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Scaramouche: A Romance of the French Revolution

by Rafael Sabatini · English · Gutenberg #1947 · 726,838 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Scaramouche: A Romance of the French Revolution

Author: Rafael Sabatini


        
Release date: November 1, 1999 [eBook #1947]
                Most recently updated: March 9, 2019

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1947

Credits: Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SCARAMOUCHE: A ROMANCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ***




Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer, and David Widger





SCARAMOUCHE

A ROMANCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

By Rafael Sabatini



Contents

 BOOK I.

	  CHAPTER I. 	THE REPUBLICAN
	  CHAPTER II. 	THE ARISTOCRAT
	  CHAPTER III. 	THE ELOQUENCE OF M. DE VILMORIN
	  CHAPTER IV. 	THE HERITAGE
	  CHAPTER V. 	THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC
	  CHAPTER VI. 	THE WINDMILL
	  CHAPTER VII. 	THE WIND
	  CHAPTER VIII. OMNES OMNIBUS
	  CHAPTER IX. 	THE AFTERMATH

 BOOK II. 	  

	  CHAPTER I. 	THE TRESPASSERS
	  CHAPTER II. 	THE SERVICE OF THESPIS
	  CHAPTER II. 	THE COMIC MUSE
	  CHAPTER IV. 	EXIT MONSIEUR PARVISSIMUS
	  CHAPTER V. 	ENTER SCARAMOUCHE
	  CHAPTER VI. 	CLIMENE
	  CHAPTER VII. 	THE CONQUEST OF NANTES
	  CHAPTER VIII. THE DREAM
	  CHAPTER IX. 	THE AWAKENING
	  CHAPTER X. 	CONTRITION
	  CHAPTER XI. 	THE FRACAS AT THE THEATRE FEYDAU

 BOOK III. 	  

	  CHAPTER I. 	TRANSITION
	  CHAPTER II. 	QUOS DEUS VULT PERDERE
	  CHAPTER III. 	PRESIDENT LE CHAPELIER
	  CHAPTER IV. 	AT MEUDON
	  CHAPTER V. 	MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL
	  CHAPTER VI. 	POLITICIANS
	  CHAPTER VII. 	THE SPADASSINICIDES
	  CHAPTER VIII. THE PALADIN OF THE THIRD
	  CHAPTER IX. 	TORN PRIDE
	  CHAPTER X. 	THE RETURNING CARRIAGE
	  CHAPTER XI. 	INFERENCES
	  CHAPTER XII. 	THE OVERWHELMING REASON
	  CHAPTER XIII. SANCTUARY
	  CHAPTER XIV. 	THE BARRIER
	  CHAPTER XV. 	SAFE-CONDUCT
	  CHAPTER XVI. 	SUNRISE



SCARAMOUCHE



BOOK I: THE ROBE



CHAPTER I. THE REPUBLICAN

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
And that was all his patrimony. His very paternity was obscure, although
the village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery
that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to
be deceived by a pretended relationship which did not even possess
the virtue of originality. When a nobleman, for no apparent reason,
announces himself the godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence,
and thereafter cares for the lad’s rearing and education, the most
unsophisticated of country folk perfectly understand the situation. And
so the good people of Gavrillac permitted themselves no illusions on the
score of the real relationship between Andre-Louis Moreau--as the lad had
been named--and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the
big grey house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering
below.

Andre-Louis had learnt his letters at the village school, lodged the
while with old Rabouillet, the attorney, who in the capacity of fiscal
intendant, looked after the affairs of M. de Kercadiou. Thereafter, at
the age of fifteen, he had been packed off to Paris, to the Lycee of
Louis Le Grand, to study the law which he was now returned to practise
in conjunction with Rabouillet. All this at the charges of his
godfather, M. de Kercadiou, who by placing him once more under the
tutelage of Rabouillet would seem thereby quite clearly to be making
provision for his future.

Andre-Louis, on his side, had made the most of his opportunities. You
behold him at the age of four-and-twenty stuffed with learning enough
to produce an intellectual indigestion in an ordinary mind. Out of
his zestful study of Man, from Thucydides to the Encyclopaedists, from
Seneca to Rousseau, he had confirmed into an unassailable conviction
his earliest conscious impressions of the general insanity of his own
species. Nor can I discover that anything in his eventful life ever
afterwards caused him to waver in that opinion.

In body he was a slight wisp of a fellow, scarcely above middle height,
with a lean, astute countenance, prominent of nose and cheek-bones, and
with lank, black hair that reached almost to his shoulders. His mouth
was long, thin-lipped, and humorous. He was only just redeemed from
ugliness by the splendour of a pair of ever-questing, luminous eyes, so
dark as to be almost black. Of the whimsical quality of his mind and
his rare gift of graceful expression, his writings--unfortunately but too
scanty--and particularly his Confessions, afford us very ample evidence.
Of his gift of oratory he was hardly conscious yet, although he had
already achieved a certain fame for it in the Literary Chamber of
Rennes--one of those clubs by now ubiquitous in the land, in which the
intellectual youth of France foregathered to study and discuss the
new philosophies that were permeating social life. But the fame he had
acquired there was hardly enviable. He was too impish, too caustic,
too much disposed--so thought his colleagues--to ridicule their sublime
theories for the regeneration of mankind. Himself he protested that
he merely held them up to the mirror of truth, and that it was not his
fault if when reflected there they looked ridiculous.

All that he achieved by this was to exasperate; and his expulsion from a
society grown mistrustful of him must already have followed but for
his friend, Philippe de Vilmorin, a divinity student of Rennes, who,
himself, was one of the most popular members of the Literary Chamber.

Coming to Gavrillac on a November morning, laden with news of the
political storms which were then gathering over France, Philippe found
in that sleepy Breton village matter to quicken his already lively
indignation. A peasant of Gavrillac, named Mabey, had been shot dead
that morning in the woods of Meupont, across the river, by a gamekeeper
of the Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr. The unfortunate fellow had been caught
in the act of taking a pheasant from a snare, and the gamekeeper had
acted under explicit orders from his master.

Infuriated by an act of tyranny so absolute and merciless, M. de
Vilmorin proposed to lay the matter before M. de Kercadiou. Mabey was a
vassal of Gavrillac, and Vilmorin hoped to move the Lord of Gavrillac to
demand at least some measure of reparation for the widow and the three
orphans which that brutal deed had made.

But because Andre-Louis was Philippe’s dearest friend--indeed, his almost
brother--the young seminarist sought him out in the first instance. He
found him at breakfast alone in the long, low-ceilinged, white-panelled
dining-room at Rabouillet’s--the only home that Andre-Louis had ever
known--and after embracing him, deafened him with his denunciation of M.
de La Tour d’Azyr.

“I have heard of it already,” said Andre-Louis.

“You speak as if the thing had not surprised you,” his friend reproached
him.

“Nothing beastly can surprise me when done by a beast. And La Tour
d’Azyr is a beast, as all the world knows. The more fool Mabey for
stealing his pheasants. He should have stolen somebody else’s.”

“Is that all you have to say about it?”

“What more is there to say? I’ve a practical mind, I hope.”

“What more there is to say I propose to say to your godfather, M. de
Kercadiou. I shall appeal to him for justice.”

“Against M. de La Tour d’Azyr?” Andre-Louis raised his eyebrows.

“Why not?”

“My dear ingenuous Philippe, dog doesn’t eat dog.”

“You are unjust to your godfather. He is a humane man.”

“Oh, as humane as you please. But this isn’t a question of humanity.
It’s a question of game-laws.”

M. de Vilmorin tossed his long arms to Heaven in disgust. He was a tall,
slender young gentleman, a year or two younger than Andre-Louis. He was
very soberly dressed in black, as became a seminarist, with white bands
at wrists and throat and silver buckles to his shoes. His neatly clubbed
brown hair was innocent of powder.

“You talk like a lawyer,” he exploded.

“Naturally. But don’t waste anger on me on that account. Tell me what
you want me to do.”

“I want you to come to M. de Kercadiou with me, and to use your
influence to obtain justice. I suppose I am asking too much.”

“My dear Philippe, I exist to serve you. I warn you that it is a futile
quest; but give me leave to finish my breakfast, and I am at your
orders.”

M. de Vilmorin dropped into a winged armchair by the well-swept hearth,
on which a piled-up fire of pine logs was burning cheerily. And whilst
he waited now he gave his friend the latest news of the events in
Rennes. Young, ardent, enthusiastic, and inspired by Utopian ideals, he
passionately denounced the rebellious attitude of the privileged.

Andre-Louis, already fully aware of the trend of feeling in the ranks of
an order in whose deliberations he took part as the representative of
a nobleman, was not at all surprised by what he heard. M. de Vilmorin
found it exasperating that his friend should apparently decline to share
his own indignation.

“Don’t you see what it means?” he cried. “The nobles, by disobeying the
King, are striking at the very foundations of the throne. Don’t they
perceive that their very existence depends upon it; that if the throne
falls over, it is they who stand nearest to it who will be crushed?
Don’t they see that?”

“Evidently not. They are just governing classes, and I never heard of
governing classes that had eyes for anything but their own profit.”

“That is our grievance. That is what we are going to change.”

“You are going to abolish governing classes? An interesting experiment.
I believe it was the original plan of creation, and it might have
succeeded but for Cain.”

“What we are going to do,” said M. de Vilmorin, curbing his
exasperation, “is to transfer the government to other hands.”

“And you think that will make a difference?”

“I know it will.”

“Ah! I take it that being now in minor orders, you already possess the
confidence of the Almighty. He will have confided to you His intention
of changing the pattern of mankind.”

M. de Vilmorin’s fine ascetic face grew overcast. “You are profane,
Andre,” he reproved his friend.

“I assure you that I am quite serious. To do what you imply would
require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not
systems. Can you and our vapouring friends of the Literary Chamber
of Rennes, or any other learned society of France, devise a system of
government that has never yet been tried? Surely not. And can they say
of any system tried that it proved other than a failure in the end? My
dear Philippe, the future is to be read with certainty only in the
past. Ab actu ad posse valet consecutio. Man never changes. He is always
greedy, always acquisitive, always vile. I am speaking of Man in the
bulk.”

“Do you pretend that it is impossible to ameliorate the lot of the
people?” M. de Vilmorin challenged him.

“When you say the people you mean, of course, the populace. Will you
abolish it? That is the only way to ameliorate its lot, for as long as
it remains populace its lot will be damnation.”

“You argue, of course, for the side that employs you. That is natural, I
suppose.” M. de Vilmorin spoke between sorrow and indignation.

“On the contrary, I seek to argue with absolute detachment. Let us
test these ideas of yours. To what form of government do you aspire? A
republic, it is to be inferred from what you have said. Well, you have
it already. France in reality is a republic to-day.”

Philippe stared at him. “You are being paradoxical, I think. What of the
King?”

“The King? All the world knows there has been no king in France since
Louis XIV. There is an obese gentleman at Versailles who wears the
crown, but the very news you bring shows for how little he really
counts. It is the nobles and clergy who sit in the high places, with the
people of France harnessed under their feet, who are the real rulers.
That is why I say that France is a republic; she is a republic built
on the best pattern--the Roman pattern. Then, as now, there were great
patrician families in luxury, preserving for themselves power and
wealth, and what else is accounted worth possessing; and there was
the populace crushed and groaning, sweating, bleeding, starving, and
perishing in the Roman kennels. That was a republic; the mightiest we
have seen.”

Philippe strove with his impatience. “At least you will admit--you have,
in fact, admitted it--that we could not be worse governed than we are?”

“That is not the point. The point is should we be better governed if we
replaced the present ruling class by another? Without some guarantee of
that I should be the last to lift a finger to effect a change. And what
guarantees can you give? What is the class that aims at government? I
will tell you. The bourgeoisie.”

“What?”

“That startles you, eh? Truth is so often disconcerting. You hadn’t
thought of it? Well, think of it now. Look well into this Nantes
manifesto. Who are the authors of it?”

“I can tell you who it was constrained the municipality of Nantes to
send it to the King. Some ten thousand workmen--shipwrights, weavers,
labourers, and artisans of every kind.”

“Stimulated to it, driven to it, by their employers, the wealthy traders
and shipowners of that city,” Andre-Louis replied. “I have a habit of
observing things at close quarters, which is why our colleagues of the
Literary Chamber dislike me so cordially in debate. Where I delve they
but skim. Behind those labourers and artisans of Nantes, counselling
them, urging on these poor, stupid, ignorant toilers to shed their blood
in pursuit of the will o’ the wisp of freedom, are the sail-makers, the
spinners, the ship-owners and the slave-traders. The slave-traders! The
men who live and grow rich by a traffic in human flesh and blood in
the colonies, are conducting at home a campaign in the sacred name
of liberty! Don’t you see that the whole movement is a movement of
hucksters and traders and peddling vassals swollen by wealth into envy
of the power that lies in birth alone? The money-changers in Paris
who hold the bonds in the national debt, seeing the parlous financial
condition of the State, tremble at the thought that it may lie in
the power of a single man to cancel the debt by bankruptcy. To secure
themselves they are burrowing underground to overthrow a state and build
upon its ruins a new one in which they shall be the masters. And to
accomplish this they inflame the people. Already in Dauphiny we have
seen blood run like water--the blood of the populace, always the blood of
the populace. Now in Brittany we may see the like. And if in the end the
new ideas prevail? if the seigneurial rule is overthrown, what then?
You will have exchanged an aristocracy for a plutocracy. Is that worth
while? Do you think that under money-changers and slave-traders and
men who have waxed rich in other ways by the ignoble arts of buying
and selling, the lot of the people will be any better than under their
priests and nobles? Has it ever occurred to you, Philippe, what it
is that makes the rule of the nobles so intolerable? Acquisitiveness.
Acquisitiveness is the curse of mankind. And shall you expect less
acquisitiveness in men who have built themselves up by acquisitiveness?
Oh, I am ready to admit that the present government is execrable,
unjust, tyrannical--what you will; but I beg you to look ahead, and to
see that the government for which it is aimed at exchanging it may be
infinitely worse.”

Philippe sat thoughtful a moment. Then he returned to the attack.

“You do not speak of the abuses, the horrible, intolerable abuses of
power under which we labour at present.”

“Where there is power there will always be the abuse of it.”

“Not if the tenure of power is dependent upon its equitable
administration.”

“The tenure of power is power. We cannot dictate to those who hold it.”

“The people can--the people in its might.”

“Again I ask you, when you say the people do you mean the populace? You
do. What power can the populace wield? It can run wild. It can burn
and slay for a time. But enduring power it cannot wield, because power
demands qualities which the populace does not possess, or it would
not be populace. The inevitable, tragic corollary of civilization is
populace. For the rest, abuses can be corrected by equity; and equity,
if it is not found in the enlightened, is not to be found at all. M.
Necker is to set about correcting abuses, and limiting privileges. That
is decided. To that end the States General are to assemble.”

“And a promising beginning we have made in Brittany, as Heaven hears
me!” cried Philippe.

“Pooh! That is nothing. Naturally the nobles will not yield without a
struggle. It is a futile and ridiculous struggle--but then... it is human
nature, I suppose, to be futile and ridiculous.”

M. de Vilmorin became witheringly sarcastic. “Probably you will also
qualify the shooting of Mabey as futile and ridiculous. I should even be
prepared to hear you argue in defence of the Marquis de La Tour
d’Azyr that his gamekeeper was merciful in shooting Mabey, since the
alternative would have been a life-sentence to the galleys.”

Andre-Louis drank the remainder of his chocolate; set down his cup, and
pushed back his chair, his breakfast done.

“I confess that I have not your big charity, my dear Philippe. I am
touched by Mabey’s fate. But, having conquered the shock of this news to
my emotions, I do not forget that, after all, Mabey was thieving when he
met his death.”

M. de Vilmorin heaved himself up in his indignation.

“That is the point of view to be expected in one who is the assistant
fiscal intendant of a nobleman, and the delegate of a nobleman to the
States of Brittany.”

“Philippe, is that just? You are angry with me!” he cried, in real
solicitude.

“I am hurt,” Vilmorin admitted. “I am deeply hurt by your attitude. And
I am not alone in resenting your reactionary tendencies. Do you know
that the Literary Chamber is seriously considering your expulsion?”

Andre-Louis shrugged. “That neither surprises nor troubles me.”

M. de Vilmorin swept on, passionately: “Sometimes I think that you have
no heart. With you it is always the law, never equity. It occurs to me,
Andre, that I was mistaken in coming to you. You are not likely to be of
assistance to me in my interview with M. de Kercadiou.” He took up his
hat, clearly with the intention of departing.

Andre-Louis sprang up and caught him by the arm.

“I vow,” said he, “that this is the last time ever I shall consent to
talk law or politics with you, Philippe. I love you too well to quarrel
with you over other men’s affairs.”

“But I make them my own,” Philippe insisted vehemently.

“Of course you do, and I love you for it. It is right that you should.
You are to be a priest; and everybody’s business is a priest’s business.
Whereas I am a lawyer--the fiscal intendant of a nobleman, as you
say--and a lawyer’s business is the business of his client. That is the
difference between us. Nevertheless, you are not going to shake me off.”

“But I tell you frankly, now that I come to think of it, that I should
prefer you did not see M. de Kercadiou with me. Your duty to your client
cannot be a help to me.”

His wrath had passed; but his determination remained firm, based upon
the reason he gave.

“Very well,” said Andre-Louis. “It shall be as you please. But nothing
shall prevent me at least from walking with you as far as the chateau,
and waiting for you while you make your appeal to M. de Kercadiou.”

And so they left the house good friends, for the sweetness of M. de
Vilmorin’s nature did not admit of rancour, and together they took their
way up the steep main street of Gavrillac.





CHAPTER II. THE ARISTOCRAT

The sleepy village of Gavrillac, a half-league removed from the main
road to Rennes, and therefore undisturbed by the world’s traffic, lay
in a curve of the River Meu, at the foot, and straggling halfway up the
slope, of the shallow hill that was crowned by the squat manor. By the
time Gavrillac had paid tribute to its seigneur--partly in money and
partly in service--tithes to the Church, and imposts to the King, it was
hard put to it to keep body and soul together with what remained. Yet,
hard as conditions were in Gavrillac, they were not so hard as in many
other parts of France, not half so hard, for instance, as with the
wretched feudatories of the great Lord of La Tour d’Azyr, whose vast
possessions were at one point separated from this little village by the
waters of the Meu.

The Chateau de Gavrillac owed such seigneurial airs as might be claimed
for it to its dominant position above the village rather than to any
feature of its own. Built of granite, like all the rest of Gavrillac,
though mellowed by some three centuries of existence, it was a squat,
flat-fronted edifice of two stories, each lighted by four windows with
external wooden shutters, and flanked at either end by two square towers
or pavilions under extinguisher roofs. Standing well back in a garden,
denuded now, but very pleasant in summer, and immediately fronted by a
fine sweep of balustraded terrace, it looked, what indeed it was, and
always had been, the residence of unpretentious folk who found more
interest in husbandry than in adventure.

Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac--Seigneur de Gavrillac was all
the vague title that he bore, as his forefathers had borne before him,
derived no man knew whence or how--confirmed the impression that his
house conveyed. Rude as the granite itself, he had never sought the
experience of courts, had not even taken service in the armies of his
King. He left it to his younger brother, Etienne, to represent the
family in those exalted spheres. His own interests from earliest years
had been centred in his woods and pastures. He hunted, and he cultivated
his acres, and superficially he appeared to be little better than any of
his rustic metayers. He kept no state, or at least no state commensurate
with his position or with the tastes of his niece Aline de Kercadiou.
Aline, having spent some two years in the court atmosphere of Versailles
under the aegis of her uncle Etienne, had ideas very different from
those of her uncle Quintin of what was befitting seigneurial dignity.
But though this only child of a third Kercadiou had exercised, ever
since she was left an orphan at the early age of four, a tyrannical rule
over the Lord of Gavrillac, who had been father and mother to her, she
had never yet succeeded in beating down his stubbornness on that
score. She did not yet despair--persistence being a dominant note in
her character--although she had been assiduously and fruitlessly at work
since her return from the great world of Versailles some three months
ago.

She was walking on the terrace when Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin
arrived. Her slight body was wrapped against the chill air in a white
pelisse; her head was encased in a close-fitting bonnet, edged with
white fur. It was caught tight in a knot of pale-blue ribbon on the
right of her chin; on the left a long ringlet of corn-coloured hair had
been permitted to escape. The keen air had whipped so much of her cheeks
as was presented to it, and seemed to have added sparkle to eyes that
were of darkest blue.

Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin had been known to her from childhood. The
three had been playmates once, and Andre-Louis--in view of his spiritual
relationship with her uncle--she called her cousin. The cousinly
relations had persisted between these two long after Philippe de
Vilmorin had outgrown the earlier intimacy, and had become to her
Monsieur de Vilmorin.

She waved her hand to them in greeting as they advanced, and stood--an
entrancing picture, and fully conscious of it--to await them at the end
of the terrace nearest the short avenue by which they approached.

“If you come to see monsieur my uncle, you come inopportunely,
messieurs,” she told them, a certain feverishness in her air. “He is
closely--oh, so very closely--engaged.”

“We will wait, mademoiselle,” said M. de Vilmorin, bowing gallantly over
the hand she extended to him. “Indeed, who would haste to the uncle that
may tarry a moment with the niece?”

“M. l’abbe,” she teased him, “when you are in orders I shall take you
for my confessor. You have so ready and sympathetic an understanding.”

“But no curiosity,” said Andre-Louis. “You haven’t thought of that.”

“I wonder what you mean, Cousin Andre.”

“Well you may,” laughed Philippe. “For no one ever knows.” And then,
his glance straying across the terrace settled upon a carriage that was
drawn up before the door of the chateau. It was a vehicle such as was
often to be seen in the streets of a great city, but rarely in the
country. It was a beautifully sprung two-horse cabriolet of walnut,
with a varnish upon it like a sheet of glass and little pastoral scenes
exquisitely painted on the panels of the door. It was built to carry two
persons, with a box in front for the coachman, and a stand behind for
the footman. This stand was empty, but the footman paced before the
door, and as he emerged now from behind the vehicle into the range of M.
de Vilmorin’s vision, he displayed the resplendent blue-and-gold livery
of the Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr.

“Why!” he exclaimed. “Is it M. de La Tour d’Azyr who is with your
uncle?”

“It is, monsieur,” said she, a world of mystery in voice and eyes, of
which M. de Vilmorin observed nothing.

“Ah, pardon!” he bowed low, hat in hand. “Serviteur, mademoiselle,” and
he turned to depart towards the house.

“Shall I come with you, Philippe?” Andre-Louis called after him.

“It would be ungallant to assume that you would prefer it,” said M. de
Vilmorin, with a glance at mademoiselle. “Nor do I think it would serve.
If you will wait...”

M. de Vilmorin strode off. Mademoiselle, after a moment’s blank pause,
laughed ripplingly. “Now where is he going in such a hurry?”

“To see M. de La Tour d’Azyr as well as your uncle, I should say.”

“But he cannot. They cannot see him. Did I not say that they are
very closely engaged? You don’t ask me why, Andre.” There was an arch
mysteriousness about her, a latent something that may have been elation
or amusement, or perhaps both. Andre-Louis could not determine it.

“Since obviously you are all eagerness to tell, why should I ask?” quoth
he.

“If you are caustic I shall not tell you even if you ask. Oh, yes, I
will. It will teach you to treat me with the respect that is my due.”

“I hope I shall never fail in that.”

“Less than ever when you learn that I am very closely concerned in the
visit of M. de La Tour d’Azyr. I am the object of this visit.” And she
looked at him with sparkling eyes and lips parted in laughter.

“The rest, you would seem to imply, is obvious. But I am a dolt, if you
please; for it is not obvious to me.”

“Why, stupid, he comes to ask my hand in marriage.”

“Good God!” said Andre-Louis, and stared at her, chapfallen.

She drew back from him a little with a frown and an upward tilt of her
chin. “It surprises you?”

“It disgusts me,” said he, bluntly. “In fact, I don’t believe it. You
are amusing yourself with me.”

For a moment she put aside her visible annoyance to remove his doubts.
“I am quite serious, monsieur. There came a formal letter to my uncle
this morning from M. de La Tour d’Azyr, announcing the visit and its
object. I will not say that it did not surprise us a little...”

“Oh, I see,” cried Andre-Louis, in relief. “I understand. For a moment I
had almost feared...” He broke off, looked at her, and shrugged.

“Why do you stop? You had almost feared that Versailles had been wasted
upon me. That I should permit the courtship of me to be conducted like
that of any village wench. It was stupid of you. I am being sought in
proper form, at my uncle’s hands.”

“Is his consent, then, all that matters, according to Versailles?”

“What else?”

“There is your own.”

She laughed. “I am a dutiful niece... when it suits me.”

“And will it suit you to be dutiful if your uncle accepts this monstrous
proposal?”

“Monstrous!” She bridled. “And why monstrous, if you please?”

“For a score of reasons,” he answered irritably.

“Give me one,” she challenged him.

“He is twice your age.”

“Hardly so much,” said she.

“He is forty-five, at least.”

“But he looks no more than thirty. He is very handsome--so much you will
admit; nor will you deny that he is very wealthy and very powerful; the
greatest nobleman in Brittany. He will make me a great lady.”

“God made you that, Aline.”

“Come, that’s better. Sometimes you can almost be polite.” And she moved
along the terrace, Andre-Louis pacing beside her.

“I can be more than that to show reason why you should not let this
beast befoul the beautiful thing that God has made.”

She frowned, and her lips tightened. “You are speaking of my future
husband,” she reproved him.

His lips tightened too; his pale face grew paler.

“And is it so? It is settled, then? Your uncle is to agree? You are to
be sold thus, lovelessly, into bondage to a man you do not know. I had
dreamed of better things for you, Aline.”

“Better than to be Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr?”

He made a gesture of exasperation. “Are men and women nothing more than
names? Do the souls of them count for nothing? Is there no joy in life,
no happiness, that wealth and pleasure and empty, high-sounding titles
are to be its only aims? I had set you high--so high, Aline--a thing
scarce earthly. There is joy in your heart, intelligence in your mind;
and, as I thought, the vision that pierces husks and shams to claim the
core of reality for its own. Yet you will surrender all for a parcel of
make-believe. You will sell your soul and your body to be Marquise de La
Tour d’Azyr.”

“You are indelicate,” said she, and though she frowned her eyes laughed.
“And you go headlong to conclusions. My uncle will not consent to more
than to allow my consent to be sought. We understand each other, my
uncle and I. I am not to be bartered like a turnip.”

He stood still to face her, his eyes glowing, a flush creeping into his
pale cheeks.

“You have been torturing me to amuse yourself!” he cried. “Ah, well, I
forgive you out of my relief.”

“Again you go too fast, Cousin Andre. I have permitted my uncle to
consent that M. le Marquis shall make his court to me. I like the look
of the gentleman. I am flattered by his preference when I consider his
eminence. It is an eminence that I may find it desirable to share. M. le
Marquis does not look as if he were a dullard. It should be interesting
to be wooed by him. It may be more interesting still to marry him, and
I think, when all is considered, that I shall probably--very
probably--decide to do so.”

He looked at her, looked at the sweet, challenging loveliness of that
childlike face so tightly framed in the oval of white fur, and all the
life seemed to go out of his own countenance.

“God help you, Aline!” he groaned.

She stamped her foot. He was really very exasperating, and something
presumptuous too, she thought.

“You are insolent, monsieur.”

“It is never insolent to pray, Aline. And I did no more than pray, as I
shall continue to do. You’ll need my prayers, I think.”

“You are insufferable!” She was growing angry, as he saw by the
deepening frown, the heightened colour.

“That is because I suffer. Oh, Aline, little cousin, think well of what
you do; think well of the realities you will be bartering for these
shams--the realities that you will never know, because these cursed shams
will block your way to them. When M. de La Tour d’Azyr comes to make his
court, study him well; consult your fine instincts; leave your own noble
nature free to judge this animal by its intuitions. Consider that...”

“I consider, monsieur, that you presume upon the kindness I have always
shown you. You abuse the position of toleration in which you stand. Who
are you? What are you, that you should have the insolence to take this
tone with me?”

He bowed, instantly his cold, detached self again, and resumed the
mockery that was his natural habit.

“My congratulations, mademoiselle, upon the readiness with which you
begin to adapt yourself to the great role you are to play.”

“Do you adapt yourself also, monsieur,” she retorted angrily, and turned
her shoulder to him.

“To be as the dust beneath the haughty feet of Madame la Marquise. I
hope I shall know my place in future.”

The phrase arrested her. She turned to him again, and he perceived that
her eyes were shining now suspiciously. In an instant the mockery in him
was quenched in contrition.

“Lord, what a beast I am, Aline!” he cried, as he advanced. “Forgive me
if you can.”

Almost had she turned to sue forgiveness from him. But his contrition
removed the need.

“I’ll try,” said she, “provided that you undertake not to offend again.”

“But I shall,” said he. “I am like that. I will fight to save you, from
yourself if need be, whether you forgive me or not.”

They were standing so, confronting each other a little breathlessly, a
little defiantly, when the others issued from the porch.

First came the Marquis of La Tour d’Azyr, Count of Solz, Knight of the
Orders of the Holy Ghost and Saint Louis, and Brigadier in the armies
of the King. He was a tall, graceful man, upright and soldierly of
carriage, with his head disdainfully set upon his shoulders. He was
magnificently dressed in a full-skirted coat of mulberry velvet that was
laced with gold. His waistcoat, of velvet too, was of a golden
apricot colour; his breeches and stockings were of black silk, and his
lacquered, red-heeled shoes were buckled in diamonds. His powdered hair
was tied behind in a broad ribbon of watered silk; he carried a little
three-cornered hat under his arm, and a gold-hilted slender dress-sword
hung at his side.

Considering him now in complete detachment, observing the magnificence
of him, the elegance of his movements, the great air, blending in so
extraordinary a manner disdain and graciousness, Andre-Louis trembled
for Aline. Here was a practised, irresistible wooer, whose bonnes
fortunes were become a by-word, a man who had hitherto been the despair
of dowagers with marriageable daughters, and the desolation of husbands
with attractive wives.

He was immediately followed by M. de Kercadiou, in completest contrast.
On legs of the shortest, the Lord of Gavrillac carried a body that at
forty-five was beginning to incline to corpulence and an enormous head
containing an indifferent allotment of intelligence. His countenance
was pink and blotchy, liberally branded by the smallpox which had almost
extinguished him in youth. In dress he was careless to the point
of untidiness, and to this and to the fact that he had never
married--disregarding the first duty of a gentleman to provide himself
with an heir--he owed the character of misogynist attributed to him by
the countryside.

After M. de Kercadiou came M. de Vilmorin, very pale and self-contained,
with tight lips and an overcast brow.

To meet them, there stepped from the carriage a very elegant young
gentleman, the Chevalier de Chabrillane, M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s
cousin, who whilst awaiting his return had watched with considerable
interest--his own presence unsuspected--the perambulations of Andre-Louis
and mademoiselle.

Perceiving Aline, M. de La Tour d’Azyr detached himself from the others,
and lengthening his stride came straight across the terrace to her.

To Andre-Louis the Marquis inclined his head with that mixture of
courtliness and condescension which he used. Socially, the young lawyer
stood in a curious position. By virtue of the theory of his birth, he
ranked neither as noble nor as simple, but stood somewhere between the
two classes, and whilst claimed by neither he was used familiarly
by both. Coldly now he returned M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s greeting, and
discreetly removed himself to go and join his friend.

The Marquis took the hand that mademoiselle extended to him, and bowing
over it, bore it to his lips.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, looking into the blue depths of her eyes, that
met his gaze smiling and untroubled, “monsieur your uncle does me the
honour to permit that I pay my homage to you. Will you, mademoiselle,
do me the honour to receive me when I come to-morrow? I shall have
something of great importance for your ear.”

“Of importance, M. le Marquis? You almost frighten me.” But there was
no fear on the serene little face in its furred hood. It was not
for nothing that she had graduated in the Versailles school of
artificialities.

“That,” said he, “is very far from my design.”

“But of importance to yourself, monsieur, or to me?”

“To us both, I hope,” he answered her, a world of meaning in his fine,
ardent eyes.

“You whet my curiosity, monsieur; and, of course, I am a dutiful niece.
It follows that I shall be honoured to receive you.”

“Not honoured, mademoiselle; you will confer the honour. To-morrow at
this hour, then, I shall have the felicity to wait upon you.”

He bowed again; and again he bore her fingers to his lips, what time she
curtsied. Thereupon, with no more than this formal breaking of the ice,
they parted.

She was a little breathless now, a little dazzled by the beauty of the
man, his princely air, and the confidence of power he seemed to radiate.
Involuntarily almost, she contrasted him with his critic--the lean and
impudent Andre-Louis in his plain brown coat and steel-buckled shoes--and
she felt guilty of an unpardonable offence in having permitted even one
word of that presumptuous criticism. To-morrow M. le Marquis would
come to offer her a great position, a great rank. And already she had
derogated from the increase of dignity accruing to her from his very
intention to translate her to so great an eminence. Not again would
she suffer it; not again would she be so weak and childish as to permit
Andre-Louis to utter his ribald comments upon a man by comparison with
whom he was no better than a lackey.

Thus argued vanity and ambition with her better self and to her vast
annoyance her better self would not admit entire conviction.

Meanwhile, M. de La Tour d’Azyr was climbing into his carriage. He had
spoken a word of farewell to M. de Kercadiou, and he had also had a
word for M. de Vilmorin in reply to which M. de Vilmorin had bowed in
assenting silence. The carriage rolled away, the powdered footman in
blue-and-gold very stiff behind it, M. de La Tour d’Azyr bowing to
mademoiselle, who waved to him in answer.

Then M. de Vilmorin put his arm through that of Andre Louis, and said to
him, “Come, Andre.”

“But you’ll stay to dine, both of you!” cried the hospitable Lord of
Gavrillac. “We’ll drink a certain toast,” he added, winking an eye that
strayed towards mademoiselle, who was approaching. He had no subtleties,
good soul that he was.

M. de Vilmorin deplored an appointment that prevented him doing himself
the honour. He was very stiff and formal.

“And you, Andre?”

“I? Oh, I share the appointment, godfather,” he lied, “and I have a
superstition against toasts.” He had no wish to remain. He was angry
with Aline for her smiling reception of M. de La Tour d’Azyr and the
sordid bargain he saw her set on making. He was suffering from the loss
of an illusion.





CHAPTER III. THE ELOQUENCE OF M. DE VILMORIN

As they walked down the hill together, it was now M. de Vilmorin who
was silent and preoccupied, Andre-Louis who was talkative. He had
chosen Woman as a subject for his present discourse. He claimed--quite
unjustifiably--to have discovered Woman that morning; and the things he
had to say of the sex were unflattering, and occasionally almost gross.
M. de Vilmorin, having ascertained the subject, did not listen. Singular
though it may seem in a young French abbe of his day, M. de Vilmorin was
not interested in Woman. Poor Philippe was in several ways exceptional.
Opposite the Breton arme--the inn and posting-house at the entrance of
the village of Gavrillac--M. de Vilmorin interrupted his companion just
as he was soaring to the dizziest heights of caustic invective, and
Andre-Louis, restored thereby to actualities, observed the carriage of
M. de La Tour d’Azyr standing before the door of the hostelry.

“I don’t believe you’ve been listening to me,” said he.

“Had you been less interested in what you were saying, you might have
observed it sooner and spared your breath. The fact is, you disappoint
me, Andre. You seem to have forgotten what we went for. I have an
appointment here with M. le Marquis. He desires to hear me further in
the matter. Up there at Gavrillac I could accomplish nothing. The time
was ill-chosen as it happened. But I have hopes of M. le Marquis.”

“Hopes of what?”

“That he will make what reparation lies in his power. Provide for the
widow and the orphans. Why else should he desire to hear me further?”

“Unusual condescension,” said Andre-Louis, and quoted “Timeo Danaos et
dona ferentes.”

“Why?” asked Philippe.

“Let us go and discover--unless you consider that I shall be in the way.”

Into a room on the right, rendered private to M. le Marquis for so long
as he should elect to honour it, the young men were ushered by the host.
A fire of logs was burning brightly at the room’s far end, and by
this sat now M. de La Tour d’Azyr and his cousin, the Chevalier de
Chabrillane. Both rose as M. de Vilmorin came in. Andre-Louis following,
paused to close the door.

“You oblige me by your prompt courtesy, M. de Vilmorin,” said the
Marquis, but in a tone so cold as to belie the politeness of his words.
“A chair, I beg. Ah, Moreau?” The note was frigidly interrogative. “He
accompanies you, monsieur?” he asked.

“If you please, M. le Marquis.”

“Why not? Find yourself a seat, Moreau.” He spoke over his shoulder as
to a lackey.

“It is good of you, monsieur,” said Philippe, “to have offered me this
opportunity of continuing the subject that took me so fruitlessly, as it
happens, to Gavrillac.”

The Marquis crossed his legs, and held one of his fine hands to the
blaze. He replied, without troubling to turn to the young man, who was
slightly behind him.

“The goodness of my request we will leave out of question for the
moment,” said he, darkly, and M. de Chabrillane laughed. Andre-Louis
thought him easily moved to mirth, and almost envied him the faculty.

“But I am grateful,” Philippe insisted, “that you should condescend to
hear me plead their cause.”

The Marquis stared at him over his shoulder. “Whose cause?” quoth he.

“Why, the cause of the widow and orphans of this unfortunate Mabey.”

The Marquis looked from Vilmorin to the Chevalier, and again the
Chevalier laughed, slapping his leg this time.

“I think,” said M. de La Tour d’Azyr, slowly, “that we are at
cross-purposes. I asked you to come here because the Chateau de
Gavrillac was hardly a suitable place in which to carry our discussion
further, and because I hesitated to incommode you by suggesting that you
should come all the way to Azyr. But my object is connected with certain
expressions that you let fall up there. It is on the subject of those
expressions, monsieur, that I would hear you further--if you will honour
me.”

Andre-Louis began to apprehend that there was something sinister in the
air. He was a man of quick intuitions, quicker far than those of M. de
Vilmorin, who evinced no more than a mild surprise.

“I am at a loss, monsieur,” said he. “To what expressions does monsieur
allude?”

“It seems, monsieur, that I must refresh your memory.” The Marquis
crossed his legs, and swung sideways on his chair, so that at last he
directly faced M. de Vilmorin. “You spoke, monsieur--and however mistaken
you may have been, you spoke very eloquently, too eloquently almost, it
seemed to me--of the infamy of such a deed as the act of summary justice
upon this thieving fellow Mabey, or whatever his name may be. Infamy was
the precise word you used. You did not retract that word when I had the
honour to inform you that it was by my orders that my gamekeeper Benet
proceeded as he did.”

“If,” said M. de Vilmorin, “the deed was infamous, its infamy is not
modified by the rank, however exalted, of the person responsible. Rather
is it aggravated.”

“Ah!” said M. le Marquis, and drew a gold snuffbox from his pocket. “You
say, ‘if the deed was infamous,’ monsieur. Am I to understand that you
are no longer as convinced as you appeared to be of its infamy?”

M. de Vilmorin’s fine face wore a look of perplexity. He did not
understand the drift of this.

“It occurs to me, M. le Marquis, in view of your readiness to assume
responsibility, that you must believe justification for the deed which
is not apparent to myself.”

“That is better. That is distinctly better.” The Marquis took snuff
delicately, dusting the fragments from the fine lace at his throat. “You
realize that with an imperfect understanding of these matters, not being
yourself a landowner, you may have rushed to unjustifiable conclusions.
That is indeed the case. May it be a warning to you, monsieur. When
I tell you that for months past I have been annoyed by similar
depredations, you will perhaps understand that it had become necessary
to employ a deterrent sufficiently strong to put an end to them. Now
that the risk is known, I do not think there will be any more prowling
in my coverts. And there is more in it than that, M. de Vilmorin. It is
not the poaching that annoys me so much as the contempt for my absolute
and inviolable rights. There is, monsieur, as you cannot fail to have
observed, an evil spirit of insubordination in the air, and there is
one only way in which to meet it. To tolerate it, in however slight
a degree, to show leniency, however leniently disposed, would entail
having recourse to still harsher measures to-morrow. You understand me,
I am sure, and you will also, I am sure, appreciate the condescension
of what amounts to an explanation from me where I cannot admit that any
explanations were due. If anything in what I have said is still obscure
to you, I refer you to the game laws, which your lawyer friend there
will expound for you at need.”

With that the gentleman swung round again to face the fire. It appeared
to convey the intimation that the interview was at an end. And yet this
was not by any means the intimation that it conveyed to the watchful,
puzzled, vaguely uneasy Andre-Louis. It was, thought he, a very curious,
a very suspicious oration. It affected to explain, with a politeness of
terms and a calculated insolence of tone; whilst in fact it could only
serve to stimulate and goad a man of M. de Vilmorin’s opinions. And that
is precisely what it did. He rose.

“Are there in the world no laws but game laws?” he demanded, angrily.
“Have you never by any chance heard of the laws of humanity?”

The Marquis sighed wearily. “What have I to do with the laws of
humanity?” he wondered.

M. de Vilmorin looked at him a moment in speechless amazement.

“Nothing, M. le Marquis. That is--alas!--too obvious. I hope you will
remember it in the hour when you may wish to appeal to those laws which
you now deride.”

M. de La Tour d’Azyr threw back his head sharply, his high-bred face
imperious.

“Now what precisely shall that mean? It is not the first time to-day
that you have made use of dark sayings that I could almost believe to
veil the presumption of a threat.”

“Not a threat, M. le Marquis--a warning. A warning that such deeds as
these against God’s creatures... Oh, you may sneer, monsieur, but they
are God’s creatures, even as you or I--neither more nor less, deeply
though the reflection may wound your pride. In His eyes...”

“Of your charity, spare me a sermon, M. l’abbe!”

“You mock, monsieur. You laugh. Will you laugh, I wonder, when God
presents His reckoning to you for the blood and plunder with which your
hands are full?”

“Monsieur!” The word, sharp as the crack of a whip, was from M.
de Chabrillane, who bounded to his feet. But instantly the Marquis
repressed him.

“Sit down, Chevalier. You are interrupting M. l’abbe, and I should like
to hear him further. He interests me profoundly.”

In the background Andre-Louis, too, had risen, brought to his feet by
alarm, by the evil that he saw written on the handsome face of M. de La
Tour d’Azyr. He approached, and touched his friend upon the arm.

“Better be going, Philippe,” said he.

But M. de Vilmorin, caught in the relentless grip of passions long
repressed, was being hurried by them recklessly along.

“Oh, monsieur,” said he, “consider what you are and what you will be.
Consider how you and your kind live by abuses, and consider the harvest
that abuses must ultimately bring.”

“Revolutionist!” said M. le Marquis, contemptuously. “You have the
effrontery to stand before my face and offer me this stinking cant of
your modern so-called intellectuals!”

“Is it cant, monsieur? Do you think--do you believe in your soul--that
it is cant? Is it cant that the feudal grip is on all things that live,
crushing them like grapes in the press, to its own profit? Does it not
exercise its rights upon the waters of the river, the fire that bakes
the poor man’s bread of grass and barley, on the wind that turns the
mill? The peasant cannot take a step upon the road, cross a crazy bridge
over a river, buy an ell of cloth in the village market, without meeting
feudal rapacity, without being taxed in feudal dues. Is not that enough,
M. le Marquis? Must you also demand his wretched life in payment for the
least infringement of your sacred privileges, careless of what widows
or orphans you dedicate to woe? Will naught content you but that your
shadow must lie like a curse upon the land? And do you think in your
pride that France, this Job among the nations, will suffer it forever?”

He paused as if for a reply. But none came. The Marquis considered him,
strangely silent, a half smile of disdain at the corners of his lips, an
ominous hardness in his eyes.

Again Andre-Louis tugged at his friend’s sleeve.

“Philippe.”

Philippe shook him off, and plunged on, fanatically.

“Do you see nothing of the gathering clouds that herald the coming of
the storm? You imagine, perhaps, that these States General summoned
by M. Necker, and promised for next year, are to do nothing but devise
fresh means of extortion to liquidate the bankruptcy of the State?
You delude yourselves, as you shall find. The Third Estate, which you
despise, will prove itself the preponderating force, and it will find
a way to make an end of this canker of privilege that is devouring the
vitals of this unfortunate country.”

M. le Marquis shifted in his chair, and spoke at last.

“You have, monsieur,” said he, “a very dangerous gift of eloquence. And
it is of yourself rather than of your subject. For after all, what
do you offer me? A rechauffe of the dishes served to out-at-elbow
enthusiasts in the provincial literary chambers, compounded of the
effusions of your Voltaires and Jean-Jacques and such dirty-fingered
scribblers. You have not among all your philosophers one with the wit to
understand that we are an order consecrated by antiquity, that for our
rights and privileges we have behind us the authority of centuries.”

“Humanity, monsieur,” Philippe replied, “is more ancient than nobility.
Human rights are contemporary with man.”

The Marquis laughed and shrugged.

“That is the answer I might have expected. It has the right note of cant
that distinguishes the philosophers.”

And then M. de Chabrillane spoke.

“You go a long way round,” he criticized his cousin, on a note of
impatience.

“But I am getting there,” he was answered. “I desired to make quite
certain first.”

“Faith, you should have no doubt by now.”

“I have none.” The Marquis rose, and turned again to M. de Vilmorin, who
had understood nothing of that brief exchange. “M. l’abbe,” said he once
more, “you have a very dangerous gift of eloquence. I can conceive of
men being swayed by it. Had you been born a gentleman, you would not so
easily have acquired these false views that you express.”

M. de Vilmorin stared blankly, uncomprehending.

“Had I been born a gentleman, do you say?” quoth he, in a slow,
bewildered voice. “But I was born a gentleman. My race is as old, my
blood as good as yours, monsieur.”

From M. le Marquis there was a slight play of eyebrows, a vague,
indulgent smile. His dark, liquid eyes looked squarely into the face of
M. de Vilmorin.

“You have been deceived in that, I fear.”

“Deceived?”

“Your sentiments betray the indiscretion of which madame your mother
must have been guilty.”

The brutally affronting words were sped beyond recall, and the lips that
had uttered them, coldly, as if they had been the merest commonplace,
remained calm and faintly sneering.

A dead silence followed. Andre-Louis’ wits were numbed. He stood aghast,
all thought suspended in him, what time M. de Vilmorin’s eyes continued
fixed upon M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s, as if searching there for a meaning
that eluded him. Quite suddenly he understood the vile affront. The
blood leapt to his face, fire blazed in his gentle eyes. A convulsive
quiver shook him. Then, with an inarticulate cry, he leaned forward, and
with his open hand struck M. le Marquis full and hard upon his sneering
face.

In a flash M. de Chabrillane was on his feet, between the two men.

Too late Andre-Louis had seen the trap. La Tour d’Azyr’s words were but
as a move in a game of chess, calculated to exasperate his opponent into
some such counter-move as this--a counter-move that left him entirely at
the other’s mercy.

M. le Marquis looked on, very white save where M. de Vilmorin’s
finger-prints began slowly to colour his face; but he said nothing more.
Instead, it was M. de Chabrillane who now did the talking, taking up his
preconcerted part in this vile game.

“You realize, monsieur, what you have done,” said he, coldly, to
Philippe. “And you realize, of course, what must inevitably follow.”

M. de Vilmorin had realized nothing. The poor young man had acted upon
impulse, upon the instinct of decency and honour, never counting the
consequences. But he realized them now at the sinister invitation of M.
de Chabrillane, and if he desired to avoid these consequences, it was
out of respect for his priestly vocation, which strictly forbade such
adjustments of disputes as M. de Chabrillane was clearly thrusting upon
him.

He drew back. “Let one affront wipe out the other,” said he, in a dull
voice. “The balance is still in M. le Marquis’s favour. Let that content
him.”

“Impossible.” The Chevalier’s lips came together tightly. Thereafter he
was suavity itself, but very firm. “A blow has been struck, monsieur. I
think I am correct in saying that such a thing has never happened before
to M. le Marquis in all his life. If you felt yourself affronted, you
had but to ask the satisfaction due from one gentleman to another. Your
action would seem to confirm the assumption that you found so
offensive. But it does not on that account render you immune from the
consequences.”

It was, you see, M. de Chabrillane’s part to heap coals upon this fire,
to make quite sure that their victim should not escape them.

“I desire no immunity,” flashed back the young seminarist, stung by
this fresh goad. After all, he was nobly born, and the traditions of his
class were strong upon him--stronger far than the seminarist schooling in
humility. He owed it to himself, to his honour, to be killed rather than
avoid the consequences of the thing he had done.

“But he does not wear a sword, messieurs!” cried Andre Louis, aghast.

“That is easily amended. He may have the loan of mine.”

“I mean, messieurs,” Andre-Louis insisted, between fear for his friend
and indignation, “that it is not his habit to wear a sword, that he has
never worn one, that he is untutored in its uses. He is a seminarist--a
postulant for holy orders, already half a priest, and so forbidden from
such an engagement as you propose.”

“All that he should have remembered before he struck a blow,” said M. de
Chabrillane, politely.

“The blow was deliberately provoked,” raged Andre-Louis. Then he
recovered himself, though the other’s haughty stare had no part in
that recovery. “O my God, I talk in vain! How is one to argue against a
purpose formed! Come away, Philippe. Don’t you see the trap...”

M. de Vilmorin cut him short, and flung him off. “Be quiet, Andre. M. le
Marquis is entirely in the right.”

“M. le Marquis is in the right?” Andre-Louis let his arms fall
helplessly. This man he loved above all other living men was caught in
the snare of the world’s insanity. He was baring his breast to the knife
for the sake of a vague, distorted sense of the honour due to himself.
It was not that he did not see the trap. It was that his honour
compelled him to disdain consideration of it. To Andre-Louis in that
moment he seemed a singularly tragic figure. Noble, perhaps, but very
pitiful.





CHAPTER IV. THE HERITAGE

It was M. de Vilmorin’s desire that the matter should be settled out
of hand. In this he was at once objective and subjective. A prey to
emotions sadly at conflict with his priestly vocation, he was above
all in haste to have done, so that he might resume a frame of mind more
proper to it. Also he feared himself a little; by which I mean that his
honour feared his nature. The circumstances of his education, and the
goal that for some years now he had kept in view, had robbed him of much
of that spirited brutality that is the birthright of the male. He had
grown timid and gentle as a woman. Aware of it, he feared that once the
heat of his passion was spent he might betray a dishonouring weakness,
in the ordeal.

M. le Marquis, on his side, was no less eager for an immediate
settlement; and since they had M. de Chabrillane to act for his cousin,
and Andre-Louis to serve as witness for M. de Vilmorin, there was
nothing to delay them.

And so, within a few minutes, all arrangements were concluded, and you
behold that sinisterly intentioned little group of four assembled in
the afternoon sunshine on the bowling-green behind the inn. They were
entirely private, screened more or less from the windows of the house by
a ramage of trees, which, if leafless now, was at least dense enough to
provide an effective lattice.

There were no formalities over measurements of blades or selection
of ground. M. le Marquis removed his sword-belt and scabbard, but
declined--not considering it worth while for the sake of so negligible an
opponent--to divest himself either of his shoes or his coat. Tall, lithe,
and athletic, he stood to face the no less tall, but very delicate and
frail, M. de Vilmorin. The latter also disdained to make any of the
usual preparations. Since he recognized that it could avail him nothing
to strip, he came on guard fully dressed, two hectic spots above the
cheek-bones burning on his otherwise grey face.

M. de Chabrillane, leaning upon a cane--for he had relinquished his sword
to M. de Vilmorin--looked on with quiet interest. Facing him on the
other side of the combatants stood Andre-Louis, the palest of the four,
staring from fevered eyes, twisting and untwisting clammy hands.

His every instinct was to fling himself between the antagonists, to
protest against and frustrate this meeting. That sane impulse was
curbed, however, by the consciousness of its futility. To calm him, he
clung to the conviction that the issue could not really be very serious.
If the obligations of Philippe’s honour compelled him to cross swords
with the man he had struck, M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s birth compelled him
no less to do no serious hurt to the unfledged lad he had so grievously
provoked. M. le Marquis, after all, was a man of honour. He could intend
no more than to administer a lesson; sharp, perhaps, but one by which
his opponent must live to profit. Andre-Louis clung obstinately to that
for comfort.

Steel beat on steel, and the men engaged. The Marquis presented to his
opponent the narrow edge of his upright body, his knees slightly flexed
and converted into living springs, whilst M. de Vilmorin stood squarely,
a full target, his knees wooden. Honour and the spirit of fair play
alike cried out against such a match.

The encounter was very short, of course. In youth, Philippe had received
the tutoring in sword-play that was given to every boy born into his
station of life. And so he knew at least the rudiments of what was
now expected of him. But what could rudiments avail him here? Three
disengages completed the exchanges, and then without any haste the
Marquis slid his right foot along the moist turf, his long, graceful
body extending itself in a lunge that went under M. de Vilmorin’s clumsy
guard, and with the utmost deliberation he drove his blade through the
young man’s vitals.

Andre-Louis sprang forward just in time to catch his friend’s body under
the armpits as it sank. Then, his own legs bending beneath the weight of
it, he went down with his burden until he was kneeling on the damp turf.
Philippe’s limp head lay against Andre-Louis’ left shoulder; Philippe’s
relaxed arms trailed at his sides; the blood welled and bubbled from the
ghastly wound to saturate the poor lad’s garments.

With white face and twitching lips, Andre-Louis looked up at M. de La
Tour d’Azyr, who stood surveying his work with a countenance of grave
but remorseless interest.

“You have killed him!” cried Andre-Louis.

“Of course.”

The Marquis ran a lace handkerchief along his blade to wipe it. As he
let the dainty fabric fall, he explained himself. “He had, as I told
him, a too dangerous gift of eloquence.”

And he turned away, leaving completest understanding with Andre-Louis.
Still supporting the limp, draining body, the young man called to him.

“Come back, you cowardly murderer, and make yourself quite safe by
killing me too!”

The Marquis half turned, his face dark with anger. Then M. de
Chabrillane set a restraining hand upon his arm. Although a party
throughout to the deed, the Chevalier was a little appalled now that it
was done. He had not the high stomach of M. de La Tour d’Azyr, and he
was a good deal younger.

“Come away,” he said. “The lad is raving. They were friends.”

“You heard what he said?” quoth the Marquis.

“Nor can he, or you, or any man deny it,” flung back Andre-Louis.
“Yourself, monsieur, you made confession when you gave me now the reason
why you killed him. You did it because you feared him.”

“If that were true--what, then?” asked the great gentleman.

“Do you ask? Do you understand of life and humanity nothing but how to
wear a coat and dress your hair--oh, yes, and to handle weapons against
boys and priests? Have you no mind to think, no soul into which you can
turn its vision? Must you be told that it is a coward’s part to kill the
thing he fears, and doubly a coward’s part to kill in this way? Had you
stabbed him in the back with a knife, you would have shown the courage
of your vileness. It would have been a vileness undisguised. But you
feared the consequences of that, powerful as you are; and so you shelter
your cowardice under the pretext of a duel.”

The Marquis shook off his cousin’s hand, and took a step forward,
holding now his sword like a whip. But again the Chevalier caught and
held him.

“No, no, Gervais! Let be, in God’s name!”

“Let him come, monsieur,” raved Andre-Louis, his voice thick and
concentrated. “Let him complete his coward’s work on me, and thus make
himself safe from a coward’s wages.”

M. de Chabrillane let his cousin go. He came white to the lips, his eyes
glaring at the lad who so recklessly insulted him. And then he checked.
It may be that he remembered suddenly the relationship in which this
young man was popularly believed to stand to the Seigneur de Gavrillac,
and the well-known affection in which the Seigneur held him. And so he
may have realized that if he pushed this matter further, he might find
himself upon the horns of a dilemma. He would be confronted with the
alternatives of shedding more blood, and so embroiling himself with the
Lord of Gavrillac at a time when that gentleman’s friendship was of the
first importance to him, or else of withdrawing with such hurt to his
dignity as must impair his authority in the countryside hereafter.

Be it so or otherwise, the fact remains that he stopped short; then,
with an incoherent ejaculation, between anger and contempt, he tossed
his arms, turned on his heel and strode off quickly with his cousin.

When the landlord and his people came, they found Andre-Louis, his arms
about the body of his dead friend, murmuring passionately into the deaf
ear that rested almost against his lips:

“Philippe! Speak to me, Philippe! Philippe... Don’t you hear me? O God
of Heaven! Philippe!”

At a glance they saw that here neither priest nor doctor could avail.
The cheek that lay against Andre-Louis’s was leaden-hued, the half-open
eyes were glazed, and there was a little froth of blood upon the
vacuously parted lips.

Half blinded by tears Andre-Louis stumbled after them when they bore the
body into the inn. Upstairs in the little room to which they conveyed
it, he knelt by the bed, and holding the dead man’s hand in both his
own, he swore to him out of his impotent rage that M. de La Tour d’Azyr
should pay a bitter price for this.

“It was your eloquence he feared, Philippe,” he said. “Then if I can
get no justice for this deed, at least it shall be fruitless to him. The
thing he feared in you, he shall fear in me. He feared that men might be
swayed by your eloquence to the undoing of such things as himself. Men
shall be swayed by it still. For your eloquence and your arguments shall
be my heritage from you. I will make them my own. It matters nothing
that I do not believe in your gospel of freedom. I know it--every word of
it; that is all that matters to our purpose, yours and mine. If all else
fails, your thoughts shall find expression in my living tongue. Thus
at least we shall have frustrated his vile aim to still the voice he
feared. It shall profit him nothing to have your blood upon his soul.
That voice in you would never half so relentlessly have hounded him and
his as it shall in me--if all else fails.”

It was an exulting thought. It calmed him; it soothed his grief, and he
began very softly to pray. And then his heart trembled as he considered
that Philippe, a man of peace, almost a priest, an apostle of
Christianity, had gone to his Maker with the sin of anger on his soul.
It was horrible. Yet God would see the righteousness of that anger. And
in no case--be man’s interpretation of Divinity what it might--could that
one sin outweigh the loving good that Philippe had ever practised, the
noble purity of his great heart. God after all, reflected Andre-Louis,
was not a grand-seigneur.





CHAPTER V. THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC

For the second time that day Andre-Louis set out for the chateau,
walking briskly, and heeding not at all the curious eyes that followed
him through the village, and the whisperings that marked his passage
through the people, all agog by now with that day’s event in which he
had been an actor.

He was ushered by Benoit, the elderly body-servant, rather
grandiloquently called the seneschal, into the ground-floor room known
traditionally as the library. It still contained several shelves of
neglected volumes, from which it derived its title, but implements
of the chase--fowling-pieces, powder-horns, hunting-bags,
sheath-knives--obtruded far more prominently than those of study. The
furniture was massive, of oak richly carved, and belonging to another
age. Great massive oak beams crossed the rather lofty whitewashed
ceiling.

Here the squat Seigneur de Gavrillac was restlessly pacing when
Andre-Louis was introduced. He was already informed, as he announced at
once, of what had taken place at the Breton arme. M. de Chabrillane
had just left him, and he confessed himself deeply grieved and deeply
perplexed.

“The pity of it!” he said. “The pity of it!” He bowed his enormous head.
“So estimable a young man, and so full of promise. Ah, this La Tour
d’Azyr is a hard man, and he feels very strongly in these matters.
He may be right. I don’t know. I have never killed a man for holding
different views from mine. In fact, I have never killed a man at all.
It isn’t in my nature. I shouldn’t sleep of nights if I did. But men are
differently made.”

“The question, monsieur my godfather,” said Andre-Louis, “is what is to
be done.” He was quite calm and self-possessed, but very white.

M. de Kercadiou stared at him blankly out of his pale eyes.

“Why, what the devil is there to do? From what I am told, Vilmorin went
so far as to strike M. le Marquis.”

“Under the very grossest provocation.”

“Which he himself provoked by his revolutionary language. The poor
lad’s head was full of this encyclopaedist trash. It comes of too much
reading. I have never set much store by books, Andre; and I have never
known anything but trouble to come out of learning. It unsettles a man.
It complicates his views of life, destroys the simplicity which makes
for peace of mind and happiness. Let this miserable affair be a warning
to you, Andre. You are, yourself, too prone to these new-fashioned
speculations upon a different constitution of the social order. You
see what comes of it. A fine, estimable young man, the only prop of
his widowed mother too, forgets himself, his position, his duty to that
mother--everything; and goes and gets himself killed like this. It is
infernally sad. On my soul it is sad.” He produced a handkerchief, and
blew his nose with vehemence.

Andre-Louis felt a tightening of his heart, a lessening of the hopes,
never too sanguine, which he had founded upon his godfather.

“Your criticisms,” he said, “are all for the conduct of the dead, and
none for that of the murderer. It does not seem possible that you should
be in sympathy with such a crime.”

“Crime?” shrilled M. de Kercadiou. “My God, boy, you are speaking of M.
de La Tour d’Azyr.”

“I am, and of the abominable murder he has committed...”

“Stop!” M. de Kercadiou was very emphatic. “I cannot permit that you
apply such terms to him. I cannot permit it. M. le Marquis is my friend,
and is likely very soon to stand in a still closer relationship.”

“Notwithstanding this?” asked Andre-Louis.

M. de Kercadiou was frankly impatient.

“Why, what has this to do with it? I may deplore it. But I have no
right to condemn it. It is a common way of adjusting differences between
gentlemen.”

“You really believe that?”

“What the devil do you imply, Andre? Should I say a thing that I don’t
believe? You begin to make me angry.”

“‘Thou shalt not kill,’ is the King’s law as well as God’s.”

“You are determined to quarrel with me, I think. It was a duel...”

Andre-Louis interrupted him. “It is no more a duel than if it had been
fought with pistols of which only M. le Marquis’s was loaded. He invited
Philippe to discuss the matter further, with the deliberate intent of
forcing a quarrel upon him and killing him. Be patient with me, monsieur
my god-father. I am not telling you of what I imagine but what M. le
Marquis himself admitted to me.”

Dominated a little by the young man’s earnestness, M. de Kercadiou’s
pale eyes fell away. He turned with a shrug, and sauntered over to the
window.

“It would need a court of honour to decide such an issue. And we have no
courts of honour,” he said.

“But we have courts of justice.”

With returning testiness the seigneur swung round to face him again.
“And what court of justice, do you think, would listen to such a plea as
you appear to have in mind?”

“There is the court of the King’s Lieutenant at Rennes.”

“And do you think the King’s Lieutenant would listen to you?”

“Not to me, perhaps, Monsieur. But if you were to bring the plaint...”

“I bring the plaint?” M. de Kercadiou’s pale eyes were wide with horror
of the suggestion.

“The thing happened here on your domain.”

“I bring a plaint against M. de La Tour d’Azyr! You are out of your
senses, I think. Oh, you are mad; as mad as that poor friend of yours
who has come to this end through meddling in what did not concern him.
The language he used here to M. le Marquis on the score of Mabey was
of the most offensive. Perhaps you didn’t know that. It does not at all
surprise me that the Marquis should have desired satisfaction.”

“I see,” said Andre-Louis, on a note of hopelessness.

“You see? What the devil do you see?”

“That I shall have to depend upon myself alone.”

“And what the devil do you propose to do, if you please?”

“I shall go to Rennes, and lay the facts before the King’s Lieutenant.”

“He’ll be too busy to see you.” And M. de Kercadiou’s mind swung a
trifle inconsequently, as weak minds will. “There is trouble enough in
Rennes already on the score of these crazy States General, with which
the wonderful M. Necker is to repair the finances of the kingdom. As
if a peddling Swiss bank-clerk, who is also a damned Protestant, could
succeed where such men as Calonne and Brienne have failed.”

“Good-afternoon, monsieur my godfather,” said Andre-Louis.

“Where are you going?” was the querulous demand.

“Home at present. To Rennes in the morning.”

“Wait, boy, wait!” The squat little man rolled forward, affectionate
concern on his great ugly face, and he set one of his podgy hands on
his godson’s shoulder. “Now listen to me, Andre,” he reasoned. “This is
sheer knight-errantry--moonshine, lunacy. You’ll come to no good by it if
you persist. You’ve read ‘Don Quixote,’ and what happened to him when
he went tilting against windmills. It’s what will happen to you, neither
more nor less. Leave things as they are, my boy. I wouldn’t have a
mischief happen to you.”

Andre-Louis looked at him, smiling wanly.

“I swore an oath to-day which it would damn my soul to break.”

“You mean that you’ll go in spite of anything that I may say?” Impetuous
as he was inconsequent, M. de Kercadiou was bristling again. “Very well,
then, go... Go to the devil!”

“I will begin with the King’s Lieutenant.”

“And if you get into the trouble you are seeking, don’t come whimpering
to me for assistance,” the seigneur stormed. He was very angry now.
“Since you choose to disobey me, you can break your empty head against
the windmill, and be damned to you.”

Andre-Louis bowed with a touch of irony, and reached the door.

“If the windmill should prove too formidable,” said he, from the
threshold, “I may see what can be done with the wind. Good-bye, monsieur
my godfather.”

He was gone, and M. de Kercadiou was alone, purple in the face, puzzling
out that last cryptic utterance, and not at all happy in his mind,
either on the score of his godson or of M. de La Tour d’Azyr. He was
disposed to be angry with them both. He found these headstrong, wilful
men who relentlessly followed their own impulses very disturbing and
irritating. Himself he loved his ease, and to be at peace with his
neighbours; and that seemed to him so obviously the supreme good of life
that he was disposed to brand them as fools who troubled to seek other
things.





CHAPTER VI. THE WINDMILL

There was between Nantes and Rennes an established service of three
stage-coaches weekly in each direction, which for a sum of twenty-four
livres--roughly, the equivalent of an English guinea--would carry you the
seventy and odd miles of the journey in some fourteen hours. Once a week
one of the diligences going in each direction would swerve aside
from the highroad to call at Gavrillac, to bring and take letters,
newspapers, and sometimes passengers. It was usually by this coach
that Andre-Louis came and went when the occasion offered. At present,
however, he was too much in haste to lose a day awaiting the passing of
that diligence. So it was on a horse hired from the Breton arme that he
set out next morning; and an hour’s brisk ride under a grey wintry sky,
by a half-ruined road through ten miles of flat, uninteresting country,
brought him to the city of Rennes.

He rode across the main bridge over the Vilaine, and so into the upper
and principal part of that important city of some thirty thousand
souls, most of whom, he opined from the seething, clamant crowds that
everywhere blocked his way, must on this day have taken to the streets.
Clearly Philippe had not overstated the excitement prevailing there.

He pushed on as best he could, and so came at last to the Place Royale,
where he found the crowd to be most dense. From the plinth of the
equestrian statue of Louis XV, a white-faced young man was excitedly
addressing the multitude. His youth and dress proclaimed the student,
and a group of his fellows, acting as a guard of honour to him, kept the
immediate precincts of the statue.

Over the heads of the crowd Andre-Louis caught a few of the phrases
flung forth by that eager voice.

“It was the promise of the King... It is the King’s authority they
flout... They arrogate to themselves the whole sovereignty in Brittany.
The King has dissolved them... These insolent nobles defying their
sovereign and the people...”

Had he not known already, from what Philippe had told him, of the events
which had brought the Third Estate to the point of active revolt, those
few phrases would fully have informed him. This popular display of
temper was most opportune to his need, he thought. And in the hope that
it might serve his turn by disposing to reasonableness the mind of the
King’s Lieutenant, he pushed on up the wide and well-paved Rue Royale,
where the concourse of people began to diminish. He put up his hired
horse at the Come de Cerf, and set out again, on foot, to the Palais de
Justice.

There was a brawling mob by the framework of poles and scaffoldings
about the building cathedral, upon which work had been commenced a year
ago. But he did not pause to ascertain the particular cause of that
gathering. He strode on, and thus came presently to the handsome
Italianate palace that was one of the few public edifices that had
survived the devastating fire of sixty years ago.

He won through with difficulty to the great hall, known as the Salle
des Pas Perdus, where he was left to cool his heels for a full half-hour
after he had found an usher so condescending as to inform the god who
presided over that shrine of Justice that a lawyer from Gavrillac humbly
begged an audience on an affair of gravity.

That the god condescended to see him at all was probably due to the
grave complexion of the hour. At long length he was escorted up the
broad stone staircase, and ushered into a spacious, meagrely furnished
anteroom, to make one of a waiting crowd of clients, mostly men.

There he spent another half-hour, and employed the time in considering
exactly what he should say. This consideration made him realize the
weakness of the case he proposed to set before a man whose views of law
and morality were coloured by his social rank.

At last he was ushered through a narrow but very massive and richly
decorated door into a fine, well-lighted room furnished with enough gilt
and satin to have supplied the boudoir of a lady of fashion.

It was a trivial setting for a King’s Lieutenant, but about the King’s
Lieutenant there was--at least to ordinary eyes--nothing trivial. At the
far end of the chamber, to the right of one of the tall windows that
looked out over the inner court, before a goat-legged writing-table with
Watteau panels, heavily encrusted with ormolu, sat that exalted being.
Above a scarlet coat with an order flaming on its breast, and a billow
of lace in which diamonds sparkled like drops of water, sprouted the
massive powdered head of M. de Lesdiguieres. It was thrown back to scowl
upon this visitor with an expectant arrogance that made Andre-Louis
wonder almost was a genuflexion awaited from him.

Perceiving a lean, lantern-jawed young man, with straight, lank black
hair, in a caped riding-coat of brown cloth, and yellow buckskin
breeches, his knee-boots splashed with mud, the scowl upon that august
visage deepened until it brought together the thick black eyebrows above
the great hooked nose.

“You announce yourself as a lawyer of Gavrillac with an important
communication,” he growled. It was a peremptory command to make this
communication without wasting the valuable time of a King’s Lieutenant,
of whose immense importance it conveyed something more than a hint. M.
de Lesdiguieres accounted himself an imposing personality, and he had
every reason to do so, for in his time he had seen many a poor devil
scared out of all his senses by the thunder of his voice.

He waited now to see the same thing happen to this youthful lawyer from
Gavrillac. But he waited in vain.

Andre-Louis found him ridiculous. He knew pretentiousness for the
mask of worthlessness and weakness. And here he beheld pretentiousness
incarnate. It was to be read in that arrogant poise of the head, that
scowling brow, the inflexion of that reverberating voice. Even more
difficult than it is for a man to be a hero to his valet--who has
witnessed the dispersal of the parts that make up the imposing whole--is
it for a man to be a hero to the student of Man who has witnessed the
same in a different sense.

Andre-Louis stood forward boldly--impudently, thought M. de Lesdiguieres.

“You are His Majesty’s Lieutenant here in Brittany,” he said--and it
almost seemed to the august lord of life and death that this fellow had
the incredible effrontery to address him as one man speaking to another.
“You are the dispenser of the King’s high justice in this province.”

Surprise spread on that handsome, sallow face under the heavily powdered
wig.

“Is your business concerned with this infernal insubordination of the
canaille?” he asked.

“It is not, monsieur.”

The black eyebrows rose. “Then what the devil do you mean by intruding
upon me at a time when all my attention is being claimed by the obvious
urgency of this disgraceful affair?”

“The affair that brings me is no less disgraceful and no less urgent.”

“It will have to wait!” thundered the great man in a passion, and
tossing back a cloud of lace from his hand, he reached for the little
silver bell upon his table.

“A moment, monsieur!” Andre-Louis’ tone was peremptory. M. de
Lesdiguieres checked in sheer amazement at its impudence. “I can state
it very briefly...”

“Haven’t I said already...”

“And when you have heard it,” Andre-Louis went on, relentlessly,
interrupting the interruption, “you will agree with me as to its
character.”

M. de Lesdiguieres considered him very sternly.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Andre-Louis Moreau.”

“Well, Andre-Louis Moreau, if you can state your plea briefly, I will
hear you. But I warn you that I shall be very angry if you fail to
justify the impertinence of this insistence at so inopportune a moment.”

“You shall be the judge of that, monsieur,” said Andre-Louis, and he
proceeded at once to state his case, beginning with the shooting of
Mabey, and passing thence to the killing of M. de Vilmorin. But he
withheld until the end the name of the great gentleman against whom he
demanded justice, persuaded that did he introduce it earlier he would
not be allowed to proceed.

He had a gift of oratory of whose full powers he was himself hardly
conscious yet, though destined very soon to become so. He told his story
well, without exaggeration, yet with a force of simple appeal that was
irresistible. Gradually the great man’s face relaxed from its forbidding
severity. Interest, warming almost to sympathy, came to be reflected on
it.

“And who, sir, is the man you charge with this?”

“The Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr.”

The effect of that formidable name was immediate. Dismayed anger, and an
arrogance more utter than before, took the place of the sympathy he had
been betrayed into displaying.

“Who?” he shouted, and without waiting for an answer, “Why, here’s
impudence,” he stormed on, “to come before me with such a charge against
a gentleman of M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s eminence! How dare you speak of
him as a coward....”

“I speak of him as a murderer,” the young man corrected. “And I demand
justice against him.”

“You demand it, do you? My God, what next?”

“That is for you to say, monsieur.”

It surprised the great gentleman into a more or less successful effort
of self-control.

“Let me warn you,” said he, acidly, “that it is not wise to make
wild accusations against a nobleman. That, in itself, is a punishable
offence, as you may learn. Now listen to me. In this matter of
Mabey--assuming your statement of it to be exact--the gamekeeper may have
exceeded his duty; but by so little that it is hardly worth comment.
Consider, however, that in any case it is not a matter for the King’s
Lieutenant, or for any court but the seigneurial court of M. de La Tour
d’Azyr himself. It is before the magistrates of his own appointing that
such a matter must be laid, since it is matter strictly concerning his
own seigneurial jurisdiction. As a lawyer you should not need to be told
so much.”

“As a lawyer, I am prepared to argue the point. But, as a lawyer I also
realize that if that case were prosecuted, it could only end in the
unjust punishment of a wretched gamekeeper, who did no more than carry
out his orders, but who none the less would now be made a scapegoat,
if scapegoat were necessary. I am not concerned to hang Benet on the
gallows earned by M. de La Tour d’Azyr.”

M. de Lesdiguieres smote the table violently. “My God!” he cried out, to
add more quietly, on a note of menace, “You are singularly insolent, my
man.”

“That is not my intention, sir, I assure you. I am a lawyer, pleading a
case--the case of M. de Vilmorin. It is for his assassination that I have
come to beg the King’s justice.”

“But you yourself have said that it was a duel!” cried the Lieutenant,
between anger and bewilderment.

“I have said that it was made to appear a duel. There is a distinction,
as I shall show, if you will condescend to hear me out.”

“Take your own time, sir!” said the ironical M. de Lesdiguieres, whose
tenure of office had never yet held anything that remotely resembled
this experience.

Andre-Louis took him literally. “I thank you, sir,” he answered,
solemnly, and submitted his argument. “It can be shown that M. de
Vilmorin never practised fencing in all his life, and it is notorious
that M. de La Tour d’Azyr is an exceptional swordsman. Is it a duel,
monsieur, where one of the combatants alone is armed? For it amounts to
that on a comparison of their measures of respective skill.”

“There has scarcely been a duel fought on which the same trumpery
argument might not be advanced.”

“But not always with equal justice. And in one case, at least, it was
advanced successfully.”

“Successfully? When was that?”

“Ten years ago, in Dauphiny. I refer to the case of M. de Gesvres,
a gentleman of that province, who forced a duel upon M. de la Roche
Jeannine, and killed him. M. de Jeannine was a member of a powerful
family, which exerted itself to obtain justice. It put forward just
such arguments as now obtain against M. de La Tour d’Azyr. As you will
remember, the judges held that the provocation had proceeded of intent
from M. de Gesvres; they found him guilty of premeditated murder, and he
was hanged.”

M. de Lesdiguieres exploded yet again. “Death of my life!” he cried.
“Have you the effrontery to suggest that M. de La Tour d’Azyr should be
hanged? Have you?”

“But why not, monsieur, if it is the law, and there is precedent for it,
as I have shown you, and if it can be established that what I state is
the truth--as established it can be without difficulty?”

“Do you ask me, why not? Have you temerity to ask me that?”

“I have, monsieur. Can you answer me? If you cannot, monsieur, I shall
understand that whilst it is possible for a powerful family like that
of La Roche Jeannine to set the law in motion, the law must remain inert
for the obscure and uninfluential, however brutally wronged by a great
nobleman.”

M. de Lesdiguieres perceived that in argument he would accomplish
nothing against this impassive, resolute young man. The menace of him
grew more fierce.

“I should advise you to take yourself off at once, and to be thankful
for the opportunity to depart unscathed.”

“I am, then, to understand, monsieur, that there will be no inquiry into
this case? That nothing that I can say will move you?”

“You are to understand that if you are still there in two minutes it
will be very much the worse for you.” And M. de Lesdiguieres tinkled the
silver hand-bell upon his table.

“I have informed you, monsieur, that a duel--so-called--has been fought,
and a man killed. It seems that I must remind you, the administrator of
the King’s justice, that duels are against the law, and that it is
your duty to hold an inquiry. I come as the legal representative of the
bereaved mother of M. de Vilmorin to demand of you the inquiry that is
due.”

The door behind Andre-Louis opened softly. M. de Lesdiguieres, pale with
anger, contained himself with difficulty.

“You seek to compel us, do you, you impudent rascal?” he growled. “You
think the King’s justice is to be driven headlong by the voice of any
impudent roturier? I marvel at my own patience with you. But I give you
a last warning, master lawyer; keep a closer guard over that insolent
tongue of yours, or you will have cause very bitterly to regret its
glibness.” He waved a jewelled, contemptuous hand, and spoke to the
usher standing behind Andre. “To the door!” he said, shortly.

Andre-Louis hesitated a second. Then with a shrug he turned. This was
the windmill, indeed, and he a poor knight of rueful countenance. To
attack it at closer quarters would mean being dashed to pieces. Yet on
the threshold he turned again.

“M. de Lesdiguieres,” said he, “may I recite to you an interesting fact
in natural history? The tiger is a great lord in the jungle, and was
for centuries the terror of lesser beasts, including the wolf. The wolf,
himself a hunter, wearied of being hunted. He took to associating
with other wolves, and then the wolves, driven to form packs for
self-protection, discovered the power of the pack, and took to hunting
the tiger, with disastrous results to him. You should study Buffon, M.
de Lesdiguieres.”

“I have studied a buffoon this morning, I think,” was the punning sneer
with which M. de Lesdiguieres replied. But that he conceived himself
witty, it is probable he would not have condescended to reply at all. “I
don’t understand you,” he added.

“But you will, M. de Lesdiguieres. You will,” said Andre-Louis, and so
departed.





CHAPTER VII. THE WIND

He had broken his futile lance with the windmill--the image suggested by
M. de Kercadiou persisted in his mind--and it was, he perceived, by sheer
good fortune that he had escaped without hurt. There remained the wind
itself--the whirlwind. And the events in Rennes, reflex of the graver
events in Nantes, had set that wind blowing in his favour.

He set out briskly to retrace his steps towards the Place Royale, where
the gathering of the populace was greatest, where, as he judged, lay the
heart and brain of this commotion that was exciting the city.

But the commotion that he had left there was as nothing to the commotion
which he found on his return. Then there had been a comparative hush
to listen to the voice of a speaker who denounced the First and Second
Estates from the pedestal of the statue of Louis XV. Now the air was
vibrant with the voice of the multitude itself, raised in anger. Here
and there men were fighting with canes and fists; everywhere a
fierce excitement raged, and the gendarmes sent thither by the King’s
Lieutenant to restore and maintain order were so much helpless flotsam
in that tempestuous human ocean.

There were cries of “To the Palais! To the Palais! Down with the
assassins! Down with the nobles! To the Palais!”

An artisan who stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the press
enlightened Andre-Louis on the score of the increased excitement.

“They’ve shot him dead. His body is lying there where it fell at the
foot of the statue. And there was another student killed not an hour ago
over there by the cathedral works. Pardi! If they can’t prevail in one
way they’ll prevail in another.” The man was fiercely emphatic. “They’ll
stop at nothing. If they can’t overawe us, by God, they’ll assassinate
us. They are determined to conduct these States of Brittany in their own
way. No interests but their own shall be considered.”

Andre-Louis left him still talking, and clove himself a way through that
human press.

At the statue’s base he came upon a little cluster of students about the
body of the murdered lad, all stricken with fear and helplessness.

“You here, Moreau!” said a voice.

He looked round to find himself confronted by a slight, swarthy man
of little more than thirty, firm of mouth and impertinent of nose,
who considered him with disapproval. It was Le Chapelier, a lawyer
of Rennes, a prominent member of the Literary Chamber of that city, a
forceful man, fertile in revolutionary ideas and of an exceptional gift
of eloquence.

“Ah, it is you, Chapelier! Why don’t you speak to them? Why don’t you
tell them what to do? Up with you, man!” And he pointed to the plinth.

Le Chapelier’s dark, restless eyes searched the other’s impassive face
for some trace of the irony he suspected. They were as wide asunder
as the poles, these two, in their political views; and mistrusted as
Andre-Louis was by all his colleagues of the Literary Chamber of Rennes,
he was by none mistrusted so thoroughly as by this vigorous republican.
Indeed, had Le Chapelier been able to prevail against the influence of
the seminarist Vilmorin, Andre-Louis would long since have found himself
excluded from that assembly of the intellectual youth of Rennes, which
he exasperated by his eternal mockery of their ideals.

So now Le Chapelier suspected mockery in that invitation, suspected it
even when he failed to find traces of it on Andre-Louis’ face, for he
had learnt by experience that it was a face not often to be trusted for
an indication of the real thoughts that moved behind it.

“Your notions and mine on that score can hardly coincide,” said he.

“Can there be two opinions?” quoth Andre-Louis.

“There are usually two opinions whenever you and I are together,
Moreau--more than ever now that you are the appointed delegate of a
nobleman. You see what your friends have done. No doubt you approve
their methods.” He was coldly hostile.

Andre-Louis looked at him without surprise. So invariably opposed to
each other in academic debates, how should Le Chapelier suspect his
present intentions?

“If you won’t tell them what is to be done, I will,” said he.

“Nom de Dieu! If you want to invite a bullet from the other side, I
shall not hinder you. It may help to square the account.”

Scarcely were the words out than he repented them; for as if in answer
to that challenge Andre-Louis sprang up on to the plinth. Alarmed now,
for he could only suppose it to be Andre-Louis’ intention to speak
on behalf of Privilege, of which he was a publicly appointed
representative, Le Chapelier clutched him by the leg to pull him down
again.

“Ah, that, no!” he was shouting. “Come down, you fool. Do you think we
will let you ruin everything by your clowning? Come down!”

Andre-Louis, maintaining his position by clutching one of the legs of
the bronze horse, flung his voice like a bugle-note over the heads of
that seething mob.

“Citizens of Rennes, the motherland is in danger!”

The effect was electric. A stir ran, like a ripple over water, across
that froth of upturned human faces, and completest silence followed.
In that great silence they looked at this slim young man, hatless,
long wisps of his black hair fluttering in the breeze, his neckcloth in
disorder, his face white, his eyes on fire.

Andre-Louis felt a sudden surge of exaltation as he realized by instinct
that at one grip he had seized that crowd, and that he held it fast in
the spell of his cry and his audacity.

Even Le Chapelier, though still clinging to his ankle, had ceased to
tug. The reformer, though unshaken in his assumption of Andre-Louis’
intentions, was for a moment bewildered by the first note of his appeal.

And then, slowly, impressively, in a voice that travelled clear to the
ends of the square, the young lawyer of Gavrillac began to speak.

“Shuddering in horror of the vile deed here perpetrated, my voice
demands to be heard by you. You have seen murder done under your
eyes--the murder of one who nobly, without any thought of self, gave
voice to the wrongs by which we are all oppressed. Fearing that voice,
shunning the truth as foul things shun the light, our oppressors sent
their agents to silence him in death.”

Le Chapelier released at last his hold of Andre-Louis’ ankle, staring
up at him the while in sheer amazement. It seemed that the fellow was in
earnest; serious for once; and for once on the right side. What had come
to him?

“Of assassins what shall you look for but assassination? I have a
tale to tell which will show that this is no new thing that you have
witnessed here to-day; it will reveal to you the forces with which you
have to deal. Yesterday...”

There was an interruption. A voice in the crowd, some twenty paces,
perhaps, was raised to shout:

“Yet another of them!”

Immediately after the voice came a pistol-shot, and a bullet flattened
itself against the bronze figure just behind Andre-Louis.

Instantly there was turmoil in the crowd, most intense about the spot
whence the shot had been fired. The assailant was one of a considerable
group of the opposition, a group that found itself at once beset on
every side, and hard put to it to defend him.

From the foot of the plinth rang the voice of the students making chorus
to Le Chapelier, who was bidding Andre-Louis to seek shelter.

“Come down! Come down at once! They’ll murder you as they murdered La
Riviere.”

“Let them!” He flung wide his arms in a gesture supremely theatrical,
and laughed. “I stand here at their mercy. Let them, if they will, add
mine to the blood that will presently rise up to choke them. Let them
assassinate me. It is a trade they understand. But until they do so,
they shall not prevent me from speaking to you, from telling you what
is to be looked for in them.” And again he laughed, not merely in
exaltation as they supposed who watched him from below, but also in
amusement. And his amusement had two sources. One was to discover how
glibly he uttered the phrases proper to whip up the emotions of a crowd:
the other was in the remembrance of how the crafty Cardinal de Retz, for
the purpose of inflaming popular sympathy on his behalf, had been in the
habit of hiring fellows to fire upon his carriage. He was in just such
case as that arch-politician. True, he had not hired the fellow to fire
that pistol-shot; but he was none the less obliged to him, and ready to
derive the fullest, advantage from the act.

The group that sought to protect that man was battling on, seeking to
hew a way out of that angry, heaving press.

“Let them go!” Andre-Louis called down... “What matters one assassin more
or less? Let them go, and listen to me, my countrymen!”

And presently, when some measure of order was restored, he began his
tale. In simple language now, yet with a vehemence and directness
that drove home every point, he tore their hearts with the story of
yesterday’s happenings at Gavrillac. He drew tears from them with
the pathos of his picture of the bereaved widow Mabey and her three
starving, destitute children--“orphaned to avenge the death of a
pheasant”--and the bereaved mother of that M. de Vilmorin, a student of
Rennes, known here to many of them, who had met his death in a noble
endeavour to champion the cause of an esurient member of their afflicted
order.

“The Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr said of him that he had too dangerous a
gift of eloquence. It was to silence his brave voice that he killed
him. But he has failed of his object. For I, poor Philippe de Vilmorin’s
friend, have assumed the mantle of his apostleship, and I speak to you
with his voice to-day.”

It was a statement that helped Le Chapelier at last to understand, at
least in part, this bewildering change in Andre-Louis, which rendered
him faithless to the side that employed him.

“I am not here,” continued Andre-Louis, “merely to demand at your hands
vengeance upon Philippe de Vilmorin’s murderers. I am here to tell you
the things he would to-day have told you had he lived.”

So far at least he was frank. But he did not add that they were things
he did not himself believe, things that he accounted the cant by which
an ambitious bourgeoisie--speaking through the mouths of the lawyers, who
were its articulate part--sought to overthrow to its own advantage the
present state of things. He left his audience in the natural belief that
the views he expressed were the views he held.

And now in a terrible voice, with an eloquence that amazed himself,
he denounced the inertia of the royal justice where the great are the
offenders. It was with bitter sarcasm that he spoke of their King’s
Lieutenant, M. de Lesdiguieres.

“Do you wonder,” he asked them, “that M. de Lesdiguieres should
administer the law so that it shall ever be favourable to our great
nobles? Would it be just, would it be reasonable that he should
otherwise administer it?” He paused dramatically to let his sarcasm sink
in. It had the effect of reawakening Le Chapelier’s doubts, and checking
his dawning conviction in Andre-Louis’ sincerity. Whither was he going
now?

He was not left long in doubt. Proceeding, Andre-Louis spoke as he
conceived that Philippe de Vilmorin would have spoken. He had so often
argued with him, so often attended the discussions of the Literary
Chamber, that he had all the rant of the reformers--that was yet true in
substance--at his fingers’ ends.

“Consider, after all, the composition of this France of ours. A million
of its inhabitants are members of the privileged classes. They compose
France. They are France. For surely you cannot suppose the remainder
to be anything that matters. It cannot be pretended that twenty-four
million souls are of any account, that they can be representative of
this great nation, or that they can exist for any purpose but that of
servitude to the million elect.”

Bitter laughter shook them now, as he desired it should. “Seeing their
privileges in danger of invasion by these twenty-four millions--mostly
canailles; possibly created by God, it is true, but clearly so created
to be the slaves of Privilege--does it surprise you that the dispensing
of royal justice should be placed in the stout hands of these
Lesdiguieres, men without brains to think or hearts to be touched?
Consider what it is that must be defended against the assault of us
others--canaille. Consider a few of these feudal rights that are in
danger of being swept away should the Privileged yield even to the
commands of their sovereign; and admit the Third Estate to an equal vote
with themselves.

“What would become of the right of terrage on the land, of parciere on
the fruit-trees, of carpot on the vines? What of the corvees by which
they command forced labour, of the ban de vendage, which gives them the
first vintage, the banvin which enables them to control to their own
advantage the sale of wine? What of their right of grinding the last
liard of taxation out of the people to maintain their own opulent
estate; the cens, the lods-et-ventes, which absorb a fifth of the value
of the land, the blairee, which must be paid before herds can feed on
communal lands, the pulverage to indemnify them for the dust raised on
their roads by the herds that go to market, the sextelage on everything
offered for sale in the public markets, the etalonnage, and all the
rest? What of their rights over men and animals for field labour, of
ferries over rivers, and of bridges over streams, of sinking wells, of
warren, of dovecot, and of fire, which last yields them a tax on
every peasant hearth? What of their exclusive rights of fishing and of
hunting, the violation of which is ranked as almost a capital offence?

“And what of other rights, unspeakable, abominable, over the lives and
bodies of their people, rights which, if rarely exercised, have never
been rescinded. To this day if a noble returning from the hunt were to
slay two of his serfs to bathe and refresh his feet in their blood, he
could still claim in his sufficient defence that it was his absolute
feudal right to do so.

“Rough-shod, these million Privileged ride over the souls and bodies
of twenty-four million contemptible canaille existing but for their own
pleasure. Woe betide him who so much as raises his voice in protest
in the name of humanity against an excess of these already excessive
abuses. I have told you of one remorselessly slain in cold blood for
doing no more than that. Your own eyes have witnessed the assassination
of another here upon this plinth, of yet another over there by the
cathedral works, and the attempt upon my own life.

“Between them and the justice due to them in such cases stand these
Lesdiguieres, these King’s Lieutenants; not instruments of justice, but
walls erected for the shelter of Privilege and Abuse whenever it exceeds
its grotesquely excessive rights.

“Do you wonder that they will not yield an inch; that they will resist
the election of a Third Estate with the voting power to sweep all these
privileges away, to compel the Privileged to submit themselves to a just
equality in the eyes of the law with the meanest of the canaille they
trample underfoot, to provide that the moneys necessary to save this
state from the bankruptcy into which they have all but plunged it shall
be raised by taxation to be borne by themselves in the same proportion
as by others?

“Sooner than yield to so much they prefer to resist even the royal
command.”

A phrase occurred to him used yesterday by Vilmorin, a phrase to which
he had refused to attach importance when uttered then. He used it now.
“In doing this they are striking at the very foundations of the throne.
These fools do not perceive that if that throne falls over, it is they
who stand nearest to it who will be crushed.”

A terrific roar acclaimed that statement. Tense and quivering with the
excitement that was flowing through him, and from him out into that
great audience, he stood a moment smiling ironically. Then he waved
them into silence, and saw by their ready obedience how completely he
possessed them. For in the voice with which he spoke each now recognized
the voice of himself, giving at last expression to the thoughts that for
months and years had been inarticulately stirring in each simple mind.

Presently he resumed, speaking more quietly, that ironic smile about the
corner of his mouth growing more marked:

“In taking my leave of M. de Lesdiguieres I gave him warning out of a
page of natural history. I told him that when the wolves, roaming singly
through the jungle, were weary of being hunted by the tiger, they banded
themselves into packs, and went a-hunting the tiger in their turn. M. de
Lesdiguieres contemptuously answered that he did not understand me. But
your wits are better than his. You understand me, I think? Don’t you?”

Again a great roar, mingled now with some approving laughter, was his
answer. He had wrought them up to a pitch of dangerous passion, and they
were ripe for any violence to which he urged them. If he had failed with
the windmill, at least he was now master of the wind.

“To the Palais!” they shouted, waving their hands, brandishing canes,
and--here and there--even a sword. “To the Palais! Down with M. de
Lesdiguieres! Death to the King’s Lieutenant!”

He was master of the wind, indeed. His dangerous gift of oratory--a
gift nowhere more powerful than in France, since nowhere else are men’s
emotions so quick to respond to the appeal of eloquence--had given him
this mastery. At his bidding now the gale would sweep away the
windmill against which he had flung himself in vain. But that, as he
straightforwardly revealed it, was no part of his intent.

“Ah, wait!” he bade them. “Is this miserable instrument of a corrupt
system worth the attention of your noble indignation?”

He hoped his words would be reported to M. de Lesdiguieres. He thought
it would be good for the soul of M. de Lesdiguieres to hear the
undiluted truth about himself for once.

“It is the system itself you must attack and overthrow; not a mere
instrument--a miserable painted lath such as this. And precipitancy will
spoil everything. Above all, my children, no violence!”

My children! Could his godfather have heard him!

“You have seen often already the result of premature violence elsewhere
in Brittany, and you have heard of it elsewhere in France. Violence on
your part will call for violence on theirs. They will welcome the chance
to assert their mastery by a firmer grip than heretofore. The military
will be sent for. You will be faced by the bayonets of mercenaries. Do
not provoke that, I implore you. Do not put it into their power, do not
afford them the pretext they would welcome to crush you down into the
mud of your own blood.”

Out of the silence into which they had fallen anew broke now the cry of

“What else, then? What else?”

“I will tell you,” he answered them. “The wealth and strength of
Brittany lies in Nantes--a bourgeois city, one of the most prosperous in
this realm, rendered so by the energy of the bourgeoisie and the toil of
the people. It was in Nantes that this movement had its beginning, and
as a result of it the King issued his order dissolving the States as now
constituted--an order which those who base their power on Privilege and
Abuse do not hesitate to thwart. Let Nantes be informed of the precise
situation, and let nothing be done here until Nantes shall have given us
the lead. She has the power--which we in Rennes have not--to make her will
prevail, as we have seen already. Let her exert that power once more,
and until she does so do you keep the peace in Rennes. Thus shall you
triumph. Thus shall the outrages that are being perpetrated under your
eyes be fully and finally avenged.”

As abruptly as he had leapt upon the plinth did he now leap down from
it. He had finished. He had said all--perhaps more than all--that could
have been said by the dead friend with whose voice he spoke. But it was
not their will that he should thus extinguish himself. The thunder of
their acclamations rose deafeningly upon the air. He had played upon
their emotions--each in turn--as a skilful harpist plays upon the strings
of his instrument. And they were vibrant with the passions he had
aroused, and the high note of hope on which he had brought his symphony
to a close.

A dozen students caught him as he leapt down, and swung him to their
shoulders, where again he came within view of all the acclaiming crowd.

The delicate Le Chapelier pressed alongside of him with flushed face and
shining eyes.

“My lad,” he said to him, “you have kindled a fire to-day that will
sweep the face of France in a blaze of liberty.” And then to the
students he issued a sharp command. “To the Literary Chamber--at once. We
must concert measures upon the instant, a delegate must be dispatched
to Nantes forthwith, to convey to our friends there the message of the
people of Rennes.”

The crowd fell back, opening a lane through which the students bore
the hero of the hour. Waving his hands to them, he called upon them to
disperse to their homes, and await there in patience what must follow
very soon.

“You have endured for centuries with a fortitude that is a pattern to
the world,” he flattered them. “Endure a little longer yet. The end, my
friends, is well in sight at last.”

They carried him out of the square and up the Rue Royale to an old
house, one of the few old houses surviving in that city that had risen
from its ashes, where in an upper chamber lighted by diamond-shaped
panes of yellow glass the Literary Chamber usually held its meetings.
Thither in his wake the members of that chamber came hurrying, summoned
by the messages that Le Chapelier had issued during their progress.

Behind closed doors a flushed and excited group of some fifty men, the
majority of whom were young, ardent, and afire with the illusion of
liberty, hailed Andre-Louis as the strayed sheep who had returned to the
fold, and smothered him in congratulations and thanks.

Then they settled down to deliberate upon immediate measures, whilst the
doors below were kept by a guard of honour that had improvised itself
from the masses. And very necessary was this. For no sooner had the
Chamber assembled than the house was assailed by the gendarmerie of M.
de Lesdiguieres, dispatched in haste to arrest the firebrand who was
inciting the people of Rennes to sedition. The force consisted of fifty
men. Five hundred would have been too few. The mob broke their carbines,
broke some of their heads, and would indeed have torn them into pieces
had they not beaten a timely and well-advised retreat before a form of
horseplay to which they were not at all accustomed.

And whilst that was taking place in the street below, in the room
abovestairs the eloquent Le Chapelier was addressing his colleagues
of the Literary Chamber. Here, with no bullets to fear, and no one
to report his words to the authorities, Le Chapelier could permit his
oratory a full, unintimidated flow. And that considerable oratory was as
direct and brutal as the man himself was delicate and elegant.

He praised the vigour and the greatness of the speech they had heard
from their colleague Moreau. Above all he praised its wisdom. Moreau’s
words had come as a surprise to them. Hitherto they had never known
him as other than a bitter critic of their projects of reform and
regeneration; and quite lately they had heard, not without misgivings,
of his appointment as delegate for a nobleman in the States of Brittany.
But they held the explanation of his conversion. The murder of their
dear colleague Vilmorin had produced this change. In that brutal deed
Moreau had beheld at last in true proportions the workings of that evil
spirit which they were vowed to exorcise from France. And to-day he had
proven himself the stoutest apostle among them of the new faith. He had
pointed out to them the only sane and useful course. The illustration he
had borrowed from natural history was most apt. Above all, let them pack
like the wolves, and to ensure this uniformity of action in the people
of all Brittany, let a delegate at once be sent to Nantes, which had
already proved itself the real seat of Brittany’s power. It but remained
to appoint that delegate, and Le Chapelier invited them to elect him.

Andre-Louis, on a bench near the window, a prey now to some measure of
reaction, listened in bewilderment to that flood of eloquence.

As the applause died down, he heard a voice exclaiming:

“I propose to you that we appoint our leader here, Le Chapelier, to be
that delegate.”

Le Chapelier reared his elegantly dressed head, which had been bowed
in thought, and it was seen that his countenance was pale. Nervously he
fingered a gold spy-glass.

“My friends,” he said, slowly, “I am deeply sensible of the honour
that you do me. But in accepting it I should be usurping an honour
that rightly belongs elsewhere. Who could represent us better, who more
deserving to be our representative, to speak to our friends of Nantes
with the voice of Rennes, than the champion who once already to-day has
so incomparably given utterance to the voice of this great city? Confer
this honour of being your spokesman where it belongs--upon Andre-Louis
Moreau.”

Rising in response to the storm of applause that greeted the proposal,
Andre-Louis bowed and forthwith yielded. “Be it so,” he said, simply.
“It is perhaps fitting that I should carry out what I have begun, though
I too am of the opinion that Le Chapelier would have been a worthier
representative. I will set out to-night.”

“You will set out at once, my lad,” Le Chapelier informed him, and now
revealed what an uncharitable mind might account the true source of his
generosity. “It is not safe after what has happened for you to linger an
hour in Rennes. And you must go secretly. Let none of you allow it to
be known that he has gone. I would not have you come to harm over this,
Andre-Louis. But you must see the risks you run, and if you are to be
spared to help in this work of salvation of our afflicted motherland,
you must use caution, move secretly, veil your identity even. Or else
M. de Lesdiguieres will have you laid by the heels, and it will be
good-night for you.”





CHAPTER VIII. OMNES OMNIBUS

Andre-Louis rode forth from Rennes committed to a deeper adventure than
he had dreamed of when he left the sleepy village of Gavrillac. Lying
the night at a roadside inn, and setting out again early in the morning,
he reached Nantes soon after noon of the following day.

Through that long and lonely ride through the dull plains of Brittany,
now at their dreariest in their winter garb, he had ample leisure in
which to review his actions and his position. From one who had taken
hitherto a purely academic and by no means friendly interest in the new
philosophies of social life, exercising his wits upon these new ideas
merely as a fencer exercises his eye and wrist with the foils, without
ever suffering himself to be deluded into supposing the issue a real
one, he found himself suddenly converted into a revolutionary firebrand,
committed to revolutionary action of the most desperate kind. The
representative and delegate of a nobleman in the States of Brittany, he
found himself simultaneously and incongruously the representative and
delegate of the whole Third Estate of Rennes.

It is difficult to determine to what extent, in the heat of passion and
swept along by the torrent of his own oratory, he might yesterday have
succeeded in deceiving himself. But it is at least certain that, looking
back in cold blood now, he had no single delusion on the score of what
he had done. Cynically he had presented to his audience one side only of
the great question that he propounded.

But since the established order of things in France was such as to make
a rampart for M. de La Tour d’Azyr, affording him complete immunity for
this and any other crimes that it pleased him to commit, why, then the
established order must take the consequences of its wrong-doing. Therein
he perceived his clear justification.

And so it was without misgivings that he came on his errand of sedition
into that beautiful city of Nantes, rendered by its spacious streets and
splendid port the rival in prosperity of Bordeaux and Marseilles.

He found an inn on the Quai La Fosse, where he put up his horse, and
where he dined in the embrasure of a window that looked out over the
tree-bordered quay and the broad bosom of the Loire, on which argosies
of all nations rode at anchor. The sun had again broken through the
clouds, and shed its pale wintry light over the yellow waters and the
tall-masted shipping.

Along the quays there was a stir of life as great as that to be seen
on the quays of Paris. Foreign sailors in outlandish garments and of
harsh-sounding, outlandish speech, stalwart fishwives with baskets of
herrings on their heads, voluminous of petticoat above bare legs and
bare feet, calling their wares shrilly and almost inarticulately,
watermen in woollen caps and loose trousers rolled to the knees,
peasants in goatskin coats, their wooden shoes clattering on the
round kidney-stones, shipwrights and labourers from the dockyards,
bellows-menders, rat-catchers, water-carriers, ink-sellers, and other
itinerant pedlars. And, sprinkled through this proletariat mass that
came and went in constant movement, Andre-Louis beheld tradesmen in
sober garments, merchants in long, fur-lined coats; occasionally
a merchant-prince rolling along in his two-horse cabriolet to the
whip-crackings and shouts of “Gare!” from his coachman; occasionally a
dainty lady carried past in her sedan-chair, with perhaps a mincing abbe
from the episcopal court tripping along in attendance; occasionally an
officer in scarlet riding disdainfully; and once the great carriage of
a nobleman, with escutcheoned panels and a pair of white-stockinged,
powdered footmen in gorgeous liveries hanging on behind. And there were
Capuchins in brown and Benedictines in black, and secular priests in
plenty--for God was well served in the sixteen parishes of Nantes--and
by way of contrast there were lean-jawed, out-at-elbow adventurers, and
gendarmes in blue coats and gaitered legs, sauntering guardians of the
peace.

Representatives of every class that went to make up the seventy thousand
inhabitants of that wealthy, industrious city were to be seen in
the human stream that ebbed and flowed beneath the window from which
Andre-Louis observed it.

Of the waiter who ministered to his humble wants with soup and bouilli,
and a measure of vin gris, Andre-Louis enquired into the state of public
feeling in the city. The waiter, a staunch supporter of the privileged
orders, admitted regretfully that an uneasiness prevailed. Much would
depend upon what happened at Rennes. If it was true that the King had
dissolved the States of Brittany, then all should be well, and the
malcontents would have no pretext for further disturbances. There had
been trouble and to spare in Nantes already. They wanted no repetition
of it. All manner of rumours were abroad, and since early morning there
had been crowds besieging the portals of the Chamber of Commerce for
definite news. But definite news was yet to come. It was not even known
for a fact that His Majesty actually had dissolved the States.

It was striking two, the busiest hour of the day upon the Bourse, when
Andre-Louis reached the Place du Commerce. The square, dominated by the
imposing classical building of the Exchange, was so crowded that he
was compelled almost to fight his way through to the steps of the
magnificent Ionic porch. A word would have sufficed to have opened a way
for him at once. But guile moved him to keep silent. He would come upon
that waiting multitude as a thunderclap, precisely as yesterday he
had come upon the mob at Rennes. He would lose nothing of the surprise
effect of his entrance.

The precincts of that house of commerce were jealously kept by a line
of ushers armed with staves, a guard as hurriedly assembled by the
merchants as it was evidently necessary. One of these now effectively
barred the young lawyer’s passage as he attempted to mount the steps.

Andre-Louis announced himself in a whisper.

The stave was instantly raised from the horizontal, and he passed and
went up the steps in the wake of the usher. At the top, on the threshold
of the chamber, he paused, and stayed his guide.

“I will wait here,” he announced. “Bring the president to me.”

“Your name, monsieur?”

Almost had Andre-Louis answered him when he remembered Le Chapelier’s
warning of the danger with which his mission was fraught, and Le
Chapelier’s parting admonition to conceal his identity.

“My name is unknown to him; it matters nothing; I am the mouthpiece of a
people, no more. Go.”

The usher went, and in the shadow of that lofty, pillared portico
Andre-Louis waited, his eyes straying out ever and anon to survey that
spread of upturned faces immediately below him.

Soon the president came, others following, crowding out into the
portico, jostling one another in their eagerness to hear the news.

“You are a messenger from Rennes?”

“I am the delegate sent by the Literary Chamber of that city to inform
you here in Nantes of what is taking place.”

“Your name?”

Andre-Louis paused. “The less we mention names perhaps the better.”

The president’s eyes grew big with gravity. He was a corpulent, florid
man, purse-proud, and self-sufficient.

He hesitated a moment. Then--“Come into the Chamber,” said he.

“By your leave, monsieur, I will deliver my message from here--from these
steps.”

“From here?” The great merchant frowned.

“My message is for the people of Nantes, and from here I can speak
at once to the greatest number of Nantais of all ranks, and it is my
desire--and the desire of those whom I represent--that as great a number
as possible should hear my message at first hand.”

“Tell me, sir, is it true that the King has dissolved the States?”

Andre-Louis looked at him. He smiled apologetically, and waved a hand
towards the crowd, which by now was straining for a glimpse of this slim
young man who had brought forth the president and more than half the
numbers of the Chamber, guessing already, with that curious instinct of
crowds, that he was the awaited bearer of tidings.

“Summon the gentlemen of your Chamber, monsieur,” said he, “and you
shall hear all.”

“So be it.”

A word, and forth they came to crowd upon the steps, but leaving clear
the topmost step and a half-moon space in the middle.

To the spot so indicated, Andre-Louis now advanced very deliberately.
He took his stand there, dominating the entire assembly. He removed
his hat, and launched the opening bombshell of that address which
is historic, marking as it does one of the great stages of France’s
progress towards revolution.

“People of this great city of Nantes, I have come to summon you to
arms!”

In the amazed and rather scared silence that followed he surveyed them
for a moment before resuming.

“I am a delegate of the people of Rennes, charged to announce to you
what is taking place, and to invite you in this dreadful hour of our
country’s peril to rise and march to her defence.”

“Name! Your name!” a voice shouted, and instantly the cry was taken up
by others, until the multitude rang with the question.

He could not answer that excited mob as he had answered the president.
It was necessary to compromise, and he did so, happily. “My name,” said
he, “is Omnes Omnibus--all for all. Let that suffice you now. I am a
herald, a mouthpiece, a voice; no more. I come to announce to you that
since the privileged orders, assembled for the States of Brittany in
Rennes, resisted your will--our will--despite the King’s plain hint to
them, His Majesty has dissolved the States.”

There was a burst of delirious applause. Men laughed and shouted, and
cries of “Vive le Roi!” rolled forth like thunder. Andre-Louis waited,
and gradually the preternatural gravity of his countenance came to be
observed, and to beget the suspicion that there might be more to follow.
Gradually silence was restored, and at last Andre Louis was able to
proceed.

“You rejoice too soon. Unfortunately, the nobles, in their insolent
arrogance, have elected to ignore the royal dissolution, and in despite
of it persist in sitting and in conducting matters as seems good to
them.”

A silence of utter dismay greeted that disconcerting epilogue to
the announcement that had been so rapturously received. Andre-Louis
continued after a moment’s pause:

“So that these men who were already rebels against the people, rebels,
against justice and equity, rebels against humanity itself, are now
also rebels against their King. Sooner than yield an inch of the
unconscionable privileges by which too long already they have
flourished, to the misery of a whole nation, they will make a mock
of royal authority, hold up the King himself to contempt. They are
determined to prove that there is no real sovereignty in France but the
sovereignty of their own parasitic faineantise.”

There was a faint splutter of applause, but the majority of the audience
remained silent, waiting.

“This is no new thing. Always has it been the same. No minister in
the last ten years, who, seeing the needs and perils of the State,
counselled the measures that we now demand as the only means of
arresting our motherland in its ever-quickening progress to the abyss,
but found himself as a consequence cast out of office by the influence
which Privilege brought to bear against him. Twice already has M. Necker
been called to the ministry, to be twice dismissed when his insistent
counsels of reform threatened the privileges of clergy and nobility. For
the third time now has he been called to office, and at last it seems
we are to have States General in spite of Privilege. But what the
privileged orders can no longer prevent, they are determined to
stultify. Since it is now a settled thing that these States General are
to meet, at least the nobles and the clergy will see to it--unless we
take measures to prevent them--by packing the Third Estate with their
own creatures, and denying it all effective representation, that they
convert the States General into an instrument of their own will for the
perpetuation of the abuses by which they live. To achieve this end they
will stop at nothing. They have flouted the authority of the King, and
they are silencing by assassination those who raise their voices to
condemn them. Yesterday in Rennes two young men who addressed the people
as I am addressing you were done to death in the streets by assassins at
the instigation of the nobility. Their blood cries out for vengeance.”

Beginning in a sullen mutter, the indignation that moved his hearers
swelled up to express itself in a roar of anger.

“Citizens of Nantes, the motherland is in peril. Let us march to her
defence. Let us proclaim it to the world that we recognize that the
measures to liberate the Third Estate from the slavery in which for
centuries it has groaned find only obstacles in those orders whose
phrenetic egotism sees in the tears and suffering of the unfortunate
an odious tribute which they would pass on to their generations still
unborn. Realizing from the barbarity of the means employed by our
enemies to perpetuate our oppression that we have everything to fear
from the aristocracy they would set up as a constitutional principle for
the governing of France, let us declare ourselves at once enfranchised
from it.

“The establishment of liberty and equality should be the aim of every
citizen member of the Third Estate; and to this end we should stand
indivisibly united, especially the young and vigorous, especially those
who have had the good fortune to be born late enough to be able to
gather for themselves the precious fruits of the philosophy of this
eighteenth century.”

Acclamations broke out unstintedly now. He had caught them in the snare
of his oratory. And he pressed his advantage instantly.

“Let us all swear,” he cried in a great voice, “to raise up in the name
of humanity and of liberty a rampart against our enemies, to oppose to
their bloodthirsty covetousness the calm perseverance of men whose cause
is just. And let us protest here and in advance against any tyrannical
decrees that should declare us seditious when we have none but pure and
just intentions. Let us make oath upon the honour of our motherland that
should any of us be seized by an unjust tribunal, intending against us
one of those acts termed of political expediency--which are, in effect,
but acts of despotism--let us swear, I say, to give a full expression
to the strength that is in us and do that in self-defence which nature,
courage, and despair dictate to us.”

Loud and long rolled the applause that greeted his conclusion, and he
observed with satisfaction and even some inward grim amusement that the
wealthy merchants who had been congregated upon the steps, and who now
came crowding about him to shake him by the hand and to acclaim him,
were not merely participants in, but the actual leaders of, this
delirium of enthusiasm.

It confirmed him, had he needed confirmation, in his conviction that
just as the philosophies upon which this new movement was based had
their source in thinkers extracted from the bourgeoisie, so the need
to adopt those philosophies to the practical purposes of life was most
acutely felt at present by those bourgeois who found themselves debarred
by Privilege from the expansion their wealth permitted them. If it might
be said of Andre-Louis that he had that day lighted the torch of the
Revolution in Nantes, it might with even greater truth be said that the
torch itself was supplied by the opulent bourgeoisie.

I need not dwell at any length upon the sequel. It is a matter of
history how that oath which Omnes Omnibus administered to the citizens
of Nantes formed the backbone of the formal protest which they drew up
and signed in their thousands. Nor were the results of that powerful
protest--which, after all, might already be said to harmonize with the
expressed will of the sovereign himself--long delayed. Who shall say how
far it may have strengthened the hand of Necker, when on the 27th of
that same month of November he compelled the Council to adopt the most
significant and comprehensive of all those measures to which clergy and
nobility had refused their consent? On that date was published the royal
decree ordaining that the deputies to be elected to the States General
should number at least one thousand, and that the deputies of the
Third Estate should be fully representative by numbering as many as the
deputies of clergy and nobility together.





CHAPTER IX. THE AFTERMATH

Dusk of the following day was falling when the homing Andre-Louis
approached Gavrillac. Realizing fully what a hue and cry there would
presently be for the apostle of revolution who had summoned the people
of Nantes to arms, he desired as far as possible to conceal the fact
that he had been in that maritime city. Therefore he made a wide detour,
crossing the river at Bruz, and recrossing it a little above Chavagne,
so as to approach Gavrillac from the north, and create the impression
that he was returning from Rennes, whither he was known to have gone two
days ago.

Within a mile or so of the village he caught in the fading light his
first glimpse of a figure on horseback pacing slowly towards him. But
it was not until they had come within a few yards of each other, and he
observed that this cloaked figure was leaning forward to peer at him,
that he took much notice of it. And then he found himself challenged
almost at once by a woman’s voice.

“It is you, Andre--at last!”

He drew rein, mildly surprised, to be assailed by another question,
impatiently, anxiously asked.

“Where have you been?”

“Where have I been, Cousin Aline? Oh... seeing the world.”

“I have been patrolling this road since noon to-day waiting for
you.” She spoke breathlessly, in haste to explain. “A troop of the
marechaussee from Rennes descended upon Gavrillac this morning in quest
of you. They turned the chateau and the village inside out, and at
last discovered that you were due to return with a horse hired from the
Breton arme. So they have taken up their quarters at the inn to wait
for you. I have been here all the afternoon on the lookout to warn you
against walking into that trap.”

“My dear Aline! That I should have been the cause of so much concern and
trouble!”

“Never mind that. It is not important.”

“On the contrary; it is the most important part of what you tell me. It
is the rest that is unimportant.”

“Do you realize that they have come to arrest you?” she asked him, with
increasing impatience. “You are wanted for sedition, and upon a warrant
from M. de Lesdiguieres.”

“Sedition?” quoth he, and his thoughts flew to that business at Nantes.
It was impossible they could have had news of it in Rennes and acted
upon it in so short a time.

“Yes, sedition. The sedition of that wicked speech of yours at Rennes on
Wednesday.”

“Oh, that!” said he. “Pooh!” His note of relief might have told her,
had she been more attentive, that he had to fear the consequences of a
greater wickedness committed since. “Why, that was nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I almost suspect that the real intentions of these gentlemen of the
marechaussee have been misunderstood. Most probably they have come to
thank me on M. de Lesdiguieres’ behalf. I restrained the people when
they would have burnt the Palais and himself inside it.”

“After you had first incited them to do it. I suppose you were afraid of
your work. You drew back at the last moment. But you said things of
M. de Lesdiguieres, if you are correctly reported, which he will never
forgive.”

“I see,” said Andre-Louis, and he fell into thought.

But Mlle. de Kercadiou had already done what thinking was necessary, and
her alert young mind had settled all that was to be done.

“You must not go into Gavrillac,” she told him, “and you must get down
from your horse, and let me take it. I will stable it at the chateau
to-night. And sometime to-morrow afternoon, by when you should be well
away, I will return it to the Breton arme.”

“Oh, but that is impossible.”

“Impossible? Why?”

“For several reasons. One of them is that you haven’t considered what
will happen to you if you do such a thing.”

“To me? Do you suppose I am afraid of that pack of oafs sent by M.
Lesdiguieres? I have committed no sedition.”

“But it is almost as bad to give aid to one who is wanted for the crime.
That is the law.”

“What do I care for the law? Do you imagine that the law will presume to
touch me?”

“Of course there is that. You are sheltered by one of the abuses I
complained of at Rennes. I was forgetting.”

“Complain of it as much as you please, but meanwhile profit by it. Come,
Andre, do as I tell you. Get down from your horse.” And then, as he
still hesitated, she stretched out and caught him by the arm. Her voice
was vibrant with earnestness. “Andre, you don’t realize how serious is
your position. If these people take you, it is almost certain that you
will be hanged. Don’t you realize it? You must not go to Gavrillac.
You must go away at once, and lie completely lost for a time until this
blows over. Indeed, until my uncle can bring influence to bear to obtain
your pardon, you must keep in hiding.”

“That will be a long time, then,” said Andre-Louis. “M. de Kercadiou has
never cultivated friends at court.”

“There is M. de La Tour d’Azyr,” she reminded him, to his astonishment.

“That man!” he cried, and then he laughed. “But it was chiefly against
him that I aroused the resentment of the people of Rennes. I should have
known that all my speech was not reported to you.”

“It was, and that part of it among the rest.”

“Ah! And yet you are concerned to save me, the man who seeks the life of
your future husband at the hands either of the law or of the people? Or
is it, perhaps, that since you have seen his true nature revealed in the
murder of poor Philippe, you have changed your views on the subject of
becoming Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr?”

“You often show yourself without any faculty of deductive reasoning.”

“Perhaps. But hardly to the extent of imagining that M. de La Tour
d’Azyr will ever lift a finger to do as you suggest.”

“In which, as usual, you are wrong. He will certainly do so if I ask
him.”

“If you ask him?” Sheer horror rang in his voice.

“Why, yes. You see, I have not yet said that I will be Marquise de
La Tour d’Azyr. I am still considering. It is a position that has
its advantages. One of them is that it ensures a suitor’s complete
obedience.”

“So, so. I see the crooked logic of your mind. You might go so far as
to say to him: ‘Refuse me this, and I shall refuse to be your marquise.’
You would go so far as that?”

“At need, I might.”

“And do you not see the converse implication? Do you not see that
your hands would then be tied, that you would be wanting in honour if
afterwards you refused him? And do you think that I would consent to
anything that could so tie your hands? Do you think I want to see you
damned, Aline?”

Her hand fell away from his arm.

“Oh, you are mad!” she exclaimed, quite out of patience.

“Possibly. But I like my madness. There is a thrill in it unknown to
such sanity as yours. By your leave, Aline, I think I will ride on to
Gavrillac.”

“Andre, you must not! It is death to you!” In her alarm she backed her
horse, and pulled it across the road to bar his way.

It was almost completely night by now; but from behind the wrack of
clouds overhead a crescent moon sailed out to alleviate the darkness.

“Come, now,” she enjoined him. “Be reasonable. Do as I bid you. See,
there is a carriage coming up behind you. Do not let us be found here
together thus.”

He made up his mind quickly. He was not the man to be actuated by false
heroics about dying, and he had no fancy whatever for the gallows of M.
de Lesdiguieres’ providing. The immediate task that he had set himself
might be accomplished. He had made heard--and ringingly--the voice that
M. de La Tour d’Azyr imagined he had silenced. But he was very far from
having done with life.

“Aline, on one condition only.”

“And that?”

“That you swear to me you will never seek the aid of M. de La Tour
d’Azyr on my behalf.”

“Since you insist, and as time presses, I consent. And now ride on with
me as far as the lane. There is that carriage coming up.”

The lane to which she referred was one that branched off the road some
three hundred yards nearer the village and led straight up the hill
to the chateau itself. In silence they rode together towards it, and
together they turned into that thickly hedged and narrow bypath. At a
depth of fifty yards she halted him.

“Now!” she bade him.

Obediently he swung down from his horse, and surrendered the reins to
her.

“Aline,” he said, “I haven’t words in which to thank you.”

“It isn’t necessary,” said she.

“But I shall hope to repay you some day.”

“Nor is that necessary. Could I do less than I am doing? I do not want
to hear of you hanged, Andre; nor does my uncle, though he is very angry
with you.”

“I suppose he is.”

“And you can hardly be surprised. You were his delegate, his
representative. He depended upon you, and you have turned your coat. He
is rightly indignant, calls you a traitor, and swears that he will never
speak to you again. But he doesn’t want you hanged, Andre.”

“Then we are agreed on that at least, for I don’t want it myself.”

“I’ll make your peace with him. And now--good-bye, Andre. Send me a word
when you are safe.”

She held out a hand that looked ghostly in the faint light. He took it
and bore it to his lips.

“God bless you, Aline.”

She was gone, and he stood listening to the receding clopper-clop of
hooves until it grew faint in the distance. Then slowly, with shoulders
hunched and head sunk on his breast, he retraced his steps to the
main road, cogitating whither he should go. Quite suddenly he checked,
remembering with dismay that he was almost entirely without money. In
Brittany itself he knew of no dependable hiding-place, and as long as
he was in Brittany his peril must remain imminent. Yet to leave the
province, and to leave it as quickly as prudence dictated, horses would
be necessary. And how was he to procure horses, having no money beyond a
single louis d’or and a few pieces of silver?

There was also the fact that he was very weary. He had had little sleep
since Tuesday night, and not very much then; and much of the time had
been spent in the saddle, a wearing thing to one so little accustomed
to long rides. Worn as he was, it was unthinkable that he should go far
to-night. He might get as far as Chavagne, perhaps. But there he must
sup and sleep; and what, then, of to-morrow?

Had he but thought of it before, perhaps Aline might have been able to
assist him with the loan of a few louis. His first impulse now was to
follow her to the chateau. But prudence dismissed the notion. Before he
could reach her, he must be seen by servants, and word of his presence
would go forth.

There was no choice for him; he must tramp as far as Chavagne, find a
bed there, and leave to-morrow until it dawned. On the resolve he set
his face in the direction whence he had come. But again he paused.
Chavagne lay on the road to Rennes. To go that way was to plunge further
into danger. He would strike south again. At the foot of some meadows on
this side of the village there was a ferry that would put him across the
river. Thus he would avoid the village; and by placing the river between
himself and the immediate danger, he would obtain an added sense of
security.

A lane, turning out of the highroad, a quarter of a mile this side of
Gavrillac, led down to that ferry. By this lane some twenty minutes
later came Andre-Louis with dragging feet. He avoided the little cottage
of the ferryman, whose window was alight, and in the dark crept down to
the boat, intending if possible to put himself across. He felt for the
chain by which the boat was moored, and ran his fingers along this to
the point where it was fastened. Here to his dismay he found a padlock.

He stood up in the gloom and laughed silently. Of course he might have
known it. The ferry was the property of M. de La Tour d’Azyr, and not
likely to be left unfastened so that poor devils might cheat him of
seigneurial dues.

There being no possible alternative, he walked back to the cottage, and
rapped on the door. When it opened, he stood well back, and aside, out
of the shaft of light that issued thence.

“Ferry!” he rapped out, laconically.

The ferryman, a burly scoundrel well known to him, turned aside to pick
up a lantern, and came forth as he was bidden. As he stepped from the
little porch, he levelled the lantern so that its light fell on the face
of this traveller.

“My God!” he ejaculated.

“You realize, I see, that I am pressed,” said Andre-Louis, his eyes on
the fellow’s startled countenance.

“And well you may be with the gallows waiting for you at Rennes,”
 growled the ferryman. “Since you’ve been so foolish as to come back to
Gavrillac, you had better go again as quickly as you can. I will say
nothing of having seen you.”

“I thank you, Fresnel. Your advice accords with my intention. That is
why I need the boat.”

“Ah, that, no,” said Fresnel, with determination. “I’ll hold my peace,
but it’s as much as my skin is worth to help you.

“You need not have seen my face. Forget that you have seen it.”

“I’ll do that, monsieur. But that is all I will do. I cannot put you
across the river.”

“Then give me the key of the boat, and I will put myself across.”

“That is the same thing. I cannot. I’ll hold my tongue, but I will not--I
dare not--help you.”

Andre-Louis looked a moment into that sullen, resolute face, and
understood. This man, living under the shadow of La Tour d’Azyr, dared
exercise no will that might be in conflict with the will of his dread
lord.

“Fresnel,” he said, quietly, “if, as you say, the gallows claim me, the
thing that has brought me to this extremity arises out of the shooting
of Mabey. Had not Mabey been murdered there would have been no need
for me to have raised my voice as I have done. Mabey was your friend, I
think. Will you for his sake lend me the little help I need to save my
neck?”

The man kept his glance averted, and the cloud of sullenness deepened on
his face.

“I would if I dared, but I dare not.” Then, quite suddenly he became
angry. It was as if in anger he sought support. “Don’t you understand
that I dare not? Would you have a poor man risk his life for you? What
have you or yours ever done for me that you should ask that? You do not
cross to-night in my ferry. Understand that, monsieur, and go at once--go
before I remember that it may be dangerous even to have talked to you
and not give information. Go!”

He turned on his heel to reenter his cottage, and a wave of hopelessness
swept over Andre-Louis.

But in a second it was gone. The man must be compelled, and he had the
means. He bethought him of a pistol pressed upon him by Le Chapelier at
the moment of his leaving Rennes, a gift which at the time he had almost
disdained. True, it was not loaded, and he had no ammunition. But how
was Fresnel to know that?

He acted quickly. As with his right hand he pulled it from his pocket,
with his left he caught the ferryman by the shoulder, and swung him
round.

“What do you want now?” Fresnel demanded angrily. “Haven’t I told you
that I...”

He broke off short. The muzzle of the pistol was within a foot of his
eyes.

“I want the key of the boat. That is all, Fresnel. And you can either
give it me at once, or I’ll take it after I have burnt your brains. I
should regret to kill you, but I shall not hesitate. It is your life
against mine, Fresnel; and you’ll not find it strange that if one of us
must die I prefer that it shall be you.”

Fresnel dipped a hand into his pocket, and fetched thence a key. He held
it out to Andre-Louis in fingers that shook--more in anger than in fear.

“I yield to violence,” he said, showing his teeth like a snarling dog.
“But don’t imagine that it will greatly profit you.”

Andre-Louis took the key. His pistol remained levelled.

“You threaten me, I think,” he said. “It is not difficult to read your
threat. The moment I am gone, you will run to inform against me. You
will set the marechaussee on my heels to overtake me.”

“No, no!” cried the other. He perceived his peril. He read his doom in
the cold, sinister note on which Andre-Louis addressed him, and grew
afraid. “I swear to you, monsieur, that I have no such intention.”

“I think I had better make quite sure of you.”

“O my God! Have mercy, monsieur!” The knave was in a palsy of terror. “I
mean you no harm--I swear to Heaven I mean you no harm. I will not say a
word. I will not...”

“I would rather depend upon your silence than your assurances.
Still, you shall have your chance. I am a fool, perhaps, but I have a
reluctance to shed blood. Go into the house, Fresnel. Go, man. I follow
you.”

In the shabby main room of that dwelling, Andre-Louis halted him again.
“Get me a length of rope,” he commanded, and was readily obeyed.

Five minutes later Fresnel was securely bound to a chair, and
effectively silenced by a very uncomfortable gag improvised out of a
block of wood and a muffler.

On the threshold the departing Andre-Louis turned.

“Good-night, Fresnel,” he said. Fierce eyes glared mute hatred at him.
“It is unlikely that your ferry will be required again to-night. But
some one is sure to come to your relief quite early in the morning.
Until then bear your discomfort with what fortitude you can,
remembering that you have brought it entirely upon yourself by your
uncharitableness. If you spend the night considering that, the lesson
should not be lost upon you. By morning you may even have grown so
charitable as not to know who it was that tied you up. Good-night.”

He stepped out and closed the door.

To unlock the ferry, and pull himself across the swift-running waters,
on which the faint moonlight was making a silver ripple, were matters
that engaged not more than six or seven minutes. He drove the nose of
the boat through the decaying sedges that fringed the southern bank
of the stream, sprang ashore, and made the little craft secure. Then,
missing the footpath in the dark, he struck out across a sodden meadow
in quest of the road.





BOOK II: THE BUSKIN



CHAPTER I. THE TRESPASSERS

Coming presently upon the Redon road, Andre-Louis, obeying instinct
rather than reason, turned his face to the south, and plodded wearily
and mechanically forward. He had no clear idea of whither he was going,
or of whither he should go. All that imported at the moment was to put
as great a distance as possible between Gavrillac and himself.

He had a vague, half-formed notion of returning to Nantes; and there, by
employing the newly found weapon of his oratory, excite the people into
sheltering him as the first victim of the persecution he had foreseen,
and against which he had sworn them to take up arms. But the idea was
one which he entertained merely as an indefinite possibility upon which
he felt no real impulse to act.

Meanwhile he chuckled at the thought of Fresnel as he had last seen him,
with his muffled face and glaring eyeballs. “For one who was anything
but a man of action,” he writes, “I felt that I had acquitted myself
none so badly.” It is a phrase that recurs at intervals in his sketchy
“Confessions.” Constantly is he reminding you that he is a man of mental
and not physical activities, and apologizing when dire necessity
drives him into acts of violence. I suspect this insistence upon
his philosophic detachment--for which I confess he had justification
enough--to betray his besetting vanity.

With increasing fatigue came depression and self-criticism. He had
stupidly overshot his mark in insultingly denouncing M. de Lesdiguieres.
“It is much better,” he says somewhere, “to be wicked than to be stupid.
Most of this world’s misery is the fruit not as priests tell us of
wickedness, but of stupidity.” And we know that of all stupidities he
considered anger the most deplorable. Yet he had permitted himself to
be angry with a creature like M. de Lesdiguieres--a lackey, a fribble,
a nothing, despite his potentialities for evil. He could perfectly have
discharged his self-imposed mission without arousing the vindictive
resentment of the King’s Lieutenant.

He beheld himself vaguely launched upon life with the riding-suit in
which he stood, a single louis d’or and a few pieces of silver for all
capital, and a knowledge of law which had been inadequate to preserve
him from the consequences of infringing it.

He had, in addition--but these things that were to be the real salvation
of him he did not reckon--his gift of laughter, sadly repressed of late,
and the philosophic outlook and mercurial temperament which are the
stock-in-trade of your adventurer in all ages.

Meanwhile he tramped mechanically on through the night, until he felt
that he could tramp no more. He had skirted the little township of
Guichen, and now within a half-mile of Guignen, and with Gavrillac a
good seven miles behind him, his legs refused to carry him any farther.

He was midway across the vast common to the north of Guignen when
he came to a halt. He had left the road, and taken heedlessly to
the footpath that struck across the waste of indifferent pasture
interspersed with clumps of gorse. A stone’s throw away on his right the
common was bordered by a thorn hedge. Beyond this loomed a tall building
which he knew to be an open barn, standing on the edge of a long stretch
of meadowland. That dark, silent shadow it may have been that had
brought him to a standstill, suggesting shelter to his subconsciousness.
A moment he hesitated; then he struck across towards a spot where a gap
in the hedge was closed by a five-barred gate. He pushed the gate open,
went through the gap, and stood now before the barn. It was as big as
a house, yet consisted of no more than a roof carried upon half a dozen
tall, brick pillars. But densely packed under that roof was a great
stack of hay that promised a warm couch on so cold a night. Stout
timbers had been built into the brick pillars, with projecting ends to
serve as ladders by which the labourer might climb to pack or withdraw
hay. With what little strength remained him, Andre-Louis climbed by one
of these and landed safely at the top, where he was forced to kneel, for
lack of room to stand upright. Arrived there, he removed his coat and
neckcloth, his sodden boots and stockings. Next he cleared a trough for
his body, and lying down in it, covered himself to the neck with the hay
he had removed. Within five minutes he was lost to all worldly cares and
soundly asleep.

When next he awakened, the sun was already high in the heavens, from
which he concluded that the morning was well advanced; and this before
he realized quite where he was or how he came there. Then to his
awakening senses came a drone of voices close at hand, to which at first
he paid little heed. He was deliciously refreshed, luxuriously drowsy
and luxuriously warm.

But as consciousness and memory grew more full, he raised his head clear
of the hay that he might free both ears to listen, his pulses faintly
quickened by the nascent fear that those voices might bode him no good.
Then he caught the reassuring accents of a woman, musical and silvery,
though laden with alarm.

“Ah, mon Dieu, Leandre, let us separate at once. If it should be my
father...”

And upon this a man’s voice broke in, calm and reassuring:

“No, no, Climene; you are mistaken. There is no one coming. We are quite
safe. Why do you start at shadows?”

“Ah, Leandre, if he should find us here together! I tremble at the very
thought.”

More was not needed to reassure Andre-Louis. He had overheard enough to
know that this was but the case of a pair of lovers who, with less to
fear of life, were yet--after the manner of their kind--more timid of
heart than he. Curiosity drew him from his warm trough to the edge of
the hay. Lying prone, he advanced his head and peered down.

In the space of cropped meadow between the barn and the hedge stood a
man and a woman, both young. The man was a well-set-up, comely fellow,
with a fine head of chestnut hair tied in a queue by a broad bow of
black satin. He was dressed with certain tawdry attempts at ostentatious
embellishments, which did not prepossess one at first glance in his
favour. His coat of a fashionable cut was of faded plum-coloured velvet
edged with silver lace, whose glory had long since departed. He affected
ruffles, but for want of starch they hung like weeping willows over
hands that were fine and delicate. His breeches were of plain black
cloth, and his black stockings were of cotton--matters entirely out of
harmony with his magnificent coat. His shoes, stout and serviceable,
were decked with buckles of cheap, lack-lustre paste. But for his
engaging and ingenuous countenance, Andre-Louis must have set him down
as a knight of that order which lives dishonestly by its wits. As it
was, he suspended judgment whilst pushing investigation further by a
study of the girl. At the outset, be it confessed that it was a study
that attracted him prodigiously. And this notwithstanding the fact that,
bookish and studious as were his ways, and in despite of his years, it
was far from his habit to waste consideration on femininity.

The child--she was no more than that, perhaps twenty at the
most--possessed, in addition to the allurements of face and shape that
went very near perfection, a sparkling vivacity and a grace of movement
the like of which Andre-Louis did not remember ever before to have
beheld assembled in one person. And her voice too--that musical, silvery
voice that had awakened him--possessed in its exquisite modulations an
allurement of its own that must have been irresistible, he thought, in
the ugliest of her sex. She wore a hooded mantle of green cloth, and the
hood being thrown back, her dainty head was all revealed to him. There
were glints of gold struck by the morning sun from her light nut-brown
hair that hung in a cluster of curls about her oval face. Her complexion
was of a delicacy that he could compare only with a rose petal. He could
not at that distance discern the colour of her eyes, but he guessed them
blue, as he admired the sparkle of them under the fine, dark line of
eyebrows.

He could not have told you why, but he was conscious that it aggrieved
him to find her so intimate with this pretty young fellow, who was
partly clad, as it appeared, in the cast-offs of a nobleman. He could
not guess her station, but the speech that reached him was cultured in
tone and word. He strained to listen.

“I shall know no peace, Leandre, until we are safely wedded,” she was
saying. “Not until then shall I count myself beyond his reach. And yet
if we marry without his consent, we but make trouble for ourselves, and
of gaining his consent I almost despair.”

Evidently, thought Andre-Louis, her father was a man of sense, who saw
through the shabby finery of M. Leandre, and was not to be dazzled by
cheap paste buckles.

“My dear Climene,” the young man was answering her, standing squarely
before her, and holding both her hands, “you are wrong to despond. If I
do not reveal to you all the stratagem that I have prepared to win the
consent of your unnatural parent, it is because I am loath to rob you of
the pleasure of the surprise that is in store. But place your faith in
me, and in that ingenious friend of whom I have spoken, and who should
be here at any moment.”

The stilted ass! Had he learnt that speech by heart in advance, or was
he by nature a pedantic idiot who expressed himself in this set and
formal manner? How came so sweet a blossom to waste her perfumes on such
a prig? And what a ridiculous name the creature owned!

Thus Andre-Louis to himself from his observatory. Meanwhile, she was
speaking.

“That is what my heart desires, Leandre, but I am beset by fears lest
your stratagem should be too late. I am to marry this horrible Marquis
of Sbrufadelli this very day. He arrives by noon. He comes to sign the
contract--to make me the Marchioness of Sbrufadelli. Oh!” It was a cry of
pain from that tender young heart. “The very name burns my lips. If it
were mine I could never utter it--never! The man is so detestable. Save
me, Leandre. Save me! You are my only hope.”

Andre-Louis was conscious of a pang of disappointment. She failed to
soar to the heights he had expected of her. She was evidently infected
by the stilted manner of her ridiculous lover. There was an atrocious
lack of sincerity about her words. They touched his mind, but left his
heart unmoved. Perhaps this was because of his antipathy to M. Leandre
and to the issue involved.

So her father was marrying her to a marquis! That implied birth on
her side. And yet she was content to pair off with this dull young
adventurer in the tarnished lace! It was, he supposed, the sort of thing
to be expected of a sex that all philosophy had taught him to regard as
the maddest part of a mad species.

“It shall never be!” M. Leandre was storming passionately. “Never! I
swear it!” And he shook his puny fist at the blue vault of heaven--Ajax
defying Jupiter. “Ah, but here comes our subtle friend...” (Andre-Louis
did not catch the name, M. Leandre having at that moment turned to face
the gap in the hedge.) “He will bring us news, I know.”

Andre-Louis looked also in the direction of the gap. Through it emerged
a lean, slight man in a rusty cloak and a three-cornered hat worn well
down over his nose so as to shade his face. And when presently he
doffed this hat and made a sweeping bow to the young lovers, Andre-Louis
confessed to himself that had he been cursed with such a hangdog
countenance he would have worn his hat in precisely such a manner, so
as to conceal as much of it as possible. If M. Leandre appeared to
be wearing, in part at least, the cast-offs of nobleman, the newcomer
appeared to be wearing the cast-offs of M. Leandre. Yet despite his vile
clothes and viler face, with its three days’ growth of beard, the
fellow carried himself with a certain air; he positively strutted as he
advanced, and he made a leg in a manner that was courtly and practised.

“Monsieur,” said he, with the air of a conspirator, “the time for action
has arrived, and so has the Marquis... That is why.”

The young lovers sprang apart in consternation; Climene with clasped
hands, parted lips, and a bosom that raced distractingly under its white
fichu-menteur; M. Leandre agape, the very picture of foolishness and
dismay.

Meanwhile the newcomer rattled on. “I was at the inn an hour ago when
he descended there, and I studied him attentively whilst he was at
breakfast. Having done so, not a single doubt remains me of our success.
As for what he looks like, I could entertain you at length upon the
fashion in which nature has designed his gross fatuity. But that is no
matter. We are concerned with what he is, with the wit of him. And I
tell you confidently that I find him so dull and stupid that you may be
confident he will tumble headlong into each and all of the traps I have
so cunningly prepared for him.”

“Tell me, tell me! Speak!” Climene implored him, holding out her hands
in a supplication no man of sensibility could have resisted. And then
on the instant she caught her breath on a faint scream. “My father!” she
exclaimed, turning distractedly from one to the other of those two. “He
is coming! We are lost!”

“You must fly, Climene!” said M. Leandre.

“Too late!” she sobbed. “Too late! He is here.”

“Calm, mademoiselle, calm!” the subtle friend was urging her. “Keep calm
and trust to me. I promise you that all shall be well.”

“Oh!” cried M. Leandre, limply. “Say what you will, my friend, this is
ruin--the end of all our hopes. Your wits will never extricate us from
this. Never!”

Through the gap strode now an enormous man with an inflamed moon
face and a great nose, decently dressed after the fashion of a solid
bourgeois. There was no mistaking his anger, but the expression that it
found was an amazement to Andre-Louis.

“Leandre, you’re an imbecile! Too much phlegm, too much phlegm! Your
words wouldn’t convince a ploughboy! Have you considered what they mean
at all? Thus,” he cried, and casting his round hat from him in a broad
gesture, he took his stand at M. Leandre’s side, and repeated the very
words that Leandre had lately uttered, what time the three observed him
coolly and attentively.

“Oh, say what you will, my friend, this is ruin--the end of all our
hopes. Your wits will never extricate us from this. Never!”

A frenzy of despair vibrated in his accents. He swung again to face M.
Leandre. “Thus,” he bade him contemptuously. “Let the passion of your
hopelessness express itself in your voice. Consider that you are not
asking Scaramouche here whether he has put a patch in your breeches. You
are a despairing lover expressing...”

He checked abruptly, startled. Andre-Louis, suddenly realizing what was
afoot, and how duped he had been, had loosed his laughter. The sound
of it pealing and booming uncannily under the great roof that so
immediately confined him was startling to those below.

The fat man was the first to recover, and he announced it after his own
fashion in one of the ready sarcasms in which he habitually dealt.

“Hark!” he cried, “the very gods laugh at you, Leandre.” Then he
addressed the roof of the barn and its invisible tenant. “Hi! You
there!”

Andre-Louis revealed himself by a further protrusion of his tousled
head.

“Good-morning,” said he, pleasantly. Rising now on his knees, his
horizon was suddenly extended to include the broad common beyond the
hedge. He beheld there an enormous and very battered travelling chaise,
a cart piled up with timbers partly visible under the sheet of oiled
canvas that covered them, and a sort of house on wheels equipped with
a tin chimney, from which the smoke was slowly curling. Three heavy
Flemish horses and a couple of donkeys--all of them hobbled--were
contentedly cropping the grass in the neighbourhood of these vehicles.
These, had he perceived them sooner, must have given him the clue to the
queer scene that had been played under his eyes. Beyond the hedge other
figures were moving. Three at that moment came crowding into the
gap--a saucy-faced girl with a tip-tilted nose, whom he supposed to be
Columbine, the soubrette; a lean, active youngster, who must be the
lackey Harlequin; and another rather loutish youth who might be a zany
or an apothecary.

All this he took in at a comprehensive glance that consumed no more
time than it had taken him to say good-morning. To that good-morning
Pantaloon replied in a bellow:

“What the devil are you doing up there?”

“Precisely the same thing that you are doing down there,” was the
answer. “I am trespassing.”

“Eh?” said Pantaloon, and looked at his companions, some of the
assurance beaten out of his big red face. Although the thing was one
that they did habitually, to hear it called by its proper name was
disconcerting.

“Whose land is this?” he asked, with diminishing assurance.

Andre-Louis answered, whilst drawing on his stockings. “I believe it to
be the property of the Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr.”

“That’s a high-sounding name. Is the gentleman severe?”

“The gentleman,” said Andre-Louis, “is the devil; or rather, I should
prefer to say upon reflection, that the devil is a gentleman by
comparison.”

“And yet,” interposed the villainous-looking fellow who played
Scaramouche, “by your own confessing you don’t hesitate, yourself, to
trespass upon his property.”

“Ah, but then, you see, I am a lawyer. And lawyers are notoriously
unable to observe the law, just as actors are notoriously unable to act.
Moreover, sir, Nature imposes her limits upon us, and Nature conquers
respect for law as she conquers all else. Nature conquered me last night
when I had got as far as this. And so I slept here without regard for
the very high and puissant Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr. At the same time,
M. Scaramouche, you’ll observe that I did not flaunt my trespass quite
as openly as you and your companions.”

Having donned his boots, Andre-Louis came nimbly to the ground in his
shirt-sleeves, his riding-coat over his arm. As he stood there to don
it, the little cunning eyes of the heavy father conned him in detail.
Observing that his clothes, if plain, were of a good fashion, that his
shirt was of fine cambric, and that he expressed himself like a man
of culture, such as he claimed to be, M. Pantaloon was disposed to be
civil.

“I am very grateful to you for the warning, sir...” he was beginning.

“Act upon it, my friend. The gardes-champetres of M. d’Azyr have orders
to fire on trespassers. Imitate me, and decamp.”

They followed him upon the instant through that gap in the hedge to the
encampment on the common. There Andre-Louis took his leave of them.
But as he was turning away he perceived a young man of the company
performing his morning toilet at a bucket placed upon one of the wooden
steps at the tail of the house on wheels. A moment he hesitated, then he
turned frankly to M. Pantaloon, who was still at his elbow.

“If it were not unconscionable to encroach so far upon your hospitality,
monsieur,” said he, “I would beg leave to imitate that very excellent
young gentleman before I leave you.”

“But, my dear sir!” Good-nature oozed out of every pore of the fat
body of the master player. “It is nothing at all. But, by all means.
Rhodomont will provide what you require. He is the dandy of the company
in real life, though a fire-eater on the stage. Hi, Rhodomont!”

The young ablutionist straightened his long body from the right angle in
which it had been bent over the bucket, and looked out through a foam
of soapsuds. Pantaloon issued an order, and Rhodomont, who was indeed as
gentle and amiable off the stage as he was formidable and terrible upon
it, made the stranger free of the bucket in the friendliest manner.

So Andre-Louis once more removed his neckcloth and his coat, and rolled
up the sleeves of his fine shirt, whilst Rhodomont procured him soap,
a towel, and presently a broken comb, and even a greasy hair-ribbon,
in case the gentleman should have lost his own. This last Andre-Louis
declined, but the comb he gratefully accepted, and having presently
washed himself clean, stood, with the towel flung over his left
shoulder, restoring order to his dishevelled locks before a broken piece
of mirror affixed to the door of the travelling house.

He was standing thus, the gentle Rhodomont babbled aimlessly at his
side, when his ears caught the sound of hooves. He looked over his
shoulder carelessly, and then stood frozen, with uplifted comb and
loosened mouth. Away across the common, on the road that bordered it, he
beheld a party of seven horsemen in the blue coats with red facings of
the marechaussee.

Not for a moment did he doubt what was the quarry of this prowling
gendarmerie. It was as if the chill shadow of the gallows had fallen
suddenly upon him.

And then the troop halted, abreast with them, and the sergeant leading
it sent his bawling voice across the common.

“Hi, there! Hi!” His tone rang with menace.

Every member of the company--and there were some twelve in all--stood at
gaze. Pantaloon advanced a step or two, stalking, his head thrown back,
his manner that of a King’s Lieutenant.

“Now, what the devil’s this?” quoth he, but whether of Fate or Heaven or
the sergeant, was not clear.

There was a brief colloquy among the horsemen, then they came trotting
across the common straight towards the players’ encampment.

Andre-Louis had remained standing at the tail of the travelling
house. He was still passing the comb through his straggling hair,
but mechanically and unconsciously. His mind was all intent upon the
advancing troop, his wits alert and gathered together for a leap in
whatever direction should be indicated.

Still in the distance, but evidently impatient, the sergeant bawled a
question.

“Who gave you leave to encamp here?”

It was a question that reassured Andre-Louis not at all. He was not
deceived by it into supposing or even hoping that the business of these
men was merely to round up vagrants and trespassers. That was no part of
their real duty; it was something done in passing--done, perhaps, in the
hope of levying a tax of their own. It was very long odds that they
were from Rennes, and that their real business was the hunting down of
a young lawyer charged with sedition. Meanwhile Pantaloon was shouting
back.

“Who gave us leave, do you say? What leave? This is communal land, free
to all.”

The sergeant laughed unpleasantly, and came on, his troop following.

“There is,” said a voice at Pantaloon’s elbow, “no such thing as
communal land in the proper sense in all M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s vast
domain. This is a terre censive, and his bailiffs collect his dues from
all who send their beasts to graze here.”

Pantaloon turned to behold at his side Andre-Louis in his shirt-sleeves,
and without a neckcloth, the towel still trailing over his left
shoulder, a comb in his hand, his hair half dressed.

“God of God!” swore Pantaloon. “But it is an ogre, this Marquis de La
Tour d’Azyr!”

“I have told you already what I think of him,” said Andre-Louis. “As for
these fellows you had better let me deal with them. I have experience
of their kind.” And without waiting for Pantaloon’s consent, Andre-Louis
stepped forward to meet the advancing men of the marechaussee. He had
realized that here boldness alone could save him.

When a moment later the sergeant pulled up his horse alongside of this
half-dressed young man, Andre-Louis combed his hair what time he looked
up with a half smile, intended to be friendly, ingenuous, and disarming.

In spite of it the sergeant hailed him gruffly: “Are you the leader of
this troop of vagabonds?”

“Yes... that is to say, my father, there, is really the leader.” And he
jerked a thumb in the direction of M. Pantaloon, who stood at gaze out
of earshot in the background. “What is your pleasure, captain?”

“My pleasure is to tell you that you are very likely to be gaoled for
this, all the pack of you.” His voice was loud and bullying. It carried
across the common to the ears of every member of the company, and
brought them all to stricken attention where they stood. The lot of
strolling players was hard enough without the addition of gaolings.

“But how so, my captain? This is communal land free to all.”

“It is nothing of the kind.”

“Where are the fences?” quoth Andre-Louis, waving the hand that held the
comb, as if to indicate the openness of the place.

“Fences!” snorted the sergeant. “What have fences to do with the matter?
This is terre censive. There is no grazing here save by payment of dues
to the Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr.”

“But we are not grazing,” quoth the innocent Andre-Louis.

“To the devil with you, zany! You are not grazing! But your beasts are
grazing!”

“They eat so little,” Andre-Louis apologized, and again essayed his
ingratiating smile.

The sergeant grew more terrible than ever. “That is not the point. The
point is that you are committing what amounts to a theft, and there’s
the gaol for thieves.”

“Technically, I suppose you are right,” sighed Andre-Louis, and fell to
combing his hair again, still looking up into the sergeant’s face. “But
we have sinned in ignorance. We are grateful to you for the warning.”
 He passed the comb into his left hand, and with his right fumbled in
his breeches’ pocket, whence there came a faint jingle of coins. “We are
desolated to have brought you out of your way. Perhaps for their trouble
your men would honour us by stopping at the next inn to drink the health
of... of this M. de La Tour d’ Azyr, or any other health that they think
proper.”

Some of the clouds lifted from the sergeant’s brow. But not yet all.

“Well, well,” said he, gruffly. “But you must decamp, you understand.”
 He leaned from the saddle to bring his recipient hand to a convenient
distance. Andre-Louis placed in it a three-livre piece.

“In half an hour,” said Andre-Louis.

“Why in half an hour? Why not at once?”

“Oh, but time to break our fast.”

They looked at each other. The sergeant next considered the broad piece
of silver in his palm. Then at last his features relaxed from their
sternness.

“After all,” said he, “it is none of our business to play the tipstaves
for M. de La Tour d’Azyr. We are of the marechaussee from Rennes.”
 Andre-Louis’ eyelids played him false by flickering. “But if you linger,
look out for the gardes-champetres of the Marquis. You’ll find them not
at all accommodating. Well, well--a good appetite to you, monsieur,” said
he, in valediction.

“A pleasant ride, my captain,” answered Andre-Louis.

The sergeant wheeled his horse about, his troop wheeled with him. They
were starting off, when he reined up again.

“You, monsieur!” he called over his shoulder. In a bound Andre-Louis was
beside his stirrup. “We are in quest of a scoundrel named Andre-Louis
Moreau, from Gavrillac, a fugitive from justice wanted for the gallows
on a matter of sedition. You’ve seen nothing, I suppose, of a man whose
movements seemed to you suspicious?”

“Indeed, we have,” said Andre-Louis, very boldly, his face eager with
consciousness of the ability to oblige.

“You have?” cried the sergeant, in a ringing voice. “Where? When?”

“Yesterday evening in the neighbourhood of Guignen...”

“Yes, yes,” the sergeant felt himself hot upon the trail.

“There was a fellow who seemed very fearful of being recognized ... a
man of fifty or thereabouts...”

“Fifty!” cried the sergeant, and his face fell. “Bah! This man of ours
is no older than yourself, a thin wisp of a fellow of about your own
height and of black hair, just like your own, by the description. Keep a
lookout on your travels, master player. The King’s Lieutenant in Rennes
has sent us word this morning that he will pay ten louis to any one
giving information that will lead to this scoundrel’s arrest. So there’s
ten louis to be earned by keeping your eyes open, and sending word to
the nearest justices. It would be a fine windfall for you, that.”

“A fine windfall, indeed, captain,” answered Andre-Louis, laughing.

But the sergeant had touched his horse with the spur, and was already
trotting off in the wake of his men. Andre-Louis continued to laugh,
quite silently, as he sometimes did when the humour of a jest was
peculiarly keen.

Then he turned slowly about, and came back towards Pantaloon and the
rest of the company, who were now all grouped together, at gaze.

Pantaloon advanced to meet him with both hands out-held. For a moment
Andre-Louis thought he was about to be embraced.

“We hail you our saviour!” the big man declaimed. “Already the shadow
of the gaol was creeping over us, chilling us to the very marrow. For
though we be poor, yet are we all honest folk and not one of us has ever
suffered the indignity of prison. Nor is there one of us would survive
it. But for you, my friend, it might have happened. What magic did you
work?”

“The magic that is to be worked in France with a King’s portrait. The
French are a very loyal nation, as you will have observed. They love
their King--and his portrait even better than himself, especially when it
is wrought in gold. But even in silver it is respected. The sergeant
was so overcome by the sight of that noble visage--on a three-livre
piece--that his anger vanished, and he has gone his ways leaving us to
depart in peace.”

“Ah, true! He said we must decamp. About it, my lads! Come, come...”

“But not until after breakfast,” said Andre-Louis. “A half-hour for
breakfast was conceded us by that loyal fellow, so deeply was he
touched. True, he spoke of possible gardes-champetres. But he knows as
well as I do that they are not seriously to be feared, and that if
they came, again the King’s portrait--wrought in copper this time--would
produce the same melting effect upon them. So, my dear M. Pantaloon,
break your fast at your ease. I can smell your cooking from here,
and from the smell I argue that there is no need to wish you a good
appetite.”

“My friend, my saviour!” Pantaloon flung a great arm about the young
man’s shoulders. “You shall stay to breakfast with us.”

“I confess to a hope that you would ask me,” said Andre-Louis.





CHAPTER II. THE SERVICE OF THESPIS

They were, thought Andre-Louis, as he sat down to breakfast with them
behind the itinerant house, in the bright sunshine that tempered the
cold breath of that November morning, an odd and yet an attractive crew.
An air of gaiety pervaded them. They affected to have no cares, and made
merry over the trials and tribulations of their nomadic life. They
were curiously, yet amiably, artificial; histrionic in their manner
of discharging the most commonplace of functions; exaggerated in their
gestures; stilted and affected in their speech. They seemed, indeed, to
belong to a world apart, a world of unreality which became real only
on the planks of their stage, in the glare of their footlights.
Good-fellowship bound them one to another; and Andre-Louis reflected
cynically that this harmony amongst them might be the cause of their
apparent unreality. In the real world, greedy striving and the emulation
of acquisitiveness preclude such amity as was present here.

They numbered exactly eleven, three women and eight men; and they
addressed each other by their stage names: names which denoted their
several types, and never--or only very slightly--varied, no matter what
might be the play that they performed.

“We are,” Pantaloon informed him, “one of those few remaining staunch
bands of real players, who uphold the traditions of the old Italian
Commedia dell’ Arte. Not for us to vex our memories and stultify our
wit with the stilted phrases that are the fruit of a wretched author’s
lucubrations. Each of us is in detail his own author in a measure as he
develops the part assigned to him. We are improvisers--improvisers of the
old and noble Italian school.”

“I had guessed as much,” said Andre-Louis, “when I discovered you
rehearsing your improvisations.”

Pantaloon frowned.

“I have observed, young sir, that your humour inclines to the pungent,
not to say the acrid. It is very well. It is I suppose, the humour that
should go with such a countenance. But it may lead you astray, as
in this instance. That rehearsal--a most unusual thing with us--was
necessitated by the histrionic rawness of our Leandre. We are seeking
to inculcate into him by training an art with which Nature neglected to
endow him against his present needs. Should he continue to fail in doing
justice to our schooling... But we will not disturb our present harmony
with the unpleasant anticipation of misfortunes which we still hope
to avert. We love our Leandre, for all his faults. Let me make you
acquainted with our company.”

And he proceeded to introduction in detail. He pointed out the long and
amiable Rhodomont, whom Andre-Louis already knew.

“His length of limb and hooked nose were his superficial qualifications
to play roaring captains,” Pantaloon explained. “His lungs have
justified our choice. You should hear him roar. At first we called him
Spavento or Epouvapte. But that was unworthy of so great an artist. Not
since the superb Mondor amazed the world has so thrasonical a bully been
seen upon the stage. So we conferred upon him the name of Rhodomont
that Mondor made famous; and I give you my word, as an actor and a
gentleman--for I am a gentleman, monsieur, or was--that he has justified
us.”

His little eyes beamed in his great swollen face as he turned their gaze
upon the object of his encomium. The terrible Rhodomont, confused by so
much praise, blushed like a schoolgirl as he met the solemn scrutiny of
Andre-Louis.

“Then here we have Scaramouche, whom also you already know. Sometimes he
is Scapin and sometimes Coviello, but in the main Scaramouche, to which
let me tell you he is best suited--sometimes too well suited, I think.
For he is Scaramouche not only on the stage, but also in the world. He
has a gift of sly intrigue, an art of setting folk by the ears, combined
with an impudent aggressiveness upon occasion when he considers himself
safe from reprisals. He is Scaramouche, the little skirmisher, to the
very life. I could say more. But I am by disposition charitable and
loving to all mankind.”

“As the priest said when he kissed the serving-wench,” snarled
Scaramouche, and went on eating.

“His humour, like your own, you will observe, is acrid,” said Pantaloon.
He passed on. “Then that rascal with the lumpy nose and the grinning
bucolic countenance is, of course, Pierrot. Could he be aught else?”

“I could play lovers a deal better,” said the rustic cherub.

“That is the delusion proper to Pierrot,” said Pantaloon,
contemptuously. “This heavy, beetle-browed ruffian, who has grown old in
sin, and whose appetite increases with his years, is Polichinelle. Each
one, as you perceive, is designed by Nature for the part he plays. This
nimble, freckled jackanapes is Harlequin; not your spangled Harlequin
into which modern degeneracy has debased that first-born of Momus,
but the genuine original zany of the Commedia, ragged and patched, an
impudent, cowardly, blackguardly clown.”

“Each one of us, as you perceive,” said Harlequin, mimicking the leader
of the troupe, “is designed by Nature for the part he plays.”

“Physically, my friend, physically only, else we should not have so much
trouble in teaching this beautiful Leandre to become a lover. Then
we have Pasquariel here, who is sometimes an apothecary, sometimes a
notary, sometimes a lackey--an amiable, accommodating fellow. He is also
an excellent cook, being a child of Italy, that land of gluttons. And
finally, you have myself, who as the father of the company very properly
play as Pantaloon the roles of father. Sometimes, it is true, I am a
deluded husband, and sometimes an ignorant, self-sufficient doctor.
But it is rarely that I find it necessary to call myself other than
Pantaloon. For the rest, I am the only one who has a name--a real name.
It is Binet, monsieur.

“And now for the ladies... First in order of seniority we have Madame
there.” He waved one of his great hands towards a buxom, smiling blonde
of five-and-forty, who was seated on the lowest of the steps of the
travelling house. “She is our Duegne, or Mother, or Nurse, as the case
requires. She is known quite simply and royally as Madame. If she ever
had a name in the world, she has long since forgotten it, which is
perhaps as well. Then we have this pert jade with the tip-tilted nose
and the wide mouth, who is of course our soubrette Columbine, and
lastly, my daughter Climene, an amoureuse of talents not to be matched
outside the Comedie Francaise, of which she has the bad taste to aspire
to become a member.”

The lovely Climene--and lovely indeed she was--tossed her nut-brown
curls and laughed as she looked across at Andre-Louis. Her eyes, he had
perceived by now, were not blue, but hazel.

“Do not believe him, monsieur. Here I am queen, and I prefer to be queen
here rather than a slave in Paris.”

“Mademoiselle,” said Andre-Louis, quite solemnly, “will be queen
wherever she condescends to reign.”

Her only answer was a timid--timid and yet alluring--glance from under
fluttering lids. Meanwhile her father was bawling at the comely young
man who played lovers--“You hear, Leandre! That is the sort of speech you
should practise.”

Leandre raised languid eyebrows. “That?” quoth he, and shrugged. “The
merest commonplace.”

Andre-Louis laughed approval. “M. Leandre is of a readier wit than you
concede. There is subtlety in pronouncing it a commonplace to call Mlle.
Climene a queen.”

Some laughed, M. Binet amongst them, with good-humoured mockery.

“You think he has the wit to mean it thus? Bah! His subtleties are all
unconscious.”

The conversation becoming general, Andre-Louis soon learnt what yet
there was to learn of this strolling band. They were on their way to
Guichen, where they hoped to prosper at the fair that was to open on
Monday next. They would make their triumphal entry into the town at
noon, and setting up their stage in the old market, they would give
their first performance that same Saturday night, in a new canevas--or
scenario--of M. Binet’s own, which should set the rustics gaping. And
then M. Binet fetched a sigh, and addressed himself to the elderly,
swarthy, beetle-browed Polichinelle, who sat on his left.

“But we shall miss Felicien,” said he. “Indeed, I do not know what we
shall do without him.”

“Oh, we shall contrive,” said Polichinelle, with his mouth full.

“So you always say, whatever happens, knowing that in any case the
contriving will not fall upon yourself.”

“He should not be difficult to replace,” said Harlequin.

“True, if we were in a civilized land. But where among the rustics
of Brittany are we to find a fellow of even his poor parts?” M. Binet
turned to Andre-Louis. “He was our property-man, our machinist, our
stage-carpenter, our man of affairs, and occasionally he acted.”

“The part of Figaro, I presume,” said Andre-Louis, which elicited a
laugh.

“So you are acquainted with Beaumarchais!” Binet eyed the young man with
fresh interest.

“He is tolerably well known, I think.”

“In Paris, to be sure. But I had not dreamt his fame had reached the
wilds of Brittany.”

“But then I was some years in Paris--at the Lycee of Louis le Grand. It
was there I made acquaintance with his work.”

“A dangerous man,” said Polichinelle, sententiously.

“Indeed, and you are right,” Pantaloon agreed. “Clever--I do not deny him
that, although myself I find little use for authors. But of a sinister
cleverness responsible for the dissemination of many of these subversive
new ideas. I think such writers should be suppressed.”

“M. de La Tour d’Azyr would probably agree with you--the gentleman who
by the simple exertion of his will turns this communal land into his own
property.” And Andre-Louis drained his cup, which had been filled with
the poor vin gris that was the players’ drink.

It was a remark that might have precipitated an argument had it not also
reminded M. Binet of the terms on which they were encamped there, and
of the fact that the half-hour was more than past. In a moment he was on
his feet, leaping up with an agility surprising in so corpulent a man,
issuing his commands like a marshal on a field of battle.

“Come, come, my lads! Are we to sit guzzling here all day? Time flees,
and there’s a deal to be done if we are to make our entry into Guichen
at noon. Go, get you dressed. We strike camp in twenty minutes. Bestir,
ladies! To your chaise, and see that you contrive to look your best.
Soon the eyes of Guichen will be upon you, and the condition of your
interior to-morrow will depend upon the impression made by your exterior
to-day. Away! Away!”

The implicit obedience this autocrat commanded set them in a whirl.
Baskets and boxes were dragged forth to receive the platters and remains
of their meagre feast. In an instant the ground was cleared, and the
three ladies had taken their departure to the chaise, which was set
apart for their use. The men were already climbing into the house on
wheels, when Binet turned to Andre-Louis.

“We part here, sir,” said he, dramatically, “the richer by your
acquaintance; your debtors and your friends.” He put forth his podgy
hand.

Slowly Andre-Louis took it in his own. He had been thinking swiftly in
the last few moments. And remembering the safety he had found from his
pursuers in the bosom of this company, it occurred to him that nowhere
could he be better hidden for the present, until the quest for him
should have died down.

“Sir,” he said, “the indebtedness is on my side. It is not every day
one has the felicity to sit down with so illustrious and engaging a
company.”

Binet’s little eyes peered suspiciously at the young man, in quest of
irony. He found nothing but candour and simple good faith.

“I part from you reluctantly,” Andre-Louis continued. “The more
reluctantly since I do not perceive the absolute necessity for parting.”

“How?” quoth Binet, frowning, and slowly withdrawing the hand which the
other had already retained rather longer than was necessary.

“Thus,” Andre-Louis explained himself. “You may set me down as a sort
of knight of rueful countenance in quest of adventure, with no fixed
purpose in life at present. You will not marvel that what I have seen of
yourself and your distinguished troupe should inspire me to desire your
better acquaintance. On your side you tell me that you are in need of
some one to replace your Figaro--your Felicien, I think you called him.
Whilst it may be presumptuous of me to hope that I could discharge an
office so varied and so onerous...”

“You are indulging that acrid humour of yours again, my friend,” Binet
interrupted him. “Excepting for that,” he added, slowly, meditatively,
his little eyes screwed up, “we might discuss this proposal that you
seem to be making.”

“Alas! we can except nothing. If you take me, you take me as I am. What
else is possible? As for this humour--such as it is--which you decry, you
might turn it to profitable account.”

“How so?”

“In several ways. I might, for instance, teach Leandre to make love.”

Pantaloon burst into laughter. “You do not lack confidence in your
powers. Modesty does not afflict you.”

“Therefore I evince the first quality necessary in an actor.”

“Can you act?”

“Upon occasion, I think,” said Andre-Louis, his thoughts upon his
performance at Rennes and Nantes, and wondering when in all his
histrionic career Pantaloon’s improvisations had so rent the heart of
mobs.

M. Binet was musing. “Do you know much of the theatre?” quoth he.

“Everything,” said Andre-Louis.

“I said that modesty will prove no obstacle in your career.”

“But consider. I know the work of Beaumarchais, Eglantine, Mercier,
Chenier, and many others of our contemporaries. Then I have read, of
course, Moliere, Racine, Corneille, besides many other lesser French
writers. Of foreign authors, I am intimate with the works of Gozzi,
Goldoni, Guarini, Bibbiena, Machiavelli, Secchi, Tasso, Ariosto,
and Fedini. Whilst of those of antiquity I know most of the work of
Euripides, Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus...”

“Enough!” roared Pantaloon.

“I am not nearly through with my list,” said Andre-Louis.

“You may keep the rest for another day. In Heaven’s name, what can have
induced you to read so many dramatic authors?”

“In my humble way I am a student of man, and some years ago I made the
discovery that he is most intimately to be studied in the reflections of
him provided for the theatre.”

“That is a very original and profound discovery,” said Pantaloon, quite
seriously. “It had never occurred to me. Yet is it true. Sir, it is a
truth that dignifies our art. You are a man of parts, that is clear to
me. It has been clear since first I met you. I can read a man. I knew
you from the moment that you said ‘good-morning.’ Tell me, now: Do
you think you could assist me upon occasion in the preparation of a
scenario? My mind, fully engaged as it is with a thousand details of
organization, is not always as clear as I would have it for such work.
Could you assist me there, do you think?”

“I am quite sure I could.”

“Hum, yes. I was sure you would be. The other duties that were
Felicien’s you would soon learn. Well, well, if you are willing, you may
come along with us. You’d want some salary, I suppose?”

“If it is usual,” said Andre-Louis.

“What should you say to ten livres a month?”

“I should say that it isn’t exactly the riches of Peru.”

“I might go as far as fifteen,” said Binet, reluctantly. “But times are
bad.”

“I’ll make them better for you.”

“I’ve no doubt you believe it. Then we understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” said Andre-Louis, dryly, and was thus committed to the
service of Thespis.





CHAPTER III. THE COMIC MUSE

The company’s entrance into the township of Guichen, if not exactly
triumphal, as Binet had expressed the desire that it should be, was at
least sufficiently startling and cacophonous to set the rustics gaping.
To them these fantastic creatures appeared--as indeed they were--beings
from another world.

First went the great travelling chaise, creaking and groaning on its
way, drawn by two of the Flemish horses. It was Pantaloon who drove it,
an obese and massive Pantaloon in a tight-fitting suit of scarlet under
a long brown bed-gown, his countenance adorned by a colossal cardboard
nose. Beside him on the box sat Pierrot in a white smock, with sleeves
that completely covered his hands, loose white trousers, and a black
skull-cap. He had whitened his face with flour, and he made hideous
noises with a trumpet.

On the roof of the coach were assembled Polichinelle, Scaramouche,
Harlequin, and Pasquariel. Polichinelle in black and white, his doublet
cut in the fashion of a century ago, with humps before and behind, a
white frill round his neck and a black mask upon the upper half of his
face, stood in the middle, his feet planted wide to steady him, solemnly
and viciously banging a big drum. The other three were seated each at
one of the corners of the roof, their legs dangling over. Scaramouche,
all in black in the Spanish fashion of the seventeenth century, his
face adorned with a pair of mostachios, jangled a guitar discordantly.
Harlequin, ragged and patched in every colour of the rainbow, with his
leather girdle and sword of lath, the upper half of his face smeared
in soot, clashed a pair of cymbals intermittently. Pasquariel, as an
apothecary in skull-cap and white apron, excited the hilarity of the
onlookers by his enormous tin clyster, which emitted when pumped a
dolorous squeak.

Within the chaise itself, but showing themselves freely at the windows,
and exchanging quips with the townsfolk, sat the three ladies of the
company. Climene, the amoureuse, beautifully gowned in flowered satin,
her own clustering ringlets concealed under a pumpkin-shaped wig, looked
so much the lady of fashion that you might have wondered what she was
doing in that fantastic rabble. Madame, as the mother, was also dressed
with splendour, but exaggerated to achieve the ridiculous. Her headdress
was a monstrous structure adorned with flowers, and superimposed by
little ostrich plumes. Columbine sat facing them, her back to the
horses, falsely demure, in milkmaid bonnet of white muslin, and a
striped gown of green and blue.

The marvel was that the old chaise, which in its halcyon days may have
served to carry some dignitary of t

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