Children, in mortal terror, scampered past the hôtel; at night sober men, when they neared it, crossed the street. Few of the Rochellais could describe the interior; these were not envied of their knowledge. It had been tenanted but twice in thirty years. Of the present generation none could remember having seen it cheerful with lights. The ignorant abhor darkness; it is the meat upon which their superstition feeds. To them, deserted houses are always haunted, if not by spirits at least by the memory of evil deeds.
The master of this house of dread was held in awe by the citizens to whom he was a word, a name to be spoken lowly, even when respect tinctured the utterance. Stories concerning the marquis had come from Paris and Périgny, and travel, the good gossip, had distorted acts of mere eccentricity into deeds of violence and wickedness. The nobility, however, did not share the popular belief. They beheld in the marquis a great noble whose right to his title ran back to the days when a marquisate meant the office of guarding the marshes and frontiers for the king. Besides, the marquis had been the friend of two kings, the lover of a famous beauty, the husband of the daughter of a Savoy prince. These three virtues balanced his moral delinquencies. To the popular awe in which the burghers held him there was added a large particle of distrust; for during the great rebellion he had served neither the Catholics nor the Huguenots; neither Richelieu, his enemy, nor De Rohan, his friend. Catholics proclaimed him a Huguenot, Huguenots declared him a Catholic; yet, no one had ever seen him attend mass, the custom of good Catholics, nor had any heard him pray in French, the custom of good Huguenots. What then, being neither one nor the other? An atheist, whispered the wise, a word which was then accepted in its narrowest cense: that is to say, Monsieur le Marquis had sold his soul to the devil.
Périgny, it is not to be denied, was a sinister sound in the ears of a virtuous woman. To the ultra-pious and the bigoted, it was a letter in the alphabet of hell. Yet, there was in this grim chain of evil repute one link which did not conform with the whole. The marquis never haggled with his tradesmen, never beat his servants or his animals, and opened his purse to the poor with more frequency than did his religious neighbors. Those who believed in his total wickedness found it impossible to accept this incongruity.
For ten years the hôtel had remained in darkness; then behold! but a month gone, a light was seen shining from one of the windows. The watch, upon investigation, were informed that Monsieur le Marquis had returned to the city and would remain indefinitely. After this, on several occasions the hôtel was lighted cheerfully enough. Monsieur le Marquis's son entertained his noble friends and the officers from Fort Louis. There was wine in plenty and play ran high. The marquis, however, while he permitted these saturnalia, invariably held aloof. It was servants' hall gossip that the relations existing between father and son were based upon the coldest formalities. Conversation never went farther than "Good morning, Monsieur le Marquis" and "Good morning, Monsieur le Comte." The marquis pretended not to understand when any referred to his son as the "Chevalier du Cévennes." It was also gossiped that this noble house was drawing to its close; for the Chevalier had declined to marry, and was drinking and gaming heavily; and to add to the marquis's chagrin, the Chevalier had been dismissed from court, in disgrace,—a calamity which till now had never fallen upon the House of Périgny.
The marquis was growing old. As he sat before the fire in the grand salon, the flickering yellow light playing over his features, which had a background of moving, deep velvet-brown shadows, he might have been the theme of some melancholy whim by Rubens, a stanza by Dante. His face was furrowed like a frosty road. Veins sprawled over his hands which rested on the arms of his chair, and the knuckles shone like ivory through the drawn transparent skin. The long fingers drummed ceaselessly and the head teetered; for thus senility approaches. His lips, showing under a white mustache, were livid and fallen inward. The large Alexandrian nose had lost its military angle, and drooped slightly at the tip: which is to say, the marquis no longer acted, he thought; he was no longer the soldier, but the philosopher. The domineering, forceful chin had the essentials of a man of justice, but it was lacking in that quality of mercy which makes justice grand. Over the Henri IV ruff fell the loose flesh of his jaws. Altogether, it was the face of a man who was practically if not actually dead. But in the eyes, there lay the life of the man. From under jutting brows they peered as witnesses of a brain which had accumulated a rare knowledge of mankind, man's shallowness, servility, hypocrisy, his natural inability to obey the simplest laws of nature; a brain which was set in motion always by calculation, never by impulse. They were grey eyes, bold and fierce and liquid as a lion's. None among the great had ever beaten them down, for they were truthful eyes, almost an absolute denial of the life he had lived. But truth to the marquis was not a moral obligation. He was truthful as became a great noble who was too proud and fearless of consequences to lie. In his youth he had been called Antinous to Henri's Caesar; but there is a certain type of beauty which, if preyed upon by vices, becomes sardonic in old age.
At his elbow stood a small Turkish table on which were a Venetian bell and a light repast, consisting of a glass of weakened canary and a plate of biscuits spread sparingly with honey. Presently the marquis drank the wine and struck the bell. Jehan, the marquis's aged valet, entered soon after with a large candelabrum of wax candles. This he placed on the mantel. Even with this additional light, the other end of the salon remained in semi-darkness. Only the dim outline of the grand staircase could be seen.
Over the mantel the portrait of a woman stood out clearly and definitely. It represented Madame la Marquise at twenty-two, when Marie de Médicis had commanded the young Rubens to paint the portrait of one of the few women who had volunteered to share her exile. Madame lived to be only twenty-four, happily.
"Jehan, light the chandelier," said the marquis. His voice, if high, was still clear and strong. "Has Monsieur le Comte ventured forth in this storm?"
"Yes, Monsieur; but he left word that he would return later with a company of friends."
"Friends?" The marquis shrugged. "Is that what he calls them? When do these grasping Jesuits visit me?"