CHAPTER VI
THE CRIME
I
Victor de Marmont had spent that same night in wearisome agitation. His mortification and disappointment would not allow him to rest.
He had brought his squad of cavalry up as far as St. Priest, which lies a little off the main road, about half-way between Lyons and the scene of de Marmont's late discomfiture. Here he and his men had spent the night, only to make a fresh start early the next morning—back for Grenoble—seeing that M. le Comte d'Artois with thirty or forty thousand troops was even now at Lyons.
When, an hour after leaving St. Priest, the little troop came upon a solitary horseman, riding a heavy carriage horse with a postillion's bridle, de Marmont at first had no other thought save that of malicious pleasure at recognising the man, whom just now he hated more cordially than any other man in the world.
M. de St. Genis—for indeed it was he—was peremptorily challenged and questioned, and his wrath and impotent attempts at arrogance greatly delighted de Marmont.
To make oneself actively unpleasant to a rival is apt to be a very pleasurable sensation. Victor had an exceedingly disagreeable half-hour to avenge and to declare St. Genis a prisoner of war, to order his removal to Grenoble pending the Emperor's pleasure, to command him to be silent when he desired to speak was so much soothing balsam spread upon the wounds which his own pride had suffered at Brestalou last Sunday eve.