"That were scarcely prudent, Riquet," replied the Count; "but I will at all events pause for a time, and you can tell me all that has happened. First, whose dwelling is this?"
"The house of good Monsieur Perault at Angerville," replied the valet. "He has been dead for about two months, and his old maître d'hôtel, being a friend of mine, and still in the family, gave me the keys of the château to be your first resting place."
On entering the château, Albert of Morseiul found it completely thronged with his own servants; and the joyful faces that crowded round, some in smiles and some in tears, to see their young lord liberated, was not a little sweet to his heart. Some balm, indeed, was necessary to heal old wounds, before new ones were inflicted; and, though Riquet moved through the assembled attendants with the conscious dignity of one who had conferred the benefit in which they rejoiced, yet he hastened to lead his young lord on, and to have the room cleared, having much indeed to tell. His tale was painful to the Count in many respects; but, being given by snatches, as the various questions of his master elicited one fact after another, we will attempt to put it in more continuous form, and somewhat shorter language, taking it up at events which, though long past, were now first explained.
From an accidental reference to the Count's journey from Morseiul to Poitiers, Riquet was led to declare the whole facts in regard to the commission which had been given by the King to Pelisson and St. Helie. The insatiable spirit of curiosity by which Maître Jerome was possessed, never let him rest till he had made the unhappy Curé of Guadrieul declare, by a manœuvre before related, what was in the sheepskin bag he carried; and, as soon as the valet heard that it was a commission from the King, his curiosity was still more strongly excited to ascertain the precise contents. For the purpose of so doing, he attached himself firmly to the Curé during the rest of the evening, made him smoke manifold pipes, induced him to eat every promotive of drinking that he could lay his hands upon, plied him with wine, and then when half besotted, ventured to insinuate a wish to peep into the bag. The Curé, however, was firm to his trust even in the midst of drunkenness; he would peep into the bag with curious longings himself, but he would allow no one else to do so, and Riquet had no resource but to finish what he had so well commenced by a bottle of heady Burgundy in addition, which left the poor priest but strength enough to roll away to his chamber, and, conscious that he was burthened with matters which he was incompetent to defend, to lock the door tight behind him before he sunk insensible on his bed. He forgot, however, one thing, which it is as well for every one to remember; namely, that chambers have windows as well as doors; and Jerome Riquet, whose genius for running along house gutters was not less than his other high qualities, found not the slightest difficulty of effecting an entrance, and spending three or four hours in the examination of the sheepskin bag and its contents. With as much skill as if he had been brought up in the French post-office of that day, he opened the royal packet without even breaking the seals, and only inflicting a very slight and accidental tear on one part of the envelope, which the keen eyes of Pelisson had afterwards discovered.
As soon as he saw the nature of the King's commission, Riquet,--who was no friend to persecution of any kind, and who well knew that all his master's plans would be frustrated, and the whole province of Poitou thrown into confusion if such a commission were opened on the first assembling of the states,--determined to do away with it altogether, and substitute an old pack of cards which he happened to have in his valise in place of that important document. He then proceeded to examine minutely and accurately the contents of the Curé's trunk mail, and more from a species of jocose malice than any thing else, he tore off a piece of the King's commission which could do no harm to any one, and folded it round the old tobacco box, which he had found wrapped up in a piece of paper very similar amongst the goods and chattels of the priest.
Besides this adventure, he had various others to detail to the Count, with the most important of which: namely, his interview with the King and Louvois at Versailles, the reader is already acquainted. But he went on from that point to relate, that, lingering about in the neighbourhood of the King's apartments, he had heard the order for his master's arrest given to Monsieur de Cantal. He flew home with all speed, but on arriving at the Count's hotel found that he had already gone to the palace, and that his arrest was certain.
His next question to himself was how he might best serve him under such circumstances; and, habituated from the very infancy of his valethood to travesty himself in all sorts of disguises, he determined instantly on assuming the character of an Exempt of one of the courts of law, as affording the greatest probability of answering his purpose. He felt a degree of enjoyment and excitement in every species of trick of the kind which carried him through, when the least timidity or hesitation would have frustrated his whole plans. The fact is, that although it may seem a contradiction in terms, yet Maître Jerome was never so much in his own character as when he was personating somebody else.
The result of his acting on this occasion we already know, as far as the Count was concerned; but the moment that he had seen him lodged in the Bastille, the valet, calculating that his frolic might render Versailles a dangerous neighbourhood, retired to the Count's hotel in Paris, where a part of his apparel was still to be found, compounded rapidly the sympathetic ink from one of the many receipts stored up in his brain, and then flew with a handkerchief, properly prepared, to Clémence de Marly, whom he found alone with the Chevalier d'Evran. As his master had not made him acquainted with the occasional feelings of jealousy which he had experienced towards that gentleman, Jerome believed he had fallen upon the two persons from whom, out of all the world, his master would be most delighted to hear. The whole facts of the Count's arrest then were detailed and discussed, and the words written, which, as we have seen, were received by Albert of Morseuil in prison.
Afraid to go back to Versailles, Riquet hastened away into Poitou leaving to Clémence de Marly and the Chevalier d'Evran the task of liberating his lord, of which they seemed to entertain considerable hopes. On his return, however, he found, first, that all his fellow-servants having been faithful to him, the investigations regarding the appearance of the Exempt had ended in nothing being discovered, except that somebody had profanely personated one of those awful personages; and, secondly, that the Count was not only still in durance, but that little, if any, progress had been made towards effecting his liberation. The Duc de Rouvré, who seemed to be restored to the King's favour, was now a guest at the palace of Versailles: with Clémence de Marly the valet could not obtain an interview, though he daily saw her in company with the Chevalier d'Evran, and the report began to be revived that the King intended to bestow her hand upon that gentleman, who was now in exceedingly high favour with the monarch.
A scheme now took possession of the mind of Riquet, which only suggested itself in utter despair of any other plan succeeding; and as, to use his own expression, the very attempt, if frustrated, would bring his head under the axe, he acknowledged to his lord that he had hesitated and trembled even while he prepared every thing for its execution. He went down once more into Poitou; he communicated with all the friends and most favoured vassals of his master; he obtained money and means for carrying every part of his scheme into effect, as soon as his lord should be liberated from the Bastille, and for securing his escape into Poitou, where a choice of plans remained before him, of which we shall have to speak hereafter.