Albert gave a short, derisive laugh, and shrugged his shoulders, which made his admiring mother throw back her head with a gesture, inviting the Abbé to contemplate, with satisfaction, the mother of so brave a man.
“Voilà,” she said, “but tell us, my son, what is in the letter?”
“Not yet,” was the reply. “It is to be read to all when they are assembled. In the mean time—”
He did not finish the sentence in words, but by gesture conveyed that the missive, now folded and placed in his breast-pocket, was only to be obtained bespattered with his life’s blood. And the Abbé wiped his clammy brow with some satisfaction that it should be thus removed from his own timorous custody.
Albert de Chantonnay was looking expectantly at the door, for he had heard footsteps, and now he bowed gravely to a very old gentleman, a notary of the town, who entered the room with a deep obeisance to the Comtesse. Close on the notary’s heels came others. Some were in riding costume, and came from a distance.
One sprightly lady wore evening dress, only partially concealed by a cloak. She hurried in with a nod for Albert de Chantonnay, and a kiss for the Comtesse. Her presence had the immediate effect of imparting an air of practical common-sense energy to the assembly, which it had hitherto lacked. There was nothing of the old régime in this lady, who seemed to over-ride etiquette, and cheerfully ignore the dramatic side of the proceedings.
“Is it not wonderful?” she whispered aloud, after the manner of any modern lady at one of those public meetings in which they take so large a part with so small a result in these later days. “Is it not wonderful?” And her French, though pure enough, was full and round—the French of an English tongue. “I have had a long letter from Dormer telling me all about it. Oh—” And she broke off, silenced by the dark frown of Albert de Chantonnay, to which her attention had been forcibly directed by his mother. “I have been dining with Madame de Rathe,” she went on, irrepressibly, changing the subject in obedience to Albert de Chantonnay’s frown. “The Vicomtesse bids me make her excuses. She feared an indigestion, so will be absent to-night.”
“Ah!” returned the Comtesse de Chantonnay. “It is not that. I happen to know that the Vicomtesse de Rathe has the digestion of a schoolboy. It is because she has no confidence in Albert. But we shall see—we shall see. It is not for the nobility of Louis Philippe to—to have a poor digestion.”
And the Comtesse de Chantonnay made a gesture and a meaning grimace which would have been alarming enough had her hand and face been less dimpled with good nature.
There were now assembled about a dozen persons, and the Abbé was kept in countenance by two others of his cloth. There were several ladies; one of whom was young and plain and seemed to watch Albert de Chantonnay with a timid awe. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, seated next to the Comtesse de Chantonnay, was the only lady who made any attempt at gay apparel, and thus stood rather conspicuous among her companions clad in sober and somewhat rusty black. All over the west of France such meetings of the penniless Royalists were being held at this time, not, it has been averred, without the knowledge of the Prince President, who has been credited with the courage to treat the matter with contempt. About no monarch, living or dead, however, have so many lies been written, by friend or foe, with good or ill intent, as about him, who subsequently carried out the astounding feat of climbing to the throne of France as Napoleon III. And it seems certain that he has been given credit for knowing much of which he must have been ignorant to an extent hardly credible, even now, in face of subsequent events.