The little attentions he had lately paid, had greatly conciliated his fair lady; and though still somewhat disposed to pout, she suffered him to explain his views with a tolerable degree of placability. “You must know, ma charmante Louise,” said he, “that there is a tremendous plot going on against the Government; and that Monsieur de Chavigni has intrusted me to discover it. You heard what Callot said, concerning a treaty with Spain. Now I have always understood, that when these secret treaties are formed, a copy is deposited in some uninhabited place for greater security. You see, I have traced Fontrailles to this castle, and it is evident that here he met the other conspirators: now where, then, can they have secreted the treaty but somewhere about here? So now, Louise, help me to find this paper, if it is to be found; and then we will soon quit these men, of whom you seem so much afraid, and go and live like princes on the fortune that Chavigni has promised.”
To this long speech of her husband, which he accompanied with sundry little caresses, Louise replied, in a tone still half sulky, that she was ready to seek the paper, but that she did not see how they could find it, with nothing to guide them in the search. But nevertheless, when they did seriously begin their perquisitions, she displayed all that sagacity in discovering a secret which women instinctively possess. Of course, the first place to which they particularly directed their inquiries was the chamber in which, according to the account of Callot, the meeting of the conspirators had been held.
Here they looked in every nook and corner, turned over every heap of rubbish, examined the chairs and the table of old Père Le Rouge, and having gone over every inch of the apartment, began anew and went over it all again. At length Louise, seemingly tired of her search in that chamber, left her husband to pursue it as he pleased, and sitting down in one of the settles, began to hum a Languedoc air, beating time with her fingers on the table.
“Pardie!” cried the Norman, after having hunted for some time in vain: “it is not here, that is certain!”
“Yes, it is!” said Louise, very quietly continuing to beat time on the table; “it is in this very room.”
“Nom de Dieu! where is it then?” cried Monsieur Marteville.
“It is here, in the inside of this hollow piece of wood,” answered Louise, tapping the table with her knuckles, which produced that sort of empty echoing sound that evinced it was not so solid as it appeared.
The Norman now approached, and soon convincing himself that Louise was right, he took her in his arms and gave her a kiss that made the ruin echo. The next thing was to get into the drawer, or whatsoever it was, that occupied the interior of the table; but this not proving very easy, the impatient Norman set it upright upon one end, and drawing his sword, soon contrived to cleave it through the middle; when, to the delight of the eyes that looked upon it, appeared a large cavity neatly wrought in the wood, containing a packet of vellum folded, and sealed at all corners in blue and yellow wax, with neat pieces of floss-silk to keep it all together. The Norman could have eaten it up; and Louise, with a degree of impatient curiosity peculiarly her own, was already fingering one of the seals, about to break it open, when Marteville stopped her with a tremendous oath. “What are you going to do?” cried he: “you know little what it is to pry into State secrets. If you had opened that seal, instead of having perhaps a reward of twenty thousand crowns, we should both have been sent to the Bastille for the rest of our lives.” Louise dropped the packet in dismay; and the Norman continued, “Did you never hear of the Abbé de Langy, who happening to be left by Monsieur de Richelieu in his private cabinet only for five minutes, with some State papers on the table, was sent to the Bastille for twelve years, merely for fear he had read them? No, no; this must go to Monsieur Chavigni without so much as cracking the wax.”
“Could not we just look in at the end?” demanded Louise, looking wistfully at the packet, which her husband had now picked up. But upon this he put a decided negative; and having now succeeded to his heart’s content, the burly Norman, in the exuberance of his joy, began singing and capering till the old pile both echoed and shook with his gigantic gambols. “Ma Louise,” cried he at length, “vous êtes fatiguée. Je vais vous porter;” and catching her up in his arms, notwithstanding all remonstrance, he carried her like a feather into the court-yard, through the narrow arch, and threading all the intricacies of the vaults with the same sagacious facility with which a ferret glides through the windings of a warren, he bore her safely and in triumph into the salle à manger of the honourable fraternity below. This was not the mode of progression which Louise most admired, nor was she very much gratified at being exhibited to her husband’s old friends in so ungraceful an attitude; and the consequences, of course, were, that she would willingly have torn his eyes out had she dared.
However, Monsieur Callot, Le Gros St. Nicolas, and others, applied themselves successfully to soothe her ruffled spirits; and the venison being ready, and a long table laid, each person drew forth their knife, and soon committed infinite havoc on the plump haunch which was placed before them. The wine succeeded, and then that water of life which very often ends in death. All was hilarity and mirth, song, jest, and laughter. Gradually, one barrier after another fell, as cup succeeded cup. Each one told his own story, without regard to the rest; each one sang his own song; each one cracked his own joke. Louise had retired to a settle by the side of the fire, but still mingled in the conversation, when it could be called such; and Monsieur Callot, somewhat full of wine, and a good deal smitten with her charms, plied her with assiduities rather more perhaps than was necessary. In the mean time, the Gros St. Nicolas, running over with brandy and good spirits, kept jesting the Norman upon some passages of his former life, which might as well have been passed over and forgotten. “Madame!” cried he at length, turning round towards Louise, with an overflowing goblet in his hand, and his broad face full of glee, “I have the honour of drinking to your health, as the fifth spouse of our good friend Monsieur de Marteville; and let me assure you, that of the three that are living and the two that are dead, you are the most beautiful beyond compare!”