“Do not have such thoughts, General,” interrupted Colonel Vallenot, with a smile. “There are surprises in store for us which will, doubtless, lessen your regret.”
“What do you mean?” said the rough soldier, frowning. “You do not intend to utter calumnies against my friend from childhood, my comrade in war?”
“God forbid, General! I shall simply give you the facts on which you desired information. If I have the misfortune to displease you, you will not be angry with me; you are too just for that.”
“What is the meaning of this silence? Continue right to the end, Colonel; speak freely.”
“So I intend to do, General. Well, then, the secretary of the Prefect of Police had just undertaken to supply the version arranged by us to the numerous reporters waiting there, held in check by the line of troops, and to inform the Minister of the Interior, in case the police might have to be called in, when a great uproar arose from the direction of the village. A tumult of cries and shouts was heard. The lieutenant was preparing to go and see what was happening, when a man, breaking through the sentinels, ran up to us, bare-headed, with troubled countenance, and exclaiming, in tones of despair, ‘My master! O God! What has happened to the house? Not one stone left on another!’ Thereupon he halted, sank down on the ruins, and began to weep bitterly. We looked at him in silence, moved by his grief, and foreseeing some speedy enlightenment on the dark situation we were in. ‘Who are you, my friend?’ asked the Government agent. The man raised his head, passed his hand over his eyes to brush away his tears, and, raising up to us a countenance at once intelligent and determined, said, ‘The General’s head servant, sir, for the last twenty years. Ah! If I had been there, this disaster might perhaps have been avoided! At any rate, I would have died with him!’”
“It was Baudoin!” exclaimed the General. “The brave fellow had escaped! Ah! That is fortunate. We shall learn something from him!”
“Yes, General, but not the enlightenment we expected. Rather the contrary.”
“In what way the contrary?”
“I will explain. The night before, about six o’clock, the General was in his garden, strolling about, after working all day in the laboratory, when a telegram reached him from Vanves. He read it, continued his walk for a few minutes, with bowed head, as though in profound meditation, then he called Baudoin. ‘You must set out for Paris,’ he said to him. ‘I have an important order to give to my chemist, who lives in the Place de la Sorbonne. Give him this letter, then go to M. Baradier and pay him my respects. Then dine, and, if you like to spend the evening at the theatre, you may do so; here is a five franc piece. Return to-morrow morning with the chemicals.’
“Baudoin, who knew what it all meant, understood that the General wished him to leave the house for the whole night. He was anything but pleased at this, because, he said, it was not the first time that it had happened, and always under the same circumstances: the arrival of a telegram, and the dismissal immediately following.