Roux was a stout man who never laughed, an earnest-minded machine, if I may be allowed the term; he had also, to use Lavenne’s expression, no tongue. The genius of de Sartines was never better shown than in his selection of these two men for the arrest of Rochefort—Lavenne to persuade him to accept arrest and be conveyed to Vincennes, Roux to convey him.
“Well, Monsieur le Capitaine,” said Rochefort, as the carriage started, “it seems that we are to make a little journey together.”
“Monsieur,” replied the other, “I wish to be in every way agreeable to you and so fulfil my orders in that respect, but I am forbidden to talk to you.”
“And yet you are talking to me, my dear sir.”
“I was only making a statement of my orders, monsieur. And now, if you will permit me, this is the mask.”
Rochefort took the grey silk mask and examined it, then, with a laugh, he put it on. It was fixed with strings which tied behind the head, and he had good reason to thank de Sartines’ forethought in supplying it; for at the Porte St. Antoine, when the carriage stopped for a moment, one of the guards, despite the warning of the coachman, pushed aside the curtain of the window and popped his head in.
“Whom have we here?” said he.
Roux, in reply, struck the man a blow on the face with his clenched fist.
Then, leaning out of the window, he talked to the guards. He asked them did they not know a carriage of the Hôtel de Sartines when they saw it, and spoke to them about their intelligence, questioned their ancestry and ordered the arrest of the unfortunate, whose nose was streaming blood. Then he sank back, and the carriage drove on.
“Ah, monsieur,” cried the delighted Rochefort, from behind his mask, “I have never heard anything quite like that before. I would give the liberty which I do not possess to be able to curse like that—and they said you had no tongue! Tell me, was it by training you arrived at this perfection, or was it a natural gift?”