“I am going now—at least in half an hour—to the château; Sergeant Perrin went there last night by my orders, to keep watch. I will make a proposal to Madame Coulancourt, which if she does not accept, I will enforce the order for their arrest, and send them to Paris. She must be found guilty of plotting with the enemies of France, and by-the-by, this affair of the Vengeance will, after all, implicate her most forcibly, as she permitted an English officer to reside in her mansion, under an assumed name, and passed off her own daughter as a Mademoiselle de Tourville. I think, Augustine, I have a good head for plotting. Once convicted of this charge, which she cannot possibly refute, her estate will be confiscated, and then I intend producing my deeds and the late duke’s revocal of his former will; with the interest I possess when I shall, no doubt, be put in possession of the property. Strange to say I could not get Fouché to give me an order to arrest that confounded Jean Plessis. ‘No,’ said the Minister of Police, ‘he is a protégé of Barras; let him alone.’”
“Curse him!” fiercely exclaimed Vadier. “Then I will stick a knife in him. I hate that man; he was the chief witness against me when I was condemned in Paris to the galleys. I’ll have my revenge of him.”
“Very proper,” said Monsieur Gramont, “but get well first; you look feverish, and exciting yourself is bad.”
“Humph!” muttered Vadier. “I wish you would give me the five hundred francs for that rascal Dubois; he is growling like a bear—he wants to marry that girl Dedan, at the château, and she is getting frightened for fear of being found out.”
“Confound the rascal! let him wait. I have not five hundred to spare, mon cher, just yet; and as to the girl, serve her right if she is found out. We require neither of them now.”
“Then send off that sulky rascal Dubois; he handles me as if I was a bear.”
“Ma foi, with that hairy face of yours you are not unlike one,” said Monsieur Gramont. “The time is past now, or else I would despatch the rascal to prison as a royalist, and have his head off. As it is, I will send him about his business this moment—the easiest way of paying the five hundred francs. Now I must leave you; keep up your spirits, you will soon be on your legs; the loss of an eye will not spoil your beauty, and your other optic will gain redoubled force. I shall be back in the evening.”
“Ah!” muttered Augustine Vadier, bitterly, sinking back on the bed, “thus it always is with tools; but take care, Monsieur Gramont, I am a dangerous tool to cast aside as worthless.”
Monsieur Gramont was just the kind of man to neglect any one but himself. Selfish, heartless, and unprincipled, he felt for no one; he befriended the wretch Vadier, because he was a most expert forger, and because he knew he knew a secret or two of his late father’s, better hidden than disclosed. He wanted him no further, so he then thought, and in reality he was rather grieved that the splinter of the rock did not finish him entirely, instead of merely putting out his eye. Changing his dress, and making the most of his really handsome person, Bertram Gramont mounted his horse, and set out alone for Château Coulancourt.