My father came in just at that moment, and the agent asked to see him alone.
My father cast a questioning glance at Dermoncourt, who nodded significantly that he had better grant the desired interview.
Alone with my father, the agent of the Directory held forth volubly upon his mission; then, as he noticed that my father listened without making any response, he proceeded from explanation to plans, from plans to peroration. The peroration contained the offer of my father's share of the plunder: but my father here cut him short. He took him by the collar, lifted him up at arm's length, opened the door into the room where Dermoncourt had summoned the whole of the staff to await the end of the scene:—
"Gentlemen," he said, "look well at this little blackguard, so that you may know him again, and if ever he presents himself at my outposts, no matter in what part of the world I may be, shoot him down without so much as disturbing me to tell me justice has been done."
The agent of the Directory did not stop to hear more; he vanished, and my father reckoned one implacable enemy the more.
These acts of depredation were common in Italy; but raids on money-lenders were usually the most lucrative during those times of distress and misery. Nearly all the jewellery, diamonds and silver belonging to the Italian nobility were in pawn. Many had even deposited therein, as though in a strong-room, everything valuable they possessed, when they were compelled by political events to leave their country.
Then an agent would come from the Directory, whether his authority were true or false (certain of the governors did not inquire too closely), and would make a clean sweep. He would first settle the ruling officer's share, then his own: the rest he sent to the Government.
One of the most notorious of these agents received the sobriquet of "Rapinat." His operations were chiefly confined to Lombardy. This quatrain was composed about him:—
"The Milanese whose goods decline,
Would dearly like to know
If Rapinat does spell rapine,
Or rapine—Rapinat."
So when, after two months of residence in the country, my father gave up the governorship of the Trévisan to take that of Polesina, situated at the town of Rovigo, he found waiting for him outside the door of the palace a beautiful carriage drawn by four horses, with a coachman sitting on the box. It was a present from the town of Treviso. My father wished to decline it; but the gift was offered so gracefully and so heartily that he felt obliged to accept it. And the neighbouring municipalities sent him dozens of addresses: we will select two specimens haphazard.