Wherein De Blenau finds out that he has made a mistake, and what follows.
HAVING now conducted our truly-begotten friend, the Sieur Marteville, considerably in advance of the rest of the characters in this true history, it becomes us to show our impartiality by detailing the principal actions of our other personages, and also to display the causes which brought the noble Count de Chavigni to such a distance as Narbonne, a little town in the southern nook of Languedoc, not above a few leagues from Perpignan. However, as all these circumstances are naturally explained in the history of the Count de Blenau, we may as well follow him on the useless pursuit into which he had been led by the precipitancy of Monsieur Henry de La Mothe, his page, who would have saved his master a great deal of trouble and distress, as we all know, if he had thought fit to see the Marquise de Beaumont; but young hounds will often cry upon a wrong scent, and mislead those who should know better.
Thus it happened in the present instance; and De Blenau, blinded by anxiety for Pauline, took the suspicions of his Page for granted, without examination. He knew that Chavigni scrupled not at any measures which might serve a political purpose; he knew that the Norman was in the immediate employment of the Statesman, and was still less delicate in his notions than his master; and he doubted not that Pauline, having been discovered issuing from the Bastille, had been carried off without ceremony, and sent from Paris under the custody of the ci-devant robber. At all events, De Blenau, as he rode along, composed a very plausible chain of reasoning upon the subject; and far from supposing that the Norman would avoid the wood in the neighbourhood of Mesnil, he concluded, from his knowledge of Marteville’s former habits, that a forest filled with robbers would fulfil all his anticipations of Paradise, and be too strong an attraction to be resisted.
Thus cogitating, he rode on to Decize, and thence to Corbigny, where day once more broke upon his path; and having been obliged to allow the horses a few hours’ rest, he tried in vain for some repose himself. Auxerre was his next halt, but here only granting his domestics one hour to refresh, he passed the Yonne, and soon after entered Champagne, which traversing without stopping, except for a few minutes at Bar sur Seine, he reached Troyes before midnight, with man and horse too wearied to begin their search before the following morning.
It unluckily so happened that De Blenau did not alight at the hotel of the Grand Soleil, where he might have gained such information as would in all probability have prevented his farther proceedings; and as the keeper of the auberge where he stopped, was at open war with the landlord of the Grand Soleil, to all the inquiries which were made the next morning, the only reply the aubergiste thought fit to give was, that “indeed he could not tell; he had never seen such a person as De Blenau described the Norman to be, or such a lady as Pauline;”—though, be it remarked, every body in the house, after having gazed at Marteville and Louise for a full hour on their arrival, had watched their motions every day, and had wondered themselves stiff at who they could be and what they could want. At length, however, De Blenau caught hold of an unsophisticated hostler, of whom he asked if within the last ten days he had seen a carriage stop or pass through the town containing two such persons as he described.
The hostler replied, “No; that they seldom saw carriages there; that a tall gentleman, like the one he mentioned, had ridden out of the town just two days before with a lady on horseback; but Devil a carriage had there been in Troyes for six years or more, except that of Monseigneur the Governor.”
De Blenau, glad of the least intimation where news seemed so scanty, now described the Norman as particularly as he could from what he had seen of him while speaking to Chavigni in the Park of St. Germain’s, dwelling upon his gigantic proportions, and the remarkable cut upon his cheek.
“Yes, yes!” replied the hostler, “that was the man; I saw him ride out with a jolie demoiselle on the road to Mesnil St. Loup; but Devil a carriage has there been in Troyes for six years or more, except that of Monseigneur the Governor.”
“Well, well,” replied De Blenau, wishing if possible to hear more, “perhaps they might not be in a carriage. But can you tell me where they lodged while in the city of Troyes?”
Even the obtuse faculties of the hostler had been drilled into knowing nothing of any other auberge in the town but his own. “Can’t tell,” replied he. “Saw him and the lady ride out on horseback; but Devil a carriage has there been in Troyes for six years or more, except that of Monseigneur the Governor.”