One can imagine the doctor's wrath when he found the empty Tokay bottle on the grass, together with two bottles of Johannisberg and three of Alicante. They had drunk the Alicante like common wine. Talk of thievery, of procureur du roi, of police correctionnelle, rolled in the air like thunder rolling in the clouds during a storm. Profound was the terror of the guilty parties. Delâtre knew of a dried-up well near Clermont and proposed to take refuge in it!
A week later, Eugène Sue set out as assistant to explore the country of Spain (in 1823). He did this and stayed a year at Cadiz, only returning to Paris at the beginning of 1825. The heat of the Trocadero had made his hair and moustache grow; he was as beardless as an apple when he left, and he returned as hairy as a king of the primitive races and as bearded as a moujik. This capillary growth doubtless flattered the doctor's vanity, but it did not serve to unloosen his purse-strings, which he kept tightly shut.
Desforges who had a small private fortune, and Ferdinand Langlé whose mother worshipped him, were the two Croesuses of society; several times, as did Croesus with Cæsar, they presented not 30,000,000 sesterces, but 20, 30, 40, 50 and even 100 francs to the most necessitous of the joyous band. Besides his purse, Ferdinand Langlé put at the disposition of the members of the society, who were never sure of a bed or supper, his own room in M. Sue's house, and the meal his mother always put ready for him every night.
Ferdinand Langlé, then a tall fellow of twenty-three, author of a dozen vaudevilles, lover of the charming girl called Fleurriet, who died before her time, an actress at the Gymnase,[1] rarely slept at home, but, as the servant told his mother that Ferdinand lived with the frugality of a monk, the good mother ordered a meal to be put upon his bedroom table every night. The servant put the supper on the table, and the key of the little street door in an agreed spot. When a belated one was homeless he turned his steps to the rue du Chemin-du-Rempart, put his hand into a hole in the wall, found the key there, opened the door, religiously put the key back in its place, drew the door to behind him, lit the candle and, if he were the first to come, ate, drank and slept in the bed. If a second followed the first, he found the key in the same place, entered in the same way, ate the remains of the fowl, drank the rest of the wine, lifted the bedclothes in his turn and dived underneath them. If a third followed, the same game was played with the key and door, only the visitor found no more fowl or wine and no room in the bed, but ate the rest of the bread and drank a glass of water and stretched himself upon the couch. And so ad infinitum. If the number increased immoderately, the last-comers drew a mattress from the bed and slept on the floor. One night, Rousseau arrived last and counted fourteen legs. It was in this room that Henry Monnier and Romieu met for the first time and made each other's acquaintance. Next day they thee'd and thou'd each other, and continued to do so until Romieu was appointed prefect and tutoya-ed people no more. Next morning, they were pretty often awakened by a visitor, a brigadier of the Gardes, who, in passing by, came to look at the state of Ferdinand Langlé's wine cellar. This brigadier, whom I knew well, deserves particular mention. His name was Gauthier de Villiers. He was not only one of the bravest soldiers in the army, but one of the most active boxers in France. The word boxer applies here to his whole body. What became of Captain Gauthier, I have no idea. I would gladly see him once more, even at the risk of his breaking my wrist in shaking hands. He had the courage and the good-heartedness of Porthos. Not for the whole world would he have given a fillip to a child; but he had more wit than M. de Pierrefonds. He had served in the Horse Grenadiers of the Empire; he had made a special name for himself as a sabreman; when he charged and stabbed an enemy on horseback, he would lift him from his horse by the strength of his wrist and throw him behind him, as though he were a truss of hay. Gauthier stopped with one hand a tilbury that was going at full trot. He would get off his horse, put it on his shoulders and carry it for ten, fifteen or twenty yards with almost as much ease as his horse carried him. He would pick up a china plate and put his finger through it with the same ease as a bullet passes through a cardboard target. One day at the barracks, they did him an injustice for which he wanted to have satisfaction. He waited on the bridge of the Tuileries for King Louis XVIII., who was to come out. Just as His Majesty's carriage passed out at a fast trot, as usual, Gauthier leaped to the horses' heads and stopped the coach dead. Louis XVIII. put his head out of the window and recognised his brigadier aux gardes.
"Ah! it is you," he said, in his little piping voice, "it is you, Gauthier. Well, what do you want, my friend?"
Gauthier then came up and laid bare his request.
"I will examine into it, I will examine into it," replied Louis XVIII.
A week later justice was done Gauthier.
He had a special gift for saving life. If a man fell into the water and was drowning, Gauthier jumped in and saved him; if any house caught fire and some tardy inmate was in risk of being burned, Gauthier would save the laggard. He saved old Vatteville from the Odéon conflagration, and thirty-seven or eight others besides. Gauthier went out in the African campaign as interpreter, and lived at Algiers. In the expeditions made round the town, he took a little cannon of four, instead of a rifle. When he came up to the enemy he put it in position for firing, and discharged it. At other times, he was contented with a rampart gun. While in the guards he had a magnificent horse which had the following history. It had the twofold fault of throwing its rider to the ground, and, when he was there, of bending to bite him: they decided to kill it. But, when proceeding to the execution, Gauthier came into the Hôtel du quai d'Orsay, and saw the whole company assembled together, deploring the loss of such a splendid horse. He inquired into the matter.
"Good!" he said, "I will tackle it; but on condition that, if I conquer it, it shall be mine."