The abbe dared say no more, for the marquis smiled bitterly at his last words. However, the young chief instantly repressed all expression of feeling, his brow grew stern, and he followed the Abbe Gudin into a hall where the worst of the clamor was echoing.
“I recognize no authority here,” Rifoel was saying, casting angry looks at all about him and laying his hand on the hilt of his sabre.
“Do you recognize that of common-sense?” asked the marquis, coldly.
The young Chevalier de Vissard, better known under his patronymic of Rifoel, was silent before the general of the Catholic armies.
“What is all this about, gentlemen?” asked the marquis, examining the faces round him.
“This, monsieur le marquis,” said a famous smuggler, with the awkwardness of a man of the people who long remains under the yoke of respect to a great lord, though he admits no barriers after he has once jumped them, and regards the aristocrat as an equal only, “this,” he said, “and you have come in the nick of time to hear it. I am no speaker of gilded phrases, and I shall say things plainly. I commanded five hundred men during the late war. Since we have taken up arms again I have raised a thousand heads as hard as mine for the service of the king. It is now seven years that I have risked my life in the good cause; I don’t blame you, but I say that the laborer is worthy of his hire. Now, to begin with, I demand that I be called Monsieur de Cottereau. I also demand that the rank of colonel shall be granted me, or I send in my adhesion to the First Consul! Let me tell you, monsieur le marquis, my men and I have a devilishly importunate creditor who must be satisfied—he’s here!” he added, striking his stomach.
“Have the musicians come?” said the marquis, in a contemptuous tone, turning to Madame du Gua.
But the smuggler had dealt boldly with an important topic, and the calculating, ambitious minds of those present had been too long in suspense as to what they might hope for from the king to allow the scorn of their new leader to put an end to the scene. Rifoel hastily blocked the way before Montauran, and seized his hand to oblige him to remain.
“Take care, monsieur le marquis,” he said; “you are treating far too lightly men who have a right to the gratitude of him whom you are here to represent. We know that his Majesty has sent you with full powers to judge of our services, and we say that they ought to be recognized and rewarded, for we risk our heads upon the scaffold daily. I know, so far as I am concerned, that the rank of brigadier-general—”
“You mean colonel.”