“‘I should not dream of resisting you,’ says Monsieur le Vicomte very sweetly, and adds something about his being irresistible. ‘I am only going to finish my toilet.’ Then he turned to me and bade me bring him some fresh shaving water.
“Then the man swore, because, being very ill-favoured, he was certain now that Monsieur le Vicomte was laughing at him. ‘You shall come as you are,’ he said with several oaths.
“Monsieur le Vicomte said that that was impossible, and he threw open his dressing-gown. ‘I could not conceivably permit myself to shock the delicacy of the nation,’ he says, ‘by going through the streets in this state’—he was in his shirt and breeches, you understand, Monsieur le Marquis. ‘Surely you can amuse yourself while I finish dressing; I shall not be long.’
“They made a great clamour at that, and there was much swearing, and everybody seemed to be in the room at once. But the end of it was that they gave in, because the man in authority remembered that he must look for papers, and, as Monsieur le Vicomte pointed out, he could do that while he himself was being shaved. But when they asked where his papers were he said that last night the ashes were in the grate, but that if Jacques had done his work properly he was afraid they would not be there now. Then they went to see, Monsieur le Marquis, and anyhow it would have been of no use, because Monsieur le Vicomte never burnt them in that grate at all. I heard them breaking open drawers in there, and prayed to heaven that Monsieur Louis would not want me to shave him, because my hand was shaking so, and there were two men guarding the door, and two sitting on the bed with their muskets on their knees. But Monsieur le Vicomte would not take any denial—when he really meant a thing he never would—and I began and I cut him at once. ‘Give me the razor, Jasmin, you heart of hare,’ he says. ‘I do not want my throat cut before my time.’ So he took it, and finished shaving himself as cool as you please, and all the while they were stamping in and out, and swearing and breaking things, and telling Monsieur le Vicomte to make haste. But he took very little notice of them until he had finished shaving.
“‘Bring me my coat and waistcoat, Jasmin,’ he says then. ‘The citizen seems unfortunate in his game of hide-and-seek.’ I asked him if he would still have the carmélite, and he says, ‘Why not?’ so I brought it. But first the men turned out the pockets, and after that I thought that Monsieur le Vicomte would not put it on—but he did.”
Jasmin stopped.
“And then?”
“Then they took him away—in a coach,” replied the old man, his lips trembling, and suddenly, unconsciously, he sat down on the sofa behind him and bent forward, burying his face in his hands.
To Jasmin this was evidently the end, the tragic, overmastering end, of the story, but the Marquis had not time to taste this finality.
“You cannot have told me everything, Jasmin,” he said. “Surely Monsieur le Vicomte left some instructions, some——”