The bold Montonero, whose daring enterprise had so often re-established the falling fortunes of the revolution—he who had always marched ahead without fear or doubt, when the boldest around him felt their faith fail—also had a number of secret and implacable enemies among men, whom the ever-strange circumstances of a revolution had thrown up from the crowd, and who now thought themselves called on to take the reins of the new government.
Some thought him a man of narrow views, and without political stability; others attributed to him an immeasurable ambition, and thought He was meditating projects, which he wanted only a favourable opportunity to put into motion; while others again thought him a harmless simpleton, ready to fight or to be killed, without knowing why.
All feared him.
Two men especially had towards him a profound antipathy and an instinctive fear which nothing could dissipate.
These two men were the Duc de Mantone and General Don Eusebio Moratín.
Enemies at first, these two persons had not been long in understanding each other, and uniting in one idea the accomplishment of the same project, that they foresaw would at the moment of execution be met with an insurmountable obstacle which the Montonero alone could surmount. These two people, in fact, seemed made to understand one another.
M. Dubois, once an oratorian, and then a conventionalist, having served by turns all the governments which had existed for twenty years in France, and having betrayed one after the other, constrained to abandon Europe, had only sought refuge in America in the hope of regaining a fortune, and a position equivalent to that which he had lost. To attain this end it was necessary for him to fish in the troubled waters of revolution, and the insurrection of the Spanish colonies offered him the occasion that he had so ardently sought.
Resolved to obliterate the past, the fortuitous meeting that he had had with the French painter had been excessively disagreeable to him, on account of the rather edifying histories that Emile could, had he been asked, relate of the past life of Dubois. He had skilfully hidden the annoyance that the meeting had caused him, had feigned the greatest joy at finding a fellow countryman in the land of exile, and under the semblance of great friendship, he had quietly tried to ruin him, in which he had nearly succeeded. The painter had only by a miracle escaped the trap set under his feet with such deep subtlety.
Arrived at Tucumán, and put in communication with General Don Eusebio Moratín, M. Dubois, with that experience of human nature that he possessed in so high a degree, had reckoned him up in a moment, and had said: That is the man who will give me back what I have lost.
His decision was at once made, and he manoeuvred accordingly. Don Eusebio aimed at nothing less than to be named president of the republic. M. Dubois resolved to aid him to arrive at power. A compact was agreed on between the two men, one of whom was a kind of savage animal, spoiled by a false civilisation, and the other a cold, wily, calculating man of ambition.