‘It is lucky,’ said Philippe, ‘or we should otherwise have been trapped. Françoise! up—up, and detain them every instant that you can. I will prevent the concierge from replying.’
He took his handkerchief and hurriedly tied it round the clapper of the bell, which hung within his reach over the porter’s lodge. Then, turning round the cart, he led the horse through the inner court and stabling to the passage indicated by the Marchioness. Fortunately the snow was on the ground, and there was little noise made beyond the creaking of the vehicle, which in half a minute emerged into the Rue St. Antoine, and Philippe closed the gate behind him.
The thoroughfare was dark and silent; but the snow was falling heavily, as its twinkling by the side of the lantern proved. This was so far lucky, because it would cover the traces of their route almost as soon as they were made. The fugitives could plainly hear the sound of voices and the clatter of arms in the Rue Neuve St. Paul; and aware that the delay could only last for a few minutes, Philippe urged on the animal as well as he could, and turned up a small street which ran in a northerly direction from the Rue St. Antoine.
‘You are passing the gate,’ said Marie, who all along had been looking anxiously from the vehicle, as she pointed towards the Bastille, where one or two lights could be seen, apparently suspended in the air, from the windows of the officials and the guard-room.
‘I know it, madame,’ replied Philippe. ‘It would not be safe for us to leave the city by that barrier. It is the nearest to your house; and if they suspect or discover that you have left Paris, they will directly conclude it is by the Porte St. Antoine there, and follow you. Besides, we might be challenged by the sentinels.’
‘You are right,’ said the Marchioness; ‘the Porte du Temple will be better.’
And shrouding herself in her cloak, she withdrew under the rough shelter of the tilt; whilst Philippe kept on, still leading the horse, through a labyrinth of small narrow streets, which would have been cut by a line drawn from the Bastille to the Temple. At last he emerged upon the new road formed by the destruction of the fortifications, which we now know as the boulevards, and reached the gate in question, which he passed through unquestioned by the gardien, who merely regarded the little party as belonging to one of the markets. Had he been entering the city instead, he would have been challenged; but, as the authorities did not care what any one took out of it, he was allowed to go on his way amidst a few houses immediately beyond the barrier, forming the commencement of the faubourg, until he came into the more open country. Here the reflected light from the white ground in some measure diminished the obscurity. The snow, too, had drifted into the hollows, leaving the road pretty clear; and Philippe clambered on to the front of the tumbrel, taking the reins in his hand, and drove on as he best might towards the grande route. Not a word was exchanged between these two solitary travellers. Marie kept in a corner of the vehicle, closely enveloped in her mantle; and her companion had enough to do to watch the line they were taking, and keep his hearing on the stretch to discover the first sounds of pursuit.
‘Peste!’ exclaimed Philippe at length, as one of the wheels jolted into a deep rut, and the lantern was jerked off and its light extinguished; ‘this is unlucky. We did not see too well with it, and I don’t know how we shall fare now.’
He jumped down as he spoke, and tried to rekindle the light with his breath; but it was of no use; he entirely extinguished the only spark remaining. In this dilemma he looked around him, to see if there was a chance of assistance. Marie also was aroused from her silence by the accident, and gazed earnestly from the cart with the same purpose. At last, almost at the same instant, they perceived a thin line of light, as though it shone through an ill-closed shutter, but a little way ahead of them; and the stars, which had been slowly coming out, now faintly showed the outline of a high and broken ground upon their right. At the top of this some masonry and broken pillars were just observable, supporting cross-beams, from which, at certain distances, depended dark, irregularly-shaped objects. It was a gloomy locality, and Philippe knew it well, as he made out the crumbling remains of the gibbet at Montfaucon.
‘I should have taken this as a bad omen,’ said he, half joking, ‘if the fourche had been still in use. It would have looked as though the beam was meant for our destination.’