A Romance of the French Revolution
BOOK I
THE ROBE
I. THE REPUBLICAN
II. THE ARISTOCRAT
III. THE ELOQUENCE OF M. DE VILMORIN
IV. THE HERITAGE
V. THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC
VI. THE WINDMILL
VII. THE WIND
VIII. OMNES OMNIBUS
IX. THE AFTERMATH
BOOK II
THE BUSKIN
I. THE TRESPASSERS
II. THE SERVICE OF THESPIS
III. THE COMIC MUSE
IV. EXIT MONSIEUR PARVISSIMUS
V. ENTER SCARAMOUCHE
VI. CLIMENE
VII. THE CONQUEST OF NANTES
VIII. THE DREAM
IX. THE AWAKENING
X. CONTRITION
XI. THE FRACAS AT THE THEATRE FEYDAU
BOOK III
THE SWORD
I. TRANSITION
II. QUOS DEUS VULT PERDERE
III. PRESIDENT LE CHAPELIER
IV. AT MEUDON
V. MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL
VI. POLITICIANS
VII. THE SPADASSINICIDES
VIII. THE PALADIN OF THE THIRD
IX. TORN PRIDE
X. THE RETURNING CARRIAGE
XI. INFERENCES
XII. THE OVERWHELMING REASON
XIII. SANCTUARY
XIV. THE BARRIER
XV. SAFE-CONDUCT
XVI. SUNRISE
He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
And that was all his patrimony. His very paternity was obscure, although the
village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery that hung
about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to be deceived by
a pretended relationship which did not even possess the virtue of
originality. When a nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the
godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence, and thereafter cares for
the lad's rearing and education, the most unsophisticated of country folk
perfectly understand the situation. And so the good people of Gavrillac
permitted themselves no illusions on the score of the real relationship
between Andre-Louis Moreau - as the lad had been named
- and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the big
grey house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering below.
Andre-Louis had learnt his letters at the village school, lodged the
while with old Rabouillet, the attorney, who in the capacity of fiscal
intendant, looked after the affairs of M. de Kercadiou. Thereafter, at the
age of fifteen, he had been packed off to Paris, to the Lycee of Louis Le
Grand, to study the law which he was now returned to practise in conjunction
with Rabouillet. All this at the charges of his godfather, M. de Kercadiou,
who by placing him once more under the tutelage of Rabouillet would seem
thereby quite clearly to be making provision for his future.
Andre-Louis, on his side, had made the most of his opportunities. You
behold him at the age of four-and-twenty stuffed with learning enough to
produce an intellectual indigestion in an ordinary mind. Out of his zestful
study of Man, from Thucydides to the Encyclopaedists, from Seneca to
Rousseau, he had confirmed into an unassailable conviction his earliest
conscious impressions of the general insanity of his own species. Nor can I
discover that anything in his eventful life ever afterwards caused him to
waver in that opinion.
In body he was a slight wisp of a fellow, scarcely above middle height,
with a lean, astute countenance, prominent of nose and cheek-bones, and with
lank, black hair that reached almost to his shoulders. His mouth was long,
thin-lipped, and humorous. He was only just redeemed from ugliness by the
splendour of a pair of ever-questing, luminous eyes, so dark as to be almost
black. Of the whimsical quality of his mind and his rare gift of graceful
expression, his writings - unfortunately but too scanty - and particularly
his Confessions, afford us very ample evidence. Of his gift of oratory he
was hardly conscious yet, although he had already achieved a certain fame
for it in the Literary Chamber of Rennes - one of those clubs by now
ubiquitous in the land, in which the intellectual youth of France
foregathered to study and discuss the new philosophies that were permeating
social life. But the fame he had acquired there was hardly enviable. He was
too impish, too caustic, too much disposed - so thought his colleagues - to
ridicule their sublime theories for the regeneration of mankind. himself he
protested that he merely held them up to the mirror of truth, and that it
was not his fault if when reflected there they looked ridiculous.
All that he achieved by this was to exasperate; and his expulsion from
a society grown mistrustful of him must already have followed but for his
friend, Philippe de Vilmorin, a divinity student of Rennes, who, himself,
was one of the most popular members of the Literary Chamber.
Coming to Gavrillac on a November morning, laden with news of the
political storms which were then gathering over France, Philippe found in
that sleepy Breton village matter to quicken his already lively indignation.
A peasant of Gavrillac, named Mabey, had been shot dead that morning in the
woods of Meupont, across the river, by a gamekeeper of the Marquis de La
Tour d'Azyr. The unfortunate fellow had been caught in the act of taking a
pheasant from a snare, and the gamekeeper had acted under explicit orders
from his master.
Infuriated by an act of tyranny so absolute and merciless, M. de
Vilmorin proposed to lay the matter before M. de Kercadiou. Mabey was a
vassal of Gavrillac, and Vilmorin hoped to move the Lord of Gavrillac to
demand at least some measure of reparation for the widow and the three
orphans which that brutal deed had made.
But because Andre-Louis was Philippe's dearest friend - indeed, his
almost brother - the young seminarist sought him out in the first instance.
He found him at breakfast alone in the long, low-ceilinged, white-panelled
dining-room at Rabouillet's - the only home that Andre-Louis had ever known
- and after embracing him, deafened him with his denunciation of M. de La
Tour d'Azyr.
"I have heard of it already," said Andre-Louis.
"You speak as if the thing had not surprised you," his friend
reproached him.
"Nothing beastly can surprise me when done by a beast. And La Tour
d'Azyr is a beast, as all the world knows. The more fool Mabey for stealing
his pheasants. He should have stolen somebody else's."
"Is that all you have to say about it?"
"What more is there to say? I've a practical mind, I hope."
"What more there is to say I propose to say to your godfather, M. de
Kercadiou. I shall appeal to him for justice."
"Against M. de La Tour d'azyr?" Andre-Louis raised his eyebrows.
"Why not?"
"My dear ingenuous Philippe, dog doesn't eat dog."
"You are unjust to your godfather. He is a humane man."
"Oh, as humane as you please. But this isn't a question of humanity.
It's a question of game-laws."
M. de Vilmorin tossed his long arms to Heaven in disgust. He was a
tall, slender young gentleman, a year or two younger than Andre-Louis. He
was very soberly dressed in black, as became a seminarist, with white bands
at wrists and throat and silver buckles to his shoes. His neatly clubbed
brown hair was innocent of powder.
"You talk like a lawyer," he exploded.
"Naturally. But don't waste anger on me on that account. Tell me what
you want me to do."
"I want you to come to M. de Kercadiou with me, and to use your
influence to obtain justice. I suppose I am asking too much."
"My dear Philippe, I exist to serve you. I warn you that it is a futile
quest; but give me leave to finish my breakfast, and I am at your orders."
M. de Vilmorin dropped into a winged armchair by the well-swept hearth,
on which a piled-up fire of pine logs was burning cheerily. And whilst he
waited now he gave his friend the latest news of the events in Rennes.
Young, ardent, enthusiastic, and inspired by Utopian ideals, he passionately
denounced the rebellious attitude of the privileged.
Andre-Louis, already fully aware of the trend of feeling in the ranks
of an order in whose deliberations he took part as the representative of a
nobleman, was not at all surprised by what he heard. M. de Vilmorin found it
exasperating that his friend should apparently decline to share his own
indignation.
"Don't you see what it means?" he cried. "The nobles, by disobeying the
King, are striking at the very foundations of the throne. Don't they
perceive that their very existence depends upon it; that if the throne falls
over, it is they who stand nearest to it who will be crushed? Don't they see
that?"
"Evidently not. They are just governing classes, and I never heard of
governing classes that had eyes for anything but their own profit."
"That is our grievance. That is what we are going to change."
"You are going to abolish governing classes? An interesting experiment.
I believe it was the original plan of creation, and it might have succeeded
but for Cain."
"What we are going to do," said M. de Vilmorin, curbing his
exasperation, "is to transfer the government to other hands."
"And you think that will make a difference?"
"I know it will."
"Ah! I take it that being now in minor orders, you already possess the
confidence of the Almighty. He will have confided to you His intention of
changing the pattern of mankind."
M. de Vilmorin's fine ascetic face grew overcast. "You are profane,
Andre," he reproved his friend.
"I assure you that I am quite serious. To do what you imply would
require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not
systems. Can you and our vapouring friends of the Literary Chamber of
Rennes, or any other learned society of France, devise a system of
government that has never yet been tried? Surely not. And can they say of
any system tried that it proved other than a failure in the end? My dear
Philippe, the future is to be read with certainty only in the past. Ab actu
ad posse valet consecutio. Man never changes. He is always greedy, always
acquisitive, always vile. I am speaking of Man in the bulk."
"Do you pretend that it is impossible to ameliorate the lot of the
people?" M. de Vilmorin challenged him.
"When you say the people you mean, of course, the populace. Will you
abolish it? That is the only way to ameliorate its lot, for as long as it
remains populace its lot will be damnation."
"You argue, of course, for the side that employs you. That is natural,
I suppose." M. de Vilmorin spoke between sorrow and indignation.
"On the contrary, I seek to argue with absolute detachment. Let us test
these ideas of yours. To what form of government do you aspire? A republic,
it is to be inferred from what you have said. Well, you have it already.
France in reality is a republic to-day."
Philippe stared at him. "You are being paradoxical, I think. What of
the King?"
"The King? All the world knows there has been no king in France since
Louis XIV. There is an obese gentleman at Versailles who wears the crown,
but the very news you bring shows for how little he really counts. It is the
nobles and clergy who sit in the high places, with the people of France
harnessed under their feet, who are the real rulers. That is why I say that
France is a republic; she is a republic built on the best pattern - the
Roman pattern. Then, as now, there were great patrician families in luxury,
preserving for themselves power and wealth, and what else is accounted worth
possessing; and there was the populace crushed and groaning, sweating,
bleeding, starving, and perishing in the Roman kennels. That was a republic;
the mightiest we have seen."
Philippe strove with his impatience. "At least you will admit - you
have, in fact, admitted it - that we could not be worse governed than we
are?"
"That is not the point. The point is should we be better governed if we
replaced the present ruling class by another? Without some guarantee of that
I should be the last to lift a finger to effect a change. And what
guarantees can you give? What is the class that aims at government? I will
tell you. The bourgeoisie."
"What?"
"That startles you, eh? Truth is so often disconcerting. You hadn't
thought of it? Well, think of it now. Look well into this Nantes manifesto.
Who are the authors of it?"
"I can tell you who it was constrained the municipality of Nantes to
send it to the King. Some ten thousand workmen - shipwrights, weavers,
labourers, and artisans of every kind."
"Stimulated to it, driven to it, by their employers, the wealthy
traders and shipowners of that city," Andre-Louis replied. "I have a habit
of observing things at close quarters, which is why our colleagues of the
Literary Chamber dislike me so cordially in debate. Where I delve they but
skim. Behind those labourers and artisans of Nantes, counselling them,
urging on these poor, stupid, ignorant toilers to shed their blood in
pursuit of the will o' the wisp of freedom, are the sail-makers, the
spinners, the ship-owners and the slave-traders. The slave-traders! The men
who live and grow rich by a traffic in human flesh and blood in the
colonies, are conducting at home a campaign in the sacred name of liberty!
Don't you see that the whole movement is a movement of hucksters and traders
and peddling vassals swollen by wealth into envy of the power that lies in
birth alone? The money-changers in Paris who hold the bonds in the national
debt, seeing the parlous financial condition of the State, tremble at the
thought that it may lie in the power of a single man to cancel the debt by
bankruptcy. To secure themselves they are burrowing underground to overthrow
a state and build upon its ruins a new one in which they shall be the
masters. And to accomplish this they inflame the people. Already in Dauphiny
we have seen blood run like water - the blood of the populace, always the
blood of the populace. Now in Brittany we may see the like. And if in the
end the new ideas prevail? if the seigneurial rule is overthrown, what then?
You will have exchanged an aristocracy for a plutocracy. Is that worth
while? Do you 'think that under money-changers and slave-traders and men who
have waxed rich in other ways by the ignoble arts of buying and selling, the
lot of the people will be any better than under their priests and nobles?
Has it ever occurred to you, Philippe, what it is that makes the rule of the
nobles so intolerable? Acquisitiveness. Acquisitiveness is the curse of
mankind. And shall you expect less acquisitiveness in men who have built
themselves up by acquisitiveness? Oh, I am ready to admit that the present
government is execrable, unjust, tyrannical - what you will; but I beg you
to look ahead, and to see that the government for which it is aimed at
exchanging it may be infinitely worse."
Philippe sat thoughtful a moment. Then he returned to the attack.
"You do not speak of the abuses, the horrible, intolerable abuses of
power under which we labour at present."
"Where there is power there will always be the abuse of it."
"Not if the tenure of power is dependent upon its equitable
administration."
"The tenure of power is power. We cannot dictate to those who hold it."
"The people can - the people in its might."
"Again I ask you, when you say the people do you mean the populace? You
do. What power can the populace wield? It can run wild. It can burn and slay
for a time. But enduring power it cannot wield, because power demands
qualities which the populace does not possess, or it would not be populace.
The inevitable, tragic corollary of civilization is populace. For the rest,
abuses can be corrected by equity; and equity, if it is not found in the
enlightened, is not to be found at all. M. Necker is to set about correcting
abuses, and limiting privileges. That is decided. To that end the States
General are to assemble."
"And a promising beginning we have made in Brittany, as Heaven hears
me!" cried Philippe.
"Pooh! That is nothing. Naturally the nobles will not yield without a
struggle. It is a futile and ridiculous struggle - but then... it is human
nature, I suppose, to be futile and ridiculous."
M. de Vilmorin became witheringly sarcastic. "Probably you will also
qualify the shooting of Mabey as futile and ridiculous. I should even be
prepared to hear you argue in defence of the Marquis de La Tour d' Azyr that
his gamekeeper was merciful in shooting Mabey, since the alternative would
have been a life-sentence to the galleys."
Andre-Louis drank the remainder of his chocolate; set down his cup, and
pushed back his chair, his breakfast done.
"I confess that I have not your big charity, my dear Philippe. I am
touched by Mabey's fate. But, having conquered the shock of this news to my
emotions, I do not forget that, after all, Mabey was thieving when he met
his death."
M. de Vilmorin heaved himself up in his indignation.
"That is the point of view to be expected in one who is the assistant
fiscal intendant of a nobleman, and the delegate of a nobleman to the States
of Brittany."
"Philippe, is that just? You are angry with me!" he cried, in real
solicitude.
"I am hurt," Vilmorin admitted. "I am deeply hurt by your attitude. And
I am not alone in resenting your reactionary tendencies. Do you know that
the Literary Chamber is seriously considering your expulsion?"
Andre-Louis shrugged. "That neither surprises nor troubles me."
M. de Vilmorin swept on, passionately: "Sometimes I think that you have
no heart. With you it is always the law, never equity. It occurs to me,
Andre, that I was mistaken in coming to you. You are not likely to be of
assistance to me in my interview with M. de Kercadiou." He took up his hat,
clearly with the intention of departing.
Andre-Louis sprang up and caught him by the arm.
"I vow," said he, "that this is the last time ever I shall consent to
talk law or politics with you, Philippe. I love you too well to quarrel with
you over other men's affairs."
"But I make them my own," Philippe insisted vehemently.
"Of course you do, and I love you for it. It is right that you should.
You are to be a priest; and everybody's business is a priest's business.
Whereas I am a lawyer - the fiscal intendant of a nobleman, as you say - and
a lawyer's business is the business of his client. That is the difference
between us. Nevertheless, you are not going to shake me off."
"But I tell you frankly, now that I come to think of it, that I should
prefer you did not see M. de Kercadiou with me. Your duty to your client
cannot be a help to me."
His wrath had passed; but his determination remained firm, based upon
the reason he gave.
"Very well," said Andre-Louis. "It shall be as you please. But nothing
shall prevent me at least from walking with you as far as the chateau, and
waiting for you while you make your appeal to M. de Kercadiou."
And so they left the house good friends, for the sweetness of M. de
Vilmorin's nature did not admit of rancour, and together they took their way
up the steep main street of Gavrillac.
The sleepy village of Gavrillac, a half-league removed from the main
road to Rennes, and therefore undisturbed by the world's traffic, lay in a
curve of the River Meu, at the foot, and straggling halfway up the slope, of
the shallow hill that was crowned by the squat manor. By the time Gavrillac
had paid tribute to its seigneur - partly in money and partly in service -
tithes to the Church, and imposts to the King, it was hard put to it to keep
body and soul together with what remained. Yet, hard as conditions were in
Gavrillac, they were not so hard as in many other parts of France, not half
so hard, for instance, as with the wretched feudatories of the great Lord of
La Tour d'Azyr, whose vast possessions were at one point separated from this
little village by the waters of the Meu.
The Chateau de Gavrillac owed such seigneurial airs as might be claimed
for it to its dominant position above the village rather than to any feature
of its own. Built of granite, like all the rest of Gavrillac, though
mellowed by some three centuries of existence, it was a squat, flat-fronted
edifice of two stories, each lighted by four windows with external wooden
shutters, and flanked at either end by two square towers or pavilions under
extinguisher roofs. Standing well back in a garden, denuded now, but very
pleasant in summer, and immediately fronted by a fine sweep of balustraded
terrace, it looked, what indeed it was, and always had been, the residence
of unpretentious folk who found more interest in husbandry than in
adventure.
Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac - Seigneur de Gavrillac was all
the vague title that he bore, as his forefathers had borne before him,
derived no man knew whence or how - confirmed the impression that his house
conveyed. Rude as the granite itself, he had never sought the experience of
courts, had not even taken service in the armies of his King. He left it to
his younger brother, Etienne, to represent the family in those exalted
spheres. His own interests from earliest years had been centred in his woods
and pastures. He hunted, and he cultivated his acres, and superficially he
appeared to be little better than any of his rustic metayers. He kept no
state, or at least no state commensurate with his position or with the
tastes of his niece Aline de Kercadiou. Aline, having spent some two years
in the court atmosphere of Versailles under the aegis of her uncle Etienne,
had ideas very different from those of her uncle Quintin of what was
befitting seigneurial dignity. But though this only child of a third
Kercadiou had exercised, ever since she was left an orphan at the early age
of four, a tyrannical rule over the Lord of Gavrillac, who had been father
and mother to her, she had never yet succeeded in beating down his
stubbornness on that score. She did not yet despair - persistence being a
dominant note in her character - although she had been assiduously and
fruitlessly at work since her return from the great world of Versailles some
three months ago.
She was walking on the terrace when Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin
arrived. Her slight body was wrapped against the chill air in a white
pelisse; her head was encased in a close-fitting bonnet, edged with white
fur. It was caught tight in a knot of pale-blue ribbon on the right of her
chin; on the left a long ringlet of corn-coloured hair had been permitted to
escape. The keen air had whipped so much of her cheeks as was presented to
it, and seemed to have added sparkle to eyes that were of darkest blue.
Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin had been known to her from childhood.
The three had been playmates once, and Andre-Louis - in view of his
spiritual relationship with her uncle - she called her cousin. The cousinly
relations had persisted between these two long after Philippe de Vilmorin
had outgrown the earlier intimacy, and had become to her Monsieur de
Vilmorin.
She waved her hand to them in greeting as they advanced, and stood
- an entrancing picture, and fully conscious of it - to await them at
the end of the terrace nearest the short avenue by which they approached.
"If you come to see monsieur my uncle, you come inopportunely,
messieurs," she told them, a certain feverishness in her air. "He is closely
- oh, so very closely - engaged."
"We will wait, mademoiselle," said M. de Vilmorin, bowing gallantly
over the hand she extended to him. "Indeed, who would haste to the uncle
that may tarry a moment with the niece?"
"M. l'abbe," she teased him, "when you are in orders I shall take you
for my confessor. You have so ready and sympathetic an understanding."
"But no curiosity," said Andre-Louis. "You haven't thought of that."
"I wonder what you mean, Cousin Andre."
"Well you may," laughed Philippe. "For no one ever knows." And then,
his glance straying across the terrace settled upon a carriage that was
drawn up before the door of the chateau. It was a vehicle such as was often
to be seen in the streets of a great city, but rarely in the country. It was
a beautifully sprung two-horse cabriolet of walnut, with a varnish upon it
like a sheet of glass and little pastoral scenes exquisitely painted on the
panels of the door. It was built to carry two persons, with a box in front
for the coachman, and a stand behind for the footman. This stand was empty,
but the footman paced before the door, and as he emerged now from behind the
vehicle into the range of M. de Vilmorin's vision, he displayed the
resplendent blue-and-gold livery of the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr.
"Why!" he exclaimed. "Is it M. de La Tour d'Azyr who is with your
uncle?"
"It is, monsieur," said she, a world of mystery in voice and eyes, of
which M. de Vilmorin observed nothing.
"Ah, pardon!" he bowed low, hat in hand. "Serviteur, mademoiselle," and
he turned to depart towards the house.
"Shall I come with you, Philippe?" Andre-Louis called after him.
"It would be ungallant to assume that you would prefer it," said M. de
Vilmorin, with a glance at mademoiselle. "Nor do I think it would serve. If
you will wait... "
M. de Vilmorin strode off. Mademoiselle, after a moment's blank pause,
laughed ripplingly. "Now where is he going in such a hurry?"
"To see M. de La Tour d'Azyr as well as your uncle, I should say."
"But he cannot. They cannot see him. Did I not say that they are very
closely engaged? You don't ask me why, Andre" There was an arch
mysteriousness about her, a latent something that may have been elation or
amusement, or perhaps both. Andre-Louis could not determine it.
"Since obviously you are all eagerness to tell, why should I ask?"
quoth he.
"If you are caustic I shall not tell you even if you ask. Oh, yes, I
will. It will teach you to treat me with the respect that is my due."
"I hope I shall never fail in that."
"Less than ever when you learn that I am very closely concerned in the
visit of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. I am the object of this visit." And she
looked at him with sparkling eyes and lips parted in laughter.
"The rest, you would seem to imply, is obvious. But I am a dolt, if you
please; for it is not obvious to me."
"Why, stupid, he comes to ask my hand in marriage."
"Good God!" said Andre-Louis, and stared at her, chapfallen.
She drew back from him a little with a frown and an upward tilt of her
chin. "It surprises you?"
"It disgusts me," said he, bluntly. "In fact, I don't believe it. You
are amusing yourself with me."
For a moment she put aside her visible annoyance to remove his doubts.
"I am quite serious, monsieur. There came a formal letter to my uncle this
morning from M. de La Tour d'Azyr, announcing the visit and its object. I
will not say that it did not surprise us a little..
"Oh, I see," cried Andre-Louis, in relief. "I understand. For a moment
I had almost feared... " He broke off, looked at her, and shrugged.
"Why do you stop? You had almost feared that Versailles had been wasted
upon me. That I should permit the court-ship of me to be conducted like that
of any village wench. It was stupid of you. I am being sought in proper
form, at my uncle's hands."
"Is his consent, then, all that matters, according to Versailles?"
"What else?"
"There is your own."
She laughed. "I am a dutiful niece... when it suits me."
"And will it suit you to be dutiful if your uncle accepts this
monstrous proposal?"
"Monstrous!" She bridled. "And why monstrous, if you please?"
"For a score of reasons," he answered irritably.
"Give me one," she challenged him.
"He is twice your age."
"Hardly so much," said she.
"He is forty-five, at least."
"But he looks no more than thirty. He is very handsome - so much you
will admit; nor will you deny that he is very wealthy and very powerful; the
greatest nobleman in Brittany. He will make me a great lady."
"God made you that, Aline."
"Come, that's better. Sometimes you can almost be polite." And she
moved along the terrace, Andre-Louis pacing beside her.
"I can be more than that to show reason why you should not let this
beast befoul the beautiful thing that God has made."
She frowned, and her lips tightened. "You are speaking of my future
husband," she reproved him.
His lips tightened too; his pale face grew paler.
"And is it so? It is settled, then? Your uncle is to agree? You are to
be sold thus, lovelessly, into bondage to a man you do not know. I had
dreamed of better things for you, Aline."
"Better than to be Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr?"
He made a gesture of exasperation. "Are men and women nothing more than
names? Do the souls of them count for nothing? Is there no joy in life, no
happiness, that wealth and pleasure and empty, high-sounding titles are to
be its only aims? I had set you high
- so high, Aline - a thing scarce earthly. There is joy in your heart,
intelligence in your mind; and, as I thought, the vision that pierces husks
and shams to claim the core of reality for its own. Yet you will surrender
all for a parcel of make-believe. You will sell your soul and your body to
be Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr."
"You are indelicate," said she, and though she frowned her eyes
laughed. "And you go headlong to conclusions. My uncle will not consent to
more than to allow my consent to be sought. We understand each other, my
uncle and I. I am not to be bartered like a turnip."
He stood still to face her, his eyes glowing, a flush creeping into his
pale cheeks.
"You have been torturing me to amuse yourself!" he cried. "Ah, well, I
forgive you out of my relief."
"Again you go too fast, Cousin Andre I have permitted my uncle to
consent that M. le Marquis shall make his court to me. I like the look of
the gentleman. I am flattered by his preference when I consider his
eminence. It is an eminence that I may find it desirable to share. M. le
Marquis does not look as if he were a dullard. It should be interesting to
be wooed by him. It may be more interesting still to marry him, and I think,
when all is considered, that I shall probably - very probably - decide to do
so."
He looked at her, looked at the sweet, challenging loveliness of that
childlike face so tightly framed in the oval of white fur, and all the life
seemed to go out of his own countenance.
"God help you, Aline!" he groaned.
She stamped her foot. He was really very exasperating, and something
presumptuous too, she thought.
"You are insolent, monsieur."
"It is never insolent to pray, Aline. And I did no more than pray, as I
shall continue to do. You'll need my prayers, I think."
"You are insufferable!" She was growing angry, as he saw by the
deepening frown, the heightened colour.
"That is because I suffer. Oh, Aline, little cousin, think well of what
you do; think well of the realities you will be bartering for these shams -
the realities that you will never know, because these cursed shams will
block your way to them. When M. de La Tour d'Azyr comes to make his court,
study him well; consult your fine instincts; leave your own noble nature
free to judge this animal by its intuitions. Consider that... "
"I consider, monsieur, that you presume upon the kindness I have always
shown you. You abuse the position of toleration in which you stand. Who are
you? What are you, that you should have the insolence to take this tone with
me?"
He bowed, instantly his cold, detached self again, and resumed the
mockery that was his natural habit.
"My congratulations, mademoiselle, upon the readiness with which you
begin to adapt yourself to the great role you are to play."
"Do you adapt yourself also, monsieur," she retorted angrily, and
turned her shoulder to him.
"To be as the dust beneath the haughty feet of Madame la Marquise. I
hope I shall know my place in future."
The phrase arrested her. She turned to him again, and he perceived that
her eyes were shining now suspiciously. In an instant the mockery in him was
quenched in contrition.
"Lord, what a beast I am, Aline!" he cried, as he advanced. "Forgive me
if you can."
Almost had she turned to sue forgiveness from him. But his contrition
removed the need.
"I'll try," said she, "provided that you undertake not to offend again.
"But I shall," said he. "I am like that. I will fight to save you, from
yourself if need be, whether you forgive me or not."
They were standing so, confronting each other a little breathlessly, a
little defiantly, when the others issued from the porch.
First came the Marquis of La Tour d'Azyr, Count of Solz, Knight of the
Orders of the Holy Ghost and Saint Louis, and Brigadier in the armies of the
King. He was a tall, graceful man, upright and soldierly of carriage, with
his head disdainfully set upon his shoulders. He was magnificently dressed
in a full-skirted coat of mulberry velvet that was laced with gold. His
waistcoat, of velvet too, was of a golden apricot colour; his breeches and
stockings were of black silk, and his lacquered, red-heeled shoes were
buckled in diamonds. His powdered hair was tied behind in a broad ribbon of
watered silk; he carried a little three-cornered hat under his arm, and a
gold-hilted slender dress-sword hung at his side.
Considering him now in complete detachment, observing the magnificence
of him, the elegance of his movements, the great air, blending in so
extraordinary a manner disdain and graciousness, Andre-Louis trembled for
Aline. Here was a practised, irresistible wooer, whose bonnes fortunes were
become a by-word, a man who had hitherto been the despair of dowagers with
marriageable daughters, and the desolation of husbands with attractive
wives.
He was immediately followed by M. de Kercadiou, in completest contrast.
On legs of the shortest, the Lord of Gavrillac carried a body that at
forty-five was beginning to incline to corpulence and an enormous head
containing an indifferent allotment of intelligence. His countenance was
pink and blotchy, liberally branded by the smallpox which had almost
extinguished him in youth. In dress he was careless to the point of
untidiness, and to this and to the fact that he had never married -
disregarding the first duty of a gentleman to provide himself with an heir -
he owed the character of misogynist attributed to him by the countryside.
After M. de Kercadiou came M. de Vilmorin, very pale and
self-contained, with tight lips and an overcast brow.
To meet them, there stepped from the carriage a very elegant young
gentleman, the Chevalier de Chabrillane, M. de La Tour d'Azyr's cousin, who
whilst awaiting his return had watched with considerable interest - his own
presence unsuspected - the perambulations of Andre-Louis and mademoiselle.
Perceiving Aline, M. de La Tour d'Azyr detached himself from the
others, and lengthening his stride came straight across the terrace to her.
To Andre-Louis the Marquis inclined his head with that mixture of
courtliness and condescension which he used. Socially, the young lawyer
stood in a curious position. By virtue of the theory of his birth, he ranked
neither as noble nor as simple, but stood somewhere between the two classes,
and whilst claimed by neither he was used familiarly by both. Coldly now he
returned M. de La Tour d'Azyr's greeting, and discreetly removed himself to
go and join his friend.
The Marquis took the hand that mademoiselle extended to him, and bowing
over it, bore it to his lips.
"Mademoiselle," he said, looking into the blue depths of her eyes, that
met his gaze smiling and untroubled, "monsieur your uncle does me the honour
to permit that I pay my homage to you. Will you, mademoiselle, do me the
honour to receive me when I come to-morrow? I shall have something of great
importance for your ear."
"Of importance, M. le Marquis? You almost frighten me." But there was
no fear on the serene little face in its furred hood. It was not for nothing
that she had graduated in the Versailles school of artificialities.
"That," said he, "is very far from my design."
"But of importance to yourself, monsieur, or to me?"
"To us both, I hope," he answered her, a world of meaning in his fine,
ardent eyes.
"You whet my curiosity, monsieur; and, of course, I am a dutiful niece.
It follows that I shall be honoured to receive you."
"Not honoured, mademoiselle; you will confer the honour. To-morrow at
this hour, then, I shall have the felicity to wait upon you."
He bowed again; and again he bore her fingers to his lips, what time
she curtsied. Thereupon, with no more than this formal breaking of the ice,
they parted.
She was a little breathless now, a little dazzled by the beauty of the
man, his princely air, and the confidence of power he seemed to radiate.
Involuntarily almost, she contrasted him with his critic
- the lean and impudent Andre-Louis in his plain brown coat and
steel-buckled shoes - and she felt guilty of an unpardonable offence in
having permitted even one word of that presumptuous criticism. To-morrow M.
le Marquis would come to offer her a great position, a great rank. And
already she had derogated from the increase of dignity accruing to her from
his very intention to translate her to so great an eminence. Not again would
she suffer it; not again would she be so weak and childish as to permit
Andre-Louis to utter his ribald comments upon a man by comparison with whom
he was no better than a lackey.
Thus argued vanity and ambition with her better self and to her vast
annoyance her better self would not admit entire conviction.
Meanwhile, M. de La Tour d'Azyr was climbing into his carriage. He had
spoken a word of farewell to M. de Kercadiou, and he had also had a word for
M. de Vilmorin in reply to which M. de Vilmorin had bowed in assenting
silence. The carriage rolled away, the powdered footman in blue-and-gold
very stiff behind it, M. de La Tour d'Azyr bowing to mademoiselle, who waved
to him in answer.
Then M. de Vilmorin put his arm through that of Andre Louis, and said
to him, "Come, Andre."
"But you'll stay to dine, both of you!" cried the hospitable Lord of
Gavrillac. "We'll drink a certain toast," he added, winking an eye that
strayed towards mademoiselle, who was approaching. He had no subtleties,
good soul that he was.
M. de Vilmorin deplored an appointment that prevented him doing himself
the honour. He was very stiff and formal.
"And you, Andre?"
"I? Oh, I share the appointment, godfather," he lied, "and I have a
superstition against toasts." He had no wish to remain. He was angry with
Aline for her smiling reception of M. de La Tour d'Azyr and the sordid
bargain he saw her set on making. He was suffering from the loss of an
illusion.
As they walked down the hill together, it was now M. de Vilmorin who
was silent and preoccupied, Andre-Louis who was talkative. He had chosen
Woman as a subject for his present discourse. He claimed
- quite unjustifiably - to have discovered Woman that morning; and the
things he had to say of the sex were unflattering, and occasionally almost
gross. M. de Vilmorin, having ascertained the subject, did not listen.
Singular though it may seem in a young French abbe of his day, M. de
Vilmorin was not interested in Woman. Poor Philippe was in several ways
exceptional. Opposite the Breton arme - the inn and posting-house at the
entrance of the village of Gavrillac - M. de Vilmorin interrupted his
companion just as he was soaring to the dizziest heights of caustic
invective, and Andre-Louis, restored thereby to actualities, observed the
carriage of M. de La Tour d'Azyr standing before the door of the hostelry.
"I don't believe you've been listening to me," said he.
"Had you been less interested in what you were saying, you might have
observed it sooner and spared your breath. The fact is, you disappoint me,
Andre. You seem to have forgotten what we went for. I have an appointment
here with M. le Marquis. He desires to hear me further in the matter. Up
there at Gavrillac I could accomplish nothing. The time was ill-chosen as it
happened. But I have hopes of M. le Marquis."
"Hopes of what?"
"That he will make what reparation lies in his power. Provide for the
widow and the orphans. Why else should he desire to hear me further?"
"Unusual condescension," said Andre-Louis, and quoted "Timeo Danaos et
dona ferentes."
"Why?" asked Philippe.
"Let us go and discover - unless you consider that I shall be in the
way."
Into a room on the right, rendered private to M. le Marquis for so long
as he should elect to honour it, the young men were ushered by the host. A
fire of logs was burning brightly at the room's far end, and by this sat now
M. de La Tour d'Azyr and his cousin, the Chevalier de Chabrillane. Both rose
as M. de Vilmorin came in. Andre-Louis following, paused to close the door.
"You oblige me by your prompt courtesy, M. de Vilmorin," said the
Marquis, but in a tone so cold as to belie the politeness of his words. "A
chair, I beg. Ah, Moreau?" The note was frigidly interrogative. "He
accompanies you, monsieur?" he asked.
"If you please, M. le Marquis."
"Why not? Find yourself a seat, Moreau." He spoke over his shoulder as
to a lackey.
"It is good of you, monsieur," said Philippe, "to have offered me this
opportunity of continuing the subject that took me so fruitlessly, as it
happens, to Gavrillac."
The Marquis crossed his legs, and held one of his fine hands to the
blaze. He replied, without troubling to turn to the young man, who was
slightly behind him.
"The goodness of my request we will leave out of question for the
moment," said he, darkly, and M. de Chabrillane laughed. Andre-Louis thought
him easily moved to mirth, and almost envied him the faculty.
"But I am grateful," Philippe insisted, "that you should condescend to
hear me plead their cause.
The Marquis stared at him over his shoulder. "Whose cause?" quoth he.
"Why, the cause of the widow and orphans of this unfortunate Mabey."
The Marquis looked from Vilmorin to the Chevalier, and again the
Chevalier laughed, slapping his leg this time.
"I think," said M. de La Tour d'Azyr, slowly, "that we are at
cross-purposes. I asked you to come here because the Chateau de Gavrillac
was hardly a suitable place in which to carry our discussion further, and
because I hesitated to incommode you by suggesting that you should come all
the way to Azyr. But my object is connected with certain expressions that
you let fall up there. It is on the subject of those expressions, monsieur,
that I would hear you further - if you will honour me."
Andre-Louis began to apprehend that there was something sinister in the
air. He was a man of quick intuitions, quicker far than those of M. de
Vilmorin, who evinced no more than a mild surprise.
"I am at a loss, monsieur," said he. "To what expressions does monsieur
allude?"
"It seems, monsieur, that I must refresh your memory." The Marquis
crossed his legs, and swung sideways on his chair, so that at last he
directly faced M. de Vilmorin. "You spoke, monsieur - and however mistaken
you may have been, you spoke very eloquently, too eloquently almost, it
seemed to me - of the infamy of such a deed as the act of summary justice
upon this thieving fellow Mabey, or whatever his name may be. Infamy was the
precise word you used. You did not retract that word when I had the honour
to inform you that it was by my orders that my gamekeeper Benet proceeded as
he did."
"If," said M. de Vilmorin, "the deed was infamous, its infamy is not
modified by the rank, however exalted, of the person responsible. Rather is
it aggravated."
"Ah!" said M. le Marquis, and drew a gold snuffbox from his pocket.
"You say, 'if the deed was infamous,' monsieur. Am I to understand that you
are no longer as convinced as you appeared to be of its infamy?"
M. de Vilmorin's fine face wore a look of perplexity. He did not
understand the drift of this.
BOOK I
THE ROBE
I. THE REPUBLICAN
II. THE ARISTOCRAT
III. THE ELOQUENCE OF M. DE VILMORIN
IV. THE HERITAGE
V. THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC
VI. THE WINDMILL
VII. THE WIND
VIII. OMNES OMNIBUS
IX. THE AFTERMATH
BOOK II
THE BUSKIN
I. THE TRESPASSERS
II. THE SERVICE OF THESPIS
III. THE COMIC MUSE
IV. EXIT MONSIEUR PARVISSIMUS
V. ENTER SCARAMOUCHE
VI. CLIMENE
VII. THE CONQUEST OF NANTES
VIII. THE DREAM
IX. THE AWAKENING
X. CONTRITION
XI. THE FRACAS AT THE THEATRE FEYDAU
BOOK III
THE SWORD
I. TRANSITION
II. QUOS DEUS VULT PERDERE
III. PRESIDENT LE CHAPELIER
IV. AT MEUDON
V. MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL
VI. POLITICIANS
VII. THE SPADASSINICIDES
VIII. THE PALADIN OF THE THIRD
IX. TORN PRIDE
X. THE RETURNING CARRIAGE
XI. INFERENCES
XII. THE OVERWHELMING REASON
XIII. SANCTUARY
XIV. THE BARRIER
XV. SAFE-CONDUCT
XVI. SUNRISE
He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.
And that was all his patrimony. His very paternity was obscure, although the
village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery that hung
about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to be deceived by
a pretended relationship which did not even possess the virtue of
originality. When a nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the
godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence, and thereafter cares for
the lad's rearing and education, the most unsophisticated of country folk
perfectly understand the situation. And so the good people of Gavrillac
permitted themselves no illusions on the score of the real relationship
between Andre-Louis Moreau - as the lad had been named
- and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the big
grey house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering below.
Andre-Louis had learnt his letters at the village school, lodged the
while with old Rabouillet, the attorney, who in the capacity of fiscal
intendant, looked after the affairs of M. de Kercadiou. Thereafter, at the
age of fifteen, he had been packed off to Paris, to the Lycee of Louis Le
Grand, to study the law which he was now returned to practise in conjunction
with Rabouillet. All this at the charges of his godfather, M. de Kercadiou,
who by placing him once more under the tutelage of Rabouillet would seem
thereby quite clearly to be making provision for his future.
Andre-Louis, on his side, had made the most of his opportunities. You
behold him at the age of four-and-twenty stuffed with learning enough to
produce an intellectual indigestion in an ordinary mind. Out of his zestful
study of Man, from Thucydides to the Encyclopaedists, from Seneca to
Rousseau, he had confirmed into an unassailable conviction his earliest
conscious impressions of the general insanity of his own species. Nor can I
discover that anything in his eventful life ever afterwards caused him to
waver in that opinion.
In body he was a slight wisp of a fellow, scarcely above middle height,
with a lean, astute countenance, prominent of nose and cheek-bones, and with
lank, black hair that reached almost to his shoulders. His mouth was long,
thin-lipped, and humorous. He was only just redeemed from ugliness by the
splendour of a pair of ever-questing, luminous eyes, so dark as to be almost
black. Of the whimsical quality of his mind and his rare gift of graceful
expression, his writings - unfortunately but too scanty - and particularly
his Confessions, afford us very ample evidence. Of his gift of oratory he
was hardly conscious yet, although he had already achieved a certain fame
for it in the Literary Chamber of Rennes - one of those clubs by now
ubiquitous in the land, in which the intellectual youth of France
foregathered to study and discuss the new philosophies that were permeating
social life. But the fame he had acquired there was hardly enviable. He was
too impish, too caustic, too much disposed - so thought his colleagues - to
ridicule their sublime theories for the regeneration of mankind. himself he
protested that he merely held them up to the mirror of truth, and that it
was not his fault if when reflected there they looked ridiculous.
All that he achieved by this was to exasperate; and his expulsion from
a society grown mistrustful of him must already have followed but for his
friend, Philippe de Vilmorin, a divinity student of Rennes, who, himself,
was one of the most popular members of the Literary Chamber.
Coming to Gavrillac on a November morning, laden with news of the
political storms which were then gathering over France, Philippe found in
that sleepy Breton village matter to quicken his already lively indignation.
A peasant of Gavrillac, named Mabey, had been shot dead that morning in the
woods of Meupont, across the river, by a gamekeeper of the Marquis de La
Tour d'Azyr. The unfortunate fellow had been caught in the act of taking a
pheasant from a snare, and the gamekeeper had acted under explicit orders
from his master.
Infuriated by an act of tyranny so absolute and merciless, M. de
Vilmorin proposed to lay the matter before M. de Kercadiou. Mabey was a
vassal of Gavrillac, and Vilmorin hoped to move the Lord of Gavrillac to
demand at least some measure of reparation for the widow and the three
orphans which that brutal deed had made.
But because Andre-Louis was Philippe's dearest friend - indeed, his
almost brother - the young seminarist sought him out in the first instance.
He found him at breakfast alone in the long, low-ceilinged, white-panelled
dining-room at Rabouillet's - the only home that Andre-Louis had ever known
- and after embracing him, deafened him with his denunciation of M. de La
Tour d'Azyr.
"I have heard of it already," said Andre-Louis.
"You speak as if the thing had not surprised you," his friend
reproached him.
"Nothing beastly can surprise me when done by a beast. And La Tour
d'Azyr is a beast, as all the world knows. The more fool Mabey for stealing
his pheasants. He should have stolen somebody else's."
"Is that all you have to say about it?"
"What more is there to say? I've a practical mind, I hope."
"What more there is to say I propose to say to your godfather, M. de
Kercadiou. I shall appeal to him for justice."
"Against M. de La Tour d'azyr?" Andre-Louis raised his eyebrows.
"Why not?"
"My dear ingenuous Philippe, dog doesn't eat dog."
"You are unjust to your godfather. He is a humane man."
"Oh, as humane as you please. But this isn't a question of humanity.
It's a question of game-laws."
M. de Vilmorin tossed his long arms to Heaven in disgust. He was a
tall, slender young gentleman, a year or two younger than Andre-Louis. He
was very soberly dressed in black, as became a seminarist, with white bands
at wrists and throat and silver buckles to his shoes. His neatly clubbed
brown hair was innocent of powder.
"You talk like a lawyer," he exploded.
"Naturally. But don't waste anger on me on that account. Tell me what
you want me to do."
"I want you to come to M. de Kercadiou with me, and to use your
influence to obtain justice. I suppose I am asking too much."
"My dear Philippe, I exist to serve you. I warn you that it is a futile
quest; but give me leave to finish my breakfast, and I am at your orders."
M. de Vilmorin dropped into a winged armchair by the well-swept hearth,
on which a piled-up fire of pine logs was burning cheerily. And whilst he
waited now he gave his friend the latest news of the events in Rennes.
Young, ardent, enthusiastic, and inspired by Utopian ideals, he passionately
denounced the rebellious attitude of the privileged.
Andre-Louis, already fully aware of the trend of feeling in the ranks
of an order in whose deliberations he took part as the representative of a
nobleman, was not at all surprised by what he heard. M. de Vilmorin found it
exasperating that his friend should apparently decline to share his own
indignation.
"Don't you see what it means?" he cried. "The nobles, by disobeying the
King, are striking at the very foundations of the throne. Don't they
perceive that their very existence depends upon it; that if the throne falls
over, it is they who stand nearest to it who will be crushed? Don't they see
that?"
"Evidently not. They are just governing classes, and I never heard of
governing classes that had eyes for anything but their own profit."
"That is our grievance. That is what we are going to change."
"You are going to abolish governing classes? An interesting experiment.
I believe it was the original plan of creation, and it might have succeeded
but for Cain."
"What we are going to do," said M. de Vilmorin, curbing his
exasperation, "is to transfer the government to other hands."
"And you think that will make a difference?"
"I know it will."
"Ah! I take it that being now in minor orders, you already possess the
confidence of the Almighty. He will have confided to you His intention of
changing the pattern of mankind."
M. de Vilmorin's fine ascetic face grew overcast. "You are profane,
Andre," he reproved his friend.
"I assure you that I am quite serious. To do what you imply would
require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not
systems. Can you and our vapouring friends of the Literary Chamber of
Rennes, or any other learned society of France, devise a system of
government that has never yet been tried? Surely not. And can they say of
any system tried that it proved other than a failure in the end? My dear
Philippe, the future is to be read with certainty only in the past. Ab actu
ad posse valet consecutio. Man never changes. He is always greedy, always
acquisitive, always vile. I am speaking of Man in the bulk."
"Do you pretend that it is impossible to ameliorate the lot of the
people?" M. de Vilmorin challenged him.
"When you say the people you mean, of course, the populace. Will you
abolish it? That is the only way to ameliorate its lot, for as long as it
remains populace its lot will be damnation."
"You argue, of course, for the side that employs you. That is natural,
I suppose." M. de Vilmorin spoke between sorrow and indignation.
"On the contrary, I seek to argue with absolute detachment. Let us test
these ideas of yours. To what form of government do you aspire? A republic,
it is to be inferred from what you have said. Well, you have it already.
France in reality is a republic to-day."
Philippe stared at him. "You are being paradoxical, I think. What of
the King?"
"The King? All the world knows there has been no king in France since
Louis XIV. There is an obese gentleman at Versailles who wears the crown,
but the very news you bring shows for how little he really counts. It is the
nobles and clergy who sit in the high places, with the people of France
harnessed under their feet, who are the real rulers. That is why I say that
France is a republic; she is a republic built on the best pattern - the
Roman pattern. Then, as now, there were great patrician families in luxury,
preserving for themselves power and wealth, and what else is accounted worth
possessing; and there was the populace crushed and groaning, sweating,
bleeding, starving, and perishing in the Roman kennels. That was a republic;
the mightiest we have seen."
Philippe strove with his impatience. "At least you will admit - you
have, in fact, admitted it - that we could not be worse governed than we
are?"
"That is not the point. The point is should we be better governed if we
replaced the present ruling class by another? Without some guarantee of that
I should be the last to lift a finger to effect a change. And what
guarantees can you give? What is the class that aims at government? I will
tell you. The bourgeoisie."
"What?"
"That startles you, eh? Truth is so often disconcerting. You hadn't
thought of it? Well, think of it now. Look well into this Nantes manifesto.
Who are the authors of it?"
"I can tell you who it was constrained the municipality of Nantes to
send it to the King. Some ten thousand workmen - shipwrights, weavers,
labourers, and artisans of every kind."
"Stimulated to it, driven to it, by their employers, the wealthy
traders and shipowners of that city," Andre-Louis replied. "I have a habit
of observing things at close quarters, which is why our colleagues of the
Literary Chamber dislike me so cordially in debate. Where I delve they but
skim. Behind those labourers and artisans of Nantes, counselling them,
urging on these poor, stupid, ignorant toilers to shed their blood in
pursuit of the will o' the wisp of freedom, are the sail-makers, the
spinners, the ship-owners and the slave-traders. The slave-traders! The men
who live and grow rich by a traffic in human flesh and blood in the
colonies, are conducting at home a campaign in the sacred name of liberty!
Don't you see that the whole movement is a movement of hucksters and traders
and peddling vassals swollen by wealth into envy of the power that lies in
birth alone? The money-changers in Paris who hold the bonds in the national
debt, seeing the parlous financial condition of the State, tremble at the
thought that it may lie in the power of a single man to cancel the debt by
bankruptcy. To secure themselves they are burrowing underground to overthrow
a state and build upon its ruins a new one in which they shall be the
masters. And to accomplish this they inflame the people. Already in Dauphiny
we have seen blood run like water - the blood of the populace, always the
blood of the populace. Now in Brittany we may see the like. And if in the
end the new ideas prevail? if the seigneurial rule is overthrown, what then?
You will have exchanged an aristocracy for a plutocracy. Is that worth
while? Do you 'think that under money-changers and slave-traders and men who
have waxed rich in other ways by the ignoble arts of buying and selling, the
lot of the people will be any better than under their priests and nobles?
Has it ever occurred to you, Philippe, what it is that makes the rule of the
nobles so intolerable? Acquisitiveness. Acquisitiveness is the curse of
mankind. And shall you expect less acquisitiveness in men who have built
themselves up by acquisitiveness? Oh, I am ready to admit that the present
government is execrable, unjust, tyrannical - what you will; but I beg you
to look ahead, and to see that the government for which it is aimed at
exchanging it may be infinitely worse."
Philippe sat thoughtful a moment. Then he returned to the attack.
"You do not speak of the abuses, the horrible, intolerable abuses of
power under which we labour at present."
"Where there is power there will always be the abuse of it."
"Not if the tenure of power is dependent upon its equitable
administration."
"The tenure of power is power. We cannot dictate to those who hold it."
"The people can - the people in its might."
"Again I ask you, when you say the people do you mean the populace? You
do. What power can the populace wield? It can run wild. It can burn and slay
for a time. But enduring power it cannot wield, because power demands
qualities which the populace does not possess, or it would not be populace.
The inevitable, tragic corollary of civilization is populace. For the rest,
abuses can be corrected by equity; and equity, if it is not found in the
enlightened, is not to be found at all. M. Necker is to set about correcting
abuses, and limiting privileges. That is decided. To that end the States
General are to assemble."
"And a promising beginning we have made in Brittany, as Heaven hears
me!" cried Philippe.
"Pooh! That is nothing. Naturally the nobles will not yield without a
struggle. It is a futile and ridiculous struggle - but then... it is human
nature, I suppose, to be futile and ridiculous."
M. de Vilmorin became witheringly sarcastic. "Probably you will also
qualify the shooting of Mabey as futile and ridiculous. I should even be
prepared to hear you argue in defence of the Marquis de La Tour d' Azyr that
his gamekeeper was merciful in shooting Mabey, since the alternative would
have been a life-sentence to the galleys."
Andre-Louis drank the remainder of his chocolate; set down his cup, and
pushed back his chair, his breakfast done.
"I confess that I have not your big charity, my dear Philippe. I am
touched by Mabey's fate. But, having conquered the shock of this news to my
emotions, I do not forget that, after all, Mabey was thieving when he met
his death."
M. de Vilmorin heaved himself up in his indignation.
"That is the point of view to be expected in one who is the assistant
fiscal intendant of a nobleman, and the delegate of a nobleman to the States
of Brittany."
"Philippe, is that just? You are angry with me!" he cried, in real
solicitude.
"I am hurt," Vilmorin admitted. "I am deeply hurt by your attitude. And
I am not alone in resenting your reactionary tendencies. Do you know that
the Literary Chamber is seriously considering your expulsion?"
Andre-Louis shrugged. "That neither surprises nor troubles me."
M. de Vilmorin swept on, passionately: "Sometimes I think that you have
no heart. With you it is always the law, never equity. It occurs to me,
Andre, that I was mistaken in coming to you. You are not likely to be of
assistance to me in my interview with M. de Kercadiou." He took up his hat,
clearly with the intention of departing.
Andre-Louis sprang up and caught him by the arm.
"I vow," said he, "that this is the last time ever I shall consent to
talk law or politics with you, Philippe. I love you too well to quarrel with
you over other men's affairs."
"But I make them my own," Philippe insisted vehemently.
"Of course you do, and I love you for it. It is right that you should.
You are to be a priest; and everybody's business is a priest's business.
Whereas I am a lawyer - the fiscal intendant of a nobleman, as you say - and
a lawyer's business is the business of his client. That is the difference
between us. Nevertheless, you are not going to shake me off."
"But I tell you frankly, now that I come to think of it, that I should
prefer you did not see M. de Kercadiou with me. Your duty to your client
cannot be a help to me."
His wrath had passed; but his determination remained firm, based upon
the reason he gave.
"Very well," said Andre-Louis. "It shall be as you please. But nothing
shall prevent me at least from walking with you as far as the chateau, and
waiting for you while you make your appeal to M. de Kercadiou."
And so they left the house good friends, for the sweetness of M. de
Vilmorin's nature did not admit of rancour, and together they took their way
up the steep main street of Gavrillac.
The sleepy village of Gavrillac, a half-league removed from the main
road to Rennes, and therefore undisturbed by the world's traffic, lay in a
curve of the River Meu, at the foot, and straggling halfway up the slope, of
the shallow hill that was crowned by the squat manor. By the time Gavrillac
had paid tribute to its seigneur - partly in money and partly in service -
tithes to the Church, and imposts to the King, it was hard put to it to keep
body and soul together with what remained. Yet, hard as conditions were in
Gavrillac, they were not so hard as in many other parts of France, not half
so hard, for instance, as with the wretched feudatories of the great Lord of
La Tour d'Azyr, whose vast possessions were at one point separated from this
little village by the waters of the Meu.
The Chateau de Gavrillac owed such seigneurial airs as might be claimed
for it to its dominant position above the village rather than to any feature
of its own. Built of granite, like all the rest of Gavrillac, though
mellowed by some three centuries of existence, it was a squat, flat-fronted
edifice of two stories, each lighted by four windows with external wooden
shutters, and flanked at either end by two square towers or pavilions under
extinguisher roofs. Standing well back in a garden, denuded now, but very
pleasant in summer, and immediately fronted by a fine sweep of balustraded
terrace, it looked, what indeed it was, and always had been, the residence
of unpretentious folk who found more interest in husbandry than in
adventure.
Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac - Seigneur de Gavrillac was all
the vague title that he bore, as his forefathers had borne before him,
derived no man knew whence or how - confirmed the impression that his house
conveyed. Rude as the granite itself, he had never sought the experience of
courts, had not even taken service in the armies of his King. He left it to
his younger brother, Etienne, to represent the family in those exalted
spheres. His own interests from earliest years had been centred in his woods
and pastures. He hunted, and he cultivated his acres, and superficially he
appeared to be little better than any of his rustic metayers. He kept no
state, or at least no state commensurate with his position or with the
tastes of his niece Aline de Kercadiou. Aline, having spent some two years
in the court atmosphere of Versailles under the aegis of her uncle Etienne,
had ideas very different from those of her uncle Quintin of what was
befitting seigneurial dignity. But though this only child of a third
Kercadiou had exercised, ever since she was left an orphan at the early age
of four, a tyrannical rule over the Lord of Gavrillac, who had been father
and mother to her, she had never yet succeeded in beating down his
stubbornness on that score. She did not yet despair - persistence being a
dominant note in her character - although she had been assiduously and
fruitlessly at work since her return from the great world of Versailles some
three months ago.
She was walking on the terrace when Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin
arrived. Her slight body was wrapped against the chill air in a white
pelisse; her head was encased in a close-fitting bonnet, edged with white
fur. It was caught tight in a knot of pale-blue ribbon on the right of her
chin; on the left a long ringlet of corn-coloured hair had been permitted to
escape. The keen air had whipped so much of her cheeks as was presented to
it, and seemed to have added sparkle to eyes that were of darkest blue.
Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin had been known to her from childhood.
The three had been playmates once, and Andre-Louis - in view of his
spiritual relationship with her uncle - she called her cousin. The cousinly
relations had persisted between these two long after Philippe de Vilmorin
had outgrown the earlier intimacy, and had become to her Monsieur de
Vilmorin.
She waved her hand to them in greeting as they advanced, and stood
- an entrancing picture, and fully conscious of it - to await them at
the end of the terrace nearest the short avenue by which they approached.
"If you come to see monsieur my uncle, you come inopportunely,
messieurs," she told them, a certain feverishness in her air. "He is closely
- oh, so very closely - engaged."
"We will wait, mademoiselle," said M. de Vilmorin, bowing gallantly
over the hand she extended to him. "Indeed, who would haste to the uncle
that may tarry a moment with the niece?"
"M. l'abbe," she teased him, "when you are in orders I shall take you
for my confessor. You have so ready and sympathetic an understanding."
"But no curiosity," said Andre-Louis. "You haven't thought of that."
"I wonder what you mean, Cousin Andre."
"Well you may," laughed Philippe. "For no one ever knows." And then,
his glance straying across the terrace settled upon a carriage that was
drawn up before the door of the chateau. It was a vehicle such as was often
to be seen in the streets of a great city, but rarely in the country. It was
a beautifully sprung two-horse cabriolet of walnut, with a varnish upon it
like a sheet of glass and little pastoral scenes exquisitely painted on the
panels of the door. It was built to carry two persons, with a box in front
for the coachman, and a stand behind for the footman. This stand was empty,
but the footman paced before the door, and as he emerged now from behind the
vehicle into the range of M. de Vilmorin's vision, he displayed the
resplendent blue-and-gold livery of the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr.
"Why!" he exclaimed. "Is it M. de La Tour d'Azyr who is with your
uncle?"
"It is, monsieur," said she, a world of mystery in voice and eyes, of
which M. de Vilmorin observed nothing.
"Ah, pardon!" he bowed low, hat in hand. "Serviteur, mademoiselle," and
he turned to depart towards the house.
"Shall I come with you, Philippe?" Andre-Louis called after him.
"It would be ungallant to assume that you would prefer it," said M. de
Vilmorin, with a glance at mademoiselle. "Nor do I think it would serve. If
you will wait... "
M. de Vilmorin strode off. Mademoiselle, after a moment's blank pause,
laughed ripplingly. "Now where is he going in such a hurry?"
"To see M. de La Tour d'Azyr as well as your uncle, I should say."
"But he cannot. They cannot see him. Did I not say that they are very
closely engaged? You don't ask me why, Andre" There was an arch
mysteriousness about her, a latent something that may have been elation or
amusement, or perhaps both. Andre-Louis could not determine it.
"Since obviously you are all eagerness to tell, why should I ask?"
quoth he.
"If you are caustic I shall not tell you even if you ask. Oh, yes, I
will. It will teach you to treat me with the respect that is my due."
"I hope I shall never fail in that."
"Less than ever when you learn that I am very closely concerned in the
visit of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. I am the object of this visit." And she
looked at him with sparkling eyes and lips parted in laughter.
"The rest, you would seem to imply, is obvious. But I am a dolt, if you
please; for it is not obvious to me."
"Why, stupid, he comes to ask my hand in marriage."
"Good God!" said Andre-Louis, and stared at her, chapfallen.
She drew back from him a little with a frown and an upward tilt of her
chin. "It surprises you?"
"It disgusts me," said he, bluntly. "In fact, I don't believe it. You
are amusing yourself with me."
For a moment she put aside her visible annoyance to remove his doubts.
"I am quite serious, monsieur. There came a formal letter to my uncle this
morning from M. de La Tour d'Azyr, announcing the visit and its object. I
will not say that it did not surprise us a little..
"Oh, I see," cried Andre-Louis, in relief. "I understand. For a moment
I had almost feared... " He broke off, looked at her, and shrugged.
"Why do you stop? You had almost feared that Versailles had been wasted
upon me. That I should permit the court-ship of me to be conducted like that
of any village wench. It was stupid of you. I am being sought in proper
form, at my uncle's hands."
"Is his consent, then, all that matters, according to Versailles?"
"What else?"
"There is your own."
She laughed. "I am a dutiful niece... when it suits me."
"And will it suit you to be dutiful if your uncle accepts this
monstrous proposal?"
"Monstrous!" She bridled. "And why monstrous, if you please?"
"For a score of reasons," he answered irritably.
"Give me one," she challenged him.
"He is twice your age."
"Hardly so much," said she.
"He is forty-five, at least."
"But he looks no more than thirty. He is very handsome - so much you
will admit; nor will you deny that he is very wealthy and very powerful; the
greatest nobleman in Brittany. He will make me a great lady."
"God made you that, Aline."
"Come, that's better. Sometimes you can almost be polite." And she
moved along the terrace, Andre-Louis pacing beside her.
"I can be more than that to show reason why you should not let this
beast befoul the beautiful thing that God has made."
She frowned, and her lips tightened. "You are speaking of my future
husband," she reproved him.
His lips tightened too; his pale face grew paler.
"And is it so? It is settled, then? Your uncle is to agree? You are to
be sold thus, lovelessly, into bondage to a man you do not know. I had
dreamed of better things for you, Aline."
"Better than to be Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr?"
He made a gesture of exasperation. "Are men and women nothing more than
names? Do the souls of them count for nothing? Is there no joy in life, no
happiness, that wealth and pleasure and empty, high-sounding titles are to
be its only aims? I had set you high
- so high, Aline - a thing scarce earthly. There is joy in your heart,
intelligence in your mind; and, as I thought, the vision that pierces husks
and shams to claim the core of reality for its own. Yet you will surrender
all for a parcel of make-believe. You will sell your soul and your body to
be Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr."
"You are indelicate," said she, and though she frowned her eyes
laughed. "And you go headlong to conclusions. My uncle will not consent to
more than to allow my consent to be sought. We understand each other, my
uncle and I. I am not to be bartered like a turnip."
He stood still to face her, his eyes glowing, a flush creeping into his
pale cheeks.
"You have been torturing me to amuse yourself!" he cried. "Ah, well, I
forgive you out of my relief."
"Again you go too fast, Cousin Andre I have permitted my uncle to
consent that M. le Marquis shall make his court to me. I like the look of
the gentleman. I am flattered by his preference when I consider his
eminence. It is an eminence that I may find it desirable to share. M. le
Marquis does not look as if he were a dullard. It should be interesting to
be wooed by him. It may be more interesting still to marry him, and I think,
when all is considered, that I shall probably - very probably - decide to do
so."
He looked at her, looked at the sweet, challenging loveliness of that
childlike face so tightly framed in the oval of white fur, and all the life
seemed to go out of his own countenance.
"God help you, Aline!" he groaned.
She stamped her foot. He was really very exasperating, and something
presumptuous too, she thought.
"You are insolent, monsieur."
"It is never insolent to pray, Aline. And I did no more than pray, as I
shall continue to do. You'll need my prayers, I think."
"You are insufferable!" She was growing angry, as he saw by the
deepening frown, the heightened colour.
"That is because I suffer. Oh, Aline, little cousin, think well of what
you do; think well of the realities you will be bartering for these shams -
the realities that you will never know, because these cursed shams will
block your way to them. When M. de La Tour d'Azyr comes to make his court,
study him well; consult your fine instincts; leave your own noble nature
free to judge this animal by its intuitions. Consider that... "
"I consider, monsieur, that you presume upon the kindness I have always
shown you. You abuse the position of toleration in which you stand. Who are
you? What are you, that you should have the insolence to take this tone with
me?"
He bowed, instantly his cold, detached self again, and resumed the
mockery that was his natural habit.
"My congratulations, mademoiselle, upon the readiness with which you
begin to adapt yourself to the great role you are to play."
"Do you adapt yourself also, monsieur," she retorted angrily, and
turned her shoulder to him.
"To be as the dust beneath the haughty feet of Madame la Marquise. I
hope I shall know my place in future."
The phrase arrested her. She turned to him again, and he perceived that
her eyes were shining now suspiciously. In an instant the mockery in him was
quenched in contrition.
"Lord, what a beast I am, Aline!" he cried, as he advanced. "Forgive me
if you can."
Almost had she turned to sue forgiveness from him. But his contrition
removed the need.
"I'll try," said she, "provided that you undertake not to offend again.
"But I shall," said he. "I am like that. I will fight to save you, from
yourself if need be, whether you forgive me or not."
They were standing so, confronting each other a little breathlessly, a
little defiantly, when the others issued from the porch.
First came the Marquis of La Tour d'Azyr, Count of Solz, Knight of the
Orders of the Holy Ghost and Saint Louis, and Brigadier in the armies of the
King. He was a tall, graceful man, upright and soldierly of carriage, with
his head disdainfully set upon his shoulders. He was magnificently dressed
in a full-skirted coat of mulberry velvet that was laced with gold. His
waistcoat, of velvet too, was of a golden apricot colour; his breeches and
stockings were of black silk, and his lacquered, red-heeled shoes were
buckled in diamonds. His powdered hair was tied behind in a broad ribbon of
watered silk; he carried a little three-cornered hat under his arm, and a
gold-hilted slender dress-sword hung at his side.
Considering him now in complete detachment, observing the magnificence
of him, the elegance of his movements, the great air, blending in so
extraordinary a manner disdain and graciousness, Andre-Louis trembled for
Aline. Here was a practised, irresistible wooer, whose bonnes fortunes were
become a by-word, a man who had hitherto been the despair of dowagers with
marriageable daughters, and the desolation of husbands with attractive
wives.
He was immediately followed by M. de Kercadiou, in completest contrast.
On legs of the shortest, the Lord of Gavrillac carried a body that at
forty-five was beginning to incline to corpulence and an enormous head
containing an indifferent allotment of intelligence. His countenance was
pink and blotchy, liberally branded by the smallpox which had almost
extinguished him in youth. In dress he was careless to the point of
untidiness, and to this and to the fact that he had never married -
disregarding the first duty of a gentleman to provide himself with an heir -
he owed the character of misogynist attributed to him by the countryside.
After M. de Kercadiou came M. de Vilmorin, very pale and
self-contained, with tight lips and an overcast brow.
To meet them, there stepped from the carriage a very elegant young
gentleman, the Chevalier de Chabrillane, M. de La Tour d'Azyr's cousin, who
whilst awaiting his return had watched with considerable interest - his own
presence unsuspected - the perambulations of Andre-Louis and mademoiselle.
Perceiving Aline, M. de La Tour d'Azyr detached himself from the
others, and lengthening his stride came straight across the terrace to her.
To Andre-Louis the Marquis inclined his head with that mixture of
courtliness and condescension which he used. Socially, the young lawyer
stood in a curious position. By virtue of the theory of his birth, he ranked
neither as noble nor as simple, but stood somewhere between the two classes,
and whilst claimed by neither he was used familiarly by both. Coldly now he
returned M. de La Tour d'Azyr's greeting, and discreetly removed himself to
go and join his friend.
The Marquis took the hand that mademoiselle extended to him, and bowing
over it, bore it to his lips.
"Mademoiselle," he said, looking into the blue depths of her eyes, that
met his gaze smiling and untroubled, "monsieur your uncle does me the honour
to permit that I pay my homage to you. Will you, mademoiselle, do me the
honour to receive me when I come to-morrow? I shall have something of great
importance for your ear."
"Of importance, M. le Marquis? You almost frighten me." But there was
no fear on the serene little face in its furred hood. It was not for nothing
that she had graduated in the Versailles school of artificialities.
"That," said he, "is very far from my design."
"But of importance to yourself, monsieur, or to me?"
"To us both, I hope," he answered her, a world of meaning in his fine,
ardent eyes.
"You whet my curiosity, monsieur; and, of course, I am a dutiful niece.
It follows that I shall be honoured to receive you."
"Not honoured, mademoiselle; you will confer the honour. To-morrow at
this hour, then, I shall have the felicity to wait upon you."
He bowed again; and again he bore her fingers to his lips, what time
she curtsied. Thereupon, with no more than this formal breaking of the ice,
they parted.
She was a little breathless now, a little dazzled by the beauty of the
man, his princely air, and the confidence of power he seemed to radiate.
Involuntarily almost, she contrasted him with his critic
- the lean and impudent Andre-Louis in his plain brown coat and
steel-buckled shoes - and she felt guilty of an unpardonable offence in
having permitted even one word of that presumptuous criticism. To-morrow M.
le Marquis would come to offer her a great position, a great rank. And
already she had derogated from the increase of dignity accruing to her from
his very intention to translate her to so great an eminence. Not again would
she suffer it; not again would she be so weak and childish as to permit
Andre-Louis to utter his ribald comments upon a man by comparison with whom
he was no better than a lackey.
Thus argued vanity and ambition with her better self and to her vast
annoyance her better self would not admit entire conviction.
Meanwhile, M. de La Tour d'Azyr was climbing into his carriage. He had
spoken a word of farewell to M. de Kercadiou, and he had also had a word for
M. de Vilmorin in reply to which M. de Vilmorin had bowed in assenting
silence. The carriage rolled away, the powdered footman in blue-and-gold
very stiff behind it, M. de La Tour d'Azyr bowing to mademoiselle, who waved
to him in answer.
Then M. de Vilmorin put his arm through that of Andre Louis, and said
to him, "Come, Andre."
"But you'll stay to dine, both of you!" cried the hospitable Lord of
Gavrillac. "We'll drink a certain toast," he added, winking an eye that
strayed towards mademoiselle, who was approaching. He had no subtleties,
good soul that he was.
M. de Vilmorin deplored an appointment that prevented him doing himself
the honour. He was very stiff and formal.
"And you, Andre?"
"I? Oh, I share the appointment, godfather," he lied, "and I have a
superstition against toasts." He had no wish to remain. He was angry with
Aline for her smiling reception of M. de La Tour d'Azyr and the sordid
bargain he saw her set on making. He was suffering from the loss of an
illusion.
As they walked down the hill together, it was now M. de Vilmorin who
was silent and preoccupied, Andre-Louis who was talkative. He had chosen
Woman as a subject for his present discourse. He claimed
- quite unjustifiably - to have discovered Woman that morning; and the
things he had to say of the sex were unflattering, and occasionally almost
gross. M. de Vilmorin, having ascertained the subject, did not listen.
Singular though it may seem in a young French abbe of his day, M. de
Vilmorin was not interested in Woman. Poor Philippe was in several ways
exceptional. Opposite the Breton arme - the inn and posting-house at the
entrance of the village of Gavrillac - M. de Vilmorin interrupted his
companion just as he was soaring to the dizziest heights of caustic
invective, and Andre-Louis, restored thereby to actualities, observed the
carriage of M. de La Tour d'Azyr standing before the door of the hostelry.
"I don't believe you've been listening to me," said he.
"Had you been less interested in what you were saying, you might have
observed it sooner and spared your breath. The fact is, you disappoint me,
Andre. You seem to have forgotten what we went for. I have an appointment
here with M. le Marquis. He desires to hear me further in the matter. Up
there at Gavrillac I could accomplish nothing. The time was ill-chosen as it
happened. But I have hopes of M. le Marquis."
"Hopes of what?"
"That he will make what reparation lies in his power. Provide for the
widow and the orphans. Why else should he desire to hear me further?"
"Unusual condescension," said Andre-Louis, and quoted "Timeo Danaos et
dona ferentes."
"Why?" asked Philippe.
"Let us go and discover - unless you consider that I shall be in the
way."
Into a room on the right, rendered private to M. le Marquis for so long
as he should elect to honour it, the young men were ushered by the host. A
fire of logs was burning brightly at the room's far end, and by this sat now
M. de La Tour d'Azyr and his cousin, the Chevalier de Chabrillane. Both rose
as M. de Vilmorin came in. Andre-Louis following, paused to close the door.
"You oblige me by your prompt courtesy, M. de Vilmorin," said the
Marquis, but in a tone so cold as to belie the politeness of his words. "A
chair, I beg. Ah, Moreau?" The note was frigidly interrogative. "He
accompanies you, monsieur?" he asked.
"If you please, M. le Marquis."
"Why not? Find yourself a seat, Moreau." He spoke over his shoulder as
to a lackey.
"It is good of you, monsieur," said Philippe, "to have offered me this
opportunity of continuing the subject that took me so fruitlessly, as it
happens, to Gavrillac."
The Marquis crossed his legs, and held one of his fine hands to the
blaze. He replied, without troubling to turn to the young man, who was
slightly behind him.
"The goodness of my request we will leave out of question for the
moment," said he, darkly, and M. de Chabrillane laughed. Andre-Louis thought
him easily moved to mirth, and almost envied him the faculty.
"But I am grateful," Philippe insisted, "that you should condescend to
hear me plead their cause.
The Marquis stared at him over his shoulder. "Whose cause?" quoth he.
"Why, the cause of the widow and orphans of this unfortunate Mabey."
The Marquis looked from Vilmorin to the Chevalier, and again the
Chevalier laughed, slapping his leg this time.
"I think," said M. de La Tour d'Azyr, slowly, "that we are at
cross-purposes. I asked you to come here because the Chateau de Gavrillac
was hardly a suitable place in which to carry our discussion further, and
because I hesitated to incommode you by suggesting that you should come all
the way to Azyr. But my object is connected with certain expressions that
you let fall up there. It is on the subject of those expressions, monsieur,
that I would hear you further - if you will honour me."
Andre-Louis began to apprehend that there was something sinister in the
air. He was a man of quick intuitions, quicker far than those of M. de
Vilmorin, who evinced no more than a mild surprise.
"I am at a loss, monsieur," said he. "To what expressions does monsieur
allude?"
"It seems, monsieur, that I must refresh your memory." The Marquis
crossed his legs, and swung sideways on his chair, so that at last he
directly faced M. de Vilmorin. "You spoke, monsieur - and however mistaken
you may have been, you spoke very eloquently, too eloquently almost, it
seemed to me - of the infamy of such a deed as the act of summary justice
upon this thieving fellow Mabey, or whatever his name may be. Infamy was the
precise word you used. You did not retract that word when I had the honour
to inform you that it was by my orders that my gamekeeper Benet proceeded as
he did."
"If," said M. de Vilmorin, "the deed was infamous, its infamy is not
modified by the rank, however exalted, of the person responsible. Rather is
it aggravated."
"Ah!" said M. le Marquis, and drew a gold snuffbox from his pocket.
"You say, 'if the deed was infamous,' monsieur. Am I to understand that you
are no longer as convinced as you appeared to be of its infamy?"
M. de Vilmorin's fine face wore a look of perplexity. He did not
understand the drift of this.