CHAPTER VIII
THE HONOUR OF LAVENNE
THAT same morning, it will be remembered, Sartines received the visit of the Vicomte Jean, and also Captain Pierre Cousin, the governor of Vincennes, who came in person with the news of Rochefort’s escape.
Having dismissed Cousin, Sartines, perplexed, distracted, furious with himself, Rochefort, Choiseul, and the world in general, put aside the letters on which he had been engaged and rising from his chair began to walk up and down the room.
Everything now depended on what Rochefort would do. With Rochefort and Ferminard safe in Vincennes, Sartines felt safe. He knew instinctively that Choiseul was deeply suspicious about the affair of the Presentation. He knew for a fact that Choiseul had, through an agent, questioned the Comtesse de Béarn before she left Paris, and that the Comtesse, like the firm old woman she was, had refused to say a single word on the matter. She had, in fact, refused for two reasons. First: she had the two hundred thousand francs which the Dubarrys had paid her tight clutched in her hand. Secondly: she was too proud to acknowledge to the world how she had been tricked. Such a scandal would become historical, but not if she could help it with a de Béarn in the chief part.
There was no one to talk, then, but Rochefort and Ferminard, the chief actor—and they who had been in safe keeping were now loose.
In the midst of his meditations, a knock came to the door and the usher announced that Lavenne had arrived and wished to speak to the Minister. Sartines ordered him to be sent up at once. No visitor would be more welcome. The absence of Lavenne had been disturbing him for the last few days, for this man so fruitful in advice and expedient had become as the right hand of the Minister. Of all the clever people about him, Lavenne was the man whom he felt to be absolutely essential.
“Mordieu!” cried de Sartines, when Lavenne entered. “What has happened to you?”
He drew back a step.
The man before him looked ten years older than when he had seen him last, his face was white and pinched, his eyes were bloodshot, and the pupils seemed unnaturally dilated.