“No,” returned Monsieur Gramont, “you are very shortsighted; you do not see the game I am playing. What good would it do me to lodge those two Englishmen in prison, and get Jean Plessis suspected? Would that pay off the mortgages on my property, regain me Coulancourt, or enable you to set up for yourself in another country? I have agreed to give you a certain sum, and get you safe out of France, for I tell you your party and Robespierre’s are crushed for ever. People are sick of blood, and jacobinism is at a fearful discount. Your throat would be cut with frantic joy if you were caught in Paris. The reaction was immediate and overpowering; the name of a jacobin is held in abhorrence. Your famous associates, Fouguier, Rimaud, and Carrier, died amidst the howlings and shrieks of a multitude; all they wanted was yourself to make up a handsome quartette.”
“You are cursed pleasant in your recollections,” growled Augustine. “You seem to forget that it was I who forged the papers and accusations that got your father the estate of Coulancourt.”
“Oh dear, no,” returned Monsieur Gramont, laughing. “My memory is very good. I had nothing to do in that affair at all; I was never a jacobin. I really cannot say I delight in those extremes. If I can accomplish my ends without blood it is far preferable. You see the escape of the ci-devant Duchesse de Coulancourt through the agency of Jean Plessis, and her reappearance in Paris, and fortunate trial just after the fall of Robespierre, when a violent reaction was taking place, lost me the property. Now I want to regain the estate, at all events, which, having once possessed, I consider justly to be mine; but I do not want to get Madame Coulancourt’s head off. If I prove that she is corresponding with England, where her daughter is, and that she and Jean Plessis, are seeking to secretly dispose of her property and transport the produce to Hamburg, I shall gain my ends. I have my spies on her continually, and lately I have reason to suspect that a young girl said to be very beautiful, and who is constantly visiting her, whom she has been seen to embrace with much affection, is her daughter, smuggled into France some way or other. My next letters from Paris will be important.”
There was a short silence, after which Monsieur Gramont’s companion said—
“Are you certain that this very beautiful girl with Jean Plessis, calling herself Tourville, is really a Mademoiselle Tourville, and this Englishman passing for her brother is not her lover?”
“Of that I am quite certain; I saw and heard enough when I came suddenly upon them in the Hermit’s Grotto. Lovers they are, but as to her being Mademoiselle Tourville or not I cannot say. I have ordered François Perrin to proceed to the château and make a visit of inspection without hinting any suspicion. He will be with me to-night to report.”
“Well, it strikes me,” said Augustine, “that this Mademoiselle de Tourville is Madame Coulancourt’s daughter, sent from Paris, fearing she might be suspected.”
Monsieur Gramont looked at his companion, saying—
“You have been receiving private communications from Paris, during your absence?”
“I have; and desperate as you think the cause of the jacobins, I have another idea.”