sympathetic vibration in Canolles' heart. He had before him love, more eloquent than it had ever been; a hundred yards away was war,—war, which inflames and intoxicates the imagination.
"Yes, Nanon, yes!" he cried. "Your person and your treasure are safe in my hands, and I would die, I swear it, to save you from the slightest danger."
"Thanks, my noble knight," said she; "I am as sure of your courage as of your nobleness of heart. Alas!" she added with a smile, "I would I were as sure of your love."
"Oh!" murmured Canolles, "you may be sure—"
"Very well, very well," said Nanon, "love is proved by deeds, not by oaths; by what you do, monsieur, we will judge of your love."
Throwing the loveliest arms in the world around Canolles' neck, she laid her head against his throbbing breast.
"Now, he must forget," she said to herself, "and he will forget—"
XI.
On the day that Canolles was arrested at Jaulnay, under the eyes of Madame de Cambes, she set out with Pompée to join Madame la Princesse, who was in the neighborhood of Coutras.
The worthy squire's first care was to try and prove to his mistress that the failure of Cauvignac's band to hold the fair traveller to ransom, or to commit any act of violence in her regard, was to be attributed to his resolute bearing, and his experience in the art of war. To be sure, Madame de Cambes was less easily convinced than Pompée hoped would be the case, and called his attention to the fact that for something more than an hour he had entirely disappeared; but Pompée explained to her that during that time he was hiding in a corridor, where he had prepared everything for the viscountess's flight, having a ladder in readiness; but he was compelled to maintain an unequal struggle with two frantic soldiers, who tried to take the ladder away from him; the which he did, of course, with his well-known indomitable courage.
This conversation naturally led Pompée to bestow a warm eulogium upon the soldiers of his day, who were savage as lions in face of the enemy, as they had proved at the siege of Montauban and the battle of Corbie; but gentle and courteous to their compatriots,—qualities of which the soldiers of that day could hardly boast, it must be confessed.
The fact is that, without suspecting it, Pompée narrowly escaped a great danger, that of being kidnapped. As he was strutting about, as usual, with gleaming eyes, puffed-out chest, and the general appearance of a Nimrod, he fell under Cauvignac's eye; but, thanks to subsequent events; thanks to the two hundred pistoles he had received from Nanon to molest no one save Baron de Canolles; and thanks to the philosophical reflection that jealousy is the most magnificent of passions, and must be treated with respect when one finds it in his path, the dear brother passed Pompée disdainfully by, and allowed Madame de Cambes to continue her journey to Bordeaux. Indeed, in Nanon's eyes Bordeaux was very near Canolles. She would have been glad to have the viscountess in Peru or Greenland or the Indies.
On the other hand, when Nanon reflected that henceforth she would have her dear Canolles all to herself within four strong walls, and that excellent fortifications, inaccessible to the king's soldiers, made a prisoner of Madame de Cambes to all intent, her heart swelled with the unspeakable joy which none but children and lovers know on this earth.
We have seen how her dream was realized, and Nanon and Canolles were united at ÃŽle Saint-Georges.
Madame de Cambes pursued her journey sadly and fearfully. Notwithstanding his boasting, Pompée was very far from reassuring her, and she was terrified beyond measure to see a considerable party of mounted-men approaching along a cross-road, toward evening of the day that she left Jaulnay.
They were the same gentlemen returning from the famous burial of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, which afforded Monsieur le Prince de Marsillac an opportunity, under the pretext of rendering due honor to his father'smemory, to get together all the nobility of France and Picardy, who hated Mazarin even more than they loved the princess. But Madame de Cambes and Pompée were struck by the fact that some of these horsemen carried an arm in a sling; others had a leg hanging limp and swathed in bandages; several had bloody bandages around their heads. It was necessary to look very closely at these cruelly maltreated gentlemen to recognize in them the active, spruce cavaliers who hunted the stag in the park at Chantilly.
But fear has keen eyes; and Pompée and Madame de Cambes recognized some familiar faces under the bloody bandages.
"Peste!madame," said Pompée, "the funeral procession must have travelled over very rough roads. I should say that most of these gentlemen had had a fall! see how they've been curried."
"That's just what I was looking at," said Claire.
"It reminds me of the return from Corbie," said Pompée, proudly; "but on that occasion I was not among the gallant fellows who returned, but among those who were brought back."
"But aren't these gentlemen commanded by any one?" Claire asked, in some anxiety as to the success of an enterprise which seemed to have had such inauspicious results. "Have they no leader? Has their leader been slain, that we do not see him? Pray look!"
"Madame," replied Pompée, rising majestically in his stirrups, "nothing is easier than to distinguish a leader among the people he commands. Ordinarily, on the march, the officer rides in the centre, with his staff; in action, he rides behind or on the flank of his troop. Cast your eyes at the different points that I mention and you can judge for yourself."
"I can see nothing, Pompée; but I think that some one is following us. Pray look back—"
"Hm! no, madame," said Pompée, clearing his throat, but omitting to turn his head lest he might really see some one. "No, there is nobody. But, stay, may that not be the leader with that red plume? No. That gilded sword? No. That piebald horse like Madame de Turenne's? No. It's a strange thing; there's no danger, and the commanding officer might venture to show himself; it isn't here as it was at Corbie—"
"You are mistaken, Master Pompée," said a harsh, mocking voice behind the poor squire, who nearly lost his seat in his fright; "you are mistaken, it's much worse than at Corbie."
Claire quickly turned her head, and saw within five feet of her a horseman of medium stature, dressed with an affectation of simplicity, who was looking at her with a pair of small, gleaming eyes, as deep set as a ferret's. "With his thick, black hair, his thin, twitching lips, his bilious pallor, and his frowning brow, this gentleman had a depressing effect even in broad daylight; at night his appearance would perhaps have inspired fear.
"Monsieur le Prince de Marsillac!" cried Claire, deeply moved. "Ah! well met, monsieur."
"Say Monsieur le Duc de La Rochefoucauld, madame; for now that the duke my father is dead I have succeeded to that name, under which all the actions of my life, good or bad, are to be set down."
"You are returning?" said Claire, with some hesitation.
"We are returning beaten, madame."
"Beaten! great Heaven!"
"I say that we are returning beaten, madame, because I am naturally little inclined to boast, and I tell the truth to myself as well as to others; otherwise I might claimthat we are returning victorious; but, in point of fact, we are beaten because our design upon Saumur failed. I arrived too late; we have lost that important place, which Jarzé has surrendered. Henceforth, assuming that Madame la Princesse has Bordeaux, which has been promised her, the war will be concentrated in Guyenne."
"But, monsieur," said Claire, "if, as I understand you to say, the capitulation of Saumur took place without a blow, how does it happen that all these gentleman are wounded?"
"Because," said La Rochefoucauld, with pride, which he could not conceal, despite his power over himself, "we fell in with some royal troops."
"And you fought with them?" demanded Madame de Cambes, eagerly.