“I cannot promise that, maman. I’ll not be cooped up in the house. You are fretting about that stupid Laurent. I for one am glad he is gone. I never want to see his smirking face again.” Lisle leaned forward and spoke earnestly. “You must trust yourself to me, maman. I told you the girls should be sent at once to the country, and you see that I was right. Whatever happens at the Tuileries, it is only a question of time until the Austrian army comes and our own royalist armies are ready.” Lisle looked so earnestly at his mother and spoke so confidently that the comtesse smiled in spite of herself and returned his look with one of pride.
“Maman, I don’t trust Henri,” Lisle continued, speaking softly. “He does not really mean us harm, I think, but he is from Provence and the Marseillais are from Provence. They are proving themselves to be brave soldiers. Henri, once he is in the crowd, will be heart and soul with them. You will see!”
As Lisle spoke the tapestry at the far door swayed back and Henri came into the room.
“Madame la Comtesse de Soigné is here to see Madame,” he said.
Lisle walked with his mother to the salon door, but did not go inside. As Henri opened the door, Lisle saw his mother’s friend cross the room and come toward her. Rosanne stood near the door and made a curtsy as his mother entered. Lisle waited until Henri had left the hall and then went through the marble vestibule, opened the great, grilled door, which was the front entrance, and went outside. Gonfleur was waiting by the door. Lisle went up to the old man.
“Gonfleur,” he said to him, “you are the only one I can trust. There is not one of our servants who is true to us, now that Neville has gone.”
Gonfleur bowed and answered: “I am only an old man, Monsieur Lisle, but there is nothing I would not do for the family. Madame de Soigné knows that well. She is in trouble, is Madame la Comtesse.” He did not say more, so Lisle turned away and went inside to the great drawing-room. His mother and Madame de Soigné were sitting on a velvet chaise longue at one end of the room and talking earnestly. Long mirrors reached to the ceiling on each side of the room. The rose carpet was of velvet and sank under Lisle’s feet as he crossed over to his mother. There were gilded tables and chairs and carved cabinets filled with jeweled trinkets. The hangings at the long windows were of rose brocade.
Lisle came up to the chaise longue and bowed ceremoniously to the comtesse and to Rosanne, who stood close to her mother. Madame de Soigné was to leave Paris at once, they told him. She had just had word that her husband, who was with the Royalists, had been wounded and she could not stay away from him another hour. Gonfleur would accompany her and Madame Saint Frère was to keep Rosanne safe with her. The Comte de Soigné was in a hospital near Valmy.
“It would have been well, Madame, had you allowed Rosanne to accompany my sisters and the others to Les Vignes.” Lisle spoke coldly; but when the comtesse answered, with tears in her eyes, that she had not dreamed of all that twenty-four hours would bring forth, he said simply, “I will care for Rosanne as though she were my little sister.” Then he went out of the room.
There was no one in the great hall, and going into an anteroom he took down his black velvet cape and cap and went out through the great entrance door, closing it after him. He ran quickly down the marble steps, and, after standing a moment uncertainly on the corner, turned to the right and walked toward the Champs Élysées.