the weakness that had overtaken her upon seeing him wounded.
"My God!" he cried aloud. "What must she have suffered, then, if I had
killed him as I intended!"
If only she had used candour with him, she could so easily have won his
consent to the thing she asked. If only she had told him what now he saw,
that she loved M. de La Tour d'Azyr, instead of leaving him to assume her
only regard for the Marquis to be based on unworthy worldly ambition, he
would at once have yielded.
He fetched a sigh, and breathed a prayer for forgiveness to the shade
of Vilmorin.
"It is perhaps as well that my lunge went wide," he said.
"What do you mean?" wondered Le Chapelier.
"That in this business I must relinquish all hope of recommencing."
M. de La Tour d'Azyr was seen no more in the Manege - or indeed in
Paris at all - throughout all the months that the National Assembly remained
in session to complete its work of providing France with a constitution.
After all, though the wound to his body had been comparatively slight, the
wound to such a pride as his had been all but mortal.
The rumour ran that he had emigrated. But that was only half the truth.
The whole of it was that he had joined that group of noble travellers who
came and went between the Tuileries and the headquarters of the emigres at
Coblenz. He became, in short, a member of the royalist secret service that
in the end was to bring down the monarchy in ruins.
As for Andre-Louis, his godfather's house saw him no more, as a result
of his conviction that M. de Kercadiou would not relent from his written
resolve never to receive him again if the duel were fought.
He threw himself into his duties at the Assembly with such zeal and
effect that when - its purpose accomplished - the Constituent was dissolved
in September of the following year, membership of the Legislative, whose
election followed immediately, was thrust upon him.
He considered then, like many others, that the Revolution was a thing
accomplished, that France had only to govern herself by the Constitution
which had been given her, and that all would now be well. And so it might
have been but that the Court could not bring itself to accept the altered
state of things. As a result of its intrigues half Europe was arming to hurl
herself upon France, and her quarrel was the quarrel of the French King with
his people. That was the horror at the root of all the horrors that were to
come.
Of the counter-revolutionary troubles that were everywhere being
stirred up by the clergy, none were more acute than those of Brittany, and,
in view of the influence it was hoped he would wield in his native province,
it was proposed to Andre-Louis by the Commission of Twelve, in the early
days of the Girondin ministry, that he should go thither to combat the
unrest. He was desired to proceed peacefully, but his powers were almost
absolute, as is shown by the orders he carried - orders enjoining all to
render him assistance and warning those who might hinder him that they would
do so at their peril.
He accepted the task, and he was one of the five plenipotentiaries
despatched on the same errand in that spring of 1792. It kept him absent
from Paris for four months and might have kept him longer but that at the
beginning of August he was recalled. More imminent than any trouble in
Brittany was the trouble brewing in Paris itself; when the political sky was
blacker than it had been since '89. Paris realized that the hour was rapidly
approaching which would see the climax of the long struggle between Equality
and Privilege. And it was towards a city so disposed that Andre-Louis came
speeding from the West, to find there also the climax of his own disturbed
career.
Mlle. de Kercadiou, too, was in Paris in those days of early August, on
a visit to her uncle's cousin and dearest friend, Mme. de Plougastel. And
although nothing could now be plainer than the seething unrest that heralded
the explosion to come, yet the air of gaiety, indeed of jocularity,
prevailing at Court - whither madame and mademoiselle went almost daily -
reassured them. M. de Plougastel had come and gone again, back to Coblenz on
that secret business that kept him now almost constantly absent from his
wife. But whilst with her he had positively assured her that all measures
were taken, and that an insurrection was a thing to be welcomed, because it
could have one only conclusion, the final crushing of the Revolution in the
courtyard of the Tuileries. That, he added, was why the King remained in
Paris. But for his confidence in that he would put himself in the centre of
his Swiss and his knights of the dagger, and quit the capital. They would
hack a way out for him easily if his departure were opposed. But not even
that would be necessary.
Yet in those early days of August, after her husband's departure the
effect of his inspiring words was gradually dissipated by the march of
events under madame's own eyes. And finally on the afternoon of the ninth,
there arrived at the Hotel Plougastel a messenger from Meudon bearing a note
from M. de Kercadiou in which he urgently bade mademoiselle join him there
at once, and advised her hostess to accompany her.
You may have realized that M. de Kercadiou was of those who make
friends with men of all classes. His ancient lineage placed him on terms of
equality with members of the noblesse; his simple manners - something
between the rustic and the bourgeois - and his natural affability placed him
on equally good terms with those who by birth were his inferiors. In Meudon
he was known and esteemed of all the simple folk, and it was Rougane, the
friendly mayor, who, informed on the 9th of August of the storm that was
brewing for the morrow, and knowing of mademoiselle's absence in Paris, had
warningly advised him to withdraw her from what in the next four-and-twenty
hours might be a zone of danger for all persons of quality, particularly
those suspected of connections with the Court party.
Now there was no doubt whatever of Mme. de Plougastel's connection with
the Court. It was not even to be doubted - indeed, measure of proof of it
was to be forthcoming - that those vigilant and ubiquitous secret societies
that watched over the cradle of the young revolution were fully informed of
the frequent journeyings of M. de Plougastel to Coblenz, and entertained no
illusions on the score of the reason for them. Given, then, a defeat of the
Court party in the struggle that was preparing, the position in Paris of
Mme. de Plougastel could not be other than fraught with danger, and that
danger would be shared by any guest of birth at her hotel.
M. de Kercadiou's affection for both those women quickened the fears
aroused in him by Rougane's warning. Hence that hastily dispatched note,
desiring his niece and imploring his friend to come at once to Meudon.
The friendly mayor carried his complaisance a step farther, and
dispatched the letter to Paris by the hands of his own son, an intelligent
lad of nineteen. It was late in the afternoon of that perfect August day
when young Rougane presented himself at the Hotel Plougastel.
He was graciously received by Mme. de Plougastel in the salon, whose
splendours, when combined with the great air of the lady herself,
overwhelmed the lad's simple, unsophisticated soul. Madame made up her mind
at once.
M. de Kercadiou's urgent message no more than confirmed her own fears
and inclinations. She decided upon instant departure.
"Bien, madame," said the youth. "Then I have the honour to take my
leave."
But she would not let him go. First to the kitchen to refresh himself,
whilst she and mademoiselle made ready, and then a seat for him in her
carriage as far as Meudon. She could not suffer him to return on foot as he
had come.
Though in all the circumstances it was no more than his due, yet the
kindliness that in such a moment of agitation could take thought for another
was presently to be rewarded. Had she done less than this, she would have
known - if nothing worse - at least some hours of anguish even greater than
those that were already in store for her.
It wanted, perhaps, a half-hour to sunset when they set out in her
carriage with intent to leave Paris by the Porte Saint-Martin. They
travelled with a single footman behind. Rougane - terrifying condescension -
was given a seat inside the carriage with the ladies, and proceeded to fall
in love with Mlle. de Kercadiou, whom he accounted the most beautiful being
he had ever seen, yet who talked to him simply and unaffectedly as with an
equal. The thing went to his head a little, and disturbed certain republican
notions which he had hitherto conceived himself to have thoroughly digested.
The carriage drew up at the barrier, checked there by a picket of the
National Guard posted before the iron gates.
The sergeant in command strode to the door of the vehicle. The Countess
put her head from the window.
"The barrier is closed, madame," she was curtly informed.
"Closed!" she echoed. The thing was incredible. "But... but do you mean
that we cannot pass?"
Not unless you have a permit, madame." The sergeant leaned nonchalantly
on his pike. "The orders are that no one is to leave or enter without proper
papers."
"Whose orders?"
"Orders of the Commune of Paris."
"But I must go into the country this evening." Madame's voice was
almost petulant. "I am expected."
"In that case let madame procure a permit."
"Where is it to be procured?"
"At the Hotel de Ville or at the headquarters of madame's section."
She considered a moment. "To the section, then. Be so good as to tell
my coachman to drive to the Bondy Section."
He saluted her and stepped back. "Section Bondy, Rue des Morts," he
bade the driver.
Madame sank into her seat again, in a state of agitation fully shared
by mademoiselle. Rougane set himself to pacify and reassure them. The
section would put the matter in order. They would most certainly be accorded
a permit. What possible reason could there be for refusing them? A mere
formality, after all!
His assurance uplifted them merely to prepare them for a still more
profound dejection when presently they met with a flat refusal from the
president of the section who received the Countess.
"Your name, madame?" he had asked brusquely. A rude fellow of the most
advanced republican type, he had not even risen out of deference to the
ladies when they entered. He was there, he would have told you, to perform
the duties of his office, not to give dancing-lessons.
"Plougastel," he repeated after her, without title, as if it had been
the name of a butcher or baker. He took down a heavy volume from a shelf on
his right, opened it and turned the pages. It was a sort of directory of his
section. Presently he found what he sought. "Comte de Plougastel, Hotel
Plougastel, Rue du Paradis. Is that it?"
"That is correct, monsieur," she answered, with what civility she could
muster before the fellow's affronting rudeness.
There was a long moment of silence, during which he studied certain
pencilled entries against the name. The sections had been working in the
last few weeks much more systematically than was generally suspected.
"Your husband is with you, madame?" he asked curtly, his eyes still
conning that page.
"M. le Comte is not with me," she answered, stressing the title.
"Not with you?" He looked up suddenly, and directed upon her a glance
in which suspicion seemed to blend with derision. "Where is he?"
"He is not in Paris, monsieur.
"Ab! Is he at Coblenz, do you think?"
Madame felt herself turning cold. There was something ominous in all
this. To what end had the sections informed themselves so thoroughly of the
comings and goings of their inhabitants? What was preparing? She had a sense
of being trapped, of being taken in a net that had been cast unseen.
"I do not know, monsieur," she said, her voice unsteady.
"Of course not." He seemed to sneer. "No matter. And you wish to leave
Paris also? Where do you desire to go?"
"To Meudon."
"Your business there?"
The blood leapt to her face. His insolence was unbearable to a woman
who in all her life had never known anything but the utmost deference from
inferiors and equals alike. Nevertheless, realizing that she was face to
face with forces entirely new, she controlled herself, stifled her
resentment, and answered steadily.
"I wish to conduct this lady, Mlle. de Kercadiou, back to her uncle who
resides there."
"Is that all? Another day will do for that, madame. The matter is not
pressing."
"Pardon, monsieur, to us the matter is very pressing."
"You have not convinced me of it, and the barriers are closed to all
who cannot prove the most urgent and satisfactory reasons for wishing to
pass. You will wait, madame, until the restriction is removed.
Good-evening."
"But, monsieur... "
"Good-evening, madame," he repeated significantly, a dismissal more
contemptuous and despotic than any royal "You have leave to go.
Madame went out with Aline. Both were quivering with the anger that
prudence had urged them to suppress. They climbed into the coach again,
desiring to be driven home.
Rougane's astonishment turned into dismay when they told him what had
taken place. "Why not try the Hotel de Ville, madame?" he suggested.
"After that? It would be useless. We must resign ourselves to remaining
in Paris until the barriers are opened again."
"Perhaps it will not matter to us either way by then, madame," said
Aline.
"Aline!" she exclaimed in horror.
"Mademoiselle!" cried Rougane on the same note. And then, because he
perceived that people detained in this fashion must be in some danger not
yet discernible, but on that account more dreadful, he set his wits to work.
As they were approaching the Hotel Plougastel once more, he announced that
he had solved the problem.
"A passport from without would do equally well," he announced. "Listen,
now, and trust to me. I will go back to Meudon at once. My father shall give
me two permits - one for myself alone, and another for three persons - from
Meudon to Paris and back to Meudon. I reenter Paris with my own permit,
which I then proceed to destroy, and we leave together, we three, on the
strength of the other one, representing ourselves as having come from Meudon
in the course of the day. It is quite simple, after all. If I go at once, I
shall be back to-night."
"But how will you leave?" asked Aline.
"I? Pooh! As to that, have no anxiety. My father is Mayor of Meudon.
There are plenty who know him. I will go to the Hotel de Ville, and tell
them what is, after all, true - that I am caught in Paris by the closing of
the barriers, and that my father is expecting me home this evening. They
will pass me through. It is quite simple."
His confidence uplifted them again. The thing seemed as easy as he
represented it.
"Then let your passport be for four, my friend," madame begged him.
"There is Jacques," she explained, indicating the footman who had just
assisted them to alight.
Rougane departed confident of soon returning, leaving them to await him
with the same confidence. But the hours succeeded one another, the night
closed in, bedtime came, and still there was no sign of his return.
They waited until midnight, each pretending for the other's sake to a
confidence fully sustained, each invaded by vague premonitions of evil, yet
beguiling the time by playing tric-trac in the great salon, as if they had
not a single anxious thought between them.
At last on the stroke of midnight, madame sighed and rose.
"It will be for to-morrow morning," she said, not believing it.
"Of course," Aline agreed. "It would really have been impossible for
him to have returned to-night. And it will be much better to travel
to-morrow. The journey at so late an hour would tire you so much, dear
madame."
Thus they made pretence.
Early in the morning they were awakened by a din of bells - the tocsins
of the sections ringing the alarm. To their startled ears came later the
rolling of drums, and at one time they heard the sounds of a multitude on
the march. Paris was rising. Later still came the rattle of small-arms in
the distance and the deeper boom of cannon. Battle was joined between the
men of the sections and the men of the Court. The people in arms had
attacked the Tuileries. Wildest rumours flew in all directions, and some of
them found their way through the servants to the Hotel Plougastel, of that
terrible fight for the palace which was to end in the purposeless massacre
of all those whom the invertebrate monarch abandoned there, whilst placing
himself and his family under the protection of the Assembly. Purposeless to
the end, ever adopting the course pointed out to him by evil counsellors, he
prepared for resistance only until the need for resistance really arose,
whereupon he ordered a surrender which left those who had stood by him to
the last at the mercy of a frenzied mob.
And while this was happening in the Tuileries, the two women at the
Hotel Plougastel still waited for the return of Rougane, though now with
ever-lessening hope. And Rougane did not return. The affair did not appear
so simple to the father as to the son. Rougane the elder was rightly afraid
to lend himself to such a piece of deception.
He went with his son to inform M. de Kercadiou of what had happened,
and told him frankly of the thing his son suggested, but which he dared not
do.
M. de Kercadiou sought to move him by intercessions and even by the
offer of bribes. But Rougane remained firm.
"Monsieur," he said, "if it were discovered against me, as it
inevitably would be, I should, hang for it. Apart from that, and in spite of
my anxiety to do all in my power to serve you, it would be a breach of trust
such as I could not contemplate. You must not ask me, monsieur."
"But what do you conceive is going to happen?" asked the half-demented
gentleman.
"It is war," said Rougane, who was well informed, as we have seen. "War
between the people and the Court. I am desolated that my warning should have
come too late. But, when all is said, I do not think that you need really
alarm yourself. War will not be made on women. M. de Kercadiou clung for
comfort to that assurance after the mayor and his son had departed. But at
the back of his mind there remained the knowledge of the traffic in which M.
de Plougastel was engaged. What if the revolutionaries were equally well
informed? And most probably they were. The women-folk political offenders
had been known aforetime to suffer for the sins of their men. Anything was
possible in a popular upheaval, and Aline would be exposed jointly with Mme.
de Plougastel.
Late that night, as he sat gloomily in his brother's library, the pipe
in which he had sought solace extinguished between his fingers, there came a
sharp knocking at the door.
To the old seneschal of Gavrillac who went to open there stood revealed
upon the threshold a slim young man in a dark olive surcoat, the skirts of
which reached down to his calves. He wore boots, buckskins, and a
small-sword, and round his waist there was a tricolour sash, in his hat a
tricolour cockade, which gave him an official look extremely sinister to the
eyes of that old retainer of feudalism, who shared to the full his master's
present fears.
"Monsieur desires?" he asked, between respect and mistrust.
And then a crisp voice startled him.
"Why, Benoit! Name of a name! Have you completely forgotten me?"
With a shaking hand the old man raised the lantern he carried so as to
throw its light more fully upon that lean, wide-mouthed countenance.
"M. Andre!" he cried. "M.Andre!" And then he looked at the sash and the
cockade, and hesitated, apparently at a loss.
But Andre-Louis stepped past him into the wide vestibule, with its
tessellated floor of black-and-white marble.
"If my godfather has not yet retired, take me to him. If he has
retired, take me to him all the same."
"Oh, but certainly, M. Andre - and I am sure he will be ravished to see
you. No, he has not yet retired. This way, M. Andre; this way, if you
please."
The returning Andre-Louis, reaching Meudon a half-hour ago, had gone
straight to the mayor for some definite news of what might be happening in
Paris that should either confirm or dispel the ominous rumours that he had
met in ever-increasing volume as he approached the capital. Rougane informed
him that insurrection was imminent, that already the sections had possessed
themselves of the barriers, and that it was impossible for any person not
fully accredited to enter or leave the city.
Andre-Louis bowed his head, his thoughts of the gravest. He had for
some time perceived the danger of this second revolution from within the
first, which might destroy everything that had been done, and give the reins
of power to a villainous faction that would plunge the country into anarchy.
The thing he had feared was more than ever on the point of taking place. He
would go on at once, that very night, and see for himself what was
happening.
And then, as he was leaving, he turned again to Rougane to ask if M. de
Kercadiou was still at Meudon.
"You know him, monsieur?"
"He is my godfather."
"Your godfather! And you a representative! Why, then, you may be the
very man he needs." And Rougane told him of his son's errand into Paris that
afternoon and its result.
No more was required. That two years ago his godfather should upon
certain terms have refused him his house weighed for nothing at the moment.
He left his travelling carriage at the little inn and went straight to M. de
Kercadiou.
And M. de Kercadiou, startled in such an hour by this sudden
apparition, of one against whom he nursed a bitter grievance, greeted him in
terms almost identical with those in which in that same room he had greeted
him on a similar occasion once before.
"What do you want here, sir?"
"To serve you if possible, my godfather," was the disarming answer.
But it did not disarm M. de Kercadiou. "You have stayed away so long
that I hoped you would not again disturb me."
"I should not have ventured to disobey you now were it not for the hope
that I can be of service. I have seen Rougane, the mayor... "
"What's that you say about not venturing to disobey?"
"You forbade me your house, monsieur."
M. de Kercadiou stared at him helplessly.
"And is that why you have not come near me in all this time?"
"Of course. Why else?"
M. de Kercadiou continued to stare. Then he swore under his breath. It
disconcerted him to have to deal with a man who insisted upon taking him so
literally. He had expected that Andre-Louis would have come contritely to
admit his fault and beg to be taken back into favour. He said so.
"But how could I hope that you meant less than you said, monsieur? You
were so very definite in your declaration. What expressions of contrition
could have served me without a purpose of amendment? And I had no notion of
amending. We may yet be thankful for that."
"Thankful?"
"I am a representative. I have certain powers. I am very opportunely
returning to Paris. Can I serve you where Rougane cannot? The need,
monsieur, would appear to be very urgent if the half of what I suspect is
true. Aline should be placed in safety at once."
M. de Kercadiou surrendered unconditionally. He came over and took
Andre-Louis' hand.
"My boy," he said, and he was visibly moved, "there is in you a certain
nobility that is not to be denied. If I seemed harsh with you, then, it was
because I was fighting against your evil proclivities. I desired to keep you
out of the evil path of politics that have brought this unfortunate country
into so terrible a pass. The enemy on the frontier; civil war about to flame
out at home. That is what you revolution. aries have done."
Andre-Louis did not argue. He passed on.
"About Aline?" he asked. And himself answered his own question: "She is
in Paris, and she must be brought out of it at once, before the place
becomes a shambles, as well it may once the passions that have been brewing
all these months are let loose. Young Rougane's plan is good. At least, I
cannot think of a better one."
"But Rougane the elder will not hear of it."
"You mean he will not do it on his own responsibility. But he has
consented to do it on mine. I have left him a note over my signature to the
effect that a safe-conduct for Mlle. de Kercadiou to go to Paris and return
is issued by him in compliance with orders from me. The powers I carry and
of which I have satisfied him are his sufficient justification for obeying
me in this. I have left him that note on the understanding that he is to use
it only in an extreme case, for his own protection. In exchange he has given
me this safe-conduct."
"You already have it!"
M. de Kercadiou took the sheet of paper that Andre-Louis held out. His
hand shook. He approached it to the cluster of candles burning on the
console and screwed up his short-sighted eyes to read.
"If you send that to Paris by young Rougane in the morning," said
Andre-Louis, "Aline should be here by noon. Nothing, of course, could be
done to-night without provoking suspicion. The hour is too late. And now,
monsieur my godfather, you know exactly why I intrude in violation of your
commands. If there is any other way in which I can serve you, you have but
to name it whilst I am here."
"But there is, Andre. Did not Rougane tell you that there were
others... "
"He mentioned Mme. de Plougastel and her servant."
"Then why... ?" M. de Kercadiou broke off, looking his question.
Very solemnly Andre-Louis shook his head.
"That is impossible," he said.
M. de Kercadiou's mouth fell open in astonishment. "Impossible!" he
repeated. "But why?"
"Monsieur, I can do what I am doing for Aline without offending my
conscience. Besides, for Aline I would offend my conscience and do it. But
Mme. de Plougastel is in very different case. Neither Aline nor any of hers
have been concerned in counter-revolutionary work, which is the true source
of the calamity that now threatens to overtake us. I can procure her removal
from Paris without self-reproach, convinced that I am doing nothing that any
one could censure, or that might become the subject of enquiries. But Mme.
de Plougastel is the wife of M. le Comte de Plougastel, whom all the world
knows to be an agent between the Court and the emigres."
"That is no fault of hers," cried M. de Kercadiou through his
consternation.
"Agreed. But she may be called upon at any moment to establish the fact
that she is not a party to these manoeuvres. It is known that she was in
Paris to-day. Should she be sought to-morrow and should it be found that she
has gone, enquiries will certainly be made, from which it must result that I
have betrayed my trust, and abused my powers to serve personal ends. I hope,
monsieur, that you will understand that the risk is too great to be run for
the sake of a stranger."
"A stranger?" said the Seigneur reproachfully.
"Practically a stranger to me," said Andre-Louis.
"But she is not a stranger to me, Andre. She is my cousin and very dear
and valued friend. And, mon Dieu, what you say but increases the urgency of
getting her out of Paris. She must be rescued, Andre, at all costs - she
must be rescued! Why, her case is infinitely more urgent than Aline's!"
He stood a suppliant before his godson, very different now from the
stern man who had greeted him on his arrival. His face was pale, his hands
shook, and there were beads of perspiration on his brow.
"Monsieur my godfather, I would do anything in reason. But I cannot do
this. To rescue her might mean ruin for Aline and yourself as well as for
me."
"We must take the risk."
"You have a right to speak for yourself, of course."
"Oh, and for you, believe me, Andre, for you!" He came close to the
young man. "Andre, I implore you to take my word for that, and to obtain
this permit for Mme. de Plougastel."
Andre looked at him mystified. "This is fantastic," he said. "I have
grateful memories of the lady's interest in me for a few days once when I
was a child, and again more recently in Paris when she sought to convert me
to what she accounts the true political religion. But I do not risk my neck
for her - no, nor yours, nor Aline's."
"Ah! But, Andre... "
"That is my last word, monsieur. It is growing late, and I desire to
sleep in Paris."
"No, no! Wait!" The Lord of Gavrillac was displaying signs of
unspeakable distress. "Andre, you must!"
There was in this insistence and, still more, in the frenzied manner of
it, something so unreasonable that Andre could not fail to assume that some
dark and mysterious motive lay behind it.
"I must?" he echoed. "Why must I? Your reasons,monsieur?"
"Andre, my reasons are overwhelming."
"Pray allow me to be the judge of that." Andre-Louis' manner was almost
peremptory.
The demand seemed to reduce M. de Kercadiou to despair. He paced the
room, his hands tight-clasped behind him, his brow wrinkled. At last he came
to stand before his godson.
"Can't you take my word for it that these reasons exist?" he cried in
anguish.
"In such a matter as this - a matter that may involve my neck? Oh,
monsieur, is that reasonable?"
"I violate my word of honour, my oath, if I tell you." M. de Kercadiou
turned away, wringing his hands, his condition visibly piteous; then turned
again to Andre. "But in this extremity, in this desperate extremity, and
since you so ungenerously insist, I shall have to tell you. God help me, I
have no choice. She will realize that when she knows. Andre, my boy... " He
paused again, a man afraid. He set a hand on his godson's shoulder, and to
his increasing amazement Andre-Louis perceived that over those pale,
short-sighted eyes there was a film of tears. "Mme. de Plougastel is your
mother."
Followed, for a long moment, utter silence. This thing that he was told
was not immediately understood. When understanding came at last Andre-Louis'
first impulse was to cry out. But he possessed himself, and played the
Stoic. He must ever be playing something. That was in his nature. And he was
true to his nature even in this supreme moment. He continued silent until,
obeying that queer histrionic instinct, he could trust himself to speak
without emotion. "I see," he said, at last, quite coolly.
His mind was sweeping back over the past. Swiftly he reviewed his
memories of Mme. de Plougastel, her singular if sporadic interest in him,
the curious blend of affection and wistfulness which her manner towards him
had always presented, and at last he understood so much that hithert had
intrigued him.
"I see," he said again; and added now, "Of course, any but a fool would
have guessed it long ago."
It was M. de Kercadiou who cried out, M. de Kercadiou who recoiled as
from a blow.
"My God, Andre, of what are you made? You can take such an announcement
in this fashion?".
"And how would you have me take it? Should it surprise me to discover
that I had a mother? After all, a mother is an indispensable necessity to
getting one's self born."
He sat down abruptly, to conceal the too-revealing fact that his limbs
were shaking. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to mop his brow,
which had grown damp. And then,quite suddenly, he found himself weeping.
At the sight of those tears streaming silently down that face that had
turned so pale, M. de Kercadiou came quickly across to him. He sat down
beside him and threw an arm affectionately over his shoulder.
"Andre, my poor lad," he murmured. "I... I was fool enough to think ou
had no heart. You deceived me with your infernal pretence, and now I see...
I see... " He was not sure what it was that he saw, or else he hesitated to
express it.
"I: is nothing, monsieur. I am tired out, and... and I have a cold in
the head." And then, finding the part beyond his power, he abruptly threw it
up, utterly abandoned all pretence. "Why... why has there been all this
mystery?" he asked. "Was it intended that I should never know?"
"I: was, Andre. It... it had to be, for prudence' sake."
"Eut why? Complete your confidence, sir. Surely you cannot leave it
there. Having told me so much, you must tell me all."
"'The reason, my boy, is that you were born some three years after your
mother's marriage with M. de Plougastel, some eighteen months after M. de
Plougastel had been away with the army, and some four months before his
return to his wife. It is a matter that M. de Plougastel has never suspeted,
and for gravest family reasons must never suspect. That is why the utmost
secrecy has been preserved. That is why none was ever allowed to know. Your
mother came betimes into Brittany, and under an assumed name spent some
months in the village of Moreau. It was while she was there that you were
born."
Andre-Louis turned it over in his mind. He had dried his tears. And sat
now rigid and collected.
"When you say that none was ever allowed to know, you are telling me,
of course, that you, monsieur... "
"Oh, mon Dieu, no!" The denial came in a violent outburst. M. de
Kercadiou sprang to his feet propelled from Andre's side by the violence of
his emotions. It was as if the very suggestion filled him with horror. "I
was the only other one who knew. But it is not as you think, Andre. You
cannot imagine that I should lie to you, that I should deny you if you were
my son?"
"If you say that I am not, monsieur, that is sufficient."
"You are not. I was Therese's cousin and also, as she well knew, her
truest friend. She knew that she could trust me; and it was to me she came
for help in her extremity. Once, years before, I would have married her.
But, of course, I am not the sort of man a woman could love. She trusted,
however, to my love for her, and I have kept her trust."
"Then, who was my father?"
"I don't know. She never told me. It was her secret, and I did not pry.
It is not in my nature, Andre."
Andre-Louis got up, and stood silently facing M. de Kercadiou.
"You believe me, Andre."
"Naturally, monsieur; and I am sorry, I am sorry that I am not your
son.
M. de Kercadiou gripped his godson's hand convulsively, and held it a
moment with no word spoken. Then as they fell away from each other again:
"And now, what will you do, Andre?" he asked. "Now that you know?"
Andre-Louis stood awhile. considering, then broke into laughter. The
situation had its humours. He explained them.
"What difference should the knowledge make? Is filial piety to be
called into existence by the mere announcement of relationship? Am I to risk
my neck through lack of circumspection on behalf of a mother so very
circumspect that she had no intention of ever revealing herself? The
discovery rests upon the merest chance, upon a fall of the dice of Fate. Is
that to weigh with me?"
"The decision is with you, Andre."
"Nay, it is beyond me. Decide it who can, I cannot."
"You mean that you refuse even now?"
"I mean that I consent. Since I cannot decide what it is that I should
do, it only remains for me to do what a son should. It is grotesque; but all
life is grotesque."
"You will never, never regret it."
"I hope not," said Andre. "Yet I think it very likely that I shall. And
now I had better see Rougane again at once, and obtain from him the other
two permits required. Then perhaps it will be best that I take them to Paris
myself, in the morning. If you will give me a bed, monsieur, I shall be
grateful. I... I confess that I am hardly in case to do more to-night."
Into the late afternoon of that endless day of horror with its
perpetual alarms, its volleying musketry, rolling drums, and distant
muttering of angry multitudes, Mme. de Plougastel and Aline sat waiting in
that handsome house in the Rue du Paradis. It was no longer for Rougane they
waited. They realized that, be the reason what it might - and by now many
reasons must no doubt exist - this friendly messenger would not return. They
waited without knowing for what. They waited for whatever might betide.
At one time early in the afternoon the roar of battle approached them,
racing swiftly in their direction, swelling each moment in volume and in
horror. It was the frenzied clamour of a multitude drunk with blood and bent
on destruction. Near at hand that fierce wave of humanity checked in its
turbulent progress. Followed blows of pikes upon a door and imperious calls
to open, and thereafter came the rending of timbers, the shivering of glass,
screams of terror blending with screams of rage, and, running through these
shrill sounds, the deeper diapason of bestial laughter.
It was a hunt of two wretched Swiss guardsmen seeking blindly to
escape. And they were run to earth in a house in the neighbourhood, and
there cruelly done to death by that demoniac mob. The thing accomplished,
the hunters, male and female, forming into a battalion, came swinging down
the Rue du Paradis, chanting the song of Marseilles - a song new to Paris in
those days:
Allons, enfants de la patrie! Le jour de gloire est arrive Contre nous
de la tyrannie L'etendard sanglant est 1eve.
Nearer it came, raucously bawled by some hundreds of voices, a dread
sound that had come so suddenly to displace at least temporarily the merry,
trivial air of the "Ca ira!" which hitherto had been the revolutionary
carillon. Instinctively Mme. de Plougastel and Aline clung to each other.
They had heard the sound of the ravishing of that other house in the
neighbourhood, without knowledge of the reason. What if now it should be the
turn of the Hotel Plougastel! There was no real cause to fear it, save that
amid a turmoil imperfectly understood and therefore the more awe-inspiring,
the worst must be feared always.
The dreadful song so dreadfully sung, and the thunder of heavily shod
feet upon the roughly paved street, passed on and receded. They breathed
again, almost as if a miracle had saved them, to yield to fresh alarm an
instant later, when madame's young footman, Jacques, the most trusted of her
servants, burst into their presence unceremoniously with a scared face,
bringing the announcement that a man who had just climbed over the garden
wall professed himself a friend of madame's, and desired to be brought
immediately to her presence.
"But he looks like a sansculotte, madame," the staunch fellow warned
her.
Her thoughts and hopes leapt at once to Rougane.
"Bring him in," she commanded breathlessly.
Jacques went out, to return presently accompanied by a tall man in a
long, shabby, and very ample overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that was turned
down all round, and adorned by an enormous tricolour cockade. This hat he
removed as he entered.
Jacques, standing behind him, perceived that his hair, although now in
some disorder, bore signs of having been carefully dressed. It was clubbed,
and it carried some lingering vestiges of powder. The young footman wondered
what it was in the man's face, which was turned from him, that should cause
his mistress to out and recoil. Then he found himself dismissed abruptly by
a gesture.
The newcomer advanced to the middle of the salon, moving like a man
exhausted and breathing hard. There he leaned against a table, across which
he confronted Mme. de Plougastel. And she stood regarding him, a strange
horror in her eyes.
In the background, on a settle at the salon's far end, sat Aline
staring in bewilderment and some fear at a face which, if unrecognizable
through the mask of blood and dust that smeared it, was yet familiar. And
then the man spoke, and instantly she knew the voice for that of the Marquis
de La Tour d'Azyr.
"My dear friend," he was saying, "forgive me if I startled you. Forgive
me if I thrust myself in here without leave, at such a time, in such a
manner. But... you see how it is with me. I am a fugitive. In the course of
my distracted flight, not knowing which way to turn for safety, I thought of
you. I told myself that if I could but safely reach your house, I might find
sanctuary."
"You are in danger?"
"In danger?" Almost he seemed silently to laugh at the unnecessary
question. "If I were to show myself openly in the streets just now, I might
with luck contrive to live for five minutes! My friend, it has been a
massacre. Some few of us escaped from the Tuileries at the end, to be hunted
to death in the streets. I doubt if by this time a single Swiss survives.
They had the worst of it, poor devils. And as for us - my God! they hate us
more than they hate the Swiss. Hence this filthy disguise."
He peeled off the shaggy greatcoat, and casting it from him stepped
forth in the black satin that had been the general livery of the hundred
knights of the dagger who had rallied in the Tuileries that morning to the
defence of their king.
His coat was rent across the back, his neckcloth and the ruffles at his
wrists were torn and bloodstained; with his smeared face and disordered
headdress he was terrible to behold. Yet he contrived to carry himself with
his habitual easy assurance, remembered to kiss the trembling hand which
Mme. de Plougastel extended to him in welcome.
"You did well to come to me, Gervais," she said. "Yes, here is
sanctuary for the present. You will be quite safe, at least for as long as
we are safe. My servants are entirely trustworthy. Sit down and tell me
all."
He obeyed her, collapsing almost into the armchair which she thrust
forward, a man exhausted, whether by physical exertion or by nerve-strain,
or both. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped some of the blood
and dirt from his face.
"It is soon told." His tone was bitter with the bitterness of despair.
"This, my dear, is the end of us. Plougastel is lucky in being across the
frontier at such a time. Had I not been fool enough to trust those who
to-day have proved themselves utterly unworthy of trust, that is where I
should be myself. My remaining in Paris is the crowning folly of a life full
of follies and mistakes. That I should come to you in my hour of most urgent
need adds point to it." He laughed in his bitterness.
Madame moistened her dry lips. "And... and now?" she asked him.
"It only remains to get away as soon as may be, if it is still
possible. Here in France there is no longer any room for us - at least, not
above ground. To-day has proved it." And then he looked up at her, standing
there beside him so pale and timid, and he smiled. He patted the fine hand
that rested upon the arm of his chair. "My dear Therese, unless you carry
charitableness to the length of giving me to drink, you will see me perish
of thirst under your eyes before ever the canaille has a chance to finish
me."
She started. "I should have thought of it!" she cried in self-reproach,
and she turned quickly. "Aline," she begged, "tell Jacques to bring... "
"Aline!" he echoed,interrupting, and swinging round in his turn. Then,
as Aline rose into view, detaching from her background, and he at last
perceived her, he heaved himself abruptly to his weary legs again, and stood
there stiffly bowing to her across the space of gleaming floor.
"Mademoiselle, I had not suspected your presence," he said, and he seemed
extraordinarily ill-at-ease, a man startled, as if caught in an illicit act.
"I perceived it, monsieur," she answered, as she advanced to do
madame's commission. She paused before him. "From my heart, monsieur, I
grieve that we should meet again in circumstances so very painful."
Not since the day of his duel with Andre-Louis - the day which had seen
the death and burial of his last hope of winning her - had they stood face
to face.
He checked as if on the point of answering her. His glance strayed to
Mme. de Plougastel, and, oddly reticent for one who could be very glib, he
bowed in silence.
"But sit, monsieur, I beg. You are fatigued."
"My God!" he cried aloud. "What must she have suffered, then, if I had
killed him as I intended!"
If only she had used candour with him, she could so easily have won his
consent to the thing she asked. If only she had told him what now he saw,
that she loved M. de La Tour d'Azyr, instead of leaving him to assume her
only regard for the Marquis to be based on unworthy worldly ambition, he
would at once have yielded.
He fetched a sigh, and breathed a prayer for forgiveness to the shade
of Vilmorin.
"It is perhaps as well that my lunge went wide," he said.
"What do you mean?" wondered Le Chapelier.
"That in this business I must relinquish all hope of recommencing."
M. de La Tour d'Azyr was seen no more in the Manege - or indeed in
Paris at all - throughout all the months that the National Assembly remained
in session to complete its work of providing France with a constitution.
After all, though the wound to his body had been comparatively slight, the
wound to such a pride as his had been all but mortal.
The rumour ran that he had emigrated. But that was only half the truth.
The whole of it was that he had joined that group of noble travellers who
came and went between the Tuileries and the headquarters of the emigres at
Coblenz. He became, in short, a member of the royalist secret service that
in the end was to bring down the monarchy in ruins.
As for Andre-Louis, his godfather's house saw him no more, as a result
of his conviction that M. de Kercadiou would not relent from his written
resolve never to receive him again if the duel were fought.
He threw himself into his duties at the Assembly with such zeal and
effect that when - its purpose accomplished - the Constituent was dissolved
in September of the following year, membership of the Legislative, whose
election followed immediately, was thrust upon him.
He considered then, like many others, that the Revolution was a thing
accomplished, that France had only to govern herself by the Constitution
which had been given her, and that all would now be well. And so it might
have been but that the Court could not bring itself to accept the altered
state of things. As a result of its intrigues half Europe was arming to hurl
herself upon France, and her quarrel was the quarrel of the French King with
his people. That was the horror at the root of all the horrors that were to
come.
Of the counter-revolutionary troubles that were everywhere being
stirred up by the clergy, none were more acute than those of Brittany, and,
in view of the influence it was hoped he would wield in his native province,
it was proposed to Andre-Louis by the Commission of Twelve, in the early
days of the Girondin ministry, that he should go thither to combat the
unrest. He was desired to proceed peacefully, but his powers were almost
absolute, as is shown by the orders he carried - orders enjoining all to
render him assistance and warning those who might hinder him that they would
do so at their peril.
He accepted the task, and he was one of the five plenipotentiaries
despatched on the same errand in that spring of 1792. It kept him absent
from Paris for four months and might have kept him longer but that at the
beginning of August he was recalled. More imminent than any trouble in
Brittany was the trouble brewing in Paris itself; when the political sky was
blacker than it had been since '89. Paris realized that the hour was rapidly
approaching which would see the climax of the long struggle between Equality
and Privilege. And it was towards a city so disposed that Andre-Louis came
speeding from the West, to find there also the climax of his own disturbed
career.
Mlle. de Kercadiou, too, was in Paris in those days of early August, on
a visit to her uncle's cousin and dearest friend, Mme. de Plougastel. And
although nothing could now be plainer than the seething unrest that heralded
the explosion to come, yet the air of gaiety, indeed of jocularity,
prevailing at Court - whither madame and mademoiselle went almost daily -
reassured them. M. de Plougastel had come and gone again, back to Coblenz on
that secret business that kept him now almost constantly absent from his
wife. But whilst with her he had positively assured her that all measures
were taken, and that an insurrection was a thing to be welcomed, because it
could have one only conclusion, the final crushing of the Revolution in the
courtyard of the Tuileries. That, he added, was why the King remained in
Paris. But for his confidence in that he would put himself in the centre of
his Swiss and his knights of the dagger, and quit the capital. They would
hack a way out for him easily if his departure were opposed. But not even
that would be necessary.
Yet in those early days of August, after her husband's departure the
effect of his inspiring words was gradually dissipated by the march of
events under madame's own eyes. And finally on the afternoon of the ninth,
there arrived at the Hotel Plougastel a messenger from Meudon bearing a note
from M. de Kercadiou in which he urgently bade mademoiselle join him there
at once, and advised her hostess to accompany her.
You may have realized that M. de Kercadiou was of those who make
friends with men of all classes. His ancient lineage placed him on terms of
equality with members of the noblesse; his simple manners - something
between the rustic and the bourgeois - and his natural affability placed him
on equally good terms with those who by birth were his inferiors. In Meudon
he was known and esteemed of all the simple folk, and it was Rougane, the
friendly mayor, who, informed on the 9th of August of the storm that was
brewing for the morrow, and knowing of mademoiselle's absence in Paris, had
warningly advised him to withdraw her from what in the next four-and-twenty
hours might be a zone of danger for all persons of quality, particularly
those suspected of connections with the Court party.
Now there was no doubt whatever of Mme. de Plougastel's connection with
the Court. It was not even to be doubted - indeed, measure of proof of it
was to be forthcoming - that those vigilant and ubiquitous secret societies
that watched over the cradle of the young revolution were fully informed of
the frequent journeyings of M. de Plougastel to Coblenz, and entertained no
illusions on the score of the reason for them. Given, then, a defeat of the
Court party in the struggle that was preparing, the position in Paris of
Mme. de Plougastel could not be other than fraught with danger, and that
danger would be shared by any guest of birth at her hotel.
M. de Kercadiou's affection for both those women quickened the fears
aroused in him by Rougane's warning. Hence that hastily dispatched note,
desiring his niece and imploring his friend to come at once to Meudon.
The friendly mayor carried his complaisance a step farther, and
dispatched the letter to Paris by the hands of his own son, an intelligent
lad of nineteen. It was late in the afternoon of that perfect August day
when young Rougane presented himself at the Hotel Plougastel.
He was graciously received by Mme. de Plougastel in the salon, whose
splendours, when combined with the great air of the lady herself,
overwhelmed the lad's simple, unsophisticated soul. Madame made up her mind
at once.
M. de Kercadiou's urgent message no more than confirmed her own fears
and inclinations. She decided upon instant departure.
"Bien, madame," said the youth. "Then I have the honour to take my
leave."
But she would not let him go. First to the kitchen to refresh himself,
whilst she and mademoiselle made ready, and then a seat for him in her
carriage as far as Meudon. She could not suffer him to return on foot as he
had come.
Though in all the circumstances it was no more than his due, yet the
kindliness that in such a moment of agitation could take thought for another
was presently to be rewarded. Had she done less than this, she would have
known - if nothing worse - at least some hours of anguish even greater than
those that were already in store for her.
It wanted, perhaps, a half-hour to sunset when they set out in her
carriage with intent to leave Paris by the Porte Saint-Martin. They
travelled with a single footman behind. Rougane - terrifying condescension -
was given a seat inside the carriage with the ladies, and proceeded to fall
in love with Mlle. de Kercadiou, whom he accounted the most beautiful being
he had ever seen, yet who talked to him simply and unaffectedly as with an
equal. The thing went to his head a little, and disturbed certain republican
notions which he had hitherto conceived himself to have thoroughly digested.
The carriage drew up at the barrier, checked there by a picket of the
National Guard posted before the iron gates.
The sergeant in command strode to the door of the vehicle. The Countess
put her head from the window.
"The barrier is closed, madame," she was curtly informed.
"Closed!" she echoed. The thing was incredible. "But... but do you mean
that we cannot pass?"
Not unless you have a permit, madame." The sergeant leaned nonchalantly
on his pike. "The orders are that no one is to leave or enter without proper
papers."
"Whose orders?"
"Orders of the Commune of Paris."
"But I must go into the country this evening." Madame's voice was
almost petulant. "I am expected."
"In that case let madame procure a permit."
"Where is it to be procured?"
"At the Hotel de Ville or at the headquarters of madame's section."
She considered a moment. "To the section, then. Be so good as to tell
my coachman to drive to the Bondy Section."
He saluted her and stepped back. "Section Bondy, Rue des Morts," he
bade the driver.
Madame sank into her seat again, in a state of agitation fully shared
by mademoiselle. Rougane set himself to pacify and reassure them. The
section would put the matter in order. They would most certainly be accorded
a permit. What possible reason could there be for refusing them? A mere
formality, after all!
His assurance uplifted them merely to prepare them for a still more
profound dejection when presently they met with a flat refusal from the
president of the section who received the Countess.
"Your name, madame?" he had asked brusquely. A rude fellow of the most
advanced republican type, he had not even risen out of deference to the
ladies when they entered. He was there, he would have told you, to perform
the duties of his office, not to give dancing-lessons.
"Plougastel," he repeated after her, without title, as if it had been
the name of a butcher or baker. He took down a heavy volume from a shelf on
his right, opened it and turned the pages. It was a sort of directory of his
section. Presently he found what he sought. "Comte de Plougastel, Hotel
Plougastel, Rue du Paradis. Is that it?"
"That is correct, monsieur," she answered, with what civility she could
muster before the fellow's affronting rudeness.
There was a long moment of silence, during which he studied certain
pencilled entries against the name. The sections had been working in the
last few weeks much more systematically than was generally suspected.
"Your husband is with you, madame?" he asked curtly, his eyes still
conning that page.
"M. le Comte is not with me," she answered, stressing the title.
"Not with you?" He looked up suddenly, and directed upon her a glance
in which suspicion seemed to blend with derision. "Where is he?"
"He is not in Paris, monsieur.
"Ab! Is he at Coblenz, do you think?"
Madame felt herself turning cold. There was something ominous in all
this. To what end had the sections informed themselves so thoroughly of the
comings and goings of their inhabitants? What was preparing? She had a sense
of being trapped, of being taken in a net that had been cast unseen.
"I do not know, monsieur," she said, her voice unsteady.
"Of course not." He seemed to sneer. "No matter. And you wish to leave
Paris also? Where do you desire to go?"
"To Meudon."
"Your business there?"
The blood leapt to her face. His insolence was unbearable to a woman
who in all her life had never known anything but the utmost deference from
inferiors and equals alike. Nevertheless, realizing that she was face to
face with forces entirely new, she controlled herself, stifled her
resentment, and answered steadily.
"I wish to conduct this lady, Mlle. de Kercadiou, back to her uncle who
resides there."
"Is that all? Another day will do for that, madame. The matter is not
pressing."
"Pardon, monsieur, to us the matter is very pressing."
"You have not convinced me of it, and the barriers are closed to all
who cannot prove the most urgent and satisfactory reasons for wishing to
pass. You will wait, madame, until the restriction is removed.
Good-evening."
"But, monsieur... "
"Good-evening, madame," he repeated significantly, a dismissal more
contemptuous and despotic than any royal "You have leave to go.
Madame went out with Aline. Both were quivering with the anger that
prudence had urged them to suppress. They climbed into the coach again,
desiring to be driven home.
Rougane's astonishment turned into dismay when they told him what had
taken place. "Why not try the Hotel de Ville, madame?" he suggested.
"After that? It would be useless. We must resign ourselves to remaining
in Paris until the barriers are opened again."
"Perhaps it will not matter to us either way by then, madame," said
Aline.
"Aline!" she exclaimed in horror.
"Mademoiselle!" cried Rougane on the same note. And then, because he
perceived that people detained in this fashion must be in some danger not
yet discernible, but on that account more dreadful, he set his wits to work.
As they were approaching the Hotel Plougastel once more, he announced that
he had solved the problem.
"A passport from without would do equally well," he announced. "Listen,
now, and trust to me. I will go back to Meudon at once. My father shall give
me two permits - one for myself alone, and another for three persons - from
Meudon to Paris and back to Meudon. I reenter Paris with my own permit,
which I then proceed to destroy, and we leave together, we three, on the
strength of the other one, representing ourselves as having come from Meudon
in the course of the day. It is quite simple, after all. If I go at once, I
shall be back to-night."
"But how will you leave?" asked Aline.
"I? Pooh! As to that, have no anxiety. My father is Mayor of Meudon.
There are plenty who know him. I will go to the Hotel de Ville, and tell
them what is, after all, true - that I am caught in Paris by the closing of
the barriers, and that my father is expecting me home this evening. They
will pass me through. It is quite simple."
His confidence uplifted them again. The thing seemed as easy as he
represented it.
"Then let your passport be for four, my friend," madame begged him.
"There is Jacques," she explained, indicating the footman who had just
assisted them to alight.
Rougane departed confident of soon returning, leaving them to await him
with the same confidence. But the hours succeeded one another, the night
closed in, bedtime came, and still there was no sign of his return.
They waited until midnight, each pretending for the other's sake to a
confidence fully sustained, each invaded by vague premonitions of evil, yet
beguiling the time by playing tric-trac in the great salon, as if they had
not a single anxious thought between them.
At last on the stroke of midnight, madame sighed and rose.
"It will be for to-morrow morning," she said, not believing it.
"Of course," Aline agreed. "It would really have been impossible for
him to have returned to-night. And it will be much better to travel
to-morrow. The journey at so late an hour would tire you so much, dear
madame."
Thus they made pretence.
Early in the morning they were awakened by a din of bells - the tocsins
of the sections ringing the alarm. To their startled ears came later the
rolling of drums, and at one time they heard the sounds of a multitude on
the march. Paris was rising. Later still came the rattle of small-arms in
the distance and the deeper boom of cannon. Battle was joined between the
men of the sections and the men of the Court. The people in arms had
attacked the Tuileries. Wildest rumours flew in all directions, and some of
them found their way through the servants to the Hotel Plougastel, of that
terrible fight for the palace which was to end in the purposeless massacre
of all those whom the invertebrate monarch abandoned there, whilst placing
himself and his family under the protection of the Assembly. Purposeless to
the end, ever adopting the course pointed out to him by evil counsellors, he
prepared for resistance only until the need for resistance really arose,
whereupon he ordered a surrender which left those who had stood by him to
the last at the mercy of a frenzied mob.
And while this was happening in the Tuileries, the two women at the
Hotel Plougastel still waited for the return of Rougane, though now with
ever-lessening hope. And Rougane did not return. The affair did not appear
so simple to the father as to the son. Rougane the elder was rightly afraid
to lend himself to such a piece of deception.
He went with his son to inform M. de Kercadiou of what had happened,
and told him frankly of the thing his son suggested, but which he dared not
do.
M. de Kercadiou sought to move him by intercessions and even by the
offer of bribes. But Rougane remained firm.
"Monsieur," he said, "if it were discovered against me, as it
inevitably would be, I should, hang for it. Apart from that, and in spite of
my anxiety to do all in my power to serve you, it would be a breach of trust
such as I could not contemplate. You must not ask me, monsieur."
"But what do you conceive is going to happen?" asked the half-demented
gentleman.
"It is war," said Rougane, who was well informed, as we have seen. "War
between the people and the Court. I am desolated that my warning should have
come too late. But, when all is said, I do not think that you need really
alarm yourself. War will not be made on women. M. de Kercadiou clung for
comfort to that assurance after the mayor and his son had departed. But at
the back of his mind there remained the knowledge of the traffic in which M.
de Plougastel was engaged. What if the revolutionaries were equally well
informed? And most probably they were. The women-folk political offenders
had been known aforetime to suffer for the sins of their men. Anything was
possible in a popular upheaval, and Aline would be exposed jointly with Mme.
de Plougastel.
Late that night, as he sat gloomily in his brother's library, the pipe
in which he had sought solace extinguished between his fingers, there came a
sharp knocking at the door.
To the old seneschal of Gavrillac who went to open there stood revealed
upon the threshold a slim young man in a dark olive surcoat, the skirts of
which reached down to his calves. He wore boots, buckskins, and a
small-sword, and round his waist there was a tricolour sash, in his hat a
tricolour cockade, which gave him an official look extremely sinister to the
eyes of that old retainer of feudalism, who shared to the full his master's
present fears.
"Monsieur desires?" he asked, between respect and mistrust.
And then a crisp voice startled him.
"Why, Benoit! Name of a name! Have you completely forgotten me?"
With a shaking hand the old man raised the lantern he carried so as to
throw its light more fully upon that lean, wide-mouthed countenance.
"M. Andre!" he cried. "M.Andre!" And then he looked at the sash and the
cockade, and hesitated, apparently at a loss.
But Andre-Louis stepped past him into the wide vestibule, with its
tessellated floor of black-and-white marble.
"If my godfather has not yet retired, take me to him. If he has
retired, take me to him all the same."
"Oh, but certainly, M. Andre - and I am sure he will be ravished to see
you. No, he has not yet retired. This way, M. Andre; this way, if you
please."
The returning Andre-Louis, reaching Meudon a half-hour ago, had gone
straight to the mayor for some definite news of what might be happening in
Paris that should either confirm or dispel the ominous rumours that he had
met in ever-increasing volume as he approached the capital. Rougane informed
him that insurrection was imminent, that already the sections had possessed
themselves of the barriers, and that it was impossible for any person not
fully accredited to enter or leave the city.
Andre-Louis bowed his head, his thoughts of the gravest. He had for
some time perceived the danger of this second revolution from within the
first, which might destroy everything that had been done, and give the reins
of power to a villainous faction that would plunge the country into anarchy.
The thing he had feared was more than ever on the point of taking place. He
would go on at once, that very night, and see for himself what was
happening.
And then, as he was leaving, he turned again to Rougane to ask if M. de
Kercadiou was still at Meudon.
"You know him, monsieur?"
"He is my godfather."
"Your godfather! And you a representative! Why, then, you may be the
very man he needs." And Rougane told him of his son's errand into Paris that
afternoon and its result.
No more was required. That two years ago his godfather should upon
certain terms have refused him his house weighed for nothing at the moment.
He left his travelling carriage at the little inn and went straight to M. de
Kercadiou.
And M. de Kercadiou, startled in such an hour by this sudden
apparition, of one against whom he nursed a bitter grievance, greeted him in
terms almost identical with those in which in that same room he had greeted
him on a similar occasion once before.
"What do you want here, sir?"
"To serve you if possible, my godfather," was the disarming answer.
But it did not disarm M. de Kercadiou. "You have stayed away so long
that I hoped you would not again disturb me."
"I should not have ventured to disobey you now were it not for the hope
that I can be of service. I have seen Rougane, the mayor... "
"What's that you say about not venturing to disobey?"
"You forbade me your house, monsieur."
M. de Kercadiou stared at him helplessly.
"And is that why you have not come near me in all this time?"
"Of course. Why else?"
M. de Kercadiou continued to stare. Then he swore under his breath. It
disconcerted him to have to deal with a man who insisted upon taking him so
literally. He had expected that Andre-Louis would have come contritely to
admit his fault and beg to be taken back into favour. He said so.
"But how could I hope that you meant less than you said, monsieur? You
were so very definite in your declaration. What expressions of contrition
could have served me without a purpose of amendment? And I had no notion of
amending. We may yet be thankful for that."
"Thankful?"
"I am a representative. I have certain powers. I am very opportunely
returning to Paris. Can I serve you where Rougane cannot? The need,
monsieur, would appear to be very urgent if the half of what I suspect is
true. Aline should be placed in safety at once."
M. de Kercadiou surrendered unconditionally. He came over and took
Andre-Louis' hand.
"My boy," he said, and he was visibly moved, "there is in you a certain
nobility that is not to be denied. If I seemed harsh with you, then, it was
because I was fighting against your evil proclivities. I desired to keep you
out of the evil path of politics that have brought this unfortunate country
into so terrible a pass. The enemy on the frontier; civil war about to flame
out at home. That is what you revolution. aries have done."
Andre-Louis did not argue. He passed on.
"About Aline?" he asked. And himself answered his own question: "She is
in Paris, and she must be brought out of it at once, before the place
becomes a shambles, as well it may once the passions that have been brewing
all these months are let loose. Young Rougane's plan is good. At least, I
cannot think of a better one."
"But Rougane the elder will not hear of it."
"You mean he will not do it on his own responsibility. But he has
consented to do it on mine. I have left him a note over my signature to the
effect that a safe-conduct for Mlle. de Kercadiou to go to Paris and return
is issued by him in compliance with orders from me. The powers I carry and
of which I have satisfied him are his sufficient justification for obeying
me in this. I have left him that note on the understanding that he is to use
it only in an extreme case, for his own protection. In exchange he has given
me this safe-conduct."
"You already have it!"
M. de Kercadiou took the sheet of paper that Andre-Louis held out. His
hand shook. He approached it to the cluster of candles burning on the
console and screwed up his short-sighted eyes to read.
"If you send that to Paris by young Rougane in the morning," said
Andre-Louis, "Aline should be here by noon. Nothing, of course, could be
done to-night without provoking suspicion. The hour is too late. And now,
monsieur my godfather, you know exactly why I intrude in violation of your
commands. If there is any other way in which I can serve you, you have but
to name it whilst I am here."
"But there is, Andre. Did not Rougane tell you that there were
others... "
"He mentioned Mme. de Plougastel and her servant."
"Then why... ?" M. de Kercadiou broke off, looking his question.
Very solemnly Andre-Louis shook his head.
"That is impossible," he said.
M. de Kercadiou's mouth fell open in astonishment. "Impossible!" he
repeated. "But why?"
"Monsieur, I can do what I am doing for Aline without offending my
conscience. Besides, for Aline I would offend my conscience and do it. But
Mme. de Plougastel is in very different case. Neither Aline nor any of hers
have been concerned in counter-revolutionary work, which is the true source
of the calamity that now threatens to overtake us. I can procure her removal
from Paris without self-reproach, convinced that I am doing nothing that any
one could censure, or that might become the subject of enquiries. But Mme.
de Plougastel is the wife of M. le Comte de Plougastel, whom all the world
knows to be an agent between the Court and the emigres."
"That is no fault of hers," cried M. de Kercadiou through his
consternation.
"Agreed. But she may be called upon at any moment to establish the fact
that she is not a party to these manoeuvres. It is known that she was in
Paris to-day. Should she be sought to-morrow and should it be found that she
has gone, enquiries will certainly be made, from which it must result that I
have betrayed my trust, and abused my powers to serve personal ends. I hope,
monsieur, that you will understand that the risk is too great to be run for
the sake of a stranger."
"A stranger?" said the Seigneur reproachfully.
"Practically a stranger to me," said Andre-Louis.
"But she is not a stranger to me, Andre. She is my cousin and very dear
and valued friend. And, mon Dieu, what you say but increases the urgency of
getting her out of Paris. She must be rescued, Andre, at all costs - she
must be rescued! Why, her case is infinitely more urgent than Aline's!"
He stood a suppliant before his godson, very different now from the
stern man who had greeted him on his arrival. His face was pale, his hands
shook, and there were beads of perspiration on his brow.
"Monsieur my godfather, I would do anything in reason. But I cannot do
this. To rescue her might mean ruin for Aline and yourself as well as for
me."
"We must take the risk."
"You have a right to speak for yourself, of course."
"Oh, and for you, believe me, Andre, for you!" He came close to the
young man. "Andre, I implore you to take my word for that, and to obtain
this permit for Mme. de Plougastel."
Andre looked at him mystified. "This is fantastic," he said. "I have
grateful memories of the lady's interest in me for a few days once when I
was a child, and again more recently in Paris when she sought to convert me
to what she accounts the true political religion. But I do not risk my neck
for her - no, nor yours, nor Aline's."
"Ah! But, Andre... "
"That is my last word, monsieur. It is growing late, and I desire to
sleep in Paris."
"No, no! Wait!" The Lord of Gavrillac was displaying signs of
unspeakable distress. "Andre, you must!"
There was in this insistence and, still more, in the frenzied manner of
it, something so unreasonable that Andre could not fail to assume that some
dark and mysterious motive lay behind it.
"I must?" he echoed. "Why must I? Your reasons,monsieur?"
"Andre, my reasons are overwhelming."
"Pray allow me to be the judge of that." Andre-Louis' manner was almost
peremptory.
The demand seemed to reduce M. de Kercadiou to despair. He paced the
room, his hands tight-clasped behind him, his brow wrinkled. At last he came
to stand before his godson.
"Can't you take my word for it that these reasons exist?" he cried in
anguish.
"In such a matter as this - a matter that may involve my neck? Oh,
monsieur, is that reasonable?"
"I violate my word of honour, my oath, if I tell you." M. de Kercadiou
turned away, wringing his hands, his condition visibly piteous; then turned
again to Andre. "But in this extremity, in this desperate extremity, and
since you so ungenerously insist, I shall have to tell you. God help me, I
have no choice. She will realize that when she knows. Andre, my boy... " He
paused again, a man afraid. He set a hand on his godson's shoulder, and to
his increasing amazement Andre-Louis perceived that over those pale,
short-sighted eyes there was a film of tears. "Mme. de Plougastel is your
mother."
Followed, for a long moment, utter silence. This thing that he was told
was not immediately understood. When understanding came at last Andre-Louis'
first impulse was to cry out. But he possessed himself, and played the
Stoic. He must ever be playing something. That was in his nature. And he was
true to his nature even in this supreme moment. He continued silent until,
obeying that queer histrionic instinct, he could trust himself to speak
without emotion. "I see," he said, at last, quite coolly.
His mind was sweeping back over the past. Swiftly he reviewed his
memories of Mme. de Plougastel, her singular if sporadic interest in him,
the curious blend of affection and wistfulness which her manner towards him
had always presented, and at last he understood so much that hithert had
intrigued him.
"I see," he said again; and added now, "Of course, any but a fool would
have guessed it long ago."
It was M. de Kercadiou who cried out, M. de Kercadiou who recoiled as
from a blow.
"My God, Andre, of what are you made? You can take such an announcement
in this fashion?".
"And how would you have me take it? Should it surprise me to discover
that I had a mother? After all, a mother is an indispensable necessity to
getting one's self born."
He sat down abruptly, to conceal the too-revealing fact that his limbs
were shaking. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to mop his brow,
which had grown damp. And then,quite suddenly, he found himself weeping.
At the sight of those tears streaming silently down that face that had
turned so pale, M. de Kercadiou came quickly across to him. He sat down
beside him and threw an arm affectionately over his shoulder.
"Andre, my poor lad," he murmured. "I... I was fool enough to think ou
had no heart. You deceived me with your infernal pretence, and now I see...
I see... " He was not sure what it was that he saw, or else he hesitated to
express it.
"I: is nothing, monsieur. I am tired out, and... and I have a cold in
the head." And then, finding the part beyond his power, he abruptly threw it
up, utterly abandoned all pretence. "Why... why has there been all this
mystery?" he asked. "Was it intended that I should never know?"
"I: was, Andre. It... it had to be, for prudence' sake."
"Eut why? Complete your confidence, sir. Surely you cannot leave it
there. Having told me so much, you must tell me all."
"'The reason, my boy, is that you were born some three years after your
mother's marriage with M. de Plougastel, some eighteen months after M. de
Plougastel had been away with the army, and some four months before his
return to his wife. It is a matter that M. de Plougastel has never suspeted,
and for gravest family reasons must never suspect. That is why the utmost
secrecy has been preserved. That is why none was ever allowed to know. Your
mother came betimes into Brittany, and under an assumed name spent some
months in the village of Moreau. It was while she was there that you were
born."
Andre-Louis turned it over in his mind. He had dried his tears. And sat
now rigid and collected.
"When you say that none was ever allowed to know, you are telling me,
of course, that you, monsieur... "
"Oh, mon Dieu, no!" The denial came in a violent outburst. M. de
Kercadiou sprang to his feet propelled from Andre's side by the violence of
his emotions. It was as if the very suggestion filled him with horror. "I
was the only other one who knew. But it is not as you think, Andre. You
cannot imagine that I should lie to you, that I should deny you if you were
my son?"
"If you say that I am not, monsieur, that is sufficient."
"You are not. I was Therese's cousin and also, as she well knew, her
truest friend. She knew that she could trust me; and it was to me she came
for help in her extremity. Once, years before, I would have married her.
But, of course, I am not the sort of man a woman could love. She trusted,
however, to my love for her, and I have kept her trust."
"Then, who was my father?"
"I don't know. She never told me. It was her secret, and I did not pry.
It is not in my nature, Andre."
Andre-Louis got up, and stood silently facing M. de Kercadiou.
"You believe me, Andre."
"Naturally, monsieur; and I am sorry, I am sorry that I am not your
son.
M. de Kercadiou gripped his godson's hand convulsively, and held it a
moment with no word spoken. Then as they fell away from each other again:
"And now, what will you do, Andre?" he asked. "Now that you know?"
Andre-Louis stood awhile. considering, then broke into laughter. The
situation had its humours. He explained them.
"What difference should the knowledge make? Is filial piety to be
called into existence by the mere announcement of relationship? Am I to risk
my neck through lack of circumspection on behalf of a mother so very
circumspect that she had no intention of ever revealing herself? The
discovery rests upon the merest chance, upon a fall of the dice of Fate. Is
that to weigh with me?"
"The decision is with you, Andre."
"Nay, it is beyond me. Decide it who can, I cannot."
"You mean that you refuse even now?"
"I mean that I consent. Since I cannot decide what it is that I should
do, it only remains for me to do what a son should. It is grotesque; but all
life is grotesque."
"You will never, never regret it."
"I hope not," said Andre. "Yet I think it very likely that I shall. And
now I had better see Rougane again at once, and obtain from him the other
two permits required. Then perhaps it will be best that I take them to Paris
myself, in the morning. If you will give me a bed, monsieur, I shall be
grateful. I... I confess that I am hardly in case to do more to-night."
Into the late afternoon of that endless day of horror with its
perpetual alarms, its volleying musketry, rolling drums, and distant
muttering of angry multitudes, Mme. de Plougastel and Aline sat waiting in
that handsome house in the Rue du Paradis. It was no longer for Rougane they
waited. They realized that, be the reason what it might - and by now many
reasons must no doubt exist - this friendly messenger would not return. They
waited without knowing for what. They waited for whatever might betide.
At one time early in the afternoon the roar of battle approached them,
racing swiftly in their direction, swelling each moment in volume and in
horror. It was the frenzied clamour of a multitude drunk with blood and bent
on destruction. Near at hand that fierce wave of humanity checked in its
turbulent progress. Followed blows of pikes upon a door and imperious calls
to open, and thereafter came the rending of timbers, the shivering of glass,
screams of terror blending with screams of rage, and, running through these
shrill sounds, the deeper diapason of bestial laughter.
It was a hunt of two wretched Swiss guardsmen seeking blindly to
escape. And they were run to earth in a house in the neighbourhood, and
there cruelly done to death by that demoniac mob. The thing accomplished,
the hunters, male and female, forming into a battalion, came swinging down
the Rue du Paradis, chanting the song of Marseilles - a song new to Paris in
those days:
Allons, enfants de la patrie! Le jour de gloire est arrive Contre nous
de la tyrannie L'etendard sanglant est 1eve.
Nearer it came, raucously bawled by some hundreds of voices, a dread
sound that had come so suddenly to displace at least temporarily the merry,
trivial air of the "Ca ira!" which hitherto had been the revolutionary
carillon. Instinctively Mme. de Plougastel and Aline clung to each other.
They had heard the sound of the ravishing of that other house in the
neighbourhood, without knowledge of the reason. What if now it should be the
turn of the Hotel Plougastel! There was no real cause to fear it, save that
amid a turmoil imperfectly understood and therefore the more awe-inspiring,
the worst must be feared always.
The dreadful song so dreadfully sung, and the thunder of heavily shod
feet upon the roughly paved street, passed on and receded. They breathed
again, almost as if a miracle had saved them, to yield to fresh alarm an
instant later, when madame's young footman, Jacques, the most trusted of her
servants, burst into their presence unceremoniously with a scared face,
bringing the announcement that a man who had just climbed over the garden
wall professed himself a friend of madame's, and desired to be brought
immediately to her presence.
"But he looks like a sansculotte, madame," the staunch fellow warned
her.
Her thoughts and hopes leapt at once to Rougane.
"Bring him in," she commanded breathlessly.
Jacques went out, to return presently accompanied by a tall man in a
long, shabby, and very ample overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that was turned
down all round, and adorned by an enormous tricolour cockade. This hat he
removed as he entered.
Jacques, standing behind him, perceived that his hair, although now in
some disorder, bore signs of having been carefully dressed. It was clubbed,
and it carried some lingering vestiges of powder. The young footman wondered
what it was in the man's face, which was turned from him, that should cause
his mistress to out and recoil. Then he found himself dismissed abruptly by
a gesture.
The newcomer advanced to the middle of the salon, moving like a man
exhausted and breathing hard. There he leaned against a table, across which
he confronted Mme. de Plougastel. And she stood regarding him, a strange
horror in her eyes.
In the background, on a settle at the salon's far end, sat Aline
staring in bewilderment and some fear at a face which, if unrecognizable
through the mask of blood and dust that smeared it, was yet familiar. And
then the man spoke, and instantly she knew the voice for that of the Marquis
de La Tour d'Azyr.
"My dear friend," he was saying, "forgive me if I startled you. Forgive
me if I thrust myself in here without leave, at such a time, in such a
manner. But... you see how it is with me. I am a fugitive. In the course of
my distracted flight, not knowing which way to turn for safety, I thought of
you. I told myself that if I could but safely reach your house, I might find
sanctuary."
"You are in danger?"
"In danger?" Almost he seemed silently to laugh at the unnecessary
question. "If I were to show myself openly in the streets just now, I might
with luck contrive to live for five minutes! My friend, it has been a
massacre. Some few of us escaped from the Tuileries at the end, to be hunted
to death in the streets. I doubt if by this time a single Swiss survives.
They had the worst of it, poor devils. And as for us - my God! they hate us
more than they hate the Swiss. Hence this filthy disguise."
He peeled off the shaggy greatcoat, and casting it from him stepped
forth in the black satin that had been the general livery of the hundred
knights of the dagger who had rallied in the Tuileries that morning to the
defence of their king.
His coat was rent across the back, his neckcloth and the ruffles at his
wrists were torn and bloodstained; with his smeared face and disordered
headdress he was terrible to behold. Yet he contrived to carry himself with
his habitual easy assurance, remembered to kiss the trembling hand which
Mme. de Plougastel extended to him in welcome.
"You did well to come to me, Gervais," she said. "Yes, here is
sanctuary for the present. You will be quite safe, at least for as long as
we are safe. My servants are entirely trustworthy. Sit down and tell me
all."
He obeyed her, collapsing almost into the armchair which she thrust
forward, a man exhausted, whether by physical exertion or by nerve-strain,
or both. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped some of the blood
and dirt from his face.
"It is soon told." His tone was bitter with the bitterness of despair.
"This, my dear, is the end of us. Plougastel is lucky in being across the
frontier at such a time. Had I not been fool enough to trust those who
to-day have proved themselves utterly unworthy of trust, that is where I
should be myself. My remaining in Paris is the crowning folly of a life full
of follies and mistakes. That I should come to you in my hour of most urgent
need adds point to it." He laughed in his bitterness.
Madame moistened her dry lips. "And... and now?" she asked him.
"It only remains to get away as soon as may be, if it is still
possible. Here in France there is no longer any room for us - at least, not
above ground. To-day has proved it." And then he looked up at her, standing
there beside him so pale and timid, and he smiled. He patted the fine hand
that rested upon the arm of his chair. "My dear Therese, unless you carry
charitableness to the length of giving me to drink, you will see me perish
of thirst under your eyes before ever the canaille has a chance to finish
me."
She started. "I should have thought of it!" she cried in self-reproach,
and she turned quickly. "Aline," she begged, "tell Jacques to bring... "
"Aline!" he echoed,interrupting, and swinging round in his turn. Then,
as Aline rose into view, detaching from her background, and he at last
perceived her, he heaved himself abruptly to his weary legs again, and stood
there stiffly bowing to her across the space of gleaming floor.
"Mademoiselle, I had not suspected your presence," he said, and he seemed
extraordinarily ill-at-ease, a man startled, as if caught in an illicit act.
"I perceived it, monsieur," she answered, as she advanced to do
madame's commission. She paused before him. "From my heart, monsieur, I
grieve that we should meet again in circumstances so very painful."
Not since the day of his duel with Andre-Louis - the day which had seen
the death and burial of his last hope of winning her - had they stood face
to face.
He checked as if on the point of answering her. His glance strayed to
Mme. de Plougastel, and, oddly reticent for one who could be very glib, he
bowed in silence.
"But sit, monsieur, I beg. You are fatigued."