BOOK I
THE PRESENTATION
CHAPTER I
THE DUC DE CHOISEUL’S BALL
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 was losing, 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 on the 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 old régime, 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 fair face, 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, and banking 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?”
“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 than son 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 of soup, 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 the fleur d’amour of 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 daylight discovered 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 to discern. 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 the crowd, 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.
CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE OF THE DUBARRYS
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-morrow evening. 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, “for in 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 be doing 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 persons who 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 would stick 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 Tuileries to 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 the banlieue of Paris, and that the banlieue handed 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, and like 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-handed in 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 social differences 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 Javotte that 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 to him 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 ordained that 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.
CHAPTER III
A COUNCIL OF WAR
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 old régime, 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 the procès-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 la Comtesse 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 fortune to 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 on the 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.
The Comtesse’s only reply was to lay her hand in a caressing way upon the beautiful arm of her friend. She turned to Jean:
“Jean, are you sure of the carriage?”
“Mordieu, yes. Vaudrin is ours entirely.”
“Will it be possible to have the arms altered in this short time?”
“He will do it. I will call upon him to-morrow morning at six o’clock.”
“Well,” said the Comtesse, “I accept. I accept everything—your advice, Monsieur de Rochefort, and your sacrifice, Camille. But it is a debt I can never repay.”
This sweet sentence was suddenly broken upon by a shriek of laughter from Jean. Dubarry rarely laughed, but when he did so it took him like convulsions—a very bad sign in a man. He flung himself on a couch and slapped his thigh.
“Their faces,” cried he, “when you appear, when the usher cries, ‘Madame la Comtesse de Béarn, Madame la Comtesse Dubarry.’ Choiseul’s face!”
“And Polastron’s!” cried the Comtesse, catching up the laugh. “And de Guemenée’s!”
Mademoiselle Fontrailles clasped her hands and laughed too. One might have fancied that they were quite assured of their victory over the profound and duplex Choiseul. They were laughing like this when a man-servant appeared. He had knocked at the door, but as he had received no answer and his business was urgent, he entered.
“Madame,” said the servant, “Monsieur de Sartines has arrived, and would speak a word with you on a matter of importance.”
“Monsieur de Sartines,” said the Comtesse, rising, “at this hour! Show him in.”
Everyone rose, and as they stood waiting, the little clock on the mantel chimed the hour. It was two o’clock in the morning. A minute passed, and then the servant returned, opening wide the door.
“Monsieur de Sartines.”
Sartines bowed to the Comtesse, and then, individually, to each present. He showed scarcely any surprise at the presence of Rochefort.
Sartines was the burning centre of this conspiracy to present the Comtesse Dubarry at Court in the teeth of all the opposition of the nobles, and he wished his part in it to be as secret as possible; yet he did not question Rochefort’s presence. He knew quite well that, Rochefort being there, he must have joined hands with the Comtesse. He was a man who never wasted time.
“Madame,” said he, “I have grave news to tell you.”
“Aha!” said the Comtesse, “more bad news. But stay, perhaps we know it. Is it the plot to rob me of my carriage and my hairdresser?”
“No, madame, I know nothing of any plot to rob you of your carriage. It is about the Comtesse de Béarn I have come to speak. Did she not receive a present to-day?”
“Yes, a basket of flowers from an old lady who belongs to her province. A Madame Turgis.”
“Yes,” said de Sartines, “and a Secret Service agent has just brought me news that amidst the flowers in that basket was a note.”
“A note!”
“A letter, I should say, giving the Comtesse de Béarn a full and true account of the little plan by which she was induced to come to Paris.”
“Oh, mon Dieu!” cried Madame Dubarry. “If the old fool only gets to know that, we are ruined! I know her as well as if I had constructed her. Once her pride and self-esteem are touched, she is hopeless to deal with.”
“At what hour did this basket of flowers arrive?” asked de Sartines.
“At four o’clock.”
“It has been in her private apartments ever since?”
“Yes.”
De Sartines looked at the clock on the mantel.
“Ten hours and seven minutes. Well, madame, if in that time the Comtesse de Béarn has not discovered the note, you are saved. Go at once, madame, to her apartments, and if you can capture the accursed basket and its contents, for Heaven’s sake do so. We must give her no chance to find it in the morning.”
Madame Dubarry left the room without a word. She passed through the next room and down a corridor, where, taking a small lamp from a table, she turned with it in her hand to a narrow staircase leading to the next floor. Here she paused at a doorway, listened, and then, gently opening the door, entered the Comtesse de Béarn’s sitting-room.
On a table near the window stood the fateful basket of flowers. The folding-doors leading to the bedroom were slightly open, and the intruder was approaching to seize the basket, when a sound from the bedroom made her pause, a low, deep groan, as if from someone in mortal pain.
“Help!” cried a muffled voice. “Who is that with the light? Ah! how I suffer!”
Without a word the Comtesse passed to the folding-doors, opened them, and next moment was in the bedroom. On the bed, half-covered with the clothes, lay the Comtesse de Béarn, on the floor near the stove lay a chocolate-pot upset, and the contents staining the parquet.
“Mon Dieu!” cried Madame Dubarry. “What has happened?”
“Ah, madame!” cried the old woman, “I am nearly dead. Here have I lain for hours in my misery. The pot of chocolate which I was heating on the stove upset—and look at my leg!”
She protruded a leg, and Madame Dubarry drew back with a cry. Foot and ankle and the leg half-way up to the shin bone were scalded in a manner that would be unpleasant to describe; but it was not the scalded leg that evoked Madame Dubarry’s cry of anguish. It was the knowledge that her presentation was now hopeless. For the Comtesse de Béarn to undertake the journey to Versailles with a leg like that was clearly impossible.
The Choiseuls had taken all precautions, their bow had many strings. This was the fatal one. The old woman on the bed, though suffering severely, could not suppress the gleam of triumph that showed in her eyes, now fixed on those of the Comtesse.
“Ah, madame!” said Dubarry, “this was ill done. Had you known what personal issues to yourself were involved, you would have been more careful!” Then, lest she should lose all restraint over herself, and fling the lamp in her hand at the head of the scalded one, she rushed from the room, seized the basket of flowers, and with basket in one hand and lamp in the other reached the ground floor, taking this time the grand staircase. She broke into the room, where de Sartines and the others were seated, flung the basket on a chair, so that it upset and the contents tumbled pell-mell over the floor, and broke into tears.
Everyone knew.
“Has she found out?” cried Jean.
“Madame,” said de Sartines, waving the Vicomte aside, “calm yourself; all may not yet be lost.”
“Ah, monsieur, you do not know,” sobbed the unfortunate woman. “Not only has she found out, but she has scalded her leg, so that the affair is now absolutely hopeless.” She told her tale, and as she told it her sobs ceased, her eyes grew bright, and she finished standing before them with clenched hands and sparkling eyes, more beautiful than ever.
Mademoiselle Fontrailles had been collecting the flowers; there was no sign of a letter among them. Jean Dubarry, white and beyond speech and unable to vent his spleen on anything else, had cuffed the China mandarin on to the floor, where it lay shattered. Rochefort, carried away by the tragedy, was cursing. De Sartines only was calm.
“It is impossible, then, for her to appear at Versailles?” said he.
“Utterly, monsieur.”
“Well, madame,” said de Sartines, “courage; all is not yet lost.”
“Ah, Monsieur de Sartines,” said the Comtesse, “what do you mean? Do you not know as well as I do that, failing the Comtesse de Béarn, the thing is impossible? Even were I to find someone qualified to take the place of this old woman, there would still be all the formalities of the application. Monsieur de la Vrillière would have to inquire into the antecedents of the lady, and Monsieur de Coigny would have to receive the request, only to lose it for Monsieur to find and cancel on account of the delay.”
“Madame,” cut in de Sartines, “the plan which has just occurred to me has nothing to do with the finding of a substitute. Madame la Comtesse de Béarn shall present you; or, let us put it in this way: to-morrow evening at ten o’clock you will be presented to his Majesty at the Court of Versailles. I am only mortal, and therefore fallible; but if you will leave the matter in my hands the thing shall be done, always saving the direct interposition of God.”
“You are, then, a magician?” cried the Comtesse.
“No, madame; or only a white magician who works through human agency.”
“Ah, Monsieur de Sartines,” cried the Comtesse, hope appearing again in her eyes, “if you can only help me in this, I shall pray for you till my dying day!”
“Oh, madame,” replied de Sartines, with a laugh, “I would never dream of imposing such a task upon the most beautiful lips in the world. I only ask you now to work with me, for this immediate end.”
“And what can I do?”
“Carry on all your preparations for to-morrow night. Monsieur Rochefort has explained to me the plot for the stealing of the carriage, the dress and the coiffeur. Let the Vicomte attend to the carriage, let Mademoiselle Fontrailles supply you with her dress, and let your most trusted servant fetch the coiffeur that Monsieur Rochefort knows of.”
“I will fetch him myself,” said Rochefort.
“No, Rochefort,” said de Sartines, “I have need of you for something else. May I put my reliance on your obedience in this crisis?”
“Implicitly, Sartines,” replied the Comte. “Call upon me for what you will. Mordieu! I have fought many a duel, but never has a fight stirred my blood like this. I will act any part or dress for any part except the part of spectator.”
“I will find enough for you to do, and now I must be going. It is after three o’clock, and if you will take a seat in my carriage, I will give you a lift on your way home, and explain what I want.”
“And I will see you again, monsieur?” said the Comtesse, addressing the Minister of Police.
“Not till after the presentation, Madame, when I hope to have the honour of kissing your hand. You understand, I have nothing to do with this affair. You must even abuse me to your friends, who are absolutely sure to be in communication with your enemies. And now, if I were you, I would send for your physician to attend to Madame de Béarn’s leg.”
He bade his adieux.
Rochefort, having scribbled the name of the coiffeur on a piece of paper supplied by Jean, gazed into the eyes of Mademoiselle Fontrailles, as he lifted his lips from her hand. He fancied that her glance told him all that he wished, and more than he had hoped.
In the hall Sartines enveloped himself in a black cloak, put on a broad-brimmed hat, and, followed by Rochefort, entered the carriage that was waiting in the courtyard. It was a carriage, perfectly plain, without adornment, such as the Minister used when wishing to mask his movements.
“You did not come in your own carriage, then?” said Rochefort, as they drove away.
“Oh, dear, no,” said Sartines. “My carriage is still waiting at Choiseul’s. I slipped away, having already sent an agent for this plain carriage to meet me at the third lamp-post on the right, as you go up the Rue St. Honoré from the Rue du Faubourg.”
“You had an agent in attendance, then?”
“My dear Rochefort, three of Choiseul’s servants are my agents, and it was from one of them that I learned of this precious plot about the basket of flowers. You live in the Rue de Longueville!”
“Ah, you know my new address!” said Rochefort, laughing.
“I know everything about you, my dear Rochefort. Now, will you put your head out of the window, and tell the coachman to drive to the Rue de Longueville? I cannot go back to the Hôtel de Sartines at once. I must crave the shelter of your apartments; we are being followed.”
“Followed?”
“Mordieu, yes! The Dubarrys’ house has been watched all day. When I drove up in this carriage, I saw one of Choiseul’s agents, who, without doubt, tried to question my coachman whilst I was in the house; a perfectly useless proceeding, as my coachman is Sergeant Bonvallot. I know quite well, now, that there is a man running after us, so do as I say.”
Rochefort put his head out and gave the direction.
“My faith!” said he, as he resumed his place, “but they are keen, the Choiseuls.”
“They are more than that. You cannot guess at all the way this matter has stirred the whole court. Of course, when the thing is over and done with, and the presentation an accomplished matter, the Comtesse will not be able to number her friends. But she is lost if Choiseul succeeds, and if she succeeds Choiseul is lost. Once give her an accredited place at court, and the breaking of Choiseul will be only the matter of a few months.”
“Sartines,” said the young man with that daring which gave him permission to say things other men would not have dreamed of saying, “you are not doing this for love of the Dubarry?”
“I?” said de Sartines. “I am doing it to break Choiseul.”
The carriage which had entered the Rue de Longueville stopped at a house on the left, and the two men got out.
CHAPTER IV
THE METHODS OF MONSIEUR DE SARTINES
DE SARTINES said a word to his coachman and, without even glancing down the street to see if he were followed or not, entered the house, the door of which Rochefort had opened with a key. They passed upstairs to the apartments of the Count. In the sitting-room de Sartines cast off his cloak, flung it on a chair with his hat, and took his seat.
“Now let us talk for a moment,” said he. “And first, a word about yourself. It is unfortunate that you killed that man, considering that he was one of Choiseul’s agents.”
“I killed him in self-defence,” said Rochefort; “or at least, I can say that he attempted my life before I took his.”
“Oh, the killing is nothing,” said de Sartines. “The vermin is well out of the way. What really matters is, that you balked Choiseul in his attempt to spy upon Dubarry’s secrets. Of course, he may never know the truth of the matter; but, if he does—well, you will need a lot of protection, and we will endeavour to find it for you. Now to the Comtesse’s business. It is quite clear that the old Béarn woman is literally out of court. Every other woman in Paris or Versailles is equally impossible, or, at least, seemingly so. I, as Minister of Police, have great power; but I am powerless to help, for to help I would have to declare my hand openly, which, as you well may guess, is impossible to one in my position. Besides, my power has limits. I cannot say to one of these Court women: ‘You shall present Madame Dubarry to-night.’ No; yet all the same, I am powerful enough to ensure that presentation, I believe.”
Rochefort listened with interest. It was rarely that de Sartines unbosomed himself, and when he did it was generally only to show a cuirass of steel painted to imitate flesh; but to-night was different. He knew Rochefort to be absolutely reliable to those who trusted him.
“You talk in enigmas, my dear Sartines,” said the young man. “You say you are powerless, and then you say you are powerful enough to assure the presentation. Please explain yourself.”
“No man can explain himself, with the exception, perhaps, of Monsieur Rousseau, whose ‘Confessions’ you have perhaps read. But a man may explain his methods. Well, my methods are these. Being by nature a rather stupid and lazy man, I seek out the cleverest and most active men I can find to act for me. People fancy that my life is spent in searching for criminals, political offenders, and so forth; on the contrary, it is spent in looking for clever men. I have one gift, without which no man can hold a position like mine. I know men.
“More than that, I hunt for men and buy them just as M. Boehmer hunts for and buys diamonds. The consequence is that I have more genius at my command in the Hôtel de Sartines than his Majesty has at Versailles or Choiseul at the Ministry. I have Escritain, the greatest linguist in France, who knows not only all European languages, but all dialects. I have Fremin, the first cryptographer. I have Jumeau, the first accountant, who could reduce the value of the universe to francs and sous and, more important, discover an error in his work of one centime. I have Beauregard, the bravest man in France; Verpellieux, the best swordsman; Valjean, whose tongue would talk him into the nether regions and whose hand, if it caught hold of some new Eurydice, would bring her out, even though it fetched everything else with her. I have Formineux, a blind man whose sense of smell is phenomenal; and I have Lavenne, the greatest Secret Service agent in the world. Bring me a book you can’t translate, the name of a man you can’t find, a crime you can’t fathom, a suspicion you want verified, you will find the answer at the Hôtel de Sartines. One of these brave men, who are mine, will read the riddle.
“But outside the Hôtel de Sartines I have other men at my service. Yes, you will find a lot of people attached to us. You yourself, my dear Rochefort, have just become one of us. The Hôtel de Sartines has touched you.”
Rochefort laughed. “If it does not touch me any more unpleasantly than now, I shall not mind,” said he. “But you have not yet explained.”
“What?”
“Your plans as to the Dubarry.”
“Oh, that. I was coming to that; let me come to it in my own way. I have shown you the power at my disposal. I have all sorts of brains ready to work for me, all sorts of hands ready to do my bidding; but all those brains and hands would be useless to me had I not an intimate knowledge of their capacities, and had I not the power of selection. More than that, my dear Rochefort; I have, I believe, the dramatist’s gift of valuing and using shades of character. Dealing, as I do, with the most complex and highly civilized society in the world, I would be lost without this gift, which might have made me a good dramatist if Fate had not condemned me to be a policeman. In fact, my work at Versailles and in Paris has mainly to do with the reading backwards through plots, far more complicated than the plots of Molière, to find the authors’ names.
“Now I come to the Dubarry business. This woman must be presented to-morrow night. Choiseul has as good as stolen her carriage and her dressmaker—that will be put right. Choiseul has succeeded in making Madame de Béarn half boil herself to death. But Choiseul, who fancies that he has the whole business in the palm of his hand, has reckoned without the Hôtel de Sartines and the geniuses whom I have collected for years past, just as Monsieur d’Anjou collects seals or Monsieur de Duras Roman coins.
“I am about to employ one of these geniuses to work a miracle for Madame Dubarry. His name is Ferminard. He lives at the Maison Gambrinus—which is a tavern in the Porcheron quarter—and, as you have promised to serve us, you will go there to-morrow at noon, or a little before, with my agent Lavenne, and conduct this Ferminard to the Rue de Valois. Lavenne will not go to the Rue de Valois, for I will have other work for him to do, and besides, it is just as well for him not to go near the Dubarrys’ house, for, clever as he is in the art of disguise, Choiseul will have men watching all day who have the scent of hounds. We must run no risks.”
“Let us understand,” said Rochefort. “I am to meet your agent, Lavenne—where?”
“He will call for you here.”
“Good! Then I am to go with him to the Maison Gambrinus, find Ferminard, and conduct him to Madame Dubarry’s house in the Rue de Valois—all that seems very simple.”
“Perhaps. But you must be on your guard, for this Ferminard is a bon viveur. Taverns simply suck him in, and were he to get lost in one, you would find him next drunk and useless.”
“A drunkard?”
“No, a man who drinks. Never look down on these people, Rochefort. Drink may be simply the rags a beggar walks in, or the robes and regalia that a royal mind adorns itself with to enter the kingdom of dreams.”
“And what am I to tell this Ferminard to do?”
“You are to tell him nothing, simply because you are a stranger to him, and he would look on orders from a stranger as an impertinence. Lavenne, however, knows him to the bone, and is a friend of his. Lavenne will give him private instructions, and then hand him over to you.”
“Very well. I will obey your orders, though they completely mystify me.”
“I assure you,” said de Sartines, “that I have no intention of mystifying you; but I cannot explain my idea to you simply because I have to explain it to Lavenne. It is after four in the morning, and I must get back to the Hôtel de Sartines. There is a man still watching at the corner of the street; he must not follow me. Now, do as I tell you. Take my black cloak and broad-brimmed hat, and put them on. We are both about the same size. Go out, walk down the street, go down the Rue de la Tour, and then through the Rue Picpus, returning here by the Rue de la Vallière. The fool will follow you all the time.”
“And you?”
“And I,” said de Sartines, putting on Rochefort’s cloak and hat, “will slip away to the Hôtel de Sartines, whilst you are leading that sot his dance.”
“But he will follow me back here.”
“Of course he will, and he will see you go in and shut the door. Lavenne will bring you back your cloak and hat in a parcel. The point is, that they will never know that the man in the black cloak and hat, who left the Hôtel Dubarry with Monsieur Rochefort, returned to the Hôtel de Sartines.”
“But your carriage?”
“I told the coachman to take the carriage back to the place it came from. They will not follow an empty carriage; were they to do so, they would get nothing for their pains, as it came from a livery stable managed by the wife of Jumeau, that accountant of whom I spoke just now.”
Rochefort looked in astonishment at this man, whose methods were as intricate and minute as the reasoning power that directed them; whose life was a maze to which he alone possessed the clue, and whose path was never in a straight line.
He followed implicitly the instructions he had received, conscious all the time that he was being tracked, and once glimpsing a stealthy form that slipped from house-shadow to house-shadow. When he returned, de Sartines had vanished, and, casting himself on his bed dressed as he was, wearied with the night’s work, he fell asleep.
CHAPTER V
FERMINARD
WHEN he awoke, with the full daylight staring into the room, the first remembrance that came to him was that of Mademoiselle Fontrailles. The whole of the past night seemed like some page torn from a romance; only this girl from the South seemed real. He was in love, for the first time in his life, and he did not recognize the fact that his passion had bound him openly to the Dubarrys, cast him head over heels into politics, to sink or swim with that exceedingly dubious family.
Rochefort had a big stake to lose; he had estates in Auvergne, his youth and his position in society. He had no political ambitions, but he had an ambition, ever living and always being gratified, to shine in his own peculiar way. He set the fashion in coats and morals, his sayings were repeated, even though many of them were scarcely worth repetition; his eccentricities, which were genuine and not assumed, were a feature of Paris life. Paris was his true home, and though he was seen frequently at Versailles, he was seen more often at the Café de Régence. He was the first of the dandies, the predecessor of the boulevardier of the Boulevard de Gand and the Café de Paris, the prefiguration in flesh of Tortoni’s and the Second Empire.
Our present utilitarian age could no more produce a Rochefort than one of our engineers could produce a butterfly; only the full summer of social life which fell on Athens four hundred years before Christ, which fell on France in the time of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., and which brushed England with its wing in the time of the Regency, can produce these rare and useless human flowers. Useless, that is to say, as fine pictures, Ming figures, and live dragon-flies are useless.
He had, then, a big stake to lose by venturing into the stormy arena of politics, for the hand of de Choiseul was a heavy hand, and with the famous diamond-rimmed snuff-box held many things, including confiscation, exile, and even imprisonment. But Rochefort never thought of this, and, if he had thought of it, he would have pursued his present course absolutely unchecked. This dandy and trifler with life had no thought at all for danger, and the prudence that arises from self-interest was not one of his possessions. Leaving all that aside, he was in love, and the object of his love was in the path of his present progress.
He rang for Lermina, his valet, and bathed and dressed himself with most scrupulous care. It was now half-past eleven. He ordered déjeuner to be served a quarter of an hour earlier than its usual time, and was seated at the meal when Lavenne was announced. He told the servant to show the visitor up, and when Lavenne entered rose from the table to greet him.
Lavenne formed a striking contrast to the elegant Rochefort. Lavenne was a man who, at first sight, seemed a young man, and at second sight, a man of middle age, soberly dressed, of middle height, and remarkable only for eyes wonderfully bright and luminous. Rochefort, who did not possess de Sartines’ power of reading men, had still the gift of deciding at once whether a person pleased him or not. He liked this man’s manner and appearance and face, and received him in a manner that at once made the newcomer at home.
Rochefort had not two manners, one for the rich and one for the poor. Whilst always rigidly keeping his own place, he would talk familiarly with anyone, from the king to the beggar at the corner of the street. But it would go hard with the man who presumed on this fact. Lavenne knew Rochefort quite well by name and appearance, had ranked him among the titled larvæ of the Court who were always passing under his eyes, and was surprised to find, after a few minutes’ talk, what a pleasant person he was.
“I have left the hat and cloak, monsieur, with your servant,” said Lavenne. “My master, the Comte de Sartines, gave me instructions to bring them with me.
“Ah, the hat and cloak!” said Rochefort. “I had forgotten them. Thanks. Will you not be seated? I have just finished déjeuner, and shall be quite at your disposal when the carriage arrives. I ordered it for twelve, as I suppose we had better drive to this place, which is in the Porcheron district. Will you not have a glass of wine?” He poured out a glass of Beaune, and whilst Lavenne drank it, finished his breakfast, chatting all the time, but saying nothing at all on the object of their journey till they were in the carriage and driving to their destination.
“You expect to find him in, this Monsieur Ferminard?” asked Rochefort.
“Yes, monsieur. He is very poor just now, and when in that state he avoids the streets and cafés.”
“Ah, ah!” said Rochefort, wondering how this very poor man, who avoided even the streets, could be of help to the powerful Comtesse Dubarry at one of the most critical moments of her life. But he said nothing more; he did not like to appear as though he were trying to draw Lavenne out.
The Porcheron quarter lay between the Faubourg Montmartre and La Ville l’Évêque. It was sparsely populated, and here, at a tavern whose sign represented a hound running down a hare amidst long grass, the carriage drew up.
This was the Maison Gambrinus, a house of considerable repute for the excellence of its wine. Founded in the year 1614 by William Gambrinus, a Dutchman from Dordrecht, it was famous for three things—the excellence of its cookery, the goodness of its wine, and the modesty of its charges. Turgis, who now owned the place, possessed a wife who had been kitchenmaid at the Hôtel Noailles under the famous Coquellard; being a pretty girl, she had obtained from him, as a mark of his favour and as a wedding gift, a recipe for stewing veal, that he reckoned as one of his chief possessions. This same recipe brought people to the Maison Gambrinus from all over Paris, so that Turgis did a fair enough business.
As the carriage drew up, a big man appeared at the door of the inn; he was so broad that he nearly filled the doorway, which was by no means narrow. One might have fancied that the mould for his face had been cast on that great and jovial day when Nature, tired of making ordinary folk, took thought and said to herself: “Now let us make an innkeeper.”
It was an ideal face of its kind—fat, material, smiling—and promising everything in the way of good cheer and comfort. Yet to-day, to Lavenne’s surprise, this face, ordinarily so jovial, wore an expression that sat ill upon it, or rather, one might say, it had lost somewhat the natural expression that sat so well upon it.
“Turgis,” said Lavenne, as they followed him into the big room with a sanded floor, which formed the salle-à-manger and bar combined, “we have come to see Monsieur Ferminard. Is he in?”
“Oh, mon Dieu!” cried Turgis, “is he in? Why, Monsieur Lavenne, he has not been out for a fortnight; he has driven half my customers away, and his bill is still owing. Three hams, six dozen eggs, thirty-seven bottles of wine of Anjou, bread, salt, olives; a bill for sixty-five francs, to say nothing of the money I have lost through him. Before I take another poet as a guest, I will set light with my own hand to the Máison Gambrinus. Listen to him!”
From an adjoining room came the sound of a loud and high-pitched voice, laughing, talking, bursting out now and then into snatches of song, and now low-pitched and seemingly engaged in argument. Then, all at once, came a furious stamping, a cry, and the sound of a table being overset.
“Pardieu!” cried Rochefort, “he seems busy. What on earth is he doing?”
“Doing, monsieur!” replied the host. “Nothing. He is writing a play.”
“Does he write with his feet, then, this Monsieur Ferminard?”
“Aye, does he,” replied Turgis, bending to lift a bottle from the floor and placing it on one of the tables, “and with his tongue and fists and head. Gascon that he is, he acts all his tragedies as he writes them. He has been writing a duel since noon, and has smashed, God knows how much of my furniture. Sixty-five francs he owes me, which will not be paid till his tragedy is finished; by which time, Heaven help me! I fear he will have devoured and drunk the contents of my cellar and destroyed my inn. And, were it not that he is the best fellow going and once did me a service, I would bundle him out of my place neck and crop, poems, plays and all.”
The noise from the adjoining room suddenly ceased, as if the poet had become aware of the voices of the innkeeper and the new-comers. The door burst open, and a man in his shirt-sleeves—a short, rather stout, clean-shaved individual, with a mobile face and bright, piercing eyes—appeared. He held a pen in his hand.
“Morbleu!” cried this apparition, in a testy voice, speaking to the landlord without even a glance at the others. “Have you no thought for the comfort of your guests? With your chatter, chatter, chatter, you have spoilt one of the finest of my passages.”
“And what about my tables?” burst out Turgis, suddenly flying into a rage, “and my glasses? Four broken this day, and my wainscoting pierced with the point of your rapier, and my room half wrecked—and you talk to me of your passages! What about my custom driven away? For one may not sneeze, it appears to me, without your poems being upset and your passages spoilt. What about my sixty-five francs?”
“They shall be paid,” said the poet, taking a minor key. “Ah, Monsieur Lavenne!” His eye had just fallen on Lavenne.
“Pardon me,” said Lavenne to Rochefort. He went towards the tragedian, took him by the arm and drew him into the adjoining room. Then he shut the door.
Turgis wiped his forehead. “His passages! I wish he would find a passage to take him to the devil. What may I get for monsieur?”
“Get me a bottle of that wine for which you are so famous,” said Rochefort, taking a seat at a table, “and two glasses—that is right. He seems a strange customer, this Monsieur Ferminard.”
“Oh, monsieur,” replied Turgis, opening the wine and filling the glasses, “he would be right enough were he only to stick to his trade.”
“And what is his trade?”
“An actor, monsieur; he is a great actor. He belonged to the Théâtre Molière; but he quarrelled with the director, and the quarrel came to blows, and Ferminard wounded the director. Yes, monsieur, he would now be in prison only for Monsieur de Sartines, who took an interest in him, having seen him act. Ah, monsieur, he was a great actor. But he was not content to be an actor. Oh, no! What does he do but write a comedy himself, to beat Molière? And what does he do but get the ear of the Duc de la Vrillière and his permission to produce this precious comedy at Versailles, with Court ladies and gentlemen to act in it. If he had acted himself in it, the thing would have been saved, but belonging to the Théâtre Molière, he was bound by agreement not to act elsewhere.
“Well, monsieur, the thing went so badly that he abused the actors and actresses when they came off the stage, and, as a result, he was caned by Monsieur de Coigny.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, “I heard something of that; but I was away from Paris, and I did not hear the details. He abused them. Mordieu! that’s good.”
“Yes, monsieur. I had the story from his own mouth. He told Madame de Duras, who was acting as one of his precious shepherdesses, that her head was as wooden as her legs. As for me, I would have been a mouse among all that company; but he—he does not care for the King himself; and so outraged does he feel even still, that could he burn Versailles down and all it contains he would be happy. He is not the man to forgive the strokes of Monsieur de Coigny’s cane. Your health, monsieur! Still the pity is that the fault was not with the actors, but with the play. It is common sense, besides. I, for instance, am a very good man at selling that wine you are drinking. But if I were to go to Anjou and try to make that wine, I would not be good at the business. Just so! A man may be a very good actor, and yet may not be able to write a play that another man could act well in.”
A sudden burst of laughter from the adjoining room cut Turgis short.
“What is up now, I wonder?” said he.
“He seems laughing at something that Monsieur Lavenne is telling him,” said Rochefort, whose interest in the whole affair had suddenly taken on an extra keenness, and who was deeply puzzled by a business of which he could find no possible explanation. “Come, refill your glass! You deserve to drink such good wine since you choose to sell it.”
The landlord did as he was told without the slightest trace of unwillingness, and they sat talking on indifferent matters till the door of the next room suddenly opened and Lavenne appeared.
He took Rochefort outside the inn to the roadway, where the carriage was still in waiting.
“Monsieur,” said Lavenne, “I have arranged everything with Ferminard. But it is absolutely necessary that he should go to the Rue de Valois in such a fashion that no one can recognize him. Will you, therefore, take your seat in the carriage, and he will join you in a few minutes.”
“Certainly,” said Rochefort, who had drunk enough wine and on whom the conversation of the innkeeper had begun to pall. “And here is a louis to pay the score. He can keep the change.”
“Thank you, monsieur,” said Lavenne. “You will see me no more, for my part in this business is now over.”
“Well, then, good-day to you,” said the Comte, “and thank you for your pleasant company.”
Lavenne bowed and returned to the inn, and Rochefort, telling his coachman to wait, got into the carriage. Five minutes passed, and then ten. He was becoming impatient, when from the inn door emerged an old man of miserable appearance who blinked at the sun, blinked at the carriage, and then came towards it and placed his hand on the door-handle.
Rochefort, who did not care for the appearance of this person, was on the point of asking him what the devil he wanted, when he caught a glimpse of Lavenne at the inn door, nodding to him to indicate that all was right. Then he grasped the fact that this incredible mass of decrepitude was Ferminard. He helped the old fellow in, and the driver, who already had his instructions, turned his horses, whipped them up, and started off in the direction of the Faubourg St. Honoré.
“Well, Monsieur Ferminard,” said Rochefort, laughing, “if I had not had the honour of seeing you when comparatively young, I would not have known you in your old age.”
“Oh, that is nothing, monsieur,” said Ferminard; “to turn oneself into an old man is an easy matter. The great difficulty is for an actor to turn himself into a youth. Has Monsieur ever seen me act?”
“Often,” said Rochefort, who, in fact, had little care for the theatre, and had never seen him act, “and I was charmed.”
“Monsieur is very good to say so. As for me, I have never been charmed by my own acting, though ’twas passable enough; but the fact is, monsieur, I was not born an actor. I was born a dramatist.”
“Oh, ho!”
“Yes, monsieur, that is how fate treats one. My head is full of my creations; they seize me, and make me write. Ah! whilst I am writing, then I can act; if I were impersonating one of my own characters on the stage, then I could act. But when I have to play the part of some other man’s creation in character, then I feel a stick.”
“You have written many plays?”
“Numerous, monsieur,” said the greatest actor and worst dramatist in France.
“I hear you had one staged in Versailles.”
“Oh, mon Dieu!” said Ferminard. “All France knows that tale. Ah, dame, when I think of it, I could kick this coach to pieces—I could eat the world. Well, they shall be rewarded. Ferminard will have his revenge.”
He laughed and slapped his thigh.
They had entered the Rue de Pontoise, which led into the Rue de Valois.
“And now, monsieur,” said Ferminard, “I will forget, if you please, that I am an actor, and remember that I am an old man.”
He did, with strange effect. As the carriage turned into the courtyard of the Hôtel Dubarry, had any spy been watching the antique face of Ferminard at the window of the coach, he would have sent a report absolutely confusing to the Choiseul faction. He alighted, leaning on Rochefort’s arm. In the hall, when they were admitted, Jean Dubarry, who was waiting and who evidently had been advised by de Sartines of what to expect, seized upon Ferminard as though he had been a long-lost treasure, and spirited him away down a corridor, apologizing to Rochefort, and calling back to him over his shoulder to wait for a moment until he returned.
Rochefort, left alone, was turning to look at a stand of arms, supposed to contain the pikes and swords and spears of vanished Dubarrys slain in warfare, when a step drew his attention, and turning, he found himself face to face with Javotte. He had completely forgotten Javotte. But she had not forgotten him. She had a tray of glasses in her hand, and as their eyes met she blushed, looked down, and then glanced up again with a charming smile.
He had kissed her the night before; but she was only one of the thousand girls that the light-hearted Rochefort had kissed in passing, so to speak, and without ulterior intent. The pleasantest thing in the world is to kiss a pretty girl, just as one of the pleasantest things in the world is to draw a rose towards one, inhale its perfume, and release it unharmed; but very few men have the art of doing the thing successfully. Rochefort had. Just as some old gentlemen, by sheer power of personality, can say the most risqué and terrible things without giving offence, so could Rochefort with women do things and say things that another man would not have dared. It was the touch of irresponsibility in his nature that gave him, perhaps, this power.
It was not the kiss lightly given the night before that made Javotte blush; it was the presence of Rochefort. Since his rescue of her, he completely filled her mind.
“Ah! little one,” said he, “good-morning!”
“Good-morning, monsieur.”
“And where are you going?”
“To the room of Madame la Comtesse, though I am no longer in her service.”
“No longer in her service?”
“No, monsieur.”
“And in whose service are you now, petite?”
“I belong to Mademoiselle Fontrailles, monsieur. I was only temporarily with Madame la Comtesse; and as her maid, Jacqueline, has returned to her this morning, and as I seemed to please Mademoiselle Fontrailles, who is staying here till after the presentation, I entered her service.”
“Ah, ha!” said Rochefort. “And where does mademoiselle live?”
“She has apartments in the Rue St. Dominic, monsieur, where she lives with her nurse.”
“Yes, monsieur, an old Indian woman, who is as black as my shoe.”
The lively Javotte was proceeding to a vivacious description of her black sister from Martinique when a step on the stairs checked her; she vanished with the glasses, and Rochefort, turning, found himself face to face with Mademoiselle Fontrailles, who had just entered the hall.
They bowed to one another ceremoniously. It seemed to Rochefort that, beautiful as she had appeared on the night before, she was even more beautiful by daylight, here in the deserted hall of the Hôtel Dubarry.
“Well, mademoiselle,” said he, “and how are things progressing?”
“Marvellously, monsieur; but do not let us talk here of state secrets.” She led the way into the little room where they had parted but a few hours before.
“The carriage has been arranged for, your coiffeur will, I am sure, prove a success; he has arrived, and the Vicomte Jean has put him under lock and key, with a pocketful of louis to play with, and the promise of an equal amount when his work is done; my poor dress is now being altered and promises a perfect fit. We are saved, in fact, and thanks to you.”
“No, mademoiselle, thanks to luck; for if I had not gone to Choiseul’s ball I would not have met you.”
“You mean, you would not have discovered the plot to steal the carriage and the dress.”
“But for you the plot would have lain in my mind unrevealed. I have a horror of Court intrigue. As it is, I have set myself against Choiseul, and killed one of his agents, and thwarted his best hopes; but I count all that nothing in your service.”
Mademoiselle Fontrailles gazed at him steadily as he stood there with this patent declaration of homage on his lips, and all the laughter and lightness gone from his happy-go-lucky and defiant face.
She guessed now from his face and manner what was in his mind, and that the slightest weakening on her part would bring him down on his knee before her.
“I thank you, monsieur,” said she. “And now to the question of the Comtesse de Béarn.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, inwardly cursing the Comtesse de Béarn, “I had forgotten the Comtesse. And how is she this morning?”
“She is still very bad.”
“And to-night?”
“She will be quite unable to attend at Versailles.”
Rochefort was about to make a remark when the door leading to the adjoining room opened, and Madame Dubarry herself appeared, young, fresh, triumphant and laughing.
“Did I hear you speaking of the Comtesse de Béarn?” asked she, as she extended her hand to Rochefort.
“Yes, madame, and I am grieved to hear that she is still indisposed.”
“Then, monsieur, you have heard false news. Madame la Comtesse has nearly recovered, and will be quite well enough to act for me to-night.”
Mademoiselle Fontrailles smiled, and Rochefort, not knowing what to make of these contradictory statements, stood glancing from one to the other of his informers.
“Not only that,” continued Madame Dubarry, “but you may tell everyone the news. That Madame la Comtesse has had a slight accident and has now perfectly recovered. And now I must dismiss you, dear Monsieur Rochefort, for I have a world of business before me; but only till to-night, when we will meet at Versailles. You will be there, will you not?”
“Yes,” said Rochefort, “I shall be there to see your triumph—and Mademoiselle Fontrailles?”
“I shall not be there,” said the girl, “or only in spirit; but my dress will be there.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, “even that is something.”
Then off he went. Light-hearted now and laughing, for it seemed to him that, though his affair had seemingly not made an inch of progress, all was well between him and Camille Fontrailles.
CHAPTER VI
THE COMTESSE DE BÉARN
TO present the mentality of the Comtesse de Béarn one would have to reconstruct the lady, and rebuild from all sorts of medieval constituents her mind, person and dress. Feudal times have left us cities such as Nuremberg and Vittoria standing just as they stood in the twilight of the Middle Ages, but the people have vanished, only vaguely to be recalled.
The Comtesse de Béarn was medieval, and carried the twelfth century clinging to her coif and mantelet right into the heart of the Paris of 1770. Arrogant, narrow, superstitious and proud as Lucifer, this old lady, impoverished by years of litigation with the family of Saluce, inveigled up to Paris by a false statement that her lawsuit was about to be settled to her advantage, entertained by the Dubarrys and filled by them with promises and hopes, had agreed to act as introducer to the Comtesse. She disliked the business, but was prepared to swallow it for the sake of the lawsuit.
Choiseul’s note conveyed in the basket of flowers had acted with withering effect. It was written by a master mind that understood finely the mind it was addressing, and its one object was to convey the sentence: “You have been tricked.”
She saw the truth at once; she had been fetched up to Paris to act as a servant in the Dubarrys’ interests; she had been outwitted, played with. In an instant, twenty obscure and dubious happenings fell into their proper place, and she saw in a flash not only the deception but the fact that when she was done with she would be cast aside like a sucked orange; returned to her castle on the banks of the Meuse.
The unholy anger that filled the old lady’s mind might have led her at once to open revolt had she not possessed a lively sense of the power of the Dubarrys, and an instinctive fear of the Vicomte Jean. To revolt and say: “I will take no part in the presentation,” would have led to a pitched battle, in which she felt she would be worsted. She was too old and friendless to fight all these young, vigorous people who were on their own ground. But she would not present the woman who had tricked her at the Court of Versailles.
She boiled a pot of chocolate, and poured the contents over her foot and leg. The physical agony was nothing to the satisfaction of her mind. Madame Dubarry’s face when she saw the wound was more soothing than all the cold cream that Noirmont, the Dubarrys’ doctor, applied to the scald; and this morning, stretched on her back, with her leg swathed in cotton and the pain eased, she revelled in the thought of her enemy’s discomfiture. She felt no fear; they could not kill her; they could not turn her out of the house; she was an honoured guest, and she lay waiting for the distraction and the wailing and tears of the Dubarry woman, and the storming of the Vicomte Jean.
Instead of these came, at twelve o’clock or thereabouts, Noirmont, the physician, accompanied by Chon Dubarry, who had just arrived from Luciennes. The charming Chon seemed in the best spirits, and was full of solicitation and pity for her “dear Comtesse.”
Noirmont examined the leg, declared that his treatment had produced a decidedly beneficial effect, and, without a word as to when the patient might expect to be able to walk again, bowed himself out, leaving Chon and the Comtesse together.
“You see, my dear lady,” said the old woman, “how fallible we all are to accident. But for that unlucky pot of chocolate, I would now be dressed, and ready to pay my devoirs to Madame la Comtesse; as it is, if I am able to leave my bed in a week’s time I will be fortunate, and even then I will, without doubt, have to be carried from this house to my carriage.”
“Madame,” said Chon devoutly, “we are all in the hands of Providence, whose decrees are inscrutable. Let us, then, bear our troubles with a spirit, and hope for the best.”
“Oh, mon Dieu!” cried the old woman, irritated at the extraordinary cheerfulness of the other, and feeling instinctively that some new move of the accursed Dubarrys was in progress, “it is easy for the whole in body and limb to dictate cheerfulness to the afflicted. Here am I laid up, and my affairs needing my attention in the country; but I think less of them than of the Court to-night, which I am unable to attend, and of the presentation which I am debarred from taking my part in. Not on my own account, for I have long given up the vanities of the world, but on account of Madame la Comtesse Dubarry.”
“Truly, there seems a fate in it,” said Chon, with great composure and cheerfulness. “Everything seemed going on so happily for your interests and ours. Well, it cannot be helped; there is no use in grumbling. The great thing now, dear Madame de Béarn, is your health, which is, after all, more important to you than money or success in lawsuits. Can I order you anything that you may require?”
The only thing Madame de Béarn could have wished for at the moment was Madame Dubarry’s head on a charger, but she did not put her desire in words. She lay watching with her bright old eyes whilst Chon, with a curtsey, turned and left the room. Then she lay thinking.
She was beaten. The Dubarrys had in some way found a method of evading defeat. Unfortunate Comtesse! When she had put herself to all this pain and discomfort she little knew that she was setting herself, not against the Dubarrys alone, but against de Sartines, and all the wit, ingenuity and genius of the Hôtel de Sartines. Moss-grown in her old château by the Meuse, she knew nothing of Paris, its trickery and its artifice. She had all this yet to learn.
All that she knew now was the fact that the plans of her enemies were prospering, and the mad desire to thwart them would have given her energy and fortitude enough to leave her bed, and hobble from the house, had she not known quite well that such a thing was impossible. The Dubarrys would not let her go.
Then a plan occurred to her. She rang the bell which had been placed on the table beside her, and when the maid entered, ordered her to fetch at once Madame Turgis, the old lady from her province who had sent her the basket of flowers.
“She lives in the Rue Petit Picpus, No. 10,” said she. “And ask her to come at once, for I feel worse.”
The maid left the room, promising to comply with the order. Five minutes passed, and then came a knock at the door, which opened, disclosing the Vicomte Jean. He was all smiles and apologies and affability. Did the Comtesse feel worse? Should they send again for Noirmont? The maid had gone to fetch Madame Turgis, who would be here no doubt immediately. Would not Madame la Comtesse take some extra nourishment? Some soup?
Then he retired as gracefully as he had entered, and the Comtesse de Béarn waited. At one o’clock the maid came back. Madame Turgis was from home, but the message had been left, asking her to call at once on her return.
“Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” cried the old woman recognizing at once that she had been tricked again, and that the maid had doubtless never left the house, seeing also her great mistake in not having used bribery. “And here am I lying in pain, and perhaps before she comes I may be gone, and my dying bequests will never be known. But wait.”
She took something from under her pillow. It was a handkerchief tightly rolled up. She unrolled the handkerchief carefully. There were half a dozen gold coins in it—louis d’or, stamped with the stately profile of the fourteenth Louis. It was part of the hoard which she kept at the Château de Béarn, on which she had drawn for travelling contingencies. Taking a louis, and folding up the rest, she held it out between finger and thumb.
“For you,” said she.
The maid advanced to take the coin.
“When Madame Turgis arrives,” finished the old woman, with a snap, withdrawing the coin and hiding her hand under the bed-clothes. “So go now, like a good girl, or find some messenger to go for you. Tell Madame Turgis that the Comtesse de Béarn has need for her at once. Then the louis will be yours to do what you like with, eh? ’Tis not often a louis is earned so cheap. You’ll have a young man of your own, and nothing holds ’em like a bit of fine dress; and I’ll look among my things and see if I can’t find you a bit of lace, or a trinket to put on top of the louis. And—put your pretty ear down to me—don’t let anyone know I’ve sent to Madame Turgis. It’s a secret between us about some property in the country. You understand me?”
Jehanneton, the maid, assented, and left the room, nodding her head, to acquaint immediately the powers below of this attempt at bribery and corruption.
At five o’clock a new maid arrived with a tray containing soup and minced chicken.
“What has become of Jehanneton?” asked the old woman.
“Jehanneton went out, and has not yet come back,” replied the other. “I do not know where she has gone to. Does Madame feel better?”
The invalid drank her soup and ate her chicken. She had been duped again, and she knew it. Her only consolation was the fact that she had not parted with the louis.
At six she rang for a light. The maid who answered the summons not only brought a lamp, but put a lighted taper to all the candles about the dressing-table.
“Ma foi!” cried the Comtesse. “I did not tell you to light those.”
“It is by my mistress’s orders,” replied the maid, lighting, as she spoke, several more candles that stood on the bureau, till the room had almost the appearance of a chapelle ardente—an appearance that was helped out by the corpse-like figure on the bed. Then the maid went out.
CHAPTER VII
THE ARTIST
FIVE minutes later a knock came to the door, and a man entered. It was Ferminard. He was carrying the stiff brocade dress of Madame de Béarn over his left arm. In his right hand he carried a wig-block, on which was a wig such as then was worn by the elderly women of the Court.
The thing carried by Ferminard was less a wig than a structure of hair, a prefiguration of those towers and bastions with which the ladies of the sixteenth Louis’ reign adorned their heads. Hideous bastilles, which one would fancy did not require arming with guns to frighten Love from making any attack on the wearers.
Under his right arm Ferminard also carried a rolled-up parcel. He made a bow to the occupant of the bed as he entered, and then advanced straight to the dressing-table, where he deposited the wig-block and the parcel, whilst the door closed, drawn to by someone in the corridor outside.
“My hair! My dress! And, mon Dieu! A man in the room with me!” cried the Comtesse, seizing the bell on the table beside her and ringing it. “And the door shut! Monsieur, open that door, or I will cry for help.”
“Madame,” said Ferminard, placing the dress on a chair, “we are both of an age. Calm yourself, and regard me as though I were not here. Besides, I am not a man; I am an artist, and, so far from molesting you, I have come to pay you the greatest compliment in my power by producing your portrait.”
He drew a chair to the dressing-table, and proceeded to unroll the bundle, which contained bottles of pigment, some brushes and a host of other materials. The old woman on the bed lay watching him like a mesmerized fowl. Her portrait, at her time of life, and in her condition! What trick was this of the Dubarrys? She was soon to learn.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PRESENTATION
THE Versailles of to-day stands alone in desolation among all the other buildings left to us by the past. That vast courtyard through whose gates the dusty and travel-stained berlines of the ambassadors used to pass; those thousand windows, vacant and cleaned by the municipality; those fountains and terraces, and statues and vistas—across all these lies written the word which is at once their motto and explanation: Fuimus—we have been.
It is the palace of echoes.
But it is more than this. It is France herself. Not the France of to-day—banker and bourgeois-ridden; nor the France of the Second Empire—vulgar and painted; nor the Napoleonic France—half a brothel, half a barrack. Across all these and the fumes of the Revolution, Versailles calls to us: “I am France. Before I was built I was born in the dreams of the Gallic people. I am the concretion in stone of all the opulence and splendour and licence of mind which found a focus in the reign of Le Roi Soleil; the Hôtel St. Pol and the Logis d’Angoulême foreshadowed me, and Chambord and all those châteaux that mirror themselves in the Loire. I am the wealth of Jacques Cœur, the bravery of Richelieu and Turenne, the laughter of Rabelais, the songs of Villon, the beauty of Marion de l’Orme, the licentiousness of Montpensier, the arrogance of Fouquet. Of all that splendour I remain, an echo and a dream.”
But to-night, in the year of our Lord 1770, Versailles, living and splendid, a galaxy of lights that might have been seen from leagues away, the huge park filled with the sound of the wind in the trees and the waters of the fountains, the great courtyard ablaze with lamps and torches, and coloured with the uniforms of the Guards and the Swiss—to-night Versailles was drawing towards herself the whole world in the form of the ambassadors of Europe, the whole Court of France, and a majority of the population of Paris.
The Place d’Armes was thronged, and the Paris road, a league from the gates; bourgeois and beggar, the hungry and well-fed, the maimed, the halt and the blind, apprentice and shop-girl—all were there, a seething mass attracted to the festivity as moths are attracted by a lamp, and all filled with one idea: the Dubarry.
The news of the friction at Court had gone amongst the people. It was said that the Dubarry had been forbidden at the last moment to attend; that the presentation had been cancelled, that she was ill, that the Vicomte Jean had insulted M. le Duc de Choiseul, that the arrival of the Dauphiness had been hurried, and that she was already at Versailles, and that she had refused to see the favourite. All of which statements, and a hundred others more wild and improbable, were bandied about during the glorious excitement to be got by watching the blazing windows of the palace, the uniformed figures of the Guards, and the steady stream of carriages coming from the direction of Paris.
Rochefort arrived at nine o’clock—that is to say, an hour before the time of the ceremony; his carriage immediately followed that of the Duc de Richelieu. The entrance-hall was crowded, and the Escalier des Ambassadeurs thronged. This great staircase, now removed, led by a broad, unbalustraded flight of eleven marble steps to a landing where, beneath the bust of Louis XV., a fountain played, gushing its waters into a broad basin supported by tritons, dolphins and sea-nymphs; from here a balustraded staircase swept up to right and left, and here, just by the fountain, Rochefort found himself cheek by jowl with de Sartines, who had arrived just before M. de Richelieu.
“Ah!” said de Sartines, recognizing the other, “and when did you arrive?”
“Why, it seems to me an hour ago,” replied the other, “judging by the time I have been getting thus far; to be more precise, I came immediately after M. de Richelieu. And how are your dear thieves and people getting on? I should imagine they are mostly at Versailles to-night, to judge by the crowds on the Paris road.”
“Oh,” replied de Sartines, “I daresay there are enough of them left in Paris to keep my agents busy. And how did you like Lavenne?”
“He was charming. If all your thief-catchers were such perfect gentlemen, I would pray God to turn a few of our gentlemen into thief-catchers. But he was not so charming as your dramatist, Monsieur Ferminard, the gentleman who writes plays with his feet, it seems to me.”
Sartines nudged him to keep silence. They had reached the corridor leading to the Hall of Mirrors, and here the Minister of Police drew his companion into an alcove.
“Do not mention the name Ferminard here; the walls have ears and the statues have tongues. Forget it, my dear Rochefort. Remember M. d’Ombreval’s maxim: ‘Forget so that you may not be forgotten.’”
“In other words, that you may not be put in the Bastille?”
“Precisely.”
“Then I will forget the name Ferminard. But, before Heaven, I will never be able to forget the person. He amused me vastly. And now, my dear Sartines, without mentioning names, how are things going?”
“What things?”
“Why, the presentation.”
“Admirably.”
“Then the lady with the scalded leg——”
“Hush!”
“There is no one near, and, besides, I was only inquiring after her health.”
“Well, her health is still bad.”
“Will she be here to-night?”
“You will see. Ask me no more about her. Besides, I have something else to talk of. Your man, whom you put out of action the night before last, has been found.”
“The man I killed?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” said Rochefort, laughing, “I don’t envy the finder—that is to say, if he has any sense of beauty.”
“Rochefort,” said de Sartines, “it would not trouble me a dernier were forty like him found every morning in the streets of Paris; but, in this case, you have to be on your guard, for he was found, not by one of my agents, but by one of Choiseul’s. The news came to me through Choiseul.”
“Ah!” said Rochefort, becoming serious. “Is that so?”
“With a request that I should investigate the matter. If that were all it would be nothing; the danger to you is that Choiseul, no doubt, has started investigating the matter for himself.”
Sartines, having delivered himself of this warning, turned to the Comte d’Egmont, who was passing, and walked off with him, leaving Rochefort to digest his words.
Rochefort for a moment was depressed; he did not like the idea of this dead man turning up, arm-in-arm, so to speak, with Choiseul. He had no remorse at all about the ruffian, but he had a lively feeling that, should Choiseul discover the truth, he would avenge the death of this villain, deserved even though it was. Then he put the matter from his mind, and passed with the throng through the Hall of Mirrors towards the salon, where the presentations took place.
On the way he passed Camus, who, with his wife, was speaking to the Comte d’Harcourt. Madame Camus was rather plain, older than her husband, and afflicted with a slight limp—an impediment in her walk, to quote M. de Richelieu. Camus’ marriage with this woman was a mystery. She was the third daughter of the Comte de Grigny, who owned a château in Touraine, and little else, if we except numerous debts. She was plain, without dowry, and had a limp. It may have been the comment of Froissart on women so affected, or that her plainness appealed to him in some curious way; the fact remained that Camus had married her, and—so people said—was heartily sick of his bargain.
The Hall of Mirrors gave one eyes at the back of one’s head; and Camus, though his back was half-turned to Rochefort, saw his mirrored reflection approach and pass; but he did not take the slightest notice of his enemy, continuing his conversation, whilst Rochefort passed on towards the wide-open door of the Salon of Presentations.
Rochefort was one of those implacable men who never apologize, even if they are in the wrong. Camus had been his friend, or, at least, a very close acquaintance, and he had struck Camus in the face. If Camus did not choose to wipe out the insult it was no affair of Rochefort’s. He was ready to fight. He was not angry now with Camus; his attitude of mind was entirely one of contempt, and he passed on haughtily to the Hall of Presentations, where he soon found enough to distract his attention from personal matters.
The Hall of Presentations—vast, lit by a thousand lights—gave to the eye a picture of magnificence and splendour sufficient to quell even the most daring imagination. The Escalier des Ambassadeurs had been thronged, the corridors and the Hall of Mirrors crowded; but here, so wide was the floor, so lofty the painted ceiling, that the idea “crowd” vanished, or at least became subordinated to the idea of magnificence. One would not dream of associating the word “solemnity” with the word “butterfly”; yet, could one see the congregation of a million butterflies, variegated and gorgeous, drawn from all quarters of the earth towards one great festival, the word “solemnity” on the lips of the gazer might not be out of place.
So, to-night, at Versailles, all these butterflies of the social world of France—coloured, jewelled, beautiful—filling the vast Salon of Presentations with a moving picture, brilliant as a painting by Diaz, all these men and women, individually insignificant, produced by their setting and congregation that effect of solemnity which Versailles alone could produce from the frivolous.
That was, in fact, the calculated effect of Versailles; to give the fainéant the value of the strenuous, the trivial the virtue of the vital; to give great echoes to the sound of a name, to raise the usher on the shoulders of the Suisse, the grand master of the ceremonies on the shoulders of the usher, the noble on the shoulders of the grand master of the ceremonies, and the King on the shoulders of the noble. A towering structure, as absurd, when viewed philosophically, as a pyramid of satin-breeched monkeys, but beautiful, gorgeous, solemn under the alchemy of Versailles.
The great clock of the Hall of Presentations pointed to ten minutes to ten. The King had not appeared yet, nor would he do so till the stroke of the hour.
The presentation was fixed for ten. Rochefort knew everybody, and the man who knows everybody knows nobody. That was Rochefort’s position at the Court of Versailles; he belonged to no faction, and so had no especial enemies—or friends. He did not fear enemies, nor did he want friends. Outside the Court, in Paris, he had several trusty ones who would have let themselves be cut in pieces for him; they were sufficient for him, for it was a maxim of his life that out of all the people a man knows, he will be lucky if he numbers two who are disinterested. He did not invent this maxim. Experience had taught it to him.
He passed now from group to group, nodding to this person and talking to that; and everywhere he found an air of inattention, an atmosphere of restlessness, such as may be noticed among people who are awaiting some momentous decision.
They were, in fact, awaiting the decision of Fate as to the presentation of the Dubarry. Among the majority of the courtiers nothing was definitely known, but a great deal was suspected. Rumours had gone about that it was now absolutely certain that the presentation would not take place, and all these rumours had come, funnily enough, not from the Choiseuls, but from the Vicomte Jean. The Choiseul faction, or rather the head centre of it, said nothing; for them the thing was assured. They had robbed the Comtesse, not only of her dress, her coiffeur and her carriage, but of her sponsor.
Camus, who had stolen the carriage, had followed Rochefort into the Hall of Presentations, and was now speaking to Coigny, Choiseul’s right-hand man. Coigny, who when he saw Camus had experienced a shock of surprise at seeing him so early, interrupted him.
“The carriage?”
“It is quite safe,” replied Camus. “The deed is accomplished.”
“But how are you here so soon?”
“Oh, ma foi!” said Camus, “am I a tortoise? Having placed the thing in the coach-house of a well-trusted friend, I went home, dressed, and came on here.”
“Ah, but suppose this well-trusted friend of yours were to betray you at the last moment, harness his horses to the precious carriage, and drive it to the Rue de Valois?”
Camus laughed. “Can you drive a carriage without wheels? It took seventeen minutes only to remove the wheels and make firewood of them with a sharp axe, to knock the windows to pieces, strip out the linings, and rip to pieces the cushions. If the Dubarry drives to Versailles in that carriage—well, my friend, all I can say is, the vehicle will match her reputation.”
“Thanks!” said Coigny. “You have worked well, and you have Choiseul’s thanks.” He moved away, drawn by the sight of another of his confederates who had just appeared.
It was the Marquis Monpavon, twenty years of age, cool, insolent, a bully and scamp of the first water, with a smooth, puerile, egg-shaped face that made respectable fingers itch to smack it.
“The dressmaker?” said Coigny.
“She was charming,” replied Monpavon. “I have quite lost my heart to her. I have made an arrangement to meet her to-morrow evening at the corner of the Rue Picpus.”
“But the dress?”
“What dress?”
“The Dubarry’s! Good God! You did not forget about the dress?”
“No,” replied Monpavon. “I did not forget about the dress. The next time you see that dress will be on a mermaid in the Morgue. It is now in the Seine. What’s more, it is in a sack, which also encloses a few stones.”
“Thanks, Monpavon. I will tell Choiseul.” He hurried away, attracted by another new-comer. This time it was Monsieur d’Estouteville, an exquisite, who seemed to have no bones, so indolently did he carry himself.
“The coiffeur?” asked Coigny, in a low voice, as he ranged alongside of this person. “What have you done with him?”
“He is safe,” replied d’Estouteville.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“But, heavens! Did you not undertake to have him guarded? Yet you do not know where he is?”
“I only know that he is in Paris somewhere. My dear Coigny, I could have given him no better guardian than the guardian he has chosen for himself—drink.”
“Oh, you made him drunk!”
“Oh, no. It was a happy accident. It was this way. I had him brought to my house on an urgent summons. He was shown into a room where some wine was set out, quite by accident, and when I came to interview him with a purse full of gold for his seduction, I found he had been at the wine. He was talkative and flushed. Now, said I to myself, why should I pay five thousand francs for what I can obtain for a bottle of wine or two? So I ordered up some Rousillon, and made him drunk.”
“Ah!”
“He quite forgot that he was a hairdresser at the end of the first bottle; before he had finished the second, he grew quarrelsome, and would have drawn his sword.[A] Then he fell asleep, and my servants took him and laid him out by the wall that borders the Cemetery of the Innocents. It was then half-past six o’clock. No man, not even his Majesty’s physician, could turn him into a hairdresser again before to-morrow morning. So, you see, by a stroke of luck I saved five thousand francs, and avoided the implication in this affair that a bribe given to a barber might have occasioned all of us.”
“Good!” said Coigny. He knew quite well that the apparently boneless d’Estouteville was one of the elect of chicanery, was as good a swordsman almost as Beauregard, and could outslang a fish-fag on the Petit Pont were he called to the test; but he had not expected such a brilliant piece of work as this. “Good. I will tell Choiseul that story. By the way, you are expected in his private apartments after this affair is over. You will not find him ungenerous, I think. Tell Monpavon and the others that they are expected also.”
He walked away to where the Duc de Choiseul was standing, talking to some gentleman. It was now after ten, and the King had not yet appeared, though the hour for the presentation had arrived. He drew the Minister aside, and informed him of the reports he had just received from d’Estouteville, Monpavon and Camus; and Choiseul was in the act of congratulating him when the whole brilliant assemblage turned as if touched by a magician’s wand; conversation died away, and silence fell upon the Chamber of Presentations.
The King had entered by the door leading from his apartments. He wore the Order of the Golden Fleece. Glancing from right to left, he advanced, followed by his suite, till, seeing Choiseul, he paused whilst the Minister advanced, bowing before him.
Choiseul saw that his Majesty was in a temper. He knew quite well that the King had made his appearance thus late, not because of laziness or indifference, but simply because he had been waiting the arrival of Madame Dubarry. The King, in fact, had been kept informed of all the guests who had arrived. Ten o’clock was the hour for the presentation, and now at a quarter past ten, his Majesty, never patient of delay, had left his apartments to seek the truth for himself.
“The Comtesse is late, Choiseul,” said the King.
“The journey from Paris is a long one, Sire,” replied the Minister, “and some delay might have occurred on the way.”
“Or some accident,” said the King. “Well, Choiseul, should some accident have happened to the poor Comtesse upon the road, we shall inquire into the cause of it, and I shall place the matter in your hands to find out and to punish, if necessary. But should the accident have happened in Paris, our Minister of Police will take the matter in his hands. Ah, there is de Sartines. Sartines, it seems that the Comtesse is late.”
“Yes, Sire,” replied the Minister of Police. “The carriage may have been delayed by the crowds that throng the Paris roads. But she will arrive in safety, if I am not much mistaken, before the half-hour has struck.”
Choiseul smiled inwardly, and those members of the Choiseul faction who were within earshot of this conversation glanced at one another. The half-hour struck, and Choiseul, freed from his Majesty, who had passed on, turned to de Sartines.
“Well, monsieur,” said Choiseul, “it seems that the clock has declared you a false prophet.”
“Monsieur,” replied de Sartines, looking at his watch, “the clock of the Chamber of Presentations, as you ought very well to know, is always kept five minutes in advance of the hour, by an order given by his late Majesty to Noirmont, the keeper of the clocks of the Palace of Versailles. It is now twenty-four and a half minutes past ten. Ah! what is this?”
A hush had fallen on the assembly; around the door leading to the corridor of entrance the people had drawn back as the waves of the Red Sea drew back before the rod of Moses.
The usher had appeared. He stood rigid as a statue, his profile to the room, then turning and fronting the great assembly and the lake of parquet floor where his Majesty stood in sudden and splendid isolation, he grounded the butt of his wand, and announced to the grand master of the ceremonies:
“The Comtesse Dubarry. The Comtesse de Béarn.”
Never had Madame Dubarry looked more beautiful than now, as she advanced, led by this lady of the old régime—stiff, as though awakened from some tomb of the past; proud, as though she carried with her the memory of the Austrian; remote from the present day as the wars of the Fronde and the beauty of Madame de Chevreuse. It was the youth and age of France; and de Sartines, gazing at Madame de Béarn as one gazes at a great actor, murmured to Himself:
“What a masterpiece!”
CHAPTER IX
THE REWARD
THE presentation was over. The Choiseuls were defeated. Madame Dubarry was passing hither and thither, speaking to this one and that, and poisoning her enemies with her sweetest smiles. The King was delighted; and Choiseul, devouring his own heart, was kissing the favourite’s hand. Smiles, smiles everywhere, and poisonous hatred so wonderfully masked that the washerwoman to the Duc d’Aiguillon might have thought herself the best-loved woman in France.
And Madame de Béarn? Madame de Béarn had vanished. Sartines had enveloped her in a cloud, and escorted her to her carriage; she had injured her leg that day, and required rest; she had braved pain and discomfort to obey the wish of his Majesty.
The Dubarry had triumphed, and they were paying their court to her. Rochefort, who had been following the whole proceedings of the evening with an interest which he had rarely experienced before in his life, approached de Sartines, who had just returned from escorting Madame de Béarn to her carriage; with that lightness of heart with which men sometimes approach their fate, he drew the Minister of Police a bit to one side.
“And Ferminard?” said he.
“Pardon me,” said de Sartines, “I do not understand your meaning. What about Ferminard?”
“Oh,” said Rochefort, laughing, “I was only intending to compliment you on having discovered so consummate an actor.”
The other said nothing for a moment. Then he said, speaking slowly and in a voice so low that it was only just audible to his companion:
“Rochefort, by accident you have been drawn into a little conspiracy of the Court; by luck you are able to escape from it if you choose to hold your tongue for ever on what you have seen and heard. You imagine that Ferminard came here to-night and laid his genius at the feet of Madame la Comtesse by acting for her the part of Madame de Béarn. All I can say is, imagine what you please, but say nothing; for, mark you, should anything of this be spoken of by you, friend though I am to you, my hand would fall automatically on you, and the future of M. de Rochefort would be four blank walls.”
“You threaten?” said Rochefort haughtily.
“Monsieur, I never threaten; I only advise. You have acted well in this affair; act still better by forgetting it all. And now that it is over, I am deputed to hand you your reward.”
“My reward!”
Sartines took a little note from his pocket and handed it to Rochefort, who opened it and read:
“You will not receive this until and unless all is successful. In that case I wish to thank you both in my own name and that of the dear Comtesse. The presentation will be over by eleven, at which time this note will be handed to you. Should you care to receive my thanks, you can reach Paris by midnight. I live at No. 9, Rue St. Dominic, and my door will be opened to you should you knock to receive my thanks.
“Camille Fontrailles.”
Rochefort stood for a moment with this note in his hand. She had been thinking of him; she had guessed his feelings towards her; and she in her turn loved him!
He glanced at the clock. It pointed to half-past eleven. A swift horse would take him in less than an hour to Paris. He turned to the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Sartines.
“To Paris, monsieur,” replied Rochefort, with a bow.
CHAPTER X
THE ORDER OF ARREST
AT a quarter past eleven, that is to say, a quarter of an hour before Rochefort received the note from Mademoiselle Fontrailles, Choiseul, who had kissed the hand of the Dubarry, congratulated her on her dress, compared her to a rose in an epigram that had the appearance of being absolutely new, and watched her vanishing with his Majesty triumphantly towards the apartments lately occupied by the Princess Adélaïde, and now occupied by the favourite—at a quarter past eleven, Choiseul, furious under his mask of calm, turned towards his own apartments.
The fixed smile on his face never altered as he bowed to right and left, and as he passed along through the crowd several members of the assemblage detached themselves from the mass and fell into his train.
Choiseul’s apartments in the Palace of Versailles were even more sumptuous than those relegated to the use of the Dubarry. He passed from the corridor to the salon, which he used for the private reception of ambassadors, and all that host of people, illustrious and obscure, which it was the duty of the Minister to receive, in the name of France.
This salon was upholstered in amber satin and white and gold, with a ceiling of yellow roses and joyful cupids. Ablaze with lights, as now, the place seemed like a great cell, the most gorgeous and the most brilliantly lit in that great honeycomb, Versailles.
Choiseul sat down at a table and dashed off a letter which he addressed, sealed, and sent by a servant to M. de Beautrellis, captain of the Gardes, for delivery. Then he turned to Coigny who had followed him.
“You told the others to come here to-night?”
“Yes, monsieur; they are even now waiting outside the door.”
“Well, we will have them in. Coigny, how has this happened?”
“I don’t know, monsieur, unless it was the devil. Everything was secure, everything was assured. Madame de Béarn was out of action, and you know what other measures we took. Yet at the last moment we are overthrown.”
“Well,” said Choiseul, “it only remains for us to find out the secret of our reverse, and the name of the person who has upset our plans. Call in the others.”
Coigny went to the side door giving entrance to the apartments, opened it, and ushered in a number of gentlemen who had been standing outside. First came Camus, the chief of the executive of the broken-down conspiracy; after him Monpavon, cool, smug and impudent as ever, and after him, d’Estouteville, a trifle flushed; after these, the others who had helped in one way or the other in the great fiasco, as Monpavon had already named the business. Seven gentlemen in all entered to receive Choiseul’s felicitations on their failure to outwit a woman, and Choiseul’s tongue in a matter of this sort was sure.
“Ah, Monsieur Camus!” said he. “Good evening. Good evening, Monsieur Monpavon; Monsieur d’Estouteville, good evening. Ah! I see Monsieur d’Est, Monsieur Beaupré, Monsieur Duras—well, gentlemen, we have not succeeded in lending as much colour to his Majesty’s presentation to-night as I might have wished. We have not been very brilliant, gentlemen. Monsieur Monpavon, I believe you have a very small opinion of women. Their value, of course, viewed philosophically, is an academic question; but viewed practically—well, viewed practically, the brains of those women you despise, Monsieur Monpavon, have a certain value, though you may not imagine it. Yes, Monsieur d’Estouteville, the brain of a woman has proved itself a better article to-night than all the brains in Versailles. Monsieur Camus, what explanation have you to offer?”
He expected to see Camus discomfited, but the dark, pitted face of the Count showed nothing of his feelings.
“Monsieur,” said Camus, “we have been betrayed.”
“That is very evident,” said Choiseul. “Mon Dieu, Monsieur Camus, what next will you come here to tell me? That the sun does not shine at night?”
“Monsieur,” said Camus, “I have not yet finished. I know the name of the man who has betrayed us.”
“Ah, you know his name!”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“And this man?”
“It is the Comte de Rochefort.”
“Rochefort!”
“Monsieur, it is Rochefort, and no other. He alone knew of our plan.”
“Who told him?”
“I did, monsieur.”
“You told him?”
“He was my friend. I reckoned him a man of honour. I swore him to secrecy.” As he told this lie his hand went to his pocket and produced a piece of paper. “And entrusted him with the full details of the business in hand. He refused to assist, we quarrelled. It was just after we left your ball last night, and we parted in the Rue de Chevilly.
“I turned and walked slowly away, intending to return to the Hôtel de Choiseul and inform you of the matter. Then I altered my mind, as the idea occurred to me of calling on my friend, the Marquis de Soyecourt, and I did not want to trouble you at that late hour, engaged as you were with the duties of hospitality. I came down the street leading past the Bénédictines de la Ville l’Évêque, and sought the side way to the Hôtel de Soyecourt that runs between the wall of the Bénédictines and the wall of the cloister of the Madeleine, forgetting that this side way is closed by a barrier at night. Before I had reached it a man came out hurriedly. It was M. Rochefort.
“He was carrying his sword naked in his hand and wiping it upon a piece of paper; he cast the paper away, and, sheathing his sword, walked off hurriedly in the direction of the river. He did not see me, as I had taken shelter in an alcove. I picked the piece of paper up; then I glanced down the passage to the Hôtel de Soyecourt, and there, lying by the barricade, was a man. He was dead, still warm, and he had died from a sword-thrust through the heart. I thought in him I recognized one of our agents. I walked away, and in the Rue de la Madeleine I took counsel with myself, went home, and sent a servant to apprise your major-domo of the occurrence. To-day I have been so busy ever since six in the morning that I had no time to trouble in the matter. But those are the facts, and here is the piece of paper which I picked up. And see, here are the blood marks.”
Choiseul took the page of the ballade between finger and thumb; the marks were plain and bore out Camus’ statement.
It did not matter to him two buttons whether Camus’ statement were true or false, as long as his statement about the betrayal was true, and he knew now that it must be true, for his agents had brought him the report that the man in the cloak and hat who had left the Dubarrys’ house the night before had been accompanied by a man like Rochefort, that they had driven to a house in which Rochefort had apartments, a report of the whole story which we know.
And you will observe that, though Rochefort had stamped himself on the spy’s report in letters of fire, Sartines, the core of the whole conspiracy, was not even suspected. Sartines had managed to shovel the whole onus of the business on to the shoulders of Rochefort; he had not set out wilfully so to do, perhaps—or perhaps he had; at all events, his success was due entirely to his faultless methods. No one suspected him, and he had not made an enemy of Choiseul, despite the fact that he alone had wrecked Choiseul’s most cherished plan.
Choiseul, certain that Rochefort had been the means of his defeat, turned suddenly and faced the group of gentlemen standing before him.
“M. Camus, M. de Monpavon, M. d’Estouteville,” cried he, “I commission you. M. de Rochefort has not yet left the palace. Seize him and bring him here. If he has left the palace, pursue him and bring him here. I place the Gardes, and the Suisses and the police of M. Sartines at your disposal.”
He turned rapidly to a writing-table, sat down, and dashed off three warrants in the following terms:
“URGENCY.
“The bearer is empowered to seize and arrest the person of Charles Eugène Montargis, Comte de Rochefort, and to call on all French citizens to assist in such arrest.
“Signed, De Choiseul,
“Minister.”
He sanded each paper when written and passed it over his shoulder to the hands waiting to receive it. “If possible,” said he, “make the arrest yourselves, without the help of Sartines’ men. You are my accredited agents.”
When the three gentlemen had each received his commission and warrant they turned, led by Camus, and left the room swiftly and without a word. They entered the Chamber of Presentations, divided, passed through the room from door to door, through the thinning crowd, and drew it blank. Rochefort had left. The great clock of the chamber pointed to seven minutes past the half-hour.
CHAPTER XI
FLIGHT
WHEN Rochefort took his leave of Sartines and left the Chamber of Presentations, he made full speed for the corridor leading to the Escalier des Ambassadeurs, passed down the great staircase rapidly, pushed his way through the crowd thronging the hall, found Jaquin, the usher, on duty, and seizing him:
“Where is Monsieur Bertrand?” asked Rochefort.
“He is, no doubt, in the Cabinet of the Equipages, monsieur,” replied the usher.
“Good,” said Rochefort.
His carriage was waiting in the courtyard, but a carriage was too slow for his present purpose. He wanted a horse, and a swift horse, for the journey to Paris—wings, if possible, failing them, the swiftest horse in his Majesty’s stables.
Bertrand was the keeper of his Majesty’s horses, and Rochefort’s friend. The Cabinet of the Equipages was a moderately sized apartment. Here the King arranged each day what horses, what carriages and attendants he would require, and here Rochefort found his friend, deep in accounts and reports.
“My dear Bertrand,” said the Comte, “you see a man in a most desperate hurry. I must get to Paris at once. My carriage is too slow, and I have come to beg or steal a horse.”
Bertrand threw up his hands.
“Impossible! I have already been called to account for lending horses to my friends in a hurry. Ask me anything else, my dear Rochefort—my purse, my life, my heart—but a horse, no, a thousand times, no.”
“Ah, well,” said Rochefort, “I must tell a lie, and you will know the desperate urgency of my business from the fact that it makes me lie to you. Well, then, I come from de Sartines with an order of urgency. I am commanded to ask for your swiftest horse on a matter of State business.”
“So be it,” said Bertrand. “I cannot resist that order, and you must settle with Sartines.” He scribbled some words on a piece of paper, and, calling an attendant, gave it to him.
“The horse will be in the courtyard in a few minutes,” said Bertrand. “Well, I am sure to be interrogated over this, and M. de Sartines will give you the lie. You have weighed all that?”
“Sartines will support me,” said Rochefort. “We are very good friends; you need fear nothing. And now, adieu! And thank you for your good offices in this matter.”
He bade good-bye to Bertrand and returned through the still crowded hall to the door that gave exit from the palace.
Carriage after carriage was leaving, and the courtyard, as Rochefort came out, was ablaze with light. Burning with impatience, Rochefort watched the endless stream of carriages, the servants, and the guards, till, catching sight of a groom in the royal livery, leading a horse by the bridle, he was about to descend the steps when a hand fell upon his shoulder. He turned and found himself face to face with Camus. Behind Camus appeared the egg-shaped face of Monpavon—a man he hated—and beside Monpavon the boneless form of d’Estouteville.
“Monsieur,” said Rochefort, “you have taken a strange liberty with me.”
“Monsieur,” replied Camus, “I have come to take your freedom.”
He handed Rochefort the warrant of Choiseul. Rochefort read it by the light of the doorway, comprehended instantly the desperate seriousness of his position and the danger of resistance—besides the bad policy.
But M. de Rochefort was going to Paris, and policy, and danger, and even Choiseul himself, would not interfere with his purpose. He handed the paper back to Camus with a smile.
“Present it to-morrow at my apartments in Paris, Monsieur Camus. I shall be there at noon. If I am late, my servants will entertain you till my return. Au revoir.”
He descended a step, and Camus, putting out a hand to seize him, received a blow on the belt that felled him as effectually as a blow on the head would have done. Next moment, Rochefort, dipping under the horses’ heads of the carriage that had just stopped to take up, reached the groom in royal livery and the horse which he was leading, seized the bridle, mounted, and plunged his spurless heels into its flanks.
Valmajour, for so was the big roan horse named, was not of a temper to stand treatment like this without marking his resentment of it. He bucked, as much as a French horse can, filled the yard with the sound of his hoofs on the great cobble-stones; then he came to hand and struck for the gate.
But Rochefort had reckoned without Monpavon and d’Estouteville. They had raised the hue and cry, the lackeys and soldiers had taken it up. Twenty voices were crying, “Bar the gate!” and as Rochefort approached the great gateway, he saw the Suisses crossing their pikes before the gateway, pike-head across pike-head at a level four feet from the ground. Valmajour checked slightly at the pull of the bridle, rose to the touch of Rochefort’s heel, and passed over the crossed pikes like a bird. A shout rose from the on-lookers as horse and rider disappeared from the zone of torchlight at the gate into the blacknesses beyond, and on the shout and like the materialized fury of it, a horse and rider shot out across the courtyard in pursuit.
It was d’Estouteville. That limp and enigmatic personage had, alone, perceived, standing amongst the equipages, the horse of M. de Beautrellis, captain of the Gardes; a groom was holding it for the gallant captain, who had entered the palace on some urgent business. D’Estouteville had seized the horse, mounted, and was now in pursuit. He knew Rochefort perfectly, and that Rochefort, in his present mood, would not be taken without a battle to the death. This, however, did not check him in the least; rather, perhaps, it was the mainspring of his suddenly found energy.
The Suisses, recognizing a pursuer, and in a pursuer authority, did not attempt to check him, and next moment he too had passed the zone of torchlight and was swallowed up by the darkness beyond.
CHAPTER XII
A DUEL OF WITS
CLOUDS were drifting across the moon’s face, casting alternately light and shadow on the country; the people, attracted by the fête at the palace, had long vanished. The road was clear, and Rochefort gave free rein to Valmajour.
For two miles or so he kept at full speed; then he reined in, leaped from the saddle, eased the girths a bit, and stood for a moment gazing backwards along the road, and listening and watching to see if he were pursued.
As he listened, he heard on the breeze a faint and rhythmical sound; it was the great clock of Versailles striking midnight. It passed, and then in the silence of the night his quick ear caught another sound, also rhythmical, but continuous. It was the sound of a horse at full gallop. He was pursued.
Even as he listened and looked, the shadow of a cloud drew off, leaving to view the distant figure of a horseman and his horse, as though it had dropped them on the road. He tightened the girths and remounted, only to discover the tragic fact that Valmajour, the brave Valmajour, was lame.
Now Rochefort was a man to whom the riding of a lame horse brought more suffering than to the horse itself. It was clearly impossible to urge Valmajour into any pace, but there was a good horse behind him to be had for the taking. He turned Valmajour’s head and advanced to battle.
Instantly his quick eye recognized d’Estouteville, who, advancing at a gallop, was fully exposed to view by the moonlight now strong on the road, and instantly his quick mind changed its plan. He was only too eager for a fight, but what he wanted even more was a horse. D’Estouteville was a good swordsman, and might place him, by chance, hors de combat, and this chance did not suit him. For M. de Rochefort was going to Paris, and he had sworn to himself that nothing should stop him.
When d’Estouteville was only a hundred yards away, Rochefort drew rein, leaped from his horse and ran away. He struck across a fence and across some park-land lying on the right of the road, and d’Estouteville, scarcely believing his eyes at the sight of his cowardice, flung himself from the saddle, left the two horses to fraternize, and gave chase.
Rochefort was striking across the grass towards some trees. One of the swiftest runners in France, he now seemed broken down and winded. D’Estouteville overhauled him rapidly as he ran, making for a small clump of trees standing in the middle of the park-land. He doubled round this clump, d’Estouteville’s hand nearly on his shoulder, and then, having turned and having the road again for his goal, a miracle happened.
The tired and broken-down runner became endowed with the swiftness of a hare; d’Estouteville, furious and hopelessly outpaced, followed, cursing no less deeply because he had no breath to curse with. On the road Rochefort, with a good thirty yards between him and his pursuer, seized the bridle of d’Estouteville’s horse, which was quietly cropping the grass at the road edge, mounted, and, waving his hand to the emissary of de Choiseul, struck off for Paris.
D’Estouteville, still perfectly sure of his prey, mounted Valmajour and turned in pursuit. Then he found out the truth. Rochefort had exchanged a broken-down horse for a sound one; his flight had not been dictated by cowardice but by astuteness, and the fooled one in his fury would have driven his sword through the heart of Valmajour had not Valmajour been the King’s horse and under royal protection.