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The conspirators; or, The chevalier d'Harmental

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Title: The conspirators; or, The chevalier d'Harmental

Author: Alexandre Dumas
        Auguste Maquet


        
Release date: December 2, 2008 [eBook #27385]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27385

Credits: Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
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Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
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[Transcriber's Note: This text is taken from a nine-volume edition of
the works of Alexandre Dumas, published in 1893 by Peter Fenelon
Collier. _The Conspirators_ was published in volume 6, along with _The
Forty-Five Guardsmen_ and _The Regent's Daughter_, both of which are
also available from Project Gutenberg. The translator of these texts is
unknown.

The use of accents in the original text was erratic, and some names
appear with more than one spelling. Except where one version was clearly
predominant, all spellings are left as they appear in the original
text.]




THE WORKS OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS

THE CONSPIRATORS
OR _THE CHEVALIER D'HARMENTAL_

Copiously Illustrated with elegant Pen and Ink and Wood Engravings,
specially drawn for this edition by eminent French and American Artists


COMPLETE IN NINE VOLUMES

VOLUME SIX


NEW YORK
PETER FENELON COLLIER, PUBLISHER
1893




THE CONSPIRATORS.

1.    Captain Roquefinette                       240
2.    The Meeting                                243
3.    The Chevalier                              247
4.    A Bal-Masque of the Period.--The Bat       251
5.    The Arsenal                                257
6.    The Prince de Cellamare                    261
7.    Alberoni                                   264
8.    The Garret                                 269
9.    A Citizen of the Rue du Temps-Perdu        272
10.   The Agreement                              276
11.   Pros and Cons                              279
12.   The Denis Family                           285
13.   The Crimson Ribbon                         290
14.   The Rue des bons Enfants                   295
15.   Jean Buvat                                 301
16.   Bathilde                                   310
17.   First Love                                 319
18.   The Consul Duilius                         325
19.   The Abbe Dubois                            331
20.   The Conspiracy                             335
21.   The Order of the Honey Bee                 338
22.   The Queen of the Greenlanders              340
23.   The Duc de Richelieu                       344
24.   Jealousy                                   348
25.   A Pretext                                  352
26.   Counterplots                               355
27.   The Seventh Heaven                         360
28.   Fenelon's Successor                        363
29.   The Prince de Listhnay's Accomplice        368
30.   The Fox and Goose                          372
31.   A Chapter of Saint-Simon                   376
32.   A Snare                                    378
33.   The Beginning of the End                   382
34.   Parliamentary Justice                      387
35.   Man Proposes                               391
36.   David and Goliath                          395
37.   The Savior of France                       400
38.   God Disposes                               408
39.   A Prime Minister's Memory                  412
40.   Boniface                                   416
41.   The Three Visits                           420
42.   The Closet                                 424
43.   The Marriage in Extremis                   427
      Postscriptum                               429




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


7.--He attacked the captain with such fury that their swords engaged at
    the hilt.

8.--D'Harmental.

9.--He then returned to his work with all the eagerness of an artist.

10.--The chevalier set Mirza to eat sugar.

11.--Buvat found himself in a sort of laboratory, situated on the
     ground-floor.

12.--The body of the captain lay stretched on the floor, swimming in a
     sea of blood.




THE CONSPIRATORS;
OR, THE CHEVALIER D'HARMENTAL.


CHAPTER I.

CAPTAIN ROQUEFINETTE.


On the 22d of March, in the year of our Lord 1718, a young cavalier of
high bearing, about twenty-six or twenty-eight years of age, mounted on
a pure-bred Spanish charger, was waiting, toward eight o'clock in the
morning, at that end of the Pont Neuf which abuts on the Quai de
l'Ecole.

He was so upright and firm in his saddle, that one might have imagined
him to be placed there as a sentinel by the Lieutenant-General of
Police, Messire Voyer d'Argenson. After waiting about half an hour,
during which time he impatiently examined the clock of the Samaritaine,
his glance, wandering till then, appeared to rest with satisfaction on
an individual who, coming from the Place Dauphine, turned to the right,
and advanced toward him.

The man who thus attracted the attention of the young chevalier was a
powerfully-built fellow of five feet ten, wearing, instead of a peruke,
a forest of his own black hair, slightly grizzled, dressed in a manner
half-bourgeois, half-military, ornamented with a shoulder-knot which had
once been crimson, but from exposure to sun and rain had become a dirty
orange. He was armed with a long sword slung in a belt, and which bumped
ceaselessly against the calves of his legs. Finally, he wore a hat once
furnished with a plume and lace, and which--in remembrance, no doubt, of
its past splendor--its owner had stuck so much over his left ear, that
it seemed as if only a miracle of equilibrium could keep it in its
place. There was altogether in the countenance and in the carriage and
bearing of the man (who seemed from forty to forty-five years of age,
and who advanced swaggering and keeping the middle of the road, curling
his mustache with one hand, and with the other signing to the carriages
to give place), such a character of insolent carelessness, that the
cavalier who watched him smiled involuntarily, as he murmured to
himself, "I believe this is my man."

In consequence of this probability, he walked straight up to the
new-comer, with the evident intention of speaking to him. The latter,
though he evidently did not know the cavalier, seeing that he was going
to address him, placed himself in the third position, and waited, one
hand on his sword and the other on his mustache, to hear what the person
who was coming up had to say to him. Indeed, as the man with the orange
ribbon had foreseen, the young cavalier stopped his horse by him, and
touching his hat--"Sir," said he, "I think I may conclude, from your
appearance and manner, that you are a gentleman; am I mistaken?"

"No, palsam-bleu!" replied he to whom this strange question was
addressed, touching his hat in his turn. "I am delighted that my
appearance speaks so well for me, for, however little you would think
that you were giving me my proper title, you may call me captain."

"I am enchanted that you are a soldier; it is an additional security to
me that you are incapable of leaving a brave man in distress."

"Welcome, provided always the brave man has no need of my purse, for I
confess, freely, that I have just left my last crown in a cabaret on the
Port de la Tonnelle."

"Nobody wants your purse, captain; on the contrary, I beg you to believe
that mine is at your disposal."

"To whom have I the honor to speak?" asked the captain, visibly touched
by this reply, "and in what can I oblige you?"

"I am the Baron Rene de Valef," replied the cavalier.

"I think," interrupted the captain, "that I knew, in the Flemish wars, a
family of that name."

"It was mine, since we are from Liege." The two speakers exchanged bows.

"You must know then," continued the Baron de Valef, "that the Chevalier
Raoul d'Harmental, one of my most intimate friends, last night, in my
company, picked up a quarrel, which will finish this morning by a
meeting. Our adversaries were three, and we but two. I went this morning
to the houses of the Marquis de Gace and Comte de Sourgis, but
unfortunately neither the one nor the other had passed the night in his
bed; so, as the affair could not wait, as I must set out in two hours
for Spain, and that we absolutely require a second, or rather a third, I
installed myself on the Pont Neuf with the intention of addressing the
first gentleman who passed. You passed, and I addressed myself to you."

"And you have done right, pardieu! rest satisfied, baron, I am your man.
What hour is fixed for the meeting?"

"Half-past nine this morning."

"Where will it take place?"

"At the Port Maillot."

"Diable! there is no time to lose; but you are on horseback and I am on
foot; how shall we manage that?"

"There is a way, captain."

"What is it?"

"It is that you should do me the honor of mounting behind me."

"Willingly, baron."

"I warn you, however," added the young cavalier, with a slight smile,
"that my horse is rather spirited."

"Oh, I know him!" said the captain, drawing back a step, and looking at
the beautiful animal with the eye of a connoisseur; "if I am not
mistaken, he was bred between the mountains of Grenada and the Sierra
Morena. I rode such a one at Almanza, and I have often made him lie down
like a sheep when he wanted to carry me off at a gallop, only by
pressing him with my knees."

"You reassure me. To horse then, captain."----"Here I am, baron."

And without using the stirrup, which the young cavalier left free for
him, with a single bound the captain sprang on to the croup.

The baron had spoken truly; his horse was not accustomed to so heavy a
load, therefore he attempted to get rid of it. Neither had the captain
exaggerated, and the animal soon felt that he had found his master; so
that, after a few attempts, which had no other effect than to show to
the passers-by the address of the two cavaliers, he became obedient, and
went at a swinging trot down the Quai de l'Ecole, which at that time was
nothing but a wharf, crossed at the same pace the Quai du Louvre and the
Quai des Tuileries, through the gate of the Conference, and leaving on
the left the road to Versailles, threaded the great avenue of the
Champs-Elysees, which now leads to the triumphal Arc de l'Etoile.
Arrived at the Pont d'Antin, the Baron de Valef slackened his horse's
pace a little, for he found that he had ample time to arrive at the Port
Maillot at the hour fixed.

The captain profited by this respite.

"May I, without indiscretion, ask why we are going to fight? I wish, you
understand, to know that, in order to regulate my conduct toward my
adversary, and to know whether it is worth killing him."

"That is only fair," answered the baron; "I will tell you everything as
it passed. We were supping last night at La Fillon's. Of course you know
La Fillon, captain?"

[Illustration: HE ATTACKED THE CAPTAIN WITH SUCH FURY THAT THEIR SWORDS
ENGAGED AT THE HILT.--Page 244.]

"Pardieu! it was I who started her in the world, in 1705, before my
Italian campaign."

"Well," replied the baron, laughing, "you may boast of a pupil who does
you honor. Briefly, I supped there tete-a-tete with D'Harmental."

"Without any one of the fair sex?"

"Oh, mon Dieu, yes! I must tell you that D'Harmental is a kind of
Trappist, only going to La Fillon's for fear of the reputation of not
going there; only loving one woman at a time, and in love for the moment
with the little D'Averne, the wife of the lieutenant of the guards."

"Very good!"

"We were there, chatting, when we heard a merry party enter the room
next to ours. As our conversation did not concern anybody else, we kept
silence, and, without intending it, heard the conversation of our
neighbors. See what chance is. Our neighbors talked of the only thing
which we ought not to have heard."

"Of the chevalier's mistress, perhaps?"

"Exactly. At the first words of their discourse which reached me, I
rose, and tried to get Raoul away, but instead of following me, he put
his hand on my shoulder, and made me sit down again. 'Then Philippe is
making love to the little D'Averne?' said one. 'Since the fete of the
Marechal d'Estree, where she gave him a sword-belt with some verses, in
which she compared him to Mars,' replied another voice. 'That is eight
days ago,' said a third. 'Yes,' replied the first. 'Oh! she made a kind
of resistance, either that she really held by poor D'Harmental, or that
she knew that the regent only likes those who resist him. At last this
morning, in exchange for a basketful of flowers and jewels, she has
consented to receive his highness.'"

"Ah!" said the captain, "I begin to understand; the chevalier got
angry."

"Exactly. Instead of laughing, as you or I would have done, and
profiting by this circumstance to get back his brevet of colonel, which
was taken from him under pretext of economy, D'Harmental became so pale
that I thought he was going to faint; then, approaching the partition,
and striking with his fist, to insure silence, 'Gentlemen,' said he, 'I
am sorry to contradict you, but the one who said that Madame d'Averne
had granted a rendezvous to the regent, or to any other, has told a
lie.'

"'It was I who said it, and who repeat it, and if it displeases you, my
name is Lafare, captain of the guards.' 'And mine, Fargy,' said a second
voice. 'And mine, Ravanne,' said the third. 'Very well, gentlemen,'
replied D'Harmental, 'to-morrow, from nine to half-past, at the Port
Maillot.' And he sat down again opposite me. They talked of something
else, and we finished our supper. That is the whole affair, captain, and
you now know as much as I."

The captain gave vent to a kind of exclamation which seemed to say,
"This is not very serious;" but in spite of this semi-disapprobation, he
resolved none the less to support, to the best of his power, the cause
of which he had so unexpectedly been made the champion, however
defective that cause might appear to him in principle; besides, even had
he wished it, he had gone too far to draw back. They had now arrived at
the Port Maillot, and a young cavalier, who appeared to be waiting, and
who had from a distance perceived the baron and the captain, put his
horse to the gallop, and approached rapidly; this was the Chevalier
d'Harmental.

"My dear chevalier," said the Baron de Valef, grasping his hand, "permit
me, in default of an old friend, to present to you a new one. Neither
Sourgis nor Gace were at home. I met this gentleman on the Pont Neuf,
and told him our embarrassment, and he offered himself to free us from
it, with the greatest good will."

"I am doubly grateful to you then, my dear Valef," replied the
chevalier, casting on the captain a look which betrayed a slight
astonishment. "And to you, monsieur," continued he. "I must excuse
myself for making your acquaintance by mixing you up thus with an
unpleasant affair. But you will afford me one day or another an
opportunity to return your kindness, and I hope and beg that, an
opportunity arising, you would dispose of me as I have of you."

"Well said, chevalier," replied the captain, leaping to the ground; "and
in speaking thus you might lead me to the end of the world. The proverb
is right: 'It is only mountains that don't meet.'"

"Who is this original?" asked D'Harmental of Valef, while the captain
stamped the calls with his right foot, to stretch his legs.

"Ma foi! I do not know," said Valef, "but I do know that we should be in
a great difficulty without him. Some poor officer of fortune, without
doubt, whom the peace has thrown abroad like so many others; but we will
judge him by-and-by, by his works."

"Well!" said the captain, becoming animated with the exercise he was
taking, "where are our adversaries?"

"When I came up to you," replied D'Harmental, "they had not arrived, but
I perceived at the end of the avenue a kind of hired carriage, which
will serve as an excuse if they are late; and indeed," added the
chevalier, pulling out a beautiful watch set with diamonds, "they are
not behind time, for it is hardly half-past nine."

"Let us go," said Valef, dismounting and throwing the reins to
D'Harmental's valet, "for if they arrive at the rendezvous while we
stand gossiping here, it will appear as though we had kept them
waiting."

"You are right," said D'Harmental; and, dismounting, he advanced toward
the entrance of the wood, followed by his two companions.----"Will you
not take anything, gentlemen," said the landlord of the restaurant, who
was standing at his door, waiting for custom.

"Yes, Maitre Durand," replied D'Harmental, who wished, in order that
they might not be disturbed, to make it appear as if they had come from
an ordinary walk, "breakfast for three. We are going to take a turn in
the avenue, and then we shall come back." And he let three louis fall
into the hands of the inn-keeper.

The captain saw the shine of the three gold pieces one after another,
and quickly reckoned up what might be had at the "Bois de Boulogne" for
seventy-two francs; but as he knew whom he had to deal with, he judged
that a little advice from him would not be useless; consequently, in his
turn approaching the maitre d'hotel--

"Listen, my friend," said he; "you know that I understand the price of
things, and that no one can deceive me about the amount of a tavern
bill. Let the wines be good and varied, and let the breakfast be
copious, or I will break your head! Do you understand?"

"Be easy, captain," answered Durand, "it is not a customer like you whom
I would deceive."

"All right; I have eaten nothing for twelve hours. Arrange accordingly."

The hotel-keeper bowed, as knowing what that meant, and went back to his
kitchen, beginning to think that he had made a worse bargain than he had
hoped.

As to the captain, after having made a last sign of recognition, half
amicable, half threatening, he quickened his pace, and rejoined the
chevalier and the baron, who had stopped to wait for him.

The chevalier was not wrong as to the situation of the hired carriage.
At the turn of the first alley he saw his three adversaries getting out
of it. They were, as we have already said, the Marquis de Lafare, the
Comte de Fargy, and the Chevalier de Ravanne.

Our readers will now permit us to give them some short details of these
three personages, who will often reappear in the course of this history.
Lafare, the best known of the three, thanks to the poetry which he has
left behind him, was a man of about thirty-six or thirty-eight years, of
a frank and open countenance, and of an inexhaustible gayety and good
humor. Always ready to engage with all comers, at table, at play, or at
arms, and that without malice or bitterness; much run after by the fair
sex, and much beloved by the regent, who had named him his captain of
the guards, and who, during the ten years in which he had admitted him
into his intimacy, had found him his rival sometimes, but his faithful
servant always. Thus the prince, who had the habit of giving nicknames
to all his boon companions, as well as to his mistresses, never called
him any other than "bon enfant." Nevertheless, for some time the
popularity of Lafare, established as it was by agreeable antecedents,
was fast lowering among the ladies of the court and the girls of the
opera. There was a report current that he was going to be so ridiculous
as to become a well-behaved man. It is true that some people, in order
to preserve his reputation for him, whispered that this apparent
conversion had no other cause than the jealousy of Mademoiselle de
Conti, daughter of the duchess, and granddaughter of the great Conde,
who it was said honored the regent's captain of the guards with a
particular affection. His alliance with the Duc de Richelieu, who on his
side was supposed to be the lover of Mademoiselle de Charolais, gave
consistency to this report.

The Comte de Fargy, generally called "Le Beau Fargy," thus substituting
the title which he had received from nature for that which his fathers
had left him was cited, as his name indicates, as the handsomest man of
his time, which in that age of gallantry imposed obligations from which
he had never recoiled, and from which he had always come with honor.
Indeed, it was impossible to be a more perfect figure than he was. At
once strong and graceful, supple and active, he seemed to unite all the
different perfections of a hero of romance of that time. Add to this a
charming head, uniting the most opposite styles of beauty; that is to
say, black hair and blue eyes, strongly-marked features, and a
complexion like a woman. Unite with all these, wit, loyalty, the
greatest courage, and you will have an idea of the high consideration
which Le Fargy must have enjoyed from the society of that mad period.

As to the Chevalier de Ravanne, who has left us such strange memoirs of
his early life, that, in spite of their authenticity, one is tempted to
believe them apocryphal, he was still but a youth, rich and of noble
birth, who entered into life by a golden door, and ran into all its
pleasures with the fiery imprudence and eagerness of his age. He carried
to excess, as so many do at eighteen, all the vices and all the virtues
of his day. It will be easily understood how proud he was to serve as
second to men like Lafare and Fargy in a meeting which was likely to
"make a noise."




CHAPTER II.

THE MEETING.


As soon as Lafare, Fargy, and Ravanne saw their adversaries appear at
the corner of the path, they walked to meet them. Arrived at ten paces
from each other, they all took off their hats and bowed with that
elegant politeness which was a characteristic of the aristocracy of the
eighteenth century, and advanced some steps thus bareheaded with a smile
on their lips, so that to the eyes of the passer-by, ignorant of the
cause of their reunion, they would have appeared like friends enchanted
to meet.

"Gentlemen," said the Chevalier d'Harmental, to whom the first word by
right belonged, "I hope that neither you nor we have been followed; but
it is getting late, and we might be disturbed here. I think it would be
wise in us to find a more retired spot, where we shall be more at ease
to transact the little business which we have in hand."

"Gentlemen," said Ravanne, "I know one which will suit you, a hundred
yards from here--a true cover."

"Come, let us follow the child," said the captain; "innocence leads to
safety."

Ravanne turned round, and examined, from head to foot, our friend with
the yellow ribbons.

"If you are not previously engaged, my strapping friend," said he, in a
bantering tone, "I claim the preference."

"Wait a moment, Ravanne," interrupted Lafare; "I have some explanations
to give to Monsieur d'Harmental."

"Monsieur Lafare," replied the chevalier, "your courage is so well
known, that the explanations you offer me are a proof of delicacy for
which I thank you; but these explanations would only delay us uselessly,
and we have no time to lose."

"Bravo!" cried Ravanne, "that is what I call speaking, chevalier. As
soon as we have cut each other's throats, I hope you will grant me your
friendship. I have heard you much spoken of in good quarters, and have
long wished to make your acquaintance."

"Come, come, Ravanne," said Fargy, "since you have undertaken to be our
guide, show us the way."

Ravanne sprang into the wood like a young fawn: his five companions
followed. At the end of about ten minutes' walking, during which the six
adversaries had maintained the most profound silence, either from fear
of being heard, or from that natural feeling which makes a man in the
moment of danger reflective for a time, they found themselves in the
midst of a glade, surrounded on all sides by a screen of trees.

"Well," said Ravanne, looking round him in a satisfied manner, "what do
you say to the locality?"

"I say that if you boast of having discovered it," said the captain,
"you are a strange kind of Christopher Columbus. If you had told me it
was here you were coming, I could have guided you with my eyes
shut."----"Well," replied Ravanne, "we will endeavor that you shall
leave it in the same manner."

"It is with you that my business lies, Monsieur de Lafare," said
D'Harmental, throwing his hat on the ground.

"Yes, monsieur," replied the captain of the guards, following the
example of the chevalier; "and at the same time I know that nothing
could give me more honor and more pain than a rencontre with you,
particularly for such a cause."

D'Harmental smiled as a man on whom this flower of politeness was not
lost, but his only answer was to draw his sword.

"It appears, my dear baron," said Fargy, addressing himself to Valef,
"that you are on the point of setting out for Spain."

"I ought to have left last night; and nothing less than the pleasure I
promised myself in seeing you this morning would have detained me till
now, so important is my errand."

"Diable! you distress me," said Fargy, drawing, "for if I should have
the misfortune to retard you, you are the man to bear me deadly malice."

"Not at all. I should know that it was from pure friendship, my dear
count," replied Valef; "so do your best, I beg, for I am at your
orders."

"Come, then, monsieur," said Ravanne to the captain, who was folding his
coat neatly, and placing it by his hat, "you see that I am waiting for
you."

"Do not be impatient, my fine fellow," said the old soldier, continuing
his preparations with the phlegm natural to him; "one of the most
essential qualities in arms is sang-froid. I was like you at your age;
but after the third or fourth sword-blow I received, I understood that I
was on the wrong road, and I returned to the right path. There," added
he, at last drawing his sword, which I have said was of extreme length.

"Peste!" said Ravanne, throwing a glance on his adversary's weapon,
"what a charming implement you have there! It reminds me of the great
spit in my mother's kitchen; and I am grieved that I did not order the
maitre-d'hotel to bring it me, as a match to yours."

"Your mother is a worthy woman, and her 'cuisine' is a good one; I have
heard both spoken of with great praise, Monsieur le Chevalier," replied
the captain with an almost paternal manner; "I should be grieved to take
you from one or the other for a trifle like that which procures me the
honor of crossing swords with you. Suppose, then, that you are only
taking a lesson from your fencing-master, and keep the distance."

The recommendation was useless. Ravanne was exasperated by his
adversary's calmness, to which, in spite of his courage, his young and
ardent blood did not allow him to attain. He attacked the captain with
such fury that their swords engaged at the hilt. The captain made a step
back.

"Ah! you give ground, my tall friend."

"To give ground is not to fly, my little chevalier," replied the
captain; "it is an axiom of the art which I advise you to consider;
besides, I am not sorry to study your play. Ah! you are a pupil of
Berthelot, apparently; he is a good master, but he has one great fault:
it is not teaching to parry. Stay, look at this," continued he, replying
by a thrust in "seconde" to a straight thrust; "if I had lunged, I
should have spitted you like a lark."

Ravanne was furious, for he had felt on his breast the point of his
adversary's sword, but so lightly that he might have taken it for the
button of a foil. His anger redoubled at the conviction that he owed his
life to the captain, and his attacks became more numerous and more
furious than ever.

"Stop, stop," said the captain; "now you are going crazy, and trying to
blind me; fie! fie! young man; at the chest, morbleu! Ah! at the face
again; you will force me to disarm you. Again! Go and pick up your
sword, young man; and come back hopping on one leg to calm yourself."

And with a sudden twist he whipped Ravanne's sword out of his hand and
sent it flying some twenty paces from him. This time Ravanne profited by
the advice. He went slowly to pick up his sword, and came back quietly
to the captain; but the young man was as pale as his satin vest, on
which was apparent a small drop of blood.

"You are right, captain," said he, "and I am still but a child; but this
meeting will, I hope, help to make a man of me. Some passes more, if you
please, that it may not be said you have had all the honors."

And he put himself on guard. The captain was right; the chevalier only
required to be calm to make him a formidable adversary: thus, at the
first thrust of this third engagement, he saw that he must attend solely
to his own defense; but his superiority in the art of fencing was too
decided for his young adversary to obtain any advantage over him. The
matter ended as it was easy to foresee. The captain disarmed Ravanne a
second time; but this time he went and picked up the sword himself, and
with a politeness of which at first one might have supposed him
incapable.

"Monsieur le Chevalier," said he, extending his hand to Ravanne, "you
are a brave young man; but believe in an old frequenter of schools and
taverns, who was at the Flemish wars before you were born, at the
Italian when you were in your cradle, and at the Spanish while you were
a page; change your master. Leave Berthelot, who has already taught you
all he knows, and take Bois-Robert; and may the devil fly away with me,
if in six months you are not as good a fencer as myself."

"Thanks for your lesson," said Ravanne, taking the hand of the captain,
while two tears, which he could not restrain, flowed down his cheeks; "I
hope it will profit me."

And, receiving his sword, he did what the captain had already
done--sheathed it. They then both cast their eyes on their companions to
see how things were going. The combat was over. Lafare was seated on the
ground, with his back leaning against a tree: he had been run through
the body, but happily the point of the sword had struck against a rib,
and had glanced along the bone, so that the wound seemed at first worse
than it really was; still he had fainted--the shock had been so violent.
D'Harmental was on his knees before him, endeavoring to staunch the
blood with his handkerchief. Fargy and Valef had wounded each other at
the same moment. One was struck in the thigh, the other run through the
arm; both had apologized, promising to be friends for the future.

"Look, young man," said the captain, showing Ravanne these different
episodes of the field of battle. "Look on that, and meditate. There is
the blood of three brave gentlemen flowing--probably for a folly."

"Faith, captain," answered Ravanne, quite calmed down, "I believe you
are right, and that you are the only one of us all that has got common
sense."

At that moment Lafare opened his eyes and recognized D'Harmental in the
man who was tending him.

"Chevalier," said he, "take a friend's advice; send me a kind of surgeon
whom you will find in the carriage, and whom I brought with me in case
of accident. Then gain Paris as fast as possible. Show yourself to-night
at the opera ball, and if they ask you about me, say that it is a week
since you have seen me. As to me, you may be quite easy. Your name shall
not pass my lips; and if you get into any unpleasant discussion with the
police, let me know at once, and we will manage so that the affair shall
have no consequences."

"Thanks, Monsieur le Marquis," answered D'Harmental, "I quit you because
I leave you in better hands than mine; otherwise, believe me, nothing
should have separated me from you until I had seen you in your bed."

"Pleasant journey, my dear Valef," said Fargy, "for I do not think that
scratch will hinder your going. On your return, do not forget that you
have a friend at No. 14, Place Louis-le-Grand."

"And you, my dear Fargy, if you have any commission for Madrid, you have
but to say so, and you may rely upon its being executed with the
exactitude and zeal of a true comrade."

And the two friends shook hands as if nothing had passed.

"Adieu, young man, adieu," said the captain to Ravanne; "do not forget
the advice which I have given you. Give up Berthelot, and take to
Bois-Robert. Be calm--give ground when it is necessary--parry in time,
and you will be one of the best fencers in the kingdom of France. My
implement sends its compliments to your mother's great spit."

Ravanne, in spite of his presence of mind, could not find anything to
reply to the captain; so he contented himself with bowing and going up
to Lafare, who appeared to be the most seriously wounded.

As to D'Harmental, Valef, and the captain, they rapidly gained the path,
where they found the coach, and inside, the surgeon, who was enjoying a
nap. D'Harmental woke him; and showing him the way he must go, told him
that the Marquis de Lafare and the Comte de Fargy had need of his
services. He also ordered his valet to dismount and follow the surgeon
in order to aid him; then, turning toward the captain--

"Captain," said he, "I do not think that it would be prudent to go and
eat the breakfast which we have ordered; therefore receive my thanks for
the assistance you have rendered me, and in remembrance of me, as it
seems you are on foot, will you accept one of my two horses? you can
take one by chance; they are both good, and neither will fail you if you
have need to go eight or ten leagues in the hour."

"Faith, chevalier," answered the captain, casting a look on the horse
which had been so generously offered to him, "there was no need for
that. Their blood and their purses are things which gentlemen lend each
other every day; but you make the offer with so good a grace that I know
not how to refuse you. If you ever have need of me, for anything
whatever, remember that I am at your service."

"If that case should occur, where should I find you, monsieur?" said
D'Harmental, smiling.

"I have no fixed residence, chevalier, but you may always hear of me by
going to La Fillon's and asking for La Normande, and inquiring of her
for Captain Roquefinette."

And as the two young men mounted their horses, the captain did the same,
not without remarking to himself that D'Harmental had left him the best
of the three. Then, as they were near a four-cross road, each one took
his own way at a gallop.

The Baron de Valef re-entered by the Barriere de Passy, and returned
straight to the arsenal to receive the commissions of the Duchesse de
Maine, to whose establishment he belonged, and left the same day for
Spain.

Captain Roquefinette made two or three tours round the Bois de Boulogne,
walking, trotting, and galloping, in order to appreciate the different
qualities of his horse; and having satisfied himself that it was, as
the chevalier had told him, a fine and pure-blooded animal, he returned
to Durand's hotel, where he ate, all alone, the breakfast which had been
ordered for three. The same day, he took his horse to a dealer and sold
it for sixty louis. It was about half what it was worth; but one must be
prepared to make sacrifices, if one wishes to realize promptly.

As to the Chevalier d'Harmental, he took the road to La Muette, entered
Paris by the great avenue of the Champs-Elysees, and on returning to his
home in the Rue de Richelieu, found two letters waiting for him. One of
these letters was in a handwriting so well known to him that he trembled
from head to foot as he looked at it, and after having taken it up with
as much hesitation as if it had been a burning coal, he opened it with a
hand whose shaking betrayed the importance he attached to it. It read as
follows:

     "MY DEAR CHEVALIER--No one is master of his own
     heart--you know that; and it is one of the misfortunes
     of our nature not to be able to love the same person,
     or the same thing, long at a time. As to myself, I wish
     at least to have, beyond other women, the merit of
     never deceiving the man who has been my lover. Do not
     come, then, at your accustomed hour, for you will be
     told that I am not at home; and I am so scrupulous that
     I would not willingly endanger the soul even of a valet
     or a waiting-maid by making them tell so great a lie.

     "Adieu, my dear chevalier. Do not retain too unkind a
     remembrance of me, and behave so that ten years hence I
     may still think what I think now--that is to say, that
     you are one of the noblest gentlemen in France.

     "SOPHIE D'AVERNE."

"Mon Dieu!" cried D'Harmental, striking his fist on a beautiful buhl
table, which he smashed to bits, "if I have killed that poor Lafare I
shall never forgive myself."

After this outburst, which comforted him a little, the poor fellow began
to walk backward and forward between the door and the window in a
manner that showed that he still wanted more deceptions of the same sort
in order to arrive at the perfection of moral philosophy which the
faithless beauty preached to him. Then, after two or three turns, he saw
the other letter, which he had entirely forgotten, lying on the floor.
He passed it once or twice, looking at it with a supreme indifference.
At last, seeming to think that it would make some diversion on the
first, he picked it up disdainfully, opened it slowly, looked at the
writing, which was unknown to him, searched for the signature, but there
was none; and then, led on by the mysterious air of it, he read as
follows:

     "CHEVALIER--If you have in your mind a quarter of the
     romance, or in your heart half the courage, that your
     friends give you credit for, some one is ready to offer
     you an enterprise worthy of you, and the result of
     which will be at the same time to avenge you on the man
     you hate most in the world, and to conduct you to a
     goal more brilliant than you can have hoped for in your
     wildest dreams. The good genius who will lead you
     thither by an enchanted road, and in whom you must
     trust entirely, will expect you this evening at ten
     o'clock at the opera ball. If you come there unmasked,
     he will come to you; if you come masked, you will know
     him by the violet ribbon which he will wear on his left
     shoulder. The watch-word is 'open sesame;' speak
     boldly, and a cavern will open to you as wonderful as
     that of Ali Baba."

"Bravo!" said D'Harmental; "if the genius in the violet ribbons keeps
only half his promise, by my honor he has found his man!"




CHAPTER III.

THE CHEVALIER.


The Chevalier Raoul d'Harmental, with whom, before going further, it is
necessary that our readers make a better acquaintance, was the last of
one of the best families of Nivernais. Although that family had never
played an important part in history, yet it did not want a certain
notoriety, which it had acquired partly alone and partly by its
alliances. Thus the father of the chevalier, the Sire Gaston
d'Harmental, had come to Paris in 1682, and had proved his genealogical
tree from the year 1399, an heraldic operation which would have given
some trouble to more than one duke and peer. In another direction, his
maternal uncle, Monsieur de Torigny, before being named chevalier of the
order in the promotion of 1694, had confessed, in order to get his
sixteen quarterings recognized, that the best part of his scutcheon was
that of the D'Harmentals, with whom his ancestors had been allied for
three hundred years. Here, then, was enough to satisfy the aristocratic
demands of the age of which we write.

The chevalier was neither poor nor rich--that is to say, his father,
when he died, had left him an estate in the environs of Nevers, which
brought him in from 20,000 to 25,000 livres a year. This was enough to
live well in the country, but the chevalier had received an excellent
education, and was very ambitious; therefore he had at his majority, in
1711, quitted his home for Paris. His first visit was to the Comte de
Torigny, on whom he counted to introduce him at court. Unfortunately, at
that time the Comte de Torigny was absent from home; but as he
remembered with pleasure the family of D'Harmental, he recommended his
nephew to the Chevalier de Villarceaux, who could refuse nothing to his
friend the Comte de Torigny, and took the young man to Madame de
Maintenon.

Madame de Maintenon had one good quality--she always continued to be the
friend of her old lovers. She received the Chevalier d'Harmental
graciously, thanks to the old recollections which recommended him to
her, and some days afterward, the Marechal de Villars coming to pay his
court to her, she spoke a few such pressing words in favor of her young
protege, that the marechal, delighted to find an opportunity of obliging
this queen "in partibus," replied that from that hour he attached the
chevalier to his military establishment and would take care to offer
him every occasion to justify his august protectress's good opinion of
him.

It was a great joy to the chevalier to see such a door opened to him.
The coming campaign was definitive. Louis XIV. had arrived at the last
period of his reign--the period of reverses. Tallard and Marsin had been
beaten at Hochstett, Villeroy at Ramilies, and Villars himself, the hero
of Friedlingen, had lost the famous battle of Malplaquet against
Marlborough and Eugene. Europe, kept down for a time by Colbert and
Louvois, rose against France, and the situation of affairs was
desperate.

The king, like a despairing invalid who changes his doctor every hour,
changed ministers every day. Each new attempt but revealed a new
weakness. France could not sustain war and could not obtain peace.
Vainly she offered to abandon Spain, and limit her frontier. This was
not sufficient humiliation. They exacted that the king should allow the
hostile armies to cross France, in order to chase his grandson from the
throne of Spain; and also that he should give up, as pledges, Cambray,
Mettray, La Rochelle, and Bayonne, unless he preferred dethroning him
himself, by open force, during the following year.

These were the conditions on which a truce was granted to the conqueror
of the plains of Senef, Fleurus, of Steerekirk, and of La Marsalle; to
him who had hitherto held in the folds of his royal mantle peace and
war; to him who called himself the distributer of crowns, the chastiser
of nations, the great, the immortal; to him in whose honor, during the
last half century, marbles had been sculptured, bronzes cast, sonnets
written, and incense poured.

Louis XIV. had wept in the full council. These tears had produced an
army, which was intrusted to Villars.

Villars marched straight to the enemy, whose camp was at Denain, and who
slept in security while watching the agony of France. Never had greater
responsibility rested on one head. On one blow of Villars hung the
salvation of France. The allies had established a line of
fortifications between Denain and Marchiennes, which, in their pride of
anticipation, Albemarle and Eugene called the grand route to Paris.

Villars resolved to take Denain by surprise, and, Albemarle conquered,
to conquer Eugene. In order to succeed in this audacious enterprise, it
was necessary to deceive, not only the enemy's army, but also his own,
the success of this coup de main being in its impossibility.

Villars proclaimed aloud his intention of forcing the lines of
Landrecies. One night, at an appointed hour, the whole army moves off in
the direction of that town. All at once the order is given to bear to
the left. His genius throws three bridges over the Scheldt. Villars
passes over the river without obstacle, throws himself into the marshes
considered impracticable, and where the soldier advances with the water
up to his waist; marches straight to the first redoubts; takes them
almost without striking a blow; seizes successively a league of
fortifications; reaches Denain; crosses the fosse which surrounds it,
penetrates into the town, and on arriving at the place, finds his young
protege, the Chevalier d'Harmental, who presents to him the sword of
Albemarle, whom he has just taken prisoner.

At this moment the arrival of Eugene is announced. Villars returns,
reaches, before him, the bridge over which he must pass, takes
possession of it, and awaits him. There the true combat takes place, for
the taking of Denain had been but a short skirmish. Eugene makes attack
after attack, returns seven times to the head of the bridge, his best
troops being destroyed by the artillery which protects it, and the
bayonets which defend it. At length, his clothes riddled with balls, and
bleeding from two wounds, he mounts his third horse, the conqueror of
Hochstett and Malplaquet retreats crying with rage and biting his gloves
with fury. In six hours the aspect of things has changed. France is
saved, and Louis XIV. is still Le Grand Roi.

D'Harmental had conducted himself like a man who wished to gain his
spurs at once. Villars, seeing him covered with blood and dust, recalled
to his mind by whom he had been recommended to him; made him draw near,
while, in the midst of the field of battle, he wrote on a drum the
result of the day.

"Are you wounded?" asked he.

"Yes, Monsieur le Marechal, but so slightly that it is not worth
speaking of."

"Have you the strength to ride sixty leagues, without resting an hour, a
minute, a second?"

"I have the strength for anything that will serve the king or you."

"Then set out instantly; go to Madame de Maintenon; tell her from me
what you have seen, and announce to her the courier who will bring the
official account."

D'Harmental understood the importance of the mission with which he was
charged, and bleeding and dusty as he was, he mounted a fresh horse and
gained the first stage. Twelve hours afterward he was at Versailles.

Villars had foreseen what would happen. At the first words which fell
from the mouth of the chevalier, Madame de Maintenon took him by the
hand, and conducted him to the king. The king was at work with Voisin,
but, contrary to his habit, in his room, for he was a little indisposed.

Madame de Maintenon opened the door, pushed D'Harmental to the feet of
the king, and raising her hands to heaven:

"Sire," said she, "give thanks to God, for your majesty knows we are
nothing by ourselves, and it is from Him comes every blessing."

"What has happened, monsieur? Speak," said the king quickly, astonished
to see this young man, whom he did not know, at his feet.

"Sire," replied the chevalier, "the camp at Denain is taken. Albemarle
is a prisoner. Prince Eugene has taken flight; and the Marechal de
Villars places his victory at your majesty's feet."

Louis XIV. turned pale, in spite of his command over himself. He felt
his limbs fail him, and leaned against the table for support.

"What ails you, sire?" said Madame de Maintenon, hastening to him.

"It is, madame, that I owe you everything," said Louis XIV.; "you save
the king, and your friends save the kingdom."

Madame de Maintenon bowed and kissed the king's hand respectfully.

Then Louis XIV., still pale and much moved, passed behind the great
curtain which hid the alcove containing his bed, and they heard a prayer
of thanksgiving. He then reappeared, grave and calm, as if nothing had
happened.

"And now, monsieur," said he, "tell me the details."

D'Harmental gave an account of that marvelous battle, which came as by a
miracle to save the monarchy; then, when he had finished:

"And have you nothing to tell of yourself?" asked Louis XIV. "If I may
judge by the blood and dust with which you are yet covered, you did not
remain idle."

"Sire, I did my best," said D'Harmental, bowing; "but if there is really
anything to tell, I will, with your permission, leave it to the Marechal
de Villars."

"It is well, young man; and if he forgets you by chance, we shall
remember. You must be fatigued. Go and rest. I am pleased with you."

D'Harmental retired joyously, Madame de Maintenon conducting him to the
door; he kissed her hand again, and hastened to profit by the royal
permission. For twenty hours he had neither eaten, drunk, nor slept. On
his awaking, they gave him a packet which had been brought from the
minister of war. It was his brevet as colonel. Two months afterward
peace was made. Spain gave up half its monarchy, but France remained
intact. Louis XIV. died. Two distinct and irreconcilable parties were in
existence. That of the bastards, centering in the Duc de Maine, and that
of the legitimate princes, represented by the Duc d'Orleans. If the Duc
de Maine had had the will, the perseverance, the courage of his wife,
Louise Benedicte de Conde, perhaps, supported as he was by the royal
will, he might have triumphed; but he had to defend himself in broad
day, as he was attacked; and the Duc de Maine, weak in mind and heart,
dangerous only because he was a coward, was only good at underhand
deeds.

He was threatened openly, and his numerous artifices and wiles were of
no use to him. In one day, and almost without a struggle, he was
precipitated from that height to which he had been raised by the blind
love of the old king. His fall was heavy, and above all disgraceful; he
retired mutilated, abandoning the regency to his rival, and only
preserving, out of all the favors accumulated upon him, the
superintendence of the royal education, the command of the artillery,
and the precedence over the dukes and peers.

The decree, which had just passed the parliament, struck the old court
and all attached to it. Letellier did not wait to be exiled. Madame de
Maintenon took refuge at Saint Cyr, and Monsieur le Duc de Maine shut
himself up in the beautiful town of Sceaux, to finish his translation of
Lucrece.

The Chevalier d'Harmental saw, as a passive spectator, these different
intrigues, waiting till they should assume a character which would
permit him to take part in them. If there had been an open and armed
contest, he would have taken that side to which gratitude called him.
Too young and too chaste, if we may say so, in politics, to turn with
the wind of fortune, he remained faithful to the memory of the old king,
and to the ruins of the old court.

His absence from the Palais Royal, round which hovered all those who
wished to take a place in the political sky, was interpreted as
opposition; and one morning, as he had received the brevet which gave
him a regiment, he received the decree which took it from him.

D'Harmental had the ambition of his age. The only career open to a
gentleman was that of arms. His debut had been brilliant, and the blow
which at five-and-twenty took from him his hopes for the future was
profoundly painful.

He ran to Monsieur de Villars, in whom he had found so warm a
protector. The marshal received him with the coldness of a man who not
only wishes to forget the past, but also to see it forgotten.

D'Harmental understood that the old courtier was about to change his
skin, and retired discreetly. Though the age was essentially that of
egotism, the chevalier's first experience of it was bitter to him; but
he was at that happy time of life when a disappointed ambition is rarely
a deep or lasting grief.

Ambition is the passion of those who have no other, and the chevalier
had all those proper to five-and-twenty years of age; besides, the
spirit of the times did not tend to melancholy, that is a modern
sentiment, springing from the overthrow of fortunes and the weakness of
man. In the eighteenth century it was rare to dream of abstract things,
or aspire to the unknown: men went straight to pleasure, glory, or
fortune, and all who were handsome, brave or intriguing could attain
them. That was the time when people were not ashamed to be happy. Now
mind governs matter so much that men dare not avow that they are happy.

After the long and somber winter of Louis XIV.'s old age appeared all at
once the joyous and brilliant spring of a young royalty. Every one
basked in this new sun, radiant and benevolent, and went about buzzing
and careless, like the bees and butterflies on the first fine day. The
Chevalier d'Harmental had retained his sadness for a week; then he mixed
again in the crowd, and was drawn in by the whirlpool which threw him at
the feet of a pretty woman.

For three months he had been the happiest man in the world. He had
forgotten Saint Cyr, the Tuileries, and the Palais Royal. He did not
know whether there was a Madame de Maintenon, a king, or a regent. He
only knew that it is sweet to live when one is loved, and he did not see
why he should not live and love forever. He was still in this dream,
when, as we have said, supping with his friend, the Baron de Valef, at
La Fillon's, in the Rue Saint Honore, he had been all at once brutally
awakened by Lafare. Lovers are often unpleasantly awakened, and we have
seen that D'Harmental was not more patient under it than others. It was
more pardonable in the chevalier, because he thought he loved truly, and
that in his juvenile good faith he thought nothing could replace that
love in his heart.

Thus Madame d'Averne's strange but candid letter, instead of inspiring
him with the admiration which it merited at that time, had at first
overwhelmed him. It is the property of every sorrow which overtakes us
to reawaken past griefs which we believed dead, but which were only
sleeping. The soul has its scars as well as the body, and they are
seldom so well healed but a new wound can reopen them.

D'Harmental again began to feel ambitious. The loss of his mistress had
recalled to him the loss of his regiment. It required nothing less than
the second letter, so unexpected and mysterious, to divert him from his
grief. A lover of our days would have thrown it from him with disdain,
and would have despised himself if he had not nursed his grief so as to
make himself poetically melancholy for a week; but a lover in the
regency was much more accommodating. Suicide was scarcely discovered,
and if by chance people fell into the water, they did not drown as long
as there was the least little straw to cling to. D'Harmental did not
affect the coxcombry of sadness. He decided, sighing, it is true, that
he would go to the opera ball; and for a lover betrayed in so unforeseen
and cruel a manner this was something; but it must be confessed, to the
shame of our poor species, that he was chiefly led to this philosophic
determination by the fact that the letter was written in a female hand.




CHAPTER IV.

A BAL-MASQUE OF THE PERIOD.--THE BAT.


The opera balls were then at their height. It was an invention of the
Chevalier de Bullon, who only obtained pardon for assuming the title of
Prince d'Auvergne, nobody exactly knew why, by rendering this service to
the dissipated society of the time. It was he who had invented the
double flooring which put the pit on a level with the stage: and the
regent, who highly appreciated all good inventions, had granted him in
recompense a pension of two thousand livres, which was four times what
the Grand Roi had given to Corneille. That beautiful room, with its rich
and grave architecture, which the Cardinal de Richelieu had inaugurated
by his "Mirame," where Sully and Quinault's pastorals had been
represented, and where Moliere had himself played his principal works,
was this evening the rendezvous of all that was noble, rich, and
elegant.

D'Harmental, from a feeling of spite, very natural in his situation, had
taken particular pains with his toilet. When he arrived, the room was
already full, and he had an instant's fear that the mask with the violet
ribbons would not find him, inasmuch as the unknown had neglected to
assign a place of meeting, and he congratulated himself on having come
unmasked. This resolution showed great confidence in the discretion of
his late adversaries, a word from whom would have sent him before the
Parliament, or at least to the Bastille. But so much confidence had the
gentlemen of that day in each other's good faith, that, after having in
the morning passed his sword through the body of one of the regent's
favorites, the chevalier came, without hesitation, to seek an adventure
at the Palais Royal. The first person he saw there was the young Duc de
Richelieu, whose name, adventures, elegance, and perhaps indiscretions,
had already brought him so much into fashion. It was said that two
princesses of the blood disputed his affections, which did not prevent
Madame de Nesle and Madame de Polignac from fighting with pistols for
him, or Madame de Sabran, Madame de Villars, Madame de Mouchy, and
Madame de Tencin, from sharing his heart.

He had just joined the Marquis de Canillac, one of the regent's
favorites, whom, on account of the grave appearance he affected, his
highness called his mentor. Richelieu began to tell Canillac a story,
out loud and with much gesticulation. The chevalier knew the duke, but
not enough to interrupt a conversation; he was going to pass, when the
duke seized him by the coat.

"Pardieu!" he said, "my dear chevalier, you are not de trop. I am
telling Canillac an adventure which may be useful to him as nocturnal
lieutenant to the regent, and to you, as running the same danger as I
did. The history dates from to-day--a further merit, as I have only had
time to tell it to about twenty people, so that it is scarcely known.
Spread it, you will oblige me, and the regent also."

D'Harmental frowned. The duke had chosen his time badly. At this moment
the Chevalier de Ravanne passed, pursuing a mask. "Ravanne!" cried
Richelieu, "Ravanne!"

"I am not at leisure," replied he.

"Do you know where Lafare is?"

"He has the migraine."

"And Fargy?"

"He has sprained himself." And Ravanne disappeared in the crowd, after
bowing in the most friendly manner to his adversary of the morning.

"Well, and the story?" asked Canillac.

"We are coming to it. Imagine that some time ago, when I left the
Bastille, where my duel with Gace had sent me, three or four days after
my reappearance Rafe gave me a charming little note from Madame de
Parabere, inviting me to pass that evening with her. You understand,
chevalier, that it is not at the moment of leaving the Bastille that one
would despise a rendezvous, given by the mistress of him who holds the
keys. No need to inquire if I was punctual; guess who I found seated on
the sofa by her side. I give you a hundred guesses."

"Her husband," said Canillac.

"On the contrary, it was his royal highness himself. I was so much the
more astonished, as I had been admitted with some mystery; nevertheless,
as you will understand, I would not allow myself to appear astonished. I
assumed a composed and modest air, like yours, Canillac, and saluted the
marquise with such profound respect, that the regent laughed. I did not
expect this explosion, and was a little disconcerted. I took a chair,
but the regent signed to me to take my place on the sofa. I obeyed.

"'My dear duke,' he said, 'we have written to you on a serious affair.
Here is this poor marchioness, who, after being separated from her
husband for two years, is threatened with an action by this clown, under
pretext that she has a lover.' The marchioness tried to blush, but
finding she could not, covered her face with her fan. 'At the first word
she told me of her position,' continued the regent, 'I sent for
D'Argenson, and asked him who this lover could be.'

"'Oh, monsieur, spare me!' said the marchioness.--'Nonsense, my little
duck; a little patience.'--'Do you know what the lieutenant of police
answered me, my dear duke?'--'No,' said I, much embarrassed.--'He said
it was either you or me.'--'It is an atrocious calumny,' I
cried.--'Don't be excited, the marchioness has confessed all.'

"'Then,' I replied, 'if the marchioness has confessed all, I do not see
what remains for me to tell.'--'Oh!' continued the regent, 'I do not ask
you for details. It only remains for us, as accomplices, to get one
another out of the scrape.'--'And what have you to fear, monseigneur?' I
asked. 'I know that, protected by your highness's name, I might brave
all. What have we to fear?'--'The outcry of Parabere, who wants me to
make him a duke.'

"'Well, suppose we reconcile them,' replied I.--'Exactly,' said his
highness, laughing; 'and you have had the same idea as the
marchioness.'--'Pardieu, madame, that is an honor for me. There must be
a kind of apparent reconciliation between this tender couple, which
would prevent the marquis from incommoding us with the scandal of an
action.'--'But the difficulty,' objected Madame de Parabere, 'is, that
it is two years since he has been here; and, as he piques himself on his
jealousy and severity, what can we say? He has made a vow, that if any
one sets foot here during his absence, the law should avenge him.'

"'You see, Richelieu, this becomes rather uncomfortable,' added the
regent.--'Peste! It does indeed.'--'I have some means of coercion in my
hands, but they do not go so far as to force a husband to be reconciled
to his wife, and to receive her at his house.'--'Well,' replied I,
'suppose we bring him here.'--'There is the difficulty.'--'Wait a
moment. May I ask if Monsieur de Parabere still has a weakness for
champagne and burgundy?'--'I fear so,' said the marchioness.--'Then,
monseigneur, we are saved. I invite the marquis to supper, with a dozen
of mauvais sujets and charming women. You send Dubois.'--'What! Dubois?'
asked the regent.

"'Certainly; one of us must remain sober. As Dubois cannot drink, he
must undertake to make the marquis drink; and when everybody is under
the table, he can take him away from us and do what he likes with him.
The rest depends on the coachman.'--'Did I not tell you, marchioness,'
said the regent, 'that Richelieu would give us good advice? Stop, duke,'
continued he; 'you must leave off wandering round certain palaces; leave
the old lady to die quietly at St. Cyr, the lame man to rhyme at Sceaux,
and join yourself with us. I will give you, in my cabinet, the place of
that old fool D'Axelles; and affairs will not perhaps be injured by
it.'--'I dare say,' answered I. 'The thing is impossible; I have other
plans.'--'Obstinate fellow!' murmured the regent."

"And Monsieur de Parabere?" asked the Chevalier d'Harmental, curious to
know the end of the story.--"Oh! everything passed as we arranged it. He
went to sleep at my house, and awoke at his wife's. He made a great
noise, but there was no longer any possibility of crying scandal. His
carriage had stopped at his wife's hotel, and all the servants saw him
enter. He was reconciled in spite of himself. If he dares again to
complain of his beautiful wife, we will prove to him, as clearly as
possible, that he adores her without knowing it; and that she is the
most innocent of women--also without his knowing it."

"Chevalier!" at this moment a sweet and flute-like voice whispered in
D'Harmental's ear, while a little hand rested on his arm.

"You see that I am wanted."

"I will let you go on one condition."

"What is it?"

"That you will tell my story to this charming bat, charging her to tell
it to all the night-birds of her acquaintance."

"I fear," said D'Harmental, "I shall not have time."

"Oh! so much the better for you," replied the duke, freeing the
chevalier, whom till then he had held by the coat; "for then you must
have something better to say."

And he turned on his heel, to take the arm of a domino, who, in passing,
complimented him on his adventure. D'Harmental threw a rapid glance on
the mask who accosted him, in order to make sure that it was the one
with whom he had a rendezvous, and was satisfied on seeing a violet
ribbon on the left shoulder. He hastened to a distance from Canillac and
Richelieu, in order not to be interrupted in a conversation which he
expected to be highly interesting.

The unknown, whose voice betrayed her sex, was of middle height, and
young, as far as one could judge from the elasticity of her movements.
As M. de Richelieu had already remarked, she had adopted the costume
best calculated to hide either graces or defects. She was dressed as a
bat--a costume much in vogue, and very convenient, from its perfect
simplicity, being composed only of two black skirts. The manner of
employing them was at the command of everybody. One was fastened, as
usual, round the waist; the masked head was passed through the
placket-hole of the other. The front was pulled down to make wings; the
back raised to make horns. You were almost certain thus to puzzle an
interlocutor, who could only recognize you by the closest scrutiny.

The chevalier made all these observations in less time than it has taken
to describe them; but having no knowledge of the person with whom he had
to deal, and believing it to be some love intrigue, he hesitated to
speak; when, turning toward him:

"Chevalier," said the mask, without disguising her voice, assuming that
her voice was unknown to him, "do you know that I am doubly grateful to
you for having come, particularly in the state of mind in which you are?
It is unfortunate that I cannot attribute this exactitude to anything
but curiosity."

"Beautiful mask!" answered D'Harmental, "did you not tell me in your
letter that you were a good genius? Now, if really you partake of a
superior nature, the past, the present and the future must be known to
you. You knew, then, that I should come; and, since you knew it, my
coming ought not to astonish you."

"Alas!" replied the unknown, "it is easy to see that you are a weak
mortal, and that you are happy enough never to have raised yourself
above your sphere, otherwise you would know that if we, as you say, know
the past, the present and the future, this science is silent as to what
regards ourselves, and that the things we most desire remain to us
plunged in the most dense obscurity."

"Diable! Monsieur le Genie," answered D'Harmental, "do you know that you
will make me very vain if you continue in that tone; for, take care, you
have told me, or nearly so, that you had a great desire that I should
come to your rendezvous."

"I did not think I was telling you anything new, chevalier. It appeared
to me that my letter would leave you no doubt as to the desire I felt of
seeing you."

"This desire, which I only admit because you confess it, and I am too
gallant to contradict you--had it not made you promise in your letter
more than is in your power to keep?"

"Make a trial of my science; that will give you a test of my power."

"Oh, mon Dieu! I will confine myself to the simplest thing. You say you
are acquainted with the past, the present and the future. Tell me my
fortune."

"Nothing easier; give me your hand."

D'Harmental did what was asked of him.

"Sir," said the stranger, after a moment's examination, "I see very
legibly written by the direction of the 'adducta,' and by the
arrangement of the longitudinal lines of the palm, five words, in which
are included the history of your life. These words are, courage,
ambition, disappointment, love, and treason."

"Peste!" interrupted the chevalier, "I did not know that the genii
studied anatomy so deeply, and were obliged to take their degrees like a
Bachelor of Salamanca!"

"Genii know all that men know, and many other things besides,
chevalier."

"Well, then, what mean these words, at once so sonorous and so opposite?
and what do they teach you of me in the past, my very learned genius?"

"They teach me that it is by your courage alone that you gained the rank
of colonel, which you occupied in the army in Flanders; that this rank
awakened your ambition; that this ambition has been followed by a
disappointment; that you hoped to console yourself for this
disappointment by love; but that love, like fortune, is subject to
treachery, and that you have been betrayed."

"Not bad," said the chevalier; "and the Sybil of Cuma could not have got
out of it better. A little vague, as in all horoscopes, but a great fund
of truth, nevertheless. Let us come to the present, beautiful mask."

"The present, chevalier? Let us speak softly of it, for it smells
terribly of the Bastille."

The chevalier started in spite of himself, for he believed that no one
except the actors who had played a part in it could know his adventure
of the morning.

"There are at this hour," continued the stranger, "two brave gentlemen
lying sadly in their beds, while we chat gayly at the ball; and that
because a certain Chevalier d'Harmental, a great listener at doors, did
not remember a hemistich of Virgil."

"And what is this hemistich?" asked the chevalier, more and more
astonished.

"'Facilis descensus Averni,'" said the mask, laughing.

"My dear genius," cried the chevalier, trying to peep through the
openings in the stranger's mask, "that, allow me to inform you, is a
quotation rather masculine."

"Do you not know that genii are of both sexes?"

"Yes; but I had never heard that they quoted the AEneid so fluently."

"Is not the quotation appropriate? You speak to me of the Sybil of Cuma;
I answer you in her language. You ask for existing things; I give them
you. But you mortals are never satisfied."

"No; for I confess that this knowledge of the past and the present
inspires me with a terrible desire to know the future."

"There are always two futures," said the mask; "there is the future of
weak minds, and the future of strong minds. God has given man free will
that he might choose. Your future depends on yourself."

"But we must know these two futures to choose the best."

"Well, there is one which awaits you, somewhere in the environs of
Nevers, in the depth of the country, among the rabbits of your warren,
and the fowls of your poultry-yard. This one will conduct you straight
to the magistrate's bench of your parish. It is an easy ambition, and
you have only to let yourself go to attain it. You are on the road."

"And the other?" replied the chevalier, visibly piqued at the
supposition that in any case such a future could be his.

"The other," said the stranger, leaning her arm on that of the young
man, and fixing her eyes on him through her mask; "the other will throw
you back into noise and light--will make you one of the actors in the
game which is playing in the world, and, whether you gain or lose, will
leave you at least the renown of a great player."

"If I lose, what shall I lose?" asked the chevalier.

"Life, probably."

The chevalier tossed his head contemptuously.

"And if I win?" added he.

"What do you say to the rank of colonel of horse, the title of Grandee
of Spain, and the order of the Saint Esprit, without counting the
field-marshal's baton in prospective?"

"I say that the prize is worth the stake, and that if you can prove to
me that you can keep your promise, I am your man."

"This proof," replied the mask, "must be given you by another, and if
you wish to have it you must follow me."

"Oh!" said D'Harmental, "am I deceived, and are you but a genius of the
second order--a subaltern spirit, an intermediate power? Diable! this
would take away a little of my consideration for you."

"What does it matter if I am subject to some great enchantress, and she
has sent me to you?"

"I warn you that I do not treat with ambassadors."

"My mission is to conduct you to her."

"Then I shall see her?"

"Face to face."----"Let us go, then."

"Chevalier, you go quickly to the work; you forget that before all
initiations there are certain indispensable ceremonies to secure the
discretion of the initiated."

"What must I do?"

"You must allow your eyes to be bandaged, and let me lead you where I
like. When arrived at the door of the temple, you must take a solemn
oath to reveal nothing concerning the things you may hear, or the people
you may see."

"I am ready to swear by the Styx," said D'Harmental, laughing.

"No, chevalier," said the mask, in a grave voice; "swear only by your
honor; you are known, and that will suffice."

"And when I have taken this oath," asked the chevalier, after an
instant's reflection, "will it be permitted to me to retire, if the
proposals made are not such as a gentleman may entertain?"

"Your conscience will be your sole arbiter, and your word the only
pledge demanded of you."

"I am ready," said the chevalier.

"Let us go, then," said the mask.

The chevalier prepared to cross the room in a straight line toward the
door; but perceiving three of his friends, who might have stopped him on
the way, he made a turn, and described a curve which would bring him to
the same end.

"What are you doing?" asked the mask.

"I am avoiding some one who might detain us."

"Ah!" said the mask, "I began to fear."

"Fear what?" asked D'Harmental.

"To fear that your ardor was diminished in the proportion of the
diagonal to the two sides of a square."

"Pardieu!" said D'Harmental, "this is the first time, I believe, that
ever a rendezvous was given to a gentleman at an opera ball to talk
anatomy, ancient literature, and mathematics. I am sorry to say so, but
you are the most pedantic genius I ever met in my life."

The bat burst out laughing, but made no reply to this sally, in which
was betrayed the spite of the chevalier at not being able to recognize a
person who appeared to be so well acquainted with his adventures; but as
this only added to his curiosity, both descended in equal haste, and
found themselves in the vestibule.

"What road shall we take?" asked the chevalier. "Shall we travel
underground, or in a car drawn by griffins?"

"With your permission, chevalier, we will simply go in a carriage; and
though you appear to doubt it, I am a woman, and rather afraid of the
dark."

"Permit me, then, to call my carriage," said the chevalier.

"Not at all; I have my own."

"Call it then."

"With your permission, chevalier, we will not be more proud than Mahomet
with the mountain; and as my carriage cannot come to us, we will go to
it."

At these words the bat drew the chevalier into the Rue St. Honore. A
carriage without armorial bearings, with two dark-colored horses, waited
at the corner of the street. The coachman was on his seat, enveloped in
a great cape which hid the lower part of his face, while a
three-cornered hat covered his forehead and eyes. A footman held the
door open with one hand, and with the other held his handkerchief so as
to conceal his face.

"Get in," said the mask.

D'Harmental hesitated a moment. The anxiety of the servants to preserve
their incognito, the carriage without blazon, the obscure place where it
was drawn up, and the advanced hour of the night, all inspired the
chevalier with a sentiment of mistrust; but reflecting that he gave his
arm to a woman, and had a sword by his side, he got in boldly. The mask
sat down by him, and the footman closed the door.

"Well, are we not going to start?" said the chevalier, seeing that the
carriage remained motionless.

"There remains a little precaution to be taken," said the mask, drawing
a silk handkerchief from her pocket.

"Ah! yes, true," said D'Harmental; "I had forgotten. I give myself up to
you with confidence."

And he advanced his head. The unknown bandaged his eyes; then said--

"Chevalier, you give me your word of honor not to remove this bandage
till I give you permission?"

"I do."

"It is well."

Then, raising the glass in front, she said to the coachman--

"You know where, Monsieur le Comte."

And the carriage started at a gallop.




CHAPTER V.

THE ARSENAL.


They both maintained a profound silence during the route. This
adventure, which at first had presented itself under the appearance of
an amorous intrigue, had soon assumed a graver aspect, and appeared to
turn toward political machinations. If this new aspect did not frighten
the chevalier, at least it gave him matter for reflection. There is a
moment in the affairs of every man which decides upon his future. This
moment, however important it may be, is rarely prepared by calculation
or directed by will. It is almost always chance which takes a man as the
wind does a leaf, and throws him into some new and unknown path, where,
once entered, he is obliged to obey a superior force, and where, while
believing himself free, he is but the slave of circumstances and the
plaything of events.

It was thus with the chevalier. Interest and gratitude attached him to
the party of the old court. D'Harmental, in consequence, had not
calculated the good or the harm that Madame de Maintenon had done
France. He did not weigh in the balance of genealogy Monsieur de Maine
and Monsieur d'Orleans. He felt that he must devote his life to those
who had raised him from obscurity, and knowing the old king's will,
regarded as a usurpation Monsieur d'Orleans' accession to the regency.

Fully expecting an armed reaction against this power, he looked around
for the standard which he should follow. Nothing that he expected
happened; Spain had not even protested. Monsieur de Maine, fatigued by
his short contest, had retired into the shade. Monsieur de Toulouse,
good, easy, and almost ashamed of the favors which had fallen to the
share of himself and his elder brother, would not permit even the
supposition that he could put himself at the head of a party. The
Marshal de Villeroy had made a feeble and systemless opposition. Villars
went to no one, but waited for some one to come to him. D'Axelles had
changed sides, and had accepted the post of secretary for foreign
affairs. The dukes and peers took patience, and paid court to the
regent, in the hope that he would at last take away from the Dukes of
Maine and Toulouse the precedence which Louis XIV. had given them.

Finally, there was discontent with, and even opposition to, the
government of the Duc d'Orleans, but all impalpable and disjointed. This
is what D'Harmental had seen, and what had resheathed his half-drawn
sword: he thought he was the only one who saw another issue to affairs,
and he gradually came to the conclusion that that issue had no
existence, except in his own imagination, since those who should have
been most interested in that result seemed to regard it as so
impossible, that they did not even attempt to attain to it.

Although the carriage had been on the road nearly half an hour, the
chevalier had not found it long: so deep were his reflections, that,
even if his eyes had not been bandaged, he would have been equally
ignorant of what streets they passed through.

At length he heard the wheels rumbling as if they were passing under an
arch. He heard the grating of hinges as the gate opened to admit him,
and closed behind him, and directly after, the carriage, having
described a semi-circle, stopped.

"Chevalier," said his guide, "if you have any fear, there is still time
to draw back; if, on the contrary, you have not changed your resolution,
come with me."

D'Harmental's only answer was to extend his hand.

The footman opened the door; the unknown got out first, and then
assisted the chevalier. His feet soon encountered some steps; he mounted
six--still conducted by the masked lady--crossed a vestibule, passed
through a corridor, and entered a room.

"We are now arrived," said the unknown, "you remember our conditions;
you are free to accept or refuse a part in the piece about to be played,
but, in case of a refusal, you promise not to divulge anything you may
see or hear."

"I swear it on my honor," replied the chevalier.

"Now, sit down; wait in this room, and do not remove the bandage till
you hear two o'clock strike. You have not long to wait."

At these words his conductress left him. Two o'clock soon struck, and
the chevalier tore off the bandage. He was alone in the most marvelous
boudoir possible to imagine. It was small and octagonal, hung with lilac
and silver, with furniture and portieres of tapestry. Buhl tables,
covered with splendid china; a Persian carpet, and the ceiling painted
by Watteau, who was then coming into fashion. At this sight, the
chevalier found it difficult to believe that he had been summoned on
grave matters, and almost returned to his first ideas.

At this moment a door opened in the tapestry, and there appeared a
woman who, in the fantastic preoccupation of his spirit, D'Harmental
might have taken for a fairy, so slight, small, and delicate was her
figure. She was dressed in pearl gray satin, covered with bouquets, so
beautifully embroidered that, at a short distance, they appeared like
natural flowers; the flounces, ruffles, and head-dress was of English
point; it was fastened with pearls and diamonds. Her face was covered
with a half-mask of black velvet, from which hung a deep black lace.
D'Harmental bowed, for there was something royal in the walk and manner
of this woman which showed him that the other had been only an envoy.

"Madame," said he, "have I really, as I begin to believe, quitted the
earth for the land of spirits, and are you the powerful fairy to whom
this beautiful palace belongs?"

"Alas! chevalier," replied the masked lady, in a sweet but decided
voice, "I am not a powerful fairy, but, on the contrary, a poor
princess, persecuted by a wicked enchanter, who has taken from me my
crown, and oppresses my kingdom. Thus, you see, I am seeking a brave
knight to deliver me, and your renown has led me to address myself to
you."

"If my life could restore you your past power, madame," replied
D'Harmental, "speak; I am ready to risk it with joy. Who is this
enchanter that I must combat; this giant that I must destroy? Since you
have chosen me above all, I will prove myself worthy of the honor. From
this moment I engage my word, even if it cost me my life."

"If you lose your life, chevalier, it will be in good company," said the
lady, untying her mask, and discovering her face, "for you would lose it
with the son of Louis XIV., and the granddaughter of the great Conde."

"Madame la Duchesse de Maine!" cried D'Harmental, falling on one knee;
"will your highness pardon me, if, not knowing you, I have said anything
which may fall short of the profound respect I feel for you."

"You have said nothing for which I am not proud and grateful, chevalier,
but, perhaps, you now repent. If so, you are at liberty to withdraw."

"Heaven forbid, madame, that having had the honor to engage my life in
the service of so great and noble a princess, I should deprive myself of
the greatest honor I ever dared to hope for. No, madame; take seriously,
I beg, what I offered half in jest; my arm, my sword, and my life."

"I see," said the Duchesse de Maine, with that smile which gave her such
power over all who approached her, "that the Baron de Valef did not
deceive me, and you are such as he described. Come, I will present you
to our friends."

The duchess went first, D'Harmental followed, astonished at what had
passed, but fully resolved, partly from pride, partly from conviction,
not to withdraw a step.

The duchess conducted him to a room where four new personages awaited
him. These were the Cardinal de Polignac, the Marquis de Pompadour,
Monsieur de Malezieux, and the Abbe Brigaud.

The Cardinal de Polignac was supposed to be the lover of Madame de
Maine. He was a handsome prelate, from forty to forty-five years of age;
always dressed with the greatest care, with an unctuous voice, a cold
face, and a timid heart; devoured by ambition, which was eternally
combated by the weakness of his character, which always drew him back
where he should advance; of high birth, as his name indicated, very
learned for a cardinal, and very well informed for a nobleman.

Monsieur de Pompadour was a man of from forty-five to fifty, who had
been a minion of the dauphin's, the son of Louis XIV., and who had so
great a love for his whole family, that, seeing with grief that the
regent was going to declare war against Philip V., he had thrown
himself, body and soul, into the Duc de Maine's party. Proud and
disinterested, he had given a rare example of loyalty, in sending back
to the regent the brevet of his pensions and those of his wife, and in
refusing for himself and the Marquis de Courcillon, his son-in-law,
every place offered to them.

Monsieur de Malezieux was a man of from sixty to sixty-five, Chancellor
of Dombes and Lord of Chatenay: he owed this double title to the
gratitude of M. de Maine, whose education he had conducted. A poet, a
musician, an author of small comedies, which he played himself with
infinite spirit; born for an idle and intellectual life; always occupied
in procuring pleasure for others, and above all for Madame de Maine,
whom he adored, he was a type of the Sybarite of the eighteenth century,
but, like the Sybarites who, drawn by the aspect of beauty, followed
Cleopatra to Actium, and were killed around her, he would have followed
his dear Benedicte through fire and water, and, at a word from her,
would, without hesitation, and almost without regret, have thrown
himself from the towers of Notre-Dame.

The Abbe Brigaud was the son of a Lyons merchant. His father, who was
commercially related with the court of Spain, was charged to make
overtures, as if on his own account, for the marriage of the young Louis
XIV. with the young Maria Theresa of Austria. If these overtures had
been badly received, the ministers of France would have disavowed them;
but they were well received, and they supported them.

The marriage took place; and, as the little Brigaud was born about the
same time as the dauphin, he asked, in recompense, that the king's son
should stand godfather to his child, which was granted to him. He then
made acquaintance with the Marquis de Pompadour, who, as we have said,
was one of the pages of honor. When he was of an age to decide on his
profession, he joined the Fathers of the Oratory. He was a clever and an
ambitious man, but, as often happens to the greatest geniuses, he had
never had an opportunity of making himself known.

Some time before the period of which we are writing, he met the Marquis
de Pompadour, who was seeking a man of spirit and enterprise as the
secretary of Madame de Maine. He told him to what the situation would
expose him at the present time. Brigaud weighed for an instant the good
and evil chances, and, as the former appeared to predominate, he
accepted it.

Of these four men, D'Harmental only knew the Marquis de Pompadour, whom
he had often met at the house of Monsieur de Courcillon, his son-in-law,
a distant relation of the D'Harmentals.

When D'Harmental entered the room, Monsieur de Polignac, Monsieur de
Malezieux, and Monsieur de Pompadour were standing talking at the
fireplace, and the Abbe Brigaud was seated at a table classifying some
papers.

"Gentlemen," said the Duchesse de Maine, "here is the brave champion of
whom the Baron de Valef has spoken to us, and who has been brought here
by your dear De Launay, Monsieur de Malezieux. If his name and
antecedents are not sufficient to stand sponsor for him, I will answer
for him personally."

"Presented thus by your highness," said Malezieux, "we shall see in him
not only a companion, but a chief, whom we are ready to follow wherever
he may lead."

"My dear D'Harmental," said the Marquis de Pompadour, extending his hand
to him, "we were already relations, we are now almost brothers."

"Welcome, monsieur!" said the Cardinal de Polignac, in the unctuous tone
habitual to him, and which contrasted so strangely with the coldness of
his countenance.

The Abbe Brigaud raised his head with a movement resembling that of a
serpent, and fixed on D'Harmental two little eyes, brilliant as those of
the lynx.

"Gentlemen," said D'Harmental, after having answered each of them by a
bow, "I am new and strange among you, and, above all, ignorant of what
is passing, or in what manner I can serve you; but though my word has
only been engaged to you for a few minutes, my devotion to your cause is
of many years' standing. I beg you, therefore, to grant me the
confidence so graciously claimed for me by her highness. All that I
shall ask after that will be a speedy occasion to prove myself worthy of
it."

"Well said!" cried the Duchesse de Maine; "commend me to a soldier for
going straight to the point! No, Monsieur d'Harmental, we will have no
secrets from you, and the opportunity you require, and which will place
each of us in our proper position--"

"Excuse me, Madame la Duchesse," interrupted the cardinal, who was
playing uneasily with his necktie, "but, from your manner, the chevalier
will think that the affair is a conspiracy."

"And what is it then, cardinal?" asked the duchess, impatiently.

"It is," said the cardinal, "a council, secret, it is true, but in no
degree reprehensible, in which we only seek a means of remedying the
misfortunes of the state, and enlightening France on her true interests,
by recalling the last will of the king, Louis XIV."

"Stay, cardinal!" said the duchess, stamping her foot; "you will kill me
with impatience by your circumlocutions. Chevalier," continued she,
addressing D'Harmental, "do not listen to his eminence, who at this
moment, doubtless, is thinking of his Lucrece. If it had been a simple
council, the talents of his eminence would soon have extricated us from
our troubles, without the necessity of applying to you; but it is a bona
fide conspiracy against the regent--a conspiracy which numbers the king
of Spain, Cardinal Alberoni, the Duc de Maine, myself, the Marquis de
Pompadour, Monsieur de Malezieux, l'Abbe Brigaud, Valef, yourself, the
cardinal himself the president; and which will include half the
parliament and three parts of France. This is the matter in hand,
chevalier. Are you content, cardinal? Have I spoken clearly, gentlemen?"

"Madame--" murmured Malezieux, joining his hands before her with more
devotion than he would have done before the Virgin.

"No, no; stop, Malezieux," said the duchess, "but the cardinal enrages
me with his half-measures. Mon Dieu! are these eternal waverings worthy
of a man? For myself, I do not ask a sword, I do not ask a dagger; give
me but a nail, and I, a woman, and almost a dwarf, will go, like a new
Jael, and drive it into the temple of this other Sisera. Then all will
be finished; and, if I fail, no one but myself will be compromised."

Monsieur de Polignac sighed deeply; Pompadour burst out laughing;
Malezieux tried to calm the duchess; and Brigaud bent his head, and went
on writing as if he had heard nothing. As to D'Harmental, he would have
kissed the hem of her dress, so superior was this woman, in his eyes, to
the four men who surrounded her.

At this moment they heard the sound of a carriage, which drove into the
courtyard and stopped at the door. The person expected was doubtless
some one of importance, for there was an instant silence, and the
Duchesse de Maine, in her impatience, went herself to open the door.

"Well?" asked she.

"He is here," said a voice, which D'Harmental recognized as that of the
Bat.

"Enter, enter, prince," said the duchess; "we wait for you."




CHAPTER VI.

THE PRINCE DE CELLAMARE.


At this invitation there entered a tall, thin, grave man, with a
sunburned complexion, who at a single glance took in everything in the
room, animate and inanimate. The chevalier recognized the ambassador of
their Catholic majesties, the Prince de Cellamare.

"Well, prince," asked the duchess, "what have you to tell us?"

"I have to tell you, madame," replied the prince, kissing her hand
respectfully, and throwing his cloak on a chair, "that your highness had
better change coachmen. I predict misfortune if you retain in your
service the fellow who drove me here. He seems to me to be some one
employed by the regent to break the necks of your highness and all your
companions."

Every one began to laugh, and particularly the coachman himself, who,
without ceremony, had entered behind the prince; and who, throwing his
hat and cloak on a seat, showed himself a man of high bearing, from
thirty-five to forty years old, with the lower part of his face hidden
by a black handkerchief.

"Do you hear, my dear Laval, what the prince says of you?"

"Yes, yes," said Laval; "it is worth while to give him Montmorencies to
be treated like that. Ah, M. le Prince, the first gentlemen in France
are not good enough for your coachmen! Peste! you are difficult to
please. Have you many coachmen at Naples who date from Robert the
Strong?"

"What! is it you, my dear count?" said the prince, holding out his hand
to him.

"Myself, prince! Madame la Duchesse sent away her coachman to keep Lent
in his own family, and engaged me for this night. She thought it safer."

"And Madame la Duchesse did right," said the cardinal. "One cannot take
too many precautions."

"Ah, your eminence," said Laval, "I should like to know if you would be
of the same opinion after passing half the night on the box of a
carriage, first to fetch M. d'Harmental from the opera ball, and then to
take the prince from the Hotel Colbert."

"What!" said D'Harmental, "was it you, Monsieur le Comte, who had the
goodness--"

"Yes, young man," replied Laval; "and I would have gone to the end of
the world to bring you here, for I know you. You are a gallant
gentleman; you were one of the first to enter Denain, and you took
Albemarle. You were fortunate enough not to leave half your jaw there,
as I did in Italy. You were right, for it would have been a further
motive for taking away your regiment, which they have done, however."

"We will restore you that a hundredfold," said the duchess; "but now let
us speak of Spain. Prince, you have news from Alberoni, Pompadour tells
me."

"Yes, your highness."

"What are they?"

"Both good and bad. His majesty Philip V. is in one of his melancholy
moods and will not determine upon anything. He will not believe in the
treaty of the quadruple alliance."

"Will not believe in it!" cried the duchess; "and the treaty ought to be
signed now. In a week Dubois will have brought it here."

"I know it, your highness," replied Cellamare, coldly; "but his Catholic
majesty does not."

"Then he abandons us?"

"Almost."

"What becomes, then, of the queen's fine promises, and the empire she
pretends to have over her husband?"

"She promises to prove it to you, madame," replied the prince, "when
something is done."

"Yes," said the Cardinal de Polignac; "and then she will fail in that
promise."

"No, your eminence! I will answer for her."

"What I see most clearly in all this is," said Laval, "that we must
compromise the king. Once compromised, he must go on."

"Now, then," said Cellamare, "we are coming to business."

"But how to compromise him," asked the Duchesse de Maine, "without a
letter from him, without even a verbal message, and at five hundred
leagues' distance?"

"Has he not his representative at Paris, and is not that representative
in your house at this very moment, madame?"

"Prince," said the duchess, "you have more extended powers than you are
willing to admit."

"No; my powers are limited to telling you that the citadel of Toledo and
the fortress of Saragossa are at your service. Find the means of making
the regent enter there, and their Catholic majesties will close the door
on him so securely that he will not leave it again, I promise you."

"It is impossible," said Monsieur de Polignac.

"Impossible! and why?" cried D'Harmental. "On the contrary, what is more
simple? Nothing is necessary but eight or ten determined men, a
well-closed carriage, and relays to Bayonne."

"I have already offered to undertake it," said Laval.

"And I," said Pompadour.

"You cannot," said the duchess; "the regent knows you; and if the thing
failed, you would be lost."

"It is a pity," said Cellamare, coldly; "for, once arrived at Toledo or
Saragossa, there is greatness in store for him who shall have
succeeded."

"And the blue ribbon," added Madame de Maine, "on his return to Paris."

"Oh, silence, I beg, madame," said D'Harmental; "for if your highness
says such things, you give to devotion the air of ambition, and rob it
of all its merit. I was going to offer myself for the enterprise--I, who
am unknown to the regent--but now I hesitate; and yet I venture to
believe myself worthy of the confidence of your highness, and able to
justify it."----"What, chevalier!" cried the duchess, "you would risk--"

"My life; it is all I have to risk. I thought I had already offered it,
and that your highness had accepted it. Was I mistaken?"

"No, no, chevalier," said the duchess quickly; "and you are a brave and
loyal gentleman. I have always believed in presentiments, and from the
moment Valef pronounced your name, telling me that you were what I find
you to be, I felt of what assistance you would be to us. Gentlemen, you
hear what the chevalier says; in what can you aid him?"

"In whatever he may want," said Laval and Pompadour.

"The coffers of their Catholic majesties are at his disposal," said the
Prince de Cellamare, "and he may make free use of them."

"I thank you," said D'Harmental, turning toward the Comte de Laval and
the Marquis de Pompadour; "but, known as you are, you would only make
the enterprise more difficult. Occupy yourselves only in obtaining for
me a passport for Spain, as if I had the charge of some prisoner of
importance: that ought to be easy."

"I undertake it," said the Abbe Brigaud: "I will get from D'Argenson a
paper all prepared, which will only have to be filled in."

"Excellent Brigaud," said Pompadour; "he does not speak often, but he
speaks to the purpose."

"It is he who should be made cardinal," said the duchess, "rather than
certain great lords of my acquaintance; but as soon as we can dispose of
the blue and the red, be easy, gentlemen, we shall not be miserly. Now,
chevalier, you have heard what the prince said. If you want money--"

"Unfortunately," replied D'Harmental, "I am not rich enough to refuse
his excellency's offer, and so soon as I have arrived at the end of
about a million pistoles which I have at home, I must have recourse to
you."

"To him, to me, to us all, chevalier, for each one in such circumstances
should tax himself according to his means. I have little ready money,
but I have many diamonds and pearls; therefore want for nothing, I beg.
All the world has not your disinterestedness, and there is devotion
which must be bought."

"Above all, be prudent," said the cardinal.

"Do not be uneasy," replied D'Harmental, contemptuously. "I have
sufficient grounds of complaint against the regent for it to be
believed, if I were taken, that it was an affair between him and me, and
that my vengeance was entirely personal."

"But," said the Comte de Laval, "you must have a kind of lieutenant in
this enterprise, some one on whom you can count. Have you any one?"

"I think so," replied D'Harmental; "but I must be informed each morning
what the regent will do in the evening. Monsieur le Prince de Cellamare,
as ambassador, must have his secret police."

"Yes," said the prince, embarrassed, "I have some people who give me an
account."----"That is exactly it," said D'Harmental.

"Where do you lodge?" asked the cardinal.

"At my own house, monseigneur, Rue de Richelieu, No. 74."

"And how long have you lived there?"

"Three years."

"Then you are too well known there, monsieur; you must change quarters.
The people whom you receive are known, and the sight of strange faces
would give rise to questions."

"This time your eminence is right," said D'Harmental. "I will seek
another lodging in some retired neighborhood."

"I undertake it," said Brigaud; "my costume does not excite suspicions.
I will engage you a lodging as if it was destined for a young man from
the country who has been recommended to me, and who has come to occupy
some place in an office."

"Truly, my dear Brigaud," said the Marquis de Pompadour, "you are like
the princess in the 'Arabian Nights,' who never opened her mouth but to
drop pearls."

"Well, it is a settled thing, Monsieur l'Abbe," said D'Harmental; "I
reckon on you, and I shall announce at home that I am going to leave
Paris for a three months' trip."

"Everything is settled, then," said the Duchesse de Maine joyfully.
"This is the first time that I have been able to see clearly into our
affairs, chevalier, and we owe it to you. I shall not forget it."

"Gentlemen," said Malezieux, pulling out his watch, "I would observe
that it is four o'clock in the morning, and that we shall kill our dear
duchesse with fatigue."

"You are mistaken," said the duchess; "such nights rest me, and it is
long since I have passed one so good."

"Prince," said Laval, "you must be contented with the coachman whom you
wished discharged, unless you would prefer driving yourself, or going on
foot."

"No, indeed," said the prince, "I will risk it. I am a Neapolitan, and
believe in omens. If you overturn me it will be a sign that we must stay
where we are--if you conduct me safely it will be a sign that we may go
on."

"Pompadour, you must take back Monsieur d'Harmental," said the duchess.

"Willingly," said the marquis. "It is a long time since we met, and we
have a hundred things to say to each other."

"Cannot I take leave of my sprightly bat?" asked D'Harmental; "for I do
not forget that it is to her I owe the happiness of having offered my
services to your highness."

"De Launay," cried the duchess, conducting the Prince of Cellamare to
the door, "De Launay, here is Monsieur le Chevalier d'Harmental, who
says you are the greatest sorceress he has ever known."

"Well!" said she who has left us such charming memoirs, under the name
of Madame de Stael, "do you believe in my prophecies now, Monsieur le
Chevalier?"

"I believe, because I hope," replied the chevalier. "But now that I know
the fairy that sent you, it is not your predictions that astonish me the
most. How were you so well informed about the past, and, above all, of
the present?"

"Well, De Launay, be kind, and do not torment the chevalier any longer,
or he will believe us to be two witches, and be afraid of us."

"Was there not one of your friends, chevalier," asked De Launay, "who
left you this morning in the Bois de Boulogne to come and say adieu to
us."

"Valef! It is Valef!" cried D'Harmental. "I understand now."

"In the place of Oedipus you would have been devoured ten times over by
the Sphinx."

"But the mathematics; but the anatomy; but Virgil?" replied D'Harmental.

"Do you not know, chevalier," said Malezieux, mixing in the
conversation, "that we never call her anything here but our 'savante?'
with the exception of Chaulieu, however, who calls her his flirt, and
his coquette; but all as a poetical license. We let her loose the other
day on Du Vernay, our doctor, and she beat him at anatomy."

"And," said the Marquis de Pompadour, taking D'Harmental's arm to lead
him away, "the good man in his disappointment declared that there was no
other girl in France who understood the human frame so well."

"Ah!" said the Abbe Brigaud, folding his papers, "here is the first
savant on record who has been known to make a bon-mot. It is true that
he did not intend it."

And D'Harmental and Pompadour, having taken leave of the duchess,
retired laughing, followed by the Abbe Brigaud, who reckoned on them to
drive him home.

"Well," said Madame de Maine, addressing the Cardinal de Polignac, "does
your eminence still find it such a terrible thing to conspire?"

"Madame," replied the cardinal, who could not understand that any one
could laugh when their head was in danger, "I will ask you the same
question when we are all in the Bastille."

And he went away with the good chancellor, deploring the ill-luck which
had thrown him into such a rash enterprise.

The duchess looked after him with a contempt which she could not
disguise: then, when she was alone with De Launay:

"My dear Sophy," said she, "let us put out our lantern, for I think we
have found a man."




CHAPTER VII.

ALBERONI.


When D'Harmental awoke, he wondered if all had been a dream. Events had,
during the last thirty-six hours, succeeded each other with such
rapidity, that he had been carried away, as by a whirlpool, without
knowing where he was going. Now for the first time he had leisure to
reflect on the past and the future.

These were times in which every one conspired more or less. We know the
natural bent of the mind in such a case. The first feeling we
experience, after having made an engagement in a moment of exaltation,
is one almost of regret for having been so forward. Little by little we
become familiarized with the idea of the dangers we are running.
Imagination removes them from our sight, and presents instead the
ambitions we may realize. Pride soon becomes mingled with it, as we
think that we have become a secret power in the State. We walk along
proudly, with head erect, passing contemptuously those who lead an
ordinary life; we cradle ourselves in our hopes, and wake one morning
conquering or conquered; carried on the shoulders of the people, or
broken by the wheels of that machine called the government.

Thus it was with D'Harmental. After a few moments' reflection, he saw
things under the same aspect as he had done the day before, and
congratulated himself upon having taken the highest place among such
people as the Montmorencies and the Polignacs. His family had
transmitted to him much of that adventurous chivalry so much in vogue
under Louis XIII., and which Richelieu with his scaffolds, and Louis
XIV. with his antechambers, had not quite been able to destroy. There
was something romantic in enlisting himself, a young man, under the
banners of a woman, and that woman a granddaughter of the great Conde.

D'Harmental lost no time in preparing to keep the promises he had made,
for he felt that the eyes of all the conspirators were upon him, and
that on his courage and prudence depended the destinies of two kingdoms,
and the politics of the world. At this moment the regent was the
keystone of the arch of the European edifice; and France was beginning
to take, if not by arms, at least by diplomacy, that influence which she
had unfortunately not always preserved. Placed at the center of the
triangle formed by the three great Powers, with eyes fixed on Germany,
one arm extended toward England, and the other toward Spain, ready to
turn on either of these three States that should not treat her according
to her dignity, she had assumed, under the Duc d'Orleans, an attitude of
calm strength which she had never had under Louis XIV.

This arose from the division of interests consequent on the usurpation
of William of Orange, and the accession of Philip V. to the throne of
Spain. Faithful to his old hatred against the stadtholder, who had
refused him his daughter, Louis XIV. had constantly advanced the
pretensions of James II., and, after his death, of the Chevalier de St.
George. Faithful to his compact with Philip V., he had constantly aided
his grandson against the emperor, with men and money; and, weakened by
this double war, he had been reduced to the shameful treaty of Utrecht;
but at the death of the old king all was changed, and the regent had
adopted a very different line of conduct. The treaty of Utrecht was only
a truce, which had been broken from the moment when England and Holland
did not pursue common interests with those of France.

In consequence, the regent had first of all held out his hand to George
I., and the treaty of the triple alliance had been signed at La Haye, by
Dubois, in the name of France; by General Cadogan, for England; and by
the pensioner, Heinsiens, for Holland. This was a great step toward the
pacification of Europe, but the interests of Austria and Spain were
still in suspense. Charles VI. would not recognize Philip V. as king of
Spain; and Philip V., on his part, would not renounce his rights over
those provinces of the Spanish empire which the treaty of Utrecht had
given to the emperor.

It was in the hopes of bringing these things about that the regent had
sent Dubois to London, where he was pursuing the treaty of the quadruple
alliance with as much ardor as he had that of La Haye. This treaty would
have neutralized the pretensions of the State not approved by the four
Powers. This was what was feared by Philip V. (or rather the Cardinal
d'Alberoni).

It was not thus with Alberoni; his was one of those extraordinary
fortunes which one sees, always with new astonishment, spring up around
the throne; one of those caprices of destiny which chance raises and
destroys; like a gigantic waterspout, which advances on the ocean,
threatening to annihilate everything, but which is dispersed by a stone
thrown from the hand of a sailor; or an avalanche, which threatens to
swallow towns, and fill up valleys, because a bird in its flight has
detached a flake of snow on the summit of the mountain.

Alberoni was born in a gardener's cottage, and as a child he was the
bell-ringer. When still a young man he exchanged his smock-frock for a
surplice, but was of a merry and jesting disposition. The Duke of Parma
heard him laugh one day so gayly, that the poor duke, who did not laugh
every day, asked who it was that was so merry, and had him called.
Alberoni related to him some grotesque adventure. His highness laughed
heartily; and finding that it was pleasant to laugh sometimes, attached
him to his person. The duke soon found that he had mind, and fancied
that that mind was not incapable of business.

It was at this time that the poor bishop of Parma came back, deeply
mortified at his reception by the generalissimo of the French army. The
susceptibility of this envoy might compromise the grave interests which
his highness had to discuss with France. His highness judged that
Alberoni was the man to be humiliated by nothing, and he sent the abbe
to finish the negotiation which the bishop had left unfinished. M. de
Vendome, who had not put himself out for a bishop, did not do so for an
abbe, and received the second ambassador as he had the first; but,
instead of following the example of his predecessor, he found in M. de
Vendome's own situation so much subject for merry jests and strange
praises, that the affair was finished at once, and he came back to the
duke with everything arranged to his desire.

This was a reason for the duke to employ him a second time. This time
Vendome was just going to sit down to table, and Alberoni, instead of
beginning about business, asked if he would taste two dishes of his
cooking, went into the kitchen, and came back, a "soupe au fromage" in
one hand, and macaroni in the other. De Vendome found the soup so good
that he asked Alberoni to take some with him at his own table. At
dessert Alberoni introduced his business, and profiting by the good
humor of Vendome, he twisted him round his finger.

His highness was astonished. The greatest genius he had met with had
never done so much. The next time it was M. de Vendome who asked the
duke of Parma if he had nothing else to negotiate with him. Alberoni
found means of persuading his sovereign that he would be more useful to
him near Vendome than elsewhere, and he persuaded Vendome that he could
not exist without "soupe au fromage" and macaroni.

M. de Vendome attached him to his service, allowed him to interfere in
his most secret affairs, and made him his chief secretary. At this time
Vendome left for Spain. Alberoni put himself in communication with
Madame des Ursins; and when Vendome died, she gave him, near her, the
same post he had occupied near the deceased.

This was another step. The Princesse des Ursins began to get old, an
unpardonable crime in the eyes of Philip V. She resolved to place a
young woman near the king, through whom she might continue to reign over
him. Alberoni proposed the daughter of his old master, whom he
represented as a child, without character, and without will, who would
claim nothing of royalty but the name. The princess was taken by this
promise. The marriage was decided on, and the young princess left Italy
for Spain.

Her first act of authority was to arrest the Princesse des Ursins, who
had come to meet her in a court dress, and to send her back, as she was,
with her neck uncovered, in a bitter frost, in a carriage of which the
guard had broken the window with his elbow, first to Burgos, and then to
France, where she arrived, after having been obliged to borrow fifty
pistoles from her servants. After his first interview with Elizabeth
Farnese, the king announced to Alberoni that he was prime minister. From
that day, thanks to the young queen, who owed him everything, the
ex-ringer of bells exercised an unlimited empire over Philip V.

Now this is what Alberoni pictured to himself, having always prevented
Philip V. from recognizing the peace of Utrecht. If the conspiracy
succeeded--if D'Harmental carried off the Duc d'Orleans, and took him to
the citadel of Toledo, or the fortress of Saragossa--Alberoni would get
Monsieur de Maine recognized as regent, would withdraw France from the
quadruple alliance, throw the Chevalier de St. George with the fleet on
the English coast, and set Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, with whom he
had a treaty of alliance, at variance with Holland. The empire would
then profit by their dispute to retake Naples and Sicily; would assure
Tuscany to the second son of the king of Spain; would reunite the
Catholic Netherlands to France, give Sardinia to the Dukes of Savoy,
Commachio to the pope, and Mantua to the Venetians. He would make
himself the soul of the great league, of the south against the north;
and if Louis XV. died, would crown Philip V. king of half the world.

All these things were now in the hands of a young man of twenty-six
years of age; and it was not astonishing that he should be, at first,
frightened at the responsibility which weighed upon him.

As he was still in deep thought, the Abbe Brigaud entered. He had
already found a lodging for the chevalier, at No. 5, Rue du Temps-Perdu;
a small furnished room, suitable to a young man who came to seek his
fortune in Paris. He brought him also two thousand pistoles from the
Prince of Cellamare.

D'Harmental wished to refuse them, for it seemed as if he would be no
longer acting according to conscience and devotion; but Brigaud
explained to him that in such an enterprise there are susceptibilities
to conquer, and accomplices to pay; and that besides, if the affair
succeeded, he would have to set out instantly for Spain, and perhaps
make his way by force of gold. Brigaud carried away a complete suit of
the chevalier's, as a pattern for a fresh one suitable for a clerk in an
office. The Abbe Brigaud was a useful man.

D'Harmental passed the rest of the day in preparing for his pretended
journey, and removed, in case of accident, every letter which might
compromise a friend; then went toward the Rue St. Honore, where--thanks
to La Normande--he hoped to have news of Captain Roquefinette. In fact,
from the moment that a lieutenant for his enterprise had been spoken of,
he had thought of this man, who had given him, as his second, a proof of
his careless courage. He had instantly recognized in him one of those
adventurers always ready to sell their blood for a good price, and who,
in time of peace, when their swords are useless to the State, place them
at the service of individuals.

On becoming a conspirator one always becomes superstitious, and
D'Harmental fancied that it was an intervention of Providence which had
introduced him to Roquefinette. The chevalier, without being a regular
customer, went occasionally to the tavern of La Fillon. It was quite
fashionable at that time to go and drink at her house. D'Harmental was
to her neither her son, a name which she gave to all her "habitues," nor
her gossip, a word which she reserved for the Abbe Dubois, but simply
Monsieur le Chevalier; a mark of respect which would have been
considered rather a humiliation by most of the young men of fashion. La
Fillon was much astonished when D'Harmental asked to see one of her
servants, called La Normande.

"Oh, mon Dieu! Monsieur le Chevalier!" said she, "I am really
distressed; but La Normande is waiting at a dinner which will last till
to-morrow evening."

"Plague! what a dinner!"

"What is to be done?" replied La Fillon. "It is a caprice of an old
friend of the house. He will not be waited on by any one but her, and I
cannot refuse him that satisfaction."

"When he has money, I suppose?"

"You are mistaken. I give him credit up to a certain sum. It is a
weakness, but one cannot help being grateful. He started me in the
world, such as you see me, monsieur--I, who have had in my house the
best people in Paris, including the regent. I was only the daughter of a
poor chair-bearer. Oh! I am not like the greater part of your beautiful
duchesses, who deny their origin; nor like two-thirds of your dukes and
peers, who fabricate genealogies for themselves. No! what I am, I owe to
my own merit, and I am proud of it."

"Then," said the chevalier, who was not particularly interested by La
Fillon's history, "you say that La Normande will not have finished with
this dinner till to-morrow evening?"

"The jolly old captain never stays less time than that at table, when
once he is there."

"But, my dear presidente" (this was a name sometimes given to La Fillon,
as a certain quid pro quo for the presidente who had the same name as
herself), "do you think, by chance, your captain may be my captain?"

"What is yours called?"

"Captain Roquefinette."

"It is the same."

"He is here?"

"In person."

"Well, he is just the man I want; and I only asked for La Normande to
get his address."

"Then all is right," said the presidente.

"Have the kindness to send for him."

"Oh! he would not come down for the regent himself. If you want to see
him you must go up."

"Where?"

"At No. 2, where you supped the other evening with the Baron de Valef.
Oh! when he has money, nothing is too good for him. Although he is but a
captain, he has the heart of a king."

"Better and better," said D'Harmental, mounting the staircase, without
being deterred by the recollection of the misadventure which had
happened to him in that room; "that is exactly what I want."

If D'Harmental had not known the room in question, the voice of the
captain would soon have served him for a guide.

"Now, my little loves," said he, "the third and last verse, and together
in the chorus." Then he began singing in a magnificent bass voice, and
four or five female voices took up the chorus.

"That is better," said the captain; "now let us have the 'Battle of
Malplaquet."

"No, no," said a voice; "I have had enough of your battle."

"What! enough of it--a battle I was at myself?"

"That is nothing to me. I like a romance better than all your wicked
battle-songs, full of oaths." And she began to sing "Linval loved
Arsene--"

"Silence!" said the captain. "Am I not master here? As long as I have
any money I will be served as I like. When I have no more, that will be
another thing; then you may sing what you like; I shall have nothing to
say to it."

It appeared that the servants of the cabaret thought it beneath the
dignity of their sex to subscribe to such a pretension, for there was
such a noise that D'Harmental thought it best to announce himself.

"Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up," said the captain.

D'Harmental followed the instruction which was given him in the words of
Little Red Riding-hood; and, having entered, saw the captain lying on a
couch before the remains of an ample dinner, leaning on a cushion, a
woman's shawl over his shoulders, a great pipe in his mouth, and a cloth
rolled round his head like a turban. Three or four servants were
standing round him with napkins in their hands. On a chair near him was
placed his coat, on which was to be seen a new shoulder-knot, his hat
with a new lace, and the famous sword which had furnished Ravanne with
the facetious comparison to his mother's spit.

"What! is it you?" cried the captain. "You find me like Monsieur de
Bonneval--in my seraglio, and surrounded by my slaves. You do not know
Monsieur de Bonneval, ladies: he is a pasha of three tails, who, like
me, could not bear romances, but who understood how to live. Heaven
preserve me from such a fate as his!"

"Yes, it is I, captain," said D'Harmental, unable to prevent laughing at
the grotesque group which presented itself. "I see you did not give me a
false address, and I congratulate you on your veracity."

"Welcome, chevalier," said the captain. "Ladies, I beg you to serve
monsieur with the grace which distinguishes you, and to sing him
whatever songs he likes. Sit down, chevalier, and eat and drink as if
you were at home, particularly as it is your horse we are eating and
drinking. He is already more than half gone, poor animal, but the
remains are good."

"Thank you, captain, I have just dined; and I have only one word to say
to you, if you will permit it."

"No, pardieu! I do not permit it," said the captain, "unless it is about
another engagement--that would come before everything. La Normande, give
me my sword."

"No, captain; it is on business," interrupted D'Harmental.

"Oh! if it is on business, I am your humble servant; but I am a greater
tyrant than the tyrants of Thebes or Corinth--Archias, Pelopidas,
Leonidas, or any other that ends in 'as,' who put off business till
to-morrow. I have enough money to last till to-morrow evening; then,
after to-morrow, business."

"But at least after to-morrow, captain, I may count upon you?"

"For life or death, chevalier."

"I believe that the adjournment is prudent."

"Prudentissimo!" said the captain. "Athenais, light my pipe. La
Normande, pour me out something to drink."

"The day after to-morrow, then, captain?"

"Yes; where shall I find you?"

"Listen," replied D'Harmental, speaking so as to be heard by no one but
him. "Walk, from ten to eleven o'clock in the morning, in the Rue du
Temps Perdu. Look up; you will be called from somewhere, and you must
mount till you meet some one you know. A good breakfast will await you."

"All right, chevalier," replied the captain; "from ten to eleven in the
morning. Excuse me if I do not conduct you to the door, but you know it
is not the custom with Turks."

The chevalier made a sign with his hand that he dispensed with this
formality, and descended the staircase. He was only on the fourth step
when he heard the captain begin the famous song of the Dragoons of
Malplaquet, which had perhaps caused as much blood to be shed in duels
as there had been on the field of battle.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE GARRET.


The next day the Abbe Brigaud came to the chevalier's house at the same
hour as before. He was a perfectly punctual man. He brought with him
three things particularly useful to the chevalier; clothes, a passport,
and the report of the Prince of Cellamare's police respecting what the
regent was going to do on the present day, March 24, 1718. The clothes
were simple, as became the cadet of a bourgeois family come to seek his
fortune in Paris. The chevalier tried them on, and, thanks to his own
good looks, found that they became him admirably.

The abbe shook his head. He would have preferred that the chevalier
should not have looked quite so well; but this was an irreparable
misfortune. The passport was in the name of Signior Diego, steward of
the noble house of Oropesa, who had a commission to bring back to Spain
a sort of maniac, a bastard of the said house, whose mania was to
believe himself regent of France. This was a precaution taken to meet
anything that the Duc d'Orleans might call out from the bottom of the
carriage; and, as the passport was according to rule, signed by the
Prince de Cellamare, and "vised" by Monsieur Voyer d'Argenson, there was
no reason why the regent, once in the carriage, should not arrive safely
at Pampeluna, when all would be done.

The signature of Monsieur Voyer d'Argenson was imitated with a truth
which did honor to the caligraphers of the Prince de Cellamare. As to
the report, it was a chef-d'oeuvre of clearness; and we insert it word
for word, to give an idea of the regent's life, and of the manner in
which the Spanish ambassador's police was conducted. It was dated two
o'clock in the morning.

"To-day the regent will rise late. There has been a supper in his
private rooms; Madame d'Averne was there for the first time instead of
Madame de Parabere. The other women were the Duchesse de Falaris, and
Saseri, maid of honor to madame. The men were the Marquis de Broglie,
the Count de Noce, the Marquis de Canillac, the Duc de Brancas, and the
Chevalier de Simiane. As to the Marquis de Lafare and Monsieur de Fargy,
they were detained in bed by an illness, of which the cause is unknown.
At noon there will be a council. The regent will communicate to the Ducs
de Maine and de Guiche the project of the treaty of the quadruple
alliance, which the Abbe Dubois has sent him, announcing his return in
three or four days.

"The rest of the day is given entirely to paternity. The day before
yesterday the regent married his daughter by La Desmarets, who was
brought up by the nuns of St. Denis. She dines with her husband at the
Palais Royal, and, after dinner, the regent takes her to the opera, to
the box of Madame Charlotte de Baviere. La Desmarets, who has not seen
her daughter for six years, is told that, if she wishes to see her, she
can come to the theater. The regent, in spite of his caprice for Madame
d'Averne, still pays court to Madame de Sabran, who piques herself on
her fidelity--not to her husband, but to the Duc de Richelieu. To
advance his affairs, the regent has appointed Monsieur de Sabran his
maitre-d'hotel."

"I hope that is business well done," said the Abbe Brigaud.

"Yes, my dear abbe," replied D'Harmental; "but if the regent does not
give us greater opportunities than that for executing our enterprise, it
will not be easy for us to take him to Spain."

"Patience, patience," said Brigaud; "if there had been an opportunity
to-day you would not have been able to profit by it."

"No; you are right."

"Then you see that what God does is well done. He has left us this day;
let us profit by it to move."

This was neither a long nor difficult business. D'Harmental took his
treasure, some books, and the packet which contained his wardrobe, and
drove to the abbe's house. Then he sent away his carriage, saying he
should go into the country in the evening, and would be away ten or
twelve days. Then, having changed his elegant clothes for those that
the abbe had brought him, he went to take possession of his new lodging.
It was a room, or rather an attic, with a closet, on the fourth story,
at No. 5, Rue du Temps Perdu. The proprietor of the house was an
acquaintance of the Abbe Brigaud's; therefore, thanks to his
recommendation, they had gone to some expense for the young provincial.
He found beautifully white curtains, very fine linen, and a
well-furnished library; so he saw at once that, if not so well off as in
his own apartments, he should be tolerably comfortable.

Madame Denis (this was the name of the abbe's friend) was waiting to do
the honors of the room to her future lodger. She boasted to him of its
convenience, and promised him that there would be no noise to disturb
him from his work. To all which he replied in such a modest manner, that
on going down to the first floor, where she lived, Madame Denis
particularly recommended him to the care of the porter and his wife.
This young man, though in appearance he could certainly compete with the
proudest seigneurs of the court, seemed to her far from having the bold
and free manners which the young men of the time affected. 'Tis true
that the Abbe Brigaud, in the name of his pupil's family, had paid her a
quarter in advance.

A minute after, the abbe went down to Madame Denis's room and completed
her good opinion of his young protege by telling her that he received
absolutely nobody but himself and an old friend of his father's. The
latter, in spite of brusk manners, which he had acquired in the field,
was a highly respectable gentleman.

D'Harmental used this precaution for fear the apparition of the captain
might frighten Madame Denis if she happened to meet him. When he was
alone, the chevalier, who had already taken the inventory of his own
room, resolved to take that of the neighborhood. He was soon able to
convince himself of the truth of what Madame Denis had said about the
quietness of the street, for it was not more than ten or twelve feet
wide; but this was to him a recommendation, for he calculated that if
pursued he might, by means of a plank passed from one window to that
opposite, escape to the other side of the street. It was, therefore,
important to establish amicable relations with his opposite neighbors.

Unfortunately, they did not seem much disposed to sociability; for not
only were the windows hermetically sealed, as the time of year demanded,
but the curtains behind them were so closely drawn, that there was not
the smallest opening through which he could look. More favored than that
of Madame Denis, the house opposite had a fifth story, or rather a
terrace. An attic room just above the window so carefully closed, opened
on this terrace. It was probably the residence of a gardener, for he had
succeeded, by means of patience and labor, in transforming this terrace
into a garden, containing, in some twelve feet square, a fountain, a
grotto, and an arbor.

It is true that the fountain only played by means of a superior
reservoir, which was fed in winter by the rain, and in summer by what he
himself poured into it. It is true that the grotto, ornamented with
shell work, and surrounded by a wooden fortress, appeared fit only to
shelter an individual of the canine race. It is true that the arbor,
entirely stripped of its leaves, appeared for the time fit only for an
immense poultry cage. As there was nothing to be seen but a monotonous
series of roofs and chimneys, D'Harmental closed his window, sat down in
an armchair, put his feet on the hobs, took up a volume by the Abbe
Chaulieu, and began to read the verses addressed to Mademoiselle de
Launay, which had a double interest for him, since he knew the heroine.

The result of this reading was that the chevalier, while smiling at the
octogenarian love of the good abbe, discovered that he, less fortunate,
had his heart perfectly unoccupied. For a short time he had thought he
had loved Madame d'Averne, and had been loved by her; but on her part
this deep affection did not withstand the offer of some jewels from the
regent, and the vanity of pleasing him.

Before this infidelity had occurred, the chevalier thought that it would
have driven him to despair. It had occurred, and he had fought, because
at that time men fought about everything which arose, probably from
dueling being so strictly forbidden. Then he began to perceive how small
a place this love had held in his heart. A real despair would not have
allowed him to seek amusement at the bal-masque, in which case the
exciting events of the last few days would not have happened.

The result of this was, that the chevalier remained convinced that he
was incapable of a deep love, and that he was only destined for those
charming wickednesses so much in vogue. He got up, and began to walk up
and down his room; while thus employed he perceived that the window
opposite was now wide open. He stopped mechanically, drew back his
curtain, and began to investigate the room thus exposed.

It was to all appearance occupied by a woman. Near the window, on which
a charming little Italian greyhound rested her delicate paws, was an
embroidery frame. Opposite the window was an open harpsichord between
two music stands, some crayon drawings, framed in black wood with a gold
bead, were hung on the walls, which were covered with a Persian paper.
Curtains of Indian chintz, of the same pattern as the paper, hung behind
the muslin curtains. Through a second window, half open, he could see
the curtains of a recess which probably contained a bed. The rest of the
furniture was perfectly simple, but almost elegant, which was due
evidently, not to the fortune, but to the taste of the modest
inhabitant.

An old woman was sweeping, dusting, and arranging the room, profiting by
the absence of its mistress to do this household work, for there was no
one else to be seen in the room, and yet it was clear it was not she who
inhabited it. All at once the head of the greyhound--whose great eyes
had been wandering till then, with the aristocratic indifference
characteristic of that animal--became animated. She leaned her head
over into the street; then, with a miraculous lightness and address,
jumped on to the window-sill, pricking up her long-ears, and raising one
of her paws. The chevalier understood by these signs that the tenant of
the little room was approaching. He opened his window directly;
unfortunately it was already too late, the street was solitary.

At the same moment the greyhound leaped from the window into the room
and ran to the door. D'Harmental concluded that the young lady was
mounting the stairs. In order to see her at his ease, he threw himself
back and hid behind the curtain, but the old woman came to the window
and closed it. The chevalier did not expect this denouement. There was
nothing for him but to close his window also, and to come back and put
his feet on the hobs. This was not amusing, and the chevalier began to
feel how solitary he should be in this retreat. He remembered that
formerly he also used to play and draw, and he thought that if he had
the smallest spinet and some chalks, he could bear it with patience.

He rang for the porter, and asked where he could procure these things.
The porter replied that every increase of furniture must be at his own
expense. That if he wished for a harpsichord he must hire it, and that
as to pencils, he could get them at the shop at the corner of the Rue de
Clery.

D'Harmental gave a double louis to the porter, telling him that in half
an hour he wished to have a spinet and some pencils. The double louis
was an argument of which he had before found the advantage; reproaching
himself, however, with having used it this time with a carelessness
which gave the lie to his apparent position, he recalled the porter, and
told him that he expected for his double louis to have, not only paper
and pencils, but a month's hire of his instrument.

The porter replied that as he would speak as if it were for himself, the
thing was possible; but that he must certainly pay the carriage.
D'Harmental consented, and half an hour afterward was in possession of
the desired objects. Such a wonderful place is Paris for every enchanter
with a golden wand. The porter, when he went down, told his wife that if
the new lodger was not more careful of his money, he would ruin his
family, and showed her two crowns of six francs, which he had saved out
of the double louis. The woman took the two crowns from the hands of her
husband, calling him a drunkard, and put them into a little bag, hidden
under a heap of old clothes, deploring the misfortune of fathers and
mothers who bleed themselves to death for such good-for-nothings. This
was the funeral oration of the chevalier's double louis.




CHAPTER IX.

A CITIZEN OF THE RUE DU TEMPS PERDU.


During this time D'Harmental was seated before the spinet, playing his
best. The shopkeeper had had a sort of conscience, and had sent him an
instrument nearly in tune, so that the chevalier began to perceive that
he was doing wonders, and almost believed he was born with a genius for
music, which had only required such a circumstance to develop itself.
Doubtless there was some truth in this, for in the middle of a brilliant
shake he saw, from the other side of the street, five little fingers
delicately raising the curtain to see from whence this unaccustomed
harmony proceeded. Unfortunately, at the sight of these fingers the
chevalier forgot his music, and turned round quickly on the stool, in
hopes of seeing a face behind the hand.

This ill-judged maneuver ruined him. The mistress of the little room,
surprised in the act of curiosity, let the curtain fall. D'Harmental,
wounded by this prudery, closed his window. The evening passed in
reading, drawing, and playing. The chevalier could not have believed
that there were so many minutes in an hour, or so many hours in a day.
At ten o'clock in the evening he rang for the porter, to give orders for
the next day; but no one answered; he had been in bed a long time, and
D'Harmental learned that there were people who went to bed about the
time he ordered his carriage to pay visits.

[Illustration: D'HARMENTAL--Page 247.]

This set him thinking of the strange manners of that unfortunate class
of society who do not know the opera, who do not go to supper-parties,
and who sleep all night and are awake all day. He thought you must come
to the Rue du Temps Perdu to see such things, and promised himself to
amuse his friends with an account of this singularity. He was glad to
see also that his neighbor watched like himself. This showed in her a
mind superior to that of the vulgar inhabitants of the Rue du Temps
Perdu. D'Harmental believed that people only watched because they did
not wish to sleep, or because they wanted to be amused. He forgot all
those who do so because they are obliged. At midnight the light in the
opposite windows was extinguished; D'Harmental also went to his bed. The
next day the Abbe Brigaud appeared at eight o'clock. He brought
D'Harmental the second report of secret police. It was in these terms:

     "Three o'clock, A.M.

     "In consequence of the regular life which he led
     yesterday, the regent has given orders to be called at
     nine.

     "He will receive some appointed persons at that time.

     "From ten to twelve there will be a public audience.

     "From twelve till one the regent will be engaged with
     La Vrilliere and Leblanc.

     "From one to two he will open letters with Torcy.

     "At half-past two there will be a council, and he will
     pay the king a visit.

     "At three o'clock he will go to the tennis court in the
     Rue du Seine, to sustain, with Brancas and Canillac, a
     challenge against the Duc de Richelieu, the Marquis de
     Broglie, and the Comte de Gace.

     "At six he will go to supper at the Luxembourg with the
     Duchesse de Berry, and will pass the evening there.

     "From there he will come back, without guards, to the
     Palais Royal, unless the Duchesse de Berry gives him an
     escort from hers."

"Without guards, my dear abbe! what do you think of that?" said
D'Harmental, beginning to dress; "does it not make your mouth water?"

"Without guards, yes," replied the abbe; "but with footmen, outriders, a
coachman--all people who do not fight much, it is true, but who cry very
loud. Oh! patience, patience, my young friend. You are in a great hurry
to be a grandee of Spain."

"No, my dear abbe, but I am in a hurry to give up living in an attic
where I lack everything, and where I am obliged to dress myself alone,
as you see. Do you think it is nothing to go to bed at ten o'clock, and
dress in the morning without a valet?"

"Yes, but you have music," replied the abbe.

"Ah! indeed!" replied D'Harmental. "Abbe, open my window, I beg, that
they may see I receive good company. That will do me honor with my
neighbors."

"Ho! ho!" said the abbe, doing what D'Harmental asked; "that is not bad
at all."

"How, not bad?" replied D'Harmental; "it is very good, on the contrary.
It is from Armida: the devil take me if I expected to find that in the
fourth story of a house in the Rue du Temps Perdu."

"Chevalier, I predict," said the abbe, "that if the singer be young and
pretty, in a week there will be as much trouble to get you away as there
is now to keep you here."

"My dear abbe," said D'Harmental, "if your police were as good as those
of the Prince de Cellamare, you would know that I am cured of love for a
long time, and here is the proof. Do not think I pass my days in
sighing. I beg when you go down you will send me something like a pate,
and a dozen bottles of good wine. I trust to you. I know you are a
connoisseur; besides, sent by you, it will seem like a guardian's
attention. Bought by me, it would seem like a pupil's debauch; and I
have my provincial reputation to keep up with Madame Denis."

"That is true. I do not ask you what it is for, but I will send it to
you."

"And you are right, my dear abbe. It is all for the good of the cause."

"In an hour the pate and the wine will be here."

"When shall I see you again?"

"To-morrow, probably."

"Adieu, then, till to-morrow."

"You send me away."

"I am expecting somebody."

"All for the good of the cause?"

"I answer you, go, and may God preserve you."

"Stay, and may the devil not get hold of you. Remember that it was a
woman who got us turned out of our terrestrial paradise. Defy women."

"Amen," said the chevalier, making a parting sign with his hand to the
Abbe Brigaud.

Indeed, as the abbe had observed, D'Harmental was in a hurry to see him
go. The great love for music, which the chevalier had discovered only
the day before, had progressed so rapidly that he did not wish his
attention called away from what he had just heard. The little which that
horrible window allowed him to hear, and which was more of the
instrument than of the voice, showed that his neighbor was an excellent
musician. The playing was skillful, the voice sweet and sustained, and
had, in its high notes and deep vibrations, something which awoke an
answer in the heart of the listener. At last, after a very difficult and
perfectly executed passage, D'Harmental could not help clapping his
hands and crying bravo! As bad luck would have it, this triumph, to
which she had not been accustomed, instead of encouraging the musician,
frightened her so much, that voice and harpsichord stopped at the same
instant, and silence immediately succeeded to the melody for which the
chevalier had so imprudently manifested his enthusiasm.

In exchange, he saw the door of the room above (which we have said led
on to the terrace) open, and a hand was stretched out, evidently to
ascertain what kind of weather it was. The answer of the weather seemed
reassuring, for the hand was almost directly followed by a head covered
by a little chintz cap, tied on the forehead by a violet ribbon; and the
head was only a few instants in advance of a neck and shoulders clothed
in a kind of dressing-gown of the same stuff as the cap. This was not
quite enough to enable the chevalier to decide to which sex the
individual, who seemed so cautious about exposing himself to the morning
air, belonged. At last, a sort of sunbeam having slipped out between two
clouds, the timid inhabitant of the terrace appeared to be encouraged to
come out altogether. D'Harmental then saw, by his black velvet
knee-breeches, and by his silk stockings, that the personage who had
just entered on the scene was of the masculine gender.

It was the gardener of whom we spoke. The bad weather of the preceding
days had, without doubt, deprived him of his morning walk, and had
prevented him from giving his garden his ordinary attention, for he
began to walk round it with a visible fear of finding some accident
produced by the wind or rain; but, after a careful inspection of the
fountain, the grotto, and the arbor, which were its three principal
ornaments, the excellent face of the gardener was lighted by a ray of
joy, as the weather was by the ray of sun. He perceived, not only that
everything was in its place, but that the reservoir was full to
overflowing. He thought he might indulge in playing his fountain, a
treat which, ordinarily, following the example of Louis XIV., he only
allowed himself on Sundays. He turned the cock, and the jet raised
itself majestically to the height of four or five feet. The good man was
so delighted that he began to sing the burden of an old pastoral song
which D'Harmental had heard when he was a baby, and, while repeating--

    "Let me go
    And let me play
    Beneath the hazel-tree,"

he ran to the window, and called aloud, "Bathilde! Bathilde!"

The chevalier understood that there was a communication between the
rooms on the third and fourth stories, and some relation between the
gardener and the musician, and thought that perhaps if he remained at
the window she would not come on to the terrace; therefore he closed his
window with a careless air, taking care to keep a little opening behind
the curtain, through which he could see without being seen. What he had
foreseen happened. Very soon the head of a charming young girl appeared
on the terrace; but as, without doubt, the ground, on which he had
ventured with so much courage, was too damp, she would not go any
further. The little dog, not less timid than its mistress, remained near
her, resting its white paws on the window, and shaking its head in
silent denial to every invitation. A dialogue was established between
the good man and the young girl, while D'Harmental had leisure to
examine her at ease.

She appeared to have arrived at that delicious time of life when woman,
passing from childhood to youth, is in the full bloom of sentiment,
grace, and beauty. He saw that she was not less than sixteen nor more
than eighteen years of age, and that there existed in her a singular
mixture of two races. She had the fair hair, thick complexion, and
graceful neck of an English woman, with the black eyes, coral lips, and
pearly teeth of a Spaniard.

As she did not use either rouge or white, and as that time powder was
scarcely in fashion, and was reserved for aristocratic heads, her
complexion remained in its natural freshness, and nothing altered the
color of her hair.

The chevalier remained as in an ecstasy--indeed, he had never seen but
two classes of women. The fat and coarse peasants of the Nivernais, with
their great feet and hands, their short petticoats, and their
hunting-horn shaped hats; and the women of the Parisian aristocracy,
beautiful without doubt, but of that beauty fagged by watching and
pleasure, and by that reversing of life which makes them what flowers
would be if they only saw the sun on some rare occasions, and the
vivifying air of the morning and the evening only reached them through
the windows of a hot-house. He did not know this intermediate type, if
one may call it so, between high society and the country people, which
had all the elegance of the one, and all the fresh health of the other.
Thus, as we have said, he remained fixed in his place, and long after
the young girl had re-entered, he kept his eyes fixed on the window
where this delicious vision had appeared.

The sound of his door opening called him out of his ecstasy: it was the
pate and the wine from Abbe Brigaud making their solemn entry into the
chevalier's garret. The sight of these provisions recalled to his mind
that he had now something better to do than to abandon himself to
contemplation, and that he had given Captain Roquefinette a rendezvous
on the most important business. Consequently he looked at his watch, and
saw that it was ten o'clock. This was, as the reader will remember, the
appointed hour. He sent away the man who had brought the provisions, and
said he would lay the cloth himself; then, opening his window once more,
he sat down to watch for the appearance of Captain Roquefinette.

He was hardly at his observatory before he perceived the worthy captain
coming round the corner from the Rue Gros-Chenet, his head in the air,
his hand on his hip, and with the martial and decided air of a man who,
like the Greek philosopher, carries everything with him. His hat, that
thermometer by which his friends could tell the secret state of its
master's finances, and which, on his fortunate days was placed as
straight on his head as a pyramid on its base, had recovered that
miraculous inclination which had so struck the Baron de Valef, and
thanks to which, one of the points almost touched his right shoulder,
while the parallel one might forty years later had given Franklin, if
Franklin had known the captain, the first idea of his electric kite.

Having come about a third down the street, he raised his head as had
been arranged, and saw the chevalier just above him. He who waited, and
he who was waited for, exchanged nods, and the captain having calculated
the distance at a glance, and recognized the door which ought to belong
to the window above, jumped over the threshold of Madame Denis's poor
little house with as much familiarity as if it had been a tavern. The
chevalier shut the window, and drew the curtains with the greatest
care--either in order that his pretty neighbor might not see him with
the captain, or that the captain might not see her.

An instant afterward D'Harmental heard the sound of his steps, and the
beating of his sword against the banisters. Having arrived at the third
story, as the light which came from below was not aided by any light
from above, he found himself in a difficulty, not knowing whether to
stop where he was, or mount higher. Then, after coughing in the most
significant manner, and finding that this call remained unnoticed--

"Morbleu!" said he. "Chevalier, as you did not probably bring me here to
break my neck, open your door or call out, so that I may be guided
either by the light of heaven, or by the sound of your voice; otherwise
I shall be lost, neither more nor less than Theseus in the labyrinth."

And the captain began to sing in a loud voice--

    "Fair Ariadne, I beg of you,
    Help me, by lending me your clew.
    Toutou, toutou, toutaine, toutou!"

The chevalier ran to his door and opened it.

"My friend," said the captain, "the ladder up to your pigeon-house is
infernally dark; still here I am, faithful to the agreement, exact to
the time. Ten o'clock was striking as I came over the Pont-Neuf."




CHAPTER X.

THE AGREEMENT.


The chevalier extended his hand to Roquefinette, saying:

"Yes, you are a man of your word, but enter quickly; it is important
that my neighbors should not notice you."

"In that case I am as dumb as a log," answered the captain; "besides,"
added he, pointing to the pate and the bottles which covered the table,
"you have found the true way of shutting my mouth."

The chevalier shut the door behind the captain and pushed the bolt.

"Ah! ah! mystery--so much the better, I am fond of mystery. There is
almost always something to be gained when people begin by saying 'hush.'
In any case you cannot do better than address yourself to your servant,"
continued the captain, resuming his mythological language. "You see in
me the grandson of Hippocrates, the god of silence. So do not be
uneasy."

"That is well, captain," answered D'Harmental, "for I confess that what
I have to say to you is of sufficient importance for me to claim your
discretion beforehand."

"It is granted, chevalier. While I was giving a lesson to little
Ravanne, I saw, out of a corner of my eye, that you were a skillful
swordsman, and I love brave men. Then, in return for a little service,
only worth a fillip, you made me a present of a horse which was worth a
hundred louis, and I love generous men. Thus you are twice my man, why
should I not be yours once?"

"Well," said the chevalier, "I see that we understand each other."

"Speak, and I will listen," answered the captain, assuming his gravest
air.

"You will listen better seated, my dear guest. Let us go to breakfast."

"You preach like St. John with the golden mouth, chevalier," said the
captain, taking off his sword and placing that and his hat on the
harpsichord; "so that," continued he, sitting down opposite D'Harmental,
"one cannot differ from you in opinion. I am here; command the maneuver,
and I will execute it."

"Taste that wine while I cut the pate."

"That is right," said the captain, "let us divide our forces, and fight
the enemy separately, then let us re-unite to exterminate what remains."

And joining practice to theory, the captain seized the first bottle by
the neck, drew the cork, and having filled a bumper, drank it off with
such ease that one would have said that nature had gifted him with an
especial method of deglutition; but, to do him justice, scarcely had he
drunk it than he perceived that the liquor, which he had disposed of so
cavalierly, merited a more particular attention than he had given it.

"Oh!" said he, putting down his glass with a respectful slowness, "what
have I done, unworthy that I am? I drink nectar as if it were trash, and
that at the beginning of the feast! Ah!" continued he, shaking his head,
"Roquefinette, my friend, you are getting old. Ten years ago you would
have known what it was at the first drop that touched your palate, while
now you want many trials to know the worth of things. To your health,
chevalier."

And this time the captain, more circumspect, drank the second glass
slowly, and set it down three times before he finished it, winking his
eyes in sign of satisfaction. Then, when he had finished--

"This is hermitage of 1702, the year of the battle of Friedlingen. If
your wine-merchant has much like that, and if he will give credit, let
me have his address. I promise him a good customer."

"Captain," answered the chevalier, slipping an enormous slice of pate on
to the plate of his guest, "my wine-merchant not only gives credit, but
to my friends he gives altogether."

"Oh, the honest man!" cried the captain. Then, after a minute's silence,
during which a superficial observer would have thought him absorbed in
the appreciation of the pate, as he had been an instant before in that
of the wine, he leaned his two elbows on the table, and looking at
D'Harmental with a penetrating glance between his knife and fork--

"So, my dear chevalier," said he, "we conspire, it seems, and in order
to succeed we have need of poor Captain Roquefinette."

"And who told you that, captain?" broke in the chevalier, trembling in
spite of himself.

"Who told me that, pardieu! It is an easy riddle to answer. A man who
gives away horses worth a hundred louis, who drinks wine at a pistole
the bottle, and who lodges in a garret in the Rue du Temps Perdu, what
should he be doing if not conspiring?"

"Well, captain," said D'Harmental, laughing, "I shall never be discreet;
you have divined the truth. Does a conspiracy frighten you?" continued
he, filling his guest's glass.

"Frighten _me_! Who says that anything on earth can frighten Captain
Roquefinette?"

"Not I, captain; for at the first glance, at the first word, I fixed on
you as my second."

"Ah! that is to say, that if you are hung on a scaffold twenty feet
high, I shall be hung on one ten feet high, that's all!"

"Peste! captain," said D'Harmental, "if one always began by seeing thing
in their worst light, one would never attempt anything."

"Because I have spoken of the gallows?" answered the captain. "That
proves nothing. What is the gallows in the eyes of a philosopher? One of
the thousand ways of parting from life, and certainly one of the least
disagreeable. One can see that you have never looked the thing in the
face, since you have such an aversion to it. Besides, on proving our
noble descent, we shall have our heads cut off, like Monsieur de Rohan.
Did you see Monsieur de Rohan's head cut off?" continued the captain,
looking at D'Harmental. "He was a handsome young man, like you, and
about your age. He conspired, but the thing failed. What would you have?
Everybody may be deceived. They built him a beautiful black scaffold;
they allowed him to turn toward the window where his mistress was; they
cut the neck of his shirt with scissors, but the executioner was a
bungler, accustomed to hang, and not to decapitate, so that he was
obliged to strike three or four times to cut the head off, and at last
he only managed by the aid of a knife which he drew from his girdle, and
with which he chopped so well that he got the neck in half. Bravo! you
are brave!" continued the captain, seeing that the chevalier had
listened without frowning to all the details of this horrible execution.
"That will do--I am your man. Against whom are we conspiring? Let us
see. Is it against Monsieur le Duc de Maine? Is it against Monsieur le
Duc d'Orleans? Must we break the lame one's other leg? Must we cut out
the blind one's other eye? I am ready."

"Nothing of all that, captain; and if it pleases God there will be no
blood spilled."

"What is going on then?"

"Have you ever heard of the abduction of the Duke of Mantua's
secretary?"

"Of Matthioli?"----"Yes."

"Pardieu! I know the affair better than any one, for I saw them pass as
they were conducting him to Pignerol. It was the Chevalier de
Saint-Martin and Monsieur de Villebois who did it; and by this token
they each had three thousand livres for themselves and their men."

"That was only middling pay," said D'Harmental, with a disdainful air.

"You think so, chevalier? Nevertheless three thousand livres is a nice
little sum."

"Then for three thousand livres you would have undertaken it?"

"I would have undertaken it," answered the captain.

"But if instead of carrying off a secretary it had been proposed to you
to carry off a duke?"

"That would have been dearer."

"But you would have undertaken it all the same?"

"Why not? I should have asked double--that is all."

"And if, in giving you double, a man like myself had said to you,
'Captain, it is not an obscure danger that I plunge you into; it is a
struggle in which I am myself engaged, like you, and in which I venture
my name, my future, and my head:' what would you have answered?"

"I would have given him my hand, as I now give it you. Now what is the
business?"

The chevalier filled his own glass and that of the captain.

"To the health of the regent," said he, "and may he arrive without
accident at the Spanish frontier, as Matthioli arrived at Pignerol."

"Ah! ah!" said the captain, raising his glass. Then, after a pause, "And
why not?" continued he, "the regent is but a man after all. Only we
shall neither be hanged nor decapitated; we shall be broken on the
wheel. To any one else I should say that a regent would be dearer, but
to you, chevalier, I have only one price. Give me six thousand livres,
and I will find a dozen determined men."

"But those twelve men, do you think that you may trust them?"

"What need for their knowing what they are doing? They shall think they
are only carrying out a wager."

"And I," answered D'Harmental, "will show you that I do not haggle with
my friends. Here are two thousand crowns in gold, take them on account
if we succeed; if we fail we will cry quits."

"Chevalier," answered the captain, taking the bag of money and poising
it on his hand with an indescribable air of satisfaction, "I will not do
you the injustice of counting after you. When is the affair to be?"

"I do not know yet, captain; but if you find the pate to your taste, and
the wine good, and if you will do me the pleasure of breakfasting with
me every day as you have done to-day, I will keep you informed of
everything."

"That would not do, chevalier," said the captain. "I should not have
come to you three mornings before the police of that cursed Argenson
would have found us out. Luckily he has found some one as clever as
himself, and it will be some time before we are at the bar together. No,
no, chevalier, from now till the moment for action, the less we see of
one another the better; or rather, we must not see each other at all.
Your street is not a long one, and as it opens at one end on the Rue du
Gros-Chenet, and at the other on the Rue Montmartre, I shall have no
reason for coming through it. Here," continued he, detaching his
shoulder-knot, "take this ribbon. The day that you want me, tie it to a
nail outside your window. I shall understand it, and I will come to
you."

"How, captain!" said D'Harmental, seeing that his companion was
fastening on his sword. "Are you going without finishing the bottle?
What has the wine, which you appeared to appreciate so much a little
while ago, done to you, that you despise it so now?"

"It is just because I appreciate it still that I separate myself from
it; and the proof that I do not despise it," said the captain, filling
his glass, "is that I am going to take an adieu of it. To your health,
chevalier; you may boast of having good wine. Hum! And now, n--o, no,
that is all. I shall take to water till I see the ribbon flutter from
your window. Try to let it be as soon as possible, for water is a liquid
that does not suit my constitution."

"But why do you go so soon?"

"Because I know Captain Roquefinette. He is a good fellow; but when he
sits down before a bottle he must drink, and when he has drunk he must
talk; and, however well one talks, remember that those who talk much
always finish by making some blunder. Adieu, chevalier. Do not forget
the crimson ribbon; I go to look after our business."

"Adieu, captain," said D'Harmental, "I am pleased to see that I have no
need to preach discretion to you."

The captain made the sign of the cross on his mouth with his right
thumb, placed his hat straight on his head, raised his sword for fear of
its making a noise or beating against the wall, and went downstairs as
silently as if he had feared that every step would echo in the Hotel
d'Argenson.




CHAPTER XI.

PROS AND CONS.


The chevalier remained alone; but this time there was, in what had just
passed between himself and the captain, sufficient matter for reflection
to render it unnecessary for him to have recourse either to the poetry
of the Abbe Chaulieu, his harpsichord, or his chalks. Indeed, until
now, he had been only half engaged in the hazardous enterprise of which
the Duchesse de Maine and the Prince de Cellamare had shown him the
happy ending, and of which the captain, in order to try his courage, had
so brutally exhibited to him the bloody catastrophe. As yet he had only
been the end of a chain, and, on breaking away from one side, he would
have been loose. Now he was become an intermediate ring, fastened at
both ends, and attached at the same time to people above and below him
in society. In a word, from this hour he no longer belonged to himself,
and he was like the Alpine traveler, who, having lost his way, stops in
the middle of an unknown road, and measures with his eye, for the first
time, the mountain which rises above him and the gulf which yawns
beneath his feet.

Luckily the chevalier had the calm, cold, and resolute courage of a man
in whom fire and determination--those two opposite forces--instead of
neutralizing, stimulated each other. He engaged in danger with all the
rapidity of a sanguine man; he weighed it with all the consideration of
a phlegmatic one. Madame de Maine was right when she said to Madame de
Launay that she might put out her lantern, and that she believed she had
at last found a man.

But this man was young, twenty-six years of age, with a heart open to
all the illusions and all the poetry of that first part of existence. As
a child he had laid down his playthings at the feet of his mother. As a
young man he had come to exhibit his handsome uniform as colonel to the
eyes of his mistress; indeed, in every enterprise of his life some loved
image had gone before him, and he threw himself into danger with the
certainty that, if he succumbed, there would be some one surviving who
would mourn his fate.

But his mother was dead, the last woman by whom he had believed himself
loved had betrayed him, and he felt alone in the world--bound solely by
interest to men to whom he would become an obstacle as soon as he ceased
to be an instrument, and who, if he broke down, far from mourning his
loss, would only see in it a cause of satisfaction. But this isolated
position, which ought to be the envy of all men in a great danger, is
almost always (such is the egotism of our nature) a cause of the most
profound discouragement. Such is the horror of nothingness in man, that
he believes he still survives in the sentiments which he has inspired,
and he in some measure consoles himself for leaving the world by
thinking of the regrets which will accompany his memory, and of the pity
which will visit his tomb. Thus, at this instant, the chevalier would
have given everything to be loved, if it was only by a dog.

He was plunged in the saddest of these reflections when, passing and
repassing before his window, he noticed that his neighbor's was open. He
stopped suddenly, and shook his head, as if to cast off the most somber
of these thoughts; leaning his elbow on the table, and his head on his
hand, he tried to give a different direction to his thoughts by looking
at exterior objects.

The young girl whom he had seen in the morning was seated near her
window, in order to benefit by the last rays of daylight; she was
working at some kind of embroidery. Behind her the harpsichord was open,
and, on a stool at her feet, her greyhound slept the light sleep of an
animal destined by nature to be the guard of man, waking at every noise
which arose from the street, raising its ears, and stretching out its
elegant head over the window-sill; then it lay down again, placing one
of its little paws upon its mistress's knees. All this was deliciously
lighted up by the rays of the sinking sun, which penetrated into the
room, sparkling on the steel ornaments of the harpsichord and the gold
beading of the picture-frames. The rest was in twilight.

Then it seemed to the chevalier (doubtless on account of the disposition
of mind he was in when this picture had struck his eye) that this young
girl, with the calm and sweet face, entered into his life, like one of
those personages who always remain behind a veil, and make their
entrance on a piece in the second or third act to take part in the
action, and, sometimes, to change the denouement.

Since the age when one sees angels in one's dreams, he had seen no one
like her. She was a mixture of beauty, candor, and simplicity, such as
Greuze has copied, not from nature, but from the reflections in the
mirror of his imagination. Then, forgetting everything, the humble
condition in which without doubt she had been born, the street where he
had found her, the modest room which she had inhabited, seeing nothing
in the woman except the woman herself, he attributed to her a heart
corresponding with her face, and thought what would be the happiness of
the man who should first cause that heart to beat; who should be looked
upon with love by those beautiful eyes, and who, in the words, "I love
you!" should gather from those lips, so fresh and so pure, that flower
of the soul--a first kiss.

Such are the different aspects which the same objects borrow from the
situation of him who looks at them. A week before, in the midst of his
gayety, in his life which no danger menaced, between a breakfast at the
tavern and a stag-hunt, between a wager at tennis and a supper at La
Fillon's, if D'Harmental had met this young girl, he would doubtless
have seen in her nothing but a charming grisette, whom he would have had
followed by his valet-de-chambre, and to whom, the next day, he would
have outrageously offered a present of some twenty-five louis.

But the D'Harmental of a week ago existed no more. In the place of the
handsome seigneur--elegant, wild, dissipated, and certain of life--was
an insulated young man, walking in the shade, alone, and self-reliant,
without a star to guide him, who might suddenly feel the earth open
under his feet, and the heavens burst above his head. He had need of a
support, so feeble was he; he had need of love, he had need of poetry.
It was not then wonderful that, searching for a Madonna to whom to
address his prayers, he raised in his imagination this young and
beautiful girl from the material and prosaic sphere in which he found
her, and that, drawing her into his own, he placed her, not such as she
was, doubtless, but such as he wished her to be, on the empty pedestal
of his past adorations.

All at once the young girl raised her head, and happened to look in his
direction, and saw the pensive figure of the chevalier through the
glass. It appeared evident to her that the young man remained there for
her, and that it was at her he was looking. Then a bright blush spread
over her face. Still she pretended she had seen nothing, and bent her
head once more over her embroidery. But a minute afterward she rose,
took a few turns round her room; then, without affectation, without
false prudery, but nevertheless with a certain embarrassment, she
returned and shut the window. D'Harmental remained where he was, and as
he was; continuing, in spite of the shutting of the window, to advance
into the imaginary country where his thoughts were straying.

Once or twice he thought that he saw the curtain of his neighbor's
window raised, as if she wished to know whether he whose indiscretion
had driven her from her place was still at his. At last a few masterly
chords were heard; a sweet harmony followed; and it was then D'Harmental
who opened his window in his turn.

He had not been mistaken, his neighbor was an admirable musician; she
executed two or three little pieces, but without blending her voice with
the sound of the instrument; and D'Harmental found almost as much
pleasure in listening to her as he had found in looking at her. Suddenly
she stopped in the midst of a passage. D'Harmental supposed either that
she had seen him at his window, and wished to punish him for his
curiosity, or that some one had come in and interrupted her. He retired
into his room, but so as not to lose sight of the window, and soon
discovered that his last supposition was the true one.

A man came to the window, raised the curtain, and pressed his fat,
good-natured face against the glass, while with one hand he beat a march
against the panes. The chevalier recognized, in spite of a sensible
difference which there was in his toilet, the man of the water-jet whom
he had seen on the terrace in the morning, and who, with a perfect air
of familiarity, had twice pronounced the name of "Bathilde."

This apparition, more than prosaic, produced the effect which might
naturally have been expected; that is to say, it brought D'Harmental
back from imaginary to real life. He had forgotten this man, who made
such a strange and perfect contrast with the young girl, and who must
doubtless be either her father, her lover, or her husband. But in either
of these cases, what could there be in common between the daughter, the
wife, or the mistress of such a man, and the noble and aristocratic
chevalier? The wife! It is a misfortune of her dependent situation that
she rises and falls according to the grandeur or vulgarity of him on
whose arm she leans; and it must be confessed that the gardener was not
formed to maintain poor Bathilde at the height to which the chevalier
had raised her in his dreams.

Then he began to laugh at his own folly; and the night having arrived,
and as he had not been outside the door since the day before, he
determined to take a walk through the town, in order to assure himself
of the truth of the Prince de Cellamare's reports. He wrapped himself in
his cloak, descended the four stories, and bent his steps toward the
Luxembourg, where the note which the Abbe Brigaud had brought him in the
morning said that the regent was going to supper without guards.

Arrived opposite the palace of the Luxembourg, the chevalier saw none of
those signs which should announce that the Duc d'Orleans was at his
daughter's house: there was only one sentinel at the door, while from
the moment that the regent entered a second was generally placed there.
Besides, he saw no carriage waiting in the court, no footmen or
outriders; it was evident, then, that he had not come. The chevalier
waited to see him pass, for, as the regent never breakfasted, and took
nothing but a cup of chocolate at two o'clock in the afternoon, he
rarely supped later than six o'clock; but a quarter to six had struck at
the St. Surplice at the moment when the chevalier turned the corner of
the Rue de Conde, and the Rue de Vaugirard.

The chevalier waited an hour and a half in the Rue de Tournon, going
from the Rue du Petit-Lion to the palace, without seeing what he had
come to look for. At a quarter to eight he saw some movement in the
Luxembourg. A carriage, with outriders armed with torches, came to the
foot of the steps. A minute after three women got in; he heard the
coachman call to the outriders, "To the Palais Royal;" and the outriders
set off at a gallop, the carriage followed, the sentinel presented arms;
and, quickly as the elegant equipage with the royal arms of France
passed, the chevalier recognized the Duchesse de Berry, Madame de
Mouchy, her lady of honor, and Madame de Pons, her tire-woman.

There had been an important error in the report sent to the chevalier;
it was the daughter who went to the father, not the father who came to
the daughter.

Nevertheless, the chevalier still waited, for some accident might have
happened to the regent, which detained him at home. An hour after he saw
the carriage repass. The Duchesse de Berry was laughing at a story which
Broglie was telling her. There had not then been any serious accident;
it was the police of the Prince de Cellamare, then, that were at fault.

The chevalier returned home about ten o'clock without having been met or
recognized. He had some trouble to get the door opened, for, according
to the patriarchal habits of Madame Denis's house, the porter had gone
to bed, and came out grumbling to unfasten the bolts. D'Harmental
slipped a crown into his hand, saying to him, once for all, that he
should sometimes return late, but that each time that he did so he would
give him the same; upon which the porter thanked him, and assured him
that he was perfectly welcome to come home at any time he liked, or even
not to return at all.

On returning to his room, D'Harmental saw that his neighbor's was
lighted up; he placed his candle behind a piece of furniture, and
approached the window, so that, as much as the muslin curtains allowed,
he could see into her room, while she could not see into his.

She was seated near a table, drawing, probably, on a card which she held
on her knees, for he saw her profile standing out black against the
light behind her. Shortly another shadow, which the chevalier recognized
as that of the good man of the terrace, passed twice between the light
and the window. At last the shade approached the young girl, she offered
her forehead, the shadow imprinted a kiss on it, and went away, with his
candle in his hand. Directly afterward the windows of the fifth story
were lighted up. All these little circumstances spoke a language which
it was impossible not to understand. The man of the terrace was not the
husband of Bathilde, he must be her father.

D'Harmental, without knowing why, felt overjoyed at this discovery; he
opened his window as softly as he could, and leaned on the bar, which
served him as a support, with his eyes fixed on the shadow. He fell into
the same reverie out of which he had been startled that morning by the
grotesque apparition of his neighbor. In about an hour the girl rose,
put down her card and crayons on the table, advanced toward the alcove,
knelt on a chair before the second window, and offered up her prayers.
D'Harmental understood that her laborious watch was finished, but
remembering the curiosity of his beautiful neighbor, when he had begun
to play the first time, he wished to see if he could prolong that watch,
and he sat down to his spinet. What he had foreseen happened; at the
first notes which reached her, the young girl, not knowing that from the
position of the light he could see her shadow through the curtains,
approached the window on tiptoe, and thinking herself hidden, she
listened to the melodious instrument, which, like the nightingale, awoke
to sing in the middle of the night.

The concert would have probably continued thus for some hours, for
D'Harmental, encouraged by the result produced, felt an energy and an
ease of execution such as he had never known before. Unluckily, the
occupier of the third floor was undoubtedly some clown, no lover of
music, for D'Harmental heard suddenly, just below his feet, the noise of
a stick knocking on the ceiling with such violence that he could not
doubt that it was a warning to him to put off his melodious occupation
till a more suitable period. Under other circumstances, D'Harmental
would have sent the impertinent adviser to the devil, but reflecting
that any ill-feeling on the lodger's part would injure his own
reputation with Madame Denis, and that he was playing too heavy a game
to risk being recognized, and not to submit philosophically to all the
inconveniences of the new position which he had adopted, instead of
setting himself in opposition to the rules established without doubt
between Madame Denis and her lodgers, he obeyed the intimation,
forgetting in what manner that intimation had been given him.

On her part, as soon as she heard nothing more, the young girl left the
window, and as she let the inner curtains fall behind her, she
disappeared from D'Harmental's eyes. For some time longer he could still
see a light in her room; then the light was extinguished. As to the
window on the fifth floor, for some time that had been in the most
perfect darkness. D'Harmental also went to bed, joyous to think that
there existed a point of sympathy between himself and his neighbor.

The next day the Abbe Brigaud entered the room with his accustomed
punctuality. The chevalier had already been up more than an hour; he had
gone twenty times to his window, but without seeing his neighbor,
although it was evident that she was up, even before himself; indeed, on
waking he had seen the large curtains put up in their bands. Thus he was
disposed to let out his ill-humor on any one.

"Ah! pardieu! my dear abbe," said he, as soon as the door was shut;
"congratulate the prince for me on his police; it is perfectly
arranged, on my honor!"

"What have you got against them?" asked the abbe, with the half-smile
which was habitual to him.

"What have I! I have, that, wishing to judge for myself, last evening,
of its truth, I went and hid myself in the Rue Tournon. I remained there
four hours, and it was not the regent who came to his daughter, but
Madame de Berry who went to her father."

"Well, we know that."

"Ah! you know that!" said D'Harmental.

"Yes, and by this token, that she left the Luxembourg at five minutes to
eight, with Madame de Mouchy and Madame de Pons, and that she returned
at half-past nine, bringing Broglie with her, who came to take the
regent's place at table."

"And where was the regent?"

"The regent?"

"Yes."

"That is another story; you shall learn. Listen, and do not lose a word;
then we shall see if you will say that the prince's police is badly
arranged."

"I attend."

"Our report announced that at three o'clock the duke-regent would go to
play tennis in the Rue de Seine."

"Yes."

"He went. In about half an hour he left holding his handkerchief over
his eyes. He had hit himself on the brow with the racket, and with such
violence that he had torn the skin of his forehead."

"Ah, this then was the accident!"

"Listen. Then the regent, instead of returning to the Palais Royal, was
driven to the house of Madame de Sabran. You know where Madame de Sabran
lives?"

"She lived in the Rue de Tournon, but since her husband has become
maitre d'hotel to the regent, she lives in the Rue des Bons Enfants,
near the Palais Royal."

"Exactly; but it seems that Madame de Sabran, who until now was faithful
to Richelieu, was touched by the pitiable state in which she saw the
prince, and wished to justify the proverb, 'Unlucky at play, lucky at
love.' The prince, by a little note, dated half-past seven, from the
drawing-room of Madame de Sabran, with whom he supped, announced to
Broglie that he should not go to the Luxembourg, and charged him to go
in his stead, and make his excuses to the Duchesse de Berry."

"Ah, this then was the story which Broglie was telling, and at which the
ladies were laughing."

"It is probable; now do you understand?"

"Yes; I understand that the regent is not possessed of ubiquity, and
could not be at the house of Madame de Sabran and at his daughter's at
the same time."

"And you only understand that?"

"My dear abbe, you speak like an oracle; explain yourself."

"This evening, at eight o'clock, I will come for you; we will go to the
Rue des Bons Enfants together. To me the locality is eloquent."

"Ah! ah!" said D'Harmental, "I see; so near the Palais Royal, he will go
on foot. The hotel which Madame de Sabran inhabits has an entrance from
the Rue des Bons Enfants; after a certain hour they shut the passage
from the Palais Royal, which opens on the Rue des Bons Enfants: and he
will be obliged, on his return, to follow either the Cour des Fontaines,
or the Rue Neuve des Bons Enfants, and then we shall have him. Mordieu!
you are a great man, and if Monsieur de Maine does not make you
cardinal, or at least archbishop, there will be no justice done."

"I think, therefore, that now you must hold yourself in readiness."

"I am ready."

"Have you the means of execution prepared?"----"I have."

"Then you can correspond with your men?"

"By a sign."

"And that sign cannot betray you?"

"Impossible."

"Then all goes well, and we may have breakfast; for I was in such haste
to tell you the good news that I came out fasting."

"Breakfast, my dear abbe! you speak coolly; I have nothing to offer you,
except the remains of the pate and two or three bottles of wine, which,
I believe, survived the battle."

"Hum! hum," murmured the abbe; "we will do better than that, my dear
chevalier."

"I am at your orders."

"Let us go down and breakfast with our good hostess, Madame Denis."

"And why do you want me to breakfast with her? Do I know her?"

"That concerns me. I shall present you as my pupil."

"But we shall get a detestable breakfast."

"Comfort yourself. I know her table."

"But this breakfast will be tiresome."

"But you will make a friend of a woman much known in the neighborhood
for her good conduct, for her devotion to the government--a woman
incapable of harboring a conspirator. Do you understand that?"

"If it be for the good of the cause, abbe, I sacrifice myself."

"Moreover, it is a very agreeable house, where there are two young
people who play--one on the spinet, and the other on the guitar--and a
young man who is an attorney's clerk; a house where you may go down on
Sunday evenings to play lots."

"Go to the devil with your Madame Denis. Ah! pardon, abbe, perhaps you
are her friend. In that case, imagine that I have said nothing."

"I am her confessor," replied the Abbe Brigaud, with a modest air.

"Then a thousand excuses, my dear abbe; but you are right indeed. Madame
Denis is still a beautiful woman, perfectly well preserved, with superb
hands and very pretty feet. Peste! I remember that. Go down first; I
will follow."

"Why not together?"

"But my toilet, abbe. Would you have me appear before the Demoiselles
Denis with my hair in its present state? One must try to look one's
best--que diable! Besides, it is better that you should announce me: I
have not a confessor's privilege."

"You are right. I will go down and announce you, and in ten minutes you
will arrive--will you not?"

"In ten minutes."

"Adieu!"----"Au revoir!"

The chevalier had only told half the truth. He might have remained
partly to dress, but also in the hope of seeing his beautiful neighbor,
of whom he had dreamed all the night, but in vain. He remained hidden
behind the curtains of his window: those of the young girl with the fair
hair and the beautiful black eyes remained closed. It is true that, in
exchange, he could perceive his neighbor, who, opening his door, passed
out, with the same precaution as the day before, first his hand, then
his head; but this time his boldness went no further, for there was a
slight fog, and fog is essentially contrary to the organization of the
Parisian bourgeois. Our friend coughed twice, and then, drawing in his
head and his arm, re-entered his room like a tortoise into his shell.
D'Harmental saw with pleasure that he might dispense with buying a
barometer, and that this neighbor would render him the same service as
the butterflies which come out in the sunshine, and remain obstinately
shut up in their hermitages on the days when it rains.

The apparition had its ordinary effect, and reacted on poor Bathilde.
Every time that D'Harmental perceived the young girl, there was in her
such a sweet attraction that he saw nothing but the woman--young,
beautiful, and graceful, a musician and painter--that is to say, the
most delicious and complete creature he had ever met. But when, in his
turn, the man of the terrace presented himself to the chevalier's gaze,
with his common face, his insignificant figure--that indelible type of
vulgarity which attaches to certain individuals--directly a sort of
miraculous transition took place in the chevalier's mind. All the poetry
disappeared, as a machinist's whistle causes the disappearance of a
fairy palace. Everything was seen by a different light. D'Harmental's
native aristocracy regained the ascendency. Bathilde was then nothing
but the daughter of this man--that is to say, a grisette: her beauty,
her grace, her elegance, even her talents, were but an accident--an
error of nature--something like a rose flowering on a cabbage-stalk. The
chevalier shrugged his shoulders as he stood before the glass, began to
laugh, and to wonder at the impression which he had received. He
attributed it to the preoccupation of his mind, to the strange and
solitary situation, to everything, in fact, except its true cause--the
sovereign and irresistible power of distinction and beauty. D'Harmental
went down to his hostess disposed to find the Demoiselles Denis
charming.




CHAPTER XII.

THE DENIS FAMILY.


Madame Denis did not think it proper that two young persons as innocent
as her daughters should breakfast with a young man who, although he had
been only three days in Paris, already came in at eleven o'clock at
night, and played on the harpsichord till two in the morning. In vain
the Abbe Brigaud affirmed that this double infraction of the rules of
her house should in no degree lower her opinion of his pupil, for whom
he could answer as for himself. All he could obtain was that the young
ladies should appear at the dessert; but the chevalier soon perceived
that if their mother had ordered them not to be seen, she had not
forbidden them to be heard, for scarcely were they at table, round a
veritable devotee's breakfast, composed of a multitude of little dishes,
tempting to the eye and delicious to the palate, when the sounds of a
spinet were heard, accompanying a voice which was not wanting in
compass, but whose frequent errors of intonation showed lamentable
inexperience. At the first notes Madame Denis placed her hand on the
abbe's arm, then, after an instant's silence, during which she listened
with a pleased smile to that music which made the chevalier's flesh
creep, "Do you hear?" she said. "It is our Athenais who is playing, and
it is Emilie who sings."

The Abbe Brigaud, making signs that he heard perfectly, trod on
D'Harmental's foot under the table, to hint that this was an opportunity
for paying a compliment.

"Madame," said the chevalier, who understood this appeal to his
politeness perfectly, "we are doubly indebted to you; for you offer us
not only an excellent breakfast, but a delightful concert."

"Yes," replied Madame Denis, negligently, "it is those children: they do
not know you are here, and they are practicing; but I will go and tell
them to stop."

Madame Denis was going to rise.

"What, madame!" said D'Harmental, "because I come from Ravenne do you
believe me unworthy to make acquaintance with the talents of the
capital?"

"Heaven preserve me, monsieur, from having such an opinion of you," said
Madame Denis, maliciously, "for I know you are a musician; the lodger on
the third story told me so."

"In that case, madame, perhaps he did not give you a very high idea of
my merit," replied the chevalier, laughing, "for he did not appear to
appreciate the little I may possess."

"He only said that it appeared to him a strange time for music. But
listen, Monsieur Raoul," added Madame Denis, "the parts are changed now,
my dear abbe, it is our Athenais who sings, and it is Emilie who
accompanies her on the guitar."

It appeared that Madame Denis had a weakness for Athenais, for instead
of talking as she did when Emilie was singing, she listened from one end
to the other to the romance of her favorite, her eyes tenderly fixed on
the Abbe Brigaud, who, still eating and drinking, contented himself with
nodding his head in sign of approbation. Athenais sang a little more
correctly than her sister, but for this she made up by a defect at least
equivalent in the eyes of the chevalier. Her voice was equally vulgar.

As to Madame Denis, she beat wrong time with her head, with an air of
beatitude which did infinitely more honor to her maternal affection than
to her musical intelligence.

A duet succeeded to the solos. The young ladies appeared determined to
give their whole repertoire. D'Harmental, in his turn, sought under the
table for the abbe's feet, to crush at least one, but he only found
those of Madame Denis, who, taking this for a personal attention, turned
graciously toward him.

"Then, Monsieur Raoul," she said, "you come, young and inexperienced, to
brave all the dangers of the capital?"

"Yes," said the Abbe Brigaud, taking upon himself to answer, for fear
that D'Harmental might not be able to resist answering by some joke.
"You see in this young man, Madame Denis, the son of a friend who was
very dear to me" (the abbe put his table-napkin up to his eyes), "and
whom, I hope, will do credit to the care I have bestowed on his
education."

"And monsieur is right," replied Madame Denis; "for, with his talents
and appearance, there is no saying to what he may attain."

"Ah! but, Madame Denis," said the Abbe Brigaud, "if you spoil him thus I
shall not bring him to you again. My dear Raoul," continued the abbe,
addressing him in a paternal manner, "I hope you will not believe a word
of all this." Then, whispering to Madame Denis, "Such as you see him, he
might have remained at Sauvigny, and taken the first place after the
squire. He has three thousand livres a year in the funds."

"That is exactly what I intend giving to each of my daughters," replied
Madame Denis, raising her voice, so as to be heard by the chevalier, and
giving a side-glance to discover what effect the announcement of such
magnificence would have upon him.

Unfortunately for the future establishment of the Demoiselles Denis, the
chevalier was not thinking of uniting the three thousand livres which
this generous mother gave to her daughters to the thousand crowns a year
which the Abbe Brigaud had bestowed on him. The shrill treble of
Mademoiselle Emilie, the contralto of Mademoiselle Athenais, the
accompaniment of both, had recalled to his recollection the pure and
flexible voice and the distinguished execution of his neighbor. Thanks
to that singular power which a great preoccupation gives us over
exterior objects, the chevalier had escaped from the charivari which was
executed in the adjoining room, and was following a sweet melody which
floated in his mind, and which protected him, like an enchanted armor,
from the sharp sounds which were flying around him.

"How he listens!" said Madame Denis to Brigaud. "'Tis worth while taking
trouble for a young man like that. I shall have a bone to pick with
Monsieur Fremond."

"Who is Monsieur Fremond?" said the abbe, pouring himself out something
to drink.

"It is the lodger on the third floor. A contemptible little fellow, with
twelve hundred francs a year, and whose temper has caused me to have
quarrels with every one in the house; and who came to complain that
Monsieur Raoul prevented him and his dog from sleeping."

"My dear Madame Denis," replied the abbe, "you must not quarrel with
Monsieur Fremond for that. Two o'clock in the morning is an unreasonable
time; and if my pupil must sit up till then, he must play in the daytime
and draw in the evening."

"What! Monsieur Raoul draws also!" cried Madame Denis, quite astonished
at so much talent.

"Draws like Mignard."

"Oh! my dear abbe," said Madame Denis, "if you could but obtain one
thing."

"What?" asked the abbe.

"That he would take the portrait of our Athenais."

The chevalier awoke from his reverie, as a traveler, asleep on the
grass, feels a serpent glide up to him, and instinctively understands
that a great danger threatens him.

"Abbe!" cried he, in a bewildered manner, "no folly!"

"Oh! what is the matter with your pupil?" asked Madame Denis, quite
frightened.

Happily, at the moment when the abbe was seeking a subterfuge, the door
opened, and the two young ladies entered blushing, and, stepping from
right to left, each made a low courtesy.

"Well!" said Madame Denis, affecting an air of severity, "what is this?
Who gave you permission to leave your room?"

"Mamma," replied a voice which the chevalier recognized, by its shrill
tones, for that of Mademoiselle Emilie, "we beg pardon if we have done
wrong, and are willing to return."

"But, mamma," said another voice, which the chevalier concluded must
belong to Mademoiselle Athenais, "we thought that it was agreed that we
were to come in at dessert."

"Well, come in, since you are here; it would be ridiculous now to go
back. Besides," added Madame Denis, seating Athenais between herself and
Brigaud, and Emilie between herself and the chevalier, "young persons
are always best--are they not, abbe?--under their mother's wing."

And Madame Denis presented to her daughters a plate of bon-bons, from
which they helped themselves with a modest air which did honor to their
education.

The chevalier, during the discourse and action of Madame Denis, had time
to examine her daughters.

Mademoiselle Emilie was a tall and stiff personage, from twenty-two to
twenty-three, who was said to be very much like her late father; an
advantage which did not, however, suffice to gain for her in the
maternal heart an affection equal to what Madame Denis entertained for
her other two children. Thus poor Emilie, always afraid of being
scolded, retained a natural awkwardness, which the repeated lessons of
her dancing-master had not been able to conquer.

Mademoiselle Athenais, on the contrary, was little, plump, and rosy;
and, thanks to her sixteen or seventeen years, had what is vulgarly
called the devil's beauty. She did not resemble either Monsieur or
Madame Denis, a singularity which had often exercised the tongues of the
Rue St. Martin before she went to inhabit the house which her husband
had bought in the Rue du Temps Perdu. In spite of this absence of all
likeness to her parents, Mademoiselle Athenais was the declared favorite
of her mother, which gave her the assurance that poor Emilie wanted.
Athenais, however, it must be said, always profited by this favor to
excuse the pretended faults of her sister.

Although it was scarcely eleven o'clock in the morning, the two sisters
were dressed as if for a ball, and carried all the trinkets they
possessed on their necks, arms, and ears.

This apparition, so conformable to the idea which D'Harmental had formed
beforehand of the daughters of his landlady, gave him a new subject for
reflection. Since the Demoiselles Denis were so exactly what they ought
to be, that is to say, in such perfect harmony with their position and
education, why was Bathilde, who seemed their equal in rank, as visibly
distinguished as they were vulgar? Whence came this immense difference
between girls of the same class and age? There must be some secret,
which the chevalier would no doubt know some day or other. A second
pressure of the Abbe Brigaud's foot against his made him understand
that, however true his reflections were, he had chosen a bad moment for
abandoning himself to them. Indeed, Madame Denis took so sovereign an
air of dignity, that D'Harmental saw that he had not an instant to lose
if he wished to efface from her mind the bad impression which his
distraction had caused.

"Madame," said he directly, with the most gracious air he could assume,
"that which I already see of your family fills me with the most lively
desire to know the rest. Is not your son at home, and shall not I have
the pleasure of seeing him?"

"Monsieur," answered Madame Denis, to whom so amiable an address had
restored all her good humor, "my son is with M. Joulu, his master; and,
unless his business brings him this way, it is improbable that he will
make your acquaintance."

"Parbleu! my dear pupil," said the Abbe Brigaud, extending his hand
toward the door; "you are like Aladdin. It is enough for you to express
a wish, and it is fulfilled."

Indeed, at this moment they heard on the staircase the song about
Marlborough, which at this time had all the charm of novelty; the door
was thrown open, and gave entrance to a boy with a laughing face, who
much resembled Mademoiselle Athenais.

"Good, good, good," said the newcomer, crossing his arms, and remarking
the ordinary number of his family increased by the abbe and the
chevalier. "Not bad, Madame Denis; she sends Boniface to his office with
a bit of bread and cheese, saying, 'Beware of indigestion,' and, in his
absence, she gives feasts and suppers. Luckily, poor Boniface has a good
nose. He comes through the Rue Montmartre; he snuffs the wind, and says,
'What is going on there at No. 5, Rue du Temps Perdu?' So he came, and
here he is. Make a place for one."

And, joining the action to the word, Boniface drew a chair to the table,
and sat down between the abbe and the chevalier.

"Monsieur Boniface," said Madame Denis, trying to assume a severe air,
"do you not see that there are strangers here?"

"Strangers!" said Boniface, taking a dish from the table, and setting it
before himself; "and who are the strangers? Are you one, Papa Brigaud?
Are you one, Monsieur Raoul? You are not a stranger, you are a lodger."
And, taking a knife and fork, he set to work in a manner to make up for
lost time.

"Pardieu! madame," said the chevalier, "I see with pleasure that I am
further advanced than I thought I was. I did not know that I had the
honor of being known to Monsieur Boniface."

"It would be odd if I did not know you," said the lawyer's clerk, with
his mouth full; "you have got my bedroom."

"How, Madame Denis!" said D'Harmental, "and you left me in ignorance
that I had the honor to succeed in my room to the heir apparent of your
family? I am no longer astonished to find my room so gayly fitted up; I
recognize the cares of a mother."

"Yes, much good may it do you; but I have one bit of advice to give you.
Don't look out of window too much."

"Why?" asked D'Harmental.

"Why? because you have a certain neighbor opposite you."

"Mademoiselle Bathilde," said the chevalier, carried away by his first
impulse.

"Ah! you know that already?" answered Boniface; "good, good, good; that
will do."----"Will you be quiet, monsieur!" cried Madame Denis.

"L

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