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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Cockade, by Stanley J. Weyman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Cockade
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2012 [EBook #39297]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED COCKADE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the
+Web Archive (University of Toronto)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://www.archive.org/details/redcockade00weymuoft
+      (University of Toronto)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE RED COCKADE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      _WORKS BY STANLEY WEYMAN_.
+
+       The House of the Wolf.
+       A Gentleman of France.
+       Under the Red Robe.
+       My Lady Rotha.
+       The New Rector.
+       The Story of Francis Cludde.
+       The Man in Black.
+       From the Memoirs of a Minister of France.
+       The Red Cockade.
+
+
+
+
+                      ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "'MESSIEURS,' HE CRIED." _See page_ 21.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE RED COCKADE
+
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+                            STANLEY WEYMAN
+               AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON
+                       LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+                                 1895
+
+
+
+
+                              CONTENTS.
+
+
+   CHAPTER
+
+         I. The Marquis de St. Alais.
+
+        II. The Ordeal.
+
+       III. In the Assembly.
+
+        IV. L'ami du Peuple.
+
+         V. The Deputation.
+
+        VI. A Meeting in the Road.
+
+       VII. The Alarm.
+
+      VIII. Gargouf.
+
+        IX. The Tricolour.
+
+         X. The Morning after the Storm.
+
+        XI. The Two Camps.
+
+       XII. The Duel.
+
+      XIII. A la Lanterne.
+
+       XIV. It Goes Ill.
+
+        XV. At Milhau.
+
+       XVI. Three in a Carriage.
+
+      XVII. Froment of Nîmes.
+
+     XVIII. A Poor Figure.
+
+       XIX. At Nîmes
+
+        XX. The Search.
+
+       XXI. Rivals.
+
+      XXII. Noblesse Oblige.
+
+     XXIII. The Crisis.
+
+      XXIV. The Millennium.
+
+       XXV. Beyond the Shadow.
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE RED COCKADE.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I.
+
+                      THE MARQUIS DE ST. ALAIS.
+
+
+When we reached the terraced walk, which my father made a little
+before his death, and which, running under the windows at the rear of
+the Château, separates the house from the new lawn, St. Alais looked
+round with eyes of scarcely-veiled contempt.
+
+"What have you done with the garden?" he asked, his lip curling.
+
+"My father removed it to the other side of the house," I answered.
+
+"Out of sight?"
+
+"Yes," I said; "it is beyond the rose garden."
+
+"English fashion!" he answered with a shrug and a polite sneer. "And
+you prefer to see all this grass from your windows?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I do."
+
+"Ah! And that plantation? It hides the village, I suppose, from the
+house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He laughed. "Yes," he said. "I notice that that is the way of all who
+prate of the people, and freedom, and fraternity. They love the
+people; but they love them at a distance, on the farther side of a
+park or a high yew hedge. Now, at St. Alais I like to have my folks
+under my eye, and then, if they do not behave, there is the _carcan_.
+By the way, what have you done with yours, Vicomte? It used to stand
+opposite the entrance."
+
+"I have burned it," I said, feeling the blood mount to my temples.
+
+"Your father did, you mean?" he answered, with a glance of surprise.
+
+"No," I said stubbornly, hating myself for being ashamed of that
+before St. Alais of which I had been proud enough when alone. "I did.
+I burned it last winter. I think the day of such things is past."
+
+The Marquis was not my senior by more than five years; but those five
+years, spent in Paris and Versailles, gave him a wondrous advantage,
+and I felt his look of contemptuous surprise as I should have felt a
+blow. However, he did not say anything at the moment, but after a
+short pause changed the subject and began to speak of my father;
+recalling him and things in connection with him in a tone of respect
+and affection that in a moment disarmed my resentment.
+
+"The first time that I shot a bird on the wing I was in his company!"
+he said, with the wonderful charm of manner that had been St. Alais'
+even in boyhood.
+
+"Twelve years ago," I said.
+
+"Even so, Monsieur," he replied with a laughing bow. "In those days
+there was a small boy with bare legs, who ran after me, and called me
+Victor, and thought me the greatest of men. I little dreamed that he
+would ever live to expound the rights of man to me. And, _Dieu!_
+Vicomte, I must keep Louis from you, or you will make him as great a
+reformer as yourself. However," he continued, passing from that
+subject with a smile and an easy gesture, "I did not come here to talk
+of him, but of one, M. le Vicomte, in whom you should feel even
+greater interest."
+
+I felt the blood mount to my temples again, but for a different
+reason. "Mademoiselle has come home?" I said.
+
+"Yesterday," he answered. "She will go with my mother to Cahors
+to-morrow, and take her first peep at the world. I do not doubt that
+among the many new things she will see, none will interest her more
+than the Vicomte de Saux."
+
+"Mademoiselle is well?" I said clumsily.
+
+"Perfectly," he answered with grave politeness, "as you will see for
+yourself to-morrow evening, if we do not meet on the road. I daresay
+that you will like a week or so to commend yourself to her, M. le
+Vicomte? And after that, whenever Madame la Marquise and you can
+settle the date, and so forth, the match had better come off--while I
+am here."
+
+I bowed. I had been expecting to hear this for a week past; but from
+Louis, who was on brotherly terms with me, not from Victor. The latter
+had indeed been my boyish idol; but that was years ago, before Court
+life and a long stay at Versailles and St. Cloud had changed him into
+the splendid-looking man I saw before me, the raillery of whose eye I
+found it as difficult to meet as I found it impossible to match the
+aplomb of his manner. Still, I strove to make such acknowledgments as
+became me; and to adopt that nice mixture of self-respect, politeness,
+and devotion which I knew that the occasion, formally treated,
+required. But my tongue stumbled, and in a moment he relieved me.
+
+"Well, you must tell that to Denise," he said pleasantly; "doubtless
+you will find her a patient listener. At first, of course," he
+continued, pulling on his gauntlets and smiling faintly, "she will be
+a little shy. I have no doubt that the good sisters have brought her
+up to regard a man in much the same light as a wolf; and a suitor as
+something worse. But, _eh bien, mon ami!_ women are women after all,
+and in a week or two you will commend yourself. We may hope, then, to
+see you to-morrow evening--if not before?"
+
+"Most certainly, M. le Marquis."
+
+"Why not Victor?" he answered, laying his hand on my arm with a touch
+of the old _bonhomie_. "We shall soon be brothers, and then,
+doubtless, shall hate one another. In the meantime, give me your
+company to the gates. There was one other thing I wanted to name to
+you. Let me see--what was it?"
+
+But either he could not immediately remember, or he found a difficulty
+in introducing the subject, for we were nearly half-way down the
+avenue of walnut trees that leads to the village when he spoke again.
+Then he plunged into the matter abruptly.
+
+"You have heard of this protest?" he said.
+
+"Yes," I answered reluctantly and with a foresight of trouble.
+
+"You will sign it, of course?"
+
+He had hesitated before he asked the question; I hesitated before I
+answered it. The protest to which he referred--how formal the phrase
+now sounds, though we know that under it lay the beginning of trouble
+and a new world--was one which it was proposed to move in the coming
+meeting of the _noblesse_ at Cahors; its aim, to condemn the conduct
+of our representatives at Versailles, in consenting to sit with the
+Third Estate.
+
+Now, for myself, whatever had been my original views on this
+question--and, as a fact, I should have preferred to see reform
+following the English model, the nobles' house remaining separate--I
+regarded the step, now it was taken, and legalised by the King, as
+irrevocable; and protest as useless. More, I could not help knowing
+that those who were moving the protest desired also to refuse all
+reform, to cling to all privileges, to balk all hopes of better
+government; hopes, which had been rising higher, day by day, since the
+elections, and which it might not now be so safe or so easy to balk.
+Without swallowing convictions, therefore, which were pretty well
+known, I could not see my way to supporting it. And I hesitated.
+
+"Well?" he said at last, finding me still silent.
+
+"I do not think that I can," I answered, flushing.
+
+"Can support it?"
+
+"No," I said.
+
+He laughed genially. "Pooh!" he said. "I think that you will. I want
+your promise, Vicomte. It is a small matter; a trifle, and of no
+importance; but we must be unanimous. That is the one thing
+necessary."
+
+I shook my head. We had both come to a halt under the trees, a little
+within the gates. His servant was leading the horses up and down the
+road.
+
+"Come," he persisted pleasantly: "you do not think that anything is
+going to come of this chaotic States General, which his Majesty was
+mad enough to let Neckar summon? They met on the 4th of May; this is
+the 17th of July; and to this date they have done nothing but wrangle!
+Nothing! Presently they will be dismissed, and there will be an end of
+it!"
+
+"Why protest, then?" I said rather feebly.
+
+"I will tell you, my friend," he answered, smiling indulgently and
+tapping his boot with his whip. "Have you heard the latest news?"
+
+"What is it?" I replied cautiously. "Then I will tell you if I have
+heard it."
+
+"The King has dismissed Neckar!"
+
+"No!" I cried, unable to hide my surprise.
+
+"Yes," he answered; "the banker is dismissed. In a week his States
+General or National Assembly, or whatever he pleases to call it, will
+go too, and we shall be where we were before. Only, in the meantime,
+and to strengthen the King in the wise course he is at last pursuing,
+we must show that we are alive. We must show our sympathy with him. We
+must act. We must protest."
+
+"But, M. le Marquis," I said, a little heated, perhaps, by the news,
+"are you sure that the people will quietly endure this? Never was so
+bitter a winter as last winter; never a worse harvest, or such
+pinching. On the top of these, their hopes have been raised, and their
+minds excited by the elections, and----
+
+"Whom have we to thank for that?" he said, with a whimsical glance at
+me. "But, never fear, Vicomte; they will endure it. I know Paris; and
+I can assure you that it is not the Paris of the Fronde, though M. de
+Mirabeau would play the Retz. It is a peaceable, sensible Paris, and
+it will not rise. Except a bread riot or two, it has seen no rising to
+speak of for a century and a half: nothing that two companies of Swiss
+could not deal with as easily as D'Argenson cleared the Cour des
+Miracles. Believe me, there is no danger of that kind: with the least
+management, all will go well!"
+
+But his news had roused my antagonism. I found it more easy to resist
+him now.
+
+"I do not know," I said coldly; "I do not think that the matter is so
+simple as you say. The King must have money, or be bankrupt; the
+people have no money to pay him. I do not see how things can go back
+to the old state."
+
+M. de St. Alais looked at me with a gleam of anger in his eyes.
+
+"You mean, Vicomte," he said, "that you do not wish them to go back?"
+
+"I mean that the old state was impossible," I said stiffly. "It could
+not last. It cannot return."
+
+For a moment he did not answer, and we stood confronting one
+another--he just without, I just within, the gateway--the cool foliage
+stretching over us, the dust and July sunshine in the road beyond him;
+and if my face reflected his, it was flushed, and set, and determined.
+But in a twinkling his changed; he broke into an easy, polite laugh,
+and shrugged his shoulders with a touch of contempt.
+
+"Well," he said, "we will not argue; but I hope that you will sign.
+Think it over, M. le Vicomte, think it over. Because"--he paused, and
+looked at me gaily--"we do not know what may be depending upon it."
+
+"That is a reason," I answered quickly, "for thinking more before
+I----
+
+"It is a reason for thinking more before you refuse," he said, bowing
+very low, and this time without smiling. Then he turned to his horse,
+and his servant held the stirrup while he mounted. When he was in the
+saddle and had gathered up the reins, he bent his face to mine.
+
+"Of course," he said, speaking in a low voice, and with a searching
+look at me, "a contract is a contract, M. le Vicomte; and the
+Montagues and Capulets, like your _carcan_, are out of date. But, all
+the same, we must go one way--_comprenez-vous?_--we must go one
+way--or separate! At least, I think so."
+
+And nodding pleasantly, as if he had uttered in these words a
+compliment instead of a threat, he rode off; leaving me to stand and
+fret and fume, and finally to stride back under the trees with my
+thoughts in a whirl, and all my plans and hopes jarring one another in
+a petty copy of the confusion that that day prevailed, though I
+guessed it but dimly, from one end of France to the other.
+
+For I could not be blind to his meaning; nor ignorant that he had, no
+matter how politely, bidden me choose between the alliance with his
+family, which my father had arranged for me, and the political views
+in which my father had brought me up, and which a year's residence in
+England had not failed to strengthen. Alone in the Château since my
+father's death, I had lived a good deal in the future--in day-dreams
+of Denise de St. Alais, the fair girl who was to be my wife, and whom
+I had not seen since she went to her convent school; in day-dreams,
+also, of work to be done in spreading round me the prosperity I had
+seen in England. Now, St. Alais' words menaced one or other of these
+prospects; and that was bad enough. But, in truth, it was not that, so
+much as his presumption, that stung me; that made me swear one moment
+and laugh the next, in a kind of irritation not difficult to
+understand. I was twenty-two, he was twenty-seven; and he dictated to
+me! We were country bumpkins, he of the _haute politique_, and he had
+come from Versailles or from Paris to drill us! If I went his way I
+might marry his sister; if not, I might not! That was the position.
+
+No wonder that before he had left me half an hour I had made up my
+mind to resist him; and so spent the rest of the day composing sound
+and unanswerable reasons for the course I intended to take; now
+conning over a letter in which M. de Liancourt set forth his plan of
+reform, now summarising the opinions with which M. de Rochefoucauld
+had favoured me on his last journey to Luchon. In half an hour and the
+heat of temper! thinking no more than ten thousand others, who that
+week chose one of two courses, what I was doing. Gargouf, the St.
+Alais' steward, who doubtless heard that day the news of Neckar's
+fall, and rejoiced, had no foresight of what it meant to him. Father
+Benôit, the cure, who supped with me that evening, and heard the
+tidings with sorrow--he, too, had no special vision. And the
+innkeeper's son at La Bastide, by Cahors--probably he, also, heard the
+news; but no shadow of a sceptre fell across his path, nor any of a
+_bâton_ on that of the notary at the other La Bastide. A notary, a
+_bâton_! An innkeeper, a sceptre! _Mon Dieu!_ what conjunctions they
+would have seemed in those days! We should have been wiser than
+Daniel, and more prudent than Joseph, if we had foreseen such things
+under the old _régime_--in the old France, in the old world, that died
+in that month of July, 1789!
+
+And yet there were signs, even then, to be read by those with eyes,
+that foretold something, if but a tithe of the inconceivable future;
+of which signs I myself remarked sufficient by the way next day to
+fill my mind with other thoughts than private resentment; with some
+nobler aims than self-assertion. Riding to Cahors, with Gil and André
+at my back, I saw not only the havoc caused by the great frosts of the
+winter and spring, not only walnut trees blackened and withered, vines
+stricken, rye killed, a huge proportion of the land fallow, desert,
+gloomy and unsown: not only those common signs of poverty to which use
+had accustomed me--though on my first return from England I had viewed
+them with horror--mud cabins, I mean, and unglazed windows, starved
+cattle, and women bent double, gathering weeds. But I saw other things
+more ominous; a strange herding of men at cross-roads and bridges,
+where they waited for they knew not what; a something lowering in
+these men's silence, a something expectant in their faces; worst of
+all, a something dangerous in their scowling eyes and sunken cheeks.
+Hunger had pinched them; the elections had roused them. I trembled to
+think of the issue, and that in the hint of danger I had given St.
+Alais, I had been only too near the mark.
+
+A league farther on, where the woodlands skirt Cahors, I lost sight of
+these things; but for a time only. They reappeared presently in
+another form. The first view of the town, as, girt by the shining Lot,
+and protected by ramparts and towers, it nestles under the steep
+hills, is apt to take the eye; its matchless bridge, and time-worn
+Cathedral, and great palace seldom failing to rouse the admiration
+even of those who know them. But that day I saw none of these things.
+As I passed down towards the market-place they were selling grain
+under a guard of soldiers with fixed bayonets; and the starved faces
+of the waiting crowd that filled all that side of the square, their
+shrunken, half-naked figures, and dark looks, and the sullen
+muttering, which seemed so much at odds with the sunshine, occupied
+me, to the exclusion of everything else.
+
+Or not quite. I had eyes for one other thing, and that was the
+astonishing indifference with which those whom curiosity, or business,
+or habit had brought to the spot, viewed this spectacle. The inns were
+full of the gentry of the province, come to the Assembly; they looked
+on from the windows, as at a show, and talked and jested as if at home
+in their châteaux. Before the doors of the Cathedral a group of ladies
+and clergymen walked to and fro, and now and then they turned a
+listless eye on what was passing; but for the most part they seemed to
+be unconscious of it, or, at the best, to have no concern with it. I
+have heard it said since, that in those days we had two worlds in
+France, as far apart as hell and heaven; and what I saw that evening
+went far to prove it.
+
+In the square a shop at which pamphlets and journals were sold was
+full of customers, though other shops in the neighbourhood were
+closed, their owners fearing mischief. On the skirts of the crowd, and
+a little aloof from it, I saw Gargouf, the St. Alais' steward. He was
+talking to a countryman; and, as I passed, I heard him say with a
+gibe, "Well, has your National Assembly fed you yet?"
+
+"Not yet," the clown answered stupidly, "but I am told that in a few
+days they will satisfy everybody."
+
+"Not they!" the agent answered brutally. "Why, do you think that they
+will feed you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, by your leave; it is certain," the man said. "And, besides,
+every one is agreed----"
+
+But then Gargouf saw me, saluted me, and I heard no more. A moment
+later, however, I came on one of my own people, Buton, the blacksmith,
+in the middle of a muttering group. He looked at me sheepishly,
+finding himself caught; and I stopped, and rated him soundly, and saw
+him start for home before I went to my quarters.
+
+These were at the Trois Rois, where I always lay when in town; Doury,
+the innkeeper, providing a supper ordinary for the gentry at eight
+o'clock, at which it was the custom to dress and powder.
+
+The St. Alais had their own house in Cahors, and, as the Marquis had
+forewarned me, entertained that evening. The greater part of the
+company, indeed, repaired to them after the meal. I went myself a
+little late, that I might avoid any private talk with the Marquis; I
+found the rooms already full and brilliantly lighted, the staircase
+crowded with valets, and the strains of a harpsichord trickling
+melodiously from the windows. Madame de St. Alais was in the habit of
+entertaining the best company in the province; with less splendour,
+perhaps, than some, but with so much ease, and taste, and good
+breeding, that I look in vain for such a house in these days.
+
+Ordinarily, she preferred to people her rooms with pleasant groups,
+that, gracefully disposed, gave to a _salon_ an air elegant and
+pleasing, and in character with the costume of those days, the silks
+and laces, powder and diamonds, the full hoops and red-heeled shoes.
+But on this occasion the crowd and the splendour of the entertainment
+apprised me, as soon as I crossed the threshold, that I was assisting
+at a party of more than ordinary importance; nor had I advanced far
+before I guessed that it was a political rather than a social
+gathering. All, or almost all, who would attend the Assembly next day
+were here; and though, as I wound my way through the glittering crowd,
+I heard very little serious talk--so little, that I marvelled to think
+that people could discuss the respective merits of French and Italian
+opera, of Grétry and Bianchi, and the like, while so much hung in the
+balance--of the effect intended I had no doubt; nor that Madame, in
+assembling all the wit and beauty of the province, was aiming at
+things higher than amusement.
+
+With, I am bound to confess, a degree of success. At any rate it was
+difficult to mix with the throng which filled her rooms, to run the
+gauntlet of bright eyes and witty tongues, to breathe the atmosphere
+laden with perfume and music, without falling under the spell, without
+forgetting. Inside the door M. de Gontaut, one of my father's oldest
+friends, was talking with the two Harincourts. He greeted me with a
+sly smile, and pointed politely inwards.
+
+"Pass on, Monsieur," he said. "The farthest room. Ah! my friend, I
+wish I were young again!"
+
+"Your gain would be my loss, M. le Baron," I said civilly, and slid by
+him. Next, I had to speak to two or three ladies, who detained me with
+wicked congratulations of the same kind; and then I came on Louis. He
+clasped my hand, and we stood a moment together. The crowd elbowed us;
+a simpering fool at his shoulder was prating of the social contract.
+But as I felt the pressure of Louis' hand, and looked into his eyes,
+it seemed to me that a breath of air from the woods penetrated the
+room, and swept aside the heavy perfumes.
+
+Yet there was trouble in his look. He asked me if I had seen Victor.
+
+"Yesterday," I said, understanding him perfectly, and what was amiss.
+"Not to-day."
+
+"Nor Denise?"
+
+"No. I have not had the honour of seeing Mademoiselle."
+
+"Then, come," he answered. "My mother expected you earlier. What did
+you think of Victor?"
+
+"That he went Victor, and has returned a great personage!" I said,
+smiling.
+
+Louis laughed faintly, and lifted his eyebrows with a comical air of
+sufferance.
+
+"I was afraid so," he said. "He did not seem to be very well pleased
+with you. But we must all do his bidding--eh, Monsieur? And, in the
+meantime, come. My mother and Denise are in the farthest room."
+
+He led the way thither as he spoke; but we had first to go through the
+card-room, and then the crowd about the farther doorway was so dense
+that we could not immediately enter; and so I had time--while
+outwardly smiling and bowing--to feel a little suspense. At last we
+slipped through and entered a smaller room, where were only Madame la
+Marquise--who was standing in the middle of the floor talking with the
+Abbé Mesnil--two or three ladies, and Denise de St. Alais.
+
+Mademoiselle had her seat on a couch by one of the ladies; and
+naturally my eyes went first to her. She was dressed in white, and it
+struck me with the force of a blow how small, how childish she was!
+Very fair, of the purest complexion, and perfectly formed, she seemed
+to derive an extravagant, an absurd, air of dignity from the formality
+of her dress, from the height of the powdered hair that strained
+upwards from her forehead, from the stiffness of her brocaded
+petticoat. But she was very small. I had time to note this, to feel a
+little disappointment, and to fancy that, cast in a larger mould, she
+would have been supremely handsome; and then the lady beside her,
+seeing me, spoke to her, and the child--she was really little
+more--looked up, her face grown crimson. Our eyes met--thank God! she
+had Louis' eyes--and she looked down again, blushing painfully.
+
+I advanced to pay my respects to Madame, and kissed the hand, which,
+without at once breaking off her conversation, she extended to me.
+
+"But such powers!" the Abbé, who had something of the reputation of a
+_philosophe_, was saying to her. "Without limit! Without check!
+Misused, Madame----"
+
+"But the King is too good!" Madame la Marquise answered, smiling.
+
+"When well advised, I agree. But then the deficit?"
+
+The Marquise shrugged her shoulders. "His Majesty must have money,"
+she said.
+
+"Yes--but whence?" the Abbé asked, with answering shrug.
+
+"The King was too good at the beginning," Madame replied, with a
+touch of severity. "He should have made them register the edicts.
+However, the Parliament has always given way, and will do so again."
+
+"The Parliament--yes," the Abbé retorted, smiling indulgently. "But it
+is no longer a question of the Parliament; and the States General----"
+
+"States General pass," Madame responded grandly. "The King remains!"
+
+"Yet if trouble comes?"
+
+"It will not," Madame answered with the same grand air. "His Majesty
+will prevent it." And then with a word or two more she dismissed the
+Abbé and turned to me. She tapped me on the shoulder with her fan.
+"Ah! truant," she said, with a glance in which kindness and a little
+austerity were mingled. "I do not know what I am to say to you!
+Indeed, from the account Victor gave me yesterday, I hardly knew
+whether to expect you this evening or not. Are you sure that it is you
+who are here?"
+
+"I will answer for my heart, Madame," I answered, laying my hand upon
+it.
+
+Her eyes twinkled kindly.
+
+"Then," she said, "bring it where it is due, Monsieur." And she turned
+with a fine air of ceremony, and led me to her daughter. "Denise," she
+said, "this is M. le Vicomte de Saux, the son of my old, my good
+friend. M. le Vicomte--my daughter. Perhaps you will amuse her while I
+go back to the Abbé."
+
+Probably Mademoiselle had spent the evening in an agony of shyness,
+expecting this moment; for she curtesied to the floor, and then stood
+dumb and confused, forgetting even to sit down, until I covered her
+with fresh blushes by begging her to do so. When she had complied, I
+took my stand before her, with my hat in my hand; but between seeking
+for the right compliment, and trying to trace a likeness between her
+and the wild, brown-faced child of thirteen, whom I had known four
+years before--and from the dignified height of nineteen immeasurably
+despised--I grew shy myself.
+
+"You came home last week, Mademoiselle?" I said at last.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur," she answered, in a whisper, and with downcast eyes.
+
+"It must be a great change for you!"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+Silence: then, "Doubtless the Sisters were good to you?" I suggested.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Yet, you were not sorry to leave?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+But on that the meaning of what she had last said came home to her, or
+she felt the banality of her answers; for, on a sudden, she looked
+swiftly up at me, her face scarlet, and, if I was not mistaken, she
+was within a little of bursting into tears. The thought appalled me. I
+stooped lower.
+
+"Mademoiselle!" I said hurriedly, "pray do not be afraid of me.
+Whatever happens, you shall never have need to fear me. I beg of you
+to look on me as a friend--as your brother's friend. Louis is my----"
+
+Crash! While the name hung on my lips, something struck me on the
+back, and I staggered forward, almost into her arms; amid a shiver of
+broken glass, a flickering of lights, a rising chorus of screams and
+cries. For a moment I could not think what was happening, or had
+happened; the blow had taken away my breath. I was conscious only of
+Mademoiselle clinging terrified to my arm, of her face, wild with
+fright, looking up to me, of the sudden cessation of the music. Then,
+as people pressed in on us, and I began to recover, I turned and saw
+that the window behind me had been driven in, and the lead and panes
+shattered; and that among the _débris_ on the floor lay a great stone.
+It was that which had struck me.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER II.
+
+                             THE ORDEAL.
+
+
+It was wonderful how quickly the room filled--filled with angry faces,
+so that almost before I knew what had happened, I found a crowd round
+me, asking what it was; M. de St. Alais foremost. As all spoke at
+once, and in the background where they could not see, ladies were
+screaming and chattering, I might have found it difficult to explain.
+But the shattered window and the great stone on the floor spoke for
+themselves, and told more quickly than I could what had taken place.
+
+On the instant, with a speed which surprised me, the sight blew into a
+flame passions already smouldering. A dozen voices cried, "Out on the
+_canaille!_" In a moment some one in the background followed this up
+with "Swords, Messieurs, swords!" Then, in a trice half the gentlemen
+were elbowing one another towards the door, St. Alais, who burned to
+avenge the insult offered to his guests, taking the lead. M. de
+Gontaut and one or two of the elders tried to restrain him, but their
+remonstrances were in vain, and in a moment the room was almost
+emptied of men. They poured out into the street, and began to scour it
+with drawn blades and raised voices. A dozen valets, running out
+officiously with flambeaux, aided in the search; for a few minutes the
+street, as we who remained viewed it from the windows, seemed to be
+alive with moving lights and figures.
+
+But the rascals who had flung the stone, whatever the motive which
+inspired them, had fled in time; and presently our party returned,
+some a little ashamed of their violence, others laughing as they
+entered, and bewailing their silk stockings and spattered shoes; while
+a few, less fashionable or more impetuous, continued to denounce the
+insult, and threaten vengeance. At another time, the act might have
+seemed trivial, a childish insult; but in the strained state of public
+feeling it had an unpleasant and menacing air which was not lost on
+the more thoughtful. During the absence of the street party, the
+draught from the broken window had blown a curtain against some
+candles and set it alight; and though the stuff had been torn down
+with little damage, it still smoked among the _débris_ on the floor.
+This, with the startled faces of the ladies, and the shattered glass,
+gave a look of disorder and ruin to the room, where a few minutes
+before all had worn so seemly and festive an air.
+
+It did not surprise me, therefore, that St. Alais' face, stern enough
+at his entrance, grew darker as he looked round.
+
+"Where is my sister?" he said abruptly, almost rudely.
+
+"Here," Madame la Marquise answered. Denise had flown long before to
+her side, and was clinging to her.
+
+"She is not hurt?"
+
+"No," Madame answered, playfully tapping the girl's cheek. "M. de Saux
+had most reason to complain."
+
+"Save me from my friends, eh, Monsieur?" St. Alais said, with an
+unpleasant smile.
+
+I started. The words were not much in themselves, but the sneer
+underlying them was plain. I could scarcely pass it by. "If you think,
+M. le Marquis," I said sharply, "that I knew anything of this
+outrage----"
+
+"That you knew anything? _Ma foi_, no!" he replied lightly, and with
+a courtly gesture of deprecation. "We have not fallen to that yet.
+That any gentleman in this company should sink to play the fellow to
+those--is not possible! But I think we may draw a useful lesson from
+this, Messieurs," he continued, turning from me and addressing the
+company. "And that is a lesson to hold our own, or we shall soon lose
+all."
+
+A hum of approbation ran round the room.
+
+"To maintain privileges, or we shall lose rights."
+
+Twenty voices were raised in assent.
+
+"To stand now," he continued, his colour high, his hand raised, "or
+never!"
+
+"Then now! Now!"
+
+The cry rose suddenly not from one, but from a hundred throats--of men
+and women; in a moment the room catching his tone seemed to throb with
+enthusiasm, with the pulse of resolve. Men's eyes grew bright under
+the candles, they breathed quickly, and with heightened colour. Even
+the weakest felt the influence; the fool who had prated of the social
+contract and the rights of man was as loud as any. "Now! Now!" they
+cried with one voice.
+
+What followed on that I have never completely fathomed; nor whether it
+was a thing arranged, or merely an inspiration, born of the common
+enthusiasm. But while the windows still shook with that shout, and
+every eye was on him, M. de Alais stepped forward, the most gallant
+and perfect figure, and with a splendid gesture drew his sword.
+
+"Gentlemen!" he cried, "we are of one mind, of one voice. Let us be
+also in the fashion. If, while all the world is fighting to get and
+hold, we alone stand still and on the defensive--we court attack, and,
+what is worse, defeat! Let us unite then, while it is still time, and
+show that, in Quercy at least, our Order will stand or fall together.
+You have heard of the oath of the Tennis Court and the 20th of June.
+Let us, too, take an oath--this 22nd of July; not with uplifted hands
+like a club of wordy debaters, promising all things to all men; but
+with uplifted swords. As nobles and gentlemen, let us swear to stand
+by the rights, the privileges, and the exemptions of our Order!"
+
+A shout that made the candles flicker and jump, that filled the
+street, and was heard even in the distant market-place, greeted the
+proposal. Some drew their swords at once, and flourished them above
+their heads; while ladies waved their fans or kerchiefs. But the
+majority cried, "To the larger room! To the larger room!" And on the
+instant, as if in obedience to an order, the company turned that way,
+and flushed, and eager, pressed through the narrow doorway into the
+next room.
+
+There may have been some among them less enthusiastic than others;
+some more earnest in show than at heart; none, I am sure, who, on
+this, followed so slowly, so reluctantly, with so heavy a heart, and
+sure a presage of evil as I did. Already I foresaw the dilemma before
+me; but angry, hot-faced, and uncertain, I could discern no way out of
+it.
+
+If I could have escaped, and slipped clear from the room, I would have
+done so without scruple; but the stairs were on the farther side of
+the great room which we were entering, and a dense crowd cut me off
+from them; moreover, I felt that St. Alais' eye was upon me, and that,
+if he had not framed the ordeal to meet my case, and extort my
+support, he was at least determined, now that his blood was fired,
+that I should not evade it.
+
+Still I would not hasten the evil day, and I lingered near the inner
+door, hoping; but the Marquis, on reaching the middle of the room,
+mounted a chair and turned round; and so contrived still to face me.
+The mob of gentlemen formed themselves round him, the younger and more
+tumultuous uttering cries of "_Vive la Noblesse!_" And a fringe of
+ladies encircled all. The lights, the brilliant dresses and jewels on
+which they shone, the impassioned faces, the waving kerchiefs and
+bright eyes, rendered the scene one to be remembered, though at the
+moment I was conscious only of St. Alais' gaze.
+
+"Messieurs," he cried, "draw your swords, if you please!"
+
+They flashed out at the word, with a steely glitter which the mirrors
+reflected; and M. de St. Alais passed his eye slowly round, while all
+waited for the word. He stopped; his eye was on me.
+
+"M. de Saux," he said politely, "we are waiting for you."
+
+Naturally all turned to me. I strove to mutter something, and signed
+to him with my hand to go on. But I was too much confused to speak
+clearly; my only hope was that he would comply, out of prudence.
+
+But that was the last thing he thought of doing. "Will you take your
+place, Monsieur?" he said smoothly.
+
+Then I could escape no longer. A hundred eyes, some impatient, some
+merely curious, rested on me. My face burned.
+
+"I cannot do so," I answered.
+
+There fell a great silence from one end of the room to the other.
+
+"Why not, Monsieur, if I may ask?" St. Alais said still smoothly.
+
+"Because I am not--entirely at one with you," I stammered, meeting all
+eyes as bravely as I could. "My opinions are known, M. de St. Alais,"
+I went on more steadfastly. "I cannot swear."
+
+He stayed with his hand a dozen who would have cried out upon me.
+
+"Gently, Messieurs," he said, with a gesture of dignity, "gently, if
+you please. This is no place for threats. M. de Saux is my guest; and
+I have too great a respect for him not to respect his scruples. But I
+think that there is another way. I shall not venture to argue with him
+myself. But--Madame," he continued, smiling as he turned with an
+inimitable air to his mother, "I think that if you would permit
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais to play the recruiting-sergeant--for this
+one time--she could not fail to heal the breach."
+
+A murmur of laughter and subdued applause, a flutter of fans and
+women's eyes greeted the proposal. But, for a moment, Madame la
+Marquise, smiling and sphinx-like, stood still, and did not speak.
+Then she turned to her daughter, who, at the mention of her name, had
+cowered back, shrinking from sight.
+
+"Go, Denise," she said simply. "Ask M. de Saux to honour you by
+becoming your recruit."
+
+The girl came forward slowly, and with a visible tremor; nor shall I
+ever forget the misery of that moment, or the shame and obstinacy that
+alternately surged through my brain as I awaited her. Thought, quicker
+than lightning, showed me the trap into which I had fallen, a trap far
+more horrible than the dilemma I had foreseen. Nor was the poor girl
+herself, as she stood before me, tortured by shyness, and stammering
+her little petition in words barely intelligible, the least part of my
+pain.
+
+For to refuse her, in face of all those people, seemed a thing
+impossible. It seemed a thing as brutal as to strike her; an act as
+cruel, as churlish, as unworthy of a gentleman as to trample any
+helpless sensitive thing under foot! And I felt that; I felt it to the
+utmost. But I felt also that to assent was to turn my back on
+consistency, and my life; to consent to be a dupe, the victim of a
+ruse; to be a coward, though every one there might applaud me. I saw
+both these things, and for a moment I hesitated between rage and pity;
+while lights and fair faces, inquisitive or scornful, shifted mazily
+before my eyes. At last--
+
+"Mademoiselle, I cannot," I muttered. "I cannot."
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+It was not the girl's word, but Madame's, and it rang high and sharp
+through the room; so that I thanked God for the intervention. It
+cleared in a moment the confusion from my brain. I became myself. I
+turned to her; I bowed.
+
+"No, Madame, I cannot," I said firmly, doubting no longer, but
+stubborn, defiant, resolute. "My opinions are known. And I will not,
+even for Mademoiselle's sake, give the lie to them."
+
+As the last word fell from my lips, a glove, flung by an unseen hand,
+struck me on the cheek; and then for a moment the room seemed to go
+mad. Amid a storm of hisses, of "_Vaurien!_" and "_A bas le traître!_"
+a dozen blades were brandished in my face, a dozen challenges were
+flung at my head. I had not learned at that time how excitable is a
+crowd, how much less merciful than any member of it; and surprised and
+deafened by the tumult, which the shrieks of the ladies did not tend
+to diminish, I recoiled a pace.
+
+M. de St. Alais took advantage of the moment. He sprang down, and
+thrusting aside the blades which threatened me, flung himself in front
+of me.
+
+"Messieurs, listen!" he cried, above the uproar. "Listen, I beg! This
+gentleman is my guest. He is no longer of us, but he must go unharmed.
+A way! A way, if you please, for M. le Vicomte de Saux."
+
+They obeyed him reluctantly, and falling back to one side or the
+other, opened a way across the room to the door. He turned to me, and
+bowed low--his courtliest bow.
+
+"This way, Monsieur le Vicomte, if you please," he said. "Madame la
+Marquise will not trespass on your time any longer."
+
+I followed him with a burning face, down the narrow lane of shining
+parquet, under the chandelier, between the lines of mocking eyes; and
+not a man interposed. In dead silence I followed him to the door.
+There he stood aside, and bowed to me, and I to him; and I walked out
+mechanically--walked out alone.
+
+I passed through the lobby. The crowd of peeping, grinning lackeys
+that filled it stared at me, all eyes; but I was scarcely conscious of
+their impertinence or their presence. Until I reached the street, and
+the cold air revived me, I went like a man stunned, and unable to
+think. The blow had fallen on me so suddenly, so unexpectedly.
+
+When I did come a little to myself, my first feeling was rage. I had
+gone into M. de St. Alais' house that evening, possessing everything;
+I came out, stripped of friends, reputation, my betrothed! I had gone
+in, trusting to his friendship, the friendship that was a tradition in
+our families; he had worsted me by a trick. I stood in the street, and
+groaned as I thought of it; as I pictured the sorry figure I had cut
+amongst them, and reflected on what was before me.
+
+For, presently, I began to think that I had been a fool--that I should
+have given way. I could not, as I stood in the street there, foresee
+the future; nor know for certain that the old France was passing, and
+that even now, in Paris, its death-knell had gone forth. I had to live
+by the opinions of the people round me; to think, as I paced the
+streets, how I should face the company to-morrow, and whether I should
+fly, or whether I should fight. For in the meeting on the morrow----
+
+Ah! the Assembly. The word turned my thoughts into a new channel. I
+could have my revenge there. That I might not raise a jarring note
+_there_, they had cajoled me, and when cajolery failed, had insulted
+me. Well, I would show them that the new way would succeed no better
+than the old, and that where they had thought to suppress a Saux they
+had raised a Mirabeau. From this point I passed the night in a fever.
+Resentment spurred ambition; rage against my caste, a love of the
+people. Every sign of misery and famine that had passed before my eyes
+during the day recurred now, and was garnered for use. The early
+daylight found me still pacing my room, still thinking, composing,
+reciting; when André, my old body-servant, who had been also my
+father's, came at seven with a note in his hand, I was still in my
+clothes.
+
+Doubtless he had heard downstairs a garbled account of what had
+occurred, and my cheek burned. I took no notice of his gloomy looks,
+however, but, without speaking, I opened the note. It was not signed,
+but the handwriting was Louis'.
+
+"Go home," it ran, "and do not show yourself at the Assembly. They
+will challenge you one by one; the event is certain. Leave Cahors at
+once, or you are a dead man."
+
+That was all! I smiled bitterly at the weakness of the man who could
+do no more for his friend than this.
+
+"Who gave it to you?" I asked André.
+
+"A servant, Monsieur."
+
+"Whose?"
+
+But he muttered that he did not know; and I did not press him. He
+assisted me to change my dress; when I had done, he asked me at what
+hour I needed the horses.
+
+"The horses! For what?" I said, turning and staring at him.
+
+"To return, Monsieur."
+
+"But I do not return to-day!" I said in cold displeasure. "Of what are
+you speaking? We came only yesterday."
+
+"True, Monsieur," he muttered, continuing to potter over my dressing
+things, and keeping his back to me. "Still, it is a good day for
+returning."
+
+"You have been reading this note!" I cried wrathfully. "Who told you
+that----"
+
+"All the town knows!" he answered, shrugging his shoulders coolly. "It
+is, 'André, take your master home!' and, 'André, you have a hot-pate
+for a master,' and André this, and André that, until I am fairly
+muddled! Gil has a bloody nose, fighting a Harincourt lad that called
+Monsieur a fool; but for me, I am too old for fighting. And there is
+one other thing I am too old for," he continued, with a sniff.
+
+"What is that, impertinent?" I cried.
+
+"To bury another master."
+
+I waited a minute. Then I said: "You think that I shall be killed?"
+
+"It is the talk of the town!"
+
+I thought a moment. Then: "You served my father, André," I said.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur."
+
+"Yet you would have me run away?"
+
+He turned to me, and flung up his hands in despair.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" he cried, "I don't know what I would have! We are ruined
+by these _canaille_. As if God made them to do anything but dig and
+work; or we could do without poor! If you had never taken up with
+them, Monsieur----"
+
+"Silence, man!" I said sternly. "You know nothing about it. Go down
+now, and another time be more careful. You talk of the _canaille_ and
+the poor! What are you yourself?"
+
+"I, Monsieur?" he cried, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes--you!"
+
+He stared at me a moment with a face of bewilderment. Then slowly and
+sorrowfully he shook his head, and went out. He began to think me mad.
+
+When he was gone I did not at once move. I fancied it likely that if I
+showed myself in the streets before the Assembly met, I should be
+challenged, and forced to fight. I waited, therefore, until the hour
+of meeting was past; waited in the dull upper room, feeling the
+bitterness of isolation, and thinking, sometimes of Louis St. Alais,
+who had let me go, and spoken no word in my behalf, sometimes of men's
+unreasonableness; for in some of the provinces half of the nobility
+were of my way of thinking. I thought of Saux, too; and I will not say
+that I felt no temptation to adopt the course which André had
+suggested--to withdraw quietly thither, and then at some later time,
+when men's minds were calmer, to vindicate my courage. But a certain
+stubbornness, which my father had before me, and which I have heard
+people say comes of an English strain in the race, conspired with
+resentment to keep me in the way I had marked out. At a quarter past
+ten, therefore, when I thought that the last of the Members would have
+preceded me to the Assembly, I went downstairs, with hot cheeks, but
+eyes that were stern enough; and finding André and Gil waiting at the
+door, bade them follow me to the Chapter House beside the Cathedral,
+where the meetings were held.
+
+Afterwards I was told that, had I used my eyes, I must have noticed
+the excitement which prevailed in the streets; the crowd, dense, yet
+silent, that filled the Square and all the neighbouring ways; the air
+of expectancy, the closed shops, the cessation of business, the
+whispering groups in alleys and at doors. But I was wrapped up in
+myself, like one going on a forlorn hope; and of all remarked only one
+thing--that as I crossed the Square a man called out, "God bless you,
+Monsieur!" and another, "_Vive Saux!_" and that thereon a dozen or
+more took off their caps. This I did notice; but mechanically only.
+The next moment I was in the entry which leads alongside one wall of
+the Cathedral to the Chapter House, and a crowd of clerks and
+servants, who blocked it almost from wall to wall, were making way for
+me to pass; not without looks of astonishment and curiosity.
+
+Threading my way through them, I entered the empty vestibule, kept
+clear by two or three ushers. Here the change from sunshine to shadow,
+from the life and light and stir which prevailed outside, to the
+silence of this vaulted chamber, was so great that it struck a chill
+to my heart. Here, in the greyness and stillness, the importance of
+the step I was about to take, the madness of the challenge I was about
+to fling down, in the teeth of my brethren, rose before me; and if my
+mind had not been braced to the utmost by resentment and obstinacy, I
+must have turned back. But already my feet rang noisily on the stone
+pavement, and forbade retreat. I could hear a monotonous voice droning
+in the Chamber beyond the closed door; and I crossed to that door,
+setting my teeth hard, and preparing myself to play the man, whatever
+awaited me.
+
+Another moment, and I should have been inside. My hand was already on
+the latch, when some one, who had been sitting on the stone bench in
+the shadow under the window, sprang up, and hurried to stop me. It was
+Louis de St. Alais. He reached me before I could open the door, and,
+thrusting himself in front of me, set his back against the panels.
+
+"Stop, man! for God's sake, stop!" he cried passionately, yet kept his
+voice low. "What can one do against two hundred? Go back, man, go
+back, and I will----"
+
+"_You will!_" I answered with fierce contempt, yet in the same low
+tone--the ushers were staring curiously at us from the door by which I
+had entered. "You will? You will do, I suppose, as much as you did
+last night, Monsieur."
+
+"Never mind that now!" he answered earnestly; though he winced, and
+the colour rose to his brow. "Only go! Go to Saux, and----"
+
+"Keep out of the way!"
+
+"Yes," he said, "and keep out of the way. If you will do that----"
+
+"Keep out of the way?" I repeated savagely.
+
+"Yes, yes; then everything will blow over."
+
+"Thank you!" I said slowly; and I trembled with rage. "And how much,
+may I ask, are you to have, M. le Comte, for ridding the Assembly of
+me?"
+
+He stared at me. "Adrien!" he cried.
+
+But I was ruthless. "No, Monsieur le Comte--not Adrien!" I said
+proudly; "I am that only to my friends."
+
+"And I am no longer one?"
+
+I raised my eyebrows contemptuously. "_After last night?_" I said.
+"After last night? Is it possible, Monsieur, that you fancy you played
+a friendly part? I came into your house, your guest, your friend, your
+all but relative; and you laid a trap for me, you held me up to
+ridicule and odium, you----"
+
+"I did?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Perhaps not with your own voice. But you stood by and saw it done!
+You stood by and said no word for me! You stood by and raised no
+finger for me! If you call that friendship----"
+
+He stopped me with a gesture full of dignity. "You forget one thing,
+M. le Vicomte," he said, in a tone of proud reticence.
+
+"Name it!" I answered disdainfully.
+
+"That Mademoiselle de St. Alais is my sister!"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"And that, whether the fault was yours or not, you last evening
+treated her lightly--before two hundred people! You forget that, M. le
+Vicomte."
+
+"I treated her lightly?" I replied, in a fresh excess of rage. We had
+moved, as if by common consent, a little from the door, and by this
+time were glaring into one another's eyes. "And with whom lay the
+fault if I did? With whom lay the fault, Monsieur? You gave me the
+choice--nay, you forced me to make choice between slighting her and
+giving up opinions and convictions which I hold, in which I have been
+bred, in which----"
+
+"_Opinions!_" he said more harshly than he had yet spoken. "And what
+are, after all, opinions? Pardon me, I see that I annoy you, Monsieur.
+But I am not philosophic; I have not been to England; and I cannot
+understand a man----"
+
+"Giving up anything for his opinions!" I cried, with a savage sneer.
+"No, Monsieur, I daresay you cannot. If a man will not stand by his
+friends he will not stand by his opinions. To do either the one or the
+other, M. le Comte, a man must not be a coward."
+
+He grew pale, and looked at me strangely. "Hush, Monsieur!" he
+said--involuntarily, it seemed to me. And a spasm crossed his face, as
+if a sharp pain shot through him.
+
+But I was beside myself with passion. "A coward!" I repeated. "Do you
+understand me, M. le Comte? Or do you wish me to go inside and repeat
+the word before the Assembly?"
+
+"There is no need," he said, growing as red as he had before been
+pale.
+
+"There should be none," I answered, with a sneer. "May I conclude that
+you will meet me after the Assembly rises?"
+
+He bowed without speaking; and then, and not till then, something in
+his silence and his looks pierced the armour of my rage; and on a
+sudden I grew sick at heart, and cold. It was too late, however; I had
+said that which could never be unsaid. The memory of his patience, of
+his goodness, of his forbearance, came after the event. I saluted him
+formally; he replied; and I turned grimly to the door again.
+
+But I was not to pass through it yet.
+
+A second time when I had the latch in my grasp, and the door an inch
+open, a hand plucked me back; so forcibly, that the latch rattled as
+it fell, and I turned in a rage. To my astonishment it was Louis
+again, but with a changed face--a face of strange excitement. He
+retained his hold on me.
+
+"No," he said, between his teeth. "You have called me a coward, M. le
+Vicomte, and I will not wait! Not an hour. You shall fight me now.
+There is a garden at the back, and----"
+
+But I had grown as cold as he hot. "I shall do nothing of the kind," I
+said, cutting him short. "After the Assembly----"
+
+He raised his hand and deliberately struck me with his glove across
+the face.
+
+"Will that persuade you, then?" he said, as I involuntarily recoiled.
+"After that, Monsieur, if you are a gentleman, you will fight me.
+There is a garden at the back, and in ten minutes----"
+
+"In ten minutes the Assembly may have risen," I said.
+
+"I will not keep you so long!" he answered sternly. "Come, sir! Or
+must I strike you again?"
+
+"I will come," I said slowly. "After you, Monsieur."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III.
+
+                           IN THE ASSEMBLY.
+
+
+The blow, and the insult with which he accompanied it, put an end for
+the moment to my repentance. But short as was the distance across the
+floor from the one door to the other, it gave me time to think again;
+to remember that this was Louis; and that whatever cause I had had to
+complain of him, whatever grounds to suspect that he was the tool of
+others, no friend could have done more to assuage my wrath, nor the
+most honest more to withhold me from entering on an impossible task.
+Melting quickly, melting almost instantly, I felt with a kind of
+horror that if kindness alone had led him to interpose, I had made him
+the worst return in the world; in fine, before the outer door could be
+opened to us, I repented anew. When the usher held it for me to pass,
+I bade him close it, and, to Louis' surprise, turned, and, muttering
+something, ran back. Before he could do more than utter a cry I was
+across the vestibule; a moment, and I had the door of the Assembly
+open.
+
+Instantly I saw before me--I suppose that my hand had raised the latch
+noisily--tiers of surprised faces all turned my way. I heard a murmur
+of mingled annoyance and laughter. The next moment I was threading my
+way to my place with the monotonous voice of the President in my ears,
+and the scene round me so changed--from that low-toned altercation
+outside, to this Chamber full of light and life, and thronged with
+starers--that I sank into my seat, dazzled and abashed; and almost
+forgetful for the time of the purpose which brought me thither.
+
+A little, and my face grew hotter still; and with good reason. Each of
+the benches on which we sat held three. I shared mine with one of the
+Harincourts and M. d'Aulnoy, my place being between them. I had
+scarcely taken it five seconds, when Harincourt rose slowly, and,
+without turning his face to me, moved away down the gangway, and,
+fanning himself delicately with his hat, assumed a leaning position
+against a desk with his gaze on the President. Half a minute, and
+D'Aulnoy followed his example. Then the three behind me rose, and
+quietly and without looking at me found other places. The three before
+me followed suit. In two minutes I sat alone, isolated, a mark for all
+eyes; a kind of leper in the Assembly!
+
+I ought to have been prepared for some such demonstration. But I was
+not, and my cheeks burned, as if the curious looks to which I was
+exposed were a hot fire. It was impossible for me, taken by surprise,
+to hide my embarrassment; for, wherever I gazed, I met sneering eyes
+and contemptuous glances; and pride would not let me hang my head. For
+many minutes, therefore, I was unconscious of everything but that
+scorching gaze. I could not hear what was going forward. The
+President's voice was a dull, meaningless drawl to me.
+
+Yet all the while anger and resentment were hardening me in my
+resolve; and, presently, the cloud passed from my mind, and left me
+exulting. The monotonous reading, to which I had listened without
+understanding it, came to an end, and was followed by short, sharp
+interrogations--a question and an answer, a name and a reply. It was
+that awoke me. The drawl had been the reading of the cahier; now they
+were voting on it.
+
+Presently it would be my turn; it was coming to my turn now. With each
+vote--I need not say that all were affirmative--more faces, and yet
+more, were turned to the place where I sat; more eyes, some hostile,
+some triumphant, some merely curious, were directed to my face. Under
+other circumstances this might have cowed me; now it did not. I was
+wrought up to face it. The unfriendly looks of so many who had called
+themselves my friends, the scornful glances of new men of ennobled
+families, who had been glad of my father's countenance, the
+consciousness that all had deserted me merely because I maintained in
+practice opinions which half of them had proclaimed in words--these
+things hardened me to a pitch of scorn no whit below that of my
+opponents; while the knowledge that to blench now must cover me with
+lasting shame closed the door to thoughts of surrender.
+
+The Assembly, on the other hand, felt the novelty of its position. Men
+were not yet accustomed to the war of the Senate; to duels of words
+more deadly than those of the sword: and a certain doubt, a certain
+hesitation, held the majority in suspense, watching to see what would
+happen. Moreover, the leaders, both M. de St. Alais, who headed the
+hotter and prouder party of the Court, and the nobles of the Robe and
+Parliament, who had only lately discovered that their interest lay in
+the same direction, found themselves embarrassed by the very smallness
+of the opposition; since a substantial majority must have been
+accepted as a fact, whereas one man--one man only standing in the way
+of unanimity--presented himself as a thing to be removed, if the way
+could be discovered.
+
+"M. le Comte de Cantal?" the President cried, and looked, not at the
+person he named, but at me.
+
+"Content!"
+
+"M. le Vicomte de Marignac?"
+
+"Content!"
+
+The next name I could not hear, for in my excitement it seemed that
+all in the Chamber were looking at me, that voice was failing me, that
+when the moment came I should sit dumb and paralysed, unable to speak,
+and for ever disgraced. I thought of this, not of what was passing;
+then, in a moment, self-control returned; I heard the last name before
+mine, that of M. d'Aulnoy, heard the answer given. Then my own name,
+echoing in hollow silence.
+
+"M. le Vicomte de Saux?"
+
+I stood up. I spoke, my voice sounding harsh, and like another man's.
+"I dissent from this cahier!" I cried.
+
+I expected an outburst of wrath; it did not come. Instead, a peal of
+laughter, in which I distinguished St. Alais' tones, rang through the
+room, and brought the blood to my cheeks. The laughter lasted some
+time, rose and fell, and rose again; while I stood pilloried. Yet this
+had one effect the laughers did not anticipate. On occasions the most
+taciturn become eloquent. I forgot the periods from Rochefoucauld and
+Liancourt, which I had so carefully prepared; I forgot the passages
+from Turgot, of which I had made notes, and I broke out in a strain I
+had not foreseen or intended.
+
+"Messieurs!" I cried, hurling my voice through the Chamber, "I dissent
+from this cahier because it is effete and futile; because, if for no
+other reason, the time when it could have been of service is past. You
+claim your privileges; they are gone! Your exemptions; they are gone!
+You protest against the union of your representatives with those of
+the people; but they have sat with them! They have sat with them, and
+you can no more undo that by a protest than you can set back the tide!
+The thing is done. The dog is hungry, you have given it a bone. Do you
+think to get the bone back, unmouthed, whole, without loss? Then you
+are mad. But this is not all, nor the principal of my objections to
+this cahier. France to-day stands naked, bankrupt, without treasury,
+without money. Do you think to help her, to clothe her, to enrich her,
+by maintaining your privileges, by maintaining your exemptions, by
+standing out for the last jot and tittle of your rights? No,
+Messieurs. In the old days those exemptions, those rights, those
+privileges, wherein our ancestors gloried, and gloried well, were
+given to them because they were the buckler of France. They maintained
+and armed and led men; the commonalty did the rest. But now the people
+fight, the people pay, the people do all. Yes, Messieurs, it is true;
+it is true that which we have all heard, '_Le manant paye pour
+tout!_'"
+
+I paused; expecting that now, at last, the long-delayed outburst of
+anger would come. Instead, before any in the Chamber could speak,
+there rose through the windows, which looked on the market-place, and
+had been widely opened on account of the heat, a great cry of
+applause; the shout of the street, that for the first time heard its
+wrongs voiced. It was full of assent and rejoicing, yet no attack
+could have disconcerted me more completely. I stood astonished, and
+silenced.
+
+The effect which it had on me was slight, however, in comparison with
+that which it had on my opponents. The cries of dissent they were
+about to utter died stillborn at the portent; and, for a moment, men
+stared at one another as if they could not believe their ears. For
+that moment a silence of rage, of surprise, prevailed through the
+whole Chamber. Then M. de St. Alais sprang to his feet.
+
+"What is this?" he cried, his handsome face dark with excitement. "Has
+the King ordered us, too, to sit with the third estate? Has he so
+humiliated us? If not, M. le President--if not, I say," he continued,
+sternly putting down an attempt at applause, "and if this be not a
+conspiracy between some of our body and the _canaille_ to bring about
+another Jacquerie----"
+
+The President, a weak man of a Robe family, interrupted him. "Have a
+care, Monsieur," he said. "The windows are still open."
+
+"Open?"
+
+The President nodded.
+
+"And what if they are? What of it?" St. Alais answered harshly. "What
+of it, Monsieur?" he continued, looking round him with an eye which
+seemed to collect and express the scorn of the more fiery spirits. "If
+so, let it be so! Let them be open. Let the people hear both sides,
+and not only those who flatter them; those who, by building on their
+weakness and ignorance, and canting about their rights and our wrongs,
+think to exalt themselves into Retzs and Cromwells! Yes, Monsieur le
+President," he continued, while I strove in vain to interrupt him, and
+half the Assembly rose to their feet in confusion, "I repeat the
+phrase--who, to the ambition of a Cromwell or a Retz add their
+violence, not their parts!"
+
+The injustice of the reproach stung me, and I turned on him. "M. le
+Marquis!" I cried hotly, "if, by that phrase, you refer to me----"
+
+He laughed scornfully. "As you please, Monsieur," he said.
+
+"I fling it back! I repudiate it!" I cried. "M. de St. Alais has
+called me a Retz--a Cromwell----"
+
+"Pardon me," he interposed swiftly; "a would-be Retz!"
+
+"A traitor, either way!" I answered, striving against the laughter,
+which at his repartee flashed through the room, bringing the blood
+rushing to my face. "A traitor either way! But I say that he is the
+traitor who to-day advises the King to his hurt."
+
+"And not he who comes here with a mob at his back?" St. Alais
+retorted, with heat almost equal to my own. "Who, one man, would
+brow-beat a hundred, and dictate to this Assembly?"
+
+"Monsieur repeats himself," I cried, cutting him short in my turn,
+though no laughter followed my gibe. "I deny what he says. I fling
+back his accusations; I retort upon him! And, for the rest, I object
+to this cahier, I dissent from it, I----"
+
+But the Assembly was at the end of its patience. A roar of "Withdraw!
+withdraw!" drowned my voice, and, in a moment, the meeting so orderly
+a few minutes before, became a scene of wild uproar. A few of the
+elder men continued to keep their seats, but the majority rose; some
+had already sprung to the windows, and closed them, and still stood
+with their feet on the ledge, looking down on the confusion. Others
+had gone to the door and taken their stand there, perhaps with the
+idea of resisting intrusion. The President in vain cried for silence.
+His voice, equally with mine, was lost in the persistent clamour,
+which swelled to a louder pitch whenever I offered to speak, and sank
+only when I desisted.
+
+At length M. de St. Alais raised his hand, and with little difficulty
+procured silence. Before I could take advantage of it, the President
+interposed. "The Assembly of the noblesse of Quercy," he said
+hurriedly, "is in favour of this cahier, maintaining our ancient
+rights, privileges, and exemptions. The Vicomte de Saux alone
+protests. The cahier will be presented."
+
+"I protest!" I cried weakly.
+
+"I have said so," the President answered, with a sneer. And a peal of
+derisive laughter, mingled with shouts of applause, ran round the
+Chamber. "The cahier will be presented. The matter is concluded."
+
+Then, in a moment, magically, as it seemed to me, the Chamber resumed
+its ordinary aspect. The Members who had risen returned to their
+seats, those who had closed the windows descended, a few retired, the
+President proceeded with some ordinary business. Every trace of the
+storm disappeared. In a twinkling all was as it had been.
+
+Even where I sat; for no isolation, no division from my fellows could
+exceed that in which I had sat before. But whereas before I had had my
+weapon in reserve and my revenge in prospect, that was no longer so. I
+had shot my bolt, and I sat miserable, fettered by the silence and the
+strange glances that hemmed me in, and growing each moment more
+depressed and more self-conscious; longing to escape, yet shrinking
+from moving, even from looking about me.
+
+In this condition not the least of my misery lay in the reflection
+that I had done no good; that I had suffered for a quixotism, and
+shown myself stubborn and obstinate to no purpose. Too late, I
+considered that I might have maintained my principles and yet
+conformed; I might have stated my convictions and waived them in
+deference to the majority. I might have----
+
+But alas! whatever I might have done, I had not done it; and the die
+was cast. I had declared myself against my order; I had forfeited all
+I could claim from my order. Henceforth, I was not of it. It was no
+fancy that already men who had occasion to pass before me drew their
+skirts aside and bowed formally as to one of another class!
+
+How long I should have endured this penance--these veiled insults and
+the courtesy that stung deeper--before I plucked up spirit to
+withdraw, I cannot say. It was an interposition from without that
+broke the spell. An usher came to me with a note. I opened it with
+clumsy fingers under a fire of hostile eyes, and found that it was
+from Louis.
+
+"If you have a spark of honour"--it ran--"you will meet me, without a
+moment's delay, in the garden at the back of the Chapter House. Do so,
+and you may still call yourself a gentleman. Refuse, or delay even for
+ten minutes, and I will publish your shame from one end of Quercy to
+the other. He cannot call himself Adrien du Pont de Saux, who puts up
+with a blow!"
+
+I read it twice while the usher waited. The words had a cruel,
+heartless ring in them; the taunting challenge was brutal in its
+directness. Yet my heart grew soft as I read, and I had much ado to
+keep the tears from my eyes--under all those eyes. For Louis did not
+deceive me this time. This note, so unlike him, this desperate attempt
+to draw me out, and save me from opponents more ruthless, were too
+transparent to delude me; and, in a moment, the icy bands which had
+been growing over me melted. I still sat alone; but I was not quite
+deserted. I could hold up my head again, for I had a friend. I
+remembered that, after all, through all, I was Adrien du Pont de Saux,
+guiltless of aught worse than holding in Quercy opinions which the
+Lameths and Mirabeaus, the Liancourts and Rochefoucaulds held in their
+provinces; guiltless, I told myself, of aught besides standing for
+right and justice.
+
+But the usher waited. I took from the desk before me a scrap of paper,
+and wrote my answer. "Adrien does not fight with Louis because St.
+Alais struck Saux."
+
+I wrapped it up and gave it to the usher; then I sat back a different
+man, able to meet all eyes, with a heart armed against all
+misfortunes. Friendship, generosity, love, still existed, though the
+gentry of Quercy, the Gontauts, and Marignacs, sat aloof. Life would
+still hold sweets, though the grass should grow in the walnut avenue,
+and my shield should never quarter the arms of St. Alais.
+
+So I took courage, stood up, and moved to go out. But the moment I did
+so, a dozen Members sprang to their feet also; and, as I walked down
+one gangway towards the door, they crowded down another parallel with
+it; offensively, openly, with the evident intention of intercepting me
+before I could escape. The commotion was so great that the President
+paused in his reading to watch the result; while the mass of Members
+who kept their places, rose that they might have a better view. I saw
+that I was to be publicly insulted, and a fierce joy took the place of
+every other feeling. If I went slowly, it was not through fear; the
+pent-up passions of the last hour inspired me, and I would not have
+hastened the climax for the world. I reached the foot of the gangway,
+in another moment we must have come into collision, when an abrupt
+explosion of voices, a great roar in the street, that penetrated
+through the closed windows, brought us to a halt. We paused, listening
+and glaring, while the few who had not stood up before, rose
+hurriedly, and the President, startled and suspicious, asked what it
+was.
+
+For answer the sound rose again--dull, prolonged, shaking the windows;
+a hoarse shout of triumph. It fell--not ceasing, but passing away into
+the distance--and then once more it swelled up. It was unlike any
+shout I had ever heard.
+
+Little by little articulate words grew out of it, or succeeded it;
+until the air shook with the measured rhythm of one stern sentence.
+"_A bas la Bastille! A bas la Bastille!_"
+
+We were to hear many such cries in the time to come, and grow
+accustomed to such alarms; to the hungry roar in the street, and the
+loud knocking at the door that spelled fate. But they were a new thing
+then, and the Assembly, as much outraged as alarmed by this second
+trespass on its dignity, could only look at its President, and mutter
+wrathful threats against the _canaille_. The _canaille_ that had
+crouched for a century seemed in some unaccountable way to be changing
+its posture!
+
+One man cried out one thing, and one another; that the streets should
+be cleared, the regiment sent for, or complaint made to the Intendant.
+They were still speaking when the door opened and a Member came in. It
+was Louis de St. Alais, and his face was aglow with excitement.
+Commonly the most modest and quiet of men, he stood forward now, and
+raised his hand imperatively for silence.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, in a loud, ringing voice, "there is strange
+news! A courier with letters for my brother, M. de St. Alais, has
+spoken in the street. He brings strange tidings."
+
+"What?" two or three cried.
+
+"The Bastille has fallen!"
+
+No one understood--how should they?--but all were silent. Then, "What
+do you mean, M. St. Alais?" the President asked, in bewilderment; and
+he raised his hand that the silence might be preserved. "The Bastille
+has fallen? How? What is it?"
+
+"It was captured on Tuesday by the mob of Paris," Louis answered
+distinctly, his eyes bright, "and M. de Launay, the Governor, murdered
+in cold blood."
+
+"The Bastille captured? By the mob?" the President exclaimed
+incredulously. "It is impossible, Monsieur. You must have
+misunderstood."
+
+Louis shook his head. "It is true, I fear," he said.
+
+"And M. de Launay?"
+
+"That too, I fear, M. le President."
+
+Then, indeed, men looked at one another; startled, pale-faced, asking
+each mute questions of his fellows; while in the street outside the
+hum of disorder and rejoicing grew moment by moment more steady and
+continuous. Men looked at each other alarmed, and could not believe.
+The Bastille which had stood so many centuries, captured? The Governor
+killed? Impossible, they muttered, impossible. For what, in that case,
+was the King doing? What the army? What the Governor of Paris?
+
+Old M. de Gontaut put the thought into words. "But the King?" he said,
+as soon as he could get a hearing. "Doubtless his Majesty has already
+punished the wretches?"
+
+The answer came from an unexpected quarter, in words as little
+expected. M. de St. Alais, to whom Louis had handed a letter, rose
+from his seat with an open paper in his hand. Doubtless, if he had
+taken time to consider, he would have seen the imprudence of making
+public all he knew; but the surprise and mortification of the news he
+had received--news that gave the lie to his confident assurances, news
+that made the most certain doubt the ground on which they stood, swept
+away his discretion. He spoke.
+
+"I do not know what the King was doing," he said, in mocking accents,
+"at Versailles; but I can tell you how the army was employed in Paris.
+The Garde Française were foremost in the attack. Besenval, with such
+troops as have not deserted, has withdrawn. The city is in the hands
+of the mob. They have shot Flesselles, the Provost, and elected
+Bailly, Mayor. They have raised a Militia and armed it. They have
+appointed Lafayette, General. They have adopted a badge. They
+have----"
+
+"But, _mon Dieu!_" the President cried aghast. "This is a revolt!"
+
+"Precisely, Monsieur," St. Alais answered.
+
+"And what does the King?"
+
+"He is so good--that he has done nothing," was the bitter answer.
+
+"And the States General?--the National Assembly at Versailles?"
+
+"Oh, they? They too have done nothing."
+
+"It is Paris, then?" the President said.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, it is Paris," the Marquis answered. "But Paris?" the
+President exclaimed helplessly. "Paris has been quiet so many years."
+
+To this, however, the thought in every one's mind, there seemed to be
+no answer. St. Alais sat down again, and, for a moment, the Assembly
+remained stunned by astonishment, prostrate under these new, these
+marvellous facts. No better comment on the discussions in which it had
+been engaged a few minutes before could have been found. Its Members
+had been dreaming of their rights, their privileges, their exemptions;
+they awoke to find Paris in flames, the army in revolt, order and law
+in the utmost peril.
+
+But St. Alais was not the man to be long wanting to his part, nor one
+to abdicate of his free will a leadership which vigour and audacity
+had secured for him. He sprang to his feet again, and in an
+impassioned harangue called upon the Assembly to remember the Fronde.
+
+"As Paris was then, Paris is now!" he cried. "Fickle and seditious, to
+be won by no gifts, but always to be overcome by famine. Best assured
+that the fat bourgeois will not long do without the white bread of
+Gonesse, nor the tippler without the white wine of Arbois! Cut these
+off, the mad will grow sane, and the traitor loyal. Their National
+Guards, and their Badges, and their Mayors, and their General? Do you
+think that these will long avail against the forces of order, of
+loyalty, against the King, the nobility, the clergy, against France?
+No, gentlemen, it is impossible," he continued, looking round him with
+warmth. "Paris would have deposed the great Henry and exiled Mazarin;
+but in the result it licked their shoes. It will be so again, only we
+must stand together, we must be firm. We must see that these disorders
+spread no farther. It is the King's to govern, and the people's to
+obey. It has been so, and it will be so to the end!"
+
+His words were not many, but they were timely and vigorous; and they
+served to reassure the Assembly. All that large majority, which in
+every gathering of men has no more imagination than serves to paint
+the future in the colours of the past, found his arguments perfectly
+convincing; while the few who saw more clearly, and by the light of
+instinct, or cold reason, discerned that the state of France had no
+precedent in its history, felt, nevertheless, the infection of his
+confidence. A universal shout of applause greeted his last sentence,
+and, amid tumultuous cries, the concourse, which had remained on its
+feet, poured into the gangways, and made for the door; a desire to see
+and hear what was going forward moving all to get out as quickly as
+possible, though it was not likely that more could be learned than was
+already known.
+
+I shared this feeling myself, and, forgetting in the excitement of the
+moment my part in the day's debate, I pressed to the door. The
+Bastille fallen? The Governor killed? Paris in the hands of the mob?
+Such tidings were enough to set the brain in a whirl, and breed
+forgetfulness of nearer matters. Others, in the preoccupation of the
+moment, seemed to be equally oblivious, and I forced my way out with
+the rest.
+
+But in the doorway I happened, by a little clumsiness, to touch one of
+the Harincourts. He turned his head, saw who it was had touched him,
+and tried to stop. The pressure was too great, however, and he was
+borne on in front of me, struggling and muttering something I could
+not hear. I guessed what it was, however, by the manner in which
+others, abreast of him, and as helpless, turned their heads and
+sneered at me; and I was considering how I could best encounter what
+was to come, when the sight which met our gaze, as we at last issued
+from the narrow passage and faced the market-place--two steps below
+us--drove their existence for a moment from my mind.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IV.
+
+                           L'AMI DU PEUPLE.
+
+
+There were others who stood also; impressed by a sight which, in the
+light of the news we had just heard, that astonishing, that amazing
+news, seemed to have especial significance. We had not yet grown
+accustomed in France to crowds. For centuries the one man, the
+individual, King, Cardinal, Noble, or Bishop, had stood forward, and
+the many, the multitude, had melted away under his eye; had bowed and
+passed.
+
+But here, within our view, rose the cold lowering dawn of a new day.
+Perhaps, if we had not heard what we had heard--that news, I mean--or
+if the people had not heard it, the effect on us, the action on their
+part, might have been different. As it was, the crowd that faced us in
+the Square as we came out, the great crowd that faced us and stretched
+from wall to wall, silent, vigilant, menacing, showed not a sign of
+flinching; and we did. We stood astonished, each halting as he came
+out, and looking, and then consulting his neighbour's eyes to learn
+what he thought.
+
+We had over our heads the great Cathedral, from the shadow of which we
+issued. We had among us many who had been wont to see a hundred
+peasants tremble at their frown. But in a moment, in a twinkling, as
+if that news from Paris had shaken the foundations of Society, we
+found these things in question. The crowd in the Square did not
+tremble. In a silence that was grimmer than howling it gave back look
+for look. Nor only that; but as we issued, they made no way for us,
+and those of the Assembly who had already gone down, had to walk along
+the skirts of the press to get to the inn. We who came later saw this,
+and it had its weight with us. We were Nobles of the province; but we
+were only two hundred, and between us and the Trois Rois, between us
+and our horses and servants, stretched this line of gloomy faces,
+these thousands of silent men.
+
+No wonder that the sight, and something that underlay the sight,
+diverted my mind for a moment from M. Harincourt and his purpose, and
+that I looked abroad; while he, too, stood gaping and frowning, and
+forgot me. Perforce we had to go down; one by one reluctantly, a
+meagre string winding across the face of the crowd; sullen defiance on
+one side, scorn on the other. In Cahors it came to be remembered as
+the first triumph of the people, the first step in the degradation of
+the privileged. A word had brought it about. A word, _the Bastille
+fallen_, had combined the floating groups, and formed of them this
+which we saw--the people.
+
+Under such circumstances it needed only the slightest spark to bring
+about an explosion; and that was presently supplied. M. de Gontaut, a
+tall, thin, old man, who could remember the early days of the late
+King, walked a little way in front of me. He was lame, and used a
+cane, and as a rule a servant's arm. This morning, the lackey was not
+forthcoming, and he felt the inconvenience of skirting instead of
+crossing the square. Nevertheless he was not foolish enough to thrust
+himself into the crowd; and all might have gone well, if a rogue in
+the front rank of the throng had not, perhaps by accident, tripped up
+the cane with his foot. M. le Baron turned in a flash, every hair of
+his eyebrows on end, and struck the fellow with his stick.
+
+"Stand back, rascal!" he cried, trembling, and threatening to repeat
+the blow. "If I had you, I would soon----"
+
+The man spat at him.
+
+M. de Gontaut uttered an oath, and in ungovernable rage struck the
+wretch two or three blows--how many I could not see, though I was only
+a few paces behind. Apparently the man did not strike back, but
+shrank, cowed by the old noble's fury. But those behind flung him
+forward, with cries of "Shame! _A bas la Noblesse!_" and he fell
+against M. de Gontaut. In a moment the Baron was on the ground.
+
+It was so quickly done that only those in the immediate neighbourhood,
+St. Alais, the Harincourts, and myself, saw the fall. Probably the mob
+meant no great harm; they had not yet lost all reverence. But at the
+time, with the tale of De Launay in my ears, and my imagination
+inflamed, I thought that they intended M. de Gontaut's death, and as I
+saw his old head fall, I sprang forward to protect him.
+
+St. Alais was before me, however. Bounding forward, with rage not less
+than Gontaut's, he hurled the aggressor back with a blow which sent
+him into the arms of his supporters. Then dragging M. de Gontaut to
+his feet, the Marquis whipped out his sword, and darting the bright
+point hither and thither with the skill of a practised fencer, in a
+twinkling he cleared a space round him, and made the nearest give back
+with shrieks and curses.
+
+Unfortunately he touched one man; the fellow was not hurt, but at the
+prick he sank down screaming, and in a second the mood of the crowd
+changed. Shrieks, half-playful, gave way to a howl of rage. Some one
+flung a stick, which struck the Marquis on the chest, and for a moment
+stopped him. The next instant he sprang at the man who had thrown it,
+and would have run him through, but the fellow fled, and the crowd,
+with a yell of triumph, closed over his path. This stopped St. Alais
+in mid course, and left him only the choice between retreating, or
+wounding people who were innocent.
+
+He fell back with a sneering word, and sheathed his sword. But the
+moment his back was turned a stone struck him on the head, and he
+staggered forward. As he fell the crowd uttered a yell, and half a
+dozen men dashed at him to trample on him.
+
+Their blood was up; this time I made no mistake, I read mischief in
+their eyes. The scream of the man whom he had wounded, though the
+fellow was more frightened than hurt, was in their ears. One of the
+Harincourts struck down the foremost, but this only enraged without
+checking them. In a moment he was swept aside and flung back, stunned
+and reeling; and the crowd rushed upon their victim.
+
+I threw myself before him. I had just time to do that, and cry "Shame!
+shame!" and force back one or two; and then my intervention must have
+come to nothing, it must have fared as ill with me as with him, if in
+the nick of time, with a ring of grimy faces threatening us, and a
+dozen hands upraised, I had not been recognised. Buton, the blacksmith
+of Saux--one of the foremost--screamed out my name, and turning with
+outstretched arms, forced back his neighbours. A man of huge strength,
+it was as much as he could do to stem the torrent; but in a moment his
+frenzied cries became heard and understood. Others recognised me, the
+crowd fell back. Some one raised a cry of "_Vive Saux!_ Long live the
+friend of the people!" and the shout being taken up first in one place
+and then in another, in a trice the Square rang with the words.
+
+I had not then learned the fickleness of the multitude, or that from
+_A bas_ to _vive_ is the step of an instant; and despite myself, and
+though I despised myself for the feeling, I felt my heart swell on the
+wave of sound. "_Vive Saux! Vive l'ami du peuple!_" My equals had
+scorned me, but the people--the people whose faces wore a new look
+to-day, the people to whom this one word, the Bastille fallen, had
+given new life--acclaimed me. For a moment, even while I cried to
+them, and shook my hands to them to be silent, there flashed on me the
+things it meant; the things they had to give, power and tribuneship!
+"_Vive Saux!_ long live the friend of the people!" The air shook with
+the sound; the domes above me gave it back. I felt myself lifted up on
+it; I felt myself for the minute another and a greater man!
+
+Then I turned and met St. Alais' eye, and I fell to earth. He had
+risen, and, pale with rage, was wiping the dust from his coat with a
+handkerchief. A little blood was flowing from the wound in his head,
+but he paid no heed to it, in the intentness with which he was staring
+at me, as if he read my thoughts. As soon as something like silence
+was obtained, he spoke.
+
+"Perhaps if your friends have quite done with us, M. de Saux--we may
+go home?" he said, his voice trembling a little.
+
+I stammered something in answer to the sneer, and turned to accompany
+him; though my way to the inn lay in the opposite direction. Only the
+two Harincourts and M. de Gontaut were with us. The rest of the
+Assembly had either got clear, or were viewing the fracas from the
+door of the Chapter House, where they stood, cut off from us by a wall
+of people. I offered my arm to M. de Gontaut, but he declined it with
+a frigid bow, and took Harincourt's; and M. le Marquis, when I turned
+to him, said, with a cold smile, that they need not trouble me.
+
+"Doubtless we shall be safe," he sneered, "if you will give orders to
+that effect."
+
+I bowed, without retorting on him; he bowed; and he turned away. But
+the crowd had either read his attitude aright, or gathered that there
+was an altercation between us, for the moment he moved they set up a
+howl. Two or three stones were thrown, notwithstanding Buton's efforts
+to prevent it; and before the party had retired ten yards the rabble
+began to press on them savagely. Embarrassed by M. de Gontaut's
+presence and helplessness, the other three could do nothing. For an
+instant I had a view of St. Alais standing gallantly at bay with the
+old noble behind him, and the blood trickling down his cheek. Then I
+followed them, the crowd made instant way for me, again the air rang
+with cheers, and the Square in the hot July sunshine seemed a sea of
+waving hands.
+
+M. de St. Alais turned to me. He could still smile, and with
+marvellous self-command, in one and the same instant he recovered from
+his discomfiture and changed his tactics.
+
+"I am afraid that after all we must trouble you," he said politely.
+"M. le Baron is not a young man, and your people, M. de Saux, are
+somewhat obstreperous."
+
+"What can I do?" I said sullenly. I had not the heart to leave them to
+their fortunes; at the same time I was as little disposed to accept
+the onus he would lay on me.
+
+"Accompany us home," he said pleasantly, drawing out his snuff-box and
+taking a pinch.
+
+The people had fallen silent again, but watched us heedfully. "If you
+think it will serve?" I answered.
+
+"It will," he said briskly. "You know, M. le Vicomte, that a man is
+born and a man dies every minute? Believe me no King dies--but another
+King is born."
+
+I winced under the sarcasm, under the laughing contempt of his eye.
+Yet I saw nothing for it but to comply, and I bowed and turned to go
+with them. The crowd opened before us; amid mingled cheers and yells
+we moved away. I intended only to accompany them to the outskirts of
+the throng, and then to gain the inn by a by-path, get my horses and
+be gone. But a party of the crowd continued to follow us through the
+streets, and I found no opportunity. Almost before I knew it, we were
+at the St. Alais' door, still with this rough attendance at our heels.
+
+Madame and Mademoiselle, with two or three women, were on the balcony,
+looking and listening; at the door below stood a group of scared
+servants. While I looked, however, Madame left her place above and in
+a moment appeared at the door, the servants making way for her. She
+stared in wonder at us, and from us to the rabble that followed; then
+her eye caught the bloodstains on M. de St. Alais' cravat, and she
+cried out to know if he was hurt.
+
+"No, Madame," he said lightly. "But M. de Gontaut has had a fall."
+
+"What has happened?" she asked quickly. "The town seems to have gone
+mad! I heard a great noise a while ago, and the servants brought in a
+wild tale about the Bastille."
+
+"It is true."
+
+"What? That the Bastille----"
+
+"Has been taken by the mob, Madame; and M. de Launay murdered."
+
+"Impossible!" Madame cried with flashing eyes. "That old man?"
+
+"Yes," M. de St. Alais answered with treacherous suavity. "Messieurs
+the Mob are no respecters of persons. Fortunately, however," he went
+on, smiling at me in a way that brought the blood to my cheeks, "they
+have leaders more prudent and sagacious than themselves."
+
+But Madame had no ears for his last words, no thought save of this
+astonishing news from Paris. She stood, her cheeks on fire, her eyes
+full of tears; she had known De Launay. "Oh, but the King will punish
+them!" she cried at last. "The wretches! The ingrates! They should all
+be broken on the wheel! Doubtless the King has already punished them."
+
+"He will, by-and-by, if he has not yet," St. Alais answered. "But for
+the moment, you will easily understand, Madame, that things are out of
+joint. Men's heads are turned, and they do not know themselves. We
+have had a little trouble here. M. de Gontaut has been roughly
+handled, and I have not entirely escaped. If M. de Saux had not had
+his people well in hand," he continued, turning to me with a laughing
+eye, "I am afraid that we should have come off worse."
+
+Madame stared at me, and, beginning slowly to comprehend, seemed to
+freeze before me. The light died out of her haughty face. She looked
+at me grimly. I had a glimpse of Mademoiselle's startled eyes behind
+her, and of the peeping servants; then Madame spoke. "Are these some
+of--M. de Saux's people?" she asked, stepping forward a pace, and
+pointing to the crew of ruffians who had halted a few paces away, and
+were watching us doubtfully.
+
+"A handful," M. de St. Alais answered lightly. "Just his bodyguard,
+Madame. But pray do not speak of him so harshly; for, being my mother,
+you must be obliged to him. If he did not quite save my life, at least
+he saved my beauty."
+
+"With those?" she said scornfully.
+
+"With those or from those," he answered gaily. "Besides, for a day or
+two we may need his protection. I am sure that, if you ask him,
+Madame, he will not refuse it."
+
+I stood, raging and helpless, under the lash of his tongue; and Madame
+de St. Alais looked at me. "Is it possible," she said at last, "that
+M. de Saux has thrown in his lot with wretches such as those?" And she
+pointed with magnificent scorn to the scowling crew behind me. "With
+wretches who----"
+
+"Hush, Madame," M. le Marquis said in his gibing fashion. "You are too
+bold. For the moment they are our masters, and M. de Saux is theirs.
+We must, therefore----"
+
+"We must not!" she answered impetuously, raising herself to her full
+height and speaking with flashing eyes. "What? Would you have me
+palter with the scum of the streets? With the dirt under our feet?
+With the sweepings of the gutter? Never! I and mine have no part with
+traitors!"
+
+"Madame!" I cried, stung to speech by her injustice. "You do not know
+what you say! If I have been able to stand between your son and
+danger, it has been through no vileness such as you impute to me."
+
+"Impute?" she exclaimed. "What need of imputation, Monsieur, with
+those wretches behind you? Is it necessary to cry '_A bas le roi!_' to
+be a traitor? Is not that man as guilty who fosters false hopes, and
+misleads the ignorant? Who hints what he dare not say, and holds out
+what he dares not promise? Is he not the worst of traitors? For shame,
+Monsieur, for shame!" she continued. "If your father----"
+
+"Oh!" I cried. "This is intolerable!"
+
+She caught me up with a bitter gibe. "It is!" she retorted. "It _is_
+intolerable--that the King's fortresses should be taken by the rabble,
+and old men slain by scullions! It is intolerable that nobles should
+forget whence they are sprung, and stoop to the kennel! It is
+intolerable that the King's name should be flouted, and catchwords set
+above it! All these things are intolerable; but they are not of our
+doing. They are your acts. And for you," she continued--and suddenly
+stepping by me, she addressed the group of rascals who lingered,
+listening and scowling, a few paces away--"for you, poor fools, do not
+be deceived. This gentleman has told you, doubtless, that there is no
+longer a King of France! That there are to be no more taxes nor
+_corvées_; that the poor will be rich, and everybody noble! Well,
+believe him if you please. There have been poor and rich, noble and
+simple, spenders and makers, since the world began, and a King in
+France. But believe him if you please. Only now go! Leave my house.
+Go, or I will call out my servants, and whip you through the streets
+like dogs! To your kennels, I say!"
+
+She stamped her foot, and to my astonishment, the men, who must have
+known that her threat was an empty one, sneaked away like the dogs to
+which she had compared them. In a moment--I could scarcely believe
+it--the street was empty. The men who had come near to killing M. de
+Gontaut, who had stoned M. de St. Alais, quailed before a woman! In a
+twinkling the last man was gone, and she turned to me, her face
+flushed, her eyes gleaming with scorn.
+
+"There, sir," she said, "take that lesson to heart. That is your brave
+people! And now, Monsieur, do you go too! Henceforth my house is no
+place for you. I will have no traitors under my roof--no, not for a
+moment."
+
+She signed to me to go with the same insolent contempt which had
+abashed the crowd; but before I went I said one word. "You were my
+father's friend, Madame," I said before them all.
+
+She looked at me harshly, but did not answer.
+
+"It would have better become you, therefore," I continued, "to help me
+than to hurt me. As it is, were I the most loyal of his Majesty's
+subjects, you have done enough to drive me to treason. In the future,
+Madame la Marquise, I beg that you will remember that."
+
+And I turned and went, trembling with rage.
+
+The crowd in the Square had melted by this time, but the streets were
+full of those who had composed it; who now stood about in eager
+groups, discussing what had happened. The word Bastille was on every
+tongue; and, as I passed, way was made for me, and caps were lifted.
+"God bless you, M. de Saux," and, "You are a good man," were muttered
+in my ear. If there seemed to be less noise and less excitement than
+in the morning, the air of purpose that everywhere prevailed was not
+to be mistaken.
+
+This was so clear that, though noon was barely past, shopkeepers had
+closed their shops and bakers their bakehouses; and a calm, more
+ominous than the storm that had preceded it, brooded over the town.
+The majority of the Assembly had dispersed in haste, for I saw none of
+the Members, though I heard that a large body had gone to the
+barracks. No one molested me--the fall of the Bastille served me so
+far--and I mounted, and rode out of town, without seeing any one, even
+Louis.
+
+To tell the truth, I was in a fever to be at home; in a fever to
+consult the only man who, it seemed to me, could advise me in this
+crisis. In front of me, I saw it plainly, stretched two roads; the one
+easy and smooth, if perilous, the other arid and toilsome. Madame had
+called me the Tribune of the People, a would-be Retz, a would-be
+Mirabeau. The people had cried my name, had hailed me as a saviour.
+Should I fit on the cap? Should I take up the _rôle?_ My own caste had
+spurned me. Should I snatch at the dangerous honour offered to me, and
+stand or fall with the people?
+
+With the people? It sounded well, but, in those days, it was a vaguer
+phrase than it is now; and I asked myself who, that had ever taken up
+that cause, had stood? A bread riot, a tumult, a local revolt--such
+as this which had cost M. de Launay his life--of things of that size
+the people had shown themselves capable; but of no lasting victory.
+Always the King had held his own, always the nobles had kept their
+privileges. Why should it be otherwise now?
+
+There were reasons. Yes, truly; but they seemed less cogent, the
+weight of precedent against them heavier, when I came to think, with a
+trembling heart, of acting on them. And the odium of deserting my
+order was no small matter to face. Hitherto I had been innocent; if
+they had put out the lip at me, they had done it wrongfully. But if I
+accepted this part, the part they assigned to me, I must be prepared
+to face not only the worst in case of failure, but in success to be a
+pariah. To be Tribune of the People, and an outcast from my kind!
+
+I rode hard to keep pace with these thoughts; and I did not doubt that
+I should be the first to bring the tale to Saux. But in those days
+nothing was more marvellous than the speed with which news of this
+kind crossed the country. It passed from mouth to mouth, from eye to
+eye; the air seemed to carry it. It went before the quickest
+traveller.
+
+Everywhere, therefore, I found it known. Known by people who had stood
+for days at cross-roads, waiting for they knew not what; known by
+scowling men on village bridges, who talked in low voices and eyed the
+towers of the Château; known by stewards and agents, men of the stamp
+of Gargouf, who smiled incredulously, or talked, like Madame St.
+Alais, of the King, and how good he was, and how many he would hang
+for it. Known, last of all, by Father Benôit, the man I would consult.
+He met me at the gate of the Château, opposite the place where the
+_carcan_ had stood. It was too dark to see his face, but I knew the
+fall of his _soutane_ and the shape of his hat. I sent on Gil and
+André, and he walked beside me up the avenue, with his hand on the
+withers of my horse.
+
+"Well, M. le Vicomte, it has come at last," he said.
+
+"You have heard?"
+
+"Buton told me."
+
+"What? Is he here?" I said in surprise. "I saw him at Cahors less than
+three hours ago."
+
+"Such news gives a man wings," Father Benôit answered with energy. "I
+say again, it has come. It has come, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"Something," I said prudently.
+
+"Everything," he answered confidently. "The mob took the Bastille, but
+who headed them? The soldiers; the Garde Française. Well, M. le
+Vicomte, if the army cannot be trusted, there is an end of abuses, an
+end of exemptions, of extortions, of bread famines, of Foulons and
+Berthiers, of grinding the faces of the poor, of----"
+
+The Curé's list was not half exhausted when I cut it short. "But if
+the army is with the mob, where will things stop?" I said wearily.
+
+"We must see to that," he answered.
+
+"Come and sup with me," I said, "I have something to tell you, and
+more to ask you."
+
+He assented gladly. "For there will be no sleep for me to-night," he
+said, his eye sparkling. "This is great news, glorious news, M. le
+Vicomte. Your father would have heard it with joy."
+
+"And M. de Launay?" I said as I dismounted.
+
+"There can be no change without suffering," he answered stoutly,
+though his face fell a little. "His fathers sinned, and he has paid
+the penalty. But God rest his soul! I have heard that he was a good
+man."
+
+"And died in his duty," I said rather tartly.
+
+"Amen," Father Benôit answered.
+
+Yet it was not until we were sat down in the Chestnut Parlour (which
+the servants called the English Room), and, with candles between us,
+were busy with our cheese and fruit, that I appreciated to the full
+the impression which the news had made on the Curé. Then, as he
+talked, as he told and listened, his long limbs and lean form trembled
+with excitement; his thin face worked. "It is the end," he said. "You
+may depend upon it, M. le Vicomte, it is the end. Your father told me
+many times that in money lay the secret of power. Money, he used to
+say, pays the army, the army secures all. A while ago the money
+failed. Now the army fails. There is nothing left."
+
+"The King?" I said, unconsciously quoting Madame la Marquise.
+
+"God bless his Majesty!" the Curé answered heartily. "He means well,
+and now he will be able to do well, because the nation will be with
+him. But without the nation, without money or an army--a name only.
+And the name did not save the Bastille."
+
+Then, beginning with the scene at Madame de St. Alais' reception, I
+told him all that had happened to me; the oath of the sword, the
+debate in the Assembly, the tumult in the Square--last of all, the
+harsh words with which Madame had given me my _congé_; all. As he
+listened he was extraordinarily moved. When I described the scene in
+the Chamber, he could not be still, but in his enthusiasm, walked
+about the parlour, muttering. And, when I told him how the crowd had
+cried "_Vive Saux!_" he repeated the words softly and looked at me
+with delighted eyes. But when I came--halting somewhat in my speech,
+and colouring and playing with my bread to hide my disorder--to tell
+him my thoughts on the way home, and the choice that, as it seemed to
+me, was offered to me, he sat down, and fell also to crumbling his
+bread and was silent.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V.
+
+                           THE DEPUTATION.
+
+
+He sat silent so long, with his eyes on the table, that presently I
+grew nettled; wondering what ailed him, and why he did not speak and
+say the things that I expected. I had been so confident of the advice
+he would give me, that, from the first, I had tinged my story with the
+appropriate colour. I had let my bitterness be seen; I had suppressed
+no scornful word, but supplied him with all the ground he could desire
+for giving me the advice I supposed to be upon his lips.
+
+And yet he did not speak. A hundred times I had heard him declare his
+sympathy with the people, his hatred of the corruption, the
+selfishness, the abuses of the Government; within the hour I had seen
+his eye kindle as he spoke of the fall of the Bastille. It was at his
+word I had burned the _carcan_; at his instance I had spent a large
+sum in feeding the village during the famine of the past year. Yet
+now--now, when I expected him to rise up and bid me do my part, he was
+silent!
+
+I had to speak at last. "Well?" I said irritably. "Have you nothing to
+say, M. le Curé?" And I moved one of the candles so as to get a better
+view of his features. But he still looked down at the table, he still
+avoided my eye, his thin face thoughtful, his hand toying with the
+crumbs.
+
+At last, "M. le Vicomte," he said softly, "through my mother's mother
+I, too, am noble."
+
+I gasped; not at the fact with which I was familiar, but at the
+application I thought he intended. "And for that," I said amazed, "you
+would----"
+
+He raised his hand to stop me. "No," he said gently, "I would not.
+Because, for all that, I am of the people by birth, and of the poor by
+my calling. But----"
+
+"But what?" I said peevishly.
+
+Instead of answering me he rose from his seat, and, taking up one of
+the candles, turned to the panelled wall behind him, on which hung a
+full-length portrait of my father, framed in a curious border of
+carved foliage. He read the name below it. "Antoine du Pont, Vicomte
+de Saux," he said, as if to himself. "He was a good man, and a friend
+to the poor. God keep him."
+
+He lingered a moment, gazing at the grave, handsome face, and
+doubtless recalling many things; then he passed, holding the candle
+aloft, to another picture which flanked the table: each wall boasted
+one. "Adrien du Pont, Vicomte de Saux," he read, "Colonel of the
+Regiment Flamande. He was killed, I think, at Minden. Knight of St.
+Louis and of the King's Bedchamber. A handsome man, and doubtless a
+gallant gentleman. I never knew him."
+
+I answered nothing, but my face began to burn as he passed to a third
+picture behind me. "Antoine du Pont, Vicomte de Saux," he read,
+holding up the candle, "Marshal and Peer of France, Knight of the
+King's Orders, a Colonel of the Household and of the King's Council.
+Died of the plague at Genoa in 1710. I think I have heard that he
+married a Rohan."
+
+He looked long, then passed to the fourth wall, and stood a moment
+quite silent. "And this one?" he said at last. "He, I think, has the
+noblest face of all. Antoine, Seigneur du Pont de Saux, of the Order
+of St. John of Jerusalem, Preceptor of the French tongue. Died at
+Valetta in the year after the Great Siege--of his wounds, some say; of
+incredible labours and exertions, say the Order. A Christian soldier."
+
+It was the last picture, and, after gazing at it a moment, he brought
+the candle back and set it down with its two fellows on the shining
+table; that, with the panelled walls, swallowed up the light, and left
+only our faces white and bright, with a halo round them, and darkness
+behind them. He bowed to me. "M. le Vicomte," he said at last, in a
+voice which shook a little, "you come of a noble stock."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. "It is known," I said. "And for that?"
+
+"I dare not advise you."
+
+"But the cause is good!" I cried.
+
+"Yes," he answered slowly. "I have been saying so all my life. I dare
+not say otherwise now. But--the cause of the people is the people's.
+Leave it to the people."
+
+"_You_ say that!" I answered, staring at him, angry and perplexed.
+"You, who have told me a hundred times that I am of the people! that
+the nobility are of the people; that there are only two things in
+France, the King and the people."
+
+He smiled somewhat sadly; tapping on the table with his fingers. "That
+was theory," he said. "I try to put it into practice, and my heart
+fails me. Because I, too, have a little nobility, M. le Vicomte, and
+know what it is."
+
+"I don't understand you," I said in despair. "You blow hot and cold,
+M. le Curé. I told you just now that I spoke for the people at the
+meeting of the noblesse, and you approved."
+
+"It was nobly done."
+
+"Yet now?"
+
+"I say the same thing," Father Benôit answered, his fine face
+illumined with feeling. "It was nobly done. Fight for the people, M.
+le Vicomte, but among your fellows. Let your voice be heard there,
+where all you will gain for yourself will be obloquy and black looks.
+But if it comes, if it has come, to a struggle between your class and
+the commons, between the nobility and the vulgar; if the noble must
+side with his fellows or take the people's pay, then"--Father Benôit's
+voice trembled a little, and his thin white hand tapped softly on the
+table--"I would rather see you ranked with your kind."
+
+"Against the people?"
+
+"Yes, against the people," he answered, shrinking a little.
+
+I was astonished. "Why, great heaven," I said, "the smallest
+logic----"
+
+"Ah!" he answered, shaking his head sadly, and looking at me with kind
+eyes. "There you beat me; logic is against me. Reason, too. The cause
+of the people, the cause of reform, of honesty, of cheap grain, of
+equal justice, _must_ be a good one. And who forwards it must be in
+the right. That is so, M. le Vicomte. Nay, more than that. If the
+people are left to fight their battle alone the danger of excesses is
+greater. I see that. But instinct does not let me act on the
+knowledge."
+
+"Yet, M. de Mirabeau?" I said. "I have heard you call him a great
+man."
+
+"It is true," Father Benôit answered, keeping his eyes on mine, while
+he drummed softly on the table with his fingers.
+
+"I have heard you speak of him with admiration."
+
+"Often."
+
+"And of M. de Lafayette?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the Lameths?"
+
+M. le Curé nodded.
+
+"Yet all these," I said stubbornly, "all these are nobles--nobles
+leading the people!"
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"And you do not blame them?"
+
+"No, I do not blame them."
+
+"Nay, you admire them! You admire them, Father," I persisted,
+glowering at him.
+
+"I know I do," he said. "I know that I am weak and a fool. Perhaps
+worse, M. le Vicomte, in that I have not the courage of my
+convictions. But, though I admire those men, though I think them great
+and to be admired, I have heard men speak of them who thought
+otherwise; and--it may be weak--but I knew you as a boy, and I would
+not have men speak so of you. There are things we admire at a
+distance," he continued, looking at me a little drolly, to hide the
+affection that shone in his eyes, "which we, nevertheless, do not
+desire to find in those we love. Odium heaped on a stranger is nothing
+to us; on our friends, it were worse than death."
+
+He stopped, his voice trembling; and we were both silent for a while.
+Still, I would not let him see how much his words had touched me; and
+by-and-by----
+
+"But my father?" I said. "He was strongly on the side of reform!"
+
+"Yes, by the nobles, for the people."
+
+"But the nobles have cast me out!" I answered. "Because I have gone a
+yard, I have lost all. Shall I not go two, and win all back?"
+
+"Win all," he said softly--"but lose how much?"
+
+"Yet if the people win? And you say they will?"
+
+"Even then, Tribune of the People," he answered gently, "and an
+outcast!"
+
+They were the very words I had applied to myself as I rode; and I
+started. With sudden vividness I saw the picture they presented; and I
+understood why Father Benôit had hesitated so long in my case. With
+the purest intentions and the most upright heart, I could not make
+myself other than what I was; I should rise, were my efforts crowned
+with success, to a point of splendid isolation; suspected by the
+people, whose benefactor I had been, hated and cursed by the nobles
+whom I had deserted.
+
+Such a prospect would have been far from deterring some; and others it
+might have lured. But I found myself, in this moment of clear vision,
+no hero. Old prejudices stirred in the blood, old traditions, born of
+centuries of precedence and privilege, awoke in the memory. A shiver
+of doubt and mistrust--such as, I suppose, has tormented reformers
+from the first, and caused all but the hardiest to flinch--passed
+through me, as I gazed across the candles at the Curé. I feared the
+people--the unknown. The howl of exultation, that had rent the air in
+the Market-place at Cahors, the brutal cries that had hailed Gontaut's
+fall, rang again in my ears. I shrank back, as a man shrinks who finds
+himself on the brink of an abyss, and through the wavering mist,
+parted for a brief instant by the wind, sees the cruel rocks and
+jagged points that wait for him below.
+
+It was a moment of extraordinary prevision, and though it passed, and
+speedily left me conscious once more of the silent room and the good
+Curé--who affected to be snuffing one of the long candles--the effect
+it produced on my mind continued. After Father Benôit had taken his
+leave, and the house was closed, I walked for an hour up and down the
+walnut avenue; now standing to gaze between the open iron gates that
+gave upon the road; now turning my back on them, and staring at the
+grey, gaunt, steep-roofed house with its flanking tower and round
+_tourelles_.
+
+Henceforth, I made up my mind, I would stand aside. I would welcome
+reform, I would do in private what I could to forward it; but I would
+not a second time set myself against my fellows. I had had the courage
+of my opinions. Henceforth, no man could say that I had hidden them,
+but after this I would stand aside and watch the course of events.
+
+A cock crowed at the rear of the house--untimely; and across the
+hushed fields, through the dusk, came the barking of a distant dog. As
+I stood listening, while the solemn stars gazed down, the slight which
+St. Alais had put upon me dwindled--dwindled to its true dimensions. I
+thought of Mademoiselle Denise, of the bride I had lost, with a faint
+regret that was almost amusement. What would she think of this sudden
+rupture? I wondered. Of this strange loss of her _fiancé?_ Would it
+awaken her curiosity, her interest? Or would she, fresh from her
+convent school, think that things in the world went commonly so--that
+_fiancés_ came and passed, and receptions found their natural end in
+riot?
+
+I laughed softly, pleased that I had made up my mind. But, had I
+known, as I listened to the rustling of the poplars in the road, and
+the sounds that came out of the darkened world beyond them, what was
+passing there--had I known that, I should have felt even greater
+satisfaction. For this was Wednesday, the 22nd of July; and that night
+Paris still palpitated after viewing strange things. For the first
+time she had heard the horrid cry, "_A la lanterne!_" and seen a man,
+old and white-headed, hanged, and tortured, until death freed him. She
+had seen another, the very Intendant of the City, flung down, trampled
+and torn to pieces in his own streets--publicly, in full day, in the
+presence of thousands. She had seen these things, trembling; and other
+things also--things that had made the cheeks of reformers grow pale,
+and betrayed to all thinking men that below Lafayette, below Bailly,
+below the Municipality and the Electoral Committee, roared and seethed
+the awakened forces of the Faubourgs, of St. Antoine, and St. Marceau!
+
+What could be expected, what was to be expected, but that such
+outrages, remaining unpunished, should spread? Within a week the
+provinces followed the lead of Paris. Already, on the 21st the mob of
+Strasbourg had sacked the Hôtel de Ville and destroyed the Archives;
+and during the same week, the Bastilles at Bordeaux and Caen were
+taken and destroyed. At Rouen, at Rennes, at Lyons, at St. Malo, were
+great riots, with fighting; and nearer Paris, at Poissy, and St.
+Germain, the populace hung the millers. But, as far as Cahors was
+concerned, it was not until the astonishing tidings of the King's
+surrender reached us, a few days later--tidings that on the 17th of
+July he had entered insurgent Paris, and tamely acquiesced in the
+destruction of the Bastille--it was not until that news reached us,
+and hard on its heels a rumour of the second rising on the 22nd, and
+the slaughter of Foulon and Berthier--it was not until then, I say,
+that the country round us began to be moved. Father Benôit, with a
+face of astonishment and doubt, brought me the tidings, and we walked
+on the terrace discussing it. Probably reports, containing more or
+less of the truth, had reached the city before, and, giving men
+something else to think of, had saved me from challenge or
+molestation. But, in the country where I had spent the week in moody
+unrest, and not unfrequently reversing in the morning the decision at
+which I had arrived in the night, I had heard nothing until the Curé
+came--I think on the morning of the 29th of July.
+
+"And what do you think now?" I said thoughtfully, when I had listened
+to his tale.
+
+"Only what I did before," he answered stoutly. "It has come. Without
+money, and therefore without soldiers who will fight, with a starving
+people, with men's minds full of theories and abstractions, that all
+tend towards change, what can a Government do?"
+
+
+"Apparently it can cease to govern," I said tartly; "and that is not
+what any one wants."
+
+"There must be a period of unrest," he replied, but less confidently.
+"The forces of order, however, the forces of the law have always
+triumphed. I don't doubt that they will again."
+
+"After a period of unrest?"
+
+"Yes," he answered. "After a period of unrest. And, I confess, I wish
+that we were through that. But we must be of good heart, M. le
+Vicomte. We must trust the people; we must confide in their good
+sense, their capacity for government, their moderation----"
+
+I had to interrupt him. "What is it, Gil?" I said with a gesture of
+apology. The servant had come out of the house and was waiting to
+speak to me.
+
+"M. Doury, M. le Vicomte, from Cahors," he answered.
+
+"The inn-keeper?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur; and Buton. They ask to see you."
+
+"Together?" I said. It seemed a strange conjunction.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Well, show them here," answered, after consulting my companion's
+face. "But Doury? I paid my bill. What can he want?"
+
+"We shall see," Father Benôit answered, his eyes on the door. "Here
+they come. Ah! Now, M. le Vicomte," he continued in a lower tone, "I
+feel less confident."
+
+I suppose he guessed something akin to the truth; but for my part I
+was completely at a loss. The innkeeper, a sleek, complaisant man, of
+whom, though I had known him some years, I had never seen much beyond
+the crown of his head, nor ever thought of him as apart from his
+guests and his ordinary, wore, as he advanced, a strange motley of
+dignity and subservience; now strutting with pursed lips, and an air
+of extreme importance, and now stooping to bow in a shame-faced and
+half-hearted manner. His costume was as great a surprise as his
+appearance, for, instead of his citizen's suit of black, he sported a
+blue coat with gold buttons, and a canary waistcoat, and he carried a
+gold-headed cane; sober splendours, which, nevertheless, paled before
+two large bunches of ribbons, white, red, and blue, which he wore, one
+on his breast, and one in his hat.
+
+His companion, who followed a foot or two behind, his giant frame and
+sun-burned face setting off the citizen's plumpness, was similarly
+bedizened. But though be-ribboned and in strange company, he was still
+Baton, the smith. His face reddened as he met my eyes, and he shielded
+himself as well as he could behind Doury's form.
+
+"Good-morning, Doury," I said. I could have laughed at the awkward
+complaisance of the man's manner, if something in the gravity of the
+Curé's face had not restrained me. "What brings you to Saux?" I
+continued. "And what can I do for you?"
+
+"If it please you, M. le Vicomte," he began. Then he paused, and
+straightening himself--for habit had bent his back--he continued
+abruptly, "Public business, Monsieur, with you on it."
+
+"With me?' I said, amazed. On public business?"
+
+He smiled in a sickly way, but stuck to his text. "Even so, Monsieur,"
+he said. "There are such great changes, and--and so great need of
+advice."
+
+"That I ought not to wonder at M. Doury seeking it at Saux?"
+
+"Even so, Monsieur."
+
+I did not try to hide my contempt and amusement; but shrugged my
+shoulders, and looked at the Curé.
+
+"Well," I said, after a moment of silence, "and what is it? Have you
+been selling bad wine? Or do you want the number of courses limited by
+Act of the States General? Or----"
+
+"Monsieur," he said, drawing himself up with an attempt at dignity,
+"this is no time for jesting. In the present crisis inn-keepers have
+as much at stake as, with reverence, the noblesse; and deserted by
+those who should lead them----"
+
+"What, the inn-keepers?" I cried.
+
+He grew as red as a beetroot. "M. le Vicomte understands that I mean
+the people," he said stiffly. "Who deserted, I say, by their natural
+leaders----"
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"M. le Duc d'Artois, M. le Prince de Condé, M. le Duc de Polignac,
+M.----"
+
+"Bah!" I said. "How have they deserted?"
+
+"_Pardieu_, Monsieur! Have you not heard?"
+
+"Have I not heard what?"
+
+"That they have left France? That on the night of the 17th, three days
+after the capture of the Bastille, the princes of the blood left
+France by stealth, and----"
+
+"Impossible!" I said. "Impossible! Why should they leave?"
+
+"That is the very question, M. le Vicomte," he answered, with eager
+forwardness, "that is being asked. Some say that they thought to
+punish Paris by withdrawing from it. Some that they did it to show
+their disapproval of his most gracious Majesty's amnesty, which was
+announced on that day. Some that they stand in fear. Some even that
+they anticipated Foulon's fate----"
+
+"Fool!" I cried, stopping him sternly--for I found this too much for
+my stomach--"you rave! Go back to your menus and your bouillis! What
+do you know about State affairs? Why, in my grandfather's time," I
+continued wrathfully, "if you had spoken of princes of the blood after
+that fashion, you would have tasted bread and water for six months,
+and been lucky had you got off unwhipped!"
+
+He quailed before me, and forgetting his new part in old habits,
+muttered an apology. He had not meant to give offence, he said. He had
+not understood. Nevertheless, I was preparing to read him a lesson
+when, to my astonishment, Buton intervened.
+
+"But, Monsieur, that is thirty years back," he said doggedly.
+
+"What, villain?" I exclaimed, almost breathless with astonishment,
+"what do you in this _galère?_"
+
+"I am with him," he answered, indicating his companion by a sullen
+gesture.
+
+"On State business?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Why, _mon Dieu_," I cried, staring at them between amusement and
+incredulity, "if this is true, why did you not bring the watch-dog as
+well! And Farmer Jean's ram? And the good-wife's cat? And M. Doury's
+turnspit? And----"
+
+M. le Curé touched my arm. "Perhaps you had better hear what they have
+to say," he observed softly. "Afterwards, M. le Vicomte----"
+
+I nodded sulkily. "What is it, then?" I said. "Ask what you want to
+ask."
+
+"The Intendant has fled," Doury answered, recovering something of his
+lost dignity, "and we are forming, in pursuance of advice received
+from Paris, and following the glorious example of that city, a
+Committee; a Committee to administer the affairs of the district. From
+that Committee, I, Monsieur, with my good friend here, have the honour
+to be a deputation."
+
+"With him?" I said, unable to control myself longer. "But, in heaven's
+name, what has he to do with the Committee? Or the affairs of the
+district?"
+
+And I pointed with relentless finger at Buton, who reddened under his
+tan, and moved his huge feet uneasily, but did not speak.
+
+"He is a member of it," the inn-keeper answered, regarding his
+colleague with a side glance, which seemed to express anything but
+liking. "This Committee, to be as perfect as possible, Monsieur le
+Vicomte will understand, must represent all classes."
+
+"Even mine, I suppose," I said, with a sneer.
+
+"It is on that business we have come," he answered awkwardly. "To ask,
+in a word, M. le Vicomte, that you will allow yourself to be elected a
+member, and not only a member----
+
+"What elevation!"
+
+"But President of the Committee."
+
+After all--it was no more than I had been foreseeing! It had come
+suddenly, but in the main it was only that in sober fact which I had
+foreseen in a dream. Styled the mandate of the people, it had sounded
+well; by the mouth of Doury, the inn-keeper, Buton assessor, it jarred
+every nerve in me. I say, it should not have surprised me; while such
+things were happening in the world, with a King who stood by and saw
+his fortress taken, and his servants killed, and pardoned the rebels;
+with an Intendant of Paris slaughtered in his own streets; with
+rumours and riots in every province, and flying princes, and swinging
+millers, there was really nothing wonderful in the invitation. And
+now, looking back, I find nothing surprising in it. I have lived to
+see men of the same trade as Doury, stand by the throne, glittering in
+stars and orders; and a smith born in the forge sit down to dine with
+Emperors. But that July day on the terrace at Saux, the offer seemed
+of all farces the wildest, and of all impertinences the most absurd.
+
+"Thanks, Monsieur," I said, at last, when I had sufficiently recovered
+from my astonishment. "If I understand you rightly, you ask me to sit
+on the same Committee with that man?" And I pointed grimly to Buton.
+"With the peasant born on my land, and subject yesterday to my
+justice? With the serf whom my fathers freed? With the workman living
+on my wages?"
+
+Doury glanced at his colleague. "Well, M. le Vicomte," he said, with a
+cough, "to be perfect, you understand, a Committee must represent
+all."
+
+"A Committee!" I retorted, unable to repress my scorn. "It is a new
+thing in France. And what is the perfect Committee to do?"
+
+Doury on a sudden recovered himself, and swelled with importance. "The
+Intendant has fled," he said, "and people no longer trust the
+magistrates. There are rumours of brigands, too; and corn is required.
+With all this the Committee must deal. It must take measures to keep
+the peace, to supply the city, to satisfy the soldiers, to hold
+meetings, and consider future steps. Besides, M. le Vicomte," he
+continued, puffing out his cheeks, "it will correspond with Paris; it
+will administer the law; it will----"
+
+"In a word," I said quietly, "it will govern. The King, I suppose,
+having abdicated."
+
+Doury shrank bodily, and even lost some of his colour. "God forbid!"
+he said, in a whining tone. "It will do all in his Majesty's name."
+
+"And by his authority?"
+
+The inn-keeper stared at me, startled and nonplussed; and muttered
+something about the people.
+
+"Ah!" I said. "It is the people who invite me to govern, then, is it?
+With an inn-keeper and a peasant? And other inn-keepers and peasants,
+I suppose? To govern! To usurp his Majesty's functions? To supersede
+his magistrates; to bribe his forces? In a word, friend Doury," I
+continued suavely, "to commit treason. Treason, you understand?"
+
+The inn-keeper did; and he wiped his forehead with a shaking hand, and
+stood, scared and speechless, looking at me piteously. A second time
+the blacksmith took it on himself to answer.
+
+"Monseigneur," he muttered, drawing his great black hand across his
+beard.
+
+"Buton," I answered suavely, "permit me. For a man who aspires to
+govern the country, you are too respectful."
+
+"You have omitted one thing it is for the Committee to do," the smith
+answered hoarsely, looking--like a timid, yet sullen, dog--anywhere
+but in my face.
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"To protect the Seigneurs."
+
+I stared at him, between anger and surprise. This was a new light.
+After a pause, "From whom?" I said curtly.
+
+"Their people," he answered.
+
+"Their Butons," I said. "I see. We are to be burned in our beds, are
+we?"
+
+He stood sulkily silent.
+
+"Thank you, Buton," I said. "And that is your return for a winter's
+corn. Thanks! In this world it is profitable to do good!"
+
+The man reddened through his tan, and on a sudden looked at me for the
+first time. "You know that you lie, M. le Vicomte!" he said.
+
+"Lie, sirrah?" I cried.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur," he answered. "You know that I would die for the
+seigneur, as much as if the iron collar were round my neck! That
+before fire touched the house of Saux it should burn me! That I am my
+lord's man, alive and dead. But, Monseigneur," and, as he continued,
+he lowered his tone to one of earnestness, striking in a man so rough,
+"there are abuses, and there must be an end of them. There are
+tyrants, and they must go. There are men and women and children
+starving, and there must be an end of that. There is grinding of the
+faces of the poor, Monseigneur--not here, but everywhere round us--and
+there must be an end of that. And the poor pay taxes and the rich go
+free; the poor make the roads, and the rich use them; the poor have no
+salt, while the King eats gold. To all these things there is now to be
+an end--quietly, if the seigneurs will--but an end. An end,
+Monseigneur, though we burn châteaux," he added grimly.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VI.
+
+                        A MEETING IN THE ROAD.
+
+
+The unlooked-for eloquence which rang in the blacksmith's words, and
+the assurance of his tone, no less than this startling disclosure of
+thoughts with which I had never dreamed of crediting him, or any
+peasant, took me so aback for a moment that I stood silent. Doury
+seized the occasion, and struck in.
+
+"You see now, M. le Vicomte," he said complacently, "the necessity for
+such a Committee. The King's peace must be maintained."
+
+"I see," I answered harshly, "that there are violent men abroad, who
+were better in the stocks. Committee? Let the King's officers keep the
+King's peace! The proper machinery----"
+
+"It is shattered!"
+
+The words were Doury's. The next moment he quailed at his presumption.
+"Then let it be repaired!" I thundered. "_Mon Dieu!_ that a set of
+tavern cooks and base-born rascals should go about the country prating
+of it, and prating to me! Go, I will have nothing to do with you or
+your Committee. Go, I say!"
+
+"Nevertheless--a little patience, M. le Vicomte," he persisted,
+chagrin on his pale face--"nevertheless, if any of the nobility would
+give us countenance, you most of all----"
+
+"There would then be some one to hang instead of Doury!" I answered
+bluntly. "Some one behind whom he could shield himself, and lesser
+villains hide. But I will not be the stalking-horse."
+
+"And yet, in other provinces," he answered desperately, his
+disappointment more and more pronounced, "M. de Liancourt and M. de
+Rochefoucauld have not disdained to----"
+
+"Nevertheless, I disdain!" I retorted. "And more, I tell you, and I
+bid you remember it, you will have to answer for the work you are
+doing. I have told you it is treason. It is treason; I will have
+neither act nor part in it. Now go."
+
+"There will be burning," the smith muttered.
+
+"Begone!" I said sternly. "If you do not----"
+
+"Before the morn is old the sky will be red," he answered. "On your
+head, Seigneur, be it!"
+
+I aimed a blow at him with my cane; but he avoided it with a kind of
+dignity, and stalked away, Doury following him with a pale, hang-dog
+face, and his finery sitting very ill upon him. I stood and watched
+them go, and then I turned to the Curé to hear what he had to say.
+
+But I found him gone also. He, too, had slipped away; through the
+house, to intercept them at the gates, perhaps, and dissuade them. I
+waited for him, querulously tapping the walk with my stick, and
+watching the corner of the house. Presently he came round it, holding
+his hat an inch or two above his head, his lean, tall figure almost
+shadowless, for it was noon. I noticed that his lips moved as he came
+towards me; but, when I spoke, he looked up cheerfully.
+
+"Yes," he said in answer to my question, "I went through the house,
+and stopped them."
+
+"It would be useless," I said. "Men so mad as to think that they could
+replace his Majesty's Government with a Committee of smiths and
+pastrycooks----"
+
+"I have joined it," he answered, smiling faintly.
+
+"The Committee?" I ejaculated, breathless with surprise.
+
+"Even so."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Why?" he said quietly. "Have I not always predicted this day? Is not
+this what Rousseau, with his _Social Contract_, and Beaumarchais, with
+his 'Figaro,' and every philosopher who ever repeated the one, and
+every fine lady who ever applauded the other, have been teaching?
+Well, it has come, and I have advised you, M. le Vicomte, to stand by
+your order. But I, a poor man, I stand by mine. And for the Committee
+of what seems to you, my friend, impossible people, is not any kind
+of government"--this more warmly, and as if he were arguing with
+himself--"better than none? Understand, Monsieur, the old machinery
+has broken down. The Intendant has fled. The people defy the
+magistrates. The soldiers side with the people. The _huissiers_ and
+tax collectors are--the Good God knows where!"
+
+"Then," I said indignantly, "it is time for the gentry to----"
+
+"Take the lead and govern?" he rejoined. "By whom? A handful of
+servants and game-keepers? Against the people? against such a mob as
+you saw in the Square at Cahors? Impossible, Monsieur."
+
+"But the world seems to be turning upside down," I said helplessly.
+
+"The greater need of a strong unchanging holdfast--not of the world,"
+he answered reverently; and he lifted his hat a moment from his head
+and stood in thought. Then he continued: "However, the matter is this.
+I hear from Doury that the gentry are gathering at Cahors, with the
+view of combining, as you suggest, and checking the people. Now, it
+must be useless, and it may be worse. It may lead to the very excesses
+they would prevent."
+
+"In Cahors?"
+
+"No, in the country. Buton, be sure, did not speak without warrant. He
+is a good man, but he knows some who are not, and there are lonely
+châteaux in Quercy, and dainty women who have never known the touch of
+a rough hand, and--and children."
+
+"But," I cried aghast, "do you fear a Jacquerie?"
+
+"God knows," he answered solemnly. "The fathers have eaten sour
+grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. How many years have
+men spent at Versailles the peasant's blood, life, bone, flesh! To pay
+back at last, it may be, of their own! But God forbid, Monsieur, God
+forbid. Yet, if ever--it comes now."
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+When he was gone I could not rest. His words had raised a fever in me.
+What might not be afoot, what might not be going on, while I lay idle?
+And, presently, to quench my thirst for news, I mounted and rode out
+on the way to Cahors. The day was hot, the time for riding ill-chosen;
+but the exercise did me good. I began to recover from the giddiness of
+thought into which the Curé's fears, coming on the top of Buton's
+warning, had thrown me. For a while I had seen things with their eyes;
+I had allowed myself to be carried away by their imaginations; and the
+prospect of a France ruled by a set of farriers and postillions had
+not seemed so bizarre as it began to look, now that I had time,
+mounting the long hill, which lies one league from Saux and two from
+Cahors, to consider it calmly. For a moment, the wild idea of a whole
+gentry fleeing like hares before their peasantry, had not seemed so
+very wild.
+
+Now, on reflection, beginning to see things in their normal sizes, I
+called myself a simpleton. A Jacquerie? Three centuries and more had
+passed since France had known the thing in the dark ages. Could any,
+save a child alone in the night, or a romantic maiden solitary in
+her rock castle, dream of its recurrence? True, as I skirted St.
+Alais, which lies a little aside from the road, at the foot of the
+hill, I saw at the village-turning a sullen group of faces that
+should have been bent over the hoe; a group, gloomy, discontented,
+waiting--waiting, with shock heads and eyes glittering under low
+brows, for God knows what. But I had seen such a gathering before; in
+bad times, when seed was lacking, or when despair, or some excessive
+outrage on the part of the _fermier_, had driven the peasants to fold
+their hands and quit the fields. And always it had ended in nothing,
+or a hanging at most. Why should I suppose that anything would come of
+it now, or that a spark in Paris must kindle a fire here?
+
+In fact, I as good as made up my mind; and laughed at my simplicity.
+The Curé had let his predictions run away with him, and Buton's
+ignorance and credulity had done the rest. What, I now saw, could be
+more absurd than to suppose that France, the first, the most stable,
+the most highly civilised of States, wherein for two centuries none
+had resisted the royal power and stood, could become in a moment the
+theatre of barbarous excesses? What more absurd than to conceive it
+turned into the _Petit Trianon_ of a gang of _rôturiers_ and
+_canaille?_
+
+At this point in my thoughts I broke off, for, as I reached it, a
+coach came slowly over the ridge before me and began to descend the
+road. For a space it hung clear-cut against the sky, the burly figure
+of the coachman and the heads of the two lackeys who swung behind it
+visible above the hood. Then it began to drop down cautiously towards
+me. The men behind sprang down and locked the wheels, and the
+lumbering vehicle slid and groaned downwards, the wheelers pressing
+back, the leading horses tossing their heads impatiently. The road
+there descends not in _lacets_, but straight, for nearly half a mile
+between poplars; and on the summer air the screaming of the wheels and
+the jingling of the harness came distinctly to the ear.
+
+Presently I made out that the coach was Madame St. Alais'; and I felt
+inclined to turn and avoid it. But the next moment pride came to my
+aid, and I shook my reins and went on to meet it.
+
+I had scarcely seen a person except Father Benôit since the affair at
+Cahors, and my cheek flamed at the thought of the _rencontre_ before
+me. For the same reason the coach seemed to come on very slowly; but
+at last I came abreast of it, passed the straining horses, and looked
+into the carriage with my hat in my hand, fearing that I might see
+Madame, hoping I might see Louis, ready with a formal salute at least.
+Politeness required no less.
+
+But sitting in the place of honour, instead of M. le Marquis, or his
+mother, or M. le Comte, was one little figure throned in the middle of
+the seat; a little figure with a pale inquiring face that blushed
+scarlet at sight of me, and eyes that opened wide with fright, and
+lips that trembled piteously. It was Mademoiselle!
+
+Had I known a moment earlier that she was in the carriage and alone, I
+should have passed by in silence; as was doubtless my duty after what
+had happened. I was the last person who should have intruded on her.
+But the men, grinning, I dare say, at the encounter--for probably
+Madame's treatment of me was the talk of the house--had drawn up, and
+I had reined up instinctively; so that before I quite understood that
+she was alone, save for two maids who sat with their backs to the
+horses, we were gazing at one another--like two fools!
+
+"Mademoiselle!" I said.
+
+"Monsieur!" she answered mechanically.
+
+Now, when I had said that, I had said all that I had a right to say. I
+should have saluted, and gone on with that. But something impelled me
+to add--"Mademoiselle is going--to St. Alais?"
+
+Her lips moved, but I heard no sound. She stared at me like one under
+a spell. The elder of her women, however, answered for her, and said
+briskly:----
+
+"Ah, _oui_, Monsieur."
+
+"And Madame de St. Alais?"
+
+"Madame remains at Cahors," the woman answered in the same tone, "with
+M. le Marquis, who has business."
+
+Then, at any rate, I should have gone on; but the girl sat looking at
+me, silent and blushing; and something in the picture, something in
+the thought of her arriving alone and unprotected at St. Alais, taken
+with a memory of the lowering faces I had seen in the village,
+impelled me to stand and linger; and finally to blurt out what I had
+in my mind.
+
+"Mademoiselle," I said impulsively, ignoring her attendants, "if you
+will take my advice--you will not go on."
+
+One of the women muttered "_Ma foi!_" under her breath. The other said
+"Indeed!" and tossed her head impertinently. But Mademoiselle found
+her voice.
+
+"Why, Monsieur?" she said clearly and sweetly, her eyes wide with a
+surprise that for the moment overcame her shyness.
+
+"Because," I answered diffidently--I repented already that I had
+spoken--"the state of the country is such--I mean that Madame la
+Marquise scarcely understands perhaps that--that----"
+
+"What, Monsieur?" Mademoiselle asked primly.
+
+"That at St. Alais," I stammered, "there is a good deal of discontent,
+Mademoiselle, and----"
+
+"At St. Alais?" she said.
+
+"In the neighbourhood, I should have said," I answered awkwardly.
+"And--and in fine," I continued very much embarrassed, "it would be
+better, in my poor opinion, for Mademoiselle to turn and----"
+
+"Accompany Monsieur, perhaps?" one of the women said; and she giggled
+insolently.
+
+Mademoiselle St. Alais flashed a look at the offender, that made me
+wink. Then with her cheeks burning, she said:----
+
+"Drive on!"
+
+I was foolish and would not let ill alone. "But, Mademoiselle," I
+said, "a thousand pardons, but----"
+
+"Drive on!" she repeated; this time in a tone, which, though it was
+still sweet and clear, was not to be gainsaid. The maid who had not
+offended--the other looked no little scared--repeated the order, the
+coach began to move, and in a moment I was left in the road, sitting
+on my horse with my hat in my hand, and looking foolishly at nothing.
+
+The straight road running down between lines of poplars, the
+descending coach, lurching and jolting as it went, the faces of the
+grinning lackeys as they looked back at me through the dust--I well
+remember them all. They form a picture strangely vivid and distinct in
+that gallery where so many more important have faded into nothingness.
+I was hot, angry, vexed with myself; conscious that I had trespassed
+beyond the becoming, and that I more than deserved the repulse I had
+suffered. But through all ran a thread of a new feeling--a quite new
+feeling. Mademoiselle's face moved before my eyes--showing through the
+dust; her eyes full of dainty surprise, or disdain as delicate,
+accompanied me as I rode. I thought of her, not of Buton or Doury, the
+Committee or the Curé, the heat or the dull road. I ceased to
+speculate except on the chances of a peasant rising. That, that alone
+assumed a new and more formidable aspect; and became in a moment
+imminent and probable. The sight of Mademoiselle's childish face had
+given a reality to Buton's warnings, which all the Curé's hints had
+failed to impart to them.
+
+So much did the thought now harass me, that to escape it I shook up my
+horse, and cantered on, Gil and André following, and wondering,
+doubtless, why I did not turn. But, wholly taken up with the horrid
+visions which the blacksmith's words had called up, I took no heed of
+time until I awoke to find myself more than half-way on the road to
+Cahors, which lies three leagues and a mile from Saux. Then I drew
+rein and stood in the road, in a fit of excitement and indecision.
+Within the half-hour I might be at Madame St. Alais' door in Cahors,
+and, whatever happened then, I should have no need to reproach myself.
+Or in a little more I might be at home, ingloriously safe.
+
+Which was it to be? The moment, though I did not know it, was fateful.
+On the one hand, Mademoiselle's face, her beauty, her innocence, her
+helplessness, pleaded with me strangely, and dragged me on to give the
+warning. On the other, my pride urged me to return, and avoid such a
+reception as I had every reason to expect.
+
+In the end I went on. In less than half an hour I had crossed the
+Valaridré bridge.
+
+Yet it must not be supposed that I decided without doubt, or went
+forward without misgiving. The taunts and sneers to which Madame had
+treated me were too recent for that; and a dozen times pride and
+resentment almost checked my steps, and I turned and went home again.
+On each occasion, however, the ugly faces and brutish eyes I had seen
+in the village rose before me; I remembered the hatred in which
+Gargouf, the St. Alais' steward, was held; I pictured the horrors that
+might be enacted before help could come from Cahors; and I went on.
+
+Yet with a mind made up to ridicule; which even the crowded streets,
+when I reached them, failed to relieve, though they wore an
+unmistakable air of excitement. Groups of people, busily conversing,
+were everywhere to be seen; and in two or three places men were
+standing on stools--in a fashion then new to me--haranguing knots of
+idlers. Some of the shops were shut, there were guards before others,
+and before the bakehouses. I remarked a great number of journals and
+pamphlets in men's hands, and that where these were, the talk rose
+loudest. In some places, too, my appearance seemed to create
+excitement, but this was of a doubtful character, a few greeting me
+respectfully, while more stared at me in silence. Several asked me, as
+I passed, if I brought news, and seemed disappointed when I said I did
+not; and at two points a handful of people hooted me.
+
+This angered me a little, but I forgot it in a thing still more
+surprising. Presently, as I rode, I heard my name called; and turning,
+found M. de Gontaut hurrying after me as fast as his dignity and
+lameness would permit. He leaned, as usual, on the arm of a servant,
+his other hand holding a cane and snuff-box; and two stout fellows
+followed him. I had no reason to suppose that he would appreciate the
+service I had done him more highly, or acknowledge it more gratefully,
+than on the day of the riot; and my surprise was great when he came
+up, his face all smiles.
+
+"Nothing, for months, has given me so much pleasure as this," he said,
+saluting me with overwhelming cordiality. "By my faith, M. le Vicomte,
+you have outdone us all! You will have such a reception yonder! and
+you have brought two good knaves, I see. It is not fair," he
+continued, nodding his head with senile jocularity. "I declare it is
+not fair. But you know the text? 'There is more joy in heaven over one
+sinner that repenteth than----' Ha! ha! Well, we must not be jealous.
+You have taught them a lesson; and now we are united."
+
+"But, M. le Baron," I said in amazement, as, obeying his gesture, I
+moved on, while he limped jauntily beside me, "I do not understand you
+in the least!"
+
+"You don't?"
+
+"No!" I said.
+
+"Ah! you did not think that we should hear it so soon," he replied,
+shaking his head sagely. "Oh, I can tell you we are well provided. The
+campaign has begun, and the information department has not been
+neglected. Little escapes us, and we shall soon set these rogues
+right. But, for the fact, that damned rascal Doury let it out. I hear
+you told them some fine home-truths. A Committee, the insolents! And
+in our teeth! But you gave them a sharp set-back, I hear, M. le
+Vicomte. If you had joined it, now----"
+
+He stopped abruptly. A man crossing the street had slightly jostled
+him. The old noble lost his temper, and on the instant raised his
+stick with a passionate oath, and the man cowered away begging his
+pardon. But M. de Gontaut was not to be appeased.
+
+"Vagabond!" he cried after him, in a voice trembling with rage, "you
+would throw me down again, would you? We will put you in your place
+by-and-by. We will; why, _Dieu!_ when I was young----"
+
+"But, M. le Baron," I said to divert his attention, for two or three
+bystanders were casting ugly looks at us, and I saw that it needed
+little to bring about a fracas, "are you quite sure that we shall be
+able to keep them in check?"
+
+The old noble still trembled, but he drew himself up with a gesture of
+pathetic gallantry.
+
+"You shall see!" he cried. "When it comes to hard knocks, you shall
+see, Monsieur. But here we are; and there is Madame St. Alais on the
+balcony with some of her bodyguard." He paused to kiss his hand, with
+the air of a Polignac. "Up there, M. le Vicomte, you will see what you
+will see," he continued. "And I--I shall be in luck, too, for I have
+brought you."
+
+It seemed to me more like a dream than a reality. A fortnight before,
+I had been spurned from this house with insults; I had been bidden
+never to enter it again. Now, on the balconies, from which pretty
+faces and powdered heads looked down, handkerchiefs fluttered to greet
+me. On the stairs, which, crowded with servants and lackeys, shook
+under the constant stream of comers and goers, I was received with a
+hum of applause. In every corner snuff-boxes were being tapped and
+canes handled; the flashing of roguish eyes behind fans vied with the
+glitter of mirrors. And through all a lane was made for me. At the
+door Louis met me. A little farther on, Madame came half-way across
+the room to me. It was a triumph--a triumph which I found
+inexplicable, unintelligible, until I learned that the rebuff which I
+had administered to the deputation had been exaggerated a dozen times,
+nay, a hundred times, until it met even the wishes of the most
+violent; while the sober and thoughtful were too glad to hail in my
+adhesion the proof of that reaction, which the Royalist party, from
+the first day of the troubles, never ceased to expect.
+
+No wonder that, taken by surprise and intoxicated with incense, I let
+myself go. To have declared in that company and with Madame's gracious
+words in my ears, that I had not come to join them, that I had come on
+a different errand altogether, that though I had repelled the
+deputation I had no intention of acting against it, would have
+required a courage and a hardness I could not boast; while the
+circumstances of the deputation, Doury's presumption and Buton's
+hints, to say nothing of the violence of the Parisian mob, had not
+failed to impress me unfavourably. With a thousand others who had
+prepared themselves to welcome reform, I recoiled when I saw the
+lengths to which it was tending; and, though nothing had been farther
+from my mind when I entered Cahors than to join myself to the St.
+Alais faction, I found it impossible to reject their apologies on the
+spot, or explain on the instant the real purpose with which I had come
+to them.
+
+I was, in fact, the sport of circumstances; weak, it will be said, in
+the wrong place and stubborn in the wrong; betraying a boy's petulance
+at one time, and a boy's fickleness at another; and now a tool and now
+a churl. Perhaps truly. But it was a time of trial; nor was I the only
+man or the oldest man who, in those days, changed his opinions, and
+again within the week went back; or who found it hard to find a
+cockade, white, black, red or tricolour, to his taste.
+
+Besides, flattery is sweet, and I was young; moreover, I had
+Mademoiselle in my head and nothing could exceed Madame's
+graciousness. I think she valued me the more for my late revolt, and
+prided herself on my reduction in proportion as I had shown myself
+able to resist.
+
+"Few words are better, M. le Vicomte," she said, with a dignity which
+honoured me equally with herself. "Many things have happened since I
+saw you. We are neither of us quite of the same opinion. Forgive me. A
+woman's word and a man's sword do no dishonour."
+
+I bowed, blushing with pleasure. After a fortnight spent in solitude
+these moving groups, bowing, smiling, talking in low, earnest tones of
+the one purpose, the one aim, had immense influence with me. I felt
+the contagion. I let Madame take me into her confidence.
+
+"The King"--it was always the King with her--"in a week or two the
+King will assert himself. As yet his ear has been abused. It will
+pass; in the meantime we must take our proper places. We must arm our
+servants and keepers, repress disorder and resist encroachment."
+
+"And the Committee, Madame?"
+
+She tapped me, smiling, with the ends of her dainty fingers.
+
+"We will treat it as you treated it," she said.
+
+"You think that you will be strong enough?"
+
+"We," she answered.
+
+"We?" I said, correcting myself with a blush.
+
+"Why not? How can it be otherwise?" she replied, looking proudly round
+her. "Can you look round and doubt it, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"But France?" I said.
+
+"We are France," she retorted with a superb gesture.
+
+And certainly the splendid crowd that filled her rooms was almost
+warrant for the words; a crowd of stately men and fair women such as I
+have only seen once or twice since those days. Under the surface there
+may have been pettiness and senility; the exhaustion of vice; jealousy
+and lukewarmness and dissension; but the powder and patches, the silks
+and velvets of the old _régime_, gave to all a semblance of strength,
+and at least the appearance of dignity. If few were soldiers, all wore
+swords and could use them. The fact that the small sword, so powerful
+a weapon in the duel, is useless against a crowd armed with stones and
+clubs had not yet been made clear. Nothing seemed more easy than for
+two or three hundred swordsmen to rule a province.
+
+At any rate I found nothing but what was feasible in the notion; and
+with little real reluctance, if no great enthusiasm, I pinned on the
+white cockade. Putting all thoughts of present reform from my mind, I
+agreed that order--order was the one pressing need of the country.
+
+On that all were agreed, and all were hopeful. I heard no misgivings,
+but a good deal of vapouring, in which poor M. de Gontaut, with the
+palsy almost upon him, had his part. No one dropped a hint of danger
+in the country, or of a revolt of the peasants. Even to me, as I stood
+in the brilliant crowd, the danger grew to seem so remote and unreal,
+that, delicacy as well as the fear of ridicule, kept me silent. I
+could not speak of Mademoiselle without awkwardness, and so the
+warning which I had come to give died on my lips. I saw that I should
+be laughed at, I fancied myself deceived, and I was silent.
+
+It was only when, after promising to return next day, I stood at the
+door prepared to leave, and found myself alone with Louis, that I let
+a word fall. Then I asked him with a little hesitation if he thought
+that his sister was quite safe at St. Alais.
+
+"Why not?" he said easily, with his hand on my shoulder.
+
+"The 'trouble is not in the town only," I hinted. "Nor perhaps the
+worst of the trouble."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "You think too much of it, _mon cher_," he
+answered. "Believe me, now that we are at one the trouble is over."
+
+And that was the evening of the 4th of August, the day on which the
+Assembly in Paris renounced at a single sitting all immunities,
+exemptions, and privileges, all feudal dues, and fines, and rights,
+all tolls, all tithes, the salt tax, the game laws, _capitaineries!_
+At one sitting, on that evening; and Louis thought that the trouble
+was over!
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII.
+
+                              THE ALARM.
+
+
+At that time, a brazier in the market-place, and three or four
+lanterns at street crossings, made up the most of the public lighting.
+When I paused, therefore, to breathe my horse on the brow of the
+slope, beyond the Valandré bridge, and looked back on Cahors, I saw
+only darkness, broken here and there by a blur of yellow light; that
+still, by throwing up a fragment of wall or eaves, told in a
+mysterious way of the sleeping city.
+
+The river, a faint, shimmering line, conjectured rather than seen,
+wound round all. Above, clouds were flying across the sky, and a wind,
+cold for the time of year--cold, at least, after the heat of the
+day--chilled the blood, and slowly filled the mind with the solemnity
+of night.
+
+As I stood listening to the breathing of the horses, the excitement in
+which I had passed the last few hours died away, and left me
+wondering--wondering, and a little regretful. The exaltation gone, I
+found the scene I had just left flavourless; I even presently began to
+find it worse. Some false note in the cynical, boastful voices and the
+selfish--the utterly selfish--plans, to which I had been listening for
+hours, made itself heard in the stillness. Madame's "We are France,"
+which had sounded well amid the lights and glitter of the _salon_,
+among laces and _fripons_ and rose-pink coats, seemed folly in the
+face of the infinite night, behind which lay twenty-five millions of
+Frenchmen.
+
+However, what I had done, I had done. I had the white cockade on my
+breast; I was pledged to order--and to my order. And it might be the
+better course. But, with reflection, enthusiasm faded; and, by some
+strange process, as it faded, and the scene in which I had just taken
+part lost its hold, the errand that had brought me to Cahors recovered
+importance. As Madame St. Alais' influence grew weak, the memory of
+Mademoiselle, sitting lonely and scared in her coach, grew vivid,
+until I turned my horse fretfully, and endeavoured to lose the thought
+in rapid movement.
+
+But it is not so easy to escape from oneself at night, as in the day.
+The soughing of the wind through the chestnut trees, the drifting
+clouds, and the sharp ring of hoofs on the road, all laid as it were a
+solemn finger on the pulses and stilled them. The men behind me talked
+in sleepy voices, or rode silently. The town lay a hundred leagues
+behind. Not a light appeared on the upland. In the world of night
+through which we rode, a world of black, mysterious bulks rising
+suddenly against the grey sky, and as suddenly sinking, we were the
+only inhabitants.
+
+At last we reached the hill above St. Alais, and I looked eagerly for
+lights in the valley; forgetting that, as it wanted only an hour of
+midnight, the village would have retired hours before. The
+disappointment, and the delay--for the steepness of the hill forbade
+any but a walking pace--fretted me; and when I heard, a moment later,
+a certain noise behind me, a noise I knew only too well, I flared up.
+
+"Stay, fool!" I cried, reining in my horse, and turning in the saddle.
+"That mare has broken her shoe again, and you are riding on as if
+nothing were the matter! Get down--and see. Do you think that I----"
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur," Gil muttered. He had been sleeping in his saddle.
+
+He scrambled down. The mare he rode, a valuable one, had a knack of
+breaking her hind shoe; after which she never failed to lame herself
+at the first opportunity. Buton had tried every method of shoeing, but
+without success.
+
+I sprang to the ground while he lifted the foot. My ear had not
+deceived me; the shoe was broken. Gil tried to remove the jagged
+fragment left on the hoof, but the mare was restive, and he had to
+desist.
+
+"She cannot go to Saux in that state," I said angrily.
+
+The men were silent for a moment, peering at the mare. Then Gil spoke.
+
+"The St. Alais forge is not three hundred yards down the lane,
+Monsieur," he said. "And the turn is yonder. We could knock up Petit
+Jean, and get him to bring his pincers here. Only----"
+
+"Only what?" I said peevishly.
+
+"I quarrelled with him at Cahors Fair, Monsieur," Gil answered
+sheepishly; "and he might not come for us."
+
+"Very well," I said gruffly, "I will go. And do you stay here, and
+keep the mare quiet."
+
+André held the stirrup for me to mount. The smithy, the first hovel in
+the village, was a quarter of a mile away, and, in reason, I should
+have ridden to it. But, in my irritation, I was ready to do anything
+they did not propose, and, roughly rejecting his help, I started on
+foot. Fifty paces brought me to the branch road that led to St. Alais,
+and, making out the turning with a little difficulty, I plunged into
+it; losing, in a moment, the cheerful sound of jingling bits and the
+murmur of the men's voices.
+
+Poplars rose on high banks on either side of the lane, and made the
+place as dark as a pit, and I had almost to grope my way. A stumble
+added to my irritation, and I cursed the St. Alais for the ruts, and
+the moon for its untimely setting. The ceaseless whispering of the
+poplar leaves went with me, and, in some unaccountable way, annoyed
+me. I stumbled again, and swore at Gil, and then stopped to listen. I
+was in the road, and yet I heard the jingling of bits again, as if the
+horses were following me.
+
+I stopped angrily to listen, thinking that the men had disobeyed my
+orders. Then I found that the sound came from the front, and was
+heavier and harder than the ringing of bit or bridle. I groped my way
+forward, wondering somewhat, until a faint, ruddy light, shining on
+the darkness and the poplars, prepared me for the truth--welcome,
+though it seemed of the strangest--that the forge was at work.
+
+As I took this in, I turned a corner, and came within sight of the
+smithy; and stood in astonishment. The forge was in full blast. Two
+hammers were at work; I could see them rising and falling, and hear,
+though they seemed to be muffled, the rhythmical jarring clang as they
+struck the metal. The ruddy glare of the fire flooded the road and
+burnished the opposite trees, and flung long, black shadows on the
+sky.
+
+Such a sight filled me with the utmost astonishment, for it was nearly
+midnight. Fortunately something else I saw astonished me still more,
+and stayed my foot. Between the point where I stood by the hedge and
+the forge a number of men were moving, and flitting to and fro; men
+with bare arms and matted heads, half-naked, with skins burned black.
+It would have been hard to count them, they shifted so quickly; and I
+did not try. It was enough for me that one half of them carried pikes
+and pitchforks, that one man seemed to be detailing them into groups,
+and giving them directions; and that, notwithstanding the occasional
+jar of the hammers, an air of ferocious stealth marked their
+movements.
+
+For a moment I stood rooted to the spot. Then, instinctively, I
+stepped aside into the shadow of the hedge, and looked again. The man
+who acted as the leader carried an axe on his shoulder, the broad
+blade of which, as it caught the glow of the furnace, seemed to be
+bathed in blood. He was never still--this man. One moment he moved
+from group to group, gesticulating, ordering, encouraging. Now he
+pulled a man out of one troop and thrust him forcibly into another;
+now he made a little speech, which was dumb play to me, a hundred
+paces away; now he went into the forge, and his huge bulk for a moment
+intercepted the light. It was Petit Jean, the smith.
+
+I made use of the momentary darkness which he caused on one of these
+occasions, and stole a little nearer. For I knew now what was before
+me. I knew perfectly that all this meant blood, fire, outrage, flames
+rising to heaven, screams startling the stricken night! But I must
+know more, if I would do anything. I went nearer therefore, creeping
+along the hedge, and crouching in the ditch, until no more than twelve
+yards separated me from the muster. Then I stood still, as Petit Jean
+came out again, to distribute another bundle of weapons, clutched
+instantly and eagerly by grimy hands. I could hear now, and I
+shuddered at what I heard. Gargouf was in every mouth. Gargouf, the
+St. Alais' steward, coupled with grisly tortures and slow deaths, with
+old sins, and outrages, and tyrannies, now for the first time voiced,
+now to be expiated!
+
+At last, one man laid the torch by crying aloud, "To the Château! To
+the Château!" and in an instant the words changed the feelings with
+which I had hitherto stared into immediate horror. I started forward.
+My impulse, for a moment, was to step into the light and confront
+them--to persuade, menace, cajole, turn them any way from their
+purpose. But, in the same moment, reflection showed me the
+hopelessness of the attempt. These were no longer peasants, dull,
+patient clods, such as I had known all my life; but maddened beasts; I
+read it in their gestures and the growl of their voices. To step
+forward would be only to sacrifice myself; and with this thought I
+crept back, gained the deeper shadow, and, turning on my heel, sped
+down the lane. The ruts and the darkness were no longer anything to
+me. If I stumbled, I did not notice it. If I fell, it was no matter.
+In less than a minute I was standing, breathless, by the astonished
+servants, striving to tell them quickly what they must do.
+
+"The village is rising!" I panted. "They are going to burn the
+Château, and Mademoiselle is in it! Gil, ride, gallop, lose not a
+minute, to Cahors, and tell M. le Marquis. He must bring what forces
+he can. And do you, André, go to Saux. Tell Father Benôit. Bid him do
+his utmost--bring all he can."
+
+For answer, they stared, open-mouthed, through the dusk. "And the
+mare, Monsieur?" one asked at last dully.
+
+"Fool! let her go!" I cried. "The mare? Do you understand? The Château
+is----"
+
+"And you, Monsieur?"
+
+"I am going to the house by the garden wing. Now go! Go, men!" I
+continued'. "A hundred livres to each of you if the house is saved!"
+
+I said the house because I dared not speak what was really in my mind;
+because I dared not picture the girl, young, helpless, a woman, in the
+hands of those monsters. Yet it was that which goaded me now, it was
+that which gave me such strength that, before the men had ridden many
+yards, I had forced my way through the thick fence, as if it had been
+a mass of cobwebs. Once on the other side, in the open, I hastened
+across one field and a second, skirted the village, and made for the
+gardens which abutted on the east wing of the Château. I knew these
+well; the part farthest from the house, and most easy of entrance, was
+a wilderness, in which I had often played as a child. There was no
+fence round this, except a wooden paling, and none between it and the
+more orderly portion; while a side door opened from the latter into a
+passage leading to the great hall of the Château. The house, a long,
+regular building, reared by the Marquis's father, was composed of two
+wings and a main block. All faced the end of the village street at a
+distance of a hundred paces; a wide, dusty, ill-planted avenue leading
+from the iron gates, which stood always open, to the state entrance.
+
+The rioters had only a short distance to go, therefore, and no
+obstacle between them and the house; none when they reached it of
+greater consequence than ordinary doors and shutters, should the
+latter be closed. As I ran, I shuddered to think how defenceless all
+lay; and how quickly the wretches, bursting in the doors, would
+overrun the shining parquets, and sweep up the spacious staircase.
+
+The thought added wings to my feet. I had farther to go than they had,
+and over hedges, but before the first sounds of their approach reached
+the house I was already in the wilderness, and forcing my way through
+it, stumbling over stumps and bushes, falling more than once, covered
+with dust and sweat, but still pushing on.
+
+At last I sprang into the open garden, with its shadowy walks, and
+nymphs, and fauns; and looked towards the village. A dull red light
+was beginning to show among the trunks of the avenue; a murmur of
+voices sounded in the distance. They were coming! I wasted no more
+than a single glance; then I ran down the walk, between the statues.
+In a moment I passed into the darker shadow under the house, I was at
+the door. I thrust my shoulder against it. It resisted; it resisted!
+and every moment was precious. I could no longer see the approaching
+lights nor hear the voices of the crowd--the angle of the house
+intervened; but I could imagine only too vividly how they were coming
+on; I fancied them already at the great door.
+
+I hammered on the panels with my fist; then I fumbled for the latch,
+and found it. It rose, but the door held. I shook it. I shook it again
+in a frenzy; at last, forgetting caution, I shouted--shouted more
+loudly. Then, after an age, as it seemed to me, standing panting in
+the darkness, I heard halting footsteps come along the passage, and
+saw a line of light grow, and brighten under the door. At last a
+quavering voice asked:----
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"M. de Saux," I answered impatiently. "M. de Saux! Let me in. Let me
+in, do you hear?" And I struck the panels wrathfully.
+
+"Monsieur," the voice answered, quavering more and more, "is there
+anything the matter?"
+
+"Matter? They are going to burn the house, fool!" I cried. "Open!
+open! if you do not wish to be burned in your beds!"
+
+For a moment I fancied that the man still hesitated. Then he unbarred.
+In a twinkling I was inside, in a narrow passage, with dingy, stained
+walls. An old man, lean-jawed and feeble, an old valet whom I had
+often seen at worsted work in the ante-room, confronted me, holding an
+iron candlestick. The light shook in his hands, and his jaw fell as he
+looked at me. I saw that I had nothing to expect from him, and I
+snatched the bar from his hands, and set it back in its place myself.
+Then I seized the light.
+
+"Quick!" I said passionately. "To your mistress."
+
+"Monsieur?"
+
+"Upstairs! Upstairs!"
+
+He had more to say, but I did not wait to hear it. Knowing the way,
+and having the candle, I left him, and hurried along the passage.
+Stumbling over three or four mattresses that lay on the floor,
+doubtless for the servants, I reached the hall. Here my taper shone a
+mere speck in a cavern of blackness; but it gave me light enough to
+see that the door was barred, and I turned to the staircase. As I set
+my foot on the lowest step the old valet, who was following me as
+fast as his trembling legs would carry him, blundered against a
+spinning-wheel that stood in the hall. It fell with a clatter, and in
+a moment a chorus of screams and cries broke out above. I sprang
+up the stairs three at a stride, and on the lobby came on the
+screamers--a terrified group, whose alarm the doubtful light of a
+tallow candle, that stood beside them on the floor, could not
+exaggerate. Nearest to me stood an old footman and a boy--their
+terror-stricken eyes met mine as I mounted the last stairs. Behind
+them, and crouching against a tapestry-covered seat that ran along the
+wall, were the rest; three or four women, who shrieked and hid their
+faces in one another's garments. They did not look up or take any heed
+of me; but continued to scream steadily.
+
+The old man with a quavering oath tried to still them.
+
+"Where is Gargouf?" I asked him.
+
+"He has gone to fasten the back doors, Monsieur," he answered.
+
+"And Mademoiselle?"
+
+"She is yonder."
+
+He turned as he spoke; and I saw behind him a heavy curtain hiding the
+oriel window of the lobby. It moved while I looked, and Mademoiselle
+emerged from its folds, her small, childish face pale, but strangely
+composed. She wore a light, loose robe, hastily arranged, and had her
+hair hanging free at her back. In the gloom and confusion, which the
+feeble candles did little to disperse, she did not at first see me.
+
+"Has Gargouf come back?" she asked.
+
+"No, Mademoiselle, but----"
+
+The man was going to point me out; she interrupted him with a sharp
+cry of anger.
+
+"Stop these fools," she said. "Oh, stop these fools! I cannot hear
+myself speak. Let some one call Gargouf! Is there no one to do
+anything?"
+
+One of the old men pottered off to do it, leaving her standing in the
+middle of the terror-stricken group; a white pathetic little figure,
+keeping fear at bay with both hands. The dark curtains behind threw
+her face and form into high relief; but admiration was the last
+thought in my mind.
+
+"Mademoiselle," I said, "you must fly by the garden door."
+
+She started and stared at me, her eyes dilating.
+
+"Monsieur de Saux," she muttered. "Are you here? I do not--I do not
+understand. I thought----"
+
+"The village is rising," I said. "In a moment they will be here."
+
+"They are here already," she answered faintly.
+
+She meant only that she had seen their approach from the window; but a
+dull murmur that at the moment rose on the air outside, and
+penetrating the walls, grew each instant louder and more sinister,
+seemed to give another significance to her words. The women listened
+with white faces, then began to scream afresh. A reckless movement of
+one of them dashed out the nearer of the two lights. The old man who
+had admitted me began to whimper.
+
+"O _mon Dieu!_" I cried fiercely, "can no one still these cravens?"
+For the noise almost robbed me of the power of thought, and never had
+thought been more necessary. "Be still, fools," I continued, "no one
+will hurt _you_. And do you, Mademoiselle, please to come with me.
+There is not a moment to be lost. The garden by which I entered----"
+
+But she looked at me in such a way that I stopped.
+
+"Is it necessary to go?" she said doubtfully. "Is there no other way,
+Monsieur?"
+
+The noise outside was growing louder. "What men have you?" I said.
+
+"Here is Gargouf," she answered promptly. "He will tell you."
+
+I turned to the staircase and saw the steward's face, at all times
+harsh and grim, rising out of the well of the stairs. He had a candle
+in one hand and a pistol in the other; and his features as his eyes
+met mine wore an expression of dogged anger, the sight of which drew
+fresh cries from the women. But I rejoiced to see him, for he at least
+betrayed no signs of flinching. I asked him what men he had.
+
+"You see them," he answered drily, betraying no surprise at my
+presence.
+
+"Only these?"
+
+"There were three more," he said. "But I found the doors unbarred, and
+the men gone. I am keeping this," he continued, with a dark glance at
+his pistol, "for one of them."
+
+"Mademoiselle must go!" I said.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders with an indifference that maddened me.
+"How?" he asked.
+
+"By the garden door."
+
+"They are there. The house is surrounded."
+
+I cried out at that in despair; and on the instant, as if to give
+point to his words, a furious blow fell on the great doors below, and
+awakening every echo in the house, proclaimed that the moment was
+come. A second shock followed; then a rain of blows. While the maids
+shrieked and clung to one another, I looked at Mademoiselle, and she
+at me.
+
+"We must hide you," I muttered.
+
+"No," she said.
+
+"There must be some place," I said, looking round me desperately, and
+disregarding her answer. The noise of the blows was deafening. "In
+the----"
+
+"I will not hide, Monsieur," she answered. Her cheeks were white, and
+her eyes seemed to flicker with each blow. But the maiden who had been
+dumb before me a few days earlier was gone; in her place I saw
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais, conscious of a hundred ancestors. "They are
+our people. I will meet them," she continued, stepping forward
+bravely, though her lip trembled. "Then if they dare----"
+
+"They are mad," I answered. "They are mad! Yet it is a chance; and we
+have few! If I can get to them before they break in, I may do
+something. One moment, Mademoiselle; screen the light, will you?"
+
+Some one did so, and I turned feverishly and caught hold of the
+curtain. But Gargouf was before me. He seized my arm, and for the
+moment checked me.
+
+"What is it? What are you going to do?" he growled.
+
+"Speak to them from the window."
+
+"They will not listen."
+
+"Still I will try. What else is there?"
+
+"Lead and iron," he answered in a tone that made me shiver. "Here are
+M. le Marquis's sporting guns; they shoot straight. Take one, M. le
+Vicomte; I will take the other. There are two more, and the men can
+shoot. We can hold the staircase, at least."
+
+I took one of the guns mechanically, amid a dismal uproar; wailing and
+the thunder of blows within, outside the savage booing of the crowd.
+No help could come for another hour; and for a moment in this
+desperate strait my heart failed me. I wondered at the steward's
+courage.
+
+"You are not afraid?" I said. I knew how he had trampled on the poor
+wretches outside; how he had starved them and ground them down, and
+misused them through long years.
+
+He cursed the dogs.
+
+"You will stand by Mademoiselle?" I said feverishly. I think it was to
+hearten myself by his assurance.
+
+He squeezed my hand in a grip of iron, and I asked no more. In a
+moment, however, I cried aloud.
+
+"Ah, but they will burn the house!" I said. "What is the use of
+holding the staircase, when they can burn us like rats?"
+
+"We shall die together," was his only answer. And he kicked one of the
+weeping, crouching women. "Be still, you whelp!" he said. "Do you
+think that will help you?"
+
+But I heard the door below groan, and I sprang to the window and
+dragged aside the curtain, letting in a ruddy glow that dyed the
+ceiling the colour of blood. My one fear was that I might be too late;
+that the door would yield or the crowd break in at the back before I
+could get a hearing. Luckily, the casement gave to the hand, and I
+thrust it open, and, meeting a cold blast of air, in a twinkling was
+outside, on the narrow ledge of the window over the great doors,
+looking down on such a scene as few châteaux in France had witnessed
+since the days of the third Henry--God be thanked!
+
+A little to one side the great dovecot was burning, and sending up a
+trail of smoke that, blown across the avenue, hid all beyond in a
+murky reek, through which the flames now and again flickered hotly.
+Men, busy as devils, black against the light, were plying the fire
+with straw. Beyond the dovecot, an outhouse and a stack were blazing;
+and nearer, immediately before the house, a crowd of moving figures
+were hurrying to and fro, some battering the doors and windows, others
+bringing fuel, all moving, yelling, laughing--laughing the laughter of
+fiends to the music of crackling flames and shivering glass.
+
+I saw Petit Jean in the forefront giving orders; and men round him.
+There were women, too, hanging on the skirts of the men; and one
+woman, in the midst of all, half-naked, screaming curses, and
+brandishing her arms. It was she who added the last touch of horror to
+the scene; and she, too, who saw me first, and pointed me out with
+dreadful words, and cursed me, and the house, and cried for our blood.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER VIII.
+
+                               GARGOUF.
+
+
+Some called for silence, while others stared at me stupidly, or
+pointed me out to their fellows; but the greater part took up the
+woman's cry, and, enraged by my presence, shook their fists at me, and
+shouted vile threats and viler abuse. For a minute the air rang with
+"_A bas les Seigneurs! A bas les tyrans!_" And I found this bad
+enough. But, presently, whether they caught sight of the steward, or
+merely returned to their first hatred, from which my appearance had
+only for the moment diverted them, the cry changed to a sullen roar of
+"Gargouf! Gargouf!" A roar so full of the lust for blood, and coupled
+with threats so terrible, that the heart sickened and the cheek grew
+pale at the sound.
+
+"Gargouf! Gargouf! Give us Gargouf!" they howled. "Give us Gargouf!
+and he shall eat hot gold! Give us Gargouf, and he shall need no more
+of our daughters!"
+
+I shuddered to think that Mademoiselle heard; shuddered to think of
+the peril in which she stood. The wretches below were no longer men;
+under the influence of this frenzied woman they were mad brute beasts,
+drunk with fire and licence. As the smoke from the burning building
+eddied away for a moment across the crowd and hid it, and still that
+hoarse cry came out of the mirk, I could believe that I heard not men,
+but maddened hounds raving in the kennel.
+
+Again the smoke drifted away; and some one in the rear shot at me. I
+heard the glass splinter beside me. Another, a little nearer, flung up
+a burning fragment that, alighting on the ledge, blazed and spluttered
+by my foot. I kicked it down.
+
+The act, for the moment, stilled the riot, and I seized the
+opportunity. "You dogs!" I said, striving to make my voice heard above
+the hissing of the flames. "Begone! The soldiers from Cahors are on
+the road. I sent for them this hour back. Begone, before they come,
+and I will intercede for you. Stay, and do further mischief, and you
+shall hang, to the last man!"
+
+Some answered with a yell of derision, crying out that the soldiers
+were with them. More, that the nobles were abolished, and their houses
+given to the people. One, who was drunk, kept shouting, "_A bas la
+Bastille! A bas la Bastille!_" with a stupid persistence.
+
+A moment more and I should lose my chance. I waved my hand! "What do
+you want?" I cried.
+
+"Justice!" one shouted, and another, "Vengeance!" A third, "Gargouf!"
+And then all, "Gargouf! Gargouf!" until Petit Jean stilled the tumult.
+
+"Have done!" he cried to them, in his coarse, brutal voice. "Have we
+come here only to yell? And do you, Seigneur, give up Gargouf, and you
+shall go free. Otherwise, we will burn the house, and all in it."
+
+"You villain!" I said. "We have guns, and----"
+
+"The rats have teeth, but they burn! They burn!" he answered, pointing
+triumphantly, with the axe he held, to the flaming buildings. "They
+burn! Yet listen, Seigneur," he continued, "and you shall have a
+minute to make up your minds. Give up Gargouf to us to do with as we
+please, and the rest shall go."
+
+"All?"
+
+"All."
+
+I trembled. "But Gargouf, man?" I said. "Will you--what will you do
+with him?"
+
+"Roast him!" the smith cried, with a fearful oath; and the wretches
+round him laughed like fiends. "Roast him, when we have plucked him
+bare."
+
+I shuddered. From Cahors help could not come for another hour. From
+Saux it might not come at all. The doors below me could not stand
+long, and these brutes were thirty to one, and mad with the lust of
+vengeance. With the wrongs, the crimes, the vices of centuries to
+avenge, they dreamed that the day of requital was come; and the dream
+had turned clods into devils. The very flames they had kindled gave
+them assurance of it. The fire was in their blood. _A bas la Bastille!
+A bas les tyrans!_
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"One minute!" the smith cried, with a boastful gesture--"one minute we
+give you! Gargouf or all."
+
+"Wait!"
+
+I turned and went in--turned from the smoky glare, the circling
+pigeons, the grotesque black figures, and the terror and confusion of
+the night, and went in to that other scene scarcely less dreadful to
+me; though only two candles, guttering in tin sockets, lit the
+landing, and it borrowed from the outside no more than the ruddy
+reflection of horror. The women had ceased to scream and sob, and
+crowded together silent and panic-stricken. The old men and the lad
+moistened their lips, and looked furtively from the arms they handled
+to one another's faces. Mademoiselle alone stood erect, pale, firm. I
+shot a glance at the slender little figure in the white robe, then I
+looked away. I dared not say what I had in my mind. I knew that she
+had heard, and----
+
+She said it! "You have answered them?" she muttered, her eyes meeting
+mine.
+
+"No," I said, looking away again. "They have given us a minute to
+decide, and----"
+
+"I heard them," she answered shivering. "Tell them."
+
+"But, Mademoiselle----"
+
+"Tell them never! Never!" she cried feverishly. "Be quick, or they
+will think that we are dreaming of it."
+
+Yet I hesitated--while the flames crackled outside. What, after all,
+was this rascal's life beside hers? What his tainted existence, who
+all these years had ground the faces of the poor and dishonoured the
+helpless, beside her youth? It was a dreadful moment, and I hesitated.
+"Mademoiselle," I muttered at last, avoiding her eyes, "you have
+not thought, perhaps. But to refuse this offer may be to sacrifice
+all--and not save him."
+
+"I have thought!" she answered, with a passionate gesture. "I have
+thought. But he was my father's steward, Monsieur, and he is my
+brother's; if he has sinned, it was for them. It is for them to pay
+the penalty. And--after all, it may not come to that," she continued,
+her face changing, and her eyes seeking mine, full of sudden terror.
+"They will not dare, I think. They will never dare to----"
+
+"Where is he?" I asked hoarsely.
+
+She pointed to the corner behind her. I looked, and could scarcely
+believe my eyes. The man whom I had left full of a desperate courage,
+prepared to sell his life dearly, now crouched a huddled figure in the
+darkest angle of the tapestry seat. Though I had spoken of him in a
+low voice, and without naming him, he heard me, and looked up, and
+showed a face to match his attitude; a face pallid and sweating with
+fear; a face that, vile at the best and when redeemed by hardihood,
+looked now the vilest thing on earth. _Ciel!_ that fear should reduce
+a man to that! He tried to speak as his eyes met mine, but his lips
+moved inaudibly, and he only crouched lower, the picture of panic and
+guilt.
+
+I cried out to the others to know what had happened to him. "What is
+it?" I said.
+
+No one answered; and then I seemed to know. While he had thought all
+in danger, while he had felt himself only one among many, the common
+courage of a man had supported him. But God knows what voices, only
+too well known to him, what accents of starving men and wronged women,
+had spoken in that fierce cry for his life! What plaints from the
+dead, what curses of babes hanging on dry breasts! At any rate,
+whatever he had heard in that call for his blood, _his_ blood--it had
+unmanned him. In a moment, in a twinkling, it had dashed him back into
+this corner, a trembling craven, holding up his hands for his life.
+
+Such fear is infectious, and I strode to him in a rage and shook him.
+
+"Get up, hound!" I said. "Get up and strike a blow for your life; or,
+by heaven, no one else will!"
+
+He stood up. "Yes, yes, Monsieur," he muttered. "I will! I will stand
+up for Mademoiselle. I will----"
+
+But I heard his teeth chatter, and I saw that his eyes wandered this
+way and that, as do a hare's when the dogs close on it; and I knew
+that I had nothing to expect from him. A howl outside warned me at the
+same moment that our respite was spent; and I flung him off and turned
+to the window.
+
+Too late, however; before I could reach it, a thundering blow on the
+doors below set the candles flickering and the women shrieking; then
+for an instant I thought that all was over. A stone came through the
+window; another followed it, and another. The shattered glass fell
+over us; the draught put out one light, and the women, terrified
+beyond control, ran this way and that with the other, shrieking
+dismally. This, the yelling of the crowd outside, the sombre light and
+more sombre glare, the utter confusion and panic, so distracted me,
+that for a moment I stood irresolute, inactive, looking wildly about
+me; a poltroon waiting for some one to lead. Then a touch fell on my
+arm, and I turned and found Mademoiselle at my side, and saw her face
+upturned to mine.
+
+It was white, and her eyes were wide with the terror she had so long
+repressed. Her hold on me grew heavier; she swayed against me,
+clinging to me.
+
+"Oh!" she whispered in my ear in a voice that went to my heart. "Save
+me! Save me! Can nothing be done? Can nothing be done, Monsieur? Must
+we die?"
+
+"We must gain time," I said. My courage returned wonderfully, as I
+felt her weight on my arm. "All is not over yet," I said. "I will
+speak to them."
+
+And setting her on the seat, I sprang to the window and passed through
+it. Outside, things at a first glance seemed unchanged. The wavering
+flames, the glow, the trail of smoke and sparks, all were there. But a
+second glance showed that the rioters no longer moved to and fro about
+the fire, but were massed directly below me in a dense body round the
+doors, waiting for them to give way. I shouted to them frantically,
+hoping still to delay them. I called Petit Jean by name. But I could
+not make myself heard in the uproar, or they would not heed; and while
+I vainly tried, the great doors yielded at last, and with a roar of
+triumph the crowd burst in.
+
+Not a moment was to be lost. I sprang back through the window,
+clutching up as I did so the gun Gargouf had given me; and then I
+stood in amazement. The landing was empty! The rush of feet across the
+hall below shook the house. Ten seconds and the mob, whose screams of
+triumph already echoed through the passages, would be on us. But where
+was Mademoiselle? Where was Gargouf? Where were the servants, the
+waiting-maids, the boy, whom I had left here?
+
+I stood an instant paralysed, like a man in a nightmare; brought up
+short in that supreme moment. Then, as the first crash of heavy feet
+sounded on the stairs, I heard a faint scream, somewhere to my right,
+as I stood. On the instant I sprang to the door which, on that side,
+led to the left wing. I tore it open and passed through it--not a
+moment too soon. The slightest delay, and the foremost rioters must
+have seen me. As it was I had time to turn the key, which,
+fortunately, was on the inside.
+
+Then I hurried across the room, making my way to an open door at the
+farther end, from which light issued; I passed through the room
+beyond, which was empty, then into the last of the suite.
+
+Here I found the fugitives; who had fled so precipitately that they
+had not even thought of closing the doors behind them. In this last
+refuge--Madame's boudoir, all white and gold--I found them crouching
+among gilt-backed chairs and flowered cushions. They had brought only
+one candle with them; and the silks and gew-gaws and knick-knacks on
+which its light shone dimly, gave a peculiar horror to their white
+faces and glaring eyes, as, almost mad with terror, they huddled in
+the farthest corner and stared at me.
+
+They were such cowards that they put Mademoiselle foremost; or it was
+she who stood out to meet me. She knew me before they did, therefore,
+and quieted them. When I could hear my own voice, I asked where
+Gargouf was.
+
+They had not discovered that he was not with them, and they cried out,
+saying that he had come that way.
+
+"You followed him?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+This explained their flight, but not the steward's absence. What
+matter where he had gone, however, since his help could avail little.
+I looked round--looked round in despair; the very simpering Cupids on
+the walls seemed to mock our danger. I had the gun, I could fire one
+shot, I had one life in my hands. But to what end? In a moment, at any
+moment, within a minute or two at most, the doors would be forced, and
+the horde of mad brutes would pour in upon us, and----
+
+"Ah, Monsieur, the closet staircase! He has gone by the closet
+staircase!"
+
+It was the boy who spoke. He alone of them had his wits about him.
+
+"Where is it?" I said.
+
+The lad sprang forward to show me, but Mademoiselle was before him
+with the candle. She flew back into the passage, a passage of four or
+five feet only between that room and the second of the suite; in the
+wall of this she flung open a door, apparently of a closet. I looked
+in and saw the beginning of a staircase. My heart leapt at the sight.
+
+"To the floor above?" I said.
+
+"No, Monsieur, to the roof!"
+
+"Up, up, then!" I cried in a frenzy of impatience. "It will give us
+time. Quick. They are coming."
+
+For I heard the door at the end of the suite, the door I had locked,
+creak and yield. They were forcing it, at any moment it might give;
+where I stood waiting to bring up the rear, their hoarse cries and
+curses came to my ears. But the good door held; it held, long enough
+at any rate. Before it gave way we were on the stairs and I had shut
+the door of the closet behind me. Then, holding to the skirts of the
+woman before me, I groped my way up quickly--up and up through
+darkness with a close smell of bats in my nostrils--and almost before
+I could believe it, I stood with the panting, trembling group on the
+roof. The glare of the burning outhouses below shone on a great stack
+of chimneys beside us and reddened the sky above, and burnished the
+leaves of the chestnut trees that rose on a level with our eyes. But
+all the lower part of the steep roofs round us, and the lead gutters
+that ran between them, lay in darkness, the denser for the contrast.
+The flames crackled below, and a thick reek of smoke swept up past the
+coping, but the noise alike of fire and riot was deadened here. The
+night wind cooled our brows, and I had a minute in which to think, to
+breathe, to look round.
+
+"Is there any other way to the roof?" I asked anxiously.
+
+"One other, Monsieur!"
+
+"Where? Or do you stay here, and guard this door," I said, pressing my
+gun on the man who had answered. "And let the boy come and show me.
+Mademoiselle, stay there if you please."
+
+The boy ran before me to the farther end of the roof, and in a lead
+walk, between two slopes, showed me a large trap-door. It had no
+fastening on the outside, and for a moment I stood nonplussed; then I
+saw, a few feet away, a neat pile of bricks, left there, I learned
+afterwards, in the course of some repairs. I began to remove them as
+fast as I could to the trap-door, and the boy saw and followed my
+example; in two minutes we had stacked a hundred and more on the door.
+Telling him to add another hundred to the number, I left him at the
+task and flew back to the women.
+
+They might burn the house under us; that always, and for certain, and
+it meant a dreadful death. Yet I breathed more freely here. In the
+white and gold room below, among Madame's mirrors and Cupids, and
+silken cushions, and painted Venuses, my heart had failed me. The
+place, with its heavy perfumes, had stifled me. I had pictured the
+brutish peasants bursting in on us there--on the screaming women,
+crouching vainly behind chairs and couches; and the horror of the
+thought overcame me. Here, in the open, under the sky, we could at
+least die fighting. The depth yawned beyond the coping; the weakest
+had here no more to fear than death. Besides we had a respite, for the
+house was large, and the fire could not lick it up in a moment.
+
+And help might come. I shaded my eyes from the light below, and looked
+into the darkness in the direction of the village and the Cahors road.
+In an hour, at furthest, help might come. The glare in the sky must be
+visible for miles; it would spur on the avengers. Father Benôit, too,
+if he could get help--he might be here at any time. We were not
+without hope.
+
+Suddenly, while we stood together, the women sobbing and whimpering,
+the old man-servant spoke.
+
+"Where is M. Gargouf?" he muttered under his breath.
+
+"Ah!" I exclaimed; "I had forgotten him."
+
+"He came up," the man continued, peering about him. "This door was
+open, M. le Vicomte, when we came to it."
+
+"Ah! then where is he?"
+
+I looked round too. All the roof, I have said, was dark, and not all
+of it was on the same level; and here and there chimneys broke the
+view. In the obscurity, the steward might be lurking close to us
+without our knowledge; or he might have thrown himself down in
+despair. While I looked, the boy whom I had left by the bricks came
+flying to us.
+
+"There is some one there!" he said. And he clung to the old man in
+terror.
+
+"It must be Gargouf!" I answered. "Wait here!" And, disregarding the
+women's prayers that I would stay with them, I went quickly along the
+leads to the other trap-door, and peered about me through the gloom.
+For a moment I could see no one, though the light shining on the trees
+made it easy to discern figures standing nearer the coping. Presently,
+however, I caught the sound of some one moving; some one who was
+farther away still, at the very edge of the roof. I went on
+cautiously, expecting I do not know what; and close to a stack of
+chimneys I found Gargouf.
+
+He was crouching on the coping in the darkest part, where the end wall
+of the east wing overlooked the garden by which I had entered. This
+end wall had no windows, and the greater part of the garden below it
+lay it darkness; the angle of the house standing between it and the
+burning buildings. I supposed that the steward had sneaked hither,
+therefore, to hide; and set it down to the darkness that he did not
+know me, but, as I approached, he rose on his knees on the ledge, and
+turned on me, snarling like a dog.
+
+"Stand back!" he said, in a voice that was scarcely human. "Stand
+back, or I will----"
+
+"Steady, man," I answered quietly, beginning to think that fear had
+unhinged him. "It is I, M. de Saux."
+
+"Stand back!" was his only answer; and, though he cowered so low
+that I could not get his figure against the shining trees, I saw a
+pistol-barrel gleam as he levelled it. "Stand back! Give me a minute!
+a minute only"--and his voice quavered--"and I will cheat the devils
+yet! Come nearer, or give the alarm, and I will not die alone! I will
+not die alone! Stand back!"
+
+"Are you mad?" I said.
+
+"Back, or I shoot!" he growled. "I will not die alone."
+
+He was kneeling on the very edge, with his left hand against the
+chimney. To rush upon him in that posture was to court death; and I
+had nothing to gain by it. I stepped back a pace. As I did so, at the
+moment I did so, he slid over the edge, and was gone!
+
+I drew a deep breath and listened, flinching and drawing back
+involuntarily. But I heard no sound of a fall; and in a moment, with a
+new idea in my mind, I stepped forward to the edge, and looked over.
+
+The steward hung in mid-air, a dozen feet below me. He was descending;
+descending foot by foot, slowly, and by jerks; a dim figure, growing
+dimmer. Instinctively I felt about me; and in a second laid my hand on
+the rope by which he hung. It was secured round the chimney. Then I
+understood. He had conceived this way of escape, perhaps had stored
+the rope for it beforehand, and, like the villain he was, had kept the
+thought to himself, that his chance might be the better, and that he
+might not have to give the first place to Mademoiselle and the women.
+In the first heat of the discovery, I almost found it in my heart to
+cut the rope, and let him fall; then I remembered that if he escaped,
+the way would lie open for others; and then, even as I thought this,
+into the garden below me, there shone a sudden flare of light, and a
+stream of a dozen rioters poured round the corner, and made for the
+door by which I had entered the house.
+
+I held my breath. The steward, hanging below me, and by this time
+half-way to the ground, stopped, and moved not a limb. But he still
+swung a little this way and that, and in the strong light of the
+torches which the new-comers carried, I could see every knot in the
+rope, and even the trailing end, which, as I looked, moved on the
+ground with his motion.
+
+The wretches, making for the door, had to pass within a pace of the
+rope, of that trailing end; yet it was possible that, blinded by the
+lights they carried, and their own haste and excitement, they might
+not see it. I held my breath as the leader came abreast of it; I
+fancied that he must see it. But he passed, and disappeared in the
+doorway. Three others passed the rope together. A fifth, then three
+more, two more; I began to breathe more freely. Only one remained--a
+woman, the same whose imprecations had greeted me on my appearance at
+the window. It was not likely that she would see it. She was running
+to overtake the others; she carried a flare in her right hand, so that
+the blaze came between her and the rope. And she was waving the light
+in a mad woman's frenzy, as she danced along, hounding on the men to
+the sack.
+
+But, as if the presence of the man who had wronged her had over her
+some subtle influence--as if some sense, unowned by others, warned her
+of his presence, even in the midst of that babel and tumult--she
+stopped short under him, with her foot almost on the threshold. I saw
+her head turn slowly. She raised her eyes, holding the torch aside.
+She saw him!
+
+With a scream of joy, she sprang to the foot of the rope, and began to
+haul at it as if in that way she might get to him sooner; while she
+filled the air with her shrieks and laughter. The men, who had gone
+into the house, heard her, and came out again; and after them others.
+I quailed, where I knelt on the parapet, as I looked down and met the
+wolfish glare of their upturned eyes; what, then, must have been the
+thoughts of the wretched man taken in his selfishness--hanging there
+helpless between earth and heaven? God knows.
+
+He began to climb upwards, to return; and actually ascended hand over
+hand a dozen feet. But he had been supporting himself for some
+minutes, and at that point his strength failed him. Human muscles
+could do no more. He tried to haul himself up to the next knot, but
+sank back with a groan. Then he looked at me. "Pull me up!" he gasped
+in a voice just audible. "For God's sake! For God's sake, pull me up!"
+
+But the wretches below had the end of the rope, and it was impossible
+to raise him, even had I possessed the strength to do it. I told him
+so, and bade him climb--climb for his life. In a moment it would be
+too late.
+
+He understood. He raised himself with a jerk to the next knot, and
+hung there. Another desperate effort, and he gained the next; though I
+could almost hear his muscles crack, and his breath came in gasps.
+Three more knots--they were about a foot apart--and he would reach the
+coping.
+
+But as he turned up his face to me, I read despair in his eyes. His
+strength was gone; and while he hung there, the men began, with shouts
+of laughter, to shake the rope this way and that. He lost his grip,
+and, with a groan, slid down three or four feet; and again got hold
+and hung there--silent.
+
+By this time the group below had grown into a crowd--a crowd of
+maddened beings, raving and howling, and leaping up at him as dogs
+leap at food; and the horror of the sight, though the doomed man's
+features were now in shadow, and I could not read them, overcame me. I
+rose to draw back--shuddering, listening for his fall. Instead, before
+I had quite retreated, a hot flash blinded me, and almost scorched my
+face, and, as the sharp report of a pistol rang out, the steward's
+body plunged headlong down--leaving a little cloud of smoke where I
+stood.
+
+He had balked his enemies.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IX.
+
+                            THE TRICOLOUR.
+
+
+It was known afterwards that they fell upon the body and tore it, like
+the dogs they were; but I had seen enough. I reeled back, and for a
+few moments leaned against the chimney, trembling like a woman, sick
+and faint. The horrid drama had had only one spectator--myself; and
+the strange solitude from which I had viewed it, kneeling at the edge
+of the roof of the Château, with the night wind on my brow and the
+tumult far below me, had shaken me to the bottom of my soul. Had the
+ruffians come upon me then I could not have lifted a finger; but,
+fortunately, though the awakening came quickly, it came by another
+hand. I heard the rustle of feet behind me, and, turning, found
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais at my shoulder, her small face grey in the
+gloom.
+
+"Monsieur," she said, "will you come?"
+
+I sprang up, ashamed and conscience-stricken. I had forgotten her,
+all, in the tragedy. "What is it?" I said.
+
+"The house is burning."
+
+She said it so calmly, in such a voice, that I could not believe her,
+or that I understood; though it was the thing I had told myself must
+happen. "What, Mademoiselle? This house?" I said stupidly.
+
+"Yes," she replied, as quietly as before. "The smoke is rising through
+the closet staircase. I think that they have set the east wing on
+fire."
+
+I hastened back with her, but before I reached the little door by
+which we had ascended I saw that it was true. A faint, whitish eddy of
+smoke, scarcely visible in the dusk, was rising through the crack
+between door and lintel. When we came up the women were still round it
+watching it; but while I looked, dazed and wondering what we were to
+do, the group melted away, and Mademoiselle and I were left alone
+beside the stream of smoke that grew each moment thicker and darker.
+
+A few moments before, immediately after my escape from the rooms
+below, I had thought that I could face this peril; anything,
+everything, had then seemed better than to be caught with the women,
+in the confinement of those luxurious rooms, perfumed with _poudre de
+rose_, and heavy with jasmine--to be caught there by the brutes who
+were pursuing us. Now the danger that showed itself most pressing
+seemed the worst. "We must take off the bricks!" I cried. "Quick, and
+open that door! There is nothing else for it. Come, Mademoiselle, if
+you please!"
+
+"They are doing it," she answered.
+
+Then I saw whither the women and the servants had gone. They were
+already beside the other door, the trap-door, labouring frantically to
+remove the bricks we had piled on it. In a moment I caught the
+infection of their haste.
+
+"Come, Mademoiselle! come!" I cried, advancing involuntarily a step
+towards the group. "Very likely the rogues below will be plundering
+now, and we may pass safely. At any rate, there is nothing else for
+it."
+
+I was still flurried and shaken--I say it with shame--by Gargouf's
+fate; and when she did not answer at once, I looked round impatiently.
+To my astonishment, she was gone. In the darkness, it was not easy to
+see any one at a distance of a dozen feet, and the reek of the smoke
+was spreading. Still, she had been at my elbow a moment before, she
+could not be far off. I took a step this way and that, and looked
+again anxiously; and then I found her. She was kneeling against a
+chimney, her face buried in her hands. Her hair covered her shoulders,
+and partly hid her white robe.
+
+I thought the time ill-chosen, and I touched her angrily.
+"Mademoiselle!" I said. "There is not a moment to be lost! Come! they
+have opened the door!"
+
+She looked up at me, and the still pallor of her face sobered me. "I
+am not coming," she said, in a low voice. "Farewell, Monsieur!"
+
+"You are not coming?" I cried.
+
+"No, Monsieur; save yourself," she answered firmly and quietly. And
+she looked up at me with her hands still clasped before her, as if she
+were fain to return to her prayers, and waited only for me to go.
+
+I gasped.
+
+"But, Mademoiselle!" I cried, staring at the white-robed figure, that
+in the gloom--a gloom riven now and again by hot flashes, as some
+burning spark soared upwards--seemed scarcely earthly--"But,
+Mademoiselle, you do not understand. This is no child's play. To stay
+here is death! death! The house is burning under us. Presently the
+roof, on which we stand, will fall in, and then----"
+
+"Better that," she answered, raising her head with heaven knows
+what of womanly dignity, caught in this supreme moment by her, a
+child--"Better that, than that I should fall into their hands. I am a
+St. Alais, and I can die," she continued firmly. "But I must not fall
+into their hands. Do you, Monsieur, save yourself. Go now, and I will
+pray for you."
+
+"And I for you, Mademoiselle," I answered, with a full heart. "If you
+stay, I stay."
+
+She looked at me a moment, her face troubled. Then she rose slowly to
+her feet. The servants had disappeared, the trap-door lay open; no one
+had yet come up. We had the roof to ourselves. I saw her shudder as
+she looked round; and in a second I had her in my arms--she was no
+heavier than a child--and was half-way across the roof. She uttered a
+faint cry of remonstrance, of reproach, and for an instant struggled
+with me. But I only held her the tighter, and ran on. From the
+trap-door a ladder led downwards; somehow, still holding her with one
+hand, I stumbled down it, until I reached the foot, and found myself
+in a passage, which was all dark. One way, however, a light shone at
+the end of it.
+
+I carried her towards this, her hair lying across my lips, her face
+against my breast. She no longer struggled, and in a moment I came to
+the head of a staircase. It seemed to be a servant's staircase, for it
+was bare, and mean, and narrow, with white-washed walls that were not
+too clean. There were no signs of fire here, even the smoke had not
+yet reached this part; but half-way down the flight a candle,
+overturned, but still burning, lay on a step, as if some one had that
+moment dropped it. And from all the lower part of the house came up a
+great noise of riot and revelry, coarse shrieks, and shouts, and
+laughter. I paused to listen.
+
+Mademoiselle lifted herself a little in my arms. "Put me down,
+Monsieur," she whispered.
+
+"You will come?"
+
+"I will do what you tell me."
+
+I set her down in the angle of the passage, at the head of the stairs;
+and in a whisper I asked her what was beyond the door, which I could
+see at the foot of the flight.
+
+"The kitchen," she answered.
+
+"If I had any cloak to cover you," I said, "I think that we could
+pass. They are not searching for us. They are robbing and drinking."
+
+"Will you get the candle?" she whispered, trembling. "In one of these
+rooms we may find something."
+
+I went softly down the bare stairs, and, picking it up, returned with
+it in my hand. As I came back to her, our eyes met, and a slow blush,
+gradually deepening, crept over her face, as dawn creeps over a grey
+sky. Having come, it stayed; her eyes fell, and she turned a little
+away from me, confused and frightened. We were alone; and for the
+first time that night, I think, she remembered her loosened hair and
+the disorder of her dress--that she was a woman and I a man.
+
+It was a strange time to think of such things; when at any instant the
+door at the foot of the stairs before us might open, and a dozen
+ruffians stream up, bent on plunder, and worse. But the look and the
+movement warmed my heart, and set my blood running as it had never run
+before. I felt my courage return in a flood, and with it twice my
+strength. I felt capable of holding the staircase against a hundred, a
+thousand, as long as she stood at the top. Above all, I wondered how I
+could have borne her in my arms a minute before, how I could have held
+her head against my breast, and felt her hair touch my lips, and been
+insensible! Never again should I carry her so with an even pulse. The
+knowledge of that came to me as I stood beside her at the head of the
+bare stairs, affecting to listen to the noises below, that she might
+have time to recover herself.
+
+A moment, and I began to listen seriously; for the uproar in the
+kitchen through which we must pass to escape, was growing louder; and
+at the same time that I noticed this, a smell of burning wood, with a
+whiff of smoke, reached my nostrils, and warned me that the fire was
+extending to the wing in which we stood. Behind us, as we stood,
+looking down the stairs, was a door; along the passage to the left by
+which we had come were other doors. I thrust the candle into
+Mademoiselle's hands, and begged her to go and look in the rooms.
+
+"There may be a cloak, or something!" I said eagerly. "We must not
+linger. If you will look, I will----"
+
+No more; for as the last word trembled on my lips the door at the foot
+of the stairs flew open, and a man blundered through it and began to
+ascend towards us, two steps at a time. He carried a candle before
+him, and a large bar in his right hand; and a savage roar of voices
+came with him through the doorway.
+
+He appeared so suddenly that we had no time to move. I had a side
+glimpse of Mademoiselle standing spell-bound with horror, the light
+drooping in her hand. Then I snatched the candle from her and quenched
+it; and, plucking it from the iron candlestick, stood waiting, with
+the latter in my hand--waiting, stooping forward, for the man. I had
+left my sword in the farther wing, and had no other weapon; but the
+stairs were narrow, the sloping ceiling low, and the candlestick might
+do. If his comrades did not follow him, it might do.
+
+He came up rapidly, two-thirds of the way, holding the light high in
+front of him. Only four or five steps divided him from us! Then on a
+sudden, he stumbled, swore, and fell heavily forwards. The light in
+his hand went out, and we were in darkness!
+
+Instinctively I gripped Mademoiselle's hand in my left hand to stay
+the scream that I knew was on her lips; then we stood like two
+statues, scarcely daring to breathe. The man, so near us, and yet
+unconscious of our presence, got up swearing; and, after a terrible
+moment of suspense, during which I think he fumbled for the candle, he
+began to clatter down the stairs again. They had closed the door at
+the bottom, and he could not for a moment find the string of the
+latch. But at last he found it, and opened the door. Then I stepped
+back, and under cover of the babel that instantly poured up the
+staircase I drew Mademoiselle into the room behind us, and, closing
+the door which faced the stairs, stood listening.
+
+I fancied that I could hear her heart beating. I could certainly hear
+my own. In this room we seemed for the moment safe; but how were we,
+without a light, to find anything to disguise her? How were we to pass
+through the kitchen? And in a moment I began to regret that I had left
+the stairs. We were in perfect darkness here and could see nothing in
+the room, which had a close, unused smell, as of mice; but even as I
+noticed this the fumes of burning wood, which had doubtless entered
+with us, grew stronger and overcame the other smell. The rushing
+wind-like sound of the fire, as it caught hold of the wing, began to
+be audible, and the distant crackling of flames. My heart sank.
+
+"Mademoiselle," I said softly. I still held her hand.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur," she murmured faintly. And she seemed to lean against
+me.
+
+"Are there no windows in this room?"
+
+"I think that they are shuttered," she murmured.
+
+With a new thought in my mind, that the way of the kitchen being
+hopeless we might escape by the windows, I moved a pace to look for
+them. I would have loosed her hand to do this, that my own might be
+free to grope before me, but to my surprise she clung to me and would
+not let me go. Then in the darkness I heard her sigh, as if she were
+about to swoon; and she fell against me.
+
+"Courage, Mademoiselle, courage!" I said, terrified by the mere
+thought.
+
+"Oh, I am frightened!" she moaned in my ear. "I am frightened! Save
+me, Monsieur, save me!"
+
+She had been so brave before that I wondered; not knowing that the
+bravest woman's courage is of this quality. But I had short time for
+wonder. Her weight hung each instant more dead in my arms, and my
+heart beating wildly as I held her I looked round for help, for a
+thought, for an idea. But all was dark. I could not remember even
+where the door stood by which we had entered. I peered in vain, for
+the slightest glimmer of light that might betray the windows. I was
+alone with her and helpless, our way of retreat cut off, the flames
+approaching. I felt her head fall back and knew that she had swooned;
+and in the dark I could do no more than support her, and listen and
+listen for the returning steps of the man, or what else would happen
+next.
+
+For a long time, a long time it seemed to me, nothing happened. Then a
+sudden burst of sound told me that the door at the foot of the stairs
+had been opened again; and on that followed a clatter of wooden shoes
+on the bare stairs. I could judge now where the door of the room was,
+and I quickly but tenderly laid Mademoiselle on the floor a little
+behind it, and waited myself on the threshold. I still had my
+candlestick, and I was desperate.
+
+I heard them pass, my heart beating; and then I heard them pause and I
+clutched my weapon; and then a voice I knew gave an order, and with a
+cry of joy I dragged open the door of the room and stood before
+them--stood before them, as they told me afterwards, with the face of
+a ghost or a man risen from the dead.
+
+There were four of them, and the nearest to us was Father Benôit.
+
+The good priest fell on my neck and kissed me. "You are not hurt?" he
+cried.
+
+"No," I said dully. "You have come then?"
+
+"Yes," he said. "In time to save you, God be praised! God be praised!
+And Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle de St. Alais?" he added eagerly,
+looking at me as if he thought I was not quite in my senses. "Have you
+news of her?"
+
+I turned without a word, and went back into the room. He followed
+with a light, and the three men, of whom Buton was one, pressed in
+after him. They were rough peasants, but the sight made them give
+back, and uncover themselves. Mademoiselle lay where I had left her,
+her head pillowed on a dark carpet of hair; from the midst of which
+her child's face, composed and white as in death, looked up with
+solemn half-closed eyes to the ceiling. For myself, I stared down at
+her almost without emotion, so much had I gone through. But the priest
+cried out aloud.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" he said, with a sob in his voice. "Have they killed
+her?"
+
+"No," I answered. "She has only fainted. If there is a woman here----"
+
+"There is no woman here that I dare trust," he answered between his
+teeth. And he bade one of the men go and get some water, adding a few
+words which I did not hear.
+
+The man returned almost immediately, and Father Benôit, bidding him
+and his fellows stand back a little, moistened her lips with water,
+afterwards dashing some in her face; doing it with an air of haste
+that puzzled me until I noticed that the room was grown thick with
+smoke, and on going myself to the door saw the red glow of the fire at
+the end of the passage, and heard the distant crash of falling stones
+and timbers. Then I thought that I understood the men's attitude, and
+I suggested to Father Benôit that I should carry her out.
+
+"She will never recover here," I said, with a sob in my throat. "She
+will be suffocated if we do not get her into the air."
+
+A thick volume of smoke swept along the passage as I spoke, and gave
+point to my words.
+
+"Yes," the priest said slowly, "I think so, too, my son, but----"
+
+"But what?" I cried. "It is not safe to stay!"
+
+"You sent to Cahors?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. "Has M. le Marquis come?"
+
+"No; and you see, M. le Vicomte, I have only these four men," he
+explained. "Had I stayed to gather more I might have been too late.
+And with these only I do not know what to do. Half the poor wretches
+who have done this mischief are mad with drink. Others are strangers,
+and----"
+
+"But I thought--I thought that it was all over," I cried in
+astonishment.
+
+"No," he answered gravely. "They let us pass in after an altercation;
+I am of the Committee, and so is Buton there. But when they see you,
+and especially Mademoiselle de St. Alais--I do not know how they may
+act, my friend."
+
+"But, _mon Dieu!_" I cried. "Surely they will not dare----"
+
+"No, Monseigneur, have no fear, they shall not dare!"
+
+The words came out of the smoke. The speaker was Buton. As he spoke,
+he stepped forward, swinging the ponderous bar he carried, his huge
+hairy arms bare to the elbow. "Yet there is one thing you must do," he
+said.
+
+"What?"
+
+"You must put on the tricolour. They will not dare to touch that."
+
+He spoke with a simple pride, which at the moment I found
+unintelligible. I understand it better now. Nay, on the morrow, it was
+no riddle to me, though an abiding wonder.
+
+The priest sprang at the idea. "Good," he said. "Buton has hit it!
+They will respect that."
+
+And before I could speak he had detached the large rosette which he
+wore on his _soutane_, and was pinning it on my breast.
+
+"Now yours, Buton," he continued; and taking the smith's--it was not
+too clean--he fixed it on Mademoiselle's left shoulder. "There," he
+said eagerly, when it was done. "Now, M. le Vicomte, take her up.
+Quick, or we shall be stifled. Buton and I will go before you, and our
+friends here will follow you."
+
+Mademoiselle was beginning to come to herself with sighs and sobs,
+when I raised her in my arms; and we were all coughing with the smoke.
+This in the passage outside was choking; had we delayed a minute
+longer we could not have passed out safely, for already the flames
+were beginning to lick the door of the next room, and dart out angry
+tongues towards us. As it was, we stumbled down the stairs in some
+fashion, one helping another; and checked for an instant by the closed
+door at the bottom, were glad to fall when it was opened pell-mell in
+the kitchen, where we stood with smarting eyes, gasping for breath.
+
+It was the grand kitchen of the Château that had seen many a feast
+prepared, and many a quarry brought home; but for Mademoiselle's sake
+I was glad that her face was against my breast, and that she could not
+see it now. A great fire, fed high with fat and hams, blazed on the
+hearth, and before it, instead of meat, the carcases of three dogs
+hung from the jack, and tainted the air with the smell of burning
+flesh. They were M. le Marquis' favourite hounds, killed in pure
+wantonness. Below them the floor, strewn with bottles, ran deep in
+wasted wine, out of which piles of shattered furniture and staved
+casks rose like islands. All that the rioters had not taken they had
+spoiled; even now in one corner a woman was filling her apron with
+salt from a huge trampled heap, and at the battered _dressoir_ three
+or four men were plundering. The main body of the peasants, however,
+had retired outside, where they could be heard fiercely cheering on
+the flames, shouting when a chimney fell or a window burst, and
+flinging into the fire every living thing unlucky enough to fall into
+their hands. The plunderers, on seeing us, sneaked out with grim looks
+like wolves driven from the prey. Doubtless, they spread the news; for
+while we paused, though it was only for a moment, in the middle of the
+floor, the uproar outside ceased, and gave place to a strange silence
+in the midst of which we appeared at the door.
+
+The glare of the burning house threw a light as strong as that of day
+on the scene before us; on the line of savage frenzied faces that
+confronted us, and the great pile of wreckage that stood about and
+bore witness to their fury. But for a moment the light failed to show
+us to them; we were in the shadow of the wall, and it was not until we
+had advanced some paces that the ominous silence was broken, and the
+mob, with a howl of rage, sprang forward, like bloodhounds slipped
+from the leash. Low-browed and shock-headed, half-naked, and black
+with smoke and blood, they seemed more like beasts than men; and like
+beasts they came on, snapping the teeth and snarling, while from the
+rear--for the foremost were past speech--came screams of "_Mort aux
+Tyrans! Mort aux Accapareurs!_" that, mingling with the tumult of the
+fire, were enough to scare the stoutest.
+
+Had my escort blenched for an instant our fate was sealed. But they
+stood firm, and before their stern front all but one man quailed and
+fell back--fell back snarling and crying for our blood. That one came
+on, and aimed a blow at me with a knife. On the instant Buton raised
+his iron bar, and with a stentorian cry of "Respect the Tricolour!"
+struck him to the ground, and strode over him.
+
+"Respect the Tricolour!" he shouted again, with the voice of a bull;
+and the effect of the words was magical. The crowd heard, fell back,
+and fell aside, staring stupidly at me and my burden.
+
+"Respect the Tricolour!" Father Benôit cried, raising his hand aloft;
+and he made the sign of the cross. On that in an instant a hundred
+voices took it up; and almost before I could apprehend the change,
+those who a moment earlier had been gaping for our blood were
+thrusting one another back, and shouting as with one voice, "Way, way
+for the Tricolour!"
+
+There was something unutterably new, strange, formidable in this
+reverence; this respect paid by these savages to a word, a ribbon, an
+idea. It made an impression on me that was never quite effaced. But at
+the moment I was scarcely conscious of this. I heard and saw things
+dully. Like a man in a dream, I walked through the crowd, and,
+stumbling under my burden, passed down the lane of brutish faces, down
+the avenue, down to the gate. There Father Benôit would have taken
+Mademoiselle from me, but I would not let him.
+
+"To Saux! To Saux!" I said feverishly; and then, I scarcely knew how,
+I found myself on a horse holding her before me. And we were on the
+road to Saux, lighted on our way by the flames of the burning Château.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X.
+
+                     THE MORNING AFTER THE STORM.
+
+
+Father Benôit had the forethought, when we reached the cross-roads, to
+leave a man there to await the party from Cahors, and warn them of
+Mademoiselle's safety; and we had not ridden more than half a mile
+before the clatter of hoofs behind us announced that they were
+following. I was beginning to recover from the stupor into which the
+excitement of the night had thrown me, and I reined up to deliver over
+my charge, should M. de St. Alais desire to take her.
+
+But he was not of the party. The leader was Louis, and his company
+consisted, to my surprise, of no more than six or seven servants, old
+M. de Gontaut, one of the Harincourts, and a strange gentleman. Their
+horses were panting and smoking with the speed at which they had come,
+and the men's eyes glittered with excitement. No one seemed to think
+it strange that I carried Mademoiselle; but all, after hurriedly
+thanking God that she was safe, hastened to ask the number of the
+rioters.
+
+"Nearly a hundred," I said. "As far as I could judge. But where is M.
+le Marquis?"
+
+"He had not returned when the alarm came."
+
+"You are a small party?"
+
+Louis swore with vexation. "I could get no more," he said. "News came
+at the same time that Marignac's house was on fire, and he carried off
+a dozen. A score of others took fright, and thought it might be the
+same with them; and they saddled up in haste, and went to see. In
+fact," he continued bitterly, "it seemed to me to be every one for
+himself. Always excepting my good friends here."
+
+M. de Gontaut began to chuckle, but choked for want of breath. "Beauty
+in distress!" he gasped. Poor fellow, he could scarcely sit his horse.
+
+"But you will come on to Saux?" I said. They were turning their horses
+in a cloud of steam that mistily lit up the night.
+
+"No!" Louis answered, with another oath; and I did not wonder that he
+was not himself, that his usual good nature had deserted him. "It is
+now or never! If we can catch them at this work----"
+
+I did not hear the rest. The trampling of their horses, as they drove
+in the spurs and started down the road, drowned the words. In a moment
+they were fifty paces away; all but one, who, detaching himself at the
+last moment, turned his horse's head, and rode up to me. It was the
+stranger, the only one of the party, not a servant, whom I did not
+know.
+
+"How are they armed, if you please?" he asked.
+
+"They have at least one gun," I said, looking at him curiously. "And
+by this time probably more. The mass of them had pikes and
+pitchforks."
+
+"And a leader?"
+
+"Petit Jean, the smith, of St. Alais, gave orders."
+
+"Thank you, M. le Vicomte," he said, and saluted. Then, touching his
+horse with the spur, he rode off at speed after the others.
+
+I was in no condition to help them, and I was anxious to put
+Mademoiselle, who lay in my arms like one dead, in the women's care.
+The moment they were gone, therefore, we pursued our way, Father
+Benôit and I silent and full of thought, the others chattering to one
+another without pause or stay. Mademoiselle's head lay on my right
+shoulder. I could feel the faint beating of her heart; and in that
+slow, dark ride had time to think of many things: of her courage and
+will and firmness--this poor little convent-bred one, who a fortnight
+before had not found a word to throw at me; last, but not least, of
+the womanly weakness, dear to my man's heart, that had sapped her
+reserve at last, and brought her arms to my neck and her cry to my
+ear. The faint perfume of her hair was in my nostrils; I longed to
+kiss the half-shrouded head. But, if in an hour I had learned to love
+her, I had learned to honour her more; and I repressed the impulse,
+and only held her more gently, and tried to think of other things
+until she should be out of my arms.
+
+If I did not find that so easy, it was not for want of food for
+thought. The glow of the fire behind us reddened all the sky at our
+backs; the murmur of the mob pursued us; more than once, as we went, a
+figure sneaked by us in the blackness, and fled, as if to join them.
+Father Benôit fancied that there was a second fire a league to the
+east; and in the tumult and upheaval of all things on this night, and
+the consequent confusion of thought into which I had fallen, it would
+scarcely have surprised me if flames had broken out before us also,
+and announced that Saux was burning.
+
+But I was spared that. On the contrary, the whole village came out to
+meet us, and accompanied us, cheering, from the gates to the door of
+the Château, where, in the glare of the lights they carried, and amid
+a great silence of curiosity and expectation, Mademoiselle was lifted
+from my saddle and carried into the house. The women who pressed round
+the door to see, stooped forward to follow her with their eyes; but
+none as I followed her.
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+Much that passes for fair at night wears a foul look by day; and
+things tolerable in the suffering have a knack of seeming
+fantastically impossible in the retrospect. When I awoke next morning,
+in the great chair in the hall--wherein, tradition had it, Louis the
+Thirteenth had once sat--and, after three hours of troubled sleep,
+found André standing over me, and the sun pouring in through door and
+window, I fancied for a moment that the events of the night, as I
+remembered them, were a dream. Then my eyes fell on a brace of
+pistols, which I had placed by my side over night, and on the tray at
+which Father Benôit and I had refreshed ourselves; and I knew that the
+things had happened. I sprang up.
+
+"Is M. de St. Alais here?" I said.
+
+"No, Monsieur."
+
+"Nor M. le Comte?"
+
+"No, Monsieur."
+
+"What!" I said. "Have none of the party come?" For I had gone to sleep
+expecting to be called up to receive them within the hour.
+
+"No, M. le Vicomte," the old man answered, "except--except one
+gentleman who was with them, and who is now walking with M. le Curé in
+the garden. And for him----"
+
+"Well?" I said sharply, for André, who had got on his most gloomy and
+dogmatic air, stopped with a sniff of contempt.
+
+"He does not seem to be a man for whom M. le Vicomte should be
+roused," he answered obstinately. "But M. le Curé would have it; and
+in these days, I suppose, we must tramp for a smith, let alone an
+officer of excise."
+
+"Buton is here, then?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur; and walking on the terrace, as if of the family. I do
+not know what things are coming to," André continued, grumbling, and
+raising his voice as I started to go out, "or what they would be at.
+But when M. le Vicomte took away the _carcan_ I knew what was likely
+to happen. Oh! yes," he went on still more loudly, while he stood
+holding the tray, and looking after me with a sour face, "I knew what
+would happen! I knew what would happen!"
+
+And, certainly, if I had not been shaken completely out of the common
+rut of thought, I should have found something odd, myself, in the
+combination of the three men whom I found on the terrace. They were
+walking up and down, Father Benôit, with downcast eyes and his hands
+behind him, in the middle. On one side of him moved Buton, coarse,
+heavy-shouldered, and clumsy, in his stained blouse; on the other side
+paced the stranger of last night, a neat, middle-sized man, very
+plainly dressed, with riding boots and a sword. Remembering that he
+had formed one of Louis' party, I was surprised to see that he wore
+the tricolour; but I forgot this in my anxiety to know what had become
+of the others. Without standing on ceremony, I asked him.
+
+"They attacked the rioters, lost one man, and were beaten off," he
+answered with dry precision.
+
+"And M. le Comte?"
+
+"Was not hurt. He returned to Cahors, to raise more men. I, as my
+advice seemed to be taken in ill part, came here."
+
+He spoke in a blunt, straightforward way, as to an equal; and at once
+seemed to be, and not to be, a gentleman. The Curé, seeing that he
+puzzled me, hastened to introduce him.
+
+"This, M. le Vicomte," he said, "is M. le Capitaine Hugues, late of
+the American Army. He has placed his services at the disposal of the
+Committee."
+
+"For the purpose," the Captain went on, before I had made up my mind
+how to take it, "of drilling and commanding a body of men to be raised
+in Quercy to keep the peace. Call them militia; call them what you
+like."
+
+I was a good deal taken aback. The man, alert, active, practical, with
+the butt of a pistol peeping from his pocket, was something new to me.
+
+"You have served his Majesty?" I said at last, to gain time to think.
+
+"No," he answered. "There are no careers in that army, unless you have
+so many quarterings. I served under General Washington."
+
+"But I saw you last night with M. de St. Alais?"
+
+"Why not, M. le Vicomte?" he answered, looking at me plainly. "I heard
+that a house was being burned. I had just arrived, and I placed myself
+at M. le Comte's disposal. But they had no method, and would take no
+advice."
+
+"Well," I said, "these seem to me to be rather extreme steps. You
+know----"
+
+"M. de Marignac's house was burned last night," the Curé said softly.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And I fear that we shall hear of others. I think that we must look
+matters in the face, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"It is not a question of thinking or looking, but of doing!" the
+Captain said, interrupting him harshly. "We have a long summer's day
+before us, but if by to-night we have not done something, there will
+be a sorry dawning in Quercy to-morrow."
+
+"There are the King's troops," I said.
+
+"They refuse to obey orders. Therefore, they are worse than useless."
+
+"Their officers?"
+
+"They are staunch; but the people hate them. A knight of St. Louis is
+to the mob what a red rag is to a bull. I can answer for it that they
+have enough to do to keep their men in barracks, and guard their own
+heads."
+
+I resented his familiarity, and the impatience with which he spoke;
+but, resent it as I might, I could not return to the tone I had used
+yesterday. Then it had seemed an outrageous thing that Buton should
+stand by and listen. To-day the same thing had an ordinary air. And
+this, moreover, was a different man from Doury; arguments that had
+crushed the one would have no weight with the other. I saw that, and,
+rather helplessly, I asked Father Benôit what he would have.
+
+He did not answer. It was the Captain who replied. "We want you to
+join the Committee," he said briskly.
+
+"I discussed that yesterday," I answered with some stiffness. "I
+cannot do so. Father Benôit will tell you so."
+
+"It is not Father Benôit's answer I want," the Captain replied. "It is
+yours, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"I answered yesterday," I said haughtily--"and refused."
+
+"Yesterday is not to-day," he retorted. "M. de St. Alais' house stood
+yesterday; it is a smoking ruin today. M. de Marignac's likewise.
+Yesterday much was conjecture. To-day facts speak for themselves. A
+few hours' hesitation, and the province will be in a blaze from one
+end to the other."
+
+I could not gainsay this; at the same time there was one other thing I
+could not do, and that was change my views again. Having solemnly put
+on the white cockade in Madame St. Alais' drawing-room, I had not the
+courage to execute another _volte-face_. I could not recant again.
+
+"It is impossible--impossible in my case," I stammered at last
+peevishly, and in a disjointed way. "Why do you come again to me? Why
+do you not go to some one else? There are two hundred others whose
+names----"
+
+"Would be of no use to us," M. le Capitaine answered brusquely;
+"whereas yours would reassure the fearful, attach some moderate men to
+the cause and not disgust the masses. Let me be frank with you, M. le
+Vicomte," he continued in a different tone. "I want your co-operation.
+I am here to take risks, but none that are unnecessary; and I prefer
+that my commission should issue from above as well as from below. Add
+your name to the Committee and I accept their commission. Without
+doubt I could police Quercy in the name of the Third Estate, but I
+would rather hang, draw, and quarter in the name of all three."
+
+"Still, there are others----"
+
+"You forget that I have got to rule the _canaille_ in Cahors," he
+answered impatiently, "as well as these mad clowns, who think that the
+end of the world is here. And those others you speak of----"
+
+"Are not acceptable," Father Benôit said gently, looking at me with
+yearning in his kind eyes. The light morning air caught the skirts of
+his cassock as he spoke, and lifted them from his lean figure. He held
+his shovel hat in his hand, between his face and the sun. I knew that
+there was a conflict in his mind as in mine, and that he would have me
+and would have me not; and the knowledge strengthened me to resist his
+words.
+
+"It is impossible," I said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+I was spared the necessity of answering. I had my face to the door of
+the house, and as the last word was spoken saw André issue from it
+with M. de St. Alais. The manner in which the old servant cried, "M.
+le Marquis de St. Alais, to see M. le Vicomte!" gave us a little
+shock, it was so full of sly triumph; but nothing on M. de St. Alais'
+part, as he approached, betrayed that he noticed this. He advanced
+with an air perfectly gay, and saluted me with good humour. For a
+moment I fancied that he did not know what had happened in the night;
+his first words, however, dispelled the idea.
+
+"M. le Vicomte," he said, addressing me with both ease and grace, "we
+are for ever grateful to you. I was abroad on business last night, and
+could do nothing; and my brother must, I am told, have come too late,
+even if, with so small a force, he could effect anything. I saw
+Mademoiselle as I passed through the house, and she gave me some
+particulars."
+
+"She has left her room?" I cried in surprise. The other three had
+drawn back a little, so that we enjoyed a kind of privacy.
+
+"Yes," he answered, smiling slightly at my tone. "And I can assure
+you, M. le Vicomte, has spoken as highly of you as a maiden dare. For
+the rest, my mother will convey the thanks of the family to you more
+fitly than I can. Still, I may hope that you are none the worse."
+
+I muttered that I was not; but I hardly knew what I said. St. Alais'
+demeanour was so different from that which I had anticipated, his easy
+calmness and gaiety were so unlike the rage and heat which seemed
+natural in one who had just heard of the destruction of his house and
+the murder of his steward, that I was completely nonplussed. He
+appeared to be dressed with his usual care and distinction, though I
+was bound to suppose that he had been up all night; and, though the
+outrages at St. Alais and Marignac's had given the lie to his most
+confident predictions, he betrayed no sign of vexation.
+
+All this dazzled and confused me; yet I must say something. I muttered
+a hope that Mademoiselle was not greatly shaken by her experiences.
+
+"I think not," he said. "We St. Alais are not made of sugar. And after
+a night's rest--- But I fear that I am interrupting you?" And for the
+first time he let his eyes rest on my companions.
+
+"It is to Father Benôit and to Buton here, that your thanks are really
+due, M. le Marquis," I said. "For without their aid----"
+
+"That is so, is it?" he said coldly. "I had heard it."
+
+"But not all?" I exclaimed.
+
+"I think so," he said. Then, continuing to look at them, though he
+spoke to me, he continued: "Let me tell you an apologue, M. le
+Vicomte. Once upon a time there was a man who had a grudge against a
+neighbour because the good man's crops were better than his. He went,
+therefore, secretly and by night, and not all at once--not all at
+once, Messieurs, but little by little--he let on to his neighbour's
+land the stream of a river that flowed by both their farms. He
+succeeded so well that presently the flood not only covered the crops,
+but threatened to drown his neighbour, and after that his own crops
+and himself! Apprised too late of his folly---- But how do you like
+the apologue, M. le Curé?"
+
+"It does not touch me," Father Benôit answered with a wan smile.
+
+"I am no man's servant, as the slave boasted," St. Alais answered with
+a polite sneer.
+
+"For shame! for shame, M. le Marquis!" I cried, losing patience. "I
+have told you that but for M. le Curé and the smith here, Mademoiselle
+and I----"
+
+"And I have told you," he answered, interrupting me with grim good
+humour, "what I think of it, M. le Vicomte! That is all."
+
+"But you do not know what happened?" I persisted, stung to wrath by
+his injustice. "You are not, you cannot be, aware that when Father
+Benôit and his companions arrived, Mademoiselle de St. Alais and I
+were in the most desperate plight? that they saved us only at great
+risk to themselves? and that for our safety at last you have to thank
+rather the tricolour, which those wretches respected, than any display
+of force which we were able to make."
+
+"That, too, is so, is it?" he said, his face grown dark. "I shall have
+something to say to it presently. But, first, may I ask you a
+question, M. le Vicomte? Am I right in supposing that these gentlemen
+are waiting on you from--pardon me if I do not get the title
+correctly--the Honourable the Committee of Public Safety?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"And I presume that I may congratulate them on your answer?"
+
+"No, you may not!" I replied, with satisfaction. "This gentleman"--and
+I pointed to the Capitaine Hugues--"has laid before me certain
+proposals and certain arguments in favour of them."
+
+"But he has not laid before you the most potent of all arguments," the
+Captain said, interposing, with a dry bow. "I find it, and you, M. le
+Vicomte, will find it, too, in M. le Marquis de St. Alais!"
+
+The Marquis stared at him coldly. "I am obliged to you," he said
+contemptuously. "By-and-by, perhaps, I shall have more to say to you.
+For the present, however, I am speaking to M. le Vicomte." And he
+turned and addressed me again. "These gentlemen have waited on you. Do
+I understand that you have declined their proposals?"
+
+"Absolutely!" I answered. "But," I continued warmly, "it does not
+follow that I am without gratitude or natural feeling."
+
+"Ah!" he said. Then, turning, with an easy air, "I see your servant
+there," he said. "May I summon him one moment?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+He raised his hand, and André, who was watching us from the doorway,
+flew to take his orders.
+
+He turned to me again. "Have I your permission?"
+
+I bowed, wondering.
+
+"Go, my friend, to Mademoiselle de St. Alais," he said. "She is in the
+hall. Beg her to be so good as to honour us with her presence."
+
+André went, with his most pompous air; and we remained, wondering. No
+one spoke. I longed to consult Father Benôit by a look, but I dared
+not do so, lest the Marquis, who kept his eyes on my face, his own
+wearing an enigmatical smile, should take it for a sign of weakness.
+So we stood until Mademoiselle appeared in the doorway, and, after a
+momentary pause, came timidly along the terrace towards us.
+
+She wore a frock which I believe had been my mother's, and was too
+long for her; but it seemed to my eyes to suit her admirably. A
+kerchief covered her shoulders, and she had another laid lightly on
+her unpowdered hair, which, knotted up loosely, strayed in tiny
+ringlets over her neck and ears. To this charming disarray, her
+blushes, as she came towards us, shading her eyes from the sun, added
+the last piquancy. I had not seen her since the women lifted her from
+my saddle, and, seeing her now, coming along the terrace in the fresh
+morning light, I thought her divine! I wondered how I could have let
+her go. An insane desire to defy her brother and whirl her off, out of
+this horrid imbroglio of parties and politics, seized upon me.
+
+But she did not look towards me, and my heart sank. She had eyes only
+for M. le Marquis; approaching him as if he had a magnet which drew
+her to him.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said gravely, "I am told that your escape last
+night was due to your adoption of an emblem, which I see that you are
+still wearing. It is one which no subject of his Majesty can wear with
+honour. Will you oblige me by removing it?"
+
+Pale and red by turns, she shot a piteous glance at us. "Monsieur?"
+she muttered, as if she did not understand.
+
+"I think I have spoken plainly," he said. "Be good enough to remove
+it."
+
+Wincing under the rebuke, she hesitated, looking for a moment as if
+she would burst into tears. Then, with her lip trembling, and with
+trembling fingers, she complied, and began to unfasten the tricolour,
+which the servants--without her knowledge, it may be--had removed from
+the robe she had worn to that which she now wore. It took her a long
+time to remove it, under our eyes, and I grew hot with indignation.
+But I dared not interfere, and the others looked on gravely.
+
+"Thank you," M. de Alais said, when, at last, she had succeeded in
+unpinning it. "I know, Mademoiselle, that you are a true St. Alais,
+and would die rather than owe your life to disloyalty. Be good enough
+to throw that down, and tread upon it."
+
+She started violently at the words. I think we all did. I know that I
+took a step forward, and, but for M. le Marquis' raised hand, must
+have intervened. But I had no right; we were spectators, it was for
+her to act. She stood a moment with all our eyes upon her, stood
+staring breathless and motionless at her brother; then, still looking
+at him, with a shivering sigh, she slowly and mechanically lifted her
+hand, and dropped the ribbon. It fluttered down.
+
+"Tread upon it!" the Marquis said ruthlessly.
+
+She trembled; her face, her child's face, grown quite white. But she
+did not move.
+
+"Tread upon it!" he said again.
+
+And then, without looking down, she moved her foot forward, and
+touched the ribbon.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XI.
+
+                            THE TWO CAMPS.
+
+
+"Thank you, Mademoiselle; now you can go," he said.
+
+But he need not have spoken, for the moment his sister had done his
+bidding she turned from us; before two words had passed his lips she
+was hurrying back to the house in a passion of grief, her face
+covered, and her slight figure shaken by sobs that came back to us on
+the summer air.
+
+The sight stung me to rage; yet for a moment, and by a tremendous
+effort I restrained myself. I would hear him out.
+
+But he either did not, or would not see the effect he had produced.
+"There, Messieurs," he said, his face somewhat pale. "I am obliged to
+your patience. Now you know what I think of your tricolour and your
+services. It shall shelter neither me nor mine! I hold no parley with
+assassins."
+
+I sprang forward, I could contain myself no longer. "And I!" I cried,
+"I, M. le Marquis, have something to say, too! I have something to
+declare! A moment ago I refused that tricolour! I rejected the
+overtures of those who brought it to me. I was resolved to stand by
+you and by my brethren against my better judgment. I was of your
+party, though I did not believe in it; and you might have tied me to
+it. But this gentleman is right, you are yourself the strongest
+argument against yourself. And I do this! I do this!" I repeated
+passionately. "See, M. le Marquis, and know that it is your doing!"
+
+With the word I snatched up the ribbon, on which Mademoiselle had
+trodden, and with fingers that trembled scarcely less than hers had
+trembled, when she unfastened it, I pinned it on my breast.
+
+He bowed, with a sardonic smile. "A cockade is easily changed," he
+said. But I could see that he was livid with rage; that he could have
+slain me for the rebuke.
+
+"You mean," I said hotly, "that I am easily turned."
+
+"You put on the cap, M. le Vicomte," he retorted.
+
+The other three had withdrawn a little--not without open signs of
+disgust--and left us face to face on the spot on which we had stood
+three weeks before on the eve of his mother's reception. Still raging
+with anger on Mademoiselle's account, and minded to wound him, I
+recalled that to him, and the prophecies he had then uttered,
+prophecies which had been so ill-fulfilled.
+
+He took me up at the second word. "Ill-fulfilled?" he said grimly.
+"Yes, M. le Vicomte, but why? Because those who should support me,
+those who from one end of France to the other should support the King,
+are like you--waverers who do not know their own minds! Because the
+gentlemen of France are proving themselves churls and cravens,
+unworthy of the names they bear! Yes, ill-fulfilled," he continued
+bitterly, "because you, M. de Saux, and men like you, are for this
+to-day, and for that to-morrow, and cry one hour, 'Reform,' and the
+next, 'Order!'"
+
+The denial stuck in my throat, and my passion dying down I could only
+glower at him. He saw this, and taking advantage of my momentary
+embarrassment, "But enough," he continued in a tone of dignity very
+galling to me, since it was he who had behaved ill, not I. "Enough of
+this. While it was possible I courted your aid, M. de Saux; and I
+acknowledge, I still acknowledge, and shall be the last to disclaim,
+the obligation under which you last night placed us. But there can
+never be true fellowship between those who wear that"--and he pointed
+to the tricolour I had assumed--"and those who serve the King as we
+serve him. You will pardon me, therefore, if I take my leave, and
+without delay withdraw my sister from a house in which her presence
+may be misunderstood, as mine, after what has passed, must be
+unwelcome."
+
+He bowed again with that, and led the way into the house; while I
+followed, tongue-tied and with a sudden chill at my heart. There was
+no one in the hall except André, who was hovering about the farther
+door; but in the avenue beyond were three or four mounted servants
+waiting for M. de St. Alais, and half-way down the avenue a party of
+three were riding towards the gates. It needed but a glance to show me
+that the foremost of these was Mademoiselle, and that she rode low in
+the saddle, as if she still wept. And I turned in a hot fit to M. de
+St. Alais.
+
+But I found his eye fixed on me in such a fashion that the words died
+on my lips. He coughed drily. "Ah!" he said. "So Mademoiselle has
+herself felt the propriety of leaving. You will permit me, then, to
+make her acknowledgments, M. de Saux, and to take leave for her."
+
+He saluted me with the words and turned. He already had his foot
+raised to the stirrup when I muttered his name.
+
+He looked round. "Pardon!" he said. "Is there anything----"
+
+I beckoned to the servants to stand back. I was in misery between rage
+and shame, the hot fit gone. "Monsieur," I said, "there is one more
+thing to be said. This does not end all between Mademoiselle and me.
+For Mademoiselle----"
+
+"We will not speak of her!" he exclaimed.
+
+But I was not to be put down. "For Mademoiselle, I do not know her
+sentiments," I continued, doggedly disregarding his interruption, "nor
+whether I am agreeable to her. But for myself, M. de St. Alais, I tell
+you frankly that I love her; nor shall I change because I wear one
+tricolour or another. Therefore----"
+
+"I have only one thing to say," he cried, raising his hand to stay me.
+
+I gave way, breathing hard. "What is it?" I said.
+
+"That you make love like a bourgeois!" he answered, laughing
+insolently. "Or a mad Englishman! And as Mademoiselle de St. Alais is
+not a baker's daughter, to be wooed after that fashion, I find it
+offensive. Is that enough or shall I say more, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"That will not be enough to turn me from my path!" I answered. "You
+forget that I carried Mademoiselle hither in my arms last night. But I
+do not forget it, and she will not forget it. We cannot be henceforth
+as we were, M. le Marquis."
+
+"You saved her life and base a claim upon it?" he said scornfully.
+"That is generous and like a gentleman!"
+
+"No, I do not!" I answered passionately. "But I have held Mademoiselle
+in my arms, and she has laid her head on my breast, and you can undo
+neither the one nor the other. Henceforth I have a right to woo her,
+and I shall win her."
+
+"While I live you never shall!" he answered fiercely. "I swear that,
+as she trod on that ribbon--at my word, at my word, Monsieur!--so she
+shall tread on your love. From this day seek a wife among your
+friends. Mademoiselle de St. Alais is not for you."
+
+I trembled with rage. "You know, Monsieur, that I cannot fight you!" I
+said.
+
+"Nor I you," he answered. "I know it. Therefore," he continued,
+pausing an instant and reverting with marvellous ease to his former
+politeness, "I will fly from you. Farewell, Monsieur--I do not say,
+until we meet again; for I do not think that we shall meet much in
+future."
+
+I found nothing wherewith to answer that, and he turned and moved'
+away down the avenue. Mademoiselle and her escort had disappeared; his
+servants, obeying my gesture, were almost at the gates. I watched his
+figure as he rode under the boughs of the walnuts, that meeting low
+over his head let the sun fall on him through spare rifts; and, sore
+and miserable at heart myself, I marvelled at the gallant air he
+maintained, and the careless grace of his bearing.
+
+Certainly he had force. He had the force his fellows lacked; and he
+had it so abundantly, that as I gazed after him the words I had used
+to him seemed weak and foolish, the resolution I had flung in his
+teeth childish. After all, he was right; this, to which my feelings
+had impelled me on the spur of anger and love and the moment, was no
+French or proper way of wooing, nor one which I should have relished
+in my sister's case. Why then had I degraded Mademoiselle by it, and
+exposed myself? Men wooed mistresses that way, not wives!
+
+So that I felt very wretched as I turned to go into the house. But
+there my eye alighted on the pistols which still lay on the table in
+the hall, and with a sudden revulsion of feeling I remembered that
+others' affairs were out of order too; that the Châteaux of St. Alais
+and Marignac lay in ashes, that last night I had saved Mademoiselle
+from death, that beyond the walnut avenue with its cool, long shade
+and dappled floor, beyond the quiet of this summer day, lay the
+seething, brawling world of Quercy and of France--the world of
+maddened peasants and frightened townsfolk, and soldiers who would not
+fight, and nobles who dared not.
+
+Then, _Vive le Tricolor!_ the die was cast. I went through the house
+to find Father Benôit and his companions, meaning to throw in my lot
+and return with them. But the terrace was empty; they were nowhere to
+be seen. Even of the servants I could only find André, who came
+pottering to me with his lips pursed up to grumble. I asked him where
+the Curé was.
+
+"Gone, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"And Buton?"
+
+"He too. With half the servants, for the matter of that."
+
+"Gone?" I exclaimed. "Whither?"
+
+"To the village to gossip," he answered churlishly. "There is not a
+turnspit now but must hear the news, and take his own leave and time
+to gather it. The world is turned upside down, I think. It is time his
+Majesty the King did something."
+
+"Did not M. le Curé leave a message?"
+
+The old servant hesitated. "Well, he did," he said grudgingly. "He
+said that if M. le Vicomte would stay at home until the afternoon, he
+should hear from him."
+
+"But he was going to Cahors!" I said. "He is not returning to-day?"
+
+"He went by the little alley to the village," André answered
+obstinately. "I do not know anything about Cahors."
+
+"Then go to the village now," I said, "and learn whether he took the
+Cahors road."
+
+The old man went grumbling, and I remained alone on the terrace. An
+abnormal quietness, as of the afternoon, lay on the house this summer
+morning. I sat down on a stone seat against the wall, and began to go
+over the events of the night, recalling with the utmost vividness
+things to which at the time I had scarcely given a glance, and
+shuddering at horrors that in the happening had barely moved me.
+Gradually my thoughts passed from these things which made my pulses
+beat; and I began to busy myself with Mademoiselle. I saw her again
+sitting low in the saddle and weeping as she went. The bees hummed in
+the warm air, the pigeons cooed softly in the dovecot, the trees on
+the lawn below me shaped themselves into an avenue over her head, and,
+thinking of her, I fell asleep.
+
+After such a night as I had spent it was not unnatural. But when I
+awoke, and saw that it was high noon, I was wild with vexation. I
+sprang up, and darting suspicious glances round me, caught André
+skulking away under the house wall. I called him back, and asked him
+why he had let me sleep.
+
+"I thought that you were tired, Monsieur," he muttered, blinking in
+the sun. "M. le Vicomte is not a peasant that he may not sleep when he
+pleases."
+
+"And M. le Curé? Has he not returned?"
+
+"No, Monsieur."
+
+"And he went--which way?"
+
+He named a village half a league from us; and then said that my dinner
+waited.
+
+I was hungry, and for a moment asked no more, but went in and sat down
+to the meal. When I rose it was nearly two o'clock. Expecting Father
+Benôit every moment, I bade them saddle the horses that I might be
+ready to go; and then, too restless to remain still, I went into the
+village. Here I found all in turmoil. Three-fourths of the inhabitants
+were away at St. Alais inspecting the ruins, and those who remained
+thought of nothing so little as doing their ordinary work; but,
+standing in groups at their doors, or at the cross-roads, or the
+church gates, were discussing events. One asked me timidly if it was
+true that the King had given all the land to the peasants; another, if
+there were to be any more taxes; a third, a question still more
+simple. Yet with this, I met with no lack of respect; and few failed
+to express their joy that I had escaped the ruffians _là-bas_. But as
+I approached each group a subtle shade of expectation, of shyness and
+suspicion seemed to flit across faces the most familiar to me. At the
+moment I did not understand it, and even apprehended it but dimly.
+Now, after the event, now that it is too late, I know that it was the
+first symptom of the social poison doing its sure and deadly work.
+
+With all this, I could hear nothing of M. le Curé; one saying that he
+was here, another there, a third that he had gone to Cahors; and, in
+the end, I returned to the Château in a state of discomfort and unrest
+hard to describe. I would not again leave the front of the house lest
+I should miss him; and for hours I paced the avenue, now listening at
+the gates or looking up the road, now walking quickly to and fro under
+the walnuts. In time evening fell, and night; and still I was here
+awaiting the Curé's coming, chained to the silent house; while my mind
+tortured me with pictures of what was going forward outside. The
+restless demon of the time had hold of me; the thought that I lay here
+idle, while the world heaved, made me miserable, filled me with shame.
+When André came at last to summon me to supper, I swore at him; and
+the moment I had done, I went up to the roof of the Château and
+watched the night, expecting to see again a light in the sky, and the
+far-off glare of burning houses.
+
+I saw nothing, however, and the Curé did not come; and, after a
+wakeful night, seven in the morning saw me in the saddle and on the
+road to Cahors. André complained of illness and I took Gil only. The
+country round St. Alais seemed to be deserted; but, half a league
+farther on, over the hill, I came on a score of peasants trudging
+sturdily forward. I asked them whither they were going, and why they
+were not in the fields.
+
+"We are going to Cahors, Monseigneur, for arms," they said.
+
+"For arms! Whom are you going to fight?"
+
+"The brigands, Monseigneur. They are burning and murdering on every
+side. By the mercy of God they have not yet visited us. And to-night
+we shall be armed."
+
+"Brigands!" I said. "What brigands?"
+
+But they could not answer that; and I left them in wonder at their
+simplicity and rode on. I had not yet done with these brigands,
+however. Half a league short of Cahors I passed through a hamlet where
+the same idea prevailed. Here they had raised a rough barricade at the
+end of the street towards the country, and I saw a man on the church
+tower keeping watch. Meanwhile every one in the place who could walk
+had gone to Cahors.
+
+"Why?" I asked. "For what?"
+
+"To hear the news."
+
+Then I began to see that my imagination had not led me astray. All the
+world was heaving, all the world was astir. Every one was hurrying to
+hear and to learn and to tell; to take arms if he had never used arms
+before, to advise if all his life he had obeyed orders, to do anything
+and everything but his daily work. After this, that I should find
+Cahors humming like a hive of bees about to swarm, and the Valandré
+bridge so crowded that I could scarcely force my way through its three
+gates, and the _queue_ of people waiting for rations longer, and the
+rations shorter than ever before--after this, I say, all these things
+seemed only natural.
+
+Nor was I much surprised to find that as I rode through the streets,
+wearing the tricolour, I was hailed here and there with cheers. On the
+other hand, I noticed that wearers of white cockades were not lacking.
+They kept the wall in twos and threes, and walked with raised chins,
+and hands on sword-knots, and were watched askance by the commonalty.
+A few of them were known to me, more were strangers; and while I
+blushed under the scornful looks of the former, knowing that I must
+seem to them a renegade, I wondered who the latter were. Finally I was
+glad to escape from both by alighting at Doury's, over whose door a
+huge tricolour flag hung limp in the sunshine.
+
+M. le Curé de Saux? Yes, he was even then sitting with the Committee
+upstairs. Would M. le Vicomte walk up?
+
+I did so, through a press of noisy people, who thronged the stairs and
+passages and lobbies, and talked, and gesticulated, and seemed to be
+settled there for the day. I worked my way through these at last, the
+door was opened, a fresh gust of noise came out to meet me, and I
+entered the room. In it, seated round a long table, I found a score of
+men, of whom some rose to meet me, while more kept their seats; three
+or four were speaking at once and did not stop on my entrance. I
+recognised at the farther end Father Benôit and Buton, who came to
+meet me, and Capitaine Hugues, who rose, but continued to speak.
+Besides these there were two of the smaller noblesse, who left their
+chairs, and came to me in an ecstasy, and Doury, who rose and sat down
+half a dozen times; and one or two Curés and others of that rank,
+known to me by sight. The uproar was great, the confusion equal to it.
+Still, somehow, and after a moment of tumult, I found myself received
+and welcomed and placed in a chair at the end of the table, with M. le
+Capitaine on one side of me and a notary of Cahors on the other. Then,
+under cover of the noise, I stole a few words with Father Benôit, who
+lingered a moment beside me.
+
+"You could not join us yesterday?" he muttered, with a pathetic look
+that only I understood.
+
+"But you left a message, bidding me wait for you!" I answered.
+
+"I did?" he said. "No; I left a message asking you to follow us--if it
+pleased you."
+
+"Then I never got it," I replied. "André told me----"
+
+"Ah! André," he answered softly. And he shook his head.
+
+"The rascal!" I said; "then he lied to me! And----"
+
+But some one called the Curé to his place, and we had to part. At the
+same instant most of the talkers ceased; a moment, and only two were
+left speaking, who, without paying the least regard to one another,
+continued to hold forth to their neighbours, haranguing, one on the
+social contract; the other on the brigands--the brigands who were
+everywhere burning the corn and killing the people!
+
+At last M. le Capitaine, after long waiting to speak, attacked the
+former speaker. "Tut, Monsieur!" he said. "This is not the time for
+theory. A halfpennyworth of fact----
+
+"Is worth a pound of theory!" the man of the brigands--he was a
+grocer, I believe--cried eagerly; and he brought his fist down on the
+table.
+
+"But now is the time!--the God-sent time, to frame the facts to the
+theory!" the other combatant screamed. "To form a perfect system! To
+regenerate the world, I say! To----"
+
+"To regenerate the fiddlestick!" his opponent answered, with equal
+heat. "When brigands are at our very doors! when our crops are being
+burned and our houses plundered! when----"
+
+"Monsieur," the Captain said harshly, commanding silence by the
+gravity of his tone--"if you please!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, to be plain, I do not believe any more in your brigands than in
+M. l'Avoué's theories."
+
+This time it was the grocer's turn to scream. "What?" he cried. "When
+they have been seen at Figeac, and Cajarc, and Rodez, and----
+
+"By whom?" the soldier asked sharply, interrupting him.
+
+"By hundreds."
+
+"Name one."
+
+"But it is notorious!"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur--it is a notorious lie!" M. le Capitaine answered
+bluntly. "Believe me, the brigands with whom we have to deal are
+nearer home. Allow us to arrange with them first, and do not deafen M.
+le Vicomte with your chattering."
+
+"Hear! hear!" the lawyer cried.
+
+But this insult proved too much for the man of the brigands. He began
+again, and others joined in, for him and against him; to my despair,
+it seemed as if the quarrel were only beginning--as if peace would
+have to be made afresh.
+
+How all this noise, tumult, and disputation, this absence of the
+politeness to which I had been accustomed all my life, this vulgar
+jostling and brawling depressed me I need not say. I sat deafened,
+lost in the scramble; of no more account, for the moment, than Buton.
+Nay of less; for while I gazed about me and listened, sunk in wonder
+at my position at a table with people of a class with whom I had never
+sat down before--save at the chance table of an inn, where my presence
+kept all within bounds--it was Buton who, by coming to the officer's
+aid, finally gained silence.
+
+"Now you have had your say, perhaps you will let me have mine," the
+Captain said, with acerbity, taking advantage of the hearing thus
+gained for him. "It is very well for you, M. l'Avoué, and you,
+Monsieur--I have forgotten your name--you are not fighting men, and my
+difficulty does not affect you. But there are half a dozen at this
+table who are placed as I am, and they understand. You may organise;
+but if your officers are carried off every morning, you will not go
+far."
+
+"How carried off?" the lawyer cried, puffing out his thin cheeks.
+"Members of the Committee of----"
+
+"How?" M. le Capitaine rejoined, cutting him short without
+ceremony--"by the prick of a small sword! You do not understand; but,
+for some of us, we cannot go three paces from this door without risk
+of an insult and a challenge."
+
+"That is true!" the two gentlemen at the foot of the table cried with
+one voice.
+
+"It is true, and more," the Captain continued, warming as he spoke.
+"It is no chance work, but a plan. It is their plan for curbing us. I
+have seen three men in the streets to-day, who, I can swear, are
+fencing-masters in fine clothes."
+
+"Assassins!" the lawyer cried pompously.
+
+"That is all very well," Hugues said more soberly. "You can call them
+what you please. But what is to be done? If we cannot move abroad
+without a challenge and a duel, we are helpless. You will have all
+your leaders picked off."
+
+"The people will avenge you!" the lawyer said, with a grand air.
+
+M. le Capitaine shrugged his shoulders. "Thank you for nothing," he
+said.
+
+Father Benôit interposed. "At present," he said anxiously, "I think
+that there is only one thing to be done. You have said, M. le
+Capitaine, that some of the committee are not fighting men. Why, I
+would ask, should any fight, and play into our opponents' hands?"
+
+"_Par Dieu!_ I think that you are right!" Hugues answered frankly. And
+he looked round as if to collect opinions. "Why should we? I am sure
+that I do not wish to fight. I have given my proofs."
+
+There was a short pause, during which we looked at one another
+doubtfully. "Well, why not?" the Captain said at last. "This is not
+play, but business. We are no longer gentlemen at large, but soldiers
+under discipline."
+
+"Yes," I said stiffly, for I found all looking at me. "But it is
+difficult, M. le Capitaine, for men of honour to divest themselves of
+certain ideas. If we are not to protect ourselves from insult, we sink
+to the level of beasts."
+
+"Have no fear, M. le Vicomte!" Buton cried abruptly. "The people will
+not suffer it!"
+
+"No, no; the people will not suffer it!" one or two echoed; and for a
+moment the room rang with cries of indignation.
+
+"Well, at any rate," the Captain said at last, "all are now warned.
+And if, after this, they fight lightly, they do it with full knowledge
+that they are playing their adversaries' game. I hope all understand
+that. For my part," he continued, shrugging his shoulders with a dry
+laugh, "they may cane me; I shall not fight them! I am no fool!"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XII.
+
+                              THE DUEL.
+
+
+I have said already how all this weighed me down; with what misgivings
+I looked along the table, from the pale, pinched features of the
+lawyer to the smug grin of the grocer, or Buton's coarse face; with
+what sinkings of heart I found myself on a sudden the equal of these
+men, addressed now with rude abruptness, and now with servility; last,
+but not least, with what despondency I listened to the wrangling which
+followed, and which it needed all the exertions of the Captain to
+control. Fortunately, the sitting did not last long. After half an
+hour of debate and conversation, during which I did what I could to
+aid the few who knew anything of business, the meeting broke up; and
+while some went out on various missions, others remained to deal with
+such affairs as arose. I was one of those appointed to stay, and I
+drew Father Benôit into a corner, and, hiding for a moment the feeling
+of despair which possessed me, I asked him if any further outbreaks
+had occurred in the country round.
+
+"No," he answered, secretly pressing my hand. "We have done so much
+good, I think." Then, in a different tone, which showed how clearly he
+read my mind, he continued, under his breath, "Ah! M. le Vicomte, let
+us only keep the peace! Let us do what lies to our hands. Let us
+protect the innocent, and then, no matter what happens. Alas, I
+foresee more than I predicted. More than I dreamed of is in peril. Let
+us only cling to----"
+
+He stopped, and turned, startled by the noisy entrance of the Captain;
+who came in so abruptly that those who remained at the table sprang to
+their feet. M. Hugues' face was flushed, his eyes were gleaming with
+anger. The lawyer, who stood nearest to the door, turned a shade
+paler, and stammered out a question. But the Captain passed by him
+with a glance of contempt, and came straight to me. "M. le Vicomte,"
+he said out loud, blurting out his words in haste, "you are a
+gentleman. You will understand me. I want your help."
+
+I stared at him. "Willingly," I said. "But what is the matter?"
+
+"I have been insulted!" he answered, his moustaches curling.
+
+"How?"
+
+"In the street! And by one of those puppies! But I will teach him
+manners! I am a soldier, sir, and I----"
+
+"But, stay, M. le Capitaine," I said, really taken aback. "I
+understood that there was to be no fighting. And that you in
+particular----"
+
+"Tut! tut!"
+
+"Would be caned before you would go out."
+
+"_Sacré Nom!_" he cried, "what of that? Do you think that I am not a
+gentleman because I have served in America instead of in France?"
+
+"No," I said, scarcely able to restrain a smile. "But it is playing
+into their hands. So you said yourself, a minute ago, and----"
+
+"Will you help me, or will you not, sir?" he retorted angrily. And
+then, as the lawyer tried to intervene, "Be silent, you!" he
+continued, turning on him so violently that the scrivener jumped back
+a pace. "What do you know of these things? You miserable pettifogger!
+you----"
+
+"Softly, softly, M. le Capitaine," I said, startled by this outbreak,
+and by the prospect of further brawling which it disclosed. "M.
+l'Avoué is doing merely his duty in remonstrating. He is in the right,
+and----
+
+"I have nothing to do with him! And for you--you will not assist me?"
+
+"I did not say that."
+
+"Then, if you will, I crave your services at once! At once," he said
+more calmly; but he still kept his shoulder to the lawyer. "I have
+appointed a meeting behind the Cathedral. If you will honour me, I
+must ask you to do so immediately."
+
+I saw that it was useless to say more; that he had made up his mind;
+and for answer I took up my hat. In a moment we were moving towards
+the door. The lawyer, the grocer, half a dozen cried out on us, and
+would have stopped us. But Father Benôit remained silent, and I went
+on down the stairs, and out of the house. Outside it was easy to see
+that the quarrel and insult had had spectators; a gloomy crowd, not
+compact, but made up of watching groups, filled all the sunny open
+part of the square. The pavement, on the other hand, along which we
+had to pass to go to the Cathedral, had for its only occupants a score
+or more of gentlemen, who, wearing white cockades, walked up and down
+in threes and fours. The crowd eyed them silently; they affected to
+see nothing of the crowd. Instead, they talked and smiled carelessly,
+and with half-opened eyes; swung their canes, and saluted one another,
+and now and then stopped to exchange a word or a pinch of snuff. They
+wore an air of insolence, ill-hidden, which the silent, almost cowed
+looks of the multitude, as it watched them askance, seemed to justify.
+
+We had to run the gauntlet of these; and my face burned with shame, as
+we passed. Many of the men, whom I met now, I had met two days before
+at Madame St. Alais', where they had seen me put on the white cockade;
+they saw me now in the opposite camp, they knew nothing of my reasons,
+and I read in their averted eyes and curling lips what they thought of
+the change. Others--and they looked at me insolently, and scarcely
+gave me room to pass--were strangers, wearing military swords, and the
+cross of St. Louis.
+
+
+Fortunately the passage was as short as it was painful. We passed
+under the north wall of the Cathedral, and through a little door into
+a garden, where lime trees tempered the glare of the sun, and the
+town, with its crowd and noise, seemed to be in a moment left behind.
+On the right rose the walls of the apse and the heavy eastern domes of
+the Cathedral; in front rose the ramparts; on the left an old,
+half-ruined tower of the fourteenth century lifted a frowning
+ivy-covered head. In the shadow, at its foot, on a piece of smooth
+sward, a group of four persons were standing waiting for us.
+
+One was M. de St. Alais, one was Louis; the others were strangers. A
+sudden thought filled me with horror. "Whom are you going to fight?" I
+muttered.
+
+"M. de St. Alais," the Captain answered, in the same tone. And then,
+being within earshot of the others, I could say no more. They stepped
+forward, and saluted us.
+
+"M. le Vicomte?" Louis said. He was grave and stern. I scarcely knew
+him.
+
+I assented mechanically, and we stepped aside from the others. "This
+is not a case that admits of intervention, I believe?" he said,
+bowing.
+
+"I suppose not," I answered huskily.
+
+In truth, I could scarcely speak for horror. I was waking slowly to
+the consciousness of the dilemma in which I had placed myself. Were
+St. Alais to fall by the Captain's sword, what would his sister say to
+me, what would she think of me, how would she ever touch my hand? And
+yet could I wish ill to my own principal? Could I do so in honour,
+even if something sturdy and practical, something of plain gallantry
+in the man, whom I was here to second, had not already and insensibly
+won my heart?
+
+Yet one of the two must fall. The great clock above my head, slowly
+telling out the hour of noon, beat the truth into my brain. For a
+moment I grew dizzy; the sun dazzled me, the trees reeled before me,
+the garden swam. The murmur of the crowd outside filled my ears. Then
+out of the mist Louis' voice, unnaturally steady, gripped my
+attention, and my brain grew clear again.
+
+"Have you any objection to this spot?" he said. "The grass is dry, and
+not slippery. They will fight in shadow, and the light is good."
+
+"It will do," I muttered.
+
+"Perhaps you will examine it? There is, I think, no trip or fault."
+
+I affected to do so. "I find none," I said hoarsely.
+
+"Then we had better place our men?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+I had no knowledge of the skill of either combatant, but, as I turned
+to join Hugues, I was startled by the contrast which the two presented
+as they stood a little apart, their upper clothes removed. The Captain
+was the shorter by a head, and stiff and sturdy, with a clear eye and
+keen visage. M. le Marquis, on the other hand, was tall and lithe, and
+long in the arm, with a reach which threatened danger, and a smile
+almost as deadly. I thought that if his skill and coolness were on a
+par with his natural gifts, M. Hugues--But then again my head reeled.
+What did I wish?
+
+"We are ready," M. Louis said impatiently; and I noticed that he
+glanced past me towards the gate of the garden. "Will you measure the
+swords, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+I complied, and was about to place my man, when M. le Capitaine
+indicated by a sign that he wished to speak to me, and, disregarding
+the frowns of the other side, I led him apart.
+
+His face had lost the glow of passion which had animated it a few
+minutes before, and was pale and stern. "This is a fool's trick," he
+said curtly, and under his breath. "It will serve me right if that
+puppy goes through me. You will do me a favour, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+I muttered that I would do him any in my power.
+
+"I borrowed a thousand francs to fit myself out for this service," he
+continued, avoiding my eye, "from a man in Paris whose name you will
+find in my valise at the inn. Should anything happen to me, I should
+be glad if you will send him what is left. That is all."
+
+"He shall be paid in full," I said. "I will see to it."
+
+He wrung my hand, and went to his station; and Louis and I placed
+ourselves on either side of the two, ready, with our swords drawn, to
+interfere should need arise. The signal was given, the principals
+saluted, and fell on guard, and in a moment the grinding and clicking
+of the blades began, while the pigeons of the Cathedral flew in eddies
+above us, and in the middle of the garden a little fountain tinkled
+softly in the sunshine.
+
+They had not made three passes before the great diversity of their
+styles became apparent. While Hugues played vigorously with his body,
+stooping, and moving, and stepping aside, but keeping his arm stiff,
+and using his wrist much, M. le Marquis held his body erect and still,
+but moved his arm, and, fencing with a school correctness, as if he
+held a foil, disdained all artifices save those of the weapon. It was
+clear that he was the better fencer, and that, of the two, the Captain
+must tire first, since he was never still, and the wrist is more
+quickly fatigued that the arm; but, in addition to this, I soon
+perceived that the Marquis was not putting forth his full strength,
+but, depending on his defence, was waiting to tire out his opponent.
+My eyes grew hot, my throat dry, as I watched breathlessly, waiting
+for the stroke that must finish all--waiting and flinching. And then,
+on a sudden, something happened. The Captain seemed to slip, yet did
+not slip, but in a moment, stooping almost prone, his left hand on the
+ground, was under the other's guard. His point was at the Marquis's
+breast, when the latter sprang back--sprang back, and just saved
+himself. Before the Captain could recover his footing, Louis dashed
+his sword aside.
+
+"Foul play!" he cried passionately. "Foul play! A stroke _dessous!_ It
+is not _en règle_."
+
+The Captain stood breathing quickly, his point to the ground. "But why
+not, Monsieur?" he said. Then he looked to me.
+
+"I scarcely understand, M. de St. Alais," I said stiffly. "The
+stroke----"
+
+"Is not allowed."
+
+"In the schools," I said. "But this is a duel."
+
+"I have never seen it used in a duel," he said.
+
+"No matter," I answered warmly. "To interfere on such provocation is
+absurd."
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+"Is absurd!" I repeated firmly. "After such treatment I have no
+resource but to withdraw M. le Capitaine from the field."
+
+"Perhaps you will take his place," some one behind me said with a
+sneer.
+
+I turned sharply. One of the two persons whom we had found with St.
+Alais was the speaker. I saluted him. "The surgeon?" I said.
+
+"No," he answered angrily. "I am M. du Marc, and very much at your
+service."
+
+"But not a second," I rejoined. "And, therefore, you have no right to
+be standing where you are, nor to be here. I must request you to
+withdraw."
+
+"I have at least as much right as those," he answered, pointing to the
+roof of the Cathedral, over the battlements of which a number of heads
+could be seen peering down at us.
+
+I stared.
+
+"Our friends have at least as much right as yours," he continued,
+taunting me.
+
+"But they do not interfere," I answered firmly. "Nor shall you. I
+request you to withdraw."
+
+He still refused, and even tried to bluster; but this proved too much
+for Louis' stomach; he intervened sharply, and at a word from him the
+bully shrugged his shoulders and moved away. Then we four looked at
+one another.
+
+"We had better proceed," the Captain said bluntly. "If the stroke was
+irregular, this gentleman was right to interfere. If not----"
+
+"I am willing," M. de St. Alais said. And in a moment the two fell on
+guard, and to it again; but more fiercely now, and with less caution,
+the Captain more than once using a rough, sweeping parry, in greater
+favour with practical fighters than in the fencing school. This,
+though it left him exposed to a _riposte_, seemed to disconcert M. le
+Marquis, who fenced, I thought, less skilfully than before, and more
+than once seemed to be flurried by the Captain's attack. I began to
+feel doubtful of the result, my heart began to beat more quickly, the
+glitter of the blades as they slid up and down one another confused my
+sight. I looked for one moment across at Louis--and in that moment the
+end came. M. le Capitaine used again his sweeping parry, but this time
+the circle was too wide; St. Alais' blade darted serpent-like under
+his. The Captain staggered back. His sword dropped from his hand.
+
+Before he could fall I caught him in my arms, but blood was gushing
+already from a wound in the side of his neck. He just turned his
+eyes to my face, and tried once to speak. I caught the words, "You
+will----" and then blood choked his voice, and his eyes slowly closed.
+He was dead, or as good as dead, before the surgeon could reach him,
+before I could lay him on the grass.
+
+I knelt a moment beside him perfectly stunned by the suddenness of the
+catastrophe; watching in a kind of fascination the surgeon feeling
+pulse and heart, and striving with his thumb to stop the bleeding. For
+a moment or two my world was reduced to the sinking grey face, the
+quivering eyelids before me, and I saw nothing, heeded nothing,
+thought of nothing else. I could not believe that the valiant spirit
+had fled already; that the stout man who had so quickly yet insensibly
+won my liking was in this moment dead; dead and growing livid, while
+the pigeons still circled overhead, and the sparrows chirped, and the
+fountain tinkled in the sunshine.
+
+I cried out in my agony. "Not dead?" I said. "Not dead so soon?"
+
+"Yes, M. le Vicomte, it was bad luck," the surgeon answered, letting
+the passive head fall on the stained grass. "With such a wound nothing
+can be done."
+
+He rose as he spoke; but I remained on my knees, wrapt and absorbed;
+staring at the glazing eyes that a few minutes before had been full of
+life and keenness. Then with a shudder I turned my look on myself. His
+blood covered me; it was on my breast, my arm, my hands, soaking into
+my coat. From it my thoughts turned to St. Alais, and at the moment,
+as I looked instinctively round to see where he was, or if he had
+gone, I started. The deep boom of a heavy bell, tolled once, shook the
+air; while its solemn burden still hung mournfully on the ear, quick
+footsteps ran towards me, and I heard a harsh cry at my elbow. "But,
+_mon Dieu!_ This is murder! They are murdering us!"
+
+I looked behind me. The speaker was Du Marc, the bully who had vainly
+tried to provoke me. The two St. Alais and the surgeon were with him,
+and all four came from the direction of the door by which we had
+entered. They passed me with averted eyes, and hurried towards a
+little postern which flanked the old tower, and opened on the
+ramparts. As they went out of sight behind a buttress that intervened
+the bell boomed out again above my head, its dull note full of menace.
+
+Then I awoke and understood; understood that the noise which filled my
+ears was not the burden of the bell carried on from one deep stroke to
+another, but the roar of angry voices in the square, the babel of an
+approaching crowd crying: "_A la lanterne! A la lanterne!_" From the
+battlements of the Cathedral, from the louvres of the domes, from
+every window of the great gloomy structure that frowned above me, men
+were making signs, and pointing with their hands, and brandishing
+their fists--at me, I thought at first, or at the body at my feet. But
+then I heard footsteps again, and I turned and found the other four
+behind me, close to me; the two St. Alais pale and stern, with bright
+eyes, the bully pale, too, but with a look which shot furtively here
+and there, and white lips.
+
+"Curse them, they are at that door, too!" he cried shrilly. "We are
+beset. We shall be murdered. By God, we shall be murdered, and by
+these _canaille!_ By these--I call all here to witness that it was a
+fair fight! I call you to witness, M. le Vicomte, that----"
+
+"It will help us much," St. Alais said with a sneer, "if he does. If I
+were once at home----"
+
+"Ay, but how are we to get there?" Du Marc cried. He could not hide
+his terror. "Do you understand," he continued querulously, addressing
+me, "that we shall be murdered? Is there no other door? Speak, some
+one. Speak!"
+
+His fears appealed to me in vain. I would scarcely have stirred a
+finger to save him. But the sight of the two St. Alais standing there
+pale and irresolute, while that roar of voices grew each moment louder
+and nearer, moved me. A moment, and the mob would break in; perhaps
+finding us by Hugues' side, it might in its fury sacrifice all
+indifferently. It might; and then I heard, to give point to the
+thought, the crash of one of the doors of the garden as it gave
+way; and I cried out almost involuntarily that there was another
+door--another door, if it was open. I did not look to see if they
+followed, but, leaving the dead, I took the lead, and ran across the
+sward towards the wall of the Cathedral.
+
+The crowd were already pouring into the garden, but a clump of shrubs
+hid us from them as we fled; and we gained unseen a little door, a
+low-browed postern in the wall of the apse, that led, I knew--for not
+long before I had conducted an English visitor over the Cathedral--to
+a sacristy connected with the crypt. My hope of finding the door open
+was slight; if I had stayed to weigh the chances I should have thought
+them desperate. But to my joy as I came up to it, closely followed by
+the others, it opened of itself, and a priest, showing his tonsured
+head in the aperture, beckoned to us to hasten. He had little need to
+do so; in a moment we had obeyed, were by his side, and panting, heard
+the bolts shoot home behind us. For the moment we were safe.
+
+Then we breathed again. We stood in the twilight of a long narrow room
+with walls and roof of stone, and three loopholes for windows. Du Marc
+was the first to speak. "_Mon Dieu_, that was close," he said, wiping
+his brow, which in the cold light wore an ugly pallor. "We are----"
+
+"Not out of the wood yet," the surgeon answered gravely, "though we
+have good grounds for thanking M. le Vicomte. They have discovered us!
+Yes, they are coming!"
+
+Probably the people on the roof had watched us enter and denounced our
+place of refuge; for as he spoke, we heard a rush of feet, the door
+shook under a storm of blows, and a score of grimy savage faces showed
+at the slender arrow-slits, and glaring down, howled and spat curses
+upon us. Luckily the door was of oak, studded and plated with iron,
+fashioned in old, rough days for such an emergency, and we stood
+comparatively safe. Yet it was terrible to hear the cries of the mob,
+to feel them so close, to gauge their hatred, and know while they beat
+on the stone as though they would tear the walls with their naked
+hands, what it would be to fall into their power!
+
+We looked at one another, and--but it may have been the dim light--I
+saw no face that was not pale. Fortunately the pause was short. The
+Curé who had admitted us, unlocked as quickly as he could an inner
+door. "This way," he said--but the snarling of the beasts outside
+almost drowned his voice--"if you will follow me, I will let you out
+by the south entrance. But, be quick, gentlemen, be quick," he
+continued, pushing us out before him, "or they may guess what we are
+about, and be there before us."
+
+It may be imagined that after that we lost no time. We followed him as
+quickly as we could along a narrow subterranean passage, very dimly
+lit, at the end of which a flight of six steps brought us into a
+second passage. We almost ran along this, and though a locked door
+delayed us a moment--which seemed a minute, and a long one--the key
+was found and the door opened. We passed through it, and found
+ourselves in a long narrow room, the counterpart of that we had first
+entered. The curé opened the farther door of this; I looked out. The
+alley outside, the same which led beside the Cathedral to the Chapter
+House, was empty.
+
+"We are in time," I said, with a sigh of relief; it was pleasant to
+breathe the fresh air again. And I turned, still panting with the
+haste we had made, to thank the good Curé who had saved us.
+
+M. de St. Alais, who followed me, and had kept silence throughout,
+thanked him also. Then M. le Marquis stood hesitating on the
+threshold, while I looked to see him hurry away. At last he turned to
+me. "M. de Saux," he said, speaking with less aplomb than was usual
+with him--but we were all agitated--"I should thank you also. But
+perhaps the situation in which we stand towards one another----"
+
+"I think nothing of that," I answered harshly. "But that in which we
+have just stood----"
+
+"Ah," he rejoined, shrugging his shoulders, "if you take it that
+way----"
+
+"I do take it that way," I answered--the Captain's blood was not yet
+dry on the man's sword, and he spoke to me! "I do take it that way.
+And I warn you, M. le Marquis," I continued sternly, "that if you
+pursue your plan further, a plan that has already cost one brave man
+his life, it will recoil on yourselves, and that most terribly."
+
+"At least I shall not ask you to shield me," he answered proudly. And
+he walked carelessly away, sheathing his sword as he went. The passage
+was still empty. There was no one to stop him.
+
+Louis followed him; Du Marc and the surgeon had already disappeared. I
+fancied that as Louis passed me he hung a moment on his heel; and that
+he would have spoken to me, would have caught my eye, would have taken
+my hand, had I given him an opening. But I saw before me Hugues' dead
+face and sunken eyes, and I set my own face like a stone, and turned
+away.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XIII.
+
+                            A LA LANTERNE.
+
+
+For, of all the things that had happened since I left the Committee
+Room, the Captain's death remained the one most real and most deeply
+bitten into my mind. He had shared with me the walk from the inn to
+the garden, and the petty annoyances that had then filled my thoughts.
+He had faced them with me, and bravely; and this late association, and
+the picture of him as he walked beside me, full of life and coarse
+wrath, rose up now and cried out against his death; cried out that it
+was impossible. So that it seemed horrible to me, and I shook with
+fear, and loathed the man whose hand had done it.
+
+Nor was that all. I had known Hugues barely forty-eight hours, my
+liking for him was only an hour born; but I had his story. I could
+follow him going about to borrow the small sum of money he had
+possessed. I could trace the hopes he had built on it. I could see him
+coming here full of honest courage, believing that he had found an
+opening; a man strong, confident, looking forward, full of plans. And
+then of all, this was the end! He had hoped, he had purposed; and on
+the other side of the Cathedral, he lay stark--stark and dead on the
+grass.
+
+It seemed so sad and pitiful, I had the man so vividly in my mind,
+that I scarcely gave a thought to the St. Alais' danger and escape;
+that, and our hasty flight, had passed like a dream. I was content to
+listen a moment beside the church door; and then satisfied that the
+murmur of the crowd was dying in the distance, and that the city was
+quiet, I thanked the Vicar again, and warmly, and, taking leave of
+him, in my turn walked up the passage.
+
+It was so still that it echoed my footsteps; and presently I began to
+think the silence odd. I began to wonder why the mob, which a few
+minutes before had shown itself so vindictive, had not found its way
+round; why the neighbourhood had become on a sudden so quiet. A few
+paces would show, however; I hastened on, and in a moment stood in the
+market-place.
+
+To my astonishment it lay sunny, tranquil, utterly deserted; a dog ran
+here and there with tail high, nosing among the garbage; a few old
+women were at the stalls on the farther side; about as many people
+were busy, putting up shutters and closing shops. But the crowd which
+had filled the place so short a time before, the _queue_ about the
+corn measures, the white cockades, all were gone; I stood astonished.
+
+For a moment only, however. Then, in place of the silence which had
+prevailed between the high walls of the passage, a dull sound, distant
+and heavy, began to speak to me; a sullen roar, as of breakers falling
+on the beach. I started and listened. A moment more, and I was across
+the Square, and at the door of the inn. I darted into the passage, and
+up the stairs, my heart beating fast.
+
+Here, too, I had left a crowd in the passages, and on the stairs. Not
+a man remained. The house seemed to be dead; at noon-day with the sun
+shining outside. I saw no one, heard no one, until I reached the door
+of the room in which I had left the Committee and entered. Here, at
+last, I found life; but the same silence.
+
+Round the table were seated some dozen of the members of the
+Committee. On seeing me they started, like men detected in an act of
+which they were ashamed, some continuing to sit, sullen and scowling,
+with their elbows on the table, others stooping to their neighbours'
+ears to whisper, or listen. I noticed that many were pale and all
+gloomy; and though the room was light, and hot noon poured in through
+three windows, a something grim in the silence, and the air of
+expectation which prevailed, struck a chill to my heart.
+
+Father Benôit was not of them, but Baton was, and the lawyer, and the
+grocer, and the two gentlemen, and one of the Curés, and Doury--the
+last-named pale and cringing, with fear sitting heavily on him. I
+might have thought, at a first glance round, that nothing which had
+happened outside was known to them; that they were ignorant alike of
+the duel and the riot; but a second glance assured me that they knew
+all, and more than I did; so many of them, when they had once met my
+eyes, looked away.
+
+"What has happened?" I asked, standing half-way between the door and
+the long table.
+
+"Don't you know, Monsieur?"
+
+"No," I muttered, staring at them. Even here that distant murmur
+filled the air.
+
+"But you were at the duel, M. le Vicomte?" The speaker was Buton.
+
+"Yes," I said nervously. "But what of that? I saw M. le Marquis safe
+on his way home, and I thought that the crowd had separated. Now--"
+and I paused, listening.
+
+"You fancy that you still hear them?" he said, eying me closely and
+smiling.
+
+"Yes; I fear that they are at mischief."
+
+"We are afraid of that, too," the smith answered drily, setting his
+elbows on the table, and looking at me anew. "It is not impossible."
+
+Then I understood. I caught Doury's eye--which would fain have escaped
+mine--and read it there. The hooting of the distant crowd rose more
+loudly on the summer stillness; as it did so, faces round the table
+grew graver, lips grew longer, some trembled and looked down; and I
+understood. "My God!" I cried in excitement, trembling myself. "Is no
+one going to do anything, then? Are you going to sit here, while these
+demons work their will? While houses are sacked and women and
+children----"
+
+"Why not?" Buton said curtly.
+
+"Why not?" I cried.
+
+"Ay, why not?" he answered sternly--and I began to see that he
+dominated the others; that he would not and they dared not. "We went
+about to keep the peace, and see that others kept it. But your white
+cockades, your gentlemen bullies, your soldierless officers, M. le
+Vicomte--I speak without offence--would not have it. They undertook to
+bully us; and unless they learn a lesson now, they will bully us
+again. No, Monsieur," he continued, looking round with a hard
+smile--already power had changed him wondrously--"let the people have
+their way for half an hour, and----"
+
+"The people?" I cried. "Are the rascals and sweepings of the streets,
+the gaol-birds, the beggars and _forçats_ of the town--are they the
+people?"
+
+"No matter," he said frowning.
+
+"But this is murder!"
+
+Two or three shivered, and some looked sullenly from me, but the
+blacksmith only shrugged his shoulders. Still I did not despair, I was
+going to say more--to try threats, even prayers; but before I could
+speak, the man nearest to the windows raised his hand for silence, and
+we heard the distant riot sink, and in the momentary quiet which
+followed the sharp report of a gun ring out, succeeded by another and
+another. Then a roar of rage--distinct, articulate, full of menace.
+
+"Oh, _mon Dieu!_" I cried, looking round, while I trembled with
+indignation, "I cannot stand this! Will no one act? Will no one do
+anything? There must be some authority. There must be some one to curb
+this _canaille_; or presently, I warn you, I warn you all, that they
+will cut your throats also; yours, M. l'Avoué, and yours, Doury!"
+
+"There was some one; and he is dead," Buton answered. The rest of the
+Committee fidgeted gloomily.
+
+"And was he the only one?"
+
+"They've killed him," the smith said bluntly. "They must take the
+consequences."
+
+"They?" I cried, in a passion of wrath and pity. "Ay, and you! And
+you! I tell you that you are using this scum of the people to crush
+your enemies! But presently they will crush you too!"
+
+Still no one spoke, no one answered me; no eyes met mine; then I saw
+how it was; that nothing I could say would move them; and I turned
+without another word, and I ran downstairs. I knew already, or could
+guess, whither the crowd had gone, and whence came the shouting and
+the shots; and the moment I reached the Square I turned in the
+direction of the St. Alais' house, and ran through the streets;
+through quiet streets under windows from which women looked down white
+and curious, past neat green blinds of modern houses, past a few
+staring groups; ran on, with all about me smiling, but always with
+that murmur in my ears, and at my heart grim fear.
+
+They were sacking the St. Alais' house! And Mademoiselle! And Madame!
+
+The thought of them came to me late; but having come it was not to be
+displaced. It gripped my heart and seemed to stop it. Had I saved
+Mademoiselle only for this? Had I risked all to save her from the
+frenzied peasants, only that she might fall into the more cruel hands
+of these maddened wretches, these sweepings of the city?
+
+It was a dreadful thought; for I loved her, and knew, as I ran, that I
+loved her. Had I not known it I must have known it now, by the very
+measure of agony which the thought of that horror caused me. The
+distance from the Trois Rois to the house was barely four hundred
+yards, but it seemed infinite to me. It seemed an age before I stopped
+breathless and panting on the verge of the crowd, and strove to see,
+across the plain of heads, what was happening in front.
+
+A moment, and I made out enough to relieve me; and I breathed more
+freely. The crowd had not yet won its will. It filled the street on
+either side of the St. Alais' house from wall to wall; but in front of
+the house itself, a space was still kept clear by the fire of those
+within. Now and again, a man or a knot of men would spring out of the
+ranks of the mob, and darting across this open space to the door,
+would strive to beat it in with axes and bars, and even with naked
+hands; but always there came a puff of smoke from the shuttered and
+loop-holed windows, and a second and a third, and the men fell back,
+or sank down on the stones, and lay bleeding in the sunshine.
+
+It was a terrible sight. The wild beast rage of the mob, as they
+watched their leaders fall, yet dared not make the rush _en masse_
+which must carry the place, was enough, of itself, to appal the
+stoutest. But when to this and their fiendish cries were added other
+sounds as horrid--the screams of the wounded and the rattle of
+musketry--for some of the mob had arms, and were firing from
+neighbouring houses at the St. Alais' windows--the effect was
+appalling. I do not know why, but the sunshine, and the tall white
+houses which formed the street, and the very neatness of the
+surroundings, seemed to aggravate the bloodshed; so that for a while
+the whole, the writhing crowd, the open space with its wounded, the
+ugly cries and curses and shots, seemed unreal. I, who had come
+hot-foot to risk all, hesitated; if this was Cahors, if this was the
+quiet town I had known all my life, things had come to a pass indeed.
+If not, I was dreaming.
+
+But this last was a thought too wild to be entertained for more than a
+few seconds; and with a groan I thrust myself into the press, bent
+desperately on getting through and reaching the open space; though
+what I should do when I got there, or how I could help, I had not
+considered. I had scarcely moved, however, when I felt my arm gripped,
+and some one clinging obstinately to me, held me back. I turned to
+resent the action with a blow,--I was beside myself; but the man was
+Father Benôit, and my hand fell. I caught hold of him with a cry of
+joy, and he drew me out of the press.
+
+His face was pale and full of grief and consternation; yet by a
+wonderful chance I had found him, and I hoped. "You can do something!"
+I cried in his ear, gripping his hand hard. "The Committee will not
+act, and this is murder! Murder, man! Do you see?"
+
+"What can I do?" he wailed; and he threw up his other hand with a
+gesture of despair.
+
+"Speak to them."
+
+"Speak to them?" he answered. "Will mad dogs stand when you speak to
+them? Or will mad dogs listen? How can you get to them? Where can you
+speak to them? It is impossible. It is impossible, Monsieur. They
+would kill their fathers to-day, if they stood between them and
+vengeance."
+
+"Then, what will you do?" I cried passionately. "What will you do?"
+
+He shook his head; and I saw that he meant nothing, that he could do
+nothing. And then my soul revolted. "You must! You shall!" I cried
+fiercely. "You have raised this devil, and you must lay him! Are these
+the liberties about which you have talked to us? Are these the people
+for whom you have pleaded? Answer, answer me, what you will do!" I
+cried. And I shook him furiously.
+
+He covered his face with his hand. "God forgive us!" he said. "God
+help us!"
+
+I looked at him for the first and only time in my life with
+contempt--with rage. "God help you?" I cried--I was beside myself.
+"God helps those who help themselves! You have brought this about!
+You! You! You have preached this! Now mend it!"
+
+He trembled, and was silent. Unsupported by the passion which animated
+me, in face of the brute rage of the people, his courage sank.
+
+"Now mend it!" I repeated furiously.
+
+"I cannot get to them," he muttered.
+
+"Then I will make a way for you!" I answered madly, recklessly.
+"Follow me! Do you hear that noise? Well, we will play a part in it!"
+
+A dozen guns had gone off, almost in a volley. We could not see the
+result, nor what was passing; but the hoarse roar of the mob
+intoxicated me. I cried to him to follow, and rushed into the press.
+
+Again he caught and stayed me, clinging to me with a stubbornness
+which would not be denied. "If you will go, go through the houses! Go
+through the opposite houses!" he muttered in my ear.
+
+I had sense enough, when he had spoken twice, to understand him and
+comply. I let him lead me aside, and in a moment we were out of the
+press, and hurrying through an alley at the back of the houses that
+faced the St. Alais' mansion. We were not the first to go that way;
+some of the more active of the rioters had caught the idea before us,
+and gone by this path to the windows, whence they were firing. We
+found two or three of the doors open, therefore, and heard the excited
+cries and curses of the men who had taken possession. However, we did
+not go far. I chose the first door, and, passing quickly by a huddled,
+panic-stricken group of women and children--probably the occupants of
+the house--who were clustered about it, I went straight through to the
+street door.
+
+Two or three ruffianly men with smoke-grimed faces were firing through
+a window on the ground floor, and one of these, looking behind him as
+I passed, saw me. He called to me to stop, adding with an oath that if
+I went into the street I should be shot by the aristocrats. But in my
+excitement I took no heed; in a second I had the door open, and was
+standing in the street--alone in the sunny, cleared space. On either
+side of me, fifty paces distant, were the close ranks of the mob; in
+front of me rose the white blind face of the St. Alais' house, from
+which, even as I appeared, there came a little spit of smoke and the
+bang of a musket.
+
+The crowd, astonished to see me there alone and standing still, fell
+silent, and I held up my hand. A gun went off above my head, and
+another; and a splinter flew from one of the green shutters opposite.
+Then a voice from the crowd cried out to cease firing; and for a
+moment all was still. I stood in the midst of a hot breathless hush,
+my hand raised. It was my opportunity--I had got it by a miracle; but
+for a moment I was silent, I could find no words.
+
+At last, as a low murmur began to make itself heard, I spoke.
+
+"Men of Cahors!" I cried. "In the name of the Tricolour, stand!" And
+trembling with agitation, acting on the impulse of the instant, I
+walked slowly across the street to the door of the besieged house, and
+under the eyes of all I took the Tricolour from my bosom, and hung it
+on the knocker of the door. Then I turned. "I take possession," I
+cried hoarsely, at the top of my voice, that all might hear, "I take
+possession of this house and all that are in it in the name of the
+Tricolour, and the Nation, and the Committee of Cahors. Those within
+shall be tried, and justice done upon them. But for you, I call upon
+you to depart, and go to your homes in peace, and the Committee----"
+
+I got no farther. With the word a shot whizzed by my ear, and struck
+the plaster from the wall; and then, as if the sound released all the
+passions of the people, a roar of indignation shook the air. They
+hissed and swore at me, yelled "_A la lanterne!_" and "_A bas le
+traître!_" and in an instant burst their bounds. As if invisible
+floodgates gave way, the mob on either side rushed suddenly forward,
+and, rolling towards the door in a solid mass, were in an instant upon
+me.
+
+I expected that I should be torn to pieces, but instead I was only
+buffeted and flung aside and forgotten, and in a moment was lost in
+the struggling, writhing mass of men, who flung themselves pell-mell
+upon the door, and fell over one another, and wounded one another in
+the fury with which they attacked it. Men, injured earlier, were
+trodden under foot now; but no one stayed for their cries. Twice a gun
+was fired from the house, and each shot took effect; but the press was
+so great, and the fury of the assailants, as they swarmed about the
+door, so blind, that those who were hit sank down unobserved, and
+perished under their comrades' feet.
+
+Thrust against the iron railings that flanked the door, I clung to
+them, and protected from the pressure by a pillar of the porch,
+managed with some difficulty to keep my place. I could not move,
+however; I had to stand there while the crowd swayed round me, and I
+waited in dizzy, sickening horror for the crisis. It came at last. The
+panels of the door, riven and shattered, gave way; the foremost
+assailants sprang at the gap. Yet still the frame, held by one hinge,
+stood, and kept them out. As that yielded at length under their blows,
+and the door fell inward with a crash, I flung myself into the stream,
+and was carried into the house among the foremost, fortunately--for
+several fell--on my feet.
+
+I had the thought that I might outpace the others, and, getting first
+to the rooms upstairs, might at least fight for Mademoiselle if I
+could not save her. For I had caught the infection of the mob, my
+blood was on fire. There was  no one in all the crowd more set to kill
+than I was. I raced in, therefore, with the rest; but when I reached
+the foot of the stairs I saw, and they saw, that which stopped us all.
+
+It was M. de Gontaut, lifted, in that moment of extreme danger, above
+himself. He stood alone on the stairs, looking down on the invaders,
+and smiling--smiling, with everything of senility and frivolity gone
+from his face, and only the courage of his caste left. He saw his
+world tottering, the scum and rabble overwhelming it, everything which
+he had loved, and in which he had lived, passing; he saw death waiting
+for him seven steps below, and he smiled. With his slender sword
+hanging at his wrist, he tapped his snuff-box and looked down at us;
+no longer garrulous, feeble, almost--with his stories of stale
+intrigues and his pagan creed--contemptible; but steady and proud,
+with eyes that gleamed with defiance.
+
+"Well, dogs," he said, "will you earn the gallows?"
+
+For a second no one moved. For a second the old noble's presence and
+fearlessness imposed on the vilest; and they stared at him, cowed by
+his eye. Then he stirred. With a quiet gesture, as of a man saluting
+before a duel, he caught up the hilt of his sword, and presented the
+lower point. "Well," he said with bitter scorn in his tone, "you have
+come to do it. Which of you will go to hell for the rest? For I shall
+take one."
+
+That broke the spell. With a howl, a dozen ruffians sprang up the
+stairs. I saw the bright steel flash once, twice; and one reeled back,
+and rolled down under his fellows' feet. Then a great bar swept up and
+fell on the smiling face, and the old noble dropped without a cry or a
+groan, under a storm of blows that in a moment beat the life out of
+his body.
+
+It was over in a moment, and before I could interfere. The next, a
+score of men leaped over the corpse and up the stairs, with horrid
+cries--I after them. To the right and left were locked doors, with
+panels Wätteau-painted; they dashed these in with brutal shouts, and,
+in a twinkling, flooded the splendid rooms, sweeping away, and
+breaking, and flinging down in wanton mischief, everything that came
+to hand--vases, statues, glasses, miniatures. With shrieks of triumph,
+they filled the _salon_ that had known for generations only the graces
+and beauty of life; and clattered over the shining parquets that had
+been swept so long by the skirts of fair women. Everything they could
+not understand was snatched up and dashed down; in a moment the great
+Venetian mirrors were shattered, the pictures pierced and torn, the
+books flung through the windows into the street.
+
+I had a glimpse of the scene as I paused on the landing. But a glance
+sufficed to convince me that the fugitives were not in these rooms,
+and I sprang on, and up the next flight. Here, short as had been my
+delay, I found others before me. As I turned the corner of the stairs
+I came on three men, listening at a door; before I could reach them
+one rose. "Here they are!" he cried. "That is a woman's voice! Stand
+back!" And he lifted a crowbar to beat in the door.
+
+"Hold!" I cried in a voice that shook him, and made him lower his
+weapon. "Hold! In the name of the Committee, I command you to leave
+that door. The rest of the house is yours. Go and plunder it."
+
+The men glared at me. "_Sacré ventre!_" one of them hissed. "Who are
+you?"
+
+"The Committee!" I answered.
+
+He cursed me, and raised his hand. "Stand back!" I cried furiously,
+"or you shall hang!"
+
+"Ho! ho! An aristocrat!" he retorted; and he raised his voice. "This
+way, friends--this way! An aristocrat! An aristocrat!" he cried.
+
+At the word a score of his fellows came swarming up the stairs. I saw
+myself in an instant surrounded by grimy, pocked faces and scowling
+eyes,--by haggard creatures sprung from the sewers of the town.
+Another second and they would have laid hands on me; but desperate and
+full of rage I rushed instead on the man with the bar, and, snatching
+it from him before he guessed my intention, in a twinkling laid him at
+my feet.
+
+In the act, however, I lost my balance, and stumbled. Before I could
+recover myself one of his comrades struck me on the head with his
+wooden shoe. The blow partially stunned me; still I got to my feet
+again and hit out wildly, and drove them back, and for a moment
+cleared the landing round me. But I was dizzy; I saw all now through a
+red haze, the figures danced before me; I could no longer think or
+aim, but only hear taunts and jeers on every side. Some one plucked my
+coat. I turned blindly. In a moment another struck me a crushing
+blow--how, or with what, I never knew--and I fell senseless and as
+good as dead.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIV.
+
+                             IT GOES ILL.
+
+
+It was August, and the leaves of the chestnuts were still green, when
+they sacked the St. Alais' house at Cahors, and I fell senseless on
+the stairs. The ash trees were bare, and the oaks clad only in russet,
+when I began to know things again; and, looking sideways from my
+pillow into the grey autumnal world, took up afresh the task of
+living. Even then many days had to elapse before I ceased to be merely
+an animal--content to eat, and drink, and sleep, and take Father
+Benôit kneeling by my bed for one of the permanent facts of life. But
+the time did come at last, in late November, when the mind awoke, as
+those who watched by me had never thought to see it awake; and,
+meeting the good Curé's eyes with my eyes, I saw him turn away and
+break into joyful weeping.
+
+A week from that time I knew all--the story, public and private, of
+that wonderful autumn, during which I had lain like a log in my bed.
+At first, avoiding topics that touched me too nearly, Father Benôit
+told me of Paris; of the ten weeks of suspicion and suspense which
+followed the Bastille riots--weeks during which the Fauxbourgs,
+scantly checked by Lafayette and his National Guards, kept jealous
+watch on Versailles, where the Assembly sat in attendance on the King;
+of the scarcity which prevailed through this trying time, and the
+constant rumours of an attack by the Court; of the Queen's unfortunate
+banquet, which proved to be the spark that fired the mine; last of
+all, of the great march of the women to Versailles, on the 5th of
+October, which, by forcing the King and the Assembly to Paris, and
+making the King a prisoner in his own palace, put an end to this
+period of uncertainty.
+
+"And since then?" I said in feeble amazement. "This is the 20th of
+November, you tell me?"
+
+"Nothing has happened," he answered, "except signs and symptoms."
+
+"And those?"
+
+He shook his head gravely. "Every one is enrolled in the National
+Guards--that, for one. Here in Quercy, the corps which M. Hugues took
+it in hand to form numbers some thousands. Every one is armed,
+therefore. Then, the game laws being abolished, every one is a
+sportsman. And so many nobles have emigrated, that either there are no
+nobles or all are nobles."
+
+"But who governs?"
+
+"The Municipalities. Or, where there are none, Committees."
+
+I could not help smiling. "And your Committee, M. le Curé?" I said.
+
+"I do not attend it," he answered, wincing visibly. "To be plain, they
+go too fast for me. But I have worse yet to tell you!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"On the Fourth of August the Assembly abolished the tithes of the
+Church; early in this month they proposed to confiscate the estates of
+the Church! By this time it is probably done."
+
+"What! And the clergy are to starve?" I cried in indignation.
+
+"Not quite," he answered, smiling sadly. "They are to be paid by the
+State--as long as they please the State!"
+
+He went soon after he had told me that; and I lay in amazement,
+looking through the window, and striving to picture the changed world
+that existed round me. Presently André came in with my broth. I
+thought it weak, and said so; the strong gust of outside life, which
+the news had brought into my chamber, had roused my appetite, and
+given me a distaste for _tisanes_ and slops.
+
+But the old fellow took the complaint very ill. "Well," he grumbled,
+"and what else is to be expected, Monsieur? With little rent paid,
+and half the pigeons in the cot slaughtered, and scarcely a hare left
+in the country side? With all the world shooting and snaring, and
+smiths and tailors cocked up on horses--ay, and with swords by their
+sides--and the gentry gone, or hiding their heads in beds, it is a
+small thing if the broth is weak! If M. le Vicomte liked strong broth,
+he should have been wise enough to keep the cow himself, and not----"
+
+"Tut, tut, man!" I said, wincing in my turn. "What of Buton?"
+
+"Monsieur means M. le Capitaine Buton?" the old man answered with a
+sneer. "He is at Cahors."
+
+"And was any one punished for--for the affair at St. Alais?"
+
+"No one is punished now-a-days," André replied tartly. "Except
+sometimes a miller, who is hung because corn is dear."
+
+"Then even Petit Jean----"
+
+"Petit Jean went to Paris. Doubtless he is now a Major or a Colonel."
+
+With this shot the old man left me--left me writhing. For through all
+I had not dared to ask the one thing I wished to know; the one thing
+that, as my strength increased, had grown with it, from a vague
+apprehension of evil, which the mind, when bidden do its duty, failed
+to grasp, to a dreadful anxiety only too well understood and defined;
+a brooding fear that weighed upon me like an evil dream, and in spite
+of youth sapped my life, and retarded my recovery.
+
+I have read that a fever sometimes burns out love; and that a man
+rises cured not only of his illness, but of the passion which consumed
+him, when he succumbed to it. But this was not my fate; from the
+moment when that dull anxiety about I knew not what took shape and
+form, and I saw on the green curtains of my bed a pale child's face--a
+face that now wept and now gazed at me in sad appeal--from that moment
+Mademoiselle was never out of my waking mind for an hour. God knows,
+if any thought of me on her part, if any silent cry of her heart to me
+in her troubles, had to do with this; but it was the case.
+
+However, on the next day the fear and the weight were removed. I
+suppose that Father Benôit had made up his mind to broach the subject,
+which hitherto he had shunned with care; for his first question, after
+he had learned how I did, brought it up. "You have never asked what
+happened after you were injured, M. le Vicomte?" he said with a little
+hesitation. "Do you remember?"
+
+"I remember all," I said with a groan.
+
+He drew a breath of relief. I think he had feared that there was still
+something amiss with the brain. "And yet you have never asked?" he
+said.
+
+"Man! cannot you understand why--why I have not asked?" I cried
+hoarsely, rising, and sinking back in my seat in uncontrollable
+agitation. "Cannot you understand that until I asked I had hope? But
+now, torture me no longer! Tell me, tell me all, man, and then----"
+
+"There is nothing but good to tell," he answered cheerfully,
+endeavouring to dispel my fears at the first word. "You know the
+worst. Poor M. de Gontaut was killed on the stairs. He was too infirm
+to flee. The rest, to the meanest servant, got away over the roofs of
+the neighbouring houses."
+
+"And escaped?"
+
+"Yes. The town was in an uproar for many hours, but they were well
+hidden. I believe that they have left the country."
+
+"You do not know where they are, then?"
+
+"No," he answered, "I never saw any of them after the outbreak. But I
+heard of them being in this or that château--at the Harincourts', and
+elsewhere. Then the Harincourts left--about the middle of October, and
+I think that M. de St. Alais and his family went with them."
+
+I lay for a while too full of thankfulness to speak. Then, "And you
+know nothing more?"
+
+"Nothing," the Curé answered.
+
+But that was enough for me. When he came again I was able to walk with
+him on the terrace, and after that I gained strength rapidly. I
+remarked, however, that as my spirits rose, with air and exercise, the
+good priest's declined. His kind, sensitive face grew day by day more
+sombre, his fits of silence longer. When I asked him the reason, "It
+goes ill, it goes ill," he said. "And, God forgive me, I had to do
+with it."
+
+"Who had not?" I said soberly.
+
+"But I should have foreseen!" he answered, wringing his hands openly.
+"I should have known that God's first gift to man was Order. Order,
+and to-day, in Cahors, there is no tribunal, or none that acts: the
+old magistrates are afraid, and the old laws are spurned, and no man
+can even recover a debt! Order, and the worst thing a criminal, thrown
+into prison, has now to fear is that he may be forgotten. Order, and I
+see arms everywhere, and men who cannot read teaching those who can,
+and men who pay no taxes disposing of the money of those who do! I see
+famine in the town, and the farmers and the peasants killing game or
+folding their hands; for who will work when the future is uncertain? I
+see the houses of the rich empty, and their servants starving; I see
+all trade, all commerce, all buying and selling, except of the barest
+necessaries, at an end! I see all these things, M. le Vicomte, and
+shall I not say, '_Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa_'?"
+
+"But liberty," I said feebly. "You once said yourself that a certain
+price must----"
+
+"Is liberty licence to do wrong?" he answered with passion--seldom had
+I seen him so moved. "Is liberty licence to rob and blaspheme, and
+move your neighbour's landmark? Does tyranny cease to be tyranny, when
+the tyrants are no longer one, but a thousand? M. le Vicomte, I know
+not what to do, I know not what to do," he continued. "For a little I
+would go out into the world, and at all costs unsay what I have said,
+undo what I have done! I would! I would indeed!"
+
+"Something more has happened?" I said, startled by this outbreak.
+"Something I have not heard?"
+
+"The Assembly took away our tithes and our estates!" he answered
+bitterly. "That you know. They denied our existence as a Church. That
+you know. They have now decreed the suppression of all religious
+houses. Presently they will close also our churches and cathedrals.
+And we shall be pagans!"
+
+"Impossible!" I said.
+
+"But it is true."
+
+"The suppression, yes. But for the churches and cathedrals----"
+
+"Why not?" he answered despondently. "God knows there is little faith
+abroad. I fear it will come. I see it coming. The greater need--that
+we who believe should testify."
+
+I did not quite understand at the time what he meant or would be at,
+or what he had in his mind; but I saw that his scrupulous nature was
+tormented by the thought that he had hastened the catastrophe; and I
+felt uneasy when he did not appear next day at his usual time for
+visiting me. On the following day he came; but was downcast and
+taciturn, taking leave of me when he went with a sad kindness that
+almost made me call him back. The next day again he did not appear;
+nor the day after that. Then I sent for him, but too late; I sent,
+only to learn from his old housekeeper that he had left home suddenly,
+after arranging with a neighbouring curé to have his duties performed
+for a month.
+
+I was able by this time to go abroad a little, and I walked down to
+his cottage; I could learn no more there, however, than that a
+Capuchin monk had been his guest for two nights, and that M. le Curé
+had left for Cahors a few hours after the monk. That was all; I
+returned depressed and dissatisfied. Such villagers as I met by the
+way greeted me with respect, and even with sympathy--it was the first
+time I had gone into the hamlet; but the shadow of suspicion which I
+had detected on their faces some months before had grown deeper and
+darker with time. They no longer knew with certainty their places or
+mine, their rights or mine; and shy of me and doubtful of themselves,
+were glad to part from me.
+
+Near the gates of the avenue I met a man whom I knew; a wine-dealer
+from Aulnoy. I stayed to ask him if the family were at home.
+
+He looked at me in surprise. "No, M. le Vicomte," he said. "They left
+the country some weeks ago--after the King was persuaded to go to
+Paris."
+
+"And M. le Baron?"
+
+"He too."
+
+"For Paris?"
+
+The man, a respectable bourgeois, grinned at me. "No, Monsieur, I
+fancy not," he said. "You know best, M. le Vicomte; but if I said
+Turin, I doubt I should be little out."
+
+"I have been ill," I said. "And have heard nothing."
+
+"You should go into Cahors," he answered; with rough good-nature.
+"Most of the gentry are there--if they have not gone farther. It is
+safer than the country in these days. Ah, if my father had lived to
+see----"
+
+He did not finish the sentence in words, but raised his eyebrows and
+shoulders, saluted me, and rode away. In spite of his surprise it was
+easy to see that the change pleased him, though he veiled his
+satisfaction out of civility.
+
+I walked home feeling lonely and depressed. The tall stone house, the
+seigneurial tower and turret and dovecot, stripped of the veil of
+foliage that in summer softened their outlines, stood up bare and
+gaunt at the end of the avenue; and seemed in some strange way to
+share my loneliness and to speak to me of evil days on which we had
+alike fallen. In losing Father Benôit I had lost my only chance of
+society just when, with returning strength, the desire for
+companionship and a more active life was awakening. I thought of this
+gloomily; and then was delighted to see, as I approached the door, a
+horse tethered to the ring beside it. There were holsters on the
+saddle, and the girths were splashed.
+
+André was in the hall, but to my surprise, instead of informing me
+that there was a visitor, he went on dusting a table, with his back to
+me.
+
+"Who is here?" I said sharply.
+
+"No one," he answered.
+
+"No one? Then whose is that horse?"
+
+"The smith's, Monsieur."
+
+"What? Buton's?"
+
+"Ay, Buton's! It is a new thing hanging it at the front door," he
+added, with a sneer.
+
+"But what is he doing? Where is he?"
+
+"He is where he ought to be; and that is at the stables," the old
+fellow answered doggedly. "I'll be bound that it is the first piece of
+honest work he has done for many a day."
+
+"Is he shoeing?"
+
+"Why not? Does Monsieur want him to dine with him?" was the
+ill-tempered retort.
+
+I took no notice of this, but went to the stables. I could hear the
+bellows heaving; and turning the corner of the building I came on
+Buton at work in the forge with two of his men. The smith was stripped
+to his shirt, and with his great leather apron round him, and his
+bare, blackened arms, looked like the Buton of six months ago. But
+outside the forge lay a little heap of clothes neatly folded, a blue
+coat with red facings, a long blue waistcoat, and a hat with a huge
+tricolour; and as he released the horse's hoof on which he was at
+work, and straightened himself to salute me, he looked at me with a
+new look, that was something between appeal and defiance.
+
+"Tut, tut!" I said, fleering at him. "This is too great an honour, M.
+le Capitaine! To be shod by a member of the Committee!"
+
+"Has M. le Vicomte anything of which to complain?" he said, reddening
+under the deep tan of his face.
+
+"I? No, indeed. I am only overwhelmed by the honour you do me."
+
+"I have been here to shoe once a month," he persisted stubbornly.
+"Does Monsieur complain that the horses have suffered?"
+
+"No. But----"
+
+"Has M. le Vicomte's house suffered? Has so much as a stack of his
+corn been burned, or a colt taken from the fields, or an egg from the
+nest?"
+
+"No," I said.
+
+Buton nodded gloomily. "Then if Monsieur has no fault to find," he
+replied, "perhaps he will let me finish my work. Afterwards I will
+deliver a message I have for him. But it is for his ear, and the
+forge----"
+
+"Is not the place for secrets, though the smith is the man!" I
+answered, with a parting gibe, fired over my shoulders. "Well, come to
+me on the terrace when you have finished."
+
+He came an hour later, looking hugely clumsy in his fine clothes; and
+with a sword--heaven save us!--a sword by his side. Presently the
+murder came out; he was the bearer of a commission appointing me
+Lieutenant-Colonel in the National Guard of the Province. "It was
+given at my request," he said, with awkward pride. "There were some,
+M. le Vicomte, who thought that you had not behaved altogether well in
+the matter of the riot, but I rattled their heads together. Besides I
+said, 'No Lieutenant-Colonel, no Captain!' and they cannot do without
+me. I keep this side quiet."
+
+What a position it was! Ah, what a position it was! And how for a
+moment the absurdity of it warred in my mind with the humiliation! Six
+months before I should have torn up the paper in a fury, and flung it
+in his face, and beaten him out of my presence with my cane. But much
+had happened since then; even the temptation to break into laughter,
+into peal upon peal of gloomy merriment, was not now invincible. I
+overcame it by an effort, partly out of prudence, partly from a
+better motive--a sense of the man's rough fidelity amid circumstances,
+and in face of anomalies, the most trying. I thanked him instead,
+therefore--though I almost choked; and I said I would write to the
+Committee.
+
+Still he lingered, rubbing one great foot against another; and I
+waited with mock politeness to hear his business. At length, "There is
+another thing I wish to say, M. le Vicomte," he growled. "M. le Curé
+has left Saux."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Well, he is a good man; or he was a good man," he continued
+grudgingly. "But he is running into trouble, and you would do well to
+let him know that."
+
+"Why?" I said. "Do you know where he is?"
+
+"I can guess," he answered. "And where others are, too; and where
+there will presently be trouble. These Capuchin monks are not about
+the country for nothing. When the crows fly home there will be
+trouble. And I do not want him to be in it."
+
+"I have not the least idea where he is," I said coldly. "Nor what you
+mean." The smith's tone had changed and grown savage and churlish.
+
+"He has gone to Nîmes," he answered.
+
+"To Nîmes?" I cried in astonishment. "How do you know? It is more than
+I know."
+
+"I do know," he answered. "And what is brewing there. And so do a
+great many more. But this time the St. Alais and their bullies, M. le
+Vicomte--ay, they are all there--will not escape us. We will break
+their necks. Yes, M. le Vicomte, make no mistake," he continued,
+glaring at me, his eyes red with suspicion and anger, "mix yourselves
+up with none of this. We are the people! The people! Woe to the man or
+thing that stands in our way!"
+
+"Go!" I said. "I have heard enough. Begone!"
+
+He looked at me a moment as if he would answer me. But old habits
+overcame him, and with a sullen word of farewell he turned, and went
+round the house. A minute later I heard his horse trot down the
+avenue.
+
+I had cut him short; nevertheless the instant he was gone I wished him
+back, that I might ask him more. The St. Alais at Nîmes? Father Benôit
+at Nîmes? And a plot brewing there in which all had a hand? In a
+moment the news opened a window, as it were, into a wider world,
+through which I looked, and no longer felt myself shut in by the
+lonely country round me and the lack of society. I looked and saw the
+great white dusty city of the south, and trouble rising in it, and in
+the middle of the trouble, looking at me wistfully, Denise de St.
+Alais.
+
+Father Benôit had gone thither. Why might not I?
+
+I walked up and down in a flutter of spirits, and the longer I
+considered it, the more I liked it; the longer I thought of the dull
+inaction in which I must spend my time at home, unless I consented to
+rub shoulders with Buton and his like, the more taken I was with the
+idea of leaving.
+
+And after all why not? Why should I not go?
+
+I had my commission in my pocket, wherein I was not only appointed to
+the National Guards, but described as _ci-devant_ "President of the
+Council of Public Safety in the Province of Quercy"; and this taking
+the place of papers or passport would render travelling easy. My long
+illness would serve as an excuse for a change of air; and explain my
+absence from home; I had in the house as much money as I needed. In a
+word, I could see no difficulty, and nothing to hinder me, if I chose
+to go. I had only to please myself.
+
+So the choice was soon made. The following day I mounted a horse for
+the first time, and rode two-thirds of a league on the road, and home
+again very tired.
+
+Next morning I rode to St. Alais, and viewed the ruins of the house
+and returned; this time I was less fatigued.
+
+Then on the following day, Sunday, I rested; and on the Monday I rode
+half-way to Cahors and back again. That evening I cleaned my pistols
+and overlooked Gil while he packed my saddle-bags, choosing two plain
+suits, one to pack and one to wear, and a hat with a small tricolour
+rosette. On the following morning, the 6th of March, I took the road;
+and parting from André on the outskirts of the village, turned my
+horse's head towards Figeac with a sense of freedom, of escape from
+difficulties and embarrassments, of hope and anticipation, that made
+that first hour delicious; and that still supported me when the March
+day began to give place to the chill darkness of evening--evening that
+in an unknown, untried place is always sombre and melancholy.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XV.
+
+                              AT MILHAU.
+
+
+I met with many strange things on that journey. I found it strange to
+see, as I went, armed peasants in the fields; to light in each village
+on men drilling; to enter inns and find half a dozen rustics seated
+round a table with glasses and wine, and perhaps an inkpot before
+them, and to learn that they called themselves a Committee. But
+towards evening of the third day I saw a stranger thing than any of
+these. I was beginning to mount the valley of the Tarn which runs up
+into the Cevennes at Milhau; a north wind was blowing, the sky was
+overcast, the landscape grey and bare; a league before me masses of
+mountain stood up gloomily blue. On a sudden, as I walked wearily
+beside my horse, I heard voices singing in chorus; and looked about
+me. The sound, clear and sweet as fairy's music, seemed to rise from
+the earth at my feet.
+
+A few yards farther, and the mystery explained itself. I found myself
+on the verge of a little dip in the ground, and saw below me the roofs
+of a hamlet, and on the hither side of it a crowd of a hundred or
+more, men and women. They were dancing and singing round a great tree,
+leafless, but decked with flags: a few old people sat about the roots
+inside the circle, and but for the cold weather and the bleak outlook,
+I might have thought that I had come on a May-day festival.
+
+My appearance checked the singing for a moment; then two elderly
+peasants made their way through the ring and came to meet me, walking
+hand in hand. "Welcome to Vlais and Giron!" cried one. "Welcome to
+Giron and Vlais!" cried the other. And then, before I could answer,
+"You come on a happy day," cried both together.
+
+I could not help smiling. "I am glad of that," I said. "May I ask what
+is the reason of your meeting?"
+
+"The Communes of Giron and Vlais, of Vlais and Giron," they answered,
+speaking alternately, "are today one. To-day, Monsieur, old boundaries
+disappear; old feuds die. The noble heart of Giron, the noble heart of
+Vlais, beat as one."
+
+I could scarcely refrain from laughing at their simplicity;
+fortunately, at that moment, the circle round the tree resumed their
+song and dance, which had even in that weather a pretty effect, as of
+a Watteau _fête_. I congratulated the two peasants on the sight.
+
+"But, Monsieur, this is nothing," one of them answered with perfect
+gravity. "It is not only that the boundaries of communes are
+disappearing; those of provinces are of the past also. At Valence,
+beyond the mountains, the two banks of the Rhone have clasped hands
+and sworn eternal amity. Henceforth all Frenchmen are brothers; all
+Frenchmen are of all provinces!"
+
+"That is a fine idea," I said.
+
+"No son of France will again shed French blood!" he continued.
+
+"So be it."
+
+"Catholic and Protestant, Protestant and Catholic will live at peace!
+There will be no law-suits. Grain will circulate freely, unchecked by
+toils or dues. All will be free, Monsieur. All will be rich."
+
+They said more in the same sanguine simple tone, and with the same
+naïve confidence; but my thoughts strayed from them, attracted by a
+man, who, seated among the peasants at the foot of the tree, seemed to
+my eyes to be of another class. Tall and lean, with lank black hair,
+and features of a stern, sour cast, he had nothing of outward show to
+distinguish him from those round him. His dress, a rough hunting suit,
+was old and patched; the spurs on his brown, mud-stained boots were
+rusty and bent. Yet his carriage possessed an ease the others lacked;
+and in the way he watched the circling rustics I read a quiet scorn.
+
+I did not notice that he heeded or returned my gaze, but I had not
+gone on my way a hundred paces, after taking leave of the two mayors
+and the revellers, before I heard a step, and looking round, saw the
+stranger coming after me. He beckoned, and I waited until he overtook
+me.
+
+"You are going to Milhau?" he said, speaking abruptly, and with a
+strong country accent; yet in the tone of one addressing an equal.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur," I said. "But I doubt if I shall reach the town
+to-night."
+
+"I am going also," he answered. "My horse is in the village."
+
+And without saying more he walked beside me until we reached the
+hamlet. There--the place was deserted--he brought from an outhouse a
+sorry mare, and mounted. "What do you think of that rubbish?" he said
+suddenly as we took the road again. I had watched his proceedings in
+silence.
+
+"I fear that they expect too much," I answered guardedly.
+
+He laughed; a horse-laugh full of scorn. "They think that the
+millennium has come," he said. "And in a month they will find their
+barns burned and their throats cut."
+
+"I hope not," I said.
+
+"Oh, I hope not," he answered cynically. "I hope not, of course. But
+even so _Vive la Nation! Vive la Revolution!_"
+
+"What? If that be its fruit?" I asked.
+
+"Ay, why not?" he answered, his gloomy eyes fixed on me. "It is every
+one for himself, and what has the old rule done for me that I should
+fear to try the new? Left me to starve on an old rock and a dovecot;
+sheltered by bare stones, and eating out of a black pot! While women
+and bankers, scented fops and lazy priests prick it before the King!
+And why? Because I remain, sir, what half the nation once were."
+
+"A Protestant?" I hazarded.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur. And a poor noble," he answered bitterly. "The Baron de
+Géol, at your service."
+
+I gave him my name in return.
+
+"You wear the tricolour," he said; "yet you think me extreme? I
+answer, that that is all very well for you; but we are different
+people. You are doubtless a family man, M. le Vicomte, with a
+wife----"
+
+"On the contrary, M. le Baron."
+
+"Then a mother, a sister?"
+
+"No," I said, smiling. "I have neither. I am quite alone."
+
+"At least with a home," he persisted, "means, friends, employment, or
+the chance of employment?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "that is so."
+
+"Whereas I--I," he answered, growing guttural in his excitement,
+"have none of these things. I cannot enter the army--I am a
+Protestant! I am shut off from the service of the State--I am a
+Protestant! I cannot be a lawyer or a judge--I am a Protestant! The
+King's schools are closed to me--I am a Protestant! I cannot appear at
+Court--I am a Protestant! I--in the eyes of the law I do not exist!
+I--I, Monsieur," he continued more slowly, and with an air not devoid
+of dignity, "whose ancestors stood before Kings, and whose
+grandfather's great-grandfather saved the fourth Henry's life at
+Coutras--I do not exist!"
+
+"But now?" I said, startled by his tone of passion.
+
+"Ay, now," he answered grimly, "it is going to be different. Now, it
+is going to be otherwise, unless these black crows of priests put the
+clock back again. That is why I am on the road."
+
+"You are going to Milhau?"
+
+"I live near Milhau," he answered. "And I have been from home. But I
+am not going home now. I am going farther--to Nîmes."
+
+"To Nîmes?" I said in surprise.
+
+"Yes," he said. And he looked at me askance and a trifle grimly, and
+did not say any more. By this time it was growing dark; the valley of
+the Tarn, along which our road lay, though fertile and pleasant to the
+eye in summer, wore at this season, and in the half-light, a savage
+and rugged aspect. Mountains towered on either side; and sometimes,
+where the road drew near the river, the rushing of the water as it
+swirled and eddied among the rocks below us, added its note of
+melancholy to the scene. I shivered. The uncertainty of my quest, the
+uncertainty of everything, the gloom of my companion, pressed upon me.
+I was glad when he roused himself from his brooding, and pointed to
+the lights of Milhau glimmering here and there on a little plain,
+where the mountains recede from the river.
+
+"You are doubtless going to the inn?" he said, as we entered the
+outskirts. I assented. "Then we part here," he continued. "To-morrow,
+if you are going to Nîmes---- But you may prefer to travel alone."
+
+"Far from it," I said.
+
+"Well, I shall be leaving the east gate--about eight o'clock," he
+answered grudgingly. "Good-night, Monsieur."
+
+I bade him good-night, and leaving him there, rode into the town:
+passing through narrow, mean streets, and under dark archways and
+hanging lanterns, that swung and creaked in the wind, and did
+everything but light the squalid obscurity. Though night had fallen,
+people were moving briskly to and fro, or standing at their doors; the
+place, after the solitude through which I had ridden, had the air of a
+city; and presently I became aware that a little crowd was following
+my horse. Before I reached the inn, which stood in a dimly-lit square,
+the crowd had grown into a great one, and was beginning to press upon
+me; some who marched nearest to me staring up inquisitively into my
+face, while others, farther off, called to their neighbours, or to dim
+forms seen at basement windows, that it was he!
+
+I found this somewhat alarming. Still they did not molest me; but when
+I halted they halted too, and I was forced to dismount almost in their
+arms. "Is this the inn?" I said to those nearest tome; striving to
+appear at my ease.
+
+"Yes! yes!" they cried with one voice, "that is the inn!"
+
+"My horse----"
+
+"We will take the horse! Enter! Enter!"
+
+I had little choice, they flocked so closely round me; and, affecting
+carelessness, I complied, thinking that they would not follow, and
+that inside I should learn the meaning of their conduct. But the
+moment my back was turned they pressed in after me and beside me, and,
+almost sweeping me off my feet, urged me along the narrow passage of
+the house, whether I would or no. I tried to turn and remonstrate; but
+the foremost drowned my words in loud cries for "M. Flandre! M.
+Flandre!"
+
+Fortunately the person addressed was not far off. A door towards which
+I was being urged opened, and he appeared. He proved to be an
+immensely stout man, with a face to match his body; and he gazed at us
+for a moment, astounded by the invasion. Then he asked angrily what
+was the matter. "_Ventre de Ciel!_" he cried. "Is this my house or
+yours, rascals? Who is this?"
+
+"The Capuchin! The Capuchin!" cried a dozen voices.
+
+"Ho! ho!" he answered, before I could speak. "Bring a light."
+
+Two or three bare-armed women whom the noise had brought to the door
+of the kitchen fetched candles, and raising them above their heads
+gazed at me curiously. "Ho! ho!" he said again. "The Capuchin is it?
+So you have got him."
+
+"Do I look like one?" I cried angrily, thrusting back those who
+pressed on me most closely. "_Nom de Dieu!_ Is this the way you
+receive guests, Monsieur? Or is the town gone mad?"
+
+"You are not the Capuchin monk?" he said, somewhat taken aback, I
+could see, by my boldness.
+
+"Have I not said that I am not? Do monks in your country travel in
+boots and spurs?" I retorted.
+
+"Then your papers!" he answered curtly. "Your papers! I would have you
+to know," he continued, puffing out his cheeks, "that I am Mayor here
+as well as host, and I keep the jail as well as the inn. Your papers,
+Monsieur, if you prefer the one to the other."
+
+"Before your friends here?" I said contemptuously.
+
+"They are good citizens," he answered.
+
+I had some fear, now I had come to the pinch, that the commission I
+carried might fail to produce all the effects with which I had
+credited it. But I had no choice, and ultimately nothing to dread; and
+after a momentary hesitation I produced it. Fortunately it was drawn
+in complimentary terms and gave the Mayor, I know not how, the idea
+that I was actually bound at the moment on an errand of state. When he
+had read it, therefore, he broke into a hundred apologies, craved
+leave to salute me, and announced to the listening crowd that they had
+made a mistake.
+
+It struck me at the time as strange, that they, the crowd, were not at
+all embarrassed by their error. On the contrary, they hastened to
+congratulate me on my acquittal, and even patted me on the shoulder in
+their good humour; some went to see that my horse was brought in, or
+to give orders on my behalf, and the rest presently dispersed, leaving
+me fain to believe that they would have hung me to the nearest
+_lanterne_ with the same stolid complaisance.
+
+When only two or three remained, I asked the Mayor for whom they had
+taken me.
+
+"A disguised monk, M. le Vicomte," he said. "A very dangerous fellow,
+who is known to be travelling with two ladies--all to Nîmes; and
+orders have been sent from a high quarter to arrest him."
+
+"But I am alone!" I protested. "I have no ladies with me."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Just so, M. le Vicomte," he answered. "But
+we have got the two ladies. They were arrested this morning, while
+attempting to pass through the town in a carriage. We know, therefore,
+that he is now alone."
+
+"Oh," I said. "So now you only want him? And what is the charge
+against him?" I continued, remembering with a languid stirring of the
+pulses that a Capuchin monk had visited Father Benôit before his
+departure. It seemed to be strange that I should come upon the traces
+of another here.
+
+"He is charged," M. Flandre answered pompously, "with high treason
+against the nation, Monsieur. He has been seen here, there, and
+everywhere, at Montpellier, and Cette, and Albi, and as far away as
+Auch; and always preaching war and superstition, and corrupting the
+people."
+
+"And the ladies?" I said smiling. "Have they too been corrupting----"
+
+"No, M. le Vicomte. But it is believed that wishing to return to
+Nîmes, and learning that the roads were watched, he disguised himself
+and joined himself to them. Doubtless they are _dévotes_."
+
+"Poor things!" I said, with a shudder of compassion; every one seemed
+to be so good-tempered, and yet so hard. "What will you do with them?"
+
+"I shall send for orders," he answered. "In his case," he continued
+airily, "I should not need them. But here is your supper. Pardon me,
+M. le Vicomte, if I do not attend on you myself. As Mayor I have to
+take care that I do not compromise--but you understand?"
+
+I said civilly that I did; and supper being laid, as was then the
+custom in the smaller inns, in my bedroom, I asked him to take a glass
+of wine with me, and over the meal learned much of the state of the
+country, and the fermentation that was at work along the southern
+seaboard, the priests stirring up the people with processions and
+sermons. He waxed especially eloquent upon the excitement at Nîmes,
+where the masses were bigoted Romanists, while the Protestants had a
+following, too, with the hardy peasants of the mountains behind them.
+"There will be trouble, M. le Vicomte, there will be trouble there,"
+he said with meaning. "Things are going too well for the people _la
+bas_. They will stop them if they can."
+
+"And this man?"
+
+"Is one of their missionaries."
+
+I thought of Father Benôit, and sighed. "By the way," the Mayor said
+abruptly, gazing at me in moony thoughtfulness, "that is curious now!"
+
+"What?" I said.
+
+"You come from Cahors, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"So do these women; or they say they do. The prisoners."
+
+"From Cahors?"
+
+"Yes. It is odd now," he continued, rubbing his chin, "but when I read
+your commission I did not think of that."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders impatiently. "It does not follow that I am in
+the plot," I said. "For goodness sake, M. le Maire, do not let us open
+the case again. You have seen my papers, and----"
+
+"Tut! tut!" he said. "That is not my meaning. But you may know these
+persons."
+
+"Oh!" I said; and then I sat a moment, staring at him between the
+candles, my hand raised, a morsel on my fork. A wild extravagant
+thought had flashed into my mind. Two ladies from Cahors? From Cahors,
+of all places? "How do they call themselves?" I asked.
+
+"Corvas," he answered.
+
+"Oh! Corvas," I said, falling to eating again, and putting the morsel
+into my mouth. And I went on with my supper.
+
+"Yes. A merchant's wife, she says she is. But you shall see her."
+
+"I don't remember the name," I answered.
+
+"Still, you may know them," he rejoined, with the dull persistence of
+a man of few ideas. "It is just possible that we have made a mistake,
+for we found no papers in the carriage, and only one thing that seemed
+suspicious."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"A red cockade."
+
+"A _red_ cockade?"
+
+"Yes," he answered. "The badge of the old Leaguers, you know."
+
+"But," I said, "I have not heard of any party adopting that."
+
+He rubbed his bald head a little doubtfully. "No," he said, "that is
+true. Still, it is a colour we don't like here. And two ladies
+travelling alone--alone, Monsieur! Then their driver, a half-witted
+fellow, who said that they had engaged him at Rodez, though he denied
+stoutly that he had seen the Capuchin, told two or three tales.
+However, if you will eat no more, M. le Vicomte, I will take you to
+see them. You may be able to speak for or against them."
+
+"If you do not think that it is too late?" I said, shrinking somewhat
+from the interview.
+
+"Prisoners must not be choosers," he answered, with an unpleasant
+chuckle. And he called from the door for a lantern and his cloak.
+
+"The ladies are not here, then?" I said.
+
+"No," he answered, with a wink. "Safe bind, safe find! But they have
+nothing to cry about. There are one or two rough fellows in the clink,
+so Babet, the jailer, has given them room in his house."
+
+At this moment the lantern came, and the Mayor having wrapped his
+portly person in a cloak, we passed out of the house. The square
+outside was utterly dark, such lights as had been burning when I
+arrived had been extinguished, perhaps by the wind, which was rising,
+and now blew keenly across the open space. The yellow glare of the
+lantern was necessary, but though it showed us a few feet of the
+roadway, and enabled us to pick our steps, it redoubled the darkness
+beyond; I could not see even the line of the roofs, and had no idea in
+what direction we had gone or how far, when M. Flandre halted
+abruptly, and, raising the lantern, threw its light on a greasy stone
+wall, from which, set deep in the stone-work, a low iron-studded door
+frowned on us. About the middle of the door hung a huge knocker, and
+above it was a small _grille_.
+
+"Safe bind, safe find!" the Mayor said again with a fat chuckle; but,
+instead of raising the knocker, he drew his stick sharply across the
+bars of the _grille_.
+
+The summons was understood and quickly answered. A face peered a
+moment through the grating; then the door opened to us. The Mayor took
+the lead, and we passed in, out of the night, into a close, warm air
+reeking of onions and foul tobacco, and a hundred like odours. The
+jailer silently locked the door behind us, and, taking the Mayor's
+lantern from him, led the way down a grimy, low-roofed passage barely
+wide enough for one man. He halted at the first door on the left of
+the passage, and threw it open.
+
+M. Flandre entered first, and, standing while he removed his hat, for
+an instant filled the doorway. I had time to hear and note a burst of
+obscene singing, which came from a room farther down the passage; and
+the frequent baying of a prison-dog, that, hearing us, flung itself
+against its chain, somewhere in the same direction. I noted, too, that
+the walls of the passage in which I stood were dingy and trickling
+with moisture, and then a voice, speaking in answer to M. Flandre's
+salutation, caught my ear and held me motionless.
+
+The voice was Madame's--Madame de St. Alais'!
+
+It was fortunate that I had entertained, though but a second, the
+wild, extravagant thought that had occurred to me at supper; for in a
+measure it had prepared me. And I had little time for other
+preparation, for thought, or decision. Luckily the room was thick with
+vile tobacco smoke, and the steam from linen drying by the fire; and I
+took advantage of a fit of coughing, partly assumed, to linger an
+instant on the threshold after M. Flandre had gone in. Then I followed
+him.
+
+There were four people in the room besides the Mayor, but I had no
+eyes for the frowsy man and woman who sat playing with a filthy pack
+of cards at a table in the middle of the floor. I had only eyes for
+Madame and Mademoiselle, and them I devoured. They sat on two stools
+on the farther side of the hearth; the girl with her head laid wearily
+back against the wall, and her eyes half-closed; the mother, erect and
+watchful, meeting the Mayor's look with a smile of contempt. Neither
+the prison-house, nor danger, nor the companionship of this squalid
+hole had had power to reduce her fine spirit; but as her eyes passed
+from the Mayor and encountered mine, she started to her feet with a
+gasping cry, and stood staring at me.
+
+It was not wonderful that for a second, peering through the reek, she
+doubted. But one there was there who did not doubt. Mademoiselle had
+sprung up in alarm at the sound of her mother's cry, and for the
+briefest moment we looked at one another. Then she sank back on her
+stool, and I heard her break into violent crying.
+
+"Hallo!" said the Mayor. "What is this?"
+
+"A mistake, I fear," I said hoarsely, in words I had already composed.
+"I am thankful, Madame," I continued, bowing to her with distant
+ceremony, and as much indifference as I could assume, "that I am so
+fortunate as to be here."
+
+She muttered something and leaned against the wall. She had not yet
+recovered herself.
+
+"You know the ladies?" the Mayor said, turning to me and speaking
+roughly; even with a tinge of suspicion in his voice. And he looked
+from one to the other of us sharply.
+
+"Perfectly," I said.
+
+"They are from Cahors?"
+
+"From that neighbourhood."
+
+"But," he said, "I told you their names, and you said that you did not
+know them, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+For a moment I held my breath; gazing into Madame's face and reading
+there anxiety, and something more--a sudden terror. I took the leap--I
+could do nothing else. "You told me Corvas--that the lady's name was
+Corvas," I muttered.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"But Madame's name is Corréas."
+
+"Corréas?" he repeated, his jaw falling.
+
+"Yes, Corréas. I dare say that the ladies," I continued with assumed
+politeness, "did not in their fright speak very clearly."
+
+"And their name is Corréas?"
+
+"I told you that it was," Madame answered, speaking for the first
+time, "and also that I knew nothing of your Capuchin monk. And this
+last," she continued earnestly, her eyes fixed on mine in passionate
+appeal--in appeal that this time could not be mistaken--"I say again,
+on my honour!"
+
+I knew that she meant this for me; and I responded to the cry. "Yes,
+M. le Maire," I said, "I am afraid that you have made a mistake. I can
+answer for Madame as for myself."
+
+The Mayor rubbed his head.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVI.
+
+                         THREE IN A CARRIAGE.
+
+
+"Of course, if Madame--if Madame knows nothing of the monk," he said,
+looking vacantly about the dirty room, "it is clear that--it seems
+clear that there has been a mistake."
+
+"And only one thing remains to be done," I suggested.
+
+"But--but," he continued, with a resumption of his former importance,
+"there is still one point unexplained--that of the red cockade,
+Monsieur? What of that, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"The red cockade?" I said.
+
+"Ay, what of that?" he asked briskly.
+
+I had not expected this, and I looked desperately at Madame. Surely
+her woman's wit would find a way, whatever the cockade meant. "Have
+you asked Madame Corréas?" I said at last, feebly shifting the burden.
+"Have you asked her to explain it?"
+
+"No," he answered.
+
+"Then I would ask her," I said.
+
+"Nay, do not ask me; ask M. le Vicomte," she answered lightly. "Ask
+him of what colour are the facings of the National Guards of Quercy?"
+
+"Red!" I cried, in a burst of relief. "Red!" I knew, for had I not
+seen Buton's coat lying by the forge? But how Madame de St. Alais knew
+I have no idea.
+
+"Ah!" M. Flandre said, with the air of one still a little doubtful.
+"And Madame wears the cockade for that reason?"
+
+"No, M. le Maire," she answered, with a roguish smile; I saw that it
+was her plan to humour him. "I do not--my daughter does. If you wish
+to ask further, or the reason, you must ask her."
+
+M. Flandre had the curiosity of the true bourgeois, and the love of
+the sex. He simpered. "If Mademoiselle would be so good," he said.
+
+Denise had remained up to this point hidden behind her mother, but at
+the word she crept out, and reluctantly and like a prisoner brought to
+the bar, stood before us. It was only when she spoke, however, nay, it
+was not until she had spoken some words that I understood the full
+change that I saw in her; or why, instead of the picture of pallid
+weariness which she had presented a few minutes before, she now
+showed, as she stood forward, a face covered with blushes, and eyes
+shining and suffused.
+
+"It is simple, Monsieur," she said in a low voice. "My _fiancé_, M. le
+Maire, is in that regiment."
+
+"And you wear it for that reason?" the Mayor cried, delighted.
+
+"I love him," she said softly. And for a moment--for a moment her eyes
+met mine.
+
+Then I know not which was the redder, she or I; or which found that
+vile and filthy room more like a palace, its tobacco-laden air more
+sweet! I had not dreamed what she was going to say, least of all had I
+dreamed what her eyes said, as for that instant they met mine and
+turned my blood to fire! I lost the Mayor's blunt answer and his
+chuckling laugh; and only returned to a sense of the present when
+Mademoiselle slipped back to hide her burning face behind her mother,
+and I saw in her place Madame, facing me, with her finger to her lip,
+and a glance of warning in her eyes.
+
+It was a warning not superfluous, for in the flush of my first
+enthusiasm I might have said anything. And the Mayor was in better
+hands than mine. The little touch of romance and sentiment which
+Mademoiselle's avowal had imported into the matter, had removed his
+last suspicion and won his heart. He ogled Madame, he beamed on the
+girl with fatherly gallantry. He made a jest of the monk.
+
+"A mistake, and yet one I cannot deplore, Madame," he protested, with
+clumsy civility. "For it has given me the pleasure of seeing you."
+
+"Oh, M. le Maire!" Madame simpered.
+
+"But the state of the country is really such," he continued, "that
+for the beautiful sex to be travelling alone is not safe. It exposes
+them----"
+
+"To worse _rencontres_ than this, I fear," Madame said, darting a look
+from her fine eyes. "If this were the worst we poor women had to
+fear!" And she looked at him again.
+
+"Ah, Madame!" he said, delighted.
+
+"But, alas, we have no escort."
+
+The fat Mayor sighed, I think that he was going to offer himself. Then
+a thought struck him. "Perhaps this gentleman," and he turned to me.
+"You go to Nîmes, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "And, of course, if Madame Corréas----"
+
+"Oh, it would be troubling M. le Vicomte," Madame said; and she went a
+step farther from me and a step nearer to M. Flandre, as if he must
+understand her hesitation.
+
+"I am sure it could be no trouble to any one!" he answered stoutly.
+"But for the matter of that, if M. le Vicomte perceives any
+difficulty," and he laid his hand on his heart, "I will find some
+one----"
+
+"Some one?" Madame said archly.
+
+"Myself," the Mayor answered.
+
+"Ah!" she cried, "if you----"
+
+But I thought that now I might safely step in. "No, no," I said. "M.
+le Maire is taking all against me. I can assure you, Madame, I shall
+be glad to be of service to you. And our roads lie together. If,
+therefore----"
+
+"I shall be grateful," Madame answered with a delightful little
+courtesy. "That is, if M. le Maire will let out his poor prisoners.
+Who, as he now knows, have done nothing worse than sympathise with
+National Guards."
+
+"I will take it on myself, Madame," M. Flandre said, with vast
+importance. He had been brought to the desired point. "The case is
+quite clear. But----" he paused and coughed slightly, "to avoid
+complications, you had better leave early. When you are gone, I shall
+know what explanations to give. And if you would not object to
+spending the night here," he continued, looking round him, with a
+touch of sheepishness, "I think that----"
+
+"We shall mind it less than before," Madame said, with a look and a
+sigh. "I feel safe since you have been to see us." And she held out a
+hand that was still white and plump.
+
+The Mayor kissed it.
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+As I walked, a few minutes later, across the square, picking my steps
+by the yellow light of M. Flandre's lantern, and at times enveloped in
+the flying skirt of his cloak--for the good man had his own visions
+and for a hundred yards together forgot his company--I could have
+thought all that had passed a dream; so unreal seemed the squalid
+prison-lodging I had just left, so marvellous the ladies' presence in
+it, so incredible Mademoiselle's blushing avowal made to my face. But
+a wheezing clock overhead struck the hour before midnight, and I
+counted the strokes; a watchman, not far from me, cried, after the old
+fashion, that it was eleven o'clock and a fine night; and I stumbled
+over a stone. No, I was not dreaming.
+
+But if I had to stumble then, to persuade myself that I was awake, how
+was it with me next morning, when, with the first glimmer of light, I
+walked beside the carriage from the inn to the prison, and saw, before
+I reached the gloomy door, Madame and Mademoiselle standing shivering
+under the wall beside it? How was it with me when I held
+Mademoiselle's hand in mine, as I helped her in, and then followed her
+in and sat opposite to her--sat opposite to her with the knowledge
+that I was so to sit for days, that I was to be her fellow-traveller,
+that we were to go to Nîmes together?
+
+Ah, how was it, indeed? But there is nothing quite perfect; there is
+no hour in which a man says that he is quite happy; and a shadow of
+fear and stealth darkened my bliss that morning. The Mayor was there
+to see us start, and I fancy that it was his face of apprehension that
+lay at the bottom of this feeling. A moment, however, and the face was
+gone from the window; another, and the carriage began to roll quickly
+through the dim streets, while we lay back, each in a corner, hidden
+by the darkness even from one another. Still, we had the gates to
+pass, and the guard; or the watch might stop us, or some early-rising
+townsman, or any one of a hundred accidents. My heart beat fast.
+
+But all went well. Within five minutes we had passed the gates and
+left them behind us, and were rolling in safety along the road. The
+dawn was no more than grey, the trees showed black against the sky, as
+we crossed the Tarn by the great bridge, and began to climb the valley
+of the Dourbie.
+
+I have said that we could not see one another. But on a sudden Madame
+laughed out of the darkness of her corner. "O Richard, O _mon Roi!_"
+she hummed. Then "The fat fool!" she cried; and she laughed again.
+
+I thought her cruel, and almost an ingrate; but she was Mademoiselle's
+mother, and I said nothing. Mademoiselle was opposite to me, and I was
+happy. I was happy, thinking what she would say to me, and how she
+would look at me, when the day came and she could no longer escape my
+eyes; when the day came and the dainty, half-shrouded face that
+already began to glimmer in the roomy corner of the old berlin should
+be mine to look on, to feast my eyes on, to question and read through
+long days and hours of a journey, a journey through heaven!
+
+Already it was growing light; I had but a little longer to wait. A
+rosy flush began to tinge one half the sky; the other half, pale blue
+and flecked with golden clouds, lay behind us. A few seconds, and the
+mountain tips caught the first rays of the sun, and floated far over
+us, in golden ether. I cast one greedy glance at Mademoiselle's face,
+saw there the dawn out-blushed, I met for one second her eyes and saw
+the glory of the ether outshone--and then I looked away, trembling. It
+seemed sacrilege to look longer.
+
+Suddenly Madame laughed again, out of her corner; a laugh that made me
+wince, and grow hot. "She is not made for a nun, M. le Vicomte, is
+she?" she said.
+
+I bounced in my seat. The speaker's tone, gay, insulting, flicked, not
+me, but the girl, like a whip.
+
+"You really, Denise, must have had practice," Madame continued
+smoothly. "I love, you love, we love--you are quite perfect. Did you
+practise with M. le Directeur? Or with the big boys over the wall?"
+
+"Madame!" I cried. The girl had drawn her hood over her face, but I
+could fancy her shame.
+
+But Madame was inexorable. "Really, Denise, I do not know that I
+ever told even your father 'I love you,'" she said. "At any rate,
+until he had kissed me on the lips. But I suppose that you reverse the
+order----"
+
+"Madame," I stammered. "This is infamous!"
+
+"What, Monsieur?" she answered, this time heeding me. "May I not
+punish my daughter in my own way?"
+
+"Not before me," I retorted, full of wrath. "It is cruel! It is----"
+
+"Oh, before you, M. le Vicomte?" Madame answered, mocking me. "And why
+not before you? I cannot degrade her lower than she has herself
+stooped!"
+
+"It is false!" I cried, in hot rage. "It is a cruel falsehood!"
+
+"Oh, I can? Then if I please, I shall!" Madame answered, with ruthless
+pleasantry. "And you, Monsieur, will sit by and listen, if I please.
+Though, make no mistake, M. le Vicomte," she continued, leaning
+forward, and gazing keenly into my face. "Because I punish her before
+you, do not think that you are, or ever shall be, of the family. Or
+that this unmaidenly, immodest----"
+
+Mademoiselle uttered a cry of pain, and shrank lower in her corner.
+
+"Little fool," Madame continued coolly, "who, when she was primed with
+a cock-and-bull story about the cockade, must needs add, 'I love
+him'--I love him, and she a maiden!--will ever be anything to you! That
+link was broken long ago. It was broken when your friends burned our
+house at St. Alais; it was broken when they sacked our house in
+Cahors; it was broken when they made our king a prisoner, when they
+murdered our friends, when they dragged our Church a slave at the
+chariot wheels of their triumph; ay, and broken once for all, beyond
+mending by mock heroics! Understand that fully, M. le Vicomte," Madame
+continued pitilessly. "But as you saw her stoop, you shall see her
+punished. She is the first St. Alais that ever wooed a lover!"
+
+I knew that of the family which would have given the lie to that
+statement; but it was not a tale for Mademoiselle's ears, and instead
+I rose. "At least, Madame," I said, bowing, "I can free Mademoiselle
+from the embarrassment of my presence. And I shall do so."
+
+"No, you will not do even that," Madame answered unmoved. "If you will
+sit down, I will tell you why."
+
+I sat down, compelled by her tone.
+
+"You will not do it," Madame continued, looking me coolly in the face,
+"because I am bound to admit, though I no longer like you, that you
+are a gentleman."
+
+"And therefore should leave you."
+
+"On the contrary, for that reason you will continue to travel with
+us."
+
+"Outside," I said.
+
+"No, inside," she answered quietly. "We have no passport nor papers;
+without your company we should be stopped in each town through which
+we pass. It is unfortunate," Madame continued, shrugging her
+shoulders; "--I did not know that the country was in so bad a state,
+or I would have taken precautions--it is unfortunate. But as it is we
+must put up with it and travel together."
+
+I felt a warm rush of joy, of triumph, of coming vengeance. "Thank
+you, Madame," I said, and I bowed to her, "for telling me that. It
+seems, then, that you are in my power."
+
+"Ah?"
+
+"And that to requite you for the pain you have just caused
+Mademoiselle, I have only to leave you."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I see even now a little town before us; in three minutes we shall
+enter it. Very well, Madame. If you say another word to your daughter,
+if you insult her again in my presence by so much as a syllable, I
+leave you and go my way."
+
+To my surprise Madame St. Alais broke into a silvery laugh. "You will
+not, Monsieur," she said. "And yet I shall treat my daughter as I
+please."
+
+"I shall do so!"
+
+"You will not."
+
+"Why, then? Why shall I not?" I cried.
+
+"Because," she answered, laughing softly, "you are a gentleman, M. le
+Vicomte, and can neither leave us nor endanger us. That is all."
+
+I sank back in my seat, and glared at her in speechless indignation;
+seeing in a flash my impotence and her power. The cushions burned me;
+but I could not leave them.
+
+She laughed again, well pleased. "There, I have told you what you will
+not do," she said. "Now I am going to tell you what you will do. In
+front, I am told, they are very suspicious. The story of Madame
+Corvas, even if backed by your word, may not suffice. You will say,
+therefore, that I am your mother, and that Mademoiselle is your
+sister. She would prefer, I daresay," Madame continued, with a cutting
+glance at her daughter, "to pass for your wife. But that does not suit
+me."
+
+I breathed hard; but I was helpless as any prisoner, closely bound to
+obedience as any slave. I could not denounce them, and I could not
+leave them; honour and love were alike concerned. Yet I foresaw that I
+must listen, hour by hour, and mile by mile, to gibes at the girl's
+expense, to sneers at her modesty, to words that cut like whip-lashes.
+That was Madame's plan. The girl must travel with me, must breathe the
+same air with me, must sit for hours with the hem of her skirt
+touching my boot. It was necessary for the safety of all. But, after
+this, after what we had both heard, if her eye met mine, it could only
+fall; if her hand touched mine, she must shrink in shame. Henceforth
+there was a barrier between us.
+
+As a fact, Mademoiselle's pride came to her aid, and she sat, neither
+weeping nor protesting, nor seeking to join her forces to mine by a
+glance; but bearing all with steadfast patience, she looked out of the
+window when I pretended to sleep, and looked towards her mother when I
+sat erect. Possibly she found her compensations, and bore her
+punishment quietly for their sake. But I did not think of that.
+Possibly, too, she suffered less than I fancied; but I doubt if she
+would admit that, even to-day.
+
+At any rate she had heard me fight her battle; yet she did not speak
+to me nor I to her; and under these strange conditions we began and
+pursued the strangest journey man ever made. We drove through pleasant
+valleys growing green, over sterile passes, where winter still fringed
+the rocks with snow, through sunshine, and in the teeth of cold
+mountain winds; but we scarcely heeded any of these things. Our hearts
+and thoughts lay inside the carriage, where Madame sat smiling, and we
+two kept grim silence.
+
+About noon we halted to rest and eat at a little village inn, high up.
+It seemed to me a place almost at the end of the world, with a chaos
+of mountains rising tier on tier above it, and slopes of shale below.
+But the frenzy of the time had reached even this barren nook. Before
+we had taken two mouthfuls, the Syndic called to see our papers;
+and--God knows I had no choice--Madame passed for my mother, and
+Denise for my sister. Then, while the Syndic still stood bowing over
+my commission, and striving to learn from me what news there was
+below, a horse halted at the door, and I heard a man's voice, and in a
+breath M. le Baron de Géol walked in. There was a single decent room
+in the inn--that in which we sat--and he came into it.
+
+He uncovered, seeing ladies; and recognising me with a start smiled,
+but a trifle sourly. "You set off early?" he said. "I waited at the
+east gate, but you did not come, Monsieur."
+
+I coloured, conscience-stricken, and begged a thousand pardons. As a
+fact, I had clean forgotten him. I had not once thought of the
+appointment I had made with him at the gate.
+
+"You are not riding?" he said, looking at my companions a little
+strangely.
+
+"No," I answered. And I could not find another word to say. The Syndic
+still stood smiling and bowing beside me; and on a sudden I saw the
+pit on the edge of which I tottered; and my face burned.
+
+"You have met friends?" M. le Baron persisted, looking, hat in hand,
+at Madame.
+
+"Yes," I muttered. Politeness required that I should introduce him.
+But I dared not.
+
+However, at that, he at last took the hint; and retired with the
+Syndic. The moment they were over the threshold Madame flashed out at
+me, in a passion of anger. "Fool!" she said, without ceremony, "why
+did you not present him? Don't you know that that is the way to arouse
+suspicion, and ruin us? A child could see that you had something to
+hide. If you had presented him at once to your mother----"
+
+"Yes, Madame?"
+
+"He would have gone away satisfied."
+
+"I doubt it, Madame, and for a very good reason," I answered
+cynically. "Seeing that yesterday I told him, with the utmost
+particularity, that I had neither mother nor sister."
+
+That afforded me a little revenge. Madame St. Alais went white and red
+in the same instant, and sat a moment with her lips pressed together,
+and her eyes on the table. "Who is he? What do you know of him?" she
+said at last.
+
+"He is a poor gentleman and a bigoted Protestant," I answered drily.
+
+She bit her lip. "_Bon Dieu!_" she muttered. "Who could have foreseen
+such an accident? Do you think that he suspects anything?"
+
+"Doubtless. To begin, I left early this morning, in breach of an
+agreement to travel with him. When he learns, in addition, that I am
+travelling with my mother and sister, whom yesterday I did not
+possess----"
+
+Madame looked at me, as if she would strike me. "What will you do?"
+she cried.
+
+"It is for my mother to say," I answered politely. And I helped myself
+very indifferently to cheese. "She dictated this policy."
+
+She was white with rage, and perhaps alarm; I chuckled secretly,
+seeing her condition. But rage availed her little; she had to humble
+herself. "What do you advise?" she said at last.
+
+"There is only one course open," I answered. "We must brazen it out."
+
+She agreed. But this, though a very easy course to advise, was one
+anything but easy to pursue. I discovered that, a few minutes later,
+when I went out to see if the carriage was ready, and found De Géol in
+the doorway with a face as hard as his own hills. "You are starting?"
+he said.
+
+I muttered that I was.
+
+"I find that I have to congratulate you," he continued, with a smile
+of unpleasant meaning.
+
+"On what, Monsieur?"
+
+"On finding your family," he answered, looking at me with a bitter
+sort of humour. "To discover both a mother and a sister in twenty-four
+hours must be great happiness. But--may I give you a hint, M. le
+Vicomte?"
+
+"If you please," I said, with desperate coolness.
+
+"Then if--being so happy in making discoveries--you happen to light
+next on M. Froment--on M. Froment, the firebrand of Nîmes, false
+Capuchin, and false traitor!--do not adopt him also! That is all."
+
+"I am not acquainted with him," I said coldly. He had spoken with
+passion and fire.
+
+"Do not become so," he answered.
+
+I shrugged my shoulders, and he said no more; and in a moment Madame
+and Mademoiselle came out, and took their seats, and I set out to walk
+up the hill beside the horses.
+
+The ascent was steep and long and toilsome, and a dozen times as we
+climbed out of the valley we had to halt to breathe the cattle; a
+dozen times I looked back at the grey mountain inn lying on the
+desolate grey plateau at our feet. Always I found the Baron looking up
+at us, stern and gaunt and motionless as the house before which he
+stood. And I shivered.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVII.
+
+                          FROMENT OF NÎMES.
+
+
+This encounter served neither to raise my spirits nor to remove the
+apprehensions with which I looked forward to our arrival in places
+more populous; places where suspicion, once roused, might be less
+easily allayed. True, Géol had not betrayed me, but he might have his
+reasons for that; nor did the fact any the more reconcile me to having
+on our trail this grim stalking-horse in whose person a fanaticism I
+had deemed dead lurked behind modern doctrines, and sought under the
+cloak of a new party to avenge old injuries. The barren slopes and
+rugged peaks that rose above us, as we plodded toilsomely onward, the
+windswept passes over which the horses scarce dragged the empty
+carriage, the melancholy fields of snow that lay to right and left,
+all tended to deepen the impression made on my mind; so that feeling
+him one with his native hills, I longed to escape from them, I longed
+to be clear of this desolation and to see before me the sunshine and
+olive slopes sweep down to the southern sea.
+
+Yet even here there was a counterpoise. The peril which had startled
+me had not been lost on Madame St. Alais; it had sensibly lowered her
+tone, and damped the triumph with which she had been disposed to treat
+me. She was more quiet; and sitting in her place, or walking beside
+the labouring carriage, as it slowly wound its way round shoulders, or
+wearily climbed long _lacets_, she left me to myself. Nay, it did not
+escape me that distance, far from relieving, seemed to aggravate her
+anxiety; so that the farther we left the uncouth Baron behind, the
+more restless she grew, the more keenly she scanned the road behind
+us, and the less regard she paid to me.
+
+This left me at liberty to use my eyes as I would; and I remember to
+this day that hour spent under the shoulder of Mont Aigoual.
+Mademoiselle, worn out by days and nights of exertion, had fallen
+asleep in her corner, and shaken by the jolting of the coach had let
+the cloak slip from her face. A faint flush warmed her cheeks, as if
+even in sleep she felt my eyes upon her; and though a tear presently
+stole from under her long lashes, a smile almost naïve--a smile that
+remained while the tear passed--seemed to say that the joys of that
+strange day surpassed the pains, and that in her sleep Mademoiselle
+found nothing to regret. God, how I watched that smile! How I hoped
+that it was for me, how I prayed for her! Never before had it been my
+happiness to gaze on her uncontrolled, as I did now; to trace the
+shadow where the first tendrils of her hair stole up from the smooth,
+white forehead, to learn the soft curves of lips and chin, and the
+dainty ear half-hidden; to gaze at the blue-veined eyelids half in
+fear, half in the hope that they might rise and discover me!
+
+Denise, my Denise! I breathed the word softly, in my heart, and was
+happy. In spite of all--the cold, the journey, Géol, Madame--I was
+happy. And then in a moment I fell to earth, as I heard a voice say
+clearly, "Is that he?"
+
+It was Madame's voice, and I turned to her. I was relieved to find
+that she was not looking my way, but was on her feet, gazing back the
+way we had come. And in a moment, whether she gave an order or the
+driver halted on his own motion, the carriage came to a stand; in a
+mountain pass, where rocks lay huddled on either side.
+
+"What is it?" I said in wonder.
+
+She did not answer, but on the silence of the road and the mountains
+rose the thin strain of a whistled air. The air was "O Richard, _O mon
+Roi!_" In that solitude of rock and fell, it piped high and thin, and
+had a weird startling effect. I thrust out my head on the other side,
+and saw a man walking after us at his leisure; as if we had passed
+him, and then stood to wait for him. He was tall and stout, wore boots
+and a common-looking cloak; but for all that he had not the air of a
+man of the country.
+
+"You are going to Ganges?" Madame cried to him, without preface.
+
+"Yes, Madame," he answered, as he came quietly up, and saluted her.
+
+"We can take you on," she said.
+
+"A thousand thanks," he answered, his eyes twinkling. "You are too
+good. If the gentleman does not object?" And he looked at me, smiling
+without disguise.
+
+"Oh, no!" Madame said, with a touch of contempt in her voice, "the
+gentleman will not object."
+
+But that gave me, in the middle of my astonishment, the fillip that I
+needed. The device of the meeting was so transparent, the appearance
+of this man, in cloak and boots, on the desolate road far from any
+habitation, was so clearly a part of an arranged plan, that I could
+not swallow it; I must either fall in with it, be dupe, and play my
+_rôle_ with my eyes open, or act at once. I awoke from my
+astonishment. "One moment, Madame," I said. "I do not know who this
+gentleman is."
+
+She had resumed her seat, and the stranger had come up to the window
+on her side, and was looking in. He had a face of striking power,
+large-sized and coarse, but not unpleasant; with quick, bright eyes,
+and mobile lips that smiled easily. The hand he laid on the carriage
+door was immense.
+
+I think my words took Madame by surprise. She flashed round on me.
+"Nonsense," she cried imperiously. And to him, "Get in, Monsieur."
+
+"No," I retorted, half-rising. "Stay, if you please. Stay where you
+are, until----"
+
+Madame turned to me, furious. "This is my carriage," she said.
+
+"Absolutely," I answered.
+
+"Then what do you mean?"
+
+"Only that if this gentleman enters it, I leave it."
+
+For an instant we looked at one another. Then she saw that I was
+determined, and, knowing my position, she lowered her tone. "Why?" she
+said, breathing quickly. "Why, because he enters it, should you leave
+it?"
+
+"Because, Madame," I answered, "I see no reason for taking in a
+stranger whom we do not know. This gentleman may be everything that is
+upright----"
+
+"He is no stranger!" she snapped. "I know him. Will that satisfy you?"
+
+"If he will give me his name," I said.
+
+Hitherto he had stood unmoved by the discussion, looking with a smile
+from one to the other of us; but at this he struck in. "With pleasure,
+Monsieur," he said. "My name is Alibon, and I am an advocate of
+Montauban, who last week had the good fortune----"
+
+"No," I said, interrupting him brusquely, and once for all; "I think
+not. Not Alibon of Montauban. Froment of Nîmes, I think, Monsieur."
+
+A little tract of snow flushed by the sunset lay behind him, and by
+contrast darkened his face; I could not see how he took my words. And
+a few seconds elapsed before he answered. When he did, however, he
+spoke calmly, and I fancied I detected as much vanity as chagrin in
+his tone. "Well, Monsieur," he said, "and if I am? What then?"
+
+"If you are," I replied resolutely, meeting his eyes, "I decline to
+travel with you."
+
+"And therefore," he retorted, "Madame, whose carriage this is, must
+not travel with me!"
+
+"No, since she cannot travel without me," I answered with spirit.
+
+He frowned at that; but in a moment, "And why?" he said with a sneer.
+"Am I not good enough for your excellency's company?"
+
+"It is not a question of goodness," I said bluntly, "but of a
+passport, Monsieur. If you ask me, I do not travel with you because I
+hold a commission under the present Government, and I believe you to
+be working against that Government. I have lied for Madame St. Alais
+and her daughter. She was a woman and I had to save her. But I will
+not lie for you, nor be your cloak. Is that plain, Monsieur?"
+
+"Quite," he said slowly. "Yet I serve the King. Whom do you serve?"
+
+I was silent.
+
+"Whose is this commission, Monsieur, that must not be contaminated?"
+
+I writhed under the sneer, but I was silent.
+
+"Come, M. le Vicomte," he continued frankly, and in a different tone.
+"Be yourself, I pray. I am Froment, you have guessed it. I am also a
+fugitive, and were my name spoken in Villeraugues, a league on, I
+should hang for it. And in Ganges the like. I am at your mercy,
+therefore, and I ask you to shelter me. Let me pass through Suméne and
+Ganges as one of your party; thenceforth onwards," he added with a
+smile and a gesture of conscious pride, "I can shift for myself."
+
+I do not wonder I hesitated, I wonder I resisted. It seemed so small a
+thing to ask, so great a thing to refuse, that, though half a minute
+before my mind had been made up, I wavered; wavered miserably. I felt
+my face burn, I felt the passionate ardour of Madame's eyes as they
+devoured it, I felt the call of the silence for my answer. And I was
+near assenting. But as I turned feverishly in my seat to avoid
+Madame's look, my hand touched the packet which contained the
+commission, and the contact wrought a revulsion of feeling. I saw the
+thing as I had seen it before, and, rightly or wrongly, revolted from
+that which I had nearly done.
+
+"No," I cried angrily. "I will not! I will not!"
+
+"You coward!" Madame cried with sudden passion. And she sprang up as
+if to strike me, but sat down again trembling.
+
+"It may be," I said. "But I will not do it."
+
+"Why? Why? Why?" she cried.
+
+"Because I carry that commission; and to use it to shelter M. Froment
+were a thing M. Froment would not do himself. That is all."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and magnanimously kept silence. But she was
+furious. "Quixote!" she cried. "Oh, you are intolerable! But you shall
+suffer for it. _Eh, bien_, Monsieur, you shall suffer for it!" she
+repeated vehemently.
+
+"Nay, Madame, you need not threaten," I retorted.
+
+"For if I would, I could not. You forget that M. de Géol is no more
+than a league behind us, and bound for Nîmes; he may appear at any
+moment. At best he is sure to lodge where we do to-night. If he
+finds," I continued drily, "that I have added a brother to my growing
+family, I do not think that he will take it lightly."
+
+But this, though she must have seen the sense of it, had no effect
+upon her. "Oh, you are intolerable!" she cried again. "Let me out! Let
+me out, Monsieur."
+
+This last to Froment. I did not gainsay her, and he let her out, and
+the two walked a few paces away, talking rapidly.
+
+I followed them with my eyes; and seeing him now, detached, as it
+were, and solitary in that dreary landscape--a man alone and in
+danger--I began to feel some compunction. A moment more, and I might
+have repented; but a touch fell on my sleeve, and I turned with a
+start to find Denise leaning towards me, with her face rapt and eager.
+
+"Monsieur," she whispered eagerly; before she could say more I seized
+the hand with which she had touched me, and kissed it fiercely.
+
+"No, Monsieur, no," she whispered, drawing it from me with her face
+grown crimson--but her eyes still met mine frankly. "Not now. I want
+to speak to you, to warn you, to ask you----"
+
+"And I, Mademoiselle," I cried in the same low tone, "want to bless
+you, to thank you----"
+
+"I want to ask you to take care of yourself," she persisted, shaking
+her head almost petulantly at me, to silence me. "Listen! Some trap
+will be laid for you. My mother would not harm you, though she is
+angry; but that man is desperate, and we are in straits. Be careful,
+therefore, Monsieur, and----"
+
+"Have no fear," I said.
+
+"Ah, but I have fear," she answered.
+
+And the way in which she said that, and the way in which she looked at
+me, and looked away again like a startled bird, filled me with
+happiness--with intense happiness; so that, though Madame came back at
+that moment, and no more passed between us, not even a look, but we
+had to sink back in our seats, and affect indifference, I was a
+different man for it. Perhaps something of this appeared in my face,
+for Madame, as she came up to the door, shot a suspicious glance at
+me, a glance almost of hatred; and from me looked keenly at her
+daughter. However, nothing was said except by Froment, who came up to
+the door and closed it, after she had entered. He raised his hat to
+me.
+
+"M. le Vicomte," he said, with a little bitterness, "if a dog came to
+my door, as I came to you to-day, I would take him in!"
+
+"You would do as I have done," I said.
+
+"No," he said firmly; "I would take him in. Nevertheless, when we meet
+at Nîmes, I hope to convert you."
+
+"To what?" I said coldly.
+
+"To having a little faith," he answered, with dryness. "To having a
+little faith in something--and risking somewhat for it, Monsieur. I
+stand here," he went on, with a gesture that was not without grandeur,
+"alone and homeless, to-day; I do not know where I shall lie to-night.
+And why, M. le Vicomte? Because I alone in France have faith! Because
+I alone believe in anything! Because I alone believe even in myself!
+Do you think," he continued with rising scorn, "that if you nobles
+believed in your nobility, you could be unseated? Never! Or that if
+you, who say 'Long live the King!' believed in your King, he could be
+unseated? Never! Or that if you who profess to obey the Church
+believed in her, she could be uprooted? Never! But you believe in
+nothing, you admire nothing, you reverence nothing--and therefore you
+are doomed! Yes, doomed; for even the men with whom you have linked
+yourself have a sort of bastard faith in their theories, their
+philosophy, their reforms, that are to regenerate the world. But
+you--you believe in nothing; and you shall pass, as you pass from me
+now!"
+
+He waved his hand with a gesture of menace, and before I could answer,
+the carriage rolled on, and left him standing there; the grey
+landscape, cold and barren, took the place of his face at the door.
+The light was beginning to fail; we were still a league from
+Villeraugues. I was glad to feel the carriage moving, and to be free
+from him; my heart, too, was warm because Denise sat opposite me,
+and I loved her. But for all that--and though Madame, glowering at me
+from her corner, troubled me little--the thought that I had deserted
+him--that, and his words, and one word in particular, hummed in my
+head, and oppressed me with a sense of coming ill. "Doomed! Doomed!"
+He had said it as if he meant it. I could no longer question his
+eloquence. I could no longer be ignorant why they called him the
+firebrand of Nîmes. The hot breath of the southern city had come from
+him; the passion of world-old strifes had spoken in his voice.
+Uneasily I pondered over what he had said, and recalled the words
+spoken by Father Benôit, even by Géol, to the same effect; and so
+brooded in my corner, while the carriage jolted on and darkness fell,
+until presently we stopped in the village street.
+
+I offered Madame St. Alais my arm to descend. "No, Monsieur," she
+said, repelling me with passion; "I will not touch you."
+
+She meant, I think, to seclude herself and Mademoiselle, and leave me
+to sup alone. But in the inn there was only one great room for
+parlour, and kitchen, and all; and a little cupboard, veiled by a
+dingy curtain, in which the women might sleep if they pleased, but in
+which they could not possibly eat. The inn was, in fact, the worst in
+which I had stopped--the maid draggled and dirty, and smelling of the
+stable; the company three boors; the floor of earth; the windows
+unglazed. Madame, accustomed to travel, and supported by her anger,
+took all with the ease of a fine lady; but Denise, fresh from her
+convent, winced at the brawling and oaths that rose round her, and
+cowered, pale and frightened, on her stool.
+
+A hundred times I was on the point of interfering to protect her from
+these outrages; but her eyes, when they made me happy by timidly
+seeking mine for an instant, seemed to pray me to abstain; and the
+men, as their senseless tirades showed, were delegates from Castres,
+who at a word would have raised the cry of "Aristocrats!" I refrained,
+therefore, and doubtless with wisdom; but even the arrival of Géol
+would have been a welcome interruption.
+
+I have said that Madame heeded them little; but it presently appeared
+that I was mistaken. After we had supped, and when the noise was at
+its height, she came to me, where I sat a little apart, and, throwing
+into her tone all the anger and disgust which her face so well masked,
+she cried in my ear that we must start at daybreak.
+
+"At daybreak--or before!" she whispered fiercely. "This is horrible!
+horrible!" she continued. "This place is killing me! I would start
+now, cold and dark as it is, if----"
+
+"I will speak to them," I said, taking a step towards the table.
+
+She clutched my sleeve, and pinched me until I winced. "Fool!" she
+said. "Would you ruin us all? A word, and we are betrayed. No; but at
+daybreak we go. We shall not sleep; and the moment it is light we go!"
+
+I consented, of course; and, going to the driver, who had taken our
+place at the table, she whispered him also, and then came back to me,
+and bade me call him if he did not rise. This settled, she went
+towards the closet, whither Mademoiselle had already retired; but
+unfortunately her movements had drawn on her the attention of the
+clowns at the table, and one of these, rising suddenly as she passed,
+intercepted her.
+
+"A toast, Madame! a toast!" he cried, with a gross hiccough; and
+reeling on his feet, he thrust a cup of wine in front of her. "A
+toast; and one that every man, woman, and child in France must drink,
+or be d----d! And that is the Tricolour! The Tricolour; and down with
+Madame Veto! The Tricolour, Madame! Drink to it!"
+
+The drunken wretch pressed the cup on her, while his comrades roared,
+"Drink! Drink! The Tricolour; and down with Madame Veto!" and added
+jests and oaths I will not write.
+
+This was too much; I sprang to my feet to chastise the wretches. But
+Madame, who preserved her presence of mind to a marvel, checked me by
+a glance. "No," she said, raising her head proudly; "I will not
+drink!"
+
+"Ah!" he cried with a vile laugh. "An aristocrat, are we? Drink,
+nevertheless, or we shall show you----"
+
+"I will not drink!" she retorted, facing him with superb courage. "And
+more, when M. de Géol arrives to-night, you will have to give an
+account to him."
+
+The man's face fell. "You know the Baron de Géol?" he said in a
+different tone.
+
+"I left him at the last village, and I expect him here to-night," she
+answered coolly. "And I would advise you, Monsieur, to drink your own
+toasts, and let others go! For he is not a man to brook an insult!"
+
+The brawler shrugged his shoulders, to hide his mortification. "Oh! if
+you are a friend of his," he muttered, preparing to slink back to the
+table, "I suppose it is all right. He is a good man. No offence. If
+you are not an aristocrat----"
+
+"I am no more of an aristocrat than is M. de Géol," she answered. And,
+with a cold bow, she turned, and went to the closet.
+
+The men were a little less noisy after that; for Madame had rightly
+guessed that Géol's name was known and respected. They presently
+wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and lay down on the floor; and I
+did the same, passing the night, in the result, in greater comfort
+than I expected.
+
+At first, it is true, I did not sleep; but later I fell into an uneasy
+slumber, and, passing from one troubled dream to another--for which I
+had, doubtless, to thank the foul air of the room--I awoke at last
+with a start, to find some one leaning over me. Apparently it was
+still night, for all was quiet; but the red embers of the fire glowed
+on the hearth, and dimly lit up the room, enabling me to see that it
+was Madame St. Alais who had roused me. She pointed to the other men,
+who still lay snoring.
+
+"Hush!" she whispered, with her finger on her lip. "It is after five.
+Jules is harnessing the horses. I have paid the woman here, and in
+five minutes we shall be ready."
+
+"But the sun will not rise for another hour," I answered. This was
+early starting with a vengeance!
+
+Madame, however, had set her heart upon it. "Do you want to expose us
+to more of this?" she said, in a furious whisper. "To keep us here
+until Géol arrives, perhaps?"
+
+"I am ready, Madame," I said.
+
+This satisfied her; she flitted away without any more, and disappeared
+behind the curtain, and I heard whispering. I put on my boots, and,
+the room being very cold, stooped a moment over the fire, and drawing
+the embers together with my foot, warmed myself. Then I put on my
+cravat and sword, which I had removed, and stood ready to start. It
+seemed uselessly early; and we had started so early the day before! If
+Madame wished it, however, it was my place to give way to her.
+
+In a moment she came to me again; and I saw, even by that light, that
+her face was twitching with eagerness. "Oh!" she said; "will he never
+come? That man will be all day. Go and hasten him, Monsieur! If Géol
+comes? Go, for pity's sake, and hasten him!"
+
+I wondered, thinking such haste utterly vain and foolish--it was not
+likely that Géol would arrive at this hour; but, concluding that
+Madame's nerves had failed at last, I thought it proper to comply,
+and, stepping carefully over the sleepers, reached the door. I raised
+the latch, and in a moment was outside, and had closed the door behind
+me. The bitter dawn wind, laden with a fine snow, lashed my cheeks,
+and bit through my cloak, and made me shiver. In the east the daybreak
+was only faintly apparent; in every other quarter it was still night,
+and, for all I could see, might be midnight.
+
+Very little in charity with Madame, I picked my way, shivering, to the
+door of the stable--a mean hovel, in a line with the house, and set in
+a sea of mud. It was closed, but a dim yellow light, proceeding from a
+window towards the farther end, showed me where Jules was at work; and
+I raised the latch, and called him. He did not answer, and I had to go
+in to him, passing behind three or four wretched nags--some on their
+legs and some lying down--until I came to our horses, which stood side
+by side at the end, with the lantern hung on a hook near them.
+
+Still I did not see Jules, and I was standing wondering where he
+was--for he did not answer--when, with a whish, something black struck
+me in the face. It blinded me; in a moment I found myself struggling
+in the folds of a cloak, that completely enveloped my face, while a
+grip of iron seized my arms and bound them to my sides. Taken
+completely by surprise, I tried to shout, but the heavy cloak
+stifled me; when, struggling desperately, I succeeded in uttering a
+half-choked cry, other hands than those which held me pressed the
+cloak more tightly over my face. In vain I writhed and twisted, and,
+half-suffocated, tried to free myself. I felt hands pass deftly over
+me, and knew that I was being robbed. Then, as I still resisted, the
+man who held me from behind tripped me up, and I fell, still in his
+grasp, on my face on the ground.
+
+Fortunately I fell on some litter; but, even so, the shock drove the
+breath out of me; and what with that and the cloak, which in this new
+position threatened to strangle me outright, I lay a moment helpless,
+while the wretches bound my hands behind me, and tied my ankles
+together. Thus secured, I felt myself taken up, and carried a little
+way, and flung roughly down on a soft bed--of hay, as I knew by the
+scent. Then some one threw a truss of hay on me, and more and more
+hay, until I thought that I should be stifled, and tried frantically
+to shout. But the cloak was wound two or three times round my head,
+and, strive as I would, I could only, with all my efforts, force out a
+dull cry, that died, smothered in its folds.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+                            A POOR FIGURE.
+
+
+I did not struggle long. The efforts I had made to free myself from
+the men, and this last exertion of striving to shout, brought the
+blood to my head; and so exhausted me that I lay inert, my heart
+panting as if it would suffocate me, and my lungs craving more air. I
+was in danger of being stifled in earnest, and knew it; but,
+fortunately, the horror of this fate, which a minute before had driven
+me to frantic efforts, now gave me the supreme courage to lie still,
+and, collecting myself, do all I could to get air.
+
+It was time I did. I was hot as fire, and sweating at every pore;
+however the dreadful sensation of choking went off somewhat when I had
+lain a while motionless, and by turning my head and chest a little
+to the side--which I succeeded in doing, though I could not raise
+myself--I breathed more freely. Still, my position was horrible.
+Helpless as I was, with the trusses of hay pressing on me, fresh
+pains soon rose to take the place of those allayed. The bonds on my
+wrists began to burn into my flesh, the hilt of my sword forced itself
+into my side, my back seemed to be breaking under the burden, my
+shoulders ached intolerably. I was being slowly, slowly pressed to
+death, in darkness, and when a cry--a single cry, if I could raise my
+voice--would bring relief and succour!
+
+The thought so maddened me that, fancying after an age of this
+suffering that I heard a faint sound as of some one moving in the
+stable, I lost control of myself, and fell to struggling again; while
+groans broke from me instead of cries, and the bonds cut into my arms.
+But the paroxysm only added to my misery; the person, whoever he was,
+did not hear me, and made no further noise; or, if he did, the blood
+coursing to my head, and swelling the veins of my neck almost to
+bursting, deafened me to the sound. The horrible weight that I had
+raised for a moment sank again. I gave up, I despaired; and lay in a
+kind of swoon, unable to think, unable to remember, no longer hoping
+for relief, or planning escape, but enduring.
+
+I must have lain thus some time, when a noise loud enough to reach my
+dulled ears roused me afresh; I listened, at first with half a heart.
+The noise was repeated; then, without further warning, a sharp pain
+darted through the calf of my leg. I screamed out; and, though the
+cloak and the hay over my head choked the cry, I caught a kind of echo
+of it. Then silence.
+
+Stupid as a in an awakened from sleep, I thought for a moment that I
+had dreamed both the cry and the pain; and groaned in my misery. The
+next moment I felt the hay that lay on me move; then the truss that
+pressed most heavily on me was lifted, and I heard voices and cries,
+and saw a faint light, and knew I was freed. In a twinkling I felt
+myself seized and drawn out, amid a murmur of cries and exclamations.
+The cloak was plucked from my head, and, dazzled and half blind, I
+found half a dozen faces gaping and staring at me.
+
+"Why, _mon Dieu!_ it is the gentleman who departed this morning!"
+cried a woman. And she threw up her hands in astonishment.
+
+I looked at her. She was the woman of the house.
+
+My throat was dry and parched, my lips were swollen; but at the second
+attempt I managed to tell her to untie me.
+
+She complied, amid fresh exclamations of surprise and astonishment;
+then, as I was so stiff and benumbed as to be powerless, they lifted
+me to the door of the stable, where one set a stool, and another
+brought a cup of water. This and the cold air restored me, and in a
+minute or two I was able to stand. Meanwhile they pressed me with
+questions; but I was giddy and confused, and could not for a few
+minutes collect myself. By-and-by, however, a person who came up
+with an air of importance, and pushed aside the crowd of clowns and
+stable-helpers that surrounded me, helped me to find my voice.
+
+"What is it?" he said. "What is it, Monsieur? What brought you in the
+stable?"
+
+The woman who kept the inn answered for me that she did not know; that
+one of the men going to get hay had struck his fork into my leg, and
+so found me.
+
+"But who is he?" the new-comer asked imperatively. He was a tall, thin
+man, with a sour face and small, suspicious eyes.
+
+"I am the Vicomte de Saux," I answered.
+
+"Eh!" he said, prolonging the syllable. "And how came you, M. le
+Vicomte--if that be your name--in the stable?"
+
+"I have been robbed," I muttered.
+
+"Bobbed!" he answered with a sniff. "Bah! Monsieur; in this commune we
+have no robbers."
+
+"Still, I have been robbed," I answered stupidly.
+
+For answer, before I knew what he was about, he plunged his hand,
+without ceremony or leave, into the pocket of my coat, and brought out
+a purse. He held it up for all to see. "Robbed?" he said in a tone of
+irony. "I think not, Monsieur; I think not!"
+
+I looked at the purse in astonishment; then, mechanically putting my
+hand into my pocket, I produced first one thing, and then another, and
+stared at them. He was right. I had not been robbed. Snuff-box,
+handkerchief, my watch and seals, my knife, and a little mirror, and
+book--all were there!
+
+"And now I come to think of it," the woman said, speaking suddenly,
+"there are a pair of saddle-bags in the house that must belong to the
+gentleman! I was wondering a while ago whose they were."
+
+"They are mine!" I cried, memory and sense returning. "They are mine!
+But the ladies who were with me? They have not started?"
+
+"They went these three hours back," the woman answered, staring at me.
+"And I could have sworn that Monsieur went with them! But, to be sure,
+it was only just light, and a mistake is soon made."
+
+A thought that should have occurred to me before--a horrible
+thought--darted its sting into my heart. I plunged my hand into the
+inner pocket of my coat, and drew it out empty. The commission--the
+commission to which I had trusted was gone!
+
+I uttered a cry of rage and glared round me. "What is it?" said the
+sour man, meeting my eyes.
+
+"My papers!" I answered, almost gnashing my teeth, as I thought how I
+had been tricked and treated. I saw it all now. "My papers!"
+
+"Well?" he said.
+
+"They are gone! I have been robbed of them!"
+
+"Indeed!" he said drily. "That remains to be proved, Monsieur."
+
+I thought that he meant that I might be mistaken, as I had been
+mistaken before; and, to make certain, I turned out the pocket.
+
+"No," he said, as drily as before. "I see that they are not there. But
+the point is, Monsieur, were they ever there?"
+
+I looked at him.
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is the point, Monsieur. Where are your papers?"
+
+"I tell you I have been robbed of them!" I cried, in a rage.
+
+"And I say, that remains to be proved," he answered. "And until it is
+proved, you do not leave here. That is all, Monsieur, and it is
+simple."
+
+"And who," I said indignantly, "are you, I should like to know,
+Monsieur, who stop travellers on the highway, and ask for papers?"
+
+"Merely the President of the Local Committee," he replied.
+
+"And do you suppose," I said, fuming at his folly, "that I bound my
+hands, and stifled myself under that hay, on purpose? On purpose to
+pass through your wretched village?"
+
+"I suppose nothing, Monsieur," he answered coolly. "But this is the
+road to Turin, where M. d'Artois is said to be collecting the
+disaffected; and to Nîmes, where mischievous persons are flaunting the
+red cockade. And without papers, no one passes."
+
+"But what will you do with me?" I asked, seeing that the clowns, who
+gaped round us, regarded him as nothing less than a Solomon.
+
+"Detain you, M. le Vicomte, until you procure papers," he answered.
+
+"But, _mon Dieu!_" I said. "That is not so easily done here. Who is
+likely to know me?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Monsieur does not leave without the
+papers," he said. "That is all."
+
+And he spoke truly, that was all. In vain I laid the facts before him,
+and asked if any one would voluntarily suffer, merely to hide his lack
+of papers, what I had undergone; in vain I asked if the state in which
+I had been found was not itself proof that I had been robbed; if a man
+could tie his own hands, and pile hay on himself. In vain even that I
+said I knew who had robbed me; the last statement only made matters
+worse.
+
+"Indeed!" he said ironically. "Then, pray, who was it?"
+
+"The rogue Froment! Froment of Nîmes!"
+
+"He is not in this country."
+
+"Indeed! I saw him yesterday," I answered.
+
+"Then that settles the matter," the Committee-man answered, with a
+grim smile; and his little court smiled too. "After that, we certainly
+cannot lose sight of M. le Vicomte."
+
+And so well did he keep his word, that when, to avoid the cold that
+began to pierce me, I went into the wretched inn, and sat down on the
+hearth to think over the position, two of the yokels accompanied me;
+and when I went out again, and stood looking distrustfully up and down
+the road, two more were at my elbow, as by magic. Whether I turned
+this way or that, one was sure to spring up, and, if I walked too far
+from the house, would touch me on the arm, and gruffly order me back.
+Mont Aigoual itself, lifting its crest, bleak, and stern, and cold,
+above the valley, was not more sure than their attendance, or more
+immovable.
+
+This added to my irritation, and for a time I was like a madman.
+Deluded by Madame St. Alais, and robbed by Froment--who, I felt sure,
+had taken my place, and was now rolling at his ease through Suméne and
+Ganges with my commission in his pocket--I strode up and down the
+road, the road that was my prison, in a fever of rage and chagrin.
+Madame's ingratitude, my own easiness, the villagers' stupidity, I
+execrated all in turn; but most, perhaps, the inaction to which they
+condemned me. I had escaped with my life, and for that should have
+been thankful; but no man cares to be duped. And one day, two days,
+three days passed; it froze and thawed, snowed and was fine; still,
+while the carriage bowled along the road to Nîmes, and carried my
+mistress farther and farther from me, I lay a prisoner in this
+wretched hamlet. I grew to loathe the squalid inn, in which I kicked
+my heels through the cold hours, the muddy road that ran by it, the
+mean row of hovels they called the village. All day, and whenever I
+went abroad, the clowns dogged and flouted me, thinking it sport; each
+evening the Committee came to stare and question. A house this way, a
+house that way, were my boundaries, while the world moved beyond the
+mountains, and France throbbed; and I knew not what might be in hand
+to separate Denise from me. No wonder that I almost chafed myself into
+madness.
+
+I had left my horse at Milhau, whence the landlord had undertaken to
+forward it to Ganges within a couple of days, by the hand of an
+acquaintance who would be going that way. I expected it every hour,
+therefore, and my only hope was that its conductor might be able to
+identify me, since half a hundred at Milhau had seen my commission, or
+heard it read. But the horse did not arrive, nor any one from Milhau,
+and fearing that the release of the two ladies had caused trouble
+there, my heart sank still lower. I could not easily communicate with
+Cahors, and the Committee, with rustic independence and obstinacy,
+would neither let me go nor send me to Nîmes, where I could be
+identified. It was in vain I pressed them.
+
+"No, no," the sour-faced Committee-man answered, the first time I
+raised the question. "Presently some one who knows you will come by.
+In the meantime have patience."
+
+"M. le Vicomte is a gentleman many would know," the woman of the house
+chimed in; looking at me with her arms wrapped up in her apron and her
+head on one side.
+
+"To be sure! To be sure," the crowd agreed, and, rubbing their calves,
+the members of the Committee followed her lead, and looked at me with
+satisfaction, as at something that did them credit.
+
+Their stupid complacency nearly drove me mad; but to what purpose?
+"After all, you are very well here," the first speaker would say,
+shrugging his shoulders. "You are very well here."
+
+"Better than under the hay!" the man who had pricked my leg was wont
+to answer.
+
+And on that--this was a nightly joke--a general laugh would follow,
+and with another admonition to be patient, the Committee would take
+its leave.
+
+Or sometimes the argument in the kitchen took a harsher and more
+dangerous turn; and one and another would recall for my benefit old
+tales of the dragooning, and Villars, and Berwick; tales, at which the
+blood crept, of horrible cruelties done and suffered, of stern
+mountain men and brave women who faced the worst that Kings could do,
+for the fate that they had chosen; of a great cause crushed but not
+destroyed, of a whole people trodden down in dust and blood, and yet
+living and growing strong.
+
+"And do you think that after this," the speaker would cry when he had
+told me these things with flashing eyes, these things that his
+grandfathers had done and suffered--"do you think that after this we
+are not concerned in this business? Do you think that now, Monsieur,
+when, after all these years, vengeance is in our hand and our
+persecutors are tottering, we will sit still and see them set up
+again? Bishops and captains, canons and cardinals, where are they now?
+Where are the lands they stole from us? Gone from them! Where are the
+tithes they took with blood? Taken from them! Where is St. Etienne,
+whose father they persecuted? With his foot on their necks! And, after
+this, do you think that with all their processions and their idols and
+their Corpus Christi, they shall defy us and set up their rule again?
+No, Monsieur, no."
+
+"But there is no question of that!" I said mildly.
+
+"There is great question of that," was the stern answer. "In Nîmes and
+Montauban, at Avignon, and at Arles! We who live in the mountains have
+too often heard the storm gathering in the plain to be mistaken. These
+preachings and processions, and weeping virgins, this cry of
+Blasphemy--what do they mean, Monsieur? Blood! Blood! Blood! It has
+been so a score of times, it is so now! But this time blood will not
+be shed on one side only!"
+
+And I listened and marvelled. I began to understand that the same word
+meant one thing in one man's mouth, and in another man's mouth another
+thing; and that that which worked easily and smoothly in the north
+might in the south roll hideously through fire and blood. In Quercy we
+had lost two or three châteaux, and a handful of lives, and for a few
+hours the mob had got out of hand--all with little enthusiasm. But
+here--here I seemed to stand on the brink of a great furnace under
+which the fires of persecution still smouldered; I felt the scorching
+breath of passion on my cheek, and saw through the white-hot scum old
+enmities seething with new and fiercer ambitions, old factions with
+new bigotries. I had heard Froment, now I heard these; it remained
+only to be seen whether Froment had his followers.
+
+In the meantime, pent up in this place, I found little comfort in such
+predictions; I lived on my heart, and the better part of a fortnight
+went by. The woman at the inn was well satisfied to keep me; I paid,
+and guests were rare. And the Committee took pride in me; I was a
+living, walking token of their powers, and of the importance of their
+village. Now to the mingled misery and absurdity of my position, the
+anxiety on Mademoiselle's account, which this news of Nîmes caused me,
+added the last intolerable touch, and I determined at all risks to
+escape.
+
+That I had no horse, and that at Suméne or Ganges I should inevitably
+be detained, had hitherto held me back from the attempt; now I could
+bear the position no longer, and after weighing all the chances, I
+determined to slip away some evening at sunset, and make my way on
+foot to Milhau. The villagers would be sure to pursue me in the
+direction of Nîmes, whither they knew that I was bound; and even if a
+party took the other road, I should have many chances of escape in the
+darkness. I counted on reaching Milhau soon after daybreak, and there,
+if the Mayor stood my friend, I might regain my horse, and with
+credentials travel to Nîmes by the same or another road.
+
+It seemed feasible, and that very evening fortune favoured me. The man
+who should have kept me company, upset a pot of boiling water over his
+foot, and without giving a thought to me or his duty went off groaning
+to his house. A moment later the woman of the inn was called out by a
+neighbour, and at the very hour I would have chosen, I found myself
+alone. Still I knew that I had not a moment to lose; instantly,
+therefore, I put on my cloak, and reaching down my pistols from a
+shelf on which they had been placed, I put a little food in my pocket
+and sneaked out at the rear of the house. A dog was kennelled there,
+but it knew me and wagged its tail; and in two minutes, after warily
+skirting the backs of the houses, I gained the road to Milhau, and
+stood free and alone.
+
+Night had fallen, but it was not quite dark; and dreading every eye, I
+hurried on through the dusk, now peering anxiously forward, and now
+looking and listening for the first sounds of pursuit. For a few
+minutes the fear of that took up all my thoughts; later, when the one
+twinkling light that marked the village had set behind me, and night
+and the silent waste of mountains had swallowed me up, a sense of
+eeriness, of loneliness, very depressing, took possession of me.
+Denise was at Nîmes, and I was moving the other way; what accidents
+might not befall me, how many things might not happen to postpone my
+return? In the meantime she lay at the mercy of her mother and
+brothers, with all the traditions of her family, all the prejudices of
+maidenhood and her education against my suit. To what use in this
+imbroglio might not her hand be put? Or, if that were not in question,
+what in that city of strife, in that fierce struggle, of which the
+peasants had forewarned me, might not be the fate of a young girl?
+
+Spurred by these thoughts, I pressed on feverishly, and had gone,
+perhaps, a league, when a sharp sound made by a horse's shoe striking
+a stone, caught my ear. It came from the front, and I drew to the side
+of the road, and crouched low to let the traveller go by. I fancied
+that I could distinguish the tramp of three horses, but when the men
+loomed darkly into sight, I could see only two figures.
+
+Perhaps I rose a little too high in my anxiety to see. At any rate I
+had not counted on the horses, the nearer of which, as it passed me,
+swerved violently from me. The rider was almost dismounted by the
+violence of the movement, but in a twinkling had his horse again in
+hand, and before I knew what I was doing, was urging it upon me. I
+dared not move, for to move was to betray my presence, but this did
+not avail, for in a minute the rider made out the outline of my
+figure.
+
+"Hola," he cried sharply. "Who are you there, who lie in wait to break
+men's necks? Speak, man, or----"
+
+But I caught his bridle. "M. de Géol!" I cried, my heart beating
+against my ribs.
+
+"Stand back!" he cried, peering at me. He did not know my voice. "Who
+are you? Who is it?"
+
+"It is I, M. de Saux," I answered joyfully.
+
+"Why, man, I thought that you were at Nîmes," he exclaimed in a tone
+of great astonishment, "these ten days past! We have your horse here."
+
+"Here? My horse?"
+
+"To be sure. Your good friend here has it in charge from Milhau. But
+where have you been? And what are you doing here?" he continued
+suspiciously.
+
+"I lost my passport. It was stolen by Froment."
+
+He whistled.
+
+"And at Villeraugues they stopped me," I continued. "I have been there
+since."
+
+"Ah," he said drily. "That comes of travelling in bad company, M. le
+Vicomte. And to-night I suppose you were----"
+
+"Going to get away," I answered bluntly. "But you--I thought that you
+had passed long ago?"
+
+"No," he said. "I was detained. Now we have met, I would advise you to
+mount and return with me."
+
+"I will," I said briskly, "with the greatest pleasure. And you will be
+able to tell them who I am."
+
+"I?" he answered. "No, indeed. I do not know. I only know who you told
+me you were."
+
+I fell to earth again, and for a moment stood staring through the
+darkness at him. A moment only. For then out of the darkness came a
+voice. "Have no fear, M. le Vicomte, I will speak for you."
+
+I started and stared. "_Mon Dieu!_" I said, trembling. "Who spoke?"
+
+"It is I--Buton," came the answer. "I have your horse, M. le Vicomte."
+
+It was Buton, the blacksmith; Captain Buton, of the Committee.
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+This for the time cut the thread of my difficulties. When we rode into
+the village ten minutes later, the Committee, awed by the credentials
+which Buton carried, accepted his explanation at once, and raised no
+further objection to my journey. So twelve hours afterwards we three,
+thus strangely thrown together, passed through Suméne. We slept at
+Sauve, and presently leaving behind us the late winter of the
+mountains, with its frost and snow, began to descend in sunshine the
+western slope of the Rhone valley. All day we rode through balmy air,
+between fields and gardens and olive groves; the white dust, the white
+houses, the white cliffs eloquent of the south. And a little before
+sunset we came in sight of Nîmes, and hailed the end of a journey
+that, for me, had not been without its adventures.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIX.
+
+                              AT NÎMES.
+
+
+It will be believed that I looked on the city with no common emotions.
+I had heard enough at Villeraugues--and to that enough M. de Géol had
+added by the way a thousand details--to satisfy me that here and not
+in the north, here in the Gard, and the Bouches du Rhone, among the
+olive groves and white dust of the south, and not among the
+wheatfields and pastures of the north, the fate of the nation hung in
+the balance; and that not in Paris--where men would and yet would not,
+where Mirabeau and Lafayette, in fear of the mob, took one day a step
+towards the King, and the next, fearful lest restored he should
+punish, retraced it--could the convulsion be arrested, but here! Here,
+where the warm imagination of the Provençal still saw something holy
+in things once holy, and faction bound men to faith.
+
+Hitherto the stream of revolution had met with no check. Obstacles
+apparently the strongest, the King, the nobles, had crumbled and sunk
+before it, almost without a struggle; it remained to be seen whether
+the third and last of the governing powers, the Church, would fare
+better. Clearly, if Froment were right, and faith must be met by
+faith, and bigotry of one kind be opposed by bigotry of another kind,
+here in the valley of the Rhone, where the Church still kept its hold,
+lay the materials nearest to the enthusiast's hand. In that case--and
+with this in my mind, I took my first long look at the city, and the
+wide low plain that lay beyond it, bathed in the sunset light--in that
+case, from this spot might fly a torch to kindle France! Hence might
+start within the next few days a conflagration as wide as the land;
+that taken up, and roaring ever higher and higher through all La
+Vendée, and Brittany, and the Côtes du Nord, might swiftly ring round
+Paris with a circle of flame.
+
+Once get it fairly alight. But there lay the doubt; and I looked
+again, and looked with eager curiosity, at this city from which so
+much was expected; this far-stretching city of flat roofs and white
+houses, trending gently down from the last spurs of the Cevennes to
+the Rhone plain. North of it, in the outskirts rose three low hills,
+the midmost crowned with a tower, the eastern-most casting a shadow
+almost to the distant river; and from these, eastward and southward,
+the city sloped. And these hills, and the roads near us, and the plain
+already verdant, and the great workshops that here and there rose in
+the faubourgs, all, as we approached, seemed to teem with life and
+people; with people coming and going, alone and in groups, sauntering
+beyond the walls for pleasure, or hastening on business.
+
+Of these, I noticed all wore a badge of some kind; many the tricolour,
+but more a red ribbon, a red tuft, a red cockade--emblems at sight of
+which my companions' faces grew darker, and ever darker. Another thing
+characteristic of the place, the tinkling of many bells, calling to
+vespers--though I found the sound fall pleasantly on the evening
+air--was as little to their taste. They growled together, and
+increased their pace; the result of which was that insensibly I fell
+to the rear. As we entered the streets, the traffic that met us, and
+the keenness with which I looked about me, increased the distance
+between us; presently, a long line of carts and a company of National
+Guards intervening, I found myself riding alone, a hundred paces
+behind them.
+
+I was not sorry; the novelty of the shifting crowd, the changing
+faces, the southern patois, the moving string of soldiers, peasants,
+workmen, women, amused me. I was less sorry when by-and-by
+something--something which I had dimly imagined might happen when I
+reached Nîmes--took real shape, there, in the crooked street; and
+struck me, as it were, in the face. As I passed under a barred window
+a little above the roadway, a window on which my eyes alighted for an
+instant, a white hand waved a handkerchief--for an instant only, just
+long enough for me to take in the action and think of Denise! Then, as
+I jerked the reins, the handkerchief was gone, the window was empty,
+on either side of me the crowd chattered, and jostled on its way.
+
+I pulled up mechanically, and looked round, my heart beating. I could
+see no one near me for whom the signal could be intended; and yet--it
+seemed odd. I could hardly believe in such good fortune; or that I had
+found Denise so soon. However, as my eyes returned doubtfully to the
+window, the handkerchief flickered in it again; and this time the
+signal was so unmistakably meant for me that, shamed out of my
+prudence, I pushed my horse through the crowd to the door, and hastily
+dismounting, threw the rein to an urchin who stood near. I was shy of
+asking him who lived in the house; and with a single glance at the
+dull white front, and the row of barred windows that ran below the
+balcony, I resigned myself to fortune, and knocked.
+
+On the instant the door flew open, and a servant appeared. I had not
+considered what I would say, and for a moment I stared at him
+foolishly. Then, at a venture, on the spur of the moment, I asked if
+Madame received.
+
+He answered very civilly that she did, and held the door open for me
+to enter.
+
+I did so, confused and wondering; none the less when, having crossed a
+spacious hall, paved with black and white marble, and followed him up
+a staircase, I found everything I saw round me, from the man's quiet
+livery to the mouldings of the ceiling, wearing the stamp of elegance
+and refinement. Pedestals, supporting marble busts, stood in the
+angles of the staircase; there were orange trees in jars in the hall,
+and antique fragments adorned the walls. However, I saw these only in
+passing; in a moment I reached the head of the stairs, and the man
+opening a door, stood aside.
+
+I entered the room, my eyes shining; in a dream, an impossible dream,
+that held possession of me for one moment, that Denise--not
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais, but Denise, the girl who loved me and with
+whom I had never been alone, might be there to receive me. Instead, a
+stranger rose slowly from a seat in one of the window bays, and, after
+a moment's hesitation, came forward to meet me; a strange lady, tall,
+grave, and very handsome, whose dark eyes scanned me seriously, while
+the blood rose a little to her pure olive cheek.
+
+Seeing that she was a stranger, I began to stammer an apology for my
+intrusion. She curtsied. "Monsieur need not excuse himself," she said,
+smiling. "He was expected, and a meal is ready. If you will allow
+Gervais," she continued, "he will take you to a room, where you can
+remove the dust of the road."
+
+"But, Madame," I stammered, still hesitating. "I am afraid that I am
+trespassing."
+
+She shook her head, smiling. "Be so good," she said; and waved her
+hand towards the door.
+
+"But my horse," I answered, standing bewildered. "I have left it in
+the street."
+
+"It will be cared for," she said. "Will you be so kind?" And she
+pointed with a little imperious gesture to the door.
+
+I went then in utter amazement. The man who had led me upstairs was
+outside. He preceded me along a wide airy passage to a bedroom, in
+which I found all that I needed to refresh my toilet. He took my coat
+and hat, and attended me with the skill of one trained to such
+offices; and in a state of desperate bewilderment, I suffered it. But
+when, recovering a little from my confusion, I opened my mouth to ask
+a question, he begged me to excuse him; Madame would explain.
+
+"Madame----?" I said; and looked at him interrogatively, and waited
+for him to fill the blank.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, Madame will explain," he answered glibly, and without
+a smile; and then, seeing that I was ready, he led me back, not to the
+room I had left, but to another.
+
+I went in, like a man in a dream; not doubting, however, that now I
+should have an answer to the riddle. But I found none. The room was
+spacious, and parquet-floored, with three high narrow windows, of
+which one, partly open, let in the murmur of the street. A small wood
+fire burned on a wide hearth between carved marble pillars; and in one
+corner of the room stood a harpsichord, harp, and music-stand. Nearer
+the fire a small round table, daintily laid for supper, and lighted by
+candles, placed in old silver sconces, presented a charming picture;
+and by it stood the lady I had seen.
+
+"Are you cold?" she said, coming forward frankly, as I advanced.
+
+"No, Madame."
+
+"Then we will sit down at once," she answered. And she pointed to the
+table.
+
+I took the seat she indicated, and saw with astonishment that covers
+were laid for two only. She caught the look, and blushed faintly, and
+her lip trembled as if with the effort to suppress a smile. But she
+said nothing, and any thought to her disadvantage which might have
+entered my mind was anticipated, not only by the sedate courtesy of
+her manner, but by the appearance of the room, the show of wealth and
+ease that surrounded her, and the very respectability of the butler
+who waited on us.
+
+"Have you ridden far to-day?" she said, crumbling a roll with her
+fingers as if she were not quite free from nervousness; and looking
+now at the table and now again at me in a way almost appealing.
+
+"From Sauve, Madame," I answered.
+
+"Ah! And you propose to go?"
+
+"No farther."
+
+"I am glad to hear it," she said, with a charming smile. "You are a
+stranger in Nîmes?"
+
+"I was. I do not feel so now."
+
+"Thank you," she answered, her eyes meeting mine without reserve.
+"That you may feel more at home, I am going presently to tell you my
+name. Yours I do not ask."
+
+"You do not know it?" I cried.
+
+"No," she said, laughing; and I saw, as she laughed, that she was
+younger than I had thought; that she was little more than a girl. "Of
+course, you can tell it me if you please," she added lightly.
+
+"Then, Madame, I do please," I answered gallantly. "I am the Vicomte
+de Saux, of Saux by Cahors, and am very much at your service."
+
+She held her hand suspended, and stared at me a moment in undisguised
+astonishment. I even thought that I read something like terror in her
+eyes. Then she said: "Of Saux by Cahors?"
+
+"Yes, Madame. And I am driven to fear," I continued, seeing the effect
+my words produced, "that I am here in the place of some one else."
+
+"Oh, no!" she said. Then, her feelings seeming to find sudden vent,
+she laughed and clapped her hands. "No, Monsieur," she cried gaily,
+"there is no error, I assure you. On the contrary, now I know who you
+are, I will give you a toast. Alphonse! Fill M. le Vicomte's glass,
+and then leave us! So! Now, M. le Vicomte," she continued, "you must
+drink with me, _à l'Anglaise_, to----"
+
+She paused and looked at me slily. "I am all attention, Madame," I
+said, bowing.
+
+"To _la belle_ Denise!" she said.
+
+It was my turn to start and stare now; in confusion as well as
+surprise. But she only laughed the more, and, clapping her hands with
+childish abandon, bade me, "Drink, Monsieur, drink!"
+
+I did so bravely, though I coloured under her eyes.
+
+"That is well," she said, as I set down the glass. "Now, Monsieur, I
+shall be able--in the proper quarter--to report you no recreant."
+
+"But, Madame," I said, "how do you know the proper quarter?"
+
+"How do I know?" she answered naïvely. "Ah, that is the question."
+
+But she did not answer it; though I remarked that from this moment she
+took a different tone with me. She dropped much of the reserve which
+she had hitherto maintained, and began to pour upon me a fire of wit
+and badinage, merriment and _plaisanterie_, against which I defended
+myself as well as I could, where all the advantage of knowledge lay
+with her. Such a duel with so fair an antagonist had its charms, the
+more as Denise and my relations to her formed the main objects of her
+raillery: yet I was not sorry when a clock, striking eight, produced a
+sudden silence and a change in her, as great as that which had
+preceded it. Her face grew almost sombre, she sighed, and sat looking
+gravely before her. I ventured to ask if anything ailed her.
+
+"Only this, Monsieur," she answered. "That I must now put you to the
+test; and you may fail me."
+
+"You wish me to do something?"
+
+"I wish you to give me your escort," she answered, "to a place and
+back again."
+
+"I am ready," I cried, rising gaily. "If I were not I should be a
+recreant indeed. But I think, Madame, that you were going to tell me
+your name."
+
+"I am Madame Catinot," she answered. And then--I do not know what she
+read in my face, "I am a widow," she added, blushing deeply. "For the
+rest you are no wiser."
+
+"But always at your service, Madame."
+
+"So be it," she answered quietly. "I will meet you, M. le Vicomte, in
+the hall, if you will presently descend thither."
+
+I held the door for her to go out, and she went; and wondering, and
+inexpressibly puzzled by the strangeness of the adventure, I paced up
+and down the room a minute, and then followed her. A hanging lamp
+which lit the hall showed her to me standing at the foot of the
+stairs; her hair hidden by a black lace mantilla, her dress under a
+cloak of the same dark colour. The man who had admitted me gave me in
+silence my cloak and hat; and without a word Madame led the way along
+a passage.
+
+Over a door at the end of the passage was a second light. It fell on
+my hat--as I was about to put it on--and I started and stood. Instead
+of the tricolour I had been wearing in the hat, I saw a small red
+cockade!
+
+Madame heard me stop, and turning, discovered what was the matter. She
+laid her hand on my arm; and the hand trembled. "For an hour,
+Monsieur, only for an hour," she breathed in my ear. "Give me your
+arm."
+
+Somewhat agitated--I began to scent danger and complications--I put on
+the hat and gave her my arm, and in a moment we stood in the open air
+in a dark, narrow passage between high walls. She turned at once to
+the left, and we walked in silence a hundred, or a hundred and fifty,
+paces, which brought us to a low-browed doorway on the same side,
+through which a light poured out. Madame guiding me by a slight
+pressure, we passed through this, and a narrow vestibule beyond it;
+and in a moment I found myself, to my astonishment, in a church, half
+full of silent worshippers.
+
+Madame enjoined silence by laying her finger on her lip, and led the
+way along one of the dim aisles, until we came to a vacant chair
+beside a pillar. She signed to me to stand by the pillar, and herself
+knelt down.
+
+Left at liberty to survey the scene, and form my conclusions, I looked
+about me like a man in a dream. The body of the church, faintly lit,
+was rendered more gloomy by the black cloaks and veils of the vast
+kneeling crowd that filled the nave and grew each moment more dense.
+The men for the most part stood beside pillars, or at the back of the
+church; and from these parts came now and then a low stern muttering,
+the only sound that broke the heavy silence. A red lamp burning before
+the altar added one touch of sombre colour to the scene.
+
+I had not stood long before I felt the silence, and the crowd, and the
+empty vastnesses above us, begin to weigh me down; before my heart
+began to beat quickly in expectation of I knew not what. And then at
+last, when this feeling had grown almost intolerable, out of the
+silence about the altar came the first melancholy notes, the wailing
+refrain of the psalm, _Miserere Domine!_
+
+It had a solemn and wondrous effect as it rose and fell, in the gloom,
+in the silence, above the heads of the kneeling multitude, who one
+moment were there and the next, as the lights sank, were gone, leaving
+only blackness and emptiness and space--and that spasmodic wailing. As
+the pleading, almost desperate notes, floated down the long aisles,
+borne on the palpitating hearts of the listeners, a hand seemed to
+grasp the throat, the eyes grew dim, strong men's heads bowed lower,
+and strong men's hands trembled. _Miserere mei Deus! Miserere Domine!_
+
+At last it came to an end. The psalm died down, and on the darkness
+and dead silence that succeeded, a light flared up suddenly in one
+place, and showed a pale, keen face and eyes that burned, as they
+gazed, not at the dim crowd, but into the empty space above them,
+whence grim, carved visages peered vaguely out of fretted vaults. And
+the preacher began to preach.
+
+In a low voice at first, and with little emotion, he spoke of the ways
+of God with His creatures, of the immensity of the past and the
+littleness of the present, of the Omnipotence before which time and
+space and men were nothing; of the certainty that as God, the
+Almighty, the Everlasting, the Ever-present decreed, it _was_. And
+then, in fuller tones, he went on to speak of the Church, God's agent
+on earth, and of the work which it had done in past ages, converting,
+protecting, shielding the weak, staying the strong, baptising,
+marrying, burying. God's handmaid, God's vicegerent. "Of whom alone it
+comes," the preacher continued, raising his hand now, and speaking in
+a voice that throbbed louder and fuller through the spaces of the
+church, "that we are more than animals, that knowing who is behind the
+veil we fear not temporal things, nor think of death as the worst
+possible, as do the unbelieving; but having that on which we rest,
+outside and beyond the world, can view unmoved the worst that the
+world can do to us. We believe; therefore, we are strong. We believe
+in God; therefore, we are stronger than the world. We believe in God;
+therefore, we are of God, and not of the world. We are above the
+world! we are about the world, and in the strength of God, who is the
+God of Hosts, shall subdue the world."
+
+He paused, holding the crowd breathless; then in a lower tone he
+continued: "Yet how do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain
+thing? They trample on God! They say this exists, I see it. That
+exists, I hear it. The other exists, I touch it. And that is all--that
+is all. But does it come of what we see and hear and feel that a man
+will die for his brother? Does it come of what we see and hear
+and feel that a man will die for a thought? That he will die for a
+creed? That he will die for honour? That, withal, he will die for
+anything--for anything, while he may live? I trow not. It comes of
+God! Of God only.
+
+"And they trample on Him. In the streets, in the senate, in high
+places. And He says, 'Who is on My side?' My children, my brethren, we
+have lived long in a time of ease and safety; we have been long
+untried by aught but the ordinary troubles of life, untrained by the
+imminent issues of life and death. Now, in these late years of the
+world, it has pleased the Almighty to try us; and who is on His side?
+Who is prepared to put the unseen before the seen, honour before life,
+God before man, chivalry before baseness, the Church before the world?
+Who is on His side? Spurned in this little corner of His creation,
+bruised and bleeding and trampled under foot, yet ruler of earth and
+heaven, life and death, judgment and eternity, ruler of all the
+countless worlds of space, He comes! He comes! He comes, God Almighty,
+which was, and is, and is to be! And who is on His side?"
+
+As the last word fell from his lips, and the light above his head went
+suddenly out, and darkness fell on the breathless hush, the listening
+hundreds, an indescribable wave of emotion passed through the crowd.
+Men stirred their feet with a strange, stern sound, that spreading,
+passed in muttered thunder to the vaults; while women sobbed, and here
+and there shrieked and prayed aloud. From the altar a priest in a
+voice that shook with feeling blessed the congregation; then, even as
+I awoke from a trance of attention, Madame touched my arm, and signed
+to me to follow her, and gliding quickly from her place, led the way
+down the aisle. Before the preacher's last words had ceased to ring in
+my ears or my heart had forgotten to be moved, we were walking under
+the stars with the night air cooling our faces; a moment, and we were
+in the house and stood again in the lighted salon where I had first
+found Madame Catinot.
+
+Before I knew what she was going to do, she turned to me with a swift
+movement, and laid both her bare hands on my arm; and I saw that the
+tears were running down her face. "Who is on My side?" she cried, in a
+voice that thrilled me to the soul, so that I started where I stood.
+"Who is on My side? Oh, surely you! Surely you, Monsieur, whose
+fathers' swords were drawn for God and the King! Who, born to guide,
+are surely on the side of light! Who, noble, will never leave the task
+of government to the base! O----" and there, breaking off before I
+could answer, she turned from me with her hands clasped to her face.
+"O God!" she cried with sobs, "give me this man for Thy service."
+
+I stood inexpressibly troubled; moved by the sight of this woman in
+tears, shaken by the conflict in my own soul, somewhat unmanned,
+perhaps, by what I had seen. For a moment I could not speak; when I
+did, "Madame," I said unsteadily, "if I had known that it was for
+this! You have been kind to me, and I--I can make no return."
+
+"Don't say it!" she cried, turning to me and pleading with me. "Don't
+say it!" And she laid her clasped hands on my arm and looked at me,
+and then in a moment smiled through her tears. "Forgive me," she said
+humbly, "forgive me. I went about it wrongly. I feel--too much. I
+asked too quickly. But you will? You will, Monsieur? You will be
+worthy of yourself?"
+
+I groaned. "I hold their commission," I said.
+
+"Return it!"
+
+"But that will not acquit me!"
+
+"Who is on My side?" she said softly. "Who is on My side?"
+
+I drew a deep breath. In the silence of the room, the wood-ashes on
+the hearth settled down, and a clock ticked. "For God! For God and the
+King!" she said, looking up at me with shining eyes, with clasped
+hands.
+
+I could have sworn in my pain. "To what purpose?" I cried almost
+rudely. "If I were to say, yes, to what purpose, Madame? What could I
+do that would help you? What could I do that would avail?"
+
+"Everything! Everything! You are one man more!" she cried. "One man
+more for the right. Listen, Monsieur. You do not know what is afoot,
+or how we are pressed, or----"
+
+She stopped suddenly, abruptly; and looked at me, listening; listening
+with a new expression on her face. The door was not closed, and the
+voice of a man, speaking in the hall below, came up the staircase;
+another instant, and a quick foot crossed the hall, and sounded on the
+stairs. The man was coming up.
+
+Madame, face to face with me, dumb and listening with distended eyes,
+stood a moment, as if taken by surprise. At the last moment, warning
+me by a gesture to be silent, she swept to the door and went out,
+closing it--not quite closing it behind her.
+
+I judged that the man had almost reached it, for I heard him exclaim
+in surprise at her sudden appearance; then he said something in a tone
+which did not reach me. I lost her answer too, but his next words were
+audible enough.
+
+"You will not open the door?" he cried.
+
+"Not of that room," she replied bravely. "You can see me in the other,
+my friend."
+
+Then silence. I could almost hear them breathing. I could picture them
+looking defiance at one another. I grew hot.
+
+"Oh, this is intolerable!" he cried at last. "This is not to be borne.
+Are you to receive every stranger that comes to town? Are you to be
+closeted with them, and sup with them, and sit with them, while I eat
+my heart out outside? Am I--I _will_ go in!"
+
+"You shall not!" she cried; but I thought that the indignation in her
+voice rang false; that laughter underlay it. "It is enough that you
+insult me," she continued proudly. "But if you dare to touch me, or if
+you insult him----"
+
+"Him!" he cried fiercely. "Him, indeed! Madame, I tell you at once, I
+have borne enough. I have suffered this more than once, but----"
+
+But I had no longer any doubt, and before he could add the next word I
+was at the door--I had snatched it open, and stood before him. Madame
+fell back with a cry between tears and laughter, and we stood, looking
+at one another.
+
+The man was Louis St. Alais.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XX.
+
+                             THE SEARCH.
+
+
+I had not seen Louis since the day of the duel at Cahors, when,
+parting from him at the door in the passage by the Cathedral, I had
+refused to take his hand. Then I had been sorely angry with him. But
+time and old memories and crowding events had long softened the
+feeling; and in the joy of meeting him again, of finding him in this
+unexpected stranger, nothing was further from my thoughts than to rake
+up old grudges. I held out my hand, therefore, with a laughing word.
+"_Voilà l'Inconnu_, Monsieur!" I said with a bow. "I am here to find
+you, and I find you!"
+
+He stared at me a moment in the utmost astonishment, and then
+impulsively grasping my hand he held it, and stood looking at me, with
+the old affection in his eyes. "Adrien! Adrien!" he said, much moved.
+"Is it really you?"
+
+"Even so, Monsieur."
+
+"And here?"
+
+"Here," I said.
+
+Then, to my astonishment, he slowly dropped my hand; and his manner
+and his face changed--as a house changes when the shutters are closed.
+"I am sorry for it," he said slowly, and after a long pause. And then,
+with an unmistakable flash of anger, "My God, Monsieur! Why have you
+come?" he cried.
+
+"Why have I come?"
+
+"Ay, why?" he repeated bitterly. "Why? Why have you come--to trouble
+us? You do not know what evil you are doing! You do not know, man!"
+
+"I know at least what good I am seeking," I answered, purely astounded
+by this sudden and inexplicable change. "I have made no secret of
+that, and I make no secret of it now. No man was ever worse treated
+than I have been by your family. Your attitude now impels me to say
+that. But when I see Madame la Marquise, to-morrow, I shall tell her
+that it will take more than this to change me. I shall tell her----"
+
+"You will not see her!" he answered.
+
+"But I shall!"
+
+"You will not!" he retorted.
+
+Before I could answer, Madame Catinot interposed. "Oh, no more!" she
+cried in a voice which sufficiently evinced her distress. "I thought
+that you and he were friends, M. Louis? And now--now that fortune has
+brought you together again----"
+
+"Would to heaven it had not!" he cried, dropping his hand like a man
+in despair. And he took a turn this way and that on the floor.
+
+She looked at him. "I do not think that you have ever spoken to me in
+that tone before, Monsieur," she said in a tone of keen reproach. "If
+it is due--if, I mean," she continued quietly, but with a sparkling
+eye, "it is because you found M. le Vicomte with me, you infer
+something unworthy of us. You insult me as well as your friend!"
+
+"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed.
+
+But she was roused. "That is not enough," she answered firmly and
+proudly. "For one week more, this is my house, M. Louis. After that it
+will be yours. Perhaps then--perhaps then," she continued, with a
+pitiful break in her voice, "I shall think of to-night, and wonder I
+took no warning! Perhaps then, Monsieur, a word of kindness from you
+may be as rare as a rough word now!"
+
+He was not proof against that, and the sadness in her voice. He threw
+himself on his knees before her and seized her hands. "Madame!
+Catherine! forgive me!" he cried passionately, kissing her hands again
+and again, and taking no heed of me at all. "Forgive me!" he
+continued, "I am miserable! You are my only comfort, my only
+compensation. I do not know, since I saw him, what I am saying.
+Forgive me!"
+
+"I do!" she said hastily. "Rise, Monsieur!" and she furtively wiped
+away a tear, then looked at me, blushing but happy. "I do," she
+continued. "But, _mon cher_, I do not understand you. The other day
+you spoke so kindly of M. de Saux; and of--pardon me--your sister, and
+of other things. To-day M. de Saux is here, and you are unhappy."
+
+"I am!" he said, casting a haggard, miserable look at me.
+
+I shrugged my shoulders and spoke up. "So be it," I said proudly. "But
+because I have lost a friend, Monsieur, it does not follow that I need
+lose a mistress. I have come to Nîmes to win Mademoiselle de St.
+Alais' hand. I shall not leave until I have won it."
+
+"This is madness!" he said, with a groan. "Why?"
+
+"Because you talk of the impossible," he answered. "Because Madame de
+St. Alais is not at Nîmes--for you."
+
+"She is at Nîmes!"
+
+"You will have to find her."
+
+"That is childishness!" I said. "Do you mean to say that at the first
+hotel I enter I shall not be told where Madame has her lodging?"
+
+"Neither at the first, nor at the last."
+
+"She is in retreat?"
+
+"I shall not tell you."
+
+With that we stood facing one another; Madame Catinot watching us a
+little aside. Clearly the events of the last few months, which had so
+changed, so hardened Madame St. Alais, had not been lost on Louis. I
+could fancy, as I confronted him, that it was M. le Marquis, the
+elder, and not the younger brother, who withstood me; only--only from
+under Louis' mask of defiance, there peeped, I still fancied, the old
+Louis' face, doubting and miserable.
+
+I tried that chord. "Come," I said, making an effort to swallow my
+wrath, and speak reasonably, "I think that you are not in earnest, M.
+le Comte, in what you say, and that we are both heated. Time was when
+we agreed well enough, and you were not unwilling to have me for your
+brother-in-law. Are we, because of these miserable differences----"
+
+"Differences!" he cried, interrupting me harshly. "My mother's house
+in Cahors is an empty shell. My brother's house at St. Alais is a heap
+of ashes. And you talk of differences!"
+
+"Well, call them what you like!"
+
+"Besides," Madame Catinot interposed quickly, "pardon me,
+Monsieur--besides, M. St. Alais, you know our need of converts. M. le
+Vicomte is a gentleman, and a man of sense and religion. It needs but
+a little--a very little," she continued, smiling faintly at me, "to
+persuade him. And if your sister's hand would do that little, and
+Madame were agreeable?"
+
+"He could not have it!" he answered sullenly, looking away from me.
+
+"But a week ago," Madame Catinot answered in a startled tone, "you
+told me----"
+
+"A week ago is not now," he said. "For the rest, I have only this to
+say. I am sorry to see you here, M. le Vicomte, and I beg you to
+return. You can do no good, and you may do and suffer harm. By no
+possibility can you gain what you seek."
+
+"That remains to be seen," I answered stubbornly, roused in my turn.
+"To begin with, since you say that I cannot find Mademoiselle, I shall
+adopt a very simple plan. I shall wait here until you leave, Monsieur,
+and then accompany you home."
+
+"You will not!" he said.
+
+"You may depend upon it I shall!" I answered defiantly.
+
+But Madame interposed. "No, M. de Saux," she said with dignity. "You
+will not do that; I am sure that you will not; it would be an abuse of
+my hospitality."
+
+"If you forbid it?"
+
+"I do," she answered.
+
+"Then, Madame, I cannot," I replied. "But----"
+
+"But nothing! Let there be a truce now, if you please," she said
+firmly. "If it is to be war between you, it shall not begin here. I
+think, too--I think that I had better ask you to retire," she
+continued, with an appealing glance at me.
+
+I looked at Louis. But he had turned away, and affected to ignore me.
+And on that I succumbed. It was impossible to answer Madame, when she
+spoke to me in that way; and equally impossible to remain in the
+house, against her will. I bowed, therefore, in silence; and with the
+best grace I could, though I was sore and angry, I took my cloak and
+hat, which I had laid on a chair.
+
+"I am sorry," Madame said kindly. And she held out her hand.
+
+I raised it to my lips. "To-morrow--at twelve--here!" she breathed.
+
+I started. I rather guessed than heard the words, so softly were they
+spoken; but her eyes made up for the lack of sound, and I understood.
+The next moment she turned from me, and with a last reluctant glance
+at Louis, who still had his back to me, I went out.
+
+The man who had admitted me was in the hall. "You will find your horse
+at the Louvre, Monsieur," he said, as he opened the door.
+
+I rewarded him, and going out, without a thought whither I was going,
+walked along the street, plunged in reflection; until marching on
+blindly I came against a man. That awoke me, and I looked round. I had
+been in the house little more than three hours, and in Nîmes scarcely
+longer; yet so much had happened in the time that it seemed strange to
+me to find the streets unfamiliar, to find myself alone in them, at a
+loss which way to turn. Though it was hard on ten o'clock, and only a
+swaying lantern here and there made a ring of smoky light at the
+meeting of four ways, there were numbers of people still abroad; a few
+standing, but the majority going one way, the men with cloaks about
+their necks, the women with muffled heads.
+
+Feeling the necessity, since I must get myself a lodging, of putting
+away for the moment my one absorbing thought--the question of Louis'
+behaviour--I stopped a man who was not going with the stream, and
+asked him the way to the Hôtel de Louvre. I learned not only that but
+the cause of the concourse.
+
+"There has been a procession," he answered gruffly. "I should have
+thought that you would know that!" he added, with a glance at my hat.
+And he turned on his heel.
+
+I remembered the red cockade I wore, and before I went farther paused
+to take it out. As I moved on again, a man came quickly up behind me,
+and as he passed thrust a paper into my hand. Before I could speak he
+was gone; but the incident and the bustle of the streets, strange at
+this late hour, helped to divert my thoughts; and I was not surprised
+when, on reaching the inn, I was told that every room was full.
+
+"My horse is here," I said, thinking that the landlord, seeing me walk
+in on foot, might distrust the weight of my purse.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur; and if you like you can lie in the eating-room," he
+answered very civilly. "You are welcome, and you will do no better
+elsewhere. It is as if the fair were being held at Beaucaire. The city
+is full of strangers. Almost as full as it is of those things!" he
+continued querulously, and he pointed to the paper in my hand.
+
+I looked at it, and saw that it was a manifesto headed "_Sacrilege!
+Mary Weeps!_" "It was thrust into my hand a minute ago," I said.
+
+"To be sure," he answered. "One morning we got up and found the walls
+white with them. Another day they were flying loose about the
+streets."
+
+"Do you know," I asked, seeing that he had been supping, and was
+inclined to talk, "where the Marquis de St. Alais is living?"
+
+"No, Monsieur," he said. "I do not know the gentleman."
+
+"But he is here with his family."
+
+"Who is not here," he answered, shrugging his shoulders. Then in a
+lower tone, "Is he red, or--or the other thing, Monsieur?"
+
+"Red," I said boldly.
+
+"Ah! Well, there have been two or three gentlemen going to and fro
+between our M. Froment, and Turin and Montpellier. It is said that our
+Mayor would have arrested them long ago if he had done his duty. But
+he is red too, and most of the councillors. And I don't know, for I
+take no side. Perhaps the gentleman you want is one of these?"
+
+"Very likely," I said. "So M. Froment is here?"
+
+"Monsieur knows him?"
+
+"Yes," I said drily, "a little."
+
+"Well, he is here, or he is not," the landlord answered, shaking his
+head. "It is impossible to say."
+
+"Why?" I asked. "Does he not live here?"
+
+"Yes, he lives here; at the Port d'Auguste on the old wall near the
+Capuchins. But----" he looked round and then continued mysteriously,
+"he goes out, where he has never gone in, Monsieur! And he has a house
+in the Amphitheatre, and it is the same there. And some say that the
+Capuchins is only another house of his. And if you go to the Cabaret
+de la Vierge, and give his name--you pay nothing."
+
+He said this with many nods, and then seemed on a sudden to think that
+he had said too much, and hurried away. Asking for them, I learned
+that M. de Géol and Buton, failing to get a room there, had gone to
+the Ecu de France; but I was not very sorry to be rid of them for the
+time, and accepting the host's offer, I went to the eating-room, and
+there made myself as comfortable as two hard chairs and the excitement
+of my thoughts permitted.
+
+The one thing, the one subject that absorbed me was Louis' behaviour,
+and the strange and abrupt change I had marked in it. He had been glad
+to see me, his hand had leaped to meet mine, I had read the old
+affection in his eyes; and then--then on a sudden, in a moment he had
+frozen into surly, churlish antagonism, an antagonism that had taken
+Madame Catinot by surprise, and was not without a touch of remorse,
+almost of horror. It could not be that she was dead? It could not be
+that Denise--no, my mind failed to entertain it. But I rose, trembling
+at the thought, and paced the room until daylight; listening to the
+watchman's cry, and the mournful hours, and the occasional rush of
+hurrying feet, that spoke of the perturbed city. What to me were
+Froment, or the red or the white or the tricolour, veto or no veto,
+endowment or disendowment, in comparison to that?
+
+The house stirred at last, but I had still to wait till noon before I
+could see Madame Catinot. I spent the interval in an aimless walk
+through the town. At another time the things I saw must have filled me
+with wonder; at another time the hoary, gloomy ring of the Arènes,
+rising in tiers of frowning arches, high above the squalid roofs that
+leaned against it--and choked within by a Ghetto of the like, huddled
+where prefects once sat, and the Emperor's colours flew victorious
+round the circle--must have won my admiration by its vastness; the
+Maison Carrée by its fair proportions; the streets by the teeming
+crowds that filled them, and stood about the cabarets, and read the
+placards on the walls. But I had only thought for Louis, and my love,
+and the lagging minutes. At the first stroke of twelve I knocked at
+Madame Catinot's door; the last saw me in her presence.
+
+It needed but a look at her face, and my heart sank; the thanks I was
+preparing to utter died on my lips as I gazed at her. She on her part
+was agitated. For a moment we were both silent.
+
+At last, "I see that you have bad news for me, Madame," I said,
+striving to smile, and bear myself bravely.
+
+"The worst, I fear," she said pitifully, smoothing her skirt. "For I
+have none, Monsieur."
+
+"Yet I have heard it said that no news is good news?" I said,
+wondering.
+
+Her lip trembled, but she did not look at me.
+
+"Come, Madame," I persisted, though I was sick at heart. "Surely you
+are going to tell me more than that? At least you can tell me where I
+can see Madame St. Alais."
+
+"No, Monsieur, I cannot tell you," she said in a low voice.
+
+"Nor why M. Louis has so suddenly become hostile to me?"
+
+"No, Monsieur, nor that. And I beg--as you are a gentleman," she
+continued hurriedly, "that you will spare me questions! I thought that
+I could help you, and I asked you to see me to-day. I find that I can
+only give you pain."
+
+"And that is all, Madame?"
+
+"That is all," she said, with a gesture that told more than her words.
+
+I looked round the silent room, I walked half way to the door. And
+then I turned back. I could not go. "No!" I cried vehemently, "I will
+not go so! What is it you have learned, that has closed your lips,
+Madame? What are they plotting against her--that you fear to tell me?
+Speak, Madame! You did not bring me here to hear this! That I know."
+
+But she only looked at me, her face full of reproach. "Monsieur," she
+said, "I meant kindly. Is this my reward?"
+
+And that was too much for me. I turned without a word, and went
+out--of the room and the house.
+
+Outside I felt like a child in darkness, on whom the one door leading
+to life and liberty had closed, as his hand touched it. I felt a dead,
+numbing disappointment that at any moment might develop into sharp
+pain. This change in Madame Catinot, resembling so exactly the change
+in Louis St. Alais, what could be the cause of it? What had been
+revealed to her? What was the mystery, the plot, the danger that made
+them all turn from me, as if I had the plague?
+
+For awhile I was in the depths of despair. Then the warm sunshine that
+filled the streets, and spoke of coming summer, kindled lighter
+thoughts. After all it could not be hard to find a person in Nîmes! I
+had soon found M. Louis. And this was the eighteenth century and not
+the sixteenth. Women were no longer exposed to the pressure that had
+once been brought to bear on them; nor men to the violence natural in
+old feuds.
+
+And then--as I thought of that and strove to comfort myself with it--I
+heard a noise burst into the street behind me, a roar of voices and a
+sudden trampling of hundreds of feet; and turning I saw a dense press
+of men coming towards me, waving aloft blue banners, and crucifixes,
+and flags with the Five Wounds. Some were singing and some shouting,
+all were brandishing clubs and weapons. They came along at a good
+pace, filling the street from wall to wall; and to avoid them I
+stepped into an archway, that opportunely presented itself.
+
+They came up in a moment, and swept past me with deafening shouts. It
+was difficult to see more than a forest of waving arms and staves over
+swart excited faces; but through a break in the ranks I caught a
+glimpse of three men walking in the heart of the crowd, quiet
+themselves, yet the cause and centre of all; and the middle man of the
+three was Froment. One of the others wore a cassock, and the third had
+a reckless air, and a hat cocked in the military fashion. So much I
+saw, then only rank upon rank of hurrying shouting men. After these
+again followed three or four hundred of the scum of the city, beggars
+and broken rascals and homeless men.
+
+As I turned from staring after them I found a man at my elbow; by a
+strange coincidence the very same man who, the night before, had
+directed me to the Hôtel de Louvre. I asked him if that was not M.
+Froment.
+
+"Yes," he said with a sneer. "And his brother."
+
+"Oh, his brother! What is his name, Monsieur?"
+
+"Bully Froment, some call him."
+
+"And what are they going to do?"
+
+"Groan outside a Protestant church to-day," he answered pithily.
+"To-morrow break the windows. The next day, or as soon as they can get
+their courage to the sticking point, fire on the worshippers, and call
+in the garrison from Montpellier. After that the refugees from Turin
+will come, we shall be in revolt, and there will be dragoonings. And
+then--if the Cevennols don't step in--Monsieur will see strange
+things."
+
+"But the Mayor?" I said. "And the National Guards? Will they suffer
+it?"
+
+"The first is red," the man answered curtly. "And two-thirds of the
+last. Monsieur will see."
+
+And with a cool nod he went on his way; while I stood a moment looking
+idly after the procession. On a sudden, as I stood, it occurred to me
+that where Froment was, the St. Alais might be; and snatching at the
+idea, wondering hugely that I had not had it before, I started
+recklessly in pursuit of the mob. The last broken wave of the crowd
+was still visible, eddying round a distant corner; and even after that
+disappeared, it was easy to trace the course it had taken by closed
+shutters and scared faces peeping from windows. I heard the mob stop
+once, and groan and howl; but before I came up with it it was on
+again, and when I at last overtook it, where one of the streets,
+before narrowing to an old gateway, opened out into a little
+square--with high dingy buildings on this side and that, and a
+meshwork of alleys running into it--the nucleus of the crowd had
+vanished, and the fringe was melting this way and that.
+
+My aim was Froment, and I had missed him. But I was at a loss only for
+a moment, for as I stood and scanned the people trooping back into the
+town, my eye alighted on a lean figure with stooping head and a scanty
+cassock, that, wishing to cross the street, paused a moment striving
+to pass athwart the crowd. It needed a glance only; then, with a cry
+of joy, I was through the press, and at the man's side.
+
+It was Father Benôit! For a moment we could not speak. Then, as we
+looked at one another, the first hasty joyful words spoken, I saw the
+very expression of dismay and discomfiture, which I had read on Louis
+St. Alais' face, dawn on his! He muttered, "_O mon Dieu! mon Dieu!_"
+under his breath, and wrung his hands stealthily.
+
+But I was sick of this mystery, and I said so in hot words. "You at
+any rate shall tell me, father!" I cried.
+
+Two or three of the passers-by heard me, and looked at us curiously.
+He drew me, to escape these, into a doorway; but still a man stood
+peering in at us. "Come upstairs," the father muttered, "we shall be
+quiet there." And he led the way up a stone staircase, ancient and
+sordid, serving many and cleaned by none.
+
+"Do you live here?" I said.
+
+"Yes," he answered; and then stopped short, and turned to me with an
+air of confusion. "But it is a poor place, M. le Vicomte," he
+continued, and he even made as if he would descend again, "and perhaps
+we should be wise to go----"
+
+"No, no!" I said, burning with impatience. "To your room, man! To your
+room, if you live here! I cannot wait. I have found you, and I will
+not let another minute pass before I have learned the truth."
+
+He still hesitated, and even began to mutter another objection. But I
+had only mind for one thing, and giving way to me, he preceded me
+slowly to the top of the house; where under the tiles he had a little
+room with a mattress and a chair, two or three books and a crucifix. A
+small square dormer-window admitted the light--and something else; for
+as we entered a pigeon rose from the floor and flew out by it.
+
+He uttered an exclamation of annoyance, and explained that he fed them
+sometimes. "They are company," he said sadly. "And I have found little
+here."
+
+"Yet you came of your own accord," I retorted brutally. I was choking
+with anxiety, and it took that form.
+
+"To lose one more illusion," he answered. "For years--you know it, M.
+le Vicomte--I looked forward to reform, to liberty, to freedom. And I
+taught others to look forward also. Well, we gained these--you know
+it, and the first use the people made of their liberty was to attack
+religion. Then I came here, because I was told that here the defenders
+of the Church would make a stand; that here the Church was strong,
+religion respected, faith still vigorous. I came to gain a little hope
+from others' hope. And I find pretended miracles, I find imposture, I
+find lies and trickery and chicanery used on one side and the other.
+And violence everywhere."
+
+"Then in heaven's name, man, why did you not go home again?" I cried.
+
+"I was going a week ago," he answered. "And then I did not go.
+And----"
+
+"Never mind that now!" I cried harshly. "It is not that I want. I have
+seen Louis St. Alais, and I know that there is something amiss. He
+will not face me. He will not tell me where Madame is. He will have
+nothing to do with me. He looks at me as if I were a death's head! Now
+what is it? You know and I must know. Tell me."
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" he answered. And he looked at me with tears in his eyes.
+Then, "This is what I feared," he said.
+
+"Feared? Feared what?" I cried.
+
+"That your heart was in it, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"In what? In what? Speak plainly, man."
+
+"Mademoiselle de St. Alais'--engagement," he said.
+
+I stood a moment staring at him. "Her engagement?" I whispered. "To
+whom?"
+
+"To M. Froment," he answered.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXI.
+
+                               RIVALS.
+
+
+"It is impossible!" I said slowly. "Froment! It is impossible!"
+
+But even while I said it, I knew that I lied; and I turned to the
+window that Benôit might not see my face. Froment! The name alone, now
+that the hint was supplied, let in the light. Fellow-traveller,
+fellow-conspirator, in turn protected and protector, his face as I had
+seen it at the carriage door in the pass by Villeraugues, rose up
+before me, and I marvelled that I had not guessed the secret earlier.
+A bourgeois and ambitious, thrown into Mademoiselle's company, what
+could be more certain than that, sooner or later, he would lift his
+eyes to her? What more likely than that Madame St. Alais, impoverished
+and embittered, afloat on the whirlpool of agitation, would be willing
+to reward his daring even with her daughter's hand? Rich already,
+success would ennoble him; for the rest I knew how the man, strong
+where so many were weak, resolute where a hundred faltered, assured of
+his purpose and steadfast in pursuing it, where others knew none, must
+loom in a woman's eyes. And I gnashed my teeth.
+
+I had my eyes fixed, as I thought these thoughts, on a little dingy,
+well-like court that lay below his window, and on the farther side of
+which, but far below me, a monastic-looking porch surmounted by a
+carved figure, formed the centre of vision. Mechanically, though I
+could have sworn that my whole mind was otherwise engaged, I watched
+two men come into the court, and go to this porch. They did not knock
+or call, but one of them struck his stick twice on the pavement; in a
+second or two the door opened, as of itself, and the men disappeared.
+
+I saw and noted this unconsciously; yet, in all probability, it was
+the closing of the door roused me from my thoughts. "Froment!" I said,
+"Froment!" And then I turned from the window. "Where is she?" I said
+hoarsely.
+
+Father Benôit shook his head.
+
+"You must know!" I cried--indeed I saw that he did. "You must know!"
+
+"I do know," he answered slowly, his eyes on mine. "But I cannot tell
+you. I could not, were it to save your life, M. le Vicomte. I had it
+in confession."
+
+I stared at him baffled; and my heart sank at that answer, as it would
+have sunk at no other. I knew that on this door, this iron door
+without a key, I might beat my hands and spend my fury until the end
+of time and go no farther. At length, "Then why--why have you told me
+so much?" I cried, with a harsh laugh. "Why tell me anything?"
+
+"Because I would have you leave Nîmes," Father Benôit answered gently,
+laying his hand on my arm, his eyes full of entreaty. "Mademoiselle is
+contracted, and beyond your reach. Within a few hours, certainly as
+soon as the elections come on, there will be a rising here. I know
+you," he continued, "and your feelings, and I know that your
+sympathies will be with neither party. Why stay then, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"Why?" I said, so quickly that his hand fell from my arm as if I had
+struck him. "Because until Mademoiselle is married I follow her, if it
+be to Turin! Because M. Froment is unwise to mingle love and war, and
+my sympathies are now with one side, and it is not his! It is not his!
+Why, you ask? Because--you cannot tell me, but there are those who
+can, and I go to them!"
+
+And without waiting to hear answer or remonstrance--though he cried to
+me and tried to detain me--I caught up my hat, and flew down the
+stairs; and once out of the house and in the street hastened back at
+the top of my speed to the quarter of the town I had left. The streets
+through which I passed were still crowded, but wore an air not so much
+of disorder as of expectation, as if the procession I had followed had
+left a trail behind it. Here and there I saw soldiers patrolling, and
+warning the people to be quiet; and everywhere knots of townsmen,
+whispering and scowling, who stared at me as I passed. Every tenth
+male I saw was a monk, Dominican or Capuchin, and though my whole mind
+was bent on finding M. de Géol and Buton, and learning from them what
+they knew, as enemies, of Froment's plans and strength, I felt that
+the city was in an abnormal state; and that if I would do anything
+before the convulsion took place, I must act quickly.
+
+I was fortunate enough to find M. de Géol and Buton at their lodgings.
+The former, whom I had not seen since our arrival, and who doubtless
+had his opinion of the cause of my sudden disappearance in the street,
+greeted me with a scowl and a bitter sarcasm, but when I had put a few
+questions, and he found that I was in earnest, his manner changed.
+"You may tell him," he said, nodding to Buton.
+
+Then I saw that they too were excited, though they would fain hide it.
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"Froment's party rose at Avignon yesterday," he answered eagerly.
+"Prematurely; and were crushed--crushed with heavy loss. The news has
+just arrived. It may hasten his plans."
+
+"I saw soldiers in the street," I said.
+
+"Yes, the Calvinists have asked for protection. But, that, and the
+patrols," De Géol answered with a grim smile, "are equally a farce.
+The regiment of Guienne, which is patriotic and would assist us, and
+even be some protection, is kept within barracks by its officers; the
+mayor and municipals are red, and whatever happens will not hoist the
+flag or call out the troops. The Catholic cabarets are alive with
+armed men; in a word, my friend, if Froment succeeds in mastering the
+town, and holding it three days, M. d'Artois, governor of Montpellier,
+will be here with his garrison, and----"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"And what was a riot will be a revolt," he said pithily. "But there is
+many a slip between the cup and the lip, and there are more than sheep
+in the Cevennes Mountains!"
+
+The words had scarcely passed from his lips, when a man ran into the
+room, looked at us, and raised his hand in a peculiar way. "Pardon
+me," said M. de Géol quickly; and with a muttered word he followed the
+man out. Buton was not a whit behind. In a moment I was alone.
+
+I supposed they would return, and I waited impatiently; but a minute
+or two passed, and they did not appear. At length, tired of waiting,
+and wondering what was afoot, I went into the yard of the inn, and
+thence into the street. Still I did not find them; but collected
+before the inn I found a group of servants and others belonging to the
+place. They were all standing silent, listening, and as I joined them
+one looked round peevishly, and raised his hand as a warning to me to
+be quiet.
+
+Before I could ask what it meant, the distant report of a gun,
+followed quickly by a second and a third, made my heart beat. A dull
+sound, made, it might be, by men shouting, or the passage of a heavy
+waggon over pavement, ensued; then more firing, each report short,
+sharp, and decisive. While we listened, and as the last red glow of
+sunset faded on the eaves above us, leaving the street cold and grey,
+a bell somewhere began to toll hurriedly, stroke upon stroke; and a
+man, dashing round a corner not far away, made towards us.
+
+But the landlord of the Ecu did not wait for him. "All in!" he cried
+to his people, "and close the great gates! And do you, Pierre, bar the
+shutters. And you, Monsieur," he continued hurriedly, turning to me,
+"will do well to come in also. The town is up, and the streets will
+not be safe for strangers."
+
+But I was already half-way down the street. I met the fugitive, and he
+cried to me, as I passed, that the mob were coming. I met a
+frightened, riderless horse, galloping madly along the kennel; it
+swerved from me, and almost fell on the slippery pavement. But I took
+no heed of either. I ran on until two hundred paces before me I saw
+smoke and dust, and dimly through it a row of soldiers, who, with
+their backs to me, were slowly giving way before a dense crowd that
+pressed upon them. Even as I came in sight of them, they seemed to
+break and melt away, and with a roar of triumph the mob swept over the
+place on which they had stood.
+
+I had the wit to see that to force my way past the crowd was
+impossible; and I darted aside into a narrow passage darkened by wide
+flat eaves that almost hid the pale evening sky. This brought me to a
+lane, full of women, standing listening with scared faces. I hurried
+through them, and when I had gone, as I judged, far enough to outflank
+the mob, chose a lane that appeared to lead in the direction of Father
+Benôit's house. Fortunately, the crowd was engaged in the main
+streets, the byways were comparatively deserted, and without accident
+I reached the little square by the gate.
+
+Probably the attack on the soldiers had begun there, or in that
+neighbourhood, for a broken musket lay in two pieces on the pavement,
+and pale faces at upper windows followed me in a strange unwinking
+silence as I crossed the square. But no man was to be seen, and
+unmolested I reached the door of Father Benôit's staircase, and
+entered.
+
+In the open the light was still good, but within doors it was dusk,
+and I had not taken two steps before I tripped and fell headlong over
+some object that lay in my way. I struck the foot of the stairs
+heavily, and got up groaning; but ceased to groan and held my breath,
+as peering through the half light of the entry, I saw over what I had
+fallen. It was a man's body.
+
+The man was a monk, in the black and white robe of his order; and he
+was quite dead. It took me an instant to overcome the horror of the
+discovery, but that done, I saw easily enough how the corpse came to
+be there. Doubtless the man had been shot in the street at the
+beginning of the riot--perhaps he had been the first to attack the
+patrol; and the body had been dragged into shelter here, while his
+party swept on to vengeance.
+
+I stooped and reverently adjusted the cowl which my foot had dragged
+away; and that done--it was no time for sentiment--I turned from him,
+and hurried up the stairs. Alas, when I reached Father Benôit's room
+it was empty.
+
+Wondering what I should do next, I stood a moment in the failing
+light. What could I do? Then I walked aimlessly to the casement and
+looked out. In the dull, almost blind wall which met my eyes across
+the court, was one window on a level with that at which I stood, but a
+little to the side. On a sudden, as I stared stupidly at the wall near
+it, a bright light shone out in this window. A lamp had been kindled
+in the room; and darkly outlined against the glow I saw the head and
+shoulders of a woman.
+
+I almost screamed a name. It was Denise!
+
+Even while I held my breath she moved from the window, a curtain was
+drawn and all was dark. Only the plain lines of the window--and those
+fast fading in the gloom--remained; only those and the gloomy,
+well-like court, that separated me from her.
+
+I leaned a moment on the sill, my heart bounding quickly, my thoughts
+working with inconceivable rapidity. She was there, in the house
+opposite! It seemed too wonderful; it seemed inexplicable. Then I
+reflected that the house stood next to the old gate I had seen from
+the street; and had not some one told me that Froment lived in the
+Port d'Auguste?
+
+Doubtless this was it; and she lay in his power in this house that
+adjoined it and was one with it. I leaned farther out, partly that I
+might cool my burning face, partly to see more; my eyes, greedily
+scanning the front of the house, traced the line of arrow-slits that
+marked the ascent of the staircase. I followed the line downwards; it
+ended beside the porch surmounted by a little statue, at which I had
+seen the two men enter.
+
+They were still fighting in the town. I could hear the dull sound of
+distant volleys, and the tolling of bells, and now and then a wave of
+noise, of screams and yells, that rose and sank on the evening air.
+But my eyes were on the porch below; and suddenly I had a thought. I
+followed the line of arrow-slits up again--it was too dark in the
+sombre court to see them well--and marked the position of the window
+at which Denise had appeared. Then I turned, and passing through the
+room, I groped my way downstairs.
+
+I had no light, and I had to go carefully with one hand on the grimy
+wall; but I knew now where the monk's body lay, and I stepped over it
+safely, and to the door, and putting out my head, looked up and down.
+
+Two men, as I did so, passed hurriedly through the little square, and,
+before reaching the gate, dived into an entry on the right, and
+disappeared. About the eaves of the highest house, that towered high
+and black above me, a faint ruddy light was beginning to dance. I
+heard voices, that came, I thought, from the tower of the gateway; and
+there, too, I thought that I saw a figure outlined against the sky.
+But otherwise, all was quiet in the neighbourhood; and I went in
+again.
+
+No matter what I did in the darkness at the foot of the stairs; I hate
+to recall it. But in a minute or two I came out a monk in cowl and
+girdle. Then I, too, dived into the entry, and in a trice found myself
+in the court. Before me was the porch, and with the barrel of the
+broken musket, which I had snatched up as I passed, I struck twice on
+the pavement.
+
+I had no time to think what would happen next, or what I was going to
+confront. The door opened instantly, and I went in; as by magic the
+door closed silently behind me.
+
+I found myself in a long, bare hall or corridor, plain and
+unfurnished, that had once perhaps been a cloister. A lighted lamp
+hung against a wall, and opposite me, on a stone seat sat two persons
+talking; three or four others were walking up and down. All paused at
+my entrance, however, and looked at me eagerly. "Whence are you,
+brother?" said one of them, advancing to me.
+
+"The Cabaret Vierge," I answered at a venture. The light dazzled me,
+and I raised my hand to ward it off.
+
+"For the Chief?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come, quickly then," the man said, "he is on the roof. It goes well?"
+he continued, looking with a smile at my weapon.
+
+"It goes," I answered, holding my head low, so that my face was lost
+in the cowl.
+
+"They are beginning to light up, I am told?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He took up a small lamp, and opening a door in a kind of buttress that
+strengthened one of the arches, he led the way through it, and up a
+narrow winding staircase made in the thickness of the wall. Presently
+we passed an open door, and I ticked it off in my mind. It led to the
+rooms on the first floor from the ground. Twenty steps higher we
+passed another door--closed this time. Again fifteen steps and we came
+to a third. That floor held my heart, and I looked round greedily,
+desperately, for some way of evading my guide and so reaching it. But
+I saw only the smooth stones of the wall; and he continued to climb.
+
+I halted half a dozen steps higher. "What is it?" he asked, looking
+down at me.
+
+"I have dropped a note," I said; and I began to grope about the steps.
+
+"For the Chief?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Here, take the light!" he answered impatiently. "And be quick! if
+your news is worth the telling, it is worth telling quickly. _Sacré!_
+man, what have you done?"
+
+I had let the lamp fall on the steps, extinguishing it; and we were in
+darkness. In the moment of silence which followed, before he recovered
+from his surprise, I could hear the voices of men above us, and the
+tramp of their feet on the roof; and a cold draught of air met me. He
+swore another oath. "Get down, get down!" he cried angrily, "and let
+me pass you! You are a pretty messenger to--there wait; wait until I
+fetch another light."
+
+He squeezed by me, and left me standing in the very place I would have
+chosen, in the angle of the doorway we had just passed; before he had
+clattered down half a dozen steps I had my finger on the latch. To my
+joy the door--which might so easily have been locked--yielded to my
+knee, and passing through it, I closed it behind me. Then turning to
+the right--all was still dark--I groped my way along the wall through
+which I had entered. I knew it to be the outside wall, and dimly in
+front I discerned the faint radiance of a window. Now that the moment
+had come to put all to the test I was as calm as I could wish to be. I
+counted ten paces, and came, as I expected, to the window; ten paces
+farther and I felt my way barred by a door. This should be the
+room--the last that way; listening intently for the first sounds of
+pursuit or alarm, I felt about for a latch, found it, and tried the
+door. Again fortune favoured me, it came to my hand; but instead of
+light I found all dark as before; and then understood, as I struck
+with some violence against a second door.
+
+A stifled cry in a woman's voice came from beyond it: and some one
+asked sharply, "Who is that?"
+
+I gave no answer, but searched for the latch, found it, and in a
+moment the door was opened. The light which poured out dazzled me for
+a second or two; but while I stood blinking, under the lamp I had a
+vision of two girls standing at bay, one behind the other, and the
+nearer was Denise!
+
+I stepped towards her with a cry of joy; she retreated with terror
+written on her face. "What do you want?" she stammered as she
+retreated. "You have made some mistake. We----"
+
+Then I remembered the guise in which I stood, and the gun-barrel in my
+hand, and I dashed back the cowl from my face; and in a moment--it was
+of all surprises the most joyous, for I had not seen her since we sat
+opposite one another in the carriage, and then only a word had passed
+between us--in a moment she was in my arms, on my breast, and sobbing
+with her head hidden, and my lips on her hair.
+
+"They told me you were dead!" she cried. "They told me you were dead!"
+
+Then I understood; and I held her to me, held her to me more and more
+closely, and said--God knows what I said. And for the moment she let
+me, and we forgot all else, our danger, the dark future, even the
+woman who stood by. We had been plighted before, and it had been
+nothing to us; now, with my lips on hers, and her arms clinging, I
+knew that it was once for all, and that only death, if death, could
+part us.
+
+Alas! that was not so far from us that we could long ignore it. In a
+minute or two she freed herself, and thrust me from her, her face pale
+and red by turns, her eyes soft and shining in the lamplight. "How do
+you come here, Monsieur?" she cried. "And in that dress?"
+
+"To see you," I answered. And at the word, I stepped forward and would
+have taken her in my arms again.
+
+But she waved me back. "Oh, no, no!" she cried, shuddering. "Not now!
+Do you know that they will kill you? Do you know that they will kill
+you if they find you here? Go! Go! I beg of you, while you can."
+
+"And leave you?"
+
+"Yes, and leave me," she answered, with a gesture of despair. "I
+implore you to do so."
+
+"And leave you to Froment?" I cried again.
+
+She looked at me in a different way, and with a little start. "You
+know that?" she said.
+
+"Yes," I answered.
+
+"Then know this too, Monsieur," she replied, raising her head, and
+meeting my eyes with the bravest look. "Know this too: that whatever
+betide, I shall not, after this, marry him, nor any man but you!"
+
+I would have fallen on my knees and kissed the hem of her gown for
+that word, but she drew back, and passionately begged me to begone.
+"This house is not safe for you," she said. "It is death, it is death,
+Monsieur! My mother is merciless, my brother is here; and _he_--the
+house is full of his sworn creatures. You escaped him hardly before;
+if he finds you here now he will kill you."
+
+"But if I need fear him so," I answered grimly,--for I saw, now that
+she had ceased to blush, how pale and wan she was, and what dark marks
+fear had painted under her eyes--child's eyes no longer, but a
+woman's--"if I need fear him so, what of you? What of you,
+Mademoiselle? Am I to leave you at his mercy?"
+
+She looked at me with a strange gravity in her face; and answered me
+so that I never forgot her answer. "Monsieur," she said, "was I afraid
+on the roof of the house at St. Alais? And I have more to guard now.
+Have no fear. There is a roof here, too, and I walk on it; nor shall
+my husband ever have cause to blush for me."
+
+"But I was there," I said quickly. Heaven knows why; it was a strange
+thing to say. Yet she did not find it so.
+
+"Yes," she said--and smiled; and with the smile, her face burned again
+and her eyes grew soft, and all her dignity fled in a moment, and she
+looked at me, drooping. And in an instant she was in my arms.
+
+But only for a few seconds. Then she tore herself away almost in
+anger. "Oh, go, go!" she cried. "If you love me, go, Monsieur."
+
+"Swear," I said, "to put a handkerchief in your window if you want
+help!"
+
+"In my window?"
+
+"I can see it from Father Benôit's."
+
+A gleam of joy lit up her face. "I will," she said. "Oh, God be
+thanked that you are so near! I will. But I have Françoise, too, and
+she is true to me. As long as I have her----"
+
+She stopped with her lips apart, and the blood gone suddenly from her
+cheeks; and we looked at one another. Alas, I had stayed too long!
+There was a noise of feet coming along the passage, and a hubbub of
+voices outside, and the clatter of a door hastily closed. I think for
+a moment we scarcely breathed; and even after that it was her woman
+who was the first to move. She sprang to the door and softly locked
+it.
+
+"It is vain!" Denise said in a harsh whisper; she leaned against the
+table, her face as white as snow. "They will fetch my mother, and they
+will kill you."
+
+"There is no other door?" I muttered, staring round with hunted eyes,
+and feeling for the first time the full danger of the course I had
+taken.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"What is that?" I cried, pointing to the farther end of the chamber,
+where a bed stood in the alcove.
+
+"A closet," the woman answered, almost with a sob. "Yes, yes,
+Monsieur, they may not search. Quick, and I can lock it."
+
+In such a case man acts on instinct. I heard the latch of the door
+tried, and then some one knocked peremptorily; and so long I
+hesitated. But a second knock followed on the first, and a voice I
+knew cried imperatively: "Open, open, Françoise!" and I moved towards
+the closet. The girl, distracted by the repeated summons and her
+terror, hung a moment between me and the door of the room; but in the
+end had to go to the latter, so that I drew the closet door upon
+myself.
+
+Then in a moment it came upon me that if, hiding there, I was found, I
+should shame Denise; it darted through my brain that if, lurking there
+behind the closed doors among her woman's things, I was caught, I
+should harm her a hundred times more than if I stood out in the middle
+of the floor and faced the worst. And with my face on fire at the mere
+thought, I opened the door again, and stepped out; and was just in
+time. For as the door of the room flew open, and M. de St. Alais
+strode in and looked round, I was the first person he saw.
+
+There were three or four men behind him; and among them the man whom I
+had cheated on the stairs. But M. St. Alais' eyes blazing with wrath
+caught mine, and held them; and the others were nothing to me.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXII.
+
+                           NOBLESSE OBLIGE.
+
+
+Yet he was not the first to speak. One of the men behind him took a
+step forward, and cried, "That is the man! See, he still has the
+gun-barrel."
+
+"Seize him, then," M. de St. Alais replied. "And take him from here!
+Monsieur," he continued, addressing me grimly, and with a grim eye,
+"whoever you are, when you undertook to be a spy you counted the cost,
+I suppose? Take him away, my men!"
+
+Two of the fellows strode forward, and in a moment seized my arms; and
+in the surprise of M. de St. Alais' appearance and the astonishment
+his words caused me, I made no resistance. But in such emergencies the
+mind works quickly, and in a trice I recovered myself. "This is
+nonsense, M. de St. Alais!" I said. "You know well that I am no spy.
+You know why I am here. And for the matter of that----"
+
+"I know nothing!" he answered.
+
+"But----"
+
+"I know nothing, I say!" he repeated, with a mocking gesture. "Except,
+Monsieur, that we find you here in a monk's dress, when you are
+clearly no monk. You had better have tried to swim the Rhone at flood,
+than entered this house to-night--I tell you that! Now away with him!
+His case will be dealt with below."
+
+But this was too much. I wrested my hands from the men who held me,
+and sprang back. "You lie!" I cried. "You know who I am, and why I am
+here!"
+
+"I do not know you," he answered stubbornly. "Nor do I know why you
+are here. I once knew a man like you; that is true. But he was a
+gentleman, and would have died before he would have saved himself by a
+lie--by a trumped-up tale. Take him away. He has frightened
+Mademoiselle to death. I suppose he found the door open, and slipped
+in, and thought himself safe."
+
+At last I understood what he meant, and that in his passion he would
+sacrifice one rather than bring in his sister's name. Nay, I saw more;
+that he viewed with a cruel exultation the dilemma in which he had
+placed me; and my brow grew damp, as I looked round wildly, trying to
+solve the question. I had the sounds of street fighting still in my
+ears; I knew that men staking all in such a strife owned few scruples
+and scant mercy. I could see that this man in particular was maddened
+by the losses and humiliations which he had suffered; and I stood in
+the way of his schemes. The risk existed, therefore, and was no mere
+threat; it seemed foolish quixotism to run it.
+
+And yet--and yet I hesitated. I even let the men urge me half-way
+to the door; and then--heaven knows what I should have done or whether
+I could have seen my way plainly--the knot was cut for me. With
+a scream, Denise, who since her brother's entrance had leaned,
+half-fainting, against the wall, sprang forward, and seized him by the
+arm.
+
+"No, no!" she cried in a choked voice. "No! You will not, you will not
+do this! Have pity, have mercy! I----"
+
+"Mademoiselle!" he said, cutting her short quietly, but with a gleam
+of rage in his eyes. "You are overwrought, and forget yourself. The
+scene has been too much for you. Here!" he continued sharply to the
+maid, "take care of your mistress. The man is a spy, and not worthy of
+her pity."
+
+But Denise clung to him. "He is no spy!" she cried, in a voice that
+went to my heart. "He is no spy, and you know it!"
+
+"Hush, girl! Be silent!" he answered furiously.
+
+But he had not counted on a change in her, beside which the change in
+him was petty. "I will not!" she answered, "I will not!" and to my
+astonishment, releasing the arm to which she had hitherto clung, and
+shaking back from her face the hair which her violent movements had
+loosened, she stood out and defied him. "I will not!" she cried. "He
+is no spy, and you know it, Monsieur! He is my lover," she continued,
+with a superb gesture, "and he came to see me. Do you understand? He
+was contracted to me, and he came to see me!"
+
+"Girl, are you mad?" he snarled in the breathless hush of the room,
+the hush that followed as all looked at her.
+
+"I am not mad," she answered, her eyes burning in her white face.
+
+"Then if you feel no shame do you feel no fear?" he retorted in a
+terrible voice.
+
+"No!" she cried. "For I love! And I love him."
+
+I will not say what I felt when I heard that, myself helpless. For one
+thing, I was in so great a rage I scarcely knew what I felt; and for
+another, the words were barely spoken before M. le Marquis seized the
+girl roughly by the waist, and dragged her, screaming and resisting,
+to the other end of the room.
+
+This was the signal for a scene indescribable. I sprang forward to
+protect her; in an instant the three men flung themselves upon me, and
+bore me by sheer weight towards the door. St. Alais, foaming with
+rage, shouted to them to remove me, while I called him coward, and
+cursed him and strove desperately to get at him. For a moment I made
+head against them all, though they were three to one; the maid's
+screaming added to the uproar. Then the odds prevailed; and in a
+minute they had me out, and had closed the door on her and her cries.
+
+I was panting, breathless, furious. But the moment it was done and the
+door shut, a kind of calm fell upon us. The men relaxed their hold on
+me, and stood looking at me quietly; while I leaned against the wall,
+and glowered at them. Then, "There, Monsieur, have no more of that!"
+one of them said civilly enough. "Go peaceably, and we will be easy
+with you; otherwise----"
+
+"He is a cowardly hound!" I cried with a sob.
+
+"Softly, Monsieur, softly."
+
+There were five of them, for two had remained at the door. The passage
+was dark, but they had a lantern, and we waited in silence two or
+three minutes. Then the door opened a few inches, and the man who
+seemed to be the leader went to it, and having received his orders,
+returned.
+
+"Forward!" he said. "In No. 6. And do you, Petitot, fetch the key."
+
+The man named went off quickly, and we followed more slowly along the
+corridor; the steady tramp of my guards, as they marched beside me,
+awaking sullen echoes that rolled away before us. The yellow light of
+the lantern showed a white-washed wall on either side, broken on the
+right hand by a dull line of doors, as of cells. We halted presently
+before one of these, and I thought that I was to be confined there;
+and my courage rose, for I should still be near Denise. But the door,
+when opened, disclosed only a little staircase which we descended in
+single file, and so reached a bare corridor similar to that above.
+Half-way along this we stopped again, beside an open window, through
+which the night wind came in so strongly as to stir the hair, and
+force the man who carried the lantern to shield the light under
+his skirts. And not the night wind only; with it entered all the
+noises of the night and the disturbed city; hoarse cries and cheers,
+and the shrill monotonous jangle of bells, and now and then a
+pistol-shot--noises that told only too eloquently what was passing
+under the black veil that hid the chaos of streets and houses below
+us. Nay, in one place the veil was rent, and through the gap a ruddy
+column poured up from the roofs, dispersing sparks--the hot glare of
+some great fire, that blazing in the heart of the city, seemed to make
+the sky sharer in the deeds and horrors that lay beneath it.
+
+The men with me pressed to the window, and peered through it, and
+strained eyes and ears; and little wonder. Little wonder, too, that
+the man who was responsible for all, and had staked all, walked the
+roof above with tireless steps. For the struggle below was the one
+great struggle of the world, the struggle that never ceases between
+the old and the new: and it was being fought as it had been fought in
+Nîmes for centuries, savagely, ruthlessly, over kennels running with
+blood. Nor could the issue be told; only, that as it was here, it was
+likely to be through half of France. We who stood at that window,
+looked into the darkness with actual eyes; but across the border at
+Turin, and nearer at Sommières and Montpellier, thousands of Frenchmen
+bearing the greatest names of France, watched also--watched with faces
+turned to Nîmes, and hearts as anxious as ours.
+
+I gathered from the talk of those round me, that M. Froment had seized
+the Arènes, and garrisoned it, and that the flames we saw were those
+of one of the Protestant churches; that as yet the patriots, taken by
+surprise, made little resistance, and that if the Reds could hold for
+twenty-four hours longer what they had seized, the arrival of the
+troops from Montpellier would then secure all, and at the same time
+stamp the movement with the approval of the highest parties.
+
+"But it was a near thing," one of the men muttered. "If we had
+not been at their throats to-night, they would have been at ours
+to-morrow!"
+
+"And now, not half the companies have turned out."
+
+"But the villages will come in in the morning," a third cried eagerly.
+"They are to toll all the bells from here to the Rhone."
+
+"Ay, but what if the Cevennols come in first? What then, man?"
+
+No one had an answer to this, and all stood watching eagerly, until
+the sound of footsteps approaching along the passage caused the men to
+draw in their heads. "Here is the key," said the leader. "Now,
+Monsieur!"
+
+But it was not the key that disturbed us, nor Petitot, who had been
+sent for it, but a very tall man, cloaked, and wearing his hat, who
+came hastily along the corridor with three or four behind him. As he
+approached he called out, "Is Buzeaud here?"
+
+The man who had spoken before stood out respectfully. "Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Take half a dozen men, the stoutest you have downstairs," the new
+comer answered--it was Froment himself--"and get as many more from the
+Vierge, and barricade the street leading beside the barracks to the
+Arsenal. You will find plenty of helpers. And occupy some of the
+houses so as to command the street. And--But what is this?" he
+continued, breaking off sharply, as his eyes, passing over the group,
+stopped at me. "How does this gentleman come here? And in this dress?"
+
+"M. le Marquis arrested him--upstairs."
+
+"M. le Marquis?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, and ordered him to be confined in No. 6 for the
+present."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"As a spy."
+
+M. Froment whistled softly, and for a moment we looked at one another.
+The wavering light of the lanterns, and perhaps the tension of the
+man's feelings, deepened the harsh lines of his massive features, and
+darkened the shadows about his eyes and mouth; but presently he drew a
+deep breath, and smiled, as if something whimsical in the situation
+struck him. "So we meet again, M. le Vicomte," he said with that. "I
+remember now that I have something of yours. You have come for it, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, I have come for it," I said defiantly, giving him back
+look for look; and I saw that he understood.
+
+"And M. le Marquis found you upstairs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah!" For a moment he seemed to reflect. Then, turning to the
+men. "Well, you can go, Buzeaud. I will be answerable for this
+gentleman--who had better remove that masquerade. And do you," he
+continued, addressing the two or three who had come with him, "wait
+for me above. Tell M. Flandrin--it is my last word--that whatever
+happens the Mayor must not raise the flag for the troops. He may tell
+him what he pleases from me--that I will hang him from the highest
+window of the tower, if he likes--but it must not be done. You
+understand?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Then go. I will be with you presently."
+
+They went, leaving a lantern on the floor; and in a moment Froment and
+I were alone. I stood expectant, but he did not look at me. Instead,
+he turned to the open window, and leaning on the sill, gazed into the
+night, and so remained for some time silent; whether the orders he had
+just given had really diverted his thoughts into another channel, or
+he had not made up his mind how to treat me, I cannot determine. More
+than once I heard him sigh, however; and at last he said abruptly,
+"Only three companies have risen?"
+
+I do not know what moved me, but I answered in the same spirit. "Out
+of how many?" I said coolly.
+
+"Thirteen," he answered. "We are out-numbered. But we moved first, we
+have the upper hand, and we must keep it. And if the villagers come in
+to-morrow----"
+
+"And the Cevennols do not."
+
+"Yes; and if the officers can hold the Guienne regiment within
+barracks, and the Mayor does not hoist the flag, calling them out, and
+the Calvinists do not surprise the Arsenal--I think we may be able to
+do so."
+
+"But the chances are?"
+
+"Against us. The more need, Monsieur"--for the first time he turned
+and looked at me with a sort of dark pride glowing in his face--"of a
+man! For--do you know what we are fighting for down there? France!
+France!" he continued bitterly, and letting his emotion appear, "and I
+have a few hundred cutthroats and rascals and shavelings to do the
+work, while all the time your fine gentlemen lie safe and warm across
+the frontier, waiting to see what will happen! And I run risks, and
+they hold the stakes! I kill the bear, and they take the skin. They
+are safe, and if I fail I hang like Favras! Faugh! It is enough to
+make a man turn patriot and cry '_Vive la Nation!_'"
+
+He did not wait for my answer, but impatiently snatching up the
+lantern, he made a sign to me to follow him, and led the way down the
+passage. He had said not a word of my presence in the house, of my
+position, of Mademoiselle St. Alais, or how he meant to deal with me;
+and at the door, not knowing what was in his mind, I touched his
+shoulder and stopped him.
+
+"Pardon me," I said, with as much dignity as I could assume, "but I
+should like to know what you are going to do with me, Monsieur. I need
+not tell you that I did not enter this house as a spy----"
+
+"You need tell me nothing," he answered, cutting me short with
+rudeness. "And for what I am going to do with you, it can be told in
+half a dozen words. I am going to keep you by me, that if the worst
+comes of this--in which event I am not likely to see the week out--you
+may protect Mademoiselle de St. Alais and convey her to a place of
+safety. To that end your commission shall be restored to you; I have
+it safe. If, on the other hand, we hold our own, and light the fire
+that shall burn up these cold-blooded _pedants là bas_, then, M. le
+Vicomte--I shall have a word to say to you. And we will talk of the
+matter as gentlemen."
+
+For a moment I stood dumb with astonishment. We were at the door of
+the little staircase--by which I had descended--when he said this; and
+as he spoke the last word, he turned, as expecting no answer, and
+opened it, and set his foot on the lowest stair, casting the light of
+the lantern before him. I plucked him by the sleeve, and he turned,
+and faced me.
+
+"M. Froment!" I muttered. And then for the life of me I could say no
+more.
+
+"There is no need for words," he said grandly.
+
+"Are you sure--that you know all!" I muttered.
+
+"I am sure that she loves you, and that she does not love me," he
+answered with a curling lip and a ring of scorn in his voice. "And
+besides that, I am sure of one thing only."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"That within forty-eight hours blood will flow in every street of
+Nîmes, and Froment, the bourgeois, will be Froment le Baron--or
+nothing! In the former case, we will talk. In the latter," and he
+shrugged his shoulders with a gesture a little theatrical, "it will
+not matter."
+
+With the word he turned to the stairs, and I followed him up them and
+across the upper corridor, and by the outer staircase, where I had
+evaded my guide, and so to the roof, and from it by a short wooden
+ladder to the leads of a tower; whence we overlooked, lying below us,
+all the dim black chaos of Nîmes, here rising in giant forms, rather
+felt than seen, there a medley of hot lights and deep shadows, thrown
+into relief by the glare of the burning church. In three places I
+picked out a cresset shining, high up in the sky, as it were; one on
+the rim of the Arènes, another on the roof of a distant church, a
+third on a tower beyond the town. But for the most part the town was
+now at rest. The riot had died down, the bells were silent, the wind
+blew salt from the sea and cooled our faces.
+
+There were a dozen cloaked figures on the leads, some gazing down in
+silence, others walking to and fro, talking together; but in the
+darkness it was impossible to recognise any one. Froment, after
+receiving one or two reports, withdrew to the outer side of the tower
+overlooking the country, and walked there alone, his head bowed, and
+his hands behind him, a desire to preserve his dignity having more to
+do with this, or I was mistaken, than any longing for solitude. Still,
+the others respected his wishes, and following their example I seated
+myself in an embrasure of the battlements, whence the fire, now
+growing pale, could be seen.
+
+What were the others' thoughts I cannot say. A muttered word apprised
+me that Louis St. Alais was in command at the Arènes; and that M. le
+Marquis waited only until success was assured to start for Sommières,
+whence the commandant had promised a regiment of horse should Froment
+be able to hold his own without them. The arrangement seemed to me to
+be of the strangest; but the Emigrés, fearful of compromising the
+King, and warned by the fate of Favras--who, deserted by his party,
+had suffered for a similar conspiracy a few months before--were
+nothing if not timid. And if those round me felt any indignation, they
+did not express it.
+
+The majority, however, were silent, or spoke only when some movement
+in the town, some outcry or alarm, drew from them a few eager words;
+and for myself, my thoughts were neither of the struggle below--where
+both parties lay watching each other and waiting for the day--nor of
+the morrow, nor even of Denise, but of Froment himself. If the aim of
+the man had been to impress me, he had succeeded. Seated there in the
+darkness, I felt his influence strong upon me; I felt the crisis as
+and because he felt it. I thrilled with the excitement of the
+gambler's last stake, because he had thrown the dice. I stood on the
+giddy point on which he stood, and looked into the dark future, and
+trembled for and with him. My eyes turned from others, and
+involuntarily sought his tall figure where he walked alone; with as
+little will on my part I paid him the homage due to the man who stands
+unmoved on the brink, master of his soul, though death yawns for him.
+
+About midnight there was a general movement to descend. I had eaten
+nothing for twelve hours, and I had done much; and, notwithstanding
+the dubious position in which I stood, appetite bade me go with the
+rest. I went, therefore; and, following the stream, found myself a
+minute later on the threshold of a long room, brilliantly lit with
+lamps, and displaying tables laid with covers for sixty or more. I
+fancied that at the farther end of the apartment, and through an
+interval in the crowd of men before me, I caught a glimpse of women,
+of jewels, of flashing eyes, and a waving fan; and if anything could
+have added to the bewildering abruptness of the change from the dark,
+wind-swept leads above to the gay and splendid scene before me it was
+this. But I had scant time for reflection. Though I did not advance
+far, the press, which separated me from the upper end of the room,
+melted quickly, as one after another took his seat amid a hum of
+conversation; and in a moment I found myself gazing straight at
+Denise, who, white and wan, with a pitiful look in her eyes, sat
+beside her mother at the uppermost table, a picture of silent woe.
+Madame Catinot and two or three gentlemen and as many ladies were
+seated with them.
+
+Whether my eyes drew hers to me, or she glanced that way by chance, in
+a moment she looked at me, and rose to her feet with a low gasping
+cry, that I felt rather than heard. It was enough to lead Madame St.
+Alais' eyes to me, and she too cried out; and in a trice, while a few
+between us still talked unconscious, and the servants glided about, I
+found all at that farther table staring at me, and myself the focus of
+the room. Just then, unluckily, M. St. Alais, rather late, came in; of
+course, he too saw me. I heard an oath behind me, but I was intent on
+the farther table and Mademoiselle, and it was not until he laid his
+hand on my arm that I turned sharply and saw him.
+
+"Monsieur!" he cried, with another oath--and I saw that he was almost
+choking with rage--with rage and surprise. "This is too much."
+
+I looked at him in silence. The position was so perplexing that I
+could not grasp it.
+
+"How do I find you here?" he continued with violence and in a voice
+that drew every eye in the room to me. He was white with anger. He had
+left me a prisoner, he found me a guest.
+
+"I hardly know myself," I answered. "But----"
+
+"I do," said a voice behind M. St. Alais. "If you wish to know,
+Marquis, M. de Saux is here at my invitation."
+
+The speaker was Froment, who had just entered the room. St. Alais
+turned, as if he had been stabbed. "Then I am not!" he cried.
+
+"That is as you please," Froment said steadfastly.
+
+"It is--and I do not please!" the Marquis retorted, with a scornful
+glance, and in a tone that rang through the room. "I do not please!"
+
+As I heard him, and felt myself the centre, under the lights,
+of all those eyes, I could have fancied that I was again in the St.
+Alais' _salon_, listening to the futile oath of the sword; and that
+three-quarters of a year had not elapsed since that beginning of all
+our troubles, But in a moment Froment's voice roused me from the
+dream.
+
+"Very well," he said gravely. "But I think that you forget----"
+
+"It is you who forget," St. Alais cried wildly. "Or you do not
+understand--or know--that this gentleman----"
+
+"I forget nothing!" Froment replied with a darkening face. "Nothing,
+except that we are keeping my guests waiting. Least of all, do I
+forget the aid, Monsieur, which you have hitherto rendered me. But, M.
+le Marquis," he continued, with dignity, "it is mine to command
+to-night, and it is for me to make dispositions. I have made them, and
+I must ask you to comply with them. I know that you will not fail me
+at a pinch. I know, and these gentlemen know, that in misfortune you
+would be my helper; but I believe also that, all going well, as it
+does, you will not throw unnecessary obstacles in my way. Come,
+Monsieur; this gentleman will not refuse to sit here. And we will sit
+at Madame's table. Oblige me."
+
+M. St. Alais' face was like night, but the other was a man, and his
+tone was strenuous as well as courteous; and slowly and haughtily M.
+le Marquis, who, I think, had never before in his life given way,
+followed him to the farther end of the room. Left alone, I sat down
+where I was, eyed curiously by those round me; and myself, finding
+something still more curious in this strange banquet while Nîmes
+watched; this midnight merriment, while the dead still lay in the
+streets, and the air quivered, and all the world of night hung,
+listening for that which was to come.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+                             THE CRISIS.
+
+
+When the grey dawn, to which so many looked forward, broke slowly over
+the waking city, it found on the leads of Froment's tower some pale
+faces; perhaps some sinking hearts. That hour, when all life lacks
+colour, and all things, the sky excepted, are black to the eye, tries
+a man's courage to the uttermost; as the cold wind that blows with it
+searches his body. Eyes that an hour before had sparkled over the
+wine--for we had sat late and drunk to the King, the Church, the Red
+Cockade, and M. d'Artois--grew thoughtful; men who, a little before,
+had shown flushed faces, shivered as they peered into the mist, and
+drew their cloaks more closely round them; and if the man was there,
+who regarded the issue of the day with perfect indifference, he was
+not of those near me.
+
+Froment had preached faith, but the faith for the most part was down
+in the street. There, I have no doubt, were many who believed, and
+were ready to rush on death, or slay without pity. And there may have
+been one or two of these with us. But in the main, the men who looked
+down with me on Nîmes that morning were hardy adventurers, or local
+followers of Froment, or officers whose regiments had dismissed them,
+or--but these were few--gentlemen, like St. Alais. All brave men, and
+some heated with wine; but not Froment only had heard of Favras
+hanged, of De Launay massacred, of Provost Flesselles shot in cold
+blood! Others beside him could make a guess at the kind of vengeance
+this strange new creature, La Nation, might take, being outraged: and
+so, when the long-expected dawn appeared at last, and warmed the
+eastern clouds, and leaping across the sea of mist which filled the
+Rhone valley, tinged the western peaks with rosy light, and found us
+watching, I saw no face among all the light fell on, that was not
+serious, not one but had some haggard, wan, or careworn touch to mark
+it mortal.
+
+Save only Froment's. He, be the reason what it might, showed as the
+light rose a countenance not merely resolute, but cheerful. Abandoning
+the solitary habit he had maintained all night, he came forward to the
+battlements overlooking the town, and talked and even jested, rallying
+the faint-hearted, and taking success for granted. I have heard his
+enemies say that he did this because it was his nature, because he
+could not help it; because his vanity raised him, not only above the
+ordinary passions of men, but above fear; because in the conceit of
+acting his part to the admiration of all, he forgot that it was more
+than a part, and tried all fortunes and ran all risks with as little
+emotion as the actor who portrays the Cid, or takes poison in the part
+of Mithridates.
+
+But this seems to me to amount to no more than saying that he was not
+only a very vain, but a very brave man. Which I admit. No one, indeed,
+who saw him that morning could doubt it; or that, of a million, he was
+the man best fitted to command in such an emergency; resolute,
+undoubting, even gay, he reversed no orders, expressed no fears. When
+the mist rolled away--a little after four--and let the smiling plain
+be seen, and the city and the hills, and when from the direction of
+the Rhone the first harsh jangle of bells smote the ear and stilled
+the lark's song, he turned to his following with an air almost joyous.
+
+"Come, gentlemen," he said gaily, and with head erect. "Let us be
+stirring! They must not say that we lie close and fear to show
+our heads abroad; or, having set others moving, are backward
+ourselves--like the tonguesters and dreamers of their knavish
+assembly, who, when they would take their King, set women in the front
+rank to take the danger also! _Allons_, Messieurs! They brought him
+from Versailles to Paris. We will escort him back! And to-day we take
+the first step!"
+
+Enthusiasm is of all things the most contagious. A murmur of assent
+greeted his words; eyes that a moment before had been dull enough,
+grew bright. "_A bas les Traîtres!_" cried one. "_A bas le Tricolor!_"
+cried another.
+
+Froment raised his hand for silence. "No, Monsieur," he said quickly.
+"On the contrary, we will have a tricolour of our own. _Vive le Roi!
+Vive la Foi! Vive la Loi! Vivent les Trois!_"
+
+The conceit took. A hundred voices shouted, "_Vivent les Trois!_" in
+chorus. The words were taken up on lower roofs and at windows, and in
+the streets below; until they passed noisily away, after the manner of
+file-firing, into the distance.
+
+Froment raised his hat gallantly. "Thank you, gentlemen," he said. "In
+the King's name, in his Majesty's name, I thank you. Before we have
+done, the Atlantic shall hear that cry, and La Manche re-echo it! And
+the Rhone shall release what the Seine has taken! To Nîmes and to you,
+all France looks this day. For freedom! For freedom to live--shall
+knaves and scriveners strangle her? For freedom to pray--they rob God,
+and defile His temples! For freedom to walk abroad--the King of France
+is a captive. Need I say more?"
+
+"No! No!" they cried, waving hats and swords. "No! No!"
+
+"Then I will not," he answered hardily. "I will use no more words! But
+I will show that here at least, at Nîmes at least, God and the King
+are honoured, and their servants are free! Give me your escort,
+gentlemen, and we will walk through the town and visit the King's
+posts, and see if any here dare cry, '_A bas le Roi!_'"
+
+They answered with a roar of assent and menace that shook the very
+tower; and instantly trooping to the ladder, began to descend by it to
+the roof of the house, and so to the staircase. Sitting on the
+battlements of the tower, I watched them pass in a long stream across
+the leads below, their hilts and buckles glittering in the sunshine,
+their ribbons waving in the breeze, their voices sharp and high. I
+thought them, as I watched, a gallant company; the greater part were
+young, and all had a fine air; not without sympathy I saw them vanish
+one by one in the head of the staircase, by which I had ascended. One
+half had disappeared when I felt a touch on my arm, and found Froment,
+the last to leave, standing by my side.
+
+"You will stay here, Monsieur," he said, in an undertone of meaning,
+his eyes lowered to meet mine; "if the worst happens, I need not
+charge you to look to Mademoiselle."
+
+"Worst or best, I will look to her," I answered.
+
+"Thanks," he said, his lip curling, and an ugly light for an instant
+flashing in his eyes. "But in the latter case I will look to her
+myself. Don't forget, that if I win, we have still to talk, Monsieur!"
+
+"Yet, God grant you may win!" I exclaimed involuntarily.
+
+"You have faith in your swordsmanship?" he answered, with a slight
+sneer; and then, in a different tone, he went on: "No, Monsieur, it is
+not that. It is that you are a French gentleman. And as such I leave
+Mademoiselle to your care without a qualm. God keep you!"
+
+"And you," I said. And I saw him go after the others.
+
+It was then about five o'clock. The sun was up, and the tower-roof,
+left silent and in my sole possession, seemed so near the sky, seemed
+so bright and peaceful and still, with the stillness of the early
+morning which is akin to innocence, that I looked about me dazed. I
+stood on a different plane from that of the world below, whence the
+roar of greeting that hailed Froment's appearance came up harshly.
+Another shout followed and another, that drove the affrighted pigeons
+in a circling cloud high above the roofs; and then the wave of sound
+began to roll away, moving with an indescribable note of menace
+southward through the city. And I remained alone on my tower, raised
+high above the strife.
+
+Alone, with time to think; and to think some grim thoughts. Where now
+was the sweet union of which half the nation had been dreaming for
+weeks? Where the millennium of peace and fraternity to which Father
+Benôit, and the Syndics of Giron and Vlais, had looked forward? And
+the abolition of divisions? And the rights of man? And the other ten
+thousand blessings that philosophers and theorists had undertaken to
+create--the nature of man notwithstanding--their systems once adopted?
+Ay, where? From all the smiling country round came, for answer, the
+clanging of importunate bells. From the streets below rose for answer
+the sounds of riot and triumph. Along this or that road, winding
+ribbon-like across the plain, hurried little flocks of men--now seen
+for the first time--with glittering arms; and last and worst--when
+some half-hour had elapsed, and I still watched--from a distant suburb
+westward boomed out a sudden volley, and then dropping shots. The
+pigeons still wheeled, in a shining, shifting cloud, above the roofs,
+and the sparrows twittered round me, and on the tower, and on the roof
+below, where a few domestics clustered, all was sunshine and quiet and
+peace. But down in the streets, there, I knew that death was at work.
+
+Still, for a time, I felt little excitement. It was early in the day;
+I expected no immediate issue; and I listened almost carelessly,
+following the train of thought I have traced, and gloomily comparing
+this scene of strife with the brilliant promises of a few months
+before. But little by little the anxiety of the servants who stood on
+the roof below, infected me. I began to listen more acutely; and to
+fancy that the tide of conflict was rolling nearer, that the cries and
+shots came more quickly and sharply to the ear. At last, in a place
+near the barracks, and not far off, I distinguished little puffs of
+thin white smoke rising above the roofs, and twice a rattling volley
+in the same quarter shook the windows. Then in one of the streets
+immediately below me, the whole length of which was visible, I saw
+people running--running towards me.
+
+I called to the servants to know what it was.
+
+"They are attacking the arsenal, Monsieur," one answered, shading his
+eyes.
+
+"Who?" I said.
+
+But he only shrugged his shoulders and looked out more intently. I
+followed his example, but for a time nothing happened; then on a
+sudden, as if a door were opened that hitherto had shut off the noise,
+a babel of shouts burst out and a great crowd entered the nearer end
+of the street below me, and pouring along it with loud cries and
+brandished arms--and a crucifix and a little body of monks in the
+middle--swirled away round the farthest corner, and were gone. For
+some time, however, I could still hear the burthen of their cries, and
+trace it towards the barracks, whence the crackle of musketry came at
+intervals; and I concluded that it was a reinforcement, and that
+Froment had sent for it. After that, chancing to look down, I saw that
+half the servants, below me, had vanished, and that figures were
+beginning to skulk about the streets hitherto deserted; and I began to
+tremble. The crisis had come sooner than I had thought.
+
+I called to one of the men and asked him where the ladies were.
+
+He looked up at me with a pale face. "I don't know, Monsieur," he
+answered rapidly; and he looked away again.
+
+"They are below?"
+
+But he was watching too intently to answer, and only shook his head
+impatiently. I was unwilling to leave my place on the roof, and I
+called to him to take my compliments to Madame St. Alais and ask her
+to ascend. It seemed strange that she had not done so, for women are
+not generally lacking in the desire to see.
+
+But the man was too frightened to think of any one but himself--I
+fancy he was one of the cooks--and he did not move; while his
+companions only cried: "Presently, presently, Monsieur!"
+
+At that, however, I lost my temper; and, going to the ladder, I ran
+down it, and strode towards them. "You rascals!" I cried. "Where are
+the ladies?"
+
+One or two turned to me with a start. "Pardon, Monsieur?"
+
+"Where are the ladies?" I repeated impatiently.
+
+"Ah! I did not understand!" the nearest answered glibly. "Gone to the
+church to pray, Monsieur."
+
+"To the church?"
+
+"To be sure. By the Capuchins."
+
+"And they are not here?"
+
+"No, Monsieur," he answered, his eyes straying. "But--what is that?"
+
+And, diverted by something, he skipped nimbly from me, his cheek a
+shade paler. I followed him to the parapet, and looked over. The view
+was not so wide as from the tower above, but the main street leading
+southward could be seen, and it was full of people; of scattered
+groups and handfuls, all coming towards us, some running, at an easy
+pace, while others walked quickly, four or five abreast, and often
+looked behind them.
+
+The servants never doubted what it meant. In a trice the group broke
+up. With a muttered, "We are beaten!" they ran pell-mell across the
+sunny leads to the head of the staircase, and began to descend. I
+waited awhile, looking and fearing; but the stream of fugitives ever
+continued and increased, the pace grew quicker, the last comers looked
+more frequently behind them and handled their arms; the din of
+conflict, of yells, and cries, and shots, seemed to be approaching;
+and in a moment I made up my mind to act. The staircase was clear now;
+I ran quickly down it as far as the door on the upper floor, by which
+I had entered the house that evening before. I tried this, but
+recoiled; the door was locked. With a cry of vexation, my haste
+growing feverish--for now, in the darkness of the staircase, I was in
+ignorance what was happening, and pictured the worst--I went on,
+descending round and round, until I reached the cloister-like hall, at
+the bottom.
+
+I found this choked with men, armed, grim-faced, and furious; and
+beset by other men who still continued to pour in from the street. A
+moment later and I should have found the staircase stopped by the
+stream of people ascending; and I must have remained on the roof. As
+it was, I could not for a minute or two force myself through the
+press, but was thrust against a wall, and pinned there by the rush
+inwards. Next me, however, I found one of the servants in like case,
+and I seized him by the sleeve. "Where are the ladies?" I said. "Have
+they returned? Are they here?"
+
+"I don't know," he said, his eyes roving.
+
+"Are they still at the church?"
+
+"Monsieur, I don't know," he answered impatiently; and then seeing, I
+think, the man for whom he was searching, he shook me off, with the
+churlishness of fear, and, flinging himself into the crowd, was gone.
+
+All the place was such a hurly-burly of men entering and leaving,
+shouting orders, or forcing themselves through the press, that I
+doubted what to do. Some were crying for Froment, others to close the
+doors; one that all was lost, another to bring up the powder. The
+disorder was enough to turn the brain, and for a minute I stood in the
+heart of it, elbowed and pushed, and tossed this way and that. Where
+were the women? Where were the women? The doubt distracted me. I
+seized half a dozen of the nearest men, and asked them; but they only
+cried out fiercely that they did not know--how should they?--and shook
+me off savagely and escaped as the servant had. For all here, with a
+few exceptions, were of the commoner sort. I could see nothing of
+Froment, nothing of St. Alais or the leaders, and only one or two of
+the gallants who had gone with them.
+
+I do not think that I was ever in a more trying position. Denise might
+be still at the church and in peril there; or she might be in the
+streets exposed to dangers on which I dare not dwell; or, on the other
+hand, she might be safe in the next room, or upstairs; or on the roof.
+In the unutterable confusion, it was impossible to know or learn, or
+even move quickly; my only hope seemed to be in Froment's return, but
+after waiting a minute, which seemed a lifetime, in the hope of seeing
+him, I lost patience and battled my way through the press to a door,
+which appeared to lead to the main part of the house.
+
+Passing through it, I found the same disorder ruling; here men,
+bringing up powder from the cellars, blocked the passage; there others
+appeared to be rifling the house. I had little hope of finding those
+whom I sought below stairs; and after glancing this way and that
+without result, I lighted on a staircase, and ascending quickly to the
+second floor, hastened to Denise's room. The door was locked.
+
+I hammered on it madly and called, and waited, and listened, and
+called again; but I heard no sound from within; convinced at last. I
+left it and tried the nearest doors. The two first were locked also,
+and the rooms as silent; the third and fourth were open and empty. The
+last I entered was a man's.
+
+The task was no long one, and occupied less than a minute. But all the
+time, while I rapped and listened and called, though the corridor in
+which I moved was quiet as death and echoed my footsteps, the house
+below rang with cries and shouts and hurrying feet; and I was in a
+fever. Madame might be on the roof. I turned that way meaning to
+ascend. Then I reflected that if I climbed to it I might find the
+staircase blocked when I came to descend again; and, cursing my folly
+for leaving the hall--simply because my quest had failed--I hurried
+back to the stairs, and dashed recklessly down them, and, stemming as
+well as I could the tide of people that surged and ebbed about the
+lower floor, I fought my way back to the hall.
+
+I was just in time. As I entered by one door Froment entered by the
+other, with a little band of his braves; of whom several, I now
+observed, wore green ribbons--the Artois colours. His great stature
+raising him above the crowd of heads, I saw that he was wounded; a
+little blood was running down his cheek, and his eyes shone with a
+brilliance almost of madness. But he was still cool; he had still so
+much the command, not only of himself, but of those round him, that
+the commotion grew still and abated under his eye. In a moment men who
+before had only tumbled over and embarrassed one another, flew to
+their places; and, though the howling of a hostile mob could plainly
+be heard at the end of the street, and it was clear that he had fallen
+back before an overwhelming force, resolution seemed in a moment to
+take the place of panic, and hope of despair.
+
+Standing on the threshold, and pointing this way, and that, with a
+discharged pistol which he held in his hand, he gave a few short,
+sharp orders for the barricading of the door, and saw them carried
+out, and sent this man to one post, and that man to another. Then, the
+crowd, which had before cumbered the place, melting as if by magic, he
+saw me forcing my way to him. And he beckoned to me.
+
+If he played a part, then let me say, once for all, he played it
+nobly. Even now, when I guessed that all was lost, I read no fear and
+no envy in his face; and in what he said there was no ostentation.
+
+"Get out quickly," he muttered, in an undertone, forestalling by a
+hasty gesture the excited questions I had on my lips, "through yonder
+door, and by the little postern at the foot of the other staircase. Go
+by the east gate, and you will find horses at the St. Geneviève
+outside. It is all over here!" he added, wringing my hand hard, and
+pushing me towards the door.
+
+"But Mademoiselle?" I cried; and I told him that she was not in the
+house.
+
+"What?" he said, pausing and looking at me, with his face grown
+suddenly dark. "Are you mad? Do you mean that she has gone out?"
+
+"She is not here," I answered. "I am told that she went to the church
+with Madame St. Alais, and has not returned."
+
+"That beldam!" he exclaimed, with a terrible oath, and then, "God help
+them!" he said--twice. And after a moment of silence, meeting my eyes
+and reading the horror in them, he laughed harshly. "After all, what
+matter?" he said recklessly. "We shall all go together! Let us go like
+gentlemen. I did what I could. Do you hear that?"
+
+He held up his hand, as a roar of musketry shook the house; and he
+gave an order. The small windows had been stopped with paving stones,
+the door made solid with the wall behind it; and daylight being shut
+out, lamps had been lighted, which gave the long whitewashed,
+stone-groined room a strange sombre look. Or it was the grim faces I
+saw round me had that effect.
+
+"I am afraid that the St. Alais are cut off in the Arènes," he said
+coolly. "And they are not enough to man the walls. Those cursed
+Cevennols have been too many for us. As for our friends--it is as I
+expected; they have left me to die like a bull in the ring. Well, we
+must die goring."
+
+But in the midst of my admiration of his courage a kind of revulsion
+seized me. "And Denise?" I said, grasping his arm fiercely. "Are we to
+leave her to perish?"
+
+He looked at me, his lip curling. "True," he said, with a sneering
+smile. "I forgot. You are not of us."
+
+"I am thinking of her!" I cried, raging. And in that moment I hated
+him.
+
+But his mood changed while he looked at me. "You are right, Monsieur,"
+he said, in a different tone. "Go! There may be a chance; but the
+church is by the Capuchins, and those dogs were baying round it when
+we fell back. They are ten to one, or--still there may be a chance,"
+he continued with decision. "Go, and if you find her, and escape, do
+not forget Froment of Nîmes."
+
+"By the postern?" I said.
+
+"Yes--take this," he answered; and abruptly drawing a pistol from his
+pocket, he forced it on me. "Go, and I must go too. Good fortune,
+Monsieur, and farewell. And you, bark away, you dogs!" he continued
+bitterly, addressing the unconscious mob. "The bull is on foot yet,
+and will toss some of you before the ring closes!"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+                           THE MILLENNIUM.
+
+
+With that word he thrust me towards the door that led to the inner
+hall and the postern; and, knowing, as I did, that every moment I
+delayed might stand for a life, and that within a minute or two at
+most the rear of the building would be beset, and my chance of egress
+lost, it was to be expected that I should not hesitate.
+
+Yet I did. The main body of Froment's followers had flocked upstairs,
+whence they could be heard firing from the roof and windows. He stood
+almost alone in the middle of the floor; in the attitude of one
+listening and thinking, while a group of green ribbons, who seemed to
+be the most determined of his followers, hung growling about the
+barricaded door. Something in the gloomy brightness of the room, and
+the disorder of the barricaded windows, something in the loneliness of
+his figure as he stood there, appealed to me; I even took one step
+towards him. But at that moment he looked up, his face grown dark; and
+he waved me off with a gesture almost of rage. I knew then that I had
+but a small part of his thoughts; and that at this moment, while the
+edifice he had built up with so much care and so much risk was
+crumbling about him, he was thinking not of us, but of those who had
+promised and failed him; who had given good words, and left him to
+perish. And I went.
+
+Yet even for that moment of delay it seemed that I might pay too
+dearly. A dozen steps brought me to the low-browed door he had
+indicated, in the thickness of the wall at the foot of the main
+staircase. But already a man was adjusting the last bar. I cried to
+him to open. "Open! I must go out!" I cried.
+
+"_Dieu!_ It is too late!" he said, with a dark glance at me.
+
+My heart sank; I feared he was right. Still he began to unbar, though
+grudgingly, and in half a minute we had the door loose. With a pistol
+in his hand, he opened it on the chain and looked out. It opened on a
+narrow passage--which, God be thanked, was still empty. He dropped the
+chain, and almost thrust me out, cried, "To the left!" and then, as
+dazzled by the sunlight I turned that way, I heard the door slam
+behind me and the chain rattle as it was linked again.
+
+The houses that rose on each side somewhat deadened the noise of the
+mob and the firing; but as I hurried down the alley, bareheaded and
+with the pistol which Froment had given me firmly clutched in my hand,
+I heard a fresh spirt of noise behind me, and knew that the assailants
+had entered the passage by the farther end; and that had I waited a
+moment longer I should have been too late.
+
+As it was, my position was sufficiently forlorn, if it was not
+hopeless. Alone and a stranger, without hat or badge, knowing little
+of the streets, I might blunder at any corner into the arms of one of
+the parties--and be massacred. I had a notion that the church of the
+Capuchins was that which I had visited near Madame Catinot's; and my
+first thought was to gain the main street leading in that direction.
+This was not so easy, however; the alley in which I found myself led
+only into a second passage equally strait and gloomy. Entering this, I
+turned after a moment's hesitation to the left, but before I had gone
+a dozen paces I heard shouting in front of me; and I halted and
+retraced my steps. Hurrying in the other direction, I found myself in
+a minute in a little gloomy well-like court, with no second outlet
+that I could see, where I stood a moment panting and at a loss,
+rendered frantic and almost desperate by the thought that, while I
+hovered there uncertain, the die might be cast, and those whom I
+sought perish for lack of my aid.
+
+I was about to return, resolved to face at all risks the party of
+rioters whom I heard behind me, when an open window in the lowest
+floor of one of the houses that stood round the court caught my eye.
+It was not far from the ground, and to see was to determine; the house
+must have an outlet on the street. In a dozen strides I crossed the
+court, and resting one hand on the sill of the window, vaulted into
+the room, alighted sideways on a stool, and fell heavily to the floor.
+
+I was up in a moment unhurt, but with a woman's scream ringing in my
+ears, and a woman, a girl, cowering from me, white-faced, her back to
+the door. She had been kneeling, praying probably, by the bed; and I
+had almost fallen on her. When I looked she screamed again; I called
+to her in heaven's name to be silent.
+
+"The door! Only the door!" I cried. "Show it me. I will hurt no one."
+
+"Who are you?" she muttered. And still shrinking from me, she stared
+at me with distended eyes.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_ What does it matter?" I answered fiercely. "The door,
+woman! The door into the street!"
+
+I advanced upon her, and the same fear which had paralysed her gave
+her sense again. She opened the door beside her, and pointed dumbly
+down a passage. I hurried through the passage, rejoicing at my
+success, but before I could unbar the door that I found facing me a
+second woman came out of a room at the side, and saw me, and threw up
+her hands with a cry of terror.
+
+"Which is the way to the church of the Capuchins?" I said.
+
+She clapped one hand to her side, but she answered. "To the left!" she
+gasped. "And then to the right! Are they coming?"
+
+I did not stay to ask whom she meant, but getting the door open at
+last I sprang through the doorway. One look up and down the street,
+however, and I was in again, and the door closed behind me. My eyes
+met the woman's, and without a word she snatched up the bar I had
+dropped and set it in the sockets. Then she turned and ran up the
+stairs, and I followed her, the girl into whose room I had leapt, and
+whose scared face showed for a second at the end of the passage,
+disappearing like a rabbit, as we passed her.
+
+I followed the woman to the window of an upper room, and we looked
+out, standing back and peering fearfully over the sill. No need, now,
+to ask why I had returned so quickly. The roar of many voices seemed
+in a moment to fill all the street, while the casement shook with the
+tread of thousands and thousands of advancing feet, as, rank after
+rank, stretching from wall to wall, the mob, or one section of it,
+swept by, the foremost marching in order, shoulder to shoulder, armed
+with muskets, and in some kind of uniform, the rearmost a savage
+rabble with naked arms and pikes and axes, who looked up at the
+windows, and shook their fists and danced and leapt as they went by,
+with a great shout of "_Aux Arènes! Aux Arènes!_"
+
+In themselves they were a sight to make a quiet man's blood run chill;
+but they had that in their midst, seeing which the woman beside me
+clutched my arm and screamed aloud. On six long pikes, raised high
+above the mob, moved six severed heads--one, the foremost, bald and
+large, and hideously leering. They lifted these to the windows, and
+shook their gory locks in sport; and so went by, and in a moment the
+street was quiet again.
+
+The woman, trembling in a chair, muttered that they had sacked
+La Vierge, the red cabaret, and that the bald head was a
+town-councillor's, her neighbour's. But I did not stay to listen. I
+left her where she was, and, hurrying down again, unbarred the door
+and went out. All was strangely quiet again. The morning sun shone
+bright and warm on the long empty street, and seemed to give the lie
+to the thing I had seen. Not a living creature was visible this way or
+that; not a face at the window. I stood a moment in the middle of the
+road, disconcerted; puzzled by the bright stillness, and uncertain
+which way I had been going. At last I remembered the woman's
+directions, and set off on the heels of the mob, until I reached the
+first turning on the right. I took this, and had not gone a hundred
+yards before I recognised, a little in front of me, Madame Catinot's
+house.
+
+It showed to the sunshine a wide blind front, long rows of shuttered
+windows, and not a sign of life. Nevertheless, here was something I
+knew, something which wore a semblance of familiarity, and I hailed it
+with hope; and, flinging myself on the door, knocked long and
+recklessly. The noise seemed fit to wake the dead; it boomed and
+echoed in every doorway of the empty street, that on the evening of my
+arrival had teemed with traffic; I shivered at the sound--I shivered
+standing conspicuous on the steps of the house, expecting a score of
+windows to be opened and heads thrust out.
+
+But I had not yet learned how the extremity of panic benumbs; or how
+strong is the cowardly instinct that binds the peaceful man to his
+hearth when blood flows in the streets. Not a face showed at a
+casement, not a door opened; worse, though I knocked again and again,
+the house I would awaken remained dead and silent. I stood back and
+gazed at it, and returned, and hammered again, thinking this time
+nothing of myself.
+
+But without result. Or not quite. Far away at the end of the street
+the echo of my knocking dwelt a little, then grew into a fuller,
+deeper sound--a sound I knew. The mob was returning.
+
+I cursed my folly then for lingering; thought of the passage in the
+rear of the house that led to the church, found the entrance to it,
+and in a moment was speeding through it. The distant roar grew nearer
+and louder, but now I could see the low door of the church, and I
+slackened my pace a little. As I did so the door before me opened, and
+a man looked out. I saw his face before he saw me, and read it; saw
+terror, shame, and rage written on its mean features; and in some
+strange way I knew what he was going to do before he did it. A moment
+he glared abroad, blinking and shading his eyes in the sunshine, then
+he spied me, slid out, and with an indescribable Judas look at me,
+fled away.
+
+He left the door ajar--I knew him in some way for the door-keeper,
+deserting his post; and in a moment I was in the church and face to
+face with a sight I shall remember while I live; for that which was
+passing outside, that which I had seen during the last few minutes,
+gave it a solemnity exceeding even that of the strange service I had
+witnessed there before.
+
+The sun shut out, a few red altar lamps shed a sombre light on the
+pillars and the dim pictures and the vanishing spaces; above all, on a
+vast crowd of kneeling women, whose bowed heads and wailing voices as
+they chanted the Litany of the Virgin, filled the nave.
+
+There were some, principally on the fringe of the assembly, who rocked
+themselves to and fro, weeping silently, or lay still as statues with
+their foreheads pressed to the cold stones; whilst others glanced this
+way and that with staring eyes, and started at the slightest sound,
+and moaned prayers with white lips. But more and more, the passionate
+utterance of the braver souls laid bonds on the others; louder and
+louder the measured rhythm of "_Ora pro nobis! Ora pro nobis!_" rose
+and swelled through the vaults of the roof; more and more fervent it
+grew, more and more importunate, wilder the abandonment of
+supplication, until--until I felt the tears rise in my throat, and my
+breast swell with pity and admiration--and then I saw Denise.
+
+She knelt between her mother and Madame Catinot, nearly in the front
+row of those who faced the high altar. Whence I stood, I had a side
+view of her face as she looked upward in rapt adoration--that face
+which I had once deemed so childish. Now at the thought that she
+prayed, perhaps for me--at the thought that this woman so pure and
+brave, that though little more than a child, and soft, and gentle, and
+maidenly, she could bear herself with no shadow of quailing in this
+stress of death--at the thought that she loved me, and prayed for me,
+I felt myself more or less than a man. I felt tears rising, I felt my
+breast heaving, and then--and then as I went to drop on my knees,
+against the great doors on the farther side of the church, came a
+thunderous shock, followed by a shower of blows and loud cries for
+admittance.
+
+A horrible kind of shudder ran through the kneeling crowd, and here
+and there a woman screamed and sprang up and looked wildly round. But
+for a few moments the chant still rose monotonously and filled the
+building; louder and louder the measured rhythm of "_Ora pro nobis!
+Ora pro nobis!_" still rose and fell and rose again with an intensity
+of supplication, a pathos of repetition that told of bursting hearts.
+At length, however, one of the leaves of the door flew open, and that
+proved too much; the sound sent three parts of the congregation
+shrieking to their feet--though a few still sang. By this time I was
+half way through the crowd, pressing to Denise's side; before I could
+reach her the other door gave way, and a dozen men flocked in
+tumultuously. I had a glimpse of a priest--afterwards I learnt that it
+was Father Benôit--standing to oppose them with a cross upraised; and
+then, by the dim light, which to them was darkness, I saw--unspeakable
+relief--that the intruders were not the leaders of the mob, but
+foremost the two St. Alais, blood-stained and black with powder, with
+drawn swords and clothes torn; and behind them a score of their
+followers.
+
+In their relief women flung themselves on the men's necks, and those
+who stood farther away burst into loud sobbing and weeping. But the
+men themselves, after securing the doors behind them, began
+immediately to move across the church to the smaller exit on the
+alley; one crying that all was lost, and another that the east gate
+was open, while a third adjured the women to separate--adding that in
+the neighbouring houses they would be safe, but that the church would
+be sacked; and that even now the Calvinists were bursting in the gates
+of the monastery through which the fugitives had retreated, after
+being driven out of the Arènes.
+
+All, on the instant, was panic and wailing and confusion. I have heard
+it said since that the worst thing the men could have done was to take
+the church in their flight, and that had they kept aloof the women
+would not have been disturbed; that, as a fact, and in the event, the
+church was not sacked. But in such a hell as was Nîmes that morning,
+with the kennels running blood, and men's souls surprised by sudden
+defeat, it was hard to decide what was best; and I blame no one.
+
+A rush for the door followed the man's words. It drove me a little
+farther from Denise; but as she and the group round her held back and
+let the more timid or selfish go first, I had time to gain her side.
+She had drawn the hood of her cloak close round her face, and until I
+touched her arm did not see me. Then, without a word, she clung to
+me--she clung to me, looking up; I saw her face under the hood, and it
+was happy. God! It was happy, even in that scene of terror!
+
+After that, Madame St. Alais, though she greeted me with a bitter
+smile, had no power to repel me. "You are quick, Monsieur, to profit
+by your victory," she said, in a scathing tone. And that was all.
+Unrebuked, I passed my arm round Denise, and followed close on Louis
+and Madame Catinot; while Monsieur le Marquis, after speaking with his
+mother, followed. As he did so his eye fell on me, but he only smiled,
+and to something Madame said, answered aloud, "_Mon Dieu_, Madame;
+what does it matter? We have thrown the last stake and lost. Let us
+leave the table!"
+
+She dropped her hood over her face; and even in that moment of fear
+and excitement I found something tragic in the act, and on a sudden
+pitied her. But it was no time for sentiment or pity; the pursuers
+were not far behind the pursued. We were still in the church and some
+paces from the threshold giving on the alley, when a rush of footsteps
+outside the great door behind us made itself heard, and the next
+instant the doors creaked under the blows hailed upon them. It was a
+question whether they would stand until we were out, and I felt the
+slender figure within my arm quiver and press more closely to me. But
+they held--they held, and an instant later the crowd before us gave
+way, and we were outside in the daylight, in the alley, hurrying
+quickly down it towards Madame Catinot's house.
+
+It seemed to me that we were safe then, or nearly safe; so glad was I
+to find myself in the open air and out of the church. The ground fell
+away a little towards Madame Catinot's, and I could see the line of
+hastening heads bobbing along before us, and here and there white
+faces turned to look back. The high walls on either hand softened the
+noise of the riot. Behind me were M. le Marquis and Madame; and again
+behind them three or four of M. le Marquis' followers brought up the
+rear. I looked back beyond these and saw that the alley opposite the
+church was still clear, and that the pursuers had not yet passed
+through the church; and I stooped to whisper a word of comfort to
+Denise. I stooped perhaps longer than was necessary, for before I was
+aware of it I found myself stumbling over Louis' heels. A backward
+wave sweeping up the alley had brought him up short and flung him
+against me. With the movement, as we all jostled one another, there
+arose far in front and rolled up the passage between the high walls a
+sound of misery; a mingling of groans and screams and wailing such as
+I hope I may never hear again. Some strove furiously to push their way
+back towards the church, and some, not understanding what was amiss,
+to go forwards, and some fell, and were trodden under foot; and for a
+few seconds the long narrow alley heaved and seethed in an agony of
+panic.
+
+Engaged in saving Denise from the crush and keeping her on her feet, I
+did not, for a moment, understand. The first thought I had was that
+the women--three out of four were women--had gone mad or given way to
+a shameful, selfish terror. Then, as our company staggering and
+screaming rolled back upon us, until it filled but half the length of
+the passage, I heard in front a roar of cruel laughter, and saw over
+the intervening heads a serried mass of pike-points filling the end of
+the passage opposite Madame Catinot's house. Then I understood. The
+Calvinists had cut us off; and my heart stood still.
+
+For there was no retreat. I looked behind me, and saw the alley by the
+church-porch choked with men who had reached it through the church;
+alive with harsh mocking faces, and scowling eyes, and cruel thirsty
+pikes. We were hemmed in; in the long high walls, which it was
+impossible to scale, was no door or outlet short of Madame Catinot's
+house--and that was guarded. And before and behind us were the pikes.
+
+I dream of that scene sometimes; of the sunshine, hot and bright, that
+lay ghastly on white faces distorted with fear; of women fallen on
+their knees and lifting hands this way and that; of others screaming
+and uttering frenzied prayers, or hanging on men's necks; of the long
+writhing line of humanity, wherein fear, showing itself in every
+shape, had its way; above all of the fiendish jeers and laughter of
+the victors, as they cried to the men to step out, or hurled vile
+words at the women.
+
+Even Nîmes, mother of factions, parent of a hundred quarterless
+brawls, never saw a worse scene, or one more devilish. For a few
+seconds in the surprise of this trap, in the sudden horror of finding
+ourselves, when all seemed well, at grips with death, I could only
+clutch Denise to me tighter and tighter, and hide her eyes on my
+breast, as I leaned against the wall and groaned with white lips. O
+God, I thought, the women! The women! At such a time a man would give
+all the world that there might be none, or that he had never loved
+one.
+
+St. Alais was the first to recover his presence of mind and act--if
+that could be called action which was no more than speech, since we
+were hopelessly enmeshed and outnumbered. Putting Madame behind him he
+waved a white kerchief to the men by the door of the church--who stood
+about thirty paces from us--and adjured them to let the women pass;
+even taunting them when they refused, and gibing at them as cowards,
+who dared not face the men unencumbered.
+
+But they only answered with jeers and threats, and savage laughter.
+"No, no, M. le Prêtre!" they cried. "No, no! Come out and taste steel!
+Then, perhaps, we will let the women go! Or perhaps not!"
+
+"You cowards!" he cried.
+
+But they only brandished their arms and laughed, shrieking: "_A bas
+les traîtres! A bas les prêtres!_ Stand out! Stand out, Messieurs!"
+they continued, "or we will come and pluck you from the women's
+skirts!"
+
+He glowered at them in unspeakable rage. Then a man on their side
+stepped out and stilled the tumult. "Now listen!" said this fellow, a
+giant, with long black hair falling over a tallowy face. "We will give
+you three minutes to come out and be piked. Then the women shall go.
+Skulk there behind them, and we fire on all, and their blood be on
+your heads."
+
+St. Alais stood speechless. At last, "You are fiends!" he cried in a
+voice of horror. "Would you kill us before their eyes?"
+
+"Ay, or in their laps!" the man retorted, amid a roar of laughter. "So
+decide, decide!" he continued, dancing a clumsy step and tossing a
+half-pike round his head. "Three minutes by the clock there! Come out,
+or we fire on all! It will be a dainty pie! A dainty Catholic pie,
+Messieurs!"
+
+St. Alais turned to me, his face white, his eyes staring; and he tried
+to speak. But his voice failed.
+
+And then, of what happened next I cannot tell; for, for a minute, all
+was blurred. I remember only how the sun lay hot on the wall beyond
+his face, and how black the lines of mortar showed between the old
+thin Roman bricks. We were about twenty men and perhaps fifty women,
+huddled together in a space some forty yards long. Groans burst from
+the men's lips, and such as had women in their arms--and they were
+many--leaned against the wall and tried to comfort them, and tried to
+put them from them. One man cried curses on the dogs who would murder
+us, and shook his fists at them; and some rained kisses on the pale
+senseless faces that lay on their breasts--for, thank God, many of the
+women had fainted; while others, like St. Alais, looked mute agony
+into eyes that told it again, or clasped a neighbour's hand, and
+looked up into a sky piteously blue and bright. And I--I do not know
+what I did, save look into Denise's eyes and look and look! There was
+no senselessness in them.
+
+Remember that the sun shone on all this, and the birds twittered and
+chirped in the gardens beyond the walls; that it wanted an hour or two
+of high noon, a southern noon; that in the crease of the valley the
+Rhone sparkled between its banks, and not far off the sea broke
+rippling and creaming on the shore of Les Bouches; that all nature
+rejoiced, and only we--we, pent between those dreadful walls, those
+scowling faces, saw death imminent--black death shutting out all
+things.
+
+A hand touched me; it was St. Alais' hand. I think, nay, I know,
+for I read it in his face, that he meant to be reconciled to me.
+But when I turned to him--or it may be it was the sight of his
+sister's speechless misery moved him--he had another thought. As the
+black-haired giant called "One minute gone!" and his following howled,
+M. le Marquis threw up his hand.
+
+"Stay!" he cried, with the old gesture of command. "Stay! There is
+one man here who is not of us! Let him pass first, and go!" And he
+pointed to me. "He has no part with us. I swear it!"
+
+A roar of cruel laughter was the answer. Then, "He that is not with me
+is against me!" the giant quoted impiously. And they jeered again.
+
+On that, I take no credit for what I did. In such moments of
+exaltation men are not accountable, and, for another thing, I knew
+that they would not listen, that I risked nothing. And trembling with
+rage I flung back their words. "I am against you!" I cried. "I would
+rather die here with these, than live with you! You stain the earth!
+You pollute the air! You are fiends----"
+
+No more, for with a shrill laugh the man next me, a mere lad,
+half-witted, I think, and the same who had cursed them, sprang by me
+and rushed on the pike-points. Half a dozen met in his breast before
+our eyes--before our eyes--and with a wild scream he flung up his arms
+and was borne back against the side-wall dead and gushing blood.
+
+Instinctively I had covered Denise's face that she might not see. And
+it was well; for at that--there was a kind of mercy in it, and let me
+tell it quickly--the wretches tasting blood broke loose, and rushed on
+us. I saw St. Alais thrust his mother behind him, and almost with the
+same movement fling himself on the pikes; and I, pushing Denise down
+into the angle of the wall--though she clung to me and prayed to
+me--killed the first that came at me with Froment's pistol, and the
+next also, with the other barrel at point blank distance--feeling no
+fear, but only passion and rage. The third bore me down with his pike
+fixed in my shoulder, and for a moment I saw only the sky, and his
+scowling face black against it; and shut my eyes, expecting the blow
+that must follow.
+
+But none did follow. Instead a weight fell on me, and I began to
+struggle, and a whole battle, it seemed to me, was fought over me--in
+that horrible slaughterhouse alley, where they dragged men from
+women's arms, and forced them, screaming, to the wall, and stabbed
+them to death without pity; and things were done of which I dare not
+tell!
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXV.
+
+                          BEYOND THE SHADOW.
+
+
+I thank Heaven that I saw little more than I have told. A score of
+feet trampled on me as the murderers stumbled this way and that,
+and bruised me and covered me with blood that was not my own. And I
+heard screams of men in the death-throe, ear-piercing shrieks of
+women--shrieks that chilled the blood and stopped the breath--mad
+laughter, sounds of the pit. But to rise was to court instant death,
+and, though I had no hope and no looking forward, my momentary passion
+had spent itself and I lay quiet. Resistance was useless.
+
+At last I thought the end had come. The body that pressed on me, and
+partly hid me, was abruptly dragged away; the light came to my eyes,
+and a voice cried, briskly: "Here is another! He is alive!"
+
+I staggered to my feet, stupidly willing to die with some sort of
+dignity. The speaker was a stranger, but by his side was Buton, and
+beyond him stood De Géol; and there were others, all staring at me,
+face beyond face. Still, I could not believe that I was saved. "If you
+are going to do it, do it quickly," I muttered; and I opened my arms.
+
+"God forbid!" Buton answered hurriedly. "Enough has been done already,
+and too much! M. le Vicomte, lean on me! Lean on me, and come this
+way. _Mon Dieu_, I was only just in time. If they had killed you----"
+
+"That is the fifth," said De Géol.
+
+Buton did not answer, but taking my arm, gently urged me along, and De
+Géol taking the other side, I walked between them, through a lane of
+people who stared at me with a sort of brutish wonder--a lane of
+people with faces that looked strangely white in the sunshine. I was
+bareheaded, and the sun dazzled and confused me, but obeying the
+pressure of Buton's hand I swerved and passed through a door that
+seemed to open in the wall. As I did so I dropped a kerchief which
+some one had given me to bind up my shoulder. A man standing beside
+the door, the last man on the right-hand side of the lane of people,
+picked it up and gave it to me with a kindly alacrity. He had a pike,
+and his hands were covered with blood, and I do not doubt that he was
+one of the murderers!
+
+Two men were carrying some one into the house before us, and at the
+sight of the helpless body and hanging head, sense and memory returned
+to me with a rush. I caught Buton by the breast of his coat and shook
+him--shook him savagely. "Mademoiselle de St. Alais!" I cried. "What
+have you done to her, wretch? If you have----"
+
+"Hush, Monsieur, hush," he answered reproachfully. "And be yourself.
+She is safe, and here, I give you my word. She was carried in among
+the first. I don't think a hair of her head is injured."
+
+"She was carried in here?" I said.
+
+"Yes, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"And safe?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+I believe that at that I burst into tears not altogether unmanly; for
+they were tears of thankfulness and gratitude. I had gone through very
+much, and, though the wound in my arm was a trifle, I had lost some
+blood; and the tears may be forgiven me. Nor indeed was I alone in
+weeping that day. I learned afterwards that one of the very murderers,
+a man who had been foremost in the work, cried bitterly when he came
+to himself and saw what he had done.
+
+They killed in Nîmes on that day and the two next, about three hundred
+men, principally in the Capuchin convent--which Froment had used as a
+printing-office, and made the headquarters of his propaganda--in the
+Cabaret Rouge, and in Froment's own house, which held out until they
+brought cannon to bear on it. Not more than one-half of these fell in
+actual conflict or hot blood; the remainder were hunted down in lanes
+and houses and hiding-places, and killed where they were found, or,
+surrendering at discretion, were led to the nearest wall, and there
+shot.
+
+Later, both in Paris and the provinces, this severity was commended,
+and held up to admiration as the truest mercy; on the ground that it
+stamped out the fire of revolt which was on the point of blazing up
+and prevented it spreading to the rest of France. But, looking back, I
+find in it another thing; I find in it not mercy, but the first, or
+nearly the first, instance of that strange contempt of human life
+which marked the Revolution in its later stages; of that extravagance
+of cruelty which three years afterwards paralysed society and
+astounded the world, and, by the horrible excesses into which it
+occasionally led men, proved to the philosophers of the Human Race
+that France in the last days of the eighteenth century could do in the
+daylight, at Arras and Nantes and Paris, deeds which the tyrants of
+old confined to the dark recesses of their torture-chambers: deeds--I
+blush to say it--that no other polite country has matched in this age.
+
+But with these crimes--and be it understood I do not refer here to the
+work of the guillotine--I thank God that I have at this time nothing
+to do. They left their traces on later pages of my life--as on the
+life of what Frenchman have they not?--and some day I may revert to
+them. But my task here barely touches them. It is enough for me to say
+that of eighteen men who shared with me the horrors of the alley by
+the Capuchins, four only lived to tell the tale, and look back on the
+walls of Nîmes; they and I owing our lives in part to the timely
+arrival of Buton and some foreign representatives, who did not share
+the Cevennols' fanaticism, and partly to the late relenting of the
+murderers themselves.
+
+Of the four, Father Benôit and Louis St. Alais were two, and strange
+was the meeting, when we three, so wonderfully preserved, with clothes
+still torn and disordered, and faces splashed with blood, came
+together in the upstairs _salon_ at Madame Catinot's. The shutters of
+the room, with the exception of one high corner shutter, were still
+closed; dead ashes lay white and cold in the empty fire-place, that
+had blazed so cheerfully in my honour the night I supped with Madame
+Catinot. The whole room was gloomy and chill, the furniture cast long
+shadows, and up the stairs came the clamour of the mob, that having
+seen us into the house eddied curiously round the scene of the murder,
+and could not have enough of it.
+
+A strange meeting, for we three had all loved one another, and by
+stress of the times had been separated. Now we met as from the grave,
+ghostly figures, livid, trembling, with shaking hands and eyes burning
+with the light of fever; but with all differences purged away. "My
+Brother!" "Your Brother!" and Louis' hands met mine, as if the dead
+man who had died with the courage of his race joined them; while
+Father Benôit wrung his hands in uncontrollable grief or walked the
+room, crying: "My poor children! Oh, my poor children! God have mercy
+on this land!"
+
+A low sound of women's voices, and weeping, with the hurrying of feet
+going softly to and fro, came from the next room: and that it was, I
+think, that presently calmed us, so that except for an occasional
+burst of grief on Louis' part we could talk quietly. I learned that
+Madame St. Alais lay there, sadly injured in the _mêlée_, either by
+her fall or a blow from a foot; and that Denise and Madame Catinot and
+a surgeon were with her. The very room in its gloom was funereal, and
+we talked in whispers--and then sank into silence; or again one or
+other would rise with a shudder of remembrance, and walk the room with
+heaving breast. Presently, the sound of guns coming to our ears, we
+forgot ourselves for a while and talked of Froment, and what chance of
+escape he had, and listened and heard the mob raving and howling as it
+surged by; and then talked again. But always as men who were no longer
+concerned; as men whom death had released from the common obligations.
+
+Presently they came and called Louis, who went to his mother; and then
+after another interval Father Benôit was summoned, and I walked the
+room alone. Silence after so great commotion, solitude, when an hour
+before I had dealt death and faced it in that inferno, safety after
+danger so imminent, all stirred the depths of my heart. When, in
+addition, I thought of St. Alais' death, and recalled the brilliant
+promise, the daring, the brightness of that haughty spirit now for
+ever quenched, I felt the tears rise again. I paced the room in
+uncontrollable emotion, and was thankful for the gloom that allowed me
+to give it vent. Old times, old scenes, old affections rose up, and my
+boyhood; I remembered that we had played together, I forgot that we
+had gone different ways.
+
+After a long time, a long, long time, when evening had nearly come,
+Louis came in to me. "Will you come?" he said abruptly.
+
+"To Madame St. Alais?"
+
+"Yes, she wants to see you," he replied, holding the door open, and
+speaking in the dull even tone of one who knows all.
+
+After such a scene as we had passed through comes reaction; I was worn
+out and I went with him mechanically, thinking rather of the past than
+the present. But no sooner was I over the threshold of the next room,
+which, unlike that I had left, was brilliantly lit by candles set in
+sconces, the shutters being closed, than I came to myself with a
+shock. Propped up with pillows on a bed opposite the door, so that I
+met her eyes and had a full view of her face as I entered, lay Madame
+St. Alais; and I stood. Her face was white with a red spot burning in
+each cheek; her eyes matched the colour in brilliance; but it was
+neither of these things that brought me up suddenly, nor--though I
+noticed it with foreboding--the way in which she plucked at the
+coverlet when she spoke. It was something in her expression; something
+so unfitting the occasion, so bizarre and light that I stood appalled.
+
+She saw my hesitation, and in a gay and slightly affected tone, that
+in a moment told the story, a tone more dreadful under the
+circumstances than the most pathetic outbursts, she reproached me with
+it. "Welcome, M. le Vicomte," she said. "And yet I am glad to see that
+you have some modesty. We will not be hard on you, however. A late
+repentance is better than none, and--where is my fan, Denise? Child,
+my fan!"
+
+Denise rose with a choking sound from her seat by the bed, and must, I
+think, have broken down; we had all nerves worn to the last thread.
+But Madame Catinot saved the situation. Hastily reaching a fan from a
+side table she laid a firm hand on the younger woman's shoulder as she
+passed, and gently pressed her back into her seat.
+
+"Thank you, my dear," Madame St. Alais said, playing an instant with
+the fan, and smiling from side to side, as I had seen her smile a
+hundred times in her _salon_. "And now, M. le Vicomte," she continued
+with ghastly archness, "I think that you will have the grace to say
+that I was a true prophet?"
+
+I muttered something, heaven knows what; the scene, with Madame's
+smiling face, and the others' bowed shoulders and averted eyes, was
+dreadful.
+
+"I never doubted that you would have to join us," she went on, with
+complacency. "And if I were cruel, I should have much to say. But as
+you have returned to your allegiance before it was too late, we will
+let bygones be bygones. His Majesty is so good that--but where are the
+others? We cannot proceed without them."
+
+She looked round with a touch of her native peremptoriness. "Where is
+M. de Gontaut?" she said. "Louis, has not M. de Gontaut arrived? He
+promised to be here to witness the contract."
+
+Louis, from his place by one of the closed windows, where he stood
+with Father Benôit and the surgeon, answered in a strained voice that
+he had not yet arrived.
+
+Madame seemed to find something unnatural in his tone and our
+attitude, she looked uneasily from one to the other of us. "There is
+nothing the matter, is there?" she said, flirting her fan more
+vigorously. "Nothing has happened?"
+
+"No, no, Madame," Louis answered, striving to soothe her. "Doubtless
+he will be here by-and-by."
+
+But a shadow of anxiety still clouded Madame's face. "And Victor?" she
+said. "He has not come either? Louis, are you sure that there is
+nothing the matter?"
+
+"Madame, Madame, you will see him presently," he answered with a
+half-stifled sob; and he turned away with a gesture of horror, which,
+but for one of the curtains of the alcove, she must have seen.
+
+She did not, though there was enough in this to arouse a sane person's
+suspicions. As he spoke, however, Madame's eyes fell on me, and the
+piteous anxiety which had for the moment darkened her face, passed
+away as quickly as the shadow of a cloud passes on an April morning.
+She took up her fan again, and looked at me gaily. "Do you know," she
+said, "I had the strangest dream last night, M. le Vicomte--or was it
+when I was ill, Denise? Never mind. But I dreamed all sorts of
+horrors; that our house here was burned, and the house at Cahors, and
+that we had to fly and take refuge at Montauban, and then--I think it
+was at Nîmes. And that M. de Gontaut was murdered, and all the
+_canaille_ were up in arms! As if--as if," she continued, with a
+little laugh, cut short by a gasp of pain, "the King would permit such
+things, or they were possible. And there was something--something
+still more absurd about the Church." She paused, knitting her brows;
+and then with a touch of her fan dismissing the subject: "But I
+forget--I forget. And just when it was most horrible I awoke. It was
+all absurd. So extravagant you would all be ill with laughing if I
+could remember it. I fancied that a pair of red-heeled shoes were as
+good as a death warrant, and powder and patches condemned you at
+once."
+
+She paused. The fan dropped from her hand, and she looked round
+uneasily. "I think--I think I am not quite well yet," she said in a
+different tone, and a spasm crossed her face--it was plain that she
+was in pain. "Louis!" she continued petulantly, "where is the notary?
+He might read the contract. Doubtless Victor and M. de Gontaut will be
+here before long. Where is he?" she continued sharply.
+
+It is easy to say that we might have played our parts; but the pity
+and the horror of it, falling on hearts already tortured by the scenes
+of the day, fairly unmanned us. Denise hid her face, and trembled so
+that the chair on which she sat shook; and Louis turned away
+shuddering, while I stood near the foot of the bed, frozen into
+silence. This time it was the surgeon, a thin young man of dark
+complexion, who put himself forward.
+
+"The papers are in the next room, Madame," he said gravely.
+
+"But you are not M. Pettifer?" she answered querulously.
+
+"No, Madame, he was so unwell as to be unable to leave the house."
+
+"He has no right to be unwell," Madame retorted severely. "Pettifer
+unwell, and Mademoiselle St. Alais' contract to be signed! But you
+have the papers?"
+
+"In the next room, Madame."
+
+"Fetch them! Fetch them!" she answered, her eyes wandering uneasily
+from one to another. And she moved in the bed and sighed as one in
+pain. Then, "Where is Victor? Why does he not come?" she asked
+impatiently.
+
+"I think I hear him," Louis said suddenly. It was the first time he
+had spoken of his own free will, and I caught a new sound in his
+voice. "I will see," he went on, and moving to the door he gave me a
+sign, as he passed, to follow him.
+
+I muttered something, and did so. In the room in which I had waited,
+the half-shuttered room of gloom and shadows, from which Louis had
+fetched me, we found the surgeon groping hastily about. "Some paper,
+Monsieur," he said, looking up impatiently as we entered. "Some paper!
+Almost anything should do."
+
+"Stay!" Louis said, his voice harsh with pain. "We have had too much
+of this--this mockery. I will have no more."
+
+"Monsieur?"
+
+"I say I will have no more!" Louis answered fiercely, a sob in his
+throat. "Tell her the truth."
+
+"She would not believe it."
+
+"At any rate, anything is better than this."
+
+"Do you mean it, Monsieur?" the surgeon asked slowly, and he looked at
+him.
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then I will have no part in it," the man answered with gravity. "I
+acquit myself of all responsibility. Nor shall you do it, Monsieur,
+until you have heard what the inevitable result will be."
+
+"My mother cannot recover," Louis said stubbornly.
+
+"No, Monsieur, nor will she live, in my opinion, more than a few
+hours. When the fever that now supports her begins to wane she will
+collapse, and die. It depends on you whether she closes her eyes,
+knowing none of the evil that has happened, or her son's death; or
+dies----"
+
+"It is horrible!"
+
+"It is for you to choose," the surgeon answered inexorably.
+
+Louis looked round. "There is paper there," he said suddenly.
+
+I suppose that we had been absent from the room no more than a couple
+of minutes, but when we returned we found Madame St. Alais calling
+impatiently for us and for Victor. "Where is he? Where is he?" she
+repeated feverishly. "Why is he late to-day of all days? There is
+no--no quarrel between you?" And she looked jealously at me.
+
+"None, Madame," I said, with tears in my voice. "That I swear!"
+
+"Then why is he not here? And M. de Gontaut?" Her eyes were still
+bright; the red spot burned still in her cheeks; but her features had
+taken a pinched look, she was changed, and her fingers were never
+still. Her voice had grown harsh and unnatural, and from time to time
+she looked round with a piteous expression as if something puzzled
+her. "I am not well to-day," she muttered presently, with a painful
+effort to be herself. "And I forget to be as gay as I should be.
+Mademoiselle, go to M. le Vicomte, and say something pretty to amuse
+us while we wait. And you, M. le Vicomte! In my young days it was
+usual for the _fiancé_ to salute his mistress on these occasions. Fie
+on you! For shame, Monsieur! I am afraid that you are a laggard in
+love."
+
+Denise rose, and came slowly to me before them all, but no word passed
+her pale lips, and she did not raise her eyes to mine. She remained
+passive when in accordance with Madame's permission I stooped and
+kissed her cold cheek; it grew no warmer, her eyes did not kindle. Yet
+I was satisfied, more than satisfied; for as I leant over her I felt
+her little hands--little hands I longed to take in mine and shelter
+and protect--I felt them clutch and hold the front of my coat, as the
+child clings to its mother's neck. I passed my arm round her before
+them all, and so we stood at the foot of Madame's bed, and she looked
+at us.
+
+She laughed gaily. "Poor little mouse!" she said. "She is shy yet. Be
+good to her, _mon cher_, she is a tender morsel, and--I don't feel
+well! I don't feel well," Madame repeated, abruptly breaking off, and
+lifting herself in bed, while one hand went with difficulty to her
+head. "I don't--what is it?" she continued, the colour visibly fading
+from her face and leaving it white and drawn, while fear leapt into
+her staring eyes. "What is it? Fetch--fetch some one, will you?
+The--the doctor! And Victor."
+
+Denise slipped from my arm, and flew to her side. I stood a moment,
+then the surgeon touched my arm. "Go!" he muttered. "Go. Leave her to
+the women. It will be quickly over."
+
+And so Madame St. Alais gave Mademoiselle to me at last; and the
+compact for our marriage, into which she had entered so many years
+before with my dead father, was fulfilled.
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+Madame died next morning, being taken not only from the evil to come,
+but from that which was then present, and roared and eddied through
+the streets of Nîmes round the unburied body of her son; for she died
+without awaking from the delirium which followed her hurt. I went in
+to see her lying dead and little changed; and in the quiet decorum of
+the lighted chamber I thought reverently of the change which one
+year--one brief year had made, coming at the end of fifty years of
+prosperity. It seemed pitiful to me then, as I stooped and kissed the
+waxen hand--very pitiful; now, knowing what the future had in store,
+remembering the twenty years of exile and poverty and tedium and hope
+deferred, that were to be the lot of so many of her friends, of so
+many of those who had graced her _salons_ at St. Alais and Cahors, I
+think her happy. Possessed of energy as well as pride, a rare
+combination in our order, she and hers dared greatly and greatly lost;
+staked all and lost all. Yet better that, than the prison or the
+guillotine; or growing old and decrepit in a strange land, to return
+to a _patrie_ that had long forgotten them; that stood in the roads
+and jeered at the old berlins and petticoats and headgear that were
+the fashion in the days of the Polignacs.
+
+I have said that the riots in Nîmes lasted three days. On the last
+Buton came to me and told us we must go; that to avoid worse things we
+must leave the city without delay, or he and the more moderate party
+who had saved us would no longer be responsible. On this, Louis was
+for retiring to Montpellier, and thence to the _émigrés_ at Turin; and
+for a few hours I was of the same mind, desiring most of all to place
+the women in safety.
+
+I owe it to Buton that I did not take a step hard to recall, and of
+which I am sure that I should have repented later. He asked me bluntly
+whither I was going, and when I told him, set his back against the
+door. "God forbid!" he said. "Who go, go. Few will return."
+
+I answered him with heat. "Nonsense!" I cried. "I tell you, within a
+year you will be on your knees to us to come back."
+
+"Why?" he said.
+
+"You cannot keep order without us!"
+
+"With ease," he answered coolly.
+
+"Look at the state of things here!"
+
+"It will pass."
+
+"But who will govern?"
+
+"The fittest," he replied doggedly. "For do you still think, M. le
+Vicomte--after all that has happened--that a man to make laws must
+have a title--saving your presence? Do you still think that the wheat
+will not grow, nor the hens lay eggs, unless the Seigneur's shadow
+falls on them? Do you think that to fight, a man must have powder on
+his head as well as in his musket?"
+
+"I think," I retorted, "that when a man who does not know the sea
+turns pilot it is time to leave the vessel!"
+
+"The pilot will learn," he answered. "And for quitting the vessel, let
+those go who have no business on board. Be guided, Monseigneur," he
+continued in a different tone. "Be guided. They have killed in Nîmes
+three hundred in three days."
+
+"And you say, stay?"
+
+"Ay, for there is blood between us," he answered grimly. "That has
+been done now which will not easily be forgiven; that has been done
+which will abide. Go abroad after this--and stay abroad! Or rather do
+not--do not, but be guided," he continued, with rough emotion in his
+voice. "Go home to the Château, and be quiet, Monsieur, and no one
+will harm you."
+
+There was much in what he said. At any rate, I thought the advice so
+good that, after some hesitation, I not only determined to follow it,
+but I gave it to the others. But Louis would not change his mind. A
+horror of the country had seized him since his escape; and he would
+go. He raised no opposition, however, when I asked him to give me
+Denise; and within twenty-four hours of her mother's death she became
+my wife, in that dark-shuttered house by the Capuchins' alley, Father
+Benôit performing the service. Louis was at the same time married to
+Madame Catinot, who was to share his exile. Needless to say there were
+no rejoicings at these weddings; no _fête_ and no joy-bells, and no
+bride-clothes, but sobs and wailings, and cold lips and passive hands.
+
+But a bright day has sometimes a weeping dawn, and though for three
+years or more our life knew perils enough and some sorrows--the story
+of which I may one day tell--and we shared the lot of all Frenchmen in
+those times of shame and stress, I had never, no, not for a day or an
+hour, cause to repent the deed done so hurriedly at Nîmes. Clinging
+hands and warm lips, eyes that shone as brightly in a prison as a
+palace, cheered me, when things were worst; and when better days came,
+and with them grey hairs and a new France, my wife found means still
+to grace, and ever more and more to share my life.
+
+One word of the man to whom under God I owe it that I won her. He
+survived, but I never saw Froment of Nîmes again. On the third day of
+the riots cannon were brought to bear on his tower, it was stormed,
+and the garrison were put to the sword, one man only, I believe,
+escaping with his life. That man was Froment, the indomitable, the
+most capable leader that the Royalists of France ever boasted. He got
+safely to the frontier and thence to Turin, where he was received with
+honour by those whose aid might a little earlier have saved all. Who
+fails must expect buffets, however; the cold shoulder was presently
+turned to him; he was slighted, and as the years went on his
+complaints grew louder. Once I sought to find and assist him, but he
+was then engaged in some enterprise on the African coast, and my
+circumstances were such that I could have done little had I found him.
+Soon afterwards, I believe, he died, though certain information never
+reached me. But dead or alive I owe him gratitude, respect, and other
+things, among which I count the greatest happiness of my life.
+
+
+
+
+                               THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Cockade, by Stanley J. Weyman
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+<title>The Red Cockade</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Cockade, by Stanley J. Weyman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Cockade
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2012 [EBook #39297]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED COCKADE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the
+Web Archive (University of Toronto)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br>
+<br>
+1. Page scan source:<br>
+<br>
+http://www.archive.org/details/redcockade00weymuoft<br>
+(University of Toronto)</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>THE RED COCKADE</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4><i>WORKS BY STANLEY WEYMAN</i>.</h4>
+<br>
+<div style="margin-left:30%">
+<p class="continue"><span class="sc">The House of the Wolf.</span></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><span class="sc">A Gentleman of France.</span></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><span class="sc">Under the Red Robe.</span></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><span class="sc">My Lady Rotha.</span></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><span class="sc">The New Rector.</span></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><span class="sc">The Story of Francis Cludde.</span></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><span class="sc">The Man in Black.</span></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><span class="sc">From the Memoirs of a Minister of France.</span></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><span class="sc">The Red Cockade.</span></p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h5>ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS</h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center"><img border="0" src="images/front.png" alt="frontispiece"><br>
+&quot;'MESSIEURS,' HE CRIED.&quot; <i>See page</i> 21.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>THE RED COCKADE</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h5>BY</h5>
+<h2>STANLEY J. WEYMAN</h2>
+
+<h5>AUTHOR OF &quot;A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE,&quot; ETC.</h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/title.png" alt="title"></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>LONDON</h4>
+<h3>LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.</h3>
+<h3>1895</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+<table cellpadding="10" style="width:60%; margin-left:20%; font-weight:bold">
+<colgroup><col style="width:10%; text-align:right"><col style="width:90%"></colgroup>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="sc2">CHAPTER</span></td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>I.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_01" href="#div1_01"><span class="sc">The Marquis de St. Alais.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>II.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_02" href="#div1_02"><span class="sc">The Ordeal.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>III.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_03" href="#div1_03"><span class="sc">In the Assembly.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>IV.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_04" href="#div1_04"><span class="sc">L'ami du Peuple.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>V.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_05" href="#div1_05"><span class="sc">The Deputation.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>VI.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_06" href="#div1_06"><span class="sc">A Meeting in the Road.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>VII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_07" href="#div1_07"><span class="sc">The Alarm.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>VIII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_08" href="#div1_08"><span class="sc">Gargouf.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>IX.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_09" href="#div1_09"><span class="sc">The Tricolour.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>X.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_10" href="#div1_10"><span class="sc">The Morning after the Storm.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XI.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_11" href="#div1_11"><span class="sc">The Two Camps.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_12" href="#div1_12"><span class="sc">The Duel.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XIII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_13" href="#div1_13"><span class="sc">A la Lanterne.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XIV.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_14" href="#div1_14"><span class="sc">It Goes Ill.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XV.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_15" href="#div1_15"><span class="sc">At Milhau.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XVI.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_16" href="#div1_16"><span class="sc">Three in a Carriage.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XVII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_17" href="#div1_17"><span class="sc">Froment of Nîmes.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XVIII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_18" href="#div1_18"><span class="sc">A Poor Figure.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XIX.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_19" href="#div1_19"><span class="sc">At Nîmes</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XX.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_20" href="#div1_20"><span class="sc">The Search.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXI.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_21" href="#div1_21"><span class="sc">Rivals.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_22" href="#div1_22"><span class="sc">Noblesse Oblige.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXIII.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_23" href="#div1_23"><span class="sc">The Crisis.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXIV.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_24" href="#div1_24"><span class="sc">The Millennium.</span></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td>XXV.</td>
+<td><a name="div1Ref_25" href="#div1_25"><span class="sc">Beyond the Shadow.</span></a></td>
+</tr></table>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>THE RED COCKADE.</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_01" href="#div1Ref_01">THE MARQUIS DE ST. ALAIS.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">When we reached the terraced walk, which my father made a little
+before his death, and which, running under the windows at the rear of
+the Château, separates the house from the new lawn, St. Alais looked
+round with eyes of scarcely-veiled contempt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What have you done with the garden?&quot; he asked, his lip curling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My father removed it to the other side of the house,&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Out of sight?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I said; &quot;it is beyond the rose garden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;English fashion!&quot; he answered with a shrug and a polite sneer. &quot;And
+you prefer to see all this grass from your windows?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I said, &quot;I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! And that plantation? It hides the village, I suppose, from the
+house?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed. &quot;Yes,&quot; he said. &quot;I notice that that is the way of all who
+prate of the people, and freedom, and fraternity. They love the
+people; but they love them at a distance, on the farther side of a
+park or a high yew hedge. Now, at St. Alais I like to have my folks
+under my eye, and then, if they do not behave, there is the <i>carcan</i>.
+By the way, what have you done with yours, Vicomte? It used to stand
+opposite the entrance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have burned it,&quot; I said, feeling the blood mount to my temples.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your father did, you mean?&quot; he answered, with a glance of surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I said stubbornly, hating myself for being ashamed of that
+before St. Alais of which I had been proud enough when alone. &quot;I did.
+I burned it last winter. I think the day of such things is past.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Marquis was not my senior by more than five years; but those five
+years, spent in Paris and Versailles, gave him a wondrous advantage,
+and I felt his look of contemptuous surprise as I should have felt a
+blow. However, he did not say anything at the moment, but after a
+short pause changed the subject and began to speak of my father;
+recalling him and things in connection with him in a tone of respect
+and affection that in a moment disarmed my resentment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The first time that I shot a bird on the wing I was in his company!&quot;
+he said, with the wonderful charm of manner that had been St. Alais'
+even in boyhood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Twelve years ago,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Even so, Monsieur,&quot; he replied with a laughing bow. &quot;In those days
+there was a small boy with bare legs, who ran after me, and called me
+Victor, and thought me the greatest of men. I little dreamed that he
+would ever live to expound the rights of man to me. And, <i>Dieu!</i>
+Vicomte, I must keep Louis from you, or you will make him as great a
+reformer as yourself. However,&quot; he continued, passing from that
+subject with a smile and an easy gesture, &quot;I did not come here to talk
+of him, but of one, M. le Vicomte, in whom you should feel even
+greater interest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I felt the blood mount to my temples again, but for a different
+reason. &quot;Mademoiselle has come home?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yesterday,&quot; he answered. &quot;She will go with my mother to Cahors
+to-morrow, and take her first peep at the world. I do not doubt that
+among the many new things she will see, none will interest her more
+than the Vicomte de Saux.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle is well?&quot; I said clumsily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perfectly,&quot; he answered with grave politeness, &quot;as you will see for
+yourself to-morrow evening, if we do not meet on the road. I daresay
+that you will like a week or so to commend yourself to her, M. le
+Vicomte? And after that, whenever Madame la Marquise and you can
+settle the date, and so forth, the match had better come off--while I
+am here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I bowed. I had been expecting to hear this for a week past; but from
+Louis, who was on brotherly terms with me, not from Victor. The latter
+had indeed been my boyish idol; but that was years ago, before Court
+life and a long stay at Versailles and St. Cloud had changed him into
+the splendid-looking man I saw before me, the raillery of whose eye I
+found it as difficult to meet as I found it impossible to match the
+aplomb of his manner. Still, I strove to make such acknowledgments as
+became me; and to adopt that nice mixture of self-respect, politeness,
+and devotion which I knew that the occasion, formally treated,
+required. But my tongue stumbled, and in a moment he relieved me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, you must tell that to Denise,&quot; he said pleasantly; &quot;doubtless
+you will find her a patient listener. At first, of course,&quot; he
+continued, pulling on his gauntlets and smiling faintly, &quot;she will be
+a little shy. I have no doubt that the good sisters have brought her
+up to regard a man in much the same light as a wolf; and a suitor as
+something worse. But, <i>eh bien, mon ami!</i> women are women after all,
+and in a week or two you will commend yourself. We may hope, then, to
+see you to-morrow evening--if not before?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Most certainly, M. le Marquis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not Victor?&quot; he answered, laying his hand on my arm with a touch
+of the old <i>bonhomie</i>. &quot;We shall soon be brothers, and then,
+doubtless, shall hate one another. In the meantime, give me your
+company to the gates. There was one other thing I wanted to name to
+you. Let me see--what was it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But either he could not immediately remember, or he found a difficulty
+in introducing the subject, for we were nearly half-way down the
+avenue of walnut trees that leads to the village when he spoke again.
+Then he plunged into the matter abruptly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have heard of this protest?&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I answered reluctantly and with a foresight of trouble.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will sign it, of course?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had hesitated before he asked the question; I hesitated before I
+answered it. The protest to which he referred--how formal the phrase
+now sounds, though we know that under it lay the beginning of trouble
+and a new world--was one which it was proposed to move in the coming
+meeting of the <i>noblesse</i> at Cahors; its aim, to condemn the conduct
+of our representatives at Versailles, in consenting to sit with the
+Third Estate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, for myself, whatever had been my original views on this
+question--and, as a fact, I should have preferred to see reform
+following the English model, the nobles' house remaining separate--I
+regarded the step, now it was taken, and legalised by the King, as
+irrevocable; and protest as useless. More, I could not help knowing
+that those who were moving the protest desired also to refuse all
+reform, to cling to all privileges, to balk all hopes of better
+government; hopes, which had been rising higher, day by day, since the
+elections, and which it might not now be so safe or so easy to balk.
+Without swallowing convictions, therefore, which were pretty well
+known, I could not see my way to supporting it. And I hesitated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot; he said at last, finding me still silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not think that I can,&quot; I answered, flushing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can support it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed genially. &quot;Pooh!&quot; he said. &quot;I think that you will. I want
+your promise, Vicomte. It is a small matter; a trifle, and of no
+importance; but we must be unanimous. That is the one thing
+necessary.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I shook my head. We had both come to a halt under the trees, a little
+within the gates. His servant was leading the horses up and down the
+road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come,&quot; he persisted pleasantly: &quot;you do not think that anything is
+going to come of this chaotic States General, which his Majesty was
+mad enough to let Neckar summon? They met on the 4th of May; this is
+the 17th of July; and to this date they have done nothing but wrangle!
+Nothing! Presently they will be dismissed, and there will be an end of
+it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why protest, then?&quot; I said rather feebly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will tell you, my friend,&quot; he answered, smiling indulgently and
+tapping his boot with his whip. &quot;Have you heard the latest news?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it?&quot; I replied cautiously. &quot;Then I will tell you if I have
+heard it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The King has dismissed Neckar!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No!&quot; I cried, unable to hide my surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he answered; &quot;the banker is dismissed. In a week his States
+General or National Assembly, or whatever he pleases to call it, will
+go too, and we shall be where we were before. Only, in the meantime,
+and to strengthen the King in the wise course he is at last pursuing,
+we must show that we are alive. We must show our sympathy with him. We
+must act. We must protest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, M. le Marquis,&quot; I said, a little heated, perhaps, by the news,
+&quot;are you sure that the people will quietly endure this? Never was so
+bitter a winter as last winter; never a worse harvest, or such
+pinching. On the top of these, their hopes have been raised, and their
+minds excited by the elections, and----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whom have we to thank for that?&quot; he said, with a whimsical glance at
+me. &quot;But, never fear, Vicomte; they will endure it. I know Paris; and
+I can assure you that it is not the Paris of the Fronde, though M. de
+Mirabeau would play the Retz. It is a peaceable, sensible Paris, and
+it will not rise. Except a bread riot or two, it has seen no rising to
+speak of for a century and a half: nothing that two companies of Swiss
+could not deal with as easily as D'Argenson cleared the Cour des
+Miracles. Believe me, there is no danger of that kind: with the least
+management, all will go well!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But his news had roused my antagonism. I found it more easy to resist
+him now.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not know,&quot; I said coldly; &quot;I do not think that the matter is so
+simple as you say. The King must have money, or be bankrupt; the
+people have no money to pay him. I do not see how things can go back
+to the old state.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. de St. Alais looked at me with a gleam of anger in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You mean, Vicomte,&quot; he said, &quot;that you do not wish them to go back?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I mean that the old state was impossible,&quot; I said stiffly. &quot;It could
+not last. It cannot return.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment he did not answer, and we stood confronting one
+another--he just without, I just within, the gateway--the cool foliage
+stretching over us, the dust and July sunshine in the road beyond him;
+and if my face reflected his, it was flushed, and set, and determined.
+But in a twinkling his changed; he broke into an easy, polite laugh,
+and shrugged his shoulders with a touch of contempt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well,&quot; he said, &quot;we will not argue; but I hope that you will sign.
+Think it over, M. le Vicomte, think it over. Because&quot;--he paused, and
+looked at me gaily--&quot;we do not know what may be depending upon it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is a reason,&quot; I answered quickly, &quot;for thinking more before
+I----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is a reason for thinking more before you refuse,&quot; he said, bowing
+very low, and this time without smiling. Then he turned to his horse,
+and his servant held the stirrup while he mounted. When he was in the
+saddle and had gathered up the reins, he bent his face to mine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course,&quot; he said, speaking in a low voice, and with a searching
+look at me, &quot;a contract is a contract, M. le Vicomte; and the
+Montagues and Capulets, like your <i>carcan</i>, are out of date. But, all
+the same, we must go one way--<i>comprenez-vous?</i>--we must go one
+way--or separate! At least, I think so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And nodding pleasantly, as if he had uttered in these words a
+compliment instead of a threat, he rode off; leaving me to stand and
+fret and fume, and finally to stride back under the trees with my
+thoughts in a whirl, and all my plans and hopes jarring one another in
+a petty copy of the confusion that that day prevailed, though I
+guessed it but dimly, from one end of France to the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For I could not be blind to his meaning; nor ignorant that he had, no
+matter how politely, bidden me choose between the alliance with his
+family, which my father had arranged for me, and the political views
+in which my father had brought me up, and which a year's residence in
+England had not failed to strengthen. Alone in the Château since my
+father's death, I had lived a good deal in the future--in day-dreams
+of Denise de St. Alais, the fair girl who was to be my wife, and whom
+I had not seen since she went to her convent school; in day-dreams,
+also, of work to be done in spreading round me the prosperity I had
+seen in England. Now, St. Alais' words menaced one or other of these
+prospects; and that was bad enough. But, in truth, it was not that, so
+much as his presumption, that stung me; that made me swear one moment
+and laugh the next, in a kind of irritation not difficult to
+understand. I was twenty-two, he was twenty-seven; and he dictated to
+me! We were country bumpkins, he of the <i>haute politique</i>, and he had
+come from Versailles or from Paris to drill us! If I went his way I
+might marry his sister; if not, I might not! That was the position.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No wonder that before he had left me half an hour I had made up my
+mind to resist him; and so spent the rest of the day composing sound
+and unanswerable reasons for the course I intended to take; now
+conning over a letter in which M. de Liancourt set forth his plan of
+reform, now summarising the opinions with which M. de Rochefoucauld
+had favoured me on his last journey to Luchon. In half an hour and the
+heat of temper! thinking no more than ten thousand others, who that
+week chose one of two courses, what I was doing. Gargouf, the St.
+Alais' steward, who doubtless heard that day the news of Neckar's
+fall, and rejoiced, had no foresight of what it meant to him. Father
+Benôit, the cure, who supped with me that evening, and heard the
+tidings with sorrow--he, too, had no special vision. And the
+innkeeper's son at La Bastide, by Cahors--probably he, also, heard the
+news; but no shadow of a sceptre fell across his path, nor any of a
+<i>bâton</i> on that of the notary at the other La Bastide. A notary, a
+<i>bâton</i>! An innkeeper, a sceptre! <i>Mon Dieu!</i> what conjunctions they
+would have seemed in those days! We should have been wiser than
+Daniel, and more prudent than Joseph, if we had foreseen such things
+under the old <i>régime</i>--in the old France, in the old world, that died
+in that month of July, 1789!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet there were signs, even then, to be read by those with eyes,
+that foretold something, if but a tithe of the inconceivable future;
+of which signs I myself remarked sufficient by the way next day to
+fill my mind with other thoughts than private resentment; with some
+nobler aims than self-assertion. Riding to Cahors, with Gil and André
+at my back, I saw not only the havoc caused by the great frosts of the
+winter and spring, not only walnut trees blackened and withered, vines
+stricken, rye killed, a huge proportion of the land fallow, desert,
+gloomy and unsown: not only those common signs of poverty to which use
+had accustomed me--though on my first return from England I had viewed
+them with horror--mud cabins, I mean, and unglazed windows, starved
+cattle, and women bent double, gathering weeds. But I saw other things
+more ominous; a strange herding of men at cross-roads and bridges,
+where they waited for they knew not what; a something lowering in
+these men's silence, a something expectant in their faces; worst of
+all, a something dangerous in their scowling eyes and sunken cheeks.
+Hunger had pinched them; the elections had roused them. I trembled to
+think of the issue, and that in the hint of danger I had given St.
+Alais, I had been only too near the mark.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A league farther on, where the woodlands skirt Cahors, I lost sight of
+these things; but for a time only. They reappeared presently in
+another form. The first view of the town, as, girt by the shining Lot,
+and protected by ramparts and towers, it nestles under the steep
+hills, is apt to take the eye; its matchless bridge, and time-worn
+Cathedral, and great palace seldom failing to rouse the admiration
+even of those who know them. But that day I saw none of these things.
+As I passed down towards the market-place they were selling grain
+under a guard of soldiers with fixed bayonets; and the starved faces
+of the waiting crowd that filled all that side of the square, their
+shrunken, half-naked figures, and dark looks, and the sullen
+muttering, which seemed so much at odds with the sunshine, occupied
+me, to the exclusion of everything else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Or not quite. I had eyes for one other thing, and that was the
+astonishing indifference with which those whom curiosity, or business,
+or habit had brought to the spot, viewed this spectacle. The inns were
+full of the gentry of the province, come to the Assembly; they looked
+on from the windows, as at a show, and talked and jested as if at home
+in their châteaux. Before the doors of the Cathedral a group of ladies
+and clergymen walked to and fro, and now and then they turned a
+listless eye on what was passing; but for the most part they seemed to
+be unconscious of it, or, at the best, to have no concern with it. I
+have heard it said since, that in those days we had two worlds in
+France, as far apart as hell and heaven; and what I saw that evening
+went far to prove it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the square a shop at which pamphlets and journals were sold was
+full of customers, though other shops in the neighbourhood were
+closed, their owners fearing mischief. On the skirts of the crowd, and
+a little aloof from it, I saw Gargouf, the St. Alais' steward. He was
+talking to a countryman; and, as I passed, I heard him say with a
+gibe, &quot;Well, has your National Assembly fed you yet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not yet,&quot; the clown answered stupidly, &quot;but I am told that in a few
+days they will satisfy everybody.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not they!&quot; the agent answered brutally. &quot;Why, do you think that they
+will feed you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, yes, by your leave; it is certain,&quot; the man said. &quot;And, besides,
+every one is agreed----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But then Gargouf saw me, saluted me, and I heard no more. A moment
+later, however, I came on one of my own people, Buton, the blacksmith,
+in the middle of a muttering group. He looked at me sheepishly,
+finding himself caught; and I stopped, and rated him soundly, and saw
+him start for home before I went to my quarters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">These were at the Trois Rois, where I always lay when in town; Doury,
+the innkeeper, providing a supper ordinary for the gentry at eight
+o'clock, at which it was the custom to dress and powder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The St. Alais had their own house in Cahors, and, as the Marquis had
+forewarned me, entertained that evening. The greater part of the
+company, indeed, repaired to them after the meal. I went myself a
+little late, that I might avoid any private talk with the Marquis; I
+found the rooms already full and brilliantly lighted, the staircase
+crowded with valets, and the strains of a harpsichord trickling
+melodiously from the windows. Madame de St. Alais was in the habit of
+entertaining the best company in the province; with less splendour,
+perhaps, than some, but with so much ease, and taste, and good
+breeding, that I look in vain for such a house in these days.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ordinarily, she preferred to people her rooms with pleasant groups,
+that, gracefully disposed, gave to a <i>salon</i> an air elegant and
+pleasing, and in character with the costume of those days, the silks
+and laces, powder and diamonds, the full hoops and red-heeled shoes.
+But on this occasion the crowd and the splendour of the entertainment
+apprised me, as soon as I crossed the threshold, that I was assisting
+at a party of more than ordinary importance; nor had I advanced far
+before I guessed that it was a political rather than a social
+gathering. All, or almost all, who would attend the Assembly next day
+were here; and though, as I wound my way through the glittering crowd,
+I heard very little serious talk--so little, that I marvelled to think
+that people could discuss the respective merits of French and Italian
+opera, of Grétry and Bianchi, and the like, while so much hung in the
+balance--of the effect intended I had no doubt; nor that Madame, in
+assembling all the wit and beauty of the province, was aiming at
+things higher than amusement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With, I am bound to confess, a degree of success. At any rate it was
+difficult to mix with the throng which filled her rooms, to run the
+gauntlet of bright eyes and witty tongues, to breathe the atmosphere
+laden with perfume and music, without falling under the spell, without
+forgetting. Inside the door M. de Gontaut, one of my father's oldest
+friends, was talking with the two Harincourts. He greeted me with a
+sly smile, and pointed politely inwards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pass on, Monsieur,&quot; he said. &quot;The farthest room. Ah! my friend, I
+wish I were young again!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your gain would be my loss, M. le Baron,&quot; I said civilly, and slid by
+him. Next, I had to speak to two or three ladies, who detained me with
+wicked congratulations of the same kind; and then I came on Louis. He
+clasped my hand, and we stood a moment together. The crowd elbowed us;
+a simpering fool at his shoulder was prating of the social contract.
+But as I felt the pressure of Louis' hand, and looked into his eyes,
+it seemed to me that a breath of air from the woods penetrated the
+room, and swept aside the heavy perfumes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet there was trouble in his look. He asked me if I had seen Victor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yesterday,&quot; I said, understanding him perfectly, and what was amiss.
+&quot;Not to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor Denise?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No. I have not had the honour of seeing Mademoiselle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, come,&quot; he answered. &quot;My mother expected you earlier. What did
+you think of Victor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That he went Victor, and has returned a great personage!&quot; I said,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Louis laughed faintly, and lifted his eyebrows with a comical air of
+sufferance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was afraid so,&quot; he said. &quot;He did not seem to be very well pleased
+with you. But we must all do his bidding--eh, Monsieur? And, in the
+meantime, come. My mother and Denise are in the farthest room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He led the way thither as he spoke; but we had first to go through the
+card-room, and then the crowd about the farther doorway was so dense
+that we could not immediately enter; and so I had time--while
+outwardly smiling and bowing--to feel a little suspense. At last we
+slipped through and entered a smaller room, where were only Madame la
+Marquise--who was standing in the middle of the floor talking with the
+Abbé Mesnil--two or three ladies, and Denise de St. Alais.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mademoiselle had her seat on a couch by one of the ladies; and
+naturally my eyes went first to her. She was dressed in white, and it
+struck me with the force of a blow how small, how childish she was!
+Very fair, of the purest complexion, and perfectly formed, she seemed
+to derive an extravagant, an absurd, air of dignity from the formality
+of her dress, from the height of the powdered hair that strained
+upwards from her forehead, from the stiffness of her brocaded
+petticoat. But she was very small. I had time to note this, to feel a
+little disappointment, and to fancy that, cast in a larger mould, she
+would have been supremely handsome; and then the lady beside her,
+seeing me, spoke to her, and the child--she was really little
+more--looked up, her face grown crimson. Our eyes met--thank God! she
+had Louis' eyes--and she looked down again, blushing painfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I advanced to pay my respects to Madame, and kissed the hand, which,
+without at once breaking off her conversation, she extended to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But such powers!&quot; the Abbé, who had something of the reputation of a
+<i>philosophe</i>, was saying to her. &quot;Without limit! Without check!
+Misused, Madame----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the King is too good!&quot; Madame la Marquise answered, smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;When well advised, I agree. But then the deficit?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Marquise shrugged her shoulders. &quot;His Majesty must have money,&quot;
+she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes--but whence?&quot; the Abbé asked, with answering shrug.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The King was too good at the beginning,&quot; Madame replied, with a
+touch of severity. &quot;He should have made them register the edicts.
+However, the Parliament has always given way, and will do so again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Parliament--yes,&quot; the Abbé retorted, smiling indulgently. &quot;But it
+is no longer a question of the Parliament; and the States General----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;States General pass,&quot; Madame responded grandly. &quot;The King remains!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet if trouble comes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It will not,&quot; Madame answered with the same grand air. &quot;His Majesty
+will prevent it.&quot; And then with a word or two more she dismissed the
+Abbé and turned to me. She tapped me on the shoulder with her fan.
+&quot;Ah! truant,&quot; she said, with a glance in which kindness and a little
+austerity were mingled. &quot;I do not know what I am to say to you!
+Indeed, from the account Victor gave me yesterday, I hardly knew
+whether to expect you this evening or not. Are you sure that it is you
+who are here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will answer for my heart, Madame,&quot; I answered, laying my hand upon
+it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her eyes twinkled kindly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then,&quot; she said, &quot;bring it where it is due, Monsieur.&quot; And she turned
+with a fine air of ceremony, and led me to her daughter. &quot;Denise,&quot; she
+said, &quot;this is M. le Vicomte de Saux, the son of my old, my good
+friend. M. le Vicomte--my daughter. Perhaps you will amuse her while I
+go back to the Abbé.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Probably Mademoiselle had spent the evening in an agony of shyness,
+expecting this moment; for she curtesied to the floor, and then stood
+dumb and confused, forgetting even to sit down, until I covered her
+with fresh blushes by begging her to do so. When she had complied, I
+took my stand before her, with my hat in my hand; but between seeking
+for the right compliment, and trying to trace a likeness between her
+and the wild, brown-faced child of thirteen, whom I had known four
+years before--and from the dignified height of nineteen immeasurably
+despised--I grew shy myself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You came home last week, Mademoiselle?&quot; I said at last.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur,&quot; she answered, in a whisper, and with downcast eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It must be a great change for you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Silence: then, &quot;Doubtless the Sisters were good to you?&quot; I suggested.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet, you were not sorry to leave?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But on that the meaning of what she had last said came home to her, or
+she felt the banality of her answers; for, on a sudden, she looked
+swiftly up at me, her face scarlet, and, if I was not mistaken, she
+was within a little of bursting into tears. The thought appalled me. I
+stooped lower.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle!&quot; I said hurriedly, &quot;pray do not be afraid of me.
+Whatever happens, you shall never have need to fear me. I beg of you
+to look on me as a friend--as your brother's friend. Louis is my----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Crash! While the name hung on my lips, something struck me on the
+back, and I staggered forward, almost into her arms; amid a shiver of
+broken glass, a flickering of lights, a rising chorus of screams and
+cries. For a moment I could not think what was happening, or had
+happened; the blow had taken away my breath. I was conscious only of
+Mademoiselle clinging terrified to my arm, of her face, wild with
+fright, looking up to me, of the sudden cessation of the music. Then,
+as people pressed in on us, and I began to recover, I turned and saw
+that the window behind me had been driven in, and the lead and panes
+shattered; and that among the <i>débris</i> on the floor lay a great stone.
+It was that which had struck me.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_02" href="#div1Ref_02">THE ORDEAL.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It was wonderful how quickly the room filled--filled with angry faces,
+so that almost before I knew what had happened, I found a crowd round
+me, asking what it was; M. de St. Alais foremost. As all spoke at
+once, and in the background where they could not see, ladies were
+screaming and chattering, I might have found it difficult to explain.
+But the shattered window and the great stone on the floor spoke for
+themselves, and told more quickly than I could what had taken place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the instant, with a speed which surprised me, the sight blew into a
+flame passions already smouldering. A dozen voices cried, &quot;Out on the
+<i>canaille!</i>&quot; In a moment some one in the background followed this up
+with &quot;Swords, Messieurs, swords!&quot; Then, in a trice half the gentlemen
+were elbowing one another towards the door, St. Alais, who burned to
+avenge the insult offered to his guests, taking the lead. M. de
+Gontaut and one or two of the elders tried to restrain him, but their
+remonstrances were in vain, and in a moment the room was almost
+emptied of men. They poured out into the street, and began to scour it
+with drawn blades and raised voices. A dozen valets, running out
+officiously with flambeaux, aided in the search; for a few minutes the
+street, as we who remained viewed it from the windows, seemed to be
+alive with moving lights and figures.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the rascals who had flung the stone, whatever the motive which
+inspired them, had fled in time; and presently our party returned,
+some a little ashamed of their violence, others laughing as they
+entered, and bewailing their silk stockings and spattered shoes; while
+a few, less fashionable or more impetuous, continued to denounce the
+insult, and threaten vengeance. At another time, the act might have
+seemed trivial, a childish insult; but in the strained state of public
+feeling it had an unpleasant and menacing air which was not lost on
+the more thoughtful. During the absence of the street party, the
+draught from the broken window had blown a curtain against some
+candles and set it alight; and though the stuff had been torn down
+with little damage, it still smoked among the <i>débris</i> on the floor.
+This, with the startled faces of the ladies, and the shattered glass,
+gave a look of disorder and ruin to the room, where a few minutes
+before all had worn so seemly and festive an air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It did not surprise me, therefore, that St. Alais' face, stern enough
+at his entrance, grew darker as he looked round.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is my sister?&quot; he said abruptly, almost rudely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here,&quot; Madame la Marquise answered. Denise had flown long before to
+her side, and was clinging to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is not hurt?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; Madame answered, playfully tapping the girl's cheek. &quot;M. de Saux
+had most reason to complain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Save me from my friends, eh, Monsieur?&quot; St. Alais said, with an
+unpleasant smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I started. The words were not much in themselves, but the sneer
+underlying them was plain. I could scarcely pass it by. &quot;If you think,
+M. le Marquis,&quot; I said sharply, &quot;that I knew anything of this
+outrage----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That you knew anything? <i>Ma foi</i>, no!&quot; he replied lightly, and with
+a courtly gesture of deprecation. &quot;We have not fallen to that yet.
+That any gentleman in this company should sink to play the fellow to
+those--is not possible! But I think we may draw a useful lesson from
+this, Messieurs,&quot; he continued, turning from me and addressing the
+company. &quot;And that is a lesson to hold our own, or we shall soon lose
+all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A hum of approbation ran round the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To maintain privileges, or we shall lose rights.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Twenty voices were raised in assent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To stand now,&quot; he continued, his colour high, his hand raised, &quot;or
+never!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then now! Now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The cry rose suddenly not from one, but from a hundred throats--of men
+and women; in a moment the room catching his tone seemed to throb with
+enthusiasm, with the pulse of resolve. Men's eyes grew bright under
+the candles, they breathed quickly, and with heightened colour. Even
+the weakest felt the influence; the fool who had prated of the social
+contract and the rights of man was as loud as any. &quot;Now! Now!&quot; they
+cried with one voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What followed on that I have never completely fathomed; nor whether it
+was a thing arranged, or merely an inspiration, born of the common
+enthusiasm. But while the windows still shook with that shout, and
+every eye was on him, M. de Alais stepped forward, the most gallant
+and perfect figure, and with a splendid gesture drew his sword.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gentlemen!&quot; he cried, &quot;we are of one mind, of one voice. Let us be
+also in the fashion. If, while all the world is fighting to get and
+hold, we alone stand still and on the defensive--we court attack, and,
+what is worse, defeat! Let us unite then, while it is still time, and
+show that, in Quercy at least, our Order will stand or fall together.
+You have heard of the oath of the Tennis Court and the 20th of June.
+Let us, too, take an oath--this 22nd of July; not with uplifted hands
+like a club of wordy debaters, promising all things to all men; but
+with uplifted swords. As nobles and gentlemen, let us swear to stand
+by the rights, the privileges, and the exemptions of our Order!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A shout that made the candles flicker and jump, that filled the
+street, and was heard even in the distant market-place, greeted the
+proposal. Some drew their swords at once, and flourished them above
+their heads; while ladies waved their fans or kerchiefs. But the
+majority cried, &quot;To the larger room! To the larger room!&quot; And on the
+instant, as if in obedience to an order, the company turned that way,
+and flushed, and eager, pressed through the narrow doorway into the
+next room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There may have been some among them less enthusiastic than others;
+some more earnest in show than at heart; none, I am sure, who, on
+this, followed so slowly, so reluctantly, with so heavy a heart, and
+sure a presage of evil as I did. Already I foresaw the dilemma before
+me; but angry, hot-faced, and uncertain, I could discern no way out of
+it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If I could have escaped, and slipped clear from the room, I would have
+done so without scruple; but the stairs were on the farther side of
+the great room which we were entering, and a dense crowd cut me off
+from them; moreover, I felt that St. Alais' eye was upon me, and that,
+if he had not framed the ordeal to meet my case, and extort my
+support, he was at least determined, now that his blood was fired,
+that I should not evade it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still I would not hasten the evil day, and I lingered near the inner
+door, hoping; but the Marquis, on reaching the middle of the room,
+mounted a chair and turned round; and so contrived still to face me.
+The mob of gentlemen formed themselves round him, the younger and more
+tumultuous uttering cries of &quot;<i>Vive la Noblesse!</i>&quot; And a fringe of
+ladies encircled all. The lights, the brilliant dresses and jewels on
+which they shone, the impassioned faces, the waving kerchiefs and
+bright eyes, rendered the scene one to be remembered, though at the
+moment I was conscious only of St. Alais' gaze.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Messieurs,&quot; he cried, &quot;draw your swords, if you please!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They flashed out at the word, with a steely glitter which the mirrors
+reflected; and M. de St. Alais passed his eye slowly round, while all
+waited for the word. He stopped; his eye was on me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. de Saux,&quot; he said politely, &quot;we are waiting for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Naturally all turned to me. I strove to mutter something, and signed
+to him with my hand to go on. But I was too much confused to speak
+clearly; my only hope was that he would comply, out of prudence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that was the last thing he thought of doing. &quot;Will you take your
+place, Monsieur?&quot; he said smoothly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I could escape no longer. A hundred eyes, some impatient, some
+merely curious, rested on me. My face burned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot do so,&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There fell a great silence from one end of the room to the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not, Monsieur, if I may ask?&quot; St. Alais said still smoothly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because I am not--entirely at one with you,&quot; I stammered, meeting all
+eyes as bravely as I could. &quot;My opinions are known, M. de St. Alais,&quot;
+I went on more steadfastly. &quot;I cannot swear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stayed with his hand a dozen who would have cried out upon me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gently, Messieurs,&quot; he said, with a gesture of dignity, &quot;gently, if
+you please. This is no place for threats. M. de Saux is my guest; and
+I have too great a respect for him not to respect his scruples. But I
+think that there is another way. I shall not venture to argue with him
+myself. But--Madame,&quot; he continued, smiling as he turned with an
+inimitable air to his mother, &quot;I think that if you would permit
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais to play the recruiting-sergeant--for this
+one time--she could not fail to heal the breach.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A murmur of laughter and subdued applause, a flutter of fans and
+women's eyes greeted the proposal. But, for a moment, Madame la
+Marquise, smiling and sphinx-like, stood still, and did not speak.
+Then she turned to her daughter, who, at the mention of her name, had
+cowered back, shrinking from sight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go, Denise,&quot; she said simply. &quot;Ask M. de Saux to honour you by
+becoming your recruit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl came forward slowly, and with a visible tremor; nor shall I
+ever forget the misery of that moment, or the shame and obstinacy that
+alternately surged through my brain as I awaited her. Thought, quicker
+than lightning, showed me the trap into which I had fallen, a trap far
+more horrible than the dilemma I had foreseen. Nor was the poor girl
+herself, as she stood before me, tortured by shyness, and stammering
+her little petition in words barely intelligible, the least part of my
+pain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For to refuse her, in face of all those people, seemed a thing
+impossible. It seemed a thing as brutal as to strike her; an act as
+cruel, as churlish, as unworthy of a gentleman as to trample any
+helpless sensitive thing under foot! And I felt that; I felt it to the
+utmost. But I felt also that to assent was to turn my back on
+consistency, and my life; to consent to be a dupe, the victim of a
+ruse; to be a coward, though every one there might applaud me. I saw
+both these things, and for a moment I hesitated between rage and pity;
+while lights and fair faces, inquisitive or scornful, shifted mazily
+before my eyes. At last--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle, I cannot,&quot; I muttered. &quot;I cannot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not the girl's word, but Madame's, and it rang high and sharp
+through the room; so that I thanked God for the intervention. It
+cleared in a moment the confusion from my brain. I became myself. I
+turned to her; I bowed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Madame, I cannot,&quot; I said firmly, doubting no longer, but
+stubborn, defiant, resolute. &quot;My opinions are known. And I will not,
+even for Mademoiselle's sake, give the lie to them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the last word fell from my lips, a glove, flung by an unseen hand,
+struck me on the cheek; and then for a moment the room seemed to go
+mad. Amid a storm of hisses, of &quot;<i>Vaurien!</i>&quot; and &quot;<i>A bas le traître!</i>&quot;
+a dozen blades were brandished in my face, a dozen challenges were
+flung at my head. I had not learned at that time how excitable is a
+crowd, how much less merciful than any member of it; and surprised and
+deafened by the tumult, which the shrieks of the ladies did not tend
+to diminish, I recoiled a pace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. de St. Alais took advantage of the moment. He sprang down, and
+thrusting aside the blades which threatened me, flung himself in front
+of me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Messieurs, listen!&quot; he cried, above the uproar. &quot;Listen, I beg! This
+gentleman is my guest. He is no longer of us, but he must go unharmed.
+A way! A way, if you please, for M. le Vicomte de Saux.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They obeyed him reluctantly, and falling back to one side or the
+other, opened a way across the room to the door. He turned to me, and
+bowed low--his courtliest bow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This way, Monsieur le Vicomte, if you please,&quot; he said. &quot;Madame la
+Marquise will not trespass on your time any longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I followed him with a burning face, down the narrow lane of shining
+parquet, under the chandelier, between the lines of mocking eyes; and
+not a man interposed. In dead silence I followed him to the door.
+There he stood aside, and bowed to me, and I to him; and I walked out
+mechanically--walked out alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I passed through the lobby. The crowd of peeping, grinning lackeys
+that filled it stared at me, all eyes; but I was scarcely conscious of
+their impertinence or their presence. Until I reached the street, and
+the cold air revived me, I went like a man stunned, and unable to
+think. The blow had fallen on me so suddenly, so unexpectedly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When I did come a little to myself, my first feeling was rage. I had
+gone into M. de St. Alais' house that evening, possessing everything;
+I came out, stripped of friends, reputation, my betrothed! I had gone
+in, trusting to his friendship, the friendship that was a tradition in
+our families; he had worsted me by a trick. I stood in the street, and
+groaned as I thought of it; as I pictured the sorry figure I had cut
+amongst them, and reflected on what was before me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For, presently, I began to think that I had been a fool--that I should
+have given way. I could not, as I stood in the street there, foresee
+the future; nor know for certain that the old France was passing, and
+that even now, in Paris, its death-knell had gone forth. I had to live
+by the opinions of the people round me; to think, as I paced the
+streets, how I should face the company to-morrow, and whether I should
+fly, or whether I should fight. For in the meeting on the morrow----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah! the Assembly. The word turned my thoughts into a new channel. I
+could have my revenge there. That I might not raise a jarring note
+<i>there</i>, they had cajoled me, and when cajolery failed, had insulted
+me. Well, I would show them that the new way would succeed no better
+than the old, and that where they had thought to suppress a Saux they
+had raised a Mirabeau. From this point I passed the night in a fever.
+Resentment spurred ambition; rage against my caste, a love of the
+people. Every sign of misery and famine that had passed before my eyes
+during the day recurred now, and was garnered for use. The early
+daylight found me still pacing my room, still thinking, composing,
+reciting; when André, my old body-servant, who had been also my
+father's, came at seven with a note in his hand, I was still in my
+clothes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Doubtless he had heard downstairs a garbled account of what had
+occurred, and my cheek burned. I took no notice of his gloomy looks,
+however, but, without speaking, I opened the note. It was not signed,
+but the handwriting was Louis'.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go home,&quot; it ran, &quot;and do not show yourself at the Assembly. They
+will challenge you one by one; the event is certain. Leave Cahors at
+once, or you are a dead man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That was all! I smiled bitterly at the weakness of the man who could
+do no more for his friend than this.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who gave it to you?&quot; I asked André.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A servant, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he muttered that he did not know; and I did not press him. He
+assisted me to change my dress; when I had done, he asked me at what
+hour I needed the horses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The horses! For what?&quot; I said, turning and staring at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To return, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I do not return to-day!&quot; I said in cold displeasure. &quot;Of what are
+you speaking? We came only yesterday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;True, Monsieur,&quot; he muttered, continuing to potter over my dressing
+things, and keeping his back to me. &quot;Still, it is a good day for
+returning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have been reading this note!&quot; I cried wrathfully. &quot;Who told you
+that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All the town knows!&quot; he answered, shrugging his shoulders coolly. &quot;It
+is, 'André, take your master home!' and, 'André, you have a hot-pate
+for a master,' and André this, and André that, until I am fairly
+muddled! Gil has a bloody nose, fighting a Harincourt lad that called
+Monsieur a fool; but for me, I am too old for fighting. And there is
+one other thing I am too old for,&quot; he continued, with a sniff.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is that, impertinent?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To bury another master.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I waited a minute. Then I said: &quot;You think that I shall be killed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is the talk of the town!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I thought a moment. Then: &quot;You served my father, André,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet you would have me run away?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned to me, and flung up his hands in despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Mon Dieu!</i>&quot; he cried, &quot;I don't know what I would have! We are ruined
+by these <i>canaille</i>. As if God made them to do anything but dig and
+work; or we could do without poor! If you had never taken up with
+them, Monsieur----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Silence, man!&quot; I said sternly. &quot;You know nothing about it. Go down
+now, and another time be more careful. You talk of the <i>canaille</i> and
+the poor! What are you yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I, Monsieur?&quot; he cried, in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes--you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stared at me a moment with a face of bewilderment. Then slowly and
+sorrowfully he shook his head, and went out. He began to think me mad.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he was gone I did not at once move. I fancied it likely that if I
+showed myself in the streets before the Assembly met, I should be
+challenged, and forced to fight. I waited, therefore, until the hour
+of meeting was past; waited in the dull upper room, feeling the
+bitterness of isolation, and thinking, sometimes of Louis St. Alais,
+who had let me go, and spoken no word in my behalf, sometimes of men's
+unreasonableness; for in some of the provinces half of the nobility
+were of my way of thinking. I thought of Saux, too; and I will not say
+that I felt no temptation to adopt the course which André had
+suggested--to withdraw quietly thither, and then at some later time,
+when men's minds were calmer, to vindicate my courage. But a certain
+stubbornness, which my father had before me, and which I have heard
+people say comes of an English strain in the race, conspired with
+resentment to keep me in the way I had marked out. At a quarter past
+ten, therefore, when I thought that the last of the Members would have
+preceded me to the Assembly, I went downstairs, with hot cheeks, but
+eyes that were stern enough; and finding André and Gil waiting at the
+door, bade them follow me to the Chapter House beside the Cathedral,
+where the meetings were held.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Afterwards I was told that, had I used my eyes, I must have noticed
+the excitement which prevailed in the streets; the crowd, dense, yet
+silent, that filled the Square and all the neighbouring ways; the air
+of expectancy, the closed shops, the cessation of business, the
+whispering groups in alleys and at doors. But I was wrapped up in
+myself, like one going on a forlorn hope; and of all remarked only one
+thing--that as I crossed the Square a man called out, &quot;God bless you,
+Monsieur!&quot; and another, &quot;<i>Vive Saux!</i>&quot; and that thereon a dozen or
+more took off their caps. This I did notice; but mechanically only.
+The next moment I was in the entry which leads alongside one wall of
+the Cathedral to the Chapter House, and a crowd of clerks and
+servants, who blocked it almost from wall to wall, were making way for
+me to pass; not without looks of astonishment and curiosity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Threading my way through them, I entered the empty vestibule, kept
+clear by two or three ushers. Here the change from sunshine to shadow,
+from the life and light and stir which prevailed outside, to the
+silence of this vaulted chamber, was so great that it struck a chill
+to my heart. Here, in the greyness and stillness, the importance of
+the step I was about to take, the madness of the challenge I was about
+to fling down, in the teeth of my brethren, rose before me; and if my
+mind had not been braced to the utmost by resentment and obstinacy, I
+must have turned back. But already my feet rang noisily on the stone
+pavement, and forbade retreat. I could hear a monotonous voice droning
+in the Chamber beyond the closed door; and I crossed to that door,
+setting my teeth hard, and preparing myself to play the man, whatever
+awaited me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Another moment, and I should have been inside. My hand was already on
+the latch, when some one, who had been sitting on the stone bench in
+the shadow under the window, sprang up, and hurried to stop me. It was
+Louis de St. Alais. He reached me before I could open the door, and,
+thrusting himself in front of me, set his back against the panels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stop, man! for God's sake, stop!&quot; he cried passionately, yet kept his
+voice low. &quot;What can one do against two hundred? Go back, man, go
+back, and I will----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>You will!</i>&quot; I answered with fierce contempt, yet in the same low
+tone--the ushers were staring curiously at us from the door by which I
+had entered. &quot;You will? You will do, I suppose, as much as you did
+last night, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never mind that now!&quot; he answered earnestly; though he winced, and
+the colour rose to his brow. &quot;Only go! Go to Saux, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Keep out of the way!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he said, &quot;and keep out of the way. If you will do that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Keep out of the way?&quot; I repeated savagely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes; then everything will blow over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you!&quot; I said slowly; and I trembled with rage. &quot;And how much,
+may I ask, are you to have, M. le Comte, for ridding the Assembly of
+me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stared at me. &quot;Adrien!&quot; he cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I was ruthless. &quot;No, Monsieur le Comte--not Adrien!&quot; I said
+proudly; &quot;I am that only to my friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I am no longer one?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I raised my eyebrows contemptuously. &quot;<i>After last night?</i>&quot; I said.
+&quot;After last night? Is it possible, Monsieur, that you fancy you played
+a friendly part? I came into your house, your guest, your friend, your
+all but relative; and you laid a trap for me, you held me up to
+ridicule and odium, you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I did?&quot; he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps not with your own voice. But you stood by and saw it done!
+You stood by and said no word for me! You stood by and raised no
+finger for me! If you call that friendship----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stopped me with a gesture full of dignity. &quot;You forget one thing,
+M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said, in a tone of proud reticence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Name it!&quot; I answered disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That Mademoiselle de St. Alais is my sister!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And that, whether the fault was yours or not, you last evening
+treated her lightly--before two hundred people! You forget that, M. le
+Vicomte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I treated her lightly?&quot; I replied, in a fresh excess of rage. We had
+moved, as if by common consent, a little from the door, and by this
+time were glaring into one another's eyes. &quot;And with whom lay the
+fault if I did? With whom lay the fault, Monsieur? You gave me the
+choice--nay, you forced me to make choice between slighting her and
+giving up opinions and convictions which I hold, in which I have been
+bred, in which----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Opinions!</i>&quot; he said more harshly than he had yet spoken. &quot;And what
+are, after all, opinions? Pardon me, I see that I annoy you, Monsieur.
+But I am not philosophic; I have not been to England; and I cannot
+understand a man----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Giving up anything for his opinions!&quot; I cried, with a savage sneer.
+&quot;No, Monsieur, I daresay you cannot. If a man will not stand by his
+friends he will not stand by his opinions. To do either the one or the
+other, M. le Comte, a man must not be a coward.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He grew pale, and looked at me strangely. &quot;Hush, Monsieur!&quot; he
+said--involuntarily, it seemed to me. And a spasm crossed his face, as
+if a sharp pain shot through him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I was beside myself with passion. &quot;A coward!&quot; I repeated. &quot;Do you
+understand me, M. le Comte? Or do you wish me to go inside and repeat
+the word before the Assembly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no need,&quot; he said, growing as red as he had before been
+pale.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There should be none,&quot; I answered, with a sneer. &quot;May I conclude that
+you will meet me after the Assembly rises?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bowed without speaking; and then, and not till then, something in
+his silence and his looks pierced the armour of my rage; and on a
+sudden I grew sick at heart, and cold. It was too late, however; I had
+said that which could never be unsaid. The memory of his patience, of
+his goodness, of his forbearance, came after the event. I saluted him
+formally; he replied; and I turned grimly to the door again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I was not to pass through it yet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A second time when I had the latch in my grasp, and the door an inch
+open, a hand plucked me back; so forcibly, that the latch rattled as
+it fell, and I turned in a rage. To my astonishment it was Louis
+again, but with a changed face--a face of strange excitement. He
+retained his hold on me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he said, between his teeth. &quot;You have called me a coward, M. le
+Vicomte, and I will not wait! Not an hour. You shall fight me now.
+There is a garden at the back, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I had grown as cold as he hot. &quot;I shall do nothing of the kind,&quot; I
+said, cutting him short. &quot;After the Assembly----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He raised his hand and deliberately struck me with his glove across
+the face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will that persuade you, then?&quot; he said, as I involuntarily recoiled.
+&quot;After that, Monsieur, if you are a gentleman, you will fight me.
+There is a garden at the back, and in ten minutes----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In ten minutes the Assembly may have risen,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not keep you so long!&quot; he answered sternly. &quot;Come, sir! Or
+must I strike you again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will come,&quot; I said slowly. &quot;After you, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_03" href="#div1Ref_03">IN THE ASSEMBLY.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The blow, and the insult with which he accompanied it, put an end for
+the moment to my repentance. But short as was the distance across the
+floor from the one door to the other, it gave me time to think again;
+to remember that this was Louis; and that whatever cause I had had to
+complain of him, whatever grounds to suspect that he was the tool of
+others, no friend could have done more to assuage my wrath, nor the
+most honest more to withhold me from entering on an impossible task.
+Melting quickly, melting almost instantly, I felt with a kind of
+horror that if kindness alone had led him to interpose, I had made him
+the worst return in the world; in fine, before the outer door could be
+opened to us, I repented anew. When the usher held it for me to pass,
+I bade him close it, and, to Louis' surprise, turned, and, muttering
+something, ran back. Before he could do more than utter a cry I was
+across the vestibule; a moment, and I had the door of the Assembly
+open.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instantly I saw before me--I suppose that my hand had raised the latch
+noisily--tiers of surprised faces all turned my way. I heard a murmur
+of mingled annoyance and laughter. The next moment I was threading my
+way to my place with the monotonous voice of the President in my ears,
+and the scene round me so changed--from that low-toned altercation
+outside, to this Chamber full of light and life, and thronged with
+starers--that I sank into my seat, dazzled and abashed; and almost
+forgetful for the time of the purpose which brought me thither.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A little, and my face grew hotter still; and with good reason. Each of
+the benches on which we sat held three. I shared mine with one of the
+Harincourts and M. d'Aulnoy, my place being between them. I had
+scarcely taken it five seconds, when Harincourt rose slowly, and,
+without turning his face to me, moved away down the gangway, and,
+fanning himself delicately with his hat, assumed a leaning position
+against a desk with his gaze on the President. Half a minute, and
+D'Aulnoy followed his example. Then the three behind me rose, and
+quietly and without looking at me found other places. The three before
+me followed suit. In two minutes I sat alone, isolated, a mark for all
+eyes; a kind of leper in the Assembly!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I ought to have been prepared for some such demonstration. But I was
+not, and my cheeks burned, as if the curious looks to which I was
+exposed were a hot fire. It was impossible for me, taken by surprise,
+to hide my embarrassment; for, wherever I gazed, I met sneering eyes
+and contemptuous glances; and pride would not let me hang my head. For
+many minutes, therefore, I was unconscious of everything but that
+scorching gaze. I could not hear what was going forward. The
+President's voice was a dull, meaningless drawl to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet all the while anger and resentment were hardening me in my
+resolve; and, presently, the cloud passed from my mind, and left me
+exulting. The monotonous reading, to which I had listened without
+understanding it, came to an end, and was followed by short, sharp
+interrogations--a question and an answer, a name and a reply. It was
+that awoke me. The drawl had been the reading of the cahier; now they
+were voting on it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Presently it would be my turn; it was coming to my turn now. With each
+vote--I need not say that all were affirmative--more faces, and yet
+more, were turned to the place where I sat; more eyes, some hostile,
+some triumphant, some merely curious, were directed to my face. Under
+other circumstances this might have cowed me; now it did not. I was
+wrought up to face it. The unfriendly looks of so many who had called
+themselves my friends, the scornful glances of new men of ennobled
+families, who had been glad of my father's countenance, the
+consciousness that all had deserted me merely because I maintained in
+practice opinions which half of them had proclaimed in words--these
+things hardened me to a pitch of scorn no whit below that of my
+opponents; while the knowledge that to blench now must cover me with
+lasting shame closed the door to thoughts of surrender.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Assembly, on the other hand, felt the novelty of its position. Men
+were not yet accustomed to the war of the Senate; to duels of words
+more deadly than those of the sword: and a certain doubt, a certain
+hesitation, held the majority in suspense, watching to see what would
+happen. Moreover, the leaders, both M. de St. Alais, who headed the
+hotter and prouder party of the Court, and the nobles of the Robe and
+Parliament, who had only lately discovered that their interest lay in
+the same direction, found themselves embarrassed by the very smallness
+of the opposition; since a substantial majority must have been
+accepted as a fact, whereas one man--one man only standing in the way
+of unanimity--presented himself as a thing to be removed, if the way
+could be discovered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. le Comte de Cantal?&quot; the President cried, and looked, not at the
+person he named, but at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Content!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. le Vicomte de Marignac?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Content!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next name I could not hear, for in my excitement it seemed that
+all in the Chamber were looking at me, that voice was failing me, that
+when the moment came I should sit dumb and paralysed, unable to speak,
+and for ever disgraced. I thought of this, not of what was passing;
+then, in a moment, self-control returned; I heard the last name before
+mine, that of M. d'Aulnoy, heard the answer given. Then my own name,
+echoing in hollow silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. le Vicomte de Saux?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stood up. I spoke, my voice sounding harsh, and like another man's.
+&quot;I dissent from this cahier!&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I expected an outburst of wrath; it did not come. Instead, a peal of
+laughter, in which I distinguished St. Alais' tones, rang through the
+room, and brought the blood to my cheeks. The laughter lasted some
+time, rose and fell, and rose again; while I stood pilloried. Yet this
+had one effect the laughers did not anticipate. On occasions the most
+taciturn become eloquent. I forgot the periods from Rochefoucauld and
+Liancourt, which I had so carefully prepared; I forgot the passages
+from Turgot, of which I had made notes, and I broke out in a strain I
+had not foreseen or intended.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Messieurs!&quot; I cried, hurling my voice through the Chamber, &quot;I dissent
+from this cahier because it is effete and futile; because, if for no
+other reason, the time when it could have been of service is past. You
+claim your privileges; they are gone! Your exemptions; they are gone!
+You protest against the union of your representatives with those of
+the people; but they have sat with them! They have sat with them, and
+you can no more undo that by a protest than you can set back the tide!
+The thing is done. The dog is hungry, you have given it a bone. Do you
+think to get the bone back, unmouthed, whole, without loss? Then you
+are mad. But this is not all, nor the principal of my objections to
+this cahier. France to-day stands naked, bankrupt, without treasury,
+without money. Do you think to help her, to clothe her, to enrich her,
+by maintaining your privileges, by maintaining your exemptions, by
+standing out for the last jot and tittle of your rights? No,
+Messieurs. In the old days those exemptions, those rights, those
+privileges, wherein our ancestors gloried, and gloried well, were
+given to them because they were the buckler of France. They maintained
+and armed and led men; the commonalty did the rest. But now the people
+fight, the people pay, the people do all. Yes, Messieurs, it is true;
+it is true that which we have all heard, '<i>Le manant paye pour
+tout!</i>'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I paused; expecting that now, at last, the long-delayed outburst of
+anger would come. Instead, before any in the Chamber could speak,
+there rose through the windows, which looked on the market-place, and
+had been widely opened on account of the heat, a great cry of
+applause; the shout of the street, that for the first time heard its
+wrongs voiced. It was full of assent and rejoicing, yet no attack
+could have disconcerted me more completely. I stood astonished, and
+silenced.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The effect which it had on me was slight, however, in comparison with
+that which it had on my opponents. The cries of dissent they were
+about to utter died stillborn at the portent; and, for a moment, men
+stared at one another as if they could not believe their ears. For
+that moment a silence of rage, of surprise, prevailed through the
+whole Chamber. Then M. de St. Alais sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is this?&quot; he cried, his handsome face dark with excitement. &quot;Has
+the King ordered us, too, to sit with the third estate? Has he so
+humiliated us? If not, M. le President--if not, I say,&quot; he continued,
+sternly putting down an attempt at applause, &quot;and if this be not a
+conspiracy between some of our body and the <i>canaille</i> to bring about
+another Jacquerie----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The President, a weak man of a Robe family, interrupted him. &quot;Have a
+care, Monsieur,&quot; he said. &quot;The windows are still open.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Open?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The President nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what if they are? What of it?&quot; St. Alais answered harshly. &quot;What
+of it, Monsieur?&quot; he continued, looking round him with an eye which
+seemed to collect and express the scorn of the more fiery spirits. &quot;If
+so, let it be so! Let them be open. Let the people hear both sides,
+and not only those who flatter them; those who, by building on their
+weakness and ignorance, and canting about their rights and our wrongs,
+think to exalt themselves into Retzs and Cromwells! Yes, Monsieur le
+President,&quot; he continued, while I strove in vain to interrupt him, and
+half the Assembly rose to their feet in confusion, &quot;I repeat the
+phrase--who, to the ambition of a Cromwell or a Retz add their
+violence, not their parts!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The injustice of the reproach stung me, and I turned on him. &quot;M. le
+Marquis!&quot; I cried hotly, &quot;if, by that phrase, you refer to me----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed scornfully. &quot;As you please, Monsieur,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I fling it back! I repudiate it!&quot; I cried. &quot;M. de St. Alais has
+called me a Retz--a Cromwell----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me,&quot; he interposed swiftly; &quot;a would-be Retz!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A traitor, either way!&quot; I answered, striving against the laughter,
+which at his repartee flashed through the room, bringing the blood
+rushing to my face. &quot;A traitor either way! But I say that he is the
+traitor who to-day advises the King to his hurt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And not he who comes here with a mob at his back?&quot; St. Alais
+retorted, with heat almost equal to my own. &quot;Who, one man, would
+brow-beat a hundred, and dictate to this Assembly?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur repeats himself,&quot; I cried, cutting him short in my turn,
+though no laughter followed my gibe. &quot;I deny what he says. I fling
+back his accusations; I retort upon him! And, for the rest, I object
+to this cahier, I dissent from it, I----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the Assembly was at the end of its patience. A roar of &quot;Withdraw!
+withdraw!&quot; drowned my voice, and, in a moment, the meeting so orderly
+a few minutes before, became a scene of wild uproar. A few of the
+elder men continued to keep their seats, but the majority rose; some
+had already sprung to the windows, and closed them, and still stood
+with their feet on the ledge, looking down on the confusion. Others
+had gone to the door and taken their stand there, perhaps with the
+idea of resisting intrusion. The President in vain cried for silence.
+His voice, equally with mine, was lost in the persistent clamour,
+which swelled to a louder pitch whenever I offered to speak, and sank
+only when I desisted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At length M. de St. Alais raised his hand, and with little difficulty
+procured silence. Before I could take advantage of it, the President
+interposed. &quot;The Assembly of the noblesse of Quercy,&quot; he said
+hurriedly, &quot;is in favour of this cahier, maintaining our ancient
+rights, privileges, and exemptions. The Vicomte de Saux alone
+protests. The cahier will be presented.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I protest!&quot; I cried weakly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have said so,&quot; the President answered, with a sneer. And a peal of
+derisive laughter, mingled with shouts of applause, ran round the
+Chamber. &quot;The cahier will be presented. The matter is concluded.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, in a moment, magically, as it seemed to me, the Chamber resumed
+its ordinary aspect. The Members who had risen returned to their
+seats, those who had closed the windows descended, a few retired, the
+President proceeded with some ordinary business. Every trace of the
+storm disappeared. In a twinkling all was as it had been.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even where I sat; for no isolation, no division from my fellows could
+exceed that in which I had sat before. But whereas before I had had my
+weapon in reserve and my revenge in prospect, that was no longer so. I
+had shot my bolt, and I sat miserable, fettered by the silence and the
+strange glances that hemmed me in, and growing each moment more
+depressed and more self-conscious; longing to escape, yet shrinking
+from moving, even from looking about me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In this condition not the least of my misery lay in the reflection
+that I had done no good; that I had suffered for a quixotism, and
+shown myself stubborn and obstinate to no purpose. Too late, I
+considered that I might have maintained my principles and yet
+conformed; I might have stated my convictions and waived them in
+deference to the majority. I might have----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But alas! whatever I might have done, I had not done it; and the die
+was cast. I had declared myself against my order; I had forfeited all
+I could claim from my order. Henceforth, I was not of it. It was no
+fancy that already men who had occasion to pass before me drew their
+skirts aside and bowed formally as to one of another class!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How long I should have endured this penance--these veiled insults and
+the courtesy that stung deeper--before I plucked up spirit to
+withdraw, I cannot say. It was an interposition from without that
+broke the spell. An usher came to me with a note. I opened it with
+clumsy fingers under a fire of hostile eyes, and found that it was
+from Louis.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you have a spark of honour&quot;--it ran--&quot;you will meet me, without a
+moment's delay, in the garden at the back of the Chapter House. Do so,
+and you may still call yourself a gentleman. Refuse, or delay even for
+ten minutes, and I will publish your shame from one end of Quercy to
+the other. He cannot call himself Adrien du Pont de Saux, who puts up
+with a blow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I read it twice while the usher waited. The words had a cruel,
+heartless ring in them; the taunting challenge was brutal in its
+directness. Yet my heart grew soft as I read, and I had much ado to
+keep the tears from my eyes--under all those eyes. For Louis did not
+deceive me this time. This note, so unlike him, this desperate attempt
+to draw me out, and save me from opponents more ruthless, were too
+transparent to delude me; and, in a moment, the icy bands which had
+been growing over me melted. I still sat alone; but I was not quite
+deserted. I could hold up my head again, for I had a friend. I
+remembered that, after all, through all, I was Adrien du Pont de Saux,
+guiltless of aught worse than holding in Quercy opinions which the
+Lameths and Mirabeaus, the Liancourts and Rochefoucaulds held in their
+provinces; guiltless, I told myself, of aught besides standing for
+right and justice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the usher waited. I took from the desk before me a scrap of paper,
+and wrote my answer. &quot;Adrien does not fight with Louis because St.
+Alais struck Saux.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I wrapped it up and gave it to the usher; then I sat back a different
+man, able to meet all eyes, with a heart armed against all
+misfortunes. Friendship, generosity, love, still existed, though the
+gentry of Quercy, the Gontauts, and Marignacs, sat aloof. Life would
+still hold sweets, though the grass should grow in the walnut avenue,
+and my shield should never quarter the arms of St. Alais.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So I took courage, stood up, and moved to go out. But the moment I did
+so, a dozen Members sprang to their feet also; and, as I walked down
+one gangway towards the door, they crowded down another parallel with
+it; offensively, openly, with the evident intention of intercepting me
+before I could escape. The commotion was so great that the President
+paused in his reading to watch the result; while the mass of Members
+who kept their places, rose that they might have a better view. I saw
+that I was to be publicly insulted, and a fierce joy took the place of
+every other feeling. If I went slowly, it was not through fear; the
+pent-up passions of the last hour inspired me, and I would not have
+hastened the climax for the world. I reached the foot of the gangway,
+in another moment we must have come into collision, when an abrupt
+explosion of voices, a great roar in the street, that penetrated
+through the closed windows, brought us to a halt. We paused, listening
+and glaring, while the few who had not stood up before, rose
+hurriedly, and the President, startled and suspicious, asked what it
+was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For answer the sound rose again--dull, prolonged, shaking the windows;
+a hoarse shout of triumph. It fell--not ceasing, but passing away into
+the distance--and then once more it swelled up. It was unlike any
+shout I had ever heard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Little by little articulate words grew out of it, or succeeded it;
+until the air shook with the measured rhythm of one stern sentence.
+&quot;<i>A bas la Bastille! A bas la Bastille!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We were to hear many such cries in the time to come, and grow
+accustomed to such alarms; to the hungry roar in the street, and the
+loud knocking at the door that spelled fate. But they were a new thing
+then, and the Assembly, as much outraged as alarmed by this second
+trespass on its dignity, could only look at its President, and mutter
+wrathful threats against the <i>canaille</i>. The <i>canaille</i> that had
+crouched for a century seemed in some unaccountable way to be changing
+its posture!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One man cried out one thing, and one another; that the streets should
+be cleared, the regiment sent for, or complaint made to the Intendant.
+They were still speaking when the door opened and a Member came in. It
+was Louis de St. Alais, and his face was aglow with excitement.
+Commonly the most modest and quiet of men, he stood forward now, and
+raised his hand imperatively for silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gentlemen,&quot; he said, in a loud, ringing voice, &quot;there is strange
+news! A courier with letters for my brother, M. de St. Alais, has
+spoken in the street. He brings strange tidings.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What?&quot; two or three cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Bastille has fallen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No one understood--how should they?--but all were silent. Then, &quot;What
+do you mean, M. St. Alais?&quot; the President asked, in bewilderment; and
+he raised his hand that the silence might be preserved. &quot;The Bastille
+has fallen? How? What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was captured on Tuesday by the mob of Paris,&quot; Louis answered
+distinctly, his eyes bright, &quot;and M. de Launay, the Governor, murdered
+in cold blood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Bastille captured? By the mob?&quot; the President exclaimed
+incredulously. &quot;It is impossible, Monsieur. You must have
+misunderstood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Louis shook his head. &quot;It is true, I fear,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And M. de Launay?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That too, I fear, M. le President.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, indeed, men looked at one another; startled, pale-faced, asking
+each mute questions of his fellows; while in the street outside the
+hum of disorder and rejoicing grew moment by moment more steady and
+continuous. Men looked at each other alarmed, and could not believe.
+The Bastille which had stood so many centuries, captured? The Governor
+killed? Impossible, they muttered, impossible. For what, in that case,
+was the King doing? What the army? What the Governor of Paris?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Old M. de Gontaut put the thought into words. &quot;But the King?&quot; he said,
+as soon as he could get a hearing. &quot;Doubtless his Majesty has already
+punished the wretches?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The answer came from an unexpected quarter, in words as little
+expected. M. de St. Alais, to whom Louis had handed a letter, rose
+from his seat with an open paper in his hand. Doubtless, if he had
+taken time to consider, he would have seen the imprudence of making
+public all he knew; but the surprise and mortification of the news he
+had received--news that gave the lie to his confident assurances, news
+that made the most certain doubt the ground on which they stood, swept
+away his discretion. He spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not know what the King was doing,&quot; he said, in mocking accents,
+&quot;at Versailles; but I can tell you how the army was employed in Paris.
+The Garde Française were foremost in the attack. Besenval, with such
+troops as have not deserted, has withdrawn. The city is in the hands
+of the mob. They have shot Flesselles, the Provost, and elected
+Bailly, Mayor. They have raised a Militia and armed it. They have
+appointed Lafayette, General. They have adopted a badge. They
+have----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, <i>mon Dieu!</i>&quot; the President cried aghast. &quot;This is a revolt!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Precisely, Monsieur,&quot; St. Alais answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what does the King?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is so good--that he has done nothing,&quot; was the bitter answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the States General?--the National Assembly at Versailles?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, they? They too have done nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is Paris, then?&quot; the President said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur, it is Paris,&quot; the Marquis answered. &quot;But Paris?&quot; the
+President exclaimed helplessly. &quot;Paris has been quiet so many years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To this, however, the thought in every one's mind, there seemed to be
+no answer. St. Alais sat down again, and, for a moment, the Assembly
+remained stunned by astonishment, prostrate under these new, these
+marvellous facts. No better comment on the discussions in which it had
+been engaged a few minutes before could have been found. Its Members
+had been dreaming of their rights, their privileges, their exemptions;
+they awoke to find Paris in flames, the army in revolt, order and law
+in the utmost peril.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But St. Alais was not the man to be long wanting to his part, nor one
+to abdicate of his free will a leadership which vigour and audacity
+had secured for him. He sprang to his feet again, and in an
+impassioned harangue called upon the Assembly to remember the Fronde.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As Paris was then, Paris is now!&quot; he cried. &quot;Fickle and seditious, to
+be won by no gifts, but always to be overcome by famine. Best assured
+that the fat bourgeois will not long do without the white bread of
+Gonesse, nor the tippler without the white wine of Arbois! Cut these
+off, the mad will grow sane, and the traitor loyal. Their National
+Guards, and their Badges, and their Mayors, and their General? Do you
+think that these will long avail against the forces of order, of
+loyalty, against the King, the nobility, the clergy, against France?
+No, gentlemen, it is impossible,&quot; he continued, looking round him with
+warmth. &quot;Paris would have deposed the great Henry and exiled Mazarin;
+but in the result it licked their shoes. It will be so again, only we
+must stand together, we must be firm. We must see that these disorders
+spread no farther. It is the King's to govern, and the people's to
+obey. It has been so, and it will be so to the end!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His words were not many, but they were timely and vigorous; and they
+served to reassure the Assembly. All that large majority, which in
+every gathering of men has no more imagination than serves to paint
+the future in the colours of the past, found his arguments perfectly
+convincing; while the few who saw more clearly, and by the light of
+instinct, or cold reason, discerned that the state of France had no
+precedent in its history, felt, nevertheless, the infection of his
+confidence. A universal shout of applause greeted his last sentence,
+and, amid tumultuous cries, the concourse, which had remained on its
+feet, poured into the gangways, and made for the door; a desire to see
+and hear what was going forward moving all to get out as quickly as
+possible, though it was not likely that more could be learned than was
+already known.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I shared this feeling myself, and, forgetting in the excitement of the
+moment my part in the day's debate, I pressed to the door. The
+Bastille fallen? The Governor killed? Paris in the hands of the mob?
+Such tidings were enough to set the brain in a whirl, and breed
+forgetfulness of nearer matters. Others, in the preoccupation of the
+moment, seemed to be equally oblivious, and I forced my way out with
+the rest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But in the doorway I happened, by a little clumsiness, to touch one of
+the Harincourts. He turned his head, saw who it was had touched him,
+and tried to stop. The pressure was too great, however, and he was
+borne on in front of me, struggling and muttering something I could
+not hear. I guessed what it was, however, by the manner in which
+others, abreast of him, and as helpless, turned their heads and
+sneered at me; and I was considering how I could best encounter what
+was to come, when the sight which met our gaze, as we at last issued
+from the narrow passage and faced the market-place--two steps below
+us--drove their existence for a moment from my mind.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_04" href="#div1Ref_04">L'AMI DU PEUPLE.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">There were others who stood also; impressed by a sight which, in the
+light of the news we had just heard, that astonishing, that amazing
+news, seemed to have especial significance. We had not yet grown
+accustomed in France to crowds. For centuries the one man, the
+individual, King, Cardinal, Noble, or Bishop, had stood forward, and
+the many, the multitude, had melted away under his eye; had bowed and
+passed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But here, within our view, rose the cold lowering dawn of a new day.
+Perhaps, if we had not heard what we had heard--that news, I mean--or
+if the people had not heard it, the effect on us, the action on their
+part, might have been different. As it was, the crowd that faced us in
+the Square as we came out, the great crowd that faced us and stretched
+from wall to wall, silent, vigilant, menacing, showed not a sign of
+flinching; and we did. We stood astonished, each halting as he came
+out, and looking, and then consulting his neighbour's eyes to learn
+what he thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We had over our heads the great Cathedral, from the shadow of which we
+issued. We had among us many who had been wont to see a hundred
+peasants tremble at their frown. But in a moment, in a twinkling, as
+if that news from Paris had shaken the foundations of Society, we
+found these things in question. The crowd in the Square did not
+tremble. In a silence that was grimmer than howling it gave back look
+for look. Nor only that; but as we issued, they made no way for us,
+and those of the Assembly who had already gone down, had to walk along
+the skirts of the press to get to the inn. We who came later saw this,
+and it had its weight with us. We were Nobles of the province; but we
+were only two hundred, and between us and the Trois Rois, between us
+and our horses and servants, stretched this line of gloomy faces,
+these thousands of silent men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No wonder that the sight, and something that underlay the sight,
+diverted my mind for a moment from M. Harincourt and his purpose, and
+that I looked abroad; while he, too, stood gaping and frowning, and
+forgot me. Perforce we had to go down; one by one reluctantly, a
+meagre string winding across the face of the crowd; sullen defiance on
+one side, scorn on the other. In Cahors it came to be remembered as
+the first triumph of the people, the first step in the degradation of
+the privileged. A word had brought it about. A word, <i>the Bastille
+fallen</i>, had combined the floating groups, and formed of them this
+which we saw--the people.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Under such circumstances it needed only the slightest spark to bring
+about an explosion; and that was presently supplied. M. de Gontaut, a
+tall, thin, old man, who could remember the early days of the late
+King, walked a little way in front of me. He was lame, and used a
+cane, and as a rule a servant's arm. This morning, the lackey was not
+forthcoming, and he felt the inconvenience of skirting instead of
+crossing the square. Nevertheless he was not foolish enough to thrust
+himself into the crowd; and all might have gone well, if a rogue in
+the front rank of the throng had not, perhaps by accident, tripped up
+the cane with his foot. M. le Baron turned in a flash, every hair of
+his eyebrows on end, and struck the fellow with his stick.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stand back, rascal!&quot; he cried, trembling, and threatening to repeat
+the blow. &quot;If I had you, I would soon----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man spat at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. de Gontaut uttered an oath, and in ungovernable rage struck the
+wretch two or three blows--how many I could not see, though I was only
+a few paces behind. Apparently the man did not strike back, but
+shrank, cowed by the old noble's fury. But those behind flung him
+forward, with cries of &quot;Shame! <i>A bas la Noblesse!</i>&quot; and he fell
+against M. de Gontaut. In a moment the Baron was on the ground.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was so quickly done that only those in the immediate neighbourhood,
+St. Alais, the Harincourts, and myself, saw the fall. Probably the mob
+meant no great harm; they had not yet lost all reverence. But at the
+time, with the tale of De Launay in my ears, and my imagination
+inflamed, I thought that they intended M. de Gontaut's death, and as I
+saw his old head fall, I sprang forward to protect him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">St. Alais was before me, however. Bounding forward, with rage not less
+than Gontaut's, he hurled the aggressor back with a blow which sent
+him into the arms of his supporters. Then dragging M. de Gontaut to
+his feet, the Marquis whipped out his sword, and darting the bright
+point hither and thither with the skill of a practised fencer, in a
+twinkling he cleared a space round him, and made the nearest give back
+with shrieks and curses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Unfortunately he touched one man; the fellow was not hurt, but at the
+prick he sank down screaming, and in a second the mood of the crowd
+changed. Shrieks, half-playful, gave way to a howl of rage. Some one
+flung a stick, which struck the Marquis on the chest, and for a moment
+stopped him. The next instant he sprang at the man who had thrown it,
+and would have run him through, but the fellow fled, and the crowd,
+with a yell of triumph, closed over his path. This stopped St. Alais
+in mid course, and left him only the choice between retreating, or
+wounding people who were innocent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He fell back with a sneering word, and sheathed his sword. But the
+moment his back was turned a stone struck him on the head, and he
+staggered forward. As he fell the crowd uttered a yell, and half a
+dozen men dashed at him to trample on him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Their blood was up; this time I made no mistake, I read mischief in
+their eyes. The scream of the man whom he had wounded, though the
+fellow was more frightened than hurt, was in their ears. One of the
+Harincourts struck down the foremost, but this only enraged without
+checking them. In a moment he was swept aside and flung back, stunned
+and reeling; and the crowd rushed upon their victim.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I threw myself before him. I had just time to do that, and cry &quot;Shame!
+shame!&quot; and force back one or two; and then my intervention must have
+come to nothing, it must have fared as ill with me as with him, if in
+the nick of time, with a ring of grimy faces threatening us, and a
+dozen hands upraised, I had not been recognised. Buton, the blacksmith
+of Saux--one of the foremost--screamed out my name, and turning with
+outstretched arms, forced back his neighbours. A man of huge strength,
+it was as much as he could do to stem the torrent; but in a moment his
+frenzied cries became heard and understood. Others recognised me, the
+crowd fell back. Some one raised a cry of &quot;<i>Vive Saux!</i> Long live the
+friend of the people!&quot; and the shout being taken up first in one place
+and then in another, in a trice the Square rang with the words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had not then learned the fickleness of the multitude, or that from
+<i>A bas</i> to <i>vive</i> is the step of an instant; and despite myself, and
+though I despised myself for the feeling, I felt my heart swell on the
+wave of sound. &quot;<i>Vive Saux! Vive l'ami du peuple!</i>&quot; My equals had
+scorned me, but the people--the people whose faces wore a new look
+to-day, the people to whom this one word, the Bastille fallen, had
+given new life--acclaimed me. For a moment, even while I cried to
+them, and shook my hands to them to be silent, there flashed on me the
+things it meant; the things they had to give, power and tribuneship!
+&quot;<i>Vive Saux!</i> long live the friend of the people!&quot; The air shook with
+the sound; the domes above me gave it back. I felt myself lifted up on
+it; I felt myself for the minute another and a greater man!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I turned and met St. Alais' eye, and I fell to earth. He had
+risen, and, pale with rage, was wiping the dust from his coat with a
+handkerchief. A little blood was flowing from the wound in his head,
+but he paid no heed to it, in the intentness with which he was staring
+at me, as if he read my thoughts. As soon as something like silence
+was obtained, he spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps if your friends have quite done with us, M. de Saux--we may
+go home?&quot; he said, his voice trembling a little.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stammered something in answer to the sneer, and turned to accompany
+him; though my way to the inn lay in the opposite direction. Only the
+two Harincourts and M. de Gontaut were with us. The rest of the
+Assembly had either got clear, or were viewing the fracas from the
+door of the Chapter House, where they stood, cut off from us by a wall
+of people. I offered my arm to M. de Gontaut, but he declined it with
+a frigid bow, and took Harincourt's; and M. le Marquis, when I turned
+to him, said, with a cold smile, that they need not trouble me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Doubtless we shall be safe,&quot; he sneered, &quot;if you will give orders to
+that effect.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I bowed, without retorting on him; he bowed; and he turned away. But
+the crowd had either read his attitude aright, or gathered that there
+was an altercation between us, for the moment he moved they set up a
+howl. Two or three stones were thrown, notwithstanding Buton's efforts
+to prevent it; and before the party had retired ten yards the rabble
+began to press on them savagely. Embarrassed by M. de Gontaut's
+presence and helplessness, the other three could do nothing. For an
+instant I had a view of St. Alais standing gallantly at bay with the
+old noble behind him, and the blood trickling down his cheek. Then I
+followed them, the crowd made instant way for me, again the air rang
+with cheers, and the Square in the hot July sunshine seemed a sea of
+waving hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. de St. Alais turned to me. He could still smile, and with
+marvellous self-command, in one and the same instant he recovered from
+his discomfiture and changed his tactics.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am afraid that after all we must trouble you,&quot; he said politely.
+&quot;M. le Baron is not a young man, and your people, M. de Saux, are
+somewhat obstreperous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What can I do?&quot; I said sullenly. I had not the heart to leave them to
+their fortunes; at the same time I was as little disposed to accept
+the onus he would lay on me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Accompany us home,&quot; he said pleasantly, drawing out his snuff-box and
+taking a pinch.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The people had fallen silent again, but watched us heedfully. &quot;If you
+think it will serve?&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It will,&quot; he said briskly. &quot;You know, M. le Vicomte, that a man is
+born and a man dies every minute? Believe me no King dies--but another
+King is born.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I winced under the sarcasm, under the laughing contempt of his eye.
+Yet I saw nothing for it but to comply, and I bowed and turned to go
+with them. The crowd opened before us; amid mingled cheers and yells
+we moved away. I intended only to accompany them to the outskirts of
+the throng, and then to gain the inn by a by-path, get my horses and
+be gone. But a party of the crowd continued to follow us through the
+streets, and I found no opportunity. Almost before I knew it, we were
+at the St. Alais' door, still with this rough attendance at our heels.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame and Mademoiselle, with two or three women, were on the balcony,
+looking and listening; at the door below stood a group of scared
+servants. While I looked, however, Madame left her place above and in
+a moment appeared at the door, the servants making way for her. She
+stared in wonder at us, and from us to the rabble that followed; then
+her eye caught the bloodstains on M. de St. Alais' cravat, and she
+cried out to know if he was hurt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Madame,&quot; he said lightly. &quot;But M. de Gontaut has had a fall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What has happened?&quot; she asked quickly. &quot;The town seems to have gone
+mad! I heard a great noise a while ago, and the servants brought in a
+wild tale about the Bastille.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is true.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What? That the Bastille----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has been taken by the mob, Madame; and M. de Launay murdered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Impossible!&quot; Madame cried with flashing eyes. &quot;That old man?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; M. de St. Alais answered with treacherous suavity. &quot;Messieurs
+the Mob are no respecters of persons. Fortunately, however,&quot; he went
+on, smiling at me in a way that brought the blood to my cheeks, &quot;they
+have leaders more prudent and sagacious than themselves.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Madame had no ears for his last words, no thought save of this
+astonishing news from Paris. She stood, her cheeks on fire, her eyes
+full of tears; she had known De Launay. &quot;Oh, but the King will punish
+them!&quot; she cried at last. &quot;The wretches! The ingrates! They should all
+be broken on the wheel! Doubtless the King has already punished them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will, by-and-by, if he has not yet,&quot; St. Alais answered. &quot;But for
+the moment, you will easily understand, Madame, that things are out of
+joint. Men's heads are turned, and they do not know themselves. We
+have had a little trouble here. M. de Gontaut has been roughly
+handled, and I have not entirely escaped. If M. de Saux had not had
+his people well in hand,&quot; he continued, turning to me with a laughing
+eye, &quot;I am afraid that we should have come off worse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame stared at me, and, beginning slowly to comprehend, seemed to
+freeze before me. The light died out of her haughty face. She looked
+at me grimly. I had a glimpse of Mademoiselle's startled eyes behind
+her, and of the peeping servants; then Madame spoke. &quot;Are these some
+of--M. de Saux's people?&quot; she asked, stepping forward a pace, and
+pointing to the crew of ruffians who had halted a few paces away, and
+were watching us doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A handful,&quot; M. de St. Alais answered lightly. &quot;Just his bodyguard,
+Madame. But pray do not speak of him so harshly; for, being my mother,
+you must be obliged to him. If he did not quite save my life, at least
+he saved my beauty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With those?&quot; she said scornfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With those or from those,&quot; he answered gaily. &quot;Besides, for a day or
+two we may need his protection. I am sure that, if you ask him,
+Madame, he will not refuse it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stood, raging and helpless, under the lash of his tongue; and Madame
+de St. Alais looked at me. &quot;Is it possible,&quot; she said at last, &quot;that
+M. de Saux has thrown in his lot with wretches such as those?&quot; And she
+pointed with magnificent scorn to the scowling crew behind me. &quot;With
+wretches who----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush, Madame,&quot; M. le Marquis said in his gibing fashion. &quot;You are too
+bold. For the moment they are our masters, and M. de Saux is theirs.
+We must, therefore----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We must not!&quot; she answered impetuously, raising herself to her full
+height and speaking with flashing eyes. &quot;What? Would you have me
+palter with the scum of the streets? With the dirt under our feet?
+With the sweepings of the gutter? Never! I and mine have no part with
+traitors!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Madame!&quot; I cried, stung to speech by her injustice. &quot;You do not know
+what you say! If I have been able to stand between your son and
+danger, it has been through no vileness such as you impute to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Impute?&quot; she exclaimed. &quot;What need of imputation, Monsieur, with
+those wretches behind you? Is it necessary to cry '<i>A bas le roi!</i>' to
+be a traitor? Is not that man as guilty who fosters false hopes, and
+misleads the ignorant? Who hints what he dare not say, and holds out
+what he dares not promise? Is he not the worst of traitors? For shame,
+Monsieur, for shame!&quot; she continued. &quot;If your father----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh!&quot; I cried. &quot;This is intolerable!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She caught me up with a bitter gibe. &quot;It is!&quot; she retorted. &quot;It <i>is</i>
+intolerable--that the King's fortresses should be taken by the rabble,
+and old men slain by scullions! It is intolerable that nobles should
+forget whence they are sprung, and stoop to the kennel! It is
+intolerable that the King's name should be flouted, and catchwords set
+above it! All these things are intolerable; but they are not of our
+doing. They are your acts. And for you,&quot; she continued--and suddenly
+stepping by me, she addressed the group of rascals who lingered,
+listening and scowling, a few paces away--&quot;for you, poor fools, do not
+be deceived. This gentleman has told you, doubtless, that there is no
+longer a King of France! That there are to be no more taxes nor
+<i>corvées</i>; that the poor will be rich, and everybody noble! Well,
+believe him if you please. There have been poor and rich, noble and
+simple, spenders and makers, since the world began, and a King in
+France. But believe him if you please. Only now go! Leave my house.
+Go, or I will call out my servants, and whip you through the streets
+like dogs! To your kennels, I say!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stamped her foot, and to my astonishment, the men, who must have
+known that her threat was an empty one, sneaked away like the dogs to
+which she had compared them. In a moment--I could scarcely believe
+it--the street was empty. The men who had come near to killing M. de
+Gontaut, who had stoned M. de St. Alais, quailed before a woman! In a
+twinkling the last man was gone, and she turned to me, her face
+flushed, her eyes gleaming with scorn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There, sir,&quot; she said, &quot;take that lesson to heart. That is your brave
+people! And now, Monsieur, do you go too! Henceforth my house is no
+place for you. I will have no traitors under my roof--no, not for a
+moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She signed to me to go with the same insolent contempt which had
+abashed the crowd; but before I went I said one word. &quot;You were my
+father's friend, Madame,&quot; I said before them all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at me harshly, but did not answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It would have better become you, therefore,&quot; I continued, &quot;to help me
+than to hurt me. As it is, were I the most loyal of his Majesty's
+subjects, you have done enough to drive me to treason. In the future,
+Madame la Marquise, I beg that you will remember that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And I turned and went, trembling with rage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The crowd in the Square had melted by this time, but the streets were
+full of those who had composed it; who now stood about in eager
+groups, discussing what had happened. The word Bastille was on every
+tongue; and, as I passed, way was made for me, and caps were lifted.
+&quot;God bless you, M. de Saux,&quot; and, &quot;You are a good man,&quot; were muttered
+in my ear. If there seemed to be less noise and less excitement than
+in the morning, the air of purpose that everywhere prevailed was not
+to be mistaken.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was so clear that, though noon was barely past, shopkeepers had
+closed their shops and bakers their bakehouses; and a calm, more
+ominous than the storm that had preceded it, brooded over the town.
+The majority of the Assembly had dispersed in haste, for I saw none of
+the Members, though I heard that a large body had gone to the
+barracks. No one molested me--the fall of the Bastille served me so
+far--and I mounted, and rode out of town, without seeing any one, even
+Louis.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To tell the truth, I was in a fever to be at home; in a fever to
+consult the only man who, it seemed to me, could advise me in this
+crisis. In front of me, I saw it plainly, stretched two roads; the one
+easy and smooth, if perilous, the other arid and toilsome. Madame had
+called me the Tribune of the People, a would-be Retz, a would-be
+Mirabeau. The people had cried my name, had hailed me as a saviour.
+Should I fit on the cap? Should I take up the <i>rôle?</i> My own caste had
+spurned me. Should I snatch at the dangerous honour offered to me, and
+stand or fall with the people?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With the people? It sounded well, but, in those days, it was a vaguer
+phrase than it is now; and I asked myself who, that had ever taken up
+that cause, had stood? A bread riot, a tumult, a local revolt--such
+as this which had cost M. de Launay his life--of things of that size
+the people had shown themselves capable; but of no lasting victory.
+Always the King had held his own, always the nobles had kept their
+privileges. Why should it be otherwise now?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were reasons. Yes, truly; but they seemed less cogent, the
+weight of precedent against them heavier, when I came to think, with a
+trembling heart, of acting on them. And the odium of deserting my
+order was no small matter to face. Hitherto I had been innocent; if
+they had put out the lip at me, they had done it wrongfully. But if I
+accepted this part, the part they assigned to me, I must be prepared
+to face not only the worst in case of failure, but in success to be a
+pariah. To be Tribune of the People, and an outcast from my kind!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I rode hard to keep pace with these thoughts; and I did not doubt that
+I should be the first to bring the tale to Saux. But in those days
+nothing was more marvellous than the speed with which news of this
+kind crossed the country. It passed from mouth to mouth, from eye to
+eye; the air seemed to carry it. It went before the quickest
+traveller.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Everywhere, therefore, I found it known. Known by people who had stood
+for days at cross-roads, waiting for they knew not what; known by
+scowling men on village bridges, who talked in low voices and eyed the
+towers of the Château; known by stewards and agents, men of the stamp
+of Gargouf, who smiled incredulously, or talked, like Madame St.
+Alais, of the King, and how good he was, and how many he would hang
+for it. Known, last of all, by Father Benôit, the man I would consult.
+He met me at the gate of the Château, opposite the place where the
+<i>carcan</i> had stood. It was too dark to see his face, but I knew the
+fall of his <i>soutane</i> and the shape of his hat. I sent on Gil and
+André, and he walked beside me up the avenue, with his hand on the
+withers of my horse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, M. le Vicomte, it has come at last,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have heard?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Buton told me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What? Is he here?&quot; I said in surprise. &quot;I saw him at Cahors less than
+three hours ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Such news gives a man wings,&quot; Father Benôit answered with energy. &quot;I
+say again, it has come. It has come, M. le Vicomte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Something,&quot; I said prudently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Everything,&quot; he answered confidently. &quot;The mob took the Bastille, but
+who headed them? The soldiers; the Garde Française. Well, M. le
+Vicomte, if the army cannot be trusted, there is an end of abuses, an
+end of exemptions, of extortions, of bread famines, of Foulons and
+Berthiers, of grinding the faces of the poor, of----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Curé's list was not half exhausted when I cut it short. &quot;But if
+the army is with the mob, where will things stop?&quot; I said wearily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We must see to that,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come and sup with me,&quot; I said, &quot;I have something to tell you, and
+more to ask you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He assented gladly. &quot;For there will be no sleep for me to-night,&quot; he
+said, his eye sparkling. &quot;This is great news, glorious news, M. le
+Vicomte. Your father would have heard it with joy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And M. de Launay?&quot; I said as I dismounted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There can be no change without suffering,&quot; he answered stoutly,
+though his face fell a little. &quot;His fathers sinned, and he has paid
+the penalty. But God rest his soul! I have heard that he was a good
+man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And died in his duty,&quot; I said rather tartly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Amen,&quot; Father Benôit answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet it was not until we were sat down in the Chestnut Parlour (which
+the servants called the English Room), and, with candles between us,
+were busy with our cheese and fruit, that I appreciated to the full
+the impression which the news had made on the Curé. Then, as he
+talked, as he told and listened, his long limbs and lean form trembled
+with excitement; his thin face worked. &quot;It is the end,&quot; he said. &quot;You
+may depend upon it, M. le Vicomte, it is the end. Your father told me
+many times that in money lay the secret of power. Money, he used to
+say, pays the army, the army secures all. A while ago the money
+failed. Now the army fails. There is nothing left.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The King?&quot; I said, unconsciously quoting Madame la Marquise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God bless his Majesty!&quot; the Curé answered heartily. &quot;He means well,
+and now he will be able to do well, because the nation will be with
+him. But without the nation, without money or an army--a name only.
+And the name did not save the Bastille.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, beginning with the scene at Madame de St. Alais' reception, I
+told him all that had happened to me; the oath of the sword, the
+debate in the Assembly, the tumult in the Square--last of all, the
+harsh words with which Madame had given me my <i>congé</i>; all. As he
+listened he was extraordinarily moved. When I described the scene in
+the Chamber, he could not be still, but in his enthusiasm, walked
+about the parlour, muttering. And, when I told him how the crowd had
+cried &quot;<i>Vive Saux!</i>&quot; he repeated the words softly and looked at me
+with delighted eyes. But when I came--halting somewhat in my speech,
+and colouring and playing with my bread to hide my disorder--to tell
+him my thoughts on the way home, and the choice that, as it seemed to
+me, was offered to me, he sat down, and fell also to crumbling his
+bread and was silent.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_05" href="#div1Ref_05">THE DEPUTATION.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">He sat silent so long, with his eyes on the table, that presently I
+grew nettled; wondering what ailed him, and why he did not speak and
+say the things that I expected. I had been so confident of the advice
+he would give me, that, from the first, I had tinged my story with the
+appropriate colour. I had let my bitterness be seen; I had suppressed
+no scornful word, but supplied him with all the ground he could desire
+for giving me the advice I supposed to be upon his lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet he did not speak. A hundred times I had heard him declare his
+sympathy with the people, his hatred of the corruption, the
+selfishness, the abuses of the Government; within the hour I had seen
+his eye kindle as he spoke of the fall of the Bastille. It was at his
+word I had burned the <i>carcan</i>; at his instance I had spent a large
+sum in feeding the village during the famine of the past year. Yet
+now--now, when I expected him to rise up and bid me do my part, he was
+silent!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had to speak at last. &quot;Well?&quot; I said irritably. &quot;Have you nothing to
+say, M. le Curé?&quot; And I moved one of the candles so as to get a better
+view of his features. But he still looked down at the table, he still
+avoided my eye, his thin face thoughtful, his hand toying with the
+crumbs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last, &quot;M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said softly, &quot;through my mother's mother
+I, too, am noble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I gasped; not at the fact with which I was familiar, but at the
+application I thought he intended. &quot;And for that,&quot; I said amazed, &quot;you
+would----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He raised his hand to stop me. &quot;No,&quot; he said gently, &quot;I would not.
+Because, for all that, I am of the people by birth, and of the poor by
+my calling. But----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what?&quot; I said peevishly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instead of answering me he rose from his seat, and, taking up one of
+the candles, turned to the panelled wall behind him, on which hung a
+full-length portrait of my father, framed in a curious border of
+carved foliage. He read the name below it. &quot;Antoine du Pont, Vicomte
+de Saux,&quot; he said, as if to himself. &quot;He was a good man, and a friend
+to the poor. God keep him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He lingered a moment, gazing at the grave, handsome face, and
+doubtless recalling many things; then he passed, holding the candle
+aloft, to another picture which flanked the table: each wall boasted
+one. &quot;Adrien du Pont, Vicomte de Saux,&quot; he read, &quot;Colonel of the
+Regiment Flamande. He was killed, I think, at Minden. Knight of St.
+Louis and of the King's Bedchamber. A handsome man, and doubtless a
+gallant gentleman. I never knew him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I answered nothing, but my face began to burn as he passed to a third
+picture behind me. &quot;Antoine du Pont, Vicomte de Saux,&quot; he read,
+holding up the candle, &quot;Marshal and Peer of France, Knight of the
+King's Orders, a Colonel of the Household and of the King's Council.
+Died of the plague at Genoa in 1710. I think I have heard that he
+married a Rohan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked long, then passed to the fourth wall, and stood a moment
+quite silent. &quot;And this one?&quot; he said at last. &quot;He, I think, has the
+noblest face of all. Antoine, Seigneur du Pont de Saux, of the Order
+of St. John of Jerusalem, Preceptor of the French tongue. Died at
+Valetta in the year after the Great Siege--of his wounds, some say; of
+incredible labours and exertions, say the Order. A Christian soldier.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the last picture, and, after gazing at it a moment, he brought
+the candle back and set it down with its two fellows on the shining
+table; that, with the panelled walls, swallowed up the light, and left
+only our faces white and bright, with a halo round them, and darkness
+behind them. He bowed to me. &quot;M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said at last, in a
+voice which shook a little, &quot;you come of a noble stock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I shrugged my shoulders. &quot;It is known,&quot; I said. &quot;And for that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I dare not advise you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the cause is good!&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he answered slowly. &quot;I have been saying so all my life. I dare
+not say otherwise now. But--the cause of the people is the people's.
+Leave it to the people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>You</i> say that!&quot; I answered, staring at him, angry and perplexed.
+&quot;You, who have told me a hundred times that I am of the people! that
+the nobility are of the people; that there are only two things in
+France, the King and the people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smiled somewhat sadly; tapping on the table with his fingers. &quot;That
+was theory,&quot; he said. &quot;I try to put it into practice, and my heart
+fails me. Because I, too, have a little nobility, M. le Vicomte, and
+know what it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't understand you,&quot; I said in despair. &quot;You blow hot and cold,
+M. le Curé. I told you just now that I spoke for the people at the
+meeting of the noblesse, and you approved.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was nobly done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I say the same thing,&quot; Father Benôit answered, his fine face
+illumined with feeling. &quot;It was nobly done. Fight for the people, M.
+le Vicomte, but among your fellows. Let your voice be heard there,
+where all you will gain for yourself will be obloquy and black looks.
+But if it comes, if it has come, to a struggle between your class and
+the commons, between the nobility and the vulgar; if the noble must
+side with his fellows or take the people's pay, then&quot;--Father Benôit's
+voice trembled a little, and his thin white hand tapped softly on the
+table--&quot;I would rather see you ranked with your kind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Against the people?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, against the people,&quot; he answered, shrinking a little.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was astonished. &quot;Why, great heaven,&quot; I said, &quot;the smallest
+logic----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; he answered, shaking his head sadly, and looking at me with kind
+eyes. &quot;There you beat me; logic is against me. Reason, too. The cause
+of the people, the cause of reform, of honesty, of cheap grain, of
+equal justice, <i>must</i> be a good one. And who forwards it must be in
+the right. That is so, M. le Vicomte. Nay, more than that. If the
+people are left to fight their battle alone the danger of excesses is
+greater. I see that. But instinct does not let me act on the
+knowledge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet, M. de Mirabeau?&quot; I said. &quot;I have heard you call him a great
+man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is true,&quot; Father Benôit answered, keeping his eyes on mine, while
+he drummed softly on the table with his fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have heard you speak of him with admiration.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Often.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And of M. de Lafayette?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the Lameths?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. le Curé nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet all these,&quot; I said stubbornly, &quot;all these are nobles--nobles
+leading the people!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you do not blame them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, I do not blame them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay, you admire them! You admire them, Father,&quot; I persisted,
+glowering at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know I do,&quot; he said. &quot;I know that I am weak and a fool. Perhaps
+worse, M. le Vicomte, in that I have not the courage of my
+convictions. But, though I admire those men, though I think them great
+and to be admired, I have heard men speak of them who thought
+otherwise; and--it may be weak--but I knew you as a boy, and I would
+not have men speak so of you. There are things we admire at a
+distance,&quot; he continued, looking at me a little drolly, to hide the
+affection that shone in his eyes, &quot;which we, nevertheless, do not
+desire to find in those we love. Odium heaped on a stranger is nothing
+to us; on our friends, it were worse than death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stopped, his voice trembling; and we were both silent for a while.
+Still, I would not let him see how much his words had touched me; and
+by-and-by----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But my father?&quot; I said. &quot;He was strongly on the side of reform!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, by the nobles, for the people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the nobles have cast me out!&quot; I answered. &quot;Because I have gone a
+yard, I have lost all. Shall I not go two, and win all back?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Win all,&quot; he said softly--&quot;but lose how much?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet if the people win? And you say they will?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Even then, Tribune of the People,&quot; he answered gently, &quot;and an
+outcast!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were the very words I had applied to myself as I rode; and I
+started. With sudden vividness I saw the picture they presented; and I
+understood why Father Benôit had hesitated so long in my case. With
+the purest intentions and the most upright heart, I could not make
+myself other than what I was; I should rise, were my efforts crowned
+with success, to a point of splendid isolation; suspected by the
+people, whose benefactor I had been, hated and cursed by the nobles
+whom I had deserted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such a prospect would have been far from deterring some; and others it
+might have lured. But I found myself, in this moment of clear vision,
+no hero. Old prejudices stirred in the blood, old traditions, born of
+centuries of precedence and privilege, awoke in the memory. A shiver
+of doubt and mistrust--such as, I suppose, has tormented reformers
+from the first, and caused all but the hardiest to flinch--passed
+through me, as I gazed across the candles at the Curé. I feared the
+people--the unknown. The howl of exultation, that had rent the air in
+the Market-place at Cahors, the brutal cries that had hailed Gontaut's
+fall, rang again in my ears. I shrank back, as a man shrinks who finds
+himself on the brink of an abyss, and through the wavering mist,
+parted for a brief instant by the wind, sees the cruel rocks and
+jagged points that wait for him below.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a moment of extraordinary prevision, and though it passed, and
+speedily left me conscious once more of the silent room and the good
+Curé--who affected to be snuffing one of the long candles--the effect
+it produced on my mind continued. After Father Benôit had taken his
+leave, and the house was closed, I walked for an hour up and down the
+walnut avenue; now standing to gaze between the open iron gates that
+gave upon the road; now turning my back on them, and staring at the
+grey, gaunt, steep-roofed house with its flanking tower and round
+<i>tourelles</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Henceforth, I made up my mind, I would stand aside. I would welcome
+reform, I would do in private what I could to forward it; but I would
+not a second time set myself against my fellows. I had had the courage
+of my opinions. Henceforth, no man could say that I had hidden them,
+but after this I would stand aside and watch the course of events.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A cock crowed at the rear of the house--untimely; and across the
+hushed fields, through the dusk, came the barking of a distant dog. As
+I stood listening, while the solemn stars gazed down, the slight which
+St. Alais had put upon me dwindled--dwindled to its true dimensions. I
+thought of Mademoiselle Denise, of the bride I had lost, with a faint
+regret that was almost amusement. What would she think of this sudden
+rupture? I wondered. Of this strange loss of her <i>fiancé?</i> Would it
+awaken her curiosity, her interest? Or would she, fresh from her
+convent school, think that things in the world went commonly so--that
+<i>fiancés</i> came and passed, and receptions found their natural end in
+riot?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I laughed softly, pleased that I had made up my mind. But, had I
+known, as I listened to the rustling of the poplars in the road, and
+the sounds that came out of the darkened world beyond them, what was
+passing there--had I known that, I should have felt even greater
+satisfaction. For this was Wednesday, the 22nd of July; and that night
+Paris still palpitated after viewing strange things. For the first
+time she had heard the horrid cry, &quot;<i>A la lanterne!</i>&quot; and seen a man,
+old and white-headed, hanged, and tortured, until death freed him. She
+had seen another, the very Intendant of the City, flung down, trampled
+and torn to pieces in his own streets--publicly, in full day, in the
+presence of thousands. She had seen these things, trembling; and other
+things also--things that had made the cheeks of reformers grow pale,
+and betrayed to all thinking men that below Lafayette, below Bailly,
+below the Municipality and the Electoral Committee, roared and seethed
+the awakened forces of the Faubourgs, of St. Antoine, and St. Marceau!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What could be expected, what was to be expected, but that such
+outrages, remaining unpunished, should spread? Within a week the
+provinces followed the lead of Paris. Already, on the 21st the mob of
+Strasbourg had sacked the Hôtel de Ville and destroyed the Archives;
+and during the same week, the Bastilles at Bordeaux and Caen were
+taken and destroyed. At Rouen, at Rennes, at Lyons, at St. Malo, were
+great riots, with fighting; and nearer Paris, at Poissy, and St.
+Germain, the populace hung the millers. But, as far as Cahors was
+concerned, it was not until the astonishing tidings of the King's
+surrender reached us, a few days later--tidings that on the 17th of
+July he had entered insurgent Paris, and tamely acquiesced in the
+destruction of the Bastille--it was not until that news reached us,
+and hard on its heels a rumour of the second rising on the 22nd, and
+the slaughter of Foulon and Berthier--it was not until then, I say,
+that the country round us began to be moved. Father Benôit, with a
+face of astonishment and doubt, brought me the tidings, and we walked
+on the terrace discussing it. Probably reports, containing more or
+less of the truth, had reached the city before, and, giving men
+something else to think of, had saved me from challenge or
+molestation. But, in the country where I had spent the week in moody
+unrest, and not unfrequently reversing in the morning the decision at
+which I had arrived in the night, I had heard nothing until the Curé
+came--I think on the morning of the 29th of July.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what do you think now?&quot; I said thoughtfully, when I had listened
+to his tale.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only what I did before,&quot; he answered stoutly. &quot;It has come. Without
+money, and therefore without soldiers who will fight, with a starving
+people, with men's minds full of theories and abstractions, that all
+tend towards change, what can a Government do?&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Apparently it can cease to govern,&quot; I said tartly; &quot;and that is not
+what any one wants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There must be a period of unrest,&quot; he replied, but less confidently.
+&quot;The forces of order, however, the forces of the law have always
+triumphed. I don't doubt that they will again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;After a period of unrest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he answered. &quot;After a period of unrest. And, I confess, I wish
+that we were through that. But we must be of good heart, M. le
+Vicomte. We must trust the people; we must confide in their good
+sense, their capacity for government, their moderation----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had to interrupt him. &quot;What is it, Gil?&quot; I said with a gesture of
+apology. The servant had come out of the house and was waiting to
+speak to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. Doury, M. le Vicomte, from Cahors,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The inn-keeper?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur; and Buton. They ask to see you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Together?&quot; I said. It seemed a strange conjunction.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, show them here,&quot; answered, after consulting my companion's
+face. &quot;But Doury? I paid my bill. What can he want?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We shall see,&quot; Father Benôit answered, his eyes on the door. &quot;Here
+they come. Ah! Now, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he continued in a lower tone, &quot;I
+feel less confident.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I suppose he guessed something akin to the truth; but for my part I
+was completely at a loss. The innkeeper, a sleek, complaisant man, of
+whom, though I had known him some years, I had never seen much beyond
+the crown of his head, nor ever thought of him as apart from his
+guests and his ordinary, wore, as he advanced, a strange motley of
+dignity and subservience; now strutting with pursed lips, and an air
+of extreme importance, and now stooping to bow in a shame-faced and
+half-hearted manner. His costume was as great a surprise as his
+appearance, for, instead of his citizen's suit of black, he sported a
+blue coat with gold buttons, and a canary waistcoat, and he carried a
+gold-headed cane; sober splendours, which, nevertheless, paled before
+two large bunches of ribbons, white, red, and blue, which he wore, one
+on his breast, and one in his hat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His companion, who followed a foot or two behind, his giant frame and
+sun-burned face setting off the citizen's plumpness, was similarly
+bedizened. But though be-ribboned and in strange company, he was still
+Baton, the smith. His face reddened as he met my eyes, and he shielded
+himself as well as he could behind Doury's form.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good-morning, Doury,&quot; I said. I could have laughed at the awkward
+complaisance of the man's manner, if something in the gravity of the
+Curé's face had not restrained me. &quot;What brings you to Saux?&quot; I
+continued. &quot;And what can I do for you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If it please you, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he began. Then he paused, and
+straightening himself--for habit had bent his back--he continued
+abruptly, &quot;Public business, Monsieur, with you on it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With me?' I said, amazed. On public business?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He smiled in a sickly way, but stuck to his text. &quot;Even so, Monsieur,&quot;
+he said. &quot;There are such great changes, and--and so great need of
+advice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That I ought not to wonder at M. Doury seeking it at Saux?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Even so, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I did not try to hide my contempt and amusement; but shrugged my
+shoulders, and looked at the Curé.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well,&quot; I said, after a moment of silence, &quot;and what is it? Have you
+been selling bad wine? Or do you want the number of courses limited by
+Act of the States General? Or----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur,&quot; he said, drawing himself up with an attempt at dignity,
+&quot;this is no time for jesting. In the present crisis inn-keepers have
+as much at stake as, with reverence, the noblesse; and deserted by
+those who should lead them----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What, the inn-keepers?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He grew as red as a beetroot. &quot;M. le Vicomte understands that I mean
+the people,&quot; he said stiffly. &quot;Who deserted, I say, by their natural
+leaders----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For instance?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. le Duc d'Artois, M. le Prince de Condé, M. le Duc de Polignac,
+M.----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bah!&quot; I said. &quot;How have they deserted?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Pardieu</i>, Monsieur! Have you not heard?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have I not heard what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That they have left France? That on the night of the 17th, three days
+after the capture of the Bastille, the princes of the blood left
+France by stealth, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Impossible!&quot; I said. &quot;Impossible! Why should they leave?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is the very question, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he answered, with eager
+forwardness, &quot;that is being asked. Some say that they thought to
+punish Paris by withdrawing from it. Some that they did it to show
+their disapproval of his most gracious Majesty's amnesty, which was
+announced on that day. Some that they stand in fear. Some even that
+they anticipated Foulon's fate----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fool!&quot; I cried, stopping him sternly--for I found this too much for
+my stomach--&quot;you rave! Go back to your menus and your bouillis! What
+do you know about State affairs? Why, in my grandfather's time,&quot; I
+continued wrathfully, &quot;if you had spoken of princes of the blood after
+that fashion, you would have tasted bread and water for six months,
+and been lucky had you got off unwhipped!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He quailed before me, and forgetting his new part in old habits,
+muttered an apology. He had not meant to give offence, he said. He had
+not understood. Nevertheless, I was preparing to read him a lesson
+when, to my astonishment, Buton intervened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Monsieur, that is thirty years back,&quot; he said doggedly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What, villain?&quot; I exclaimed, almost breathless with astonishment,
+&quot;what do you in this <i>galère?</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am with him,&quot; he answered, indicating his companion by a sullen
+gesture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On State business?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, <i>mon Dieu</i>,&quot; I cried, staring at them between amusement and
+incredulity, &quot;if this is true, why did you not bring the watch-dog as
+well! And Farmer Jean's ram? And the good-wife's cat? And M. Doury's
+turnspit? And----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. le Curé touched my arm. &quot;Perhaps you had better hear what they have
+to say,&quot; he observed softly. &quot;Afterwards, M. le Vicomte----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I nodded sulkily. &quot;What is it, then?&quot; I said. &quot;Ask what you want to
+ask.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Intendant has fled,&quot; Doury answered, recovering something of his
+lost dignity, &quot;and we are forming, in pursuance of advice received
+from Paris, and following the glorious example of that city, a
+Committee; a Committee to administer the affairs of the district. From
+that Committee, I, Monsieur, with my good friend here, have the honour
+to be a deputation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With him?&quot; I said, unable to control myself longer. &quot;But, in heaven's
+name, what has he to do with the Committee? Or the affairs of the
+district?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And I pointed with relentless finger at Buton, who reddened under his
+tan, and moved his huge feet uneasily, but did not speak.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is a member of it,&quot; the inn-keeper answered, regarding his
+colleague with a side glance, which seemed to express anything but
+liking. &quot;This Committee, to be as perfect as possible, Monsieur le
+Vicomte will understand, must represent all classes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Even mine, I suppose,&quot; I said, with a sneer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is on that business we have come,&quot; he answered awkwardly. &quot;To ask,
+in a word, M. le Vicomte, that you will allow yourself to be elected a
+member, and not only a member----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What elevation!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But President of the Committee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After all--it was no more than I had been foreseeing! It had come
+suddenly, but in the main it was only that in sober fact which I had
+foreseen in a dream. Styled the mandate of the people, it had sounded
+well; by the mouth of Doury, the inn-keeper, Buton assessor, it jarred
+every nerve in me. I say, it should not have surprised me; while such
+things were happening in the world, with a King who stood by and saw
+his fortress taken, and his servants killed, and pardoned the rebels;
+with an Intendant of Paris slaughtered in his own streets; with
+rumours and riots in every province, and flying princes, and swinging
+millers, there was really nothing wonderful in the invitation. And
+now, looking back, I find nothing surprising in it. I have lived to
+see men of the same trade as Doury, stand by the throne, glittering in
+stars and orders; and a smith born in the forge sit down to dine with
+Emperors. But that July day on the terrace at Saux, the offer seemed
+of all farces the wildest, and of all impertinences the most absurd.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thanks, Monsieur,&quot; I said, at last, when I had sufficiently recovered
+from my astonishment. &quot;If I understand you rightly, you ask me to sit
+on the same Committee with that man?&quot; And I pointed grimly to Buton.
+&quot;With the peasant born on my land, and subject yesterday to my
+justice? With the serf whom my fathers freed? With the workman living
+on my wages?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Doury glanced at his colleague. &quot;Well, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said, with a
+cough, &quot;to be perfect, you understand, a Committee must represent
+all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A Committee!&quot; I retorted, unable to repress my scorn. &quot;It is a new
+thing in France. And what is the perfect Committee to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Doury on a sudden recovered himself, and swelled with importance. &quot;The
+Intendant has fled,&quot; he said, &quot;and people no longer trust the
+magistrates. There are rumours of brigands, too; and corn is required.
+With all this the Committee must deal. It must take measures to keep
+the peace, to supply the city, to satisfy the soldiers, to hold
+meetings, and consider future steps. Besides, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he
+continued, puffing out his cheeks, &quot;it will correspond with Paris; it
+will administer the law; it will----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In a word,&quot; I said quietly, &quot;it will govern. The King, I suppose,
+having abdicated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Doury shrank bodily, and even lost some of his colour. &quot;God forbid!&quot;
+he said, in a whining tone. &quot;It will do all in his Majesty's name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And by his authority?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The inn-keeper stared at me, startled and nonplussed; and muttered
+something about the people.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; I said. &quot;It is the people who invite me to govern, then, is it?
+With an inn-keeper and a peasant? And other inn-keepers and peasants,
+I suppose? To govern! To usurp his Majesty's functions? To supersede
+his magistrates; to bribe his forces? In a word, friend Doury,&quot; I
+continued suavely, &quot;to commit treason. Treason, you understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The inn-keeper did; and he wiped his forehead with a shaking hand, and
+stood, scared and speechless, looking at me piteously. A second time
+the blacksmith took it on himself to answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monseigneur,&quot; he muttered, drawing his great black hand across his
+beard.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Buton,&quot; I answered suavely, &quot;permit me. For a man who aspires to
+govern the country, you are too respectful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have omitted one thing it is for the Committee to do,&quot; the smith
+answered hoarsely, looking--like a timid, yet sullen, dog--anywhere
+but in my face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And that is?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To protect the Seigneurs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stared at him, between anger and surprise. This was a new light.
+After a pause, &quot;From whom?&quot; I said curtly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Their people,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Their Butons,&quot; I said. &quot;I see. We are to be burned in our beds, are
+we?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood sulkily silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you, Buton,&quot; I said. &quot;And that is your return for a winter's
+corn. Thanks! In this world it is profitable to do good!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man reddened through his tan, and on a sudden looked at me for the
+first time. &quot;You know that you lie, M. le Vicomte!&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lie, sirrah?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur,&quot; he answered. &quot;You know that I would die for the
+seigneur, as much as if the iron collar were round my neck! That
+before fire touched the house of Saux it should burn me! That I am my
+lord's man, alive and dead. But, Monseigneur,&quot; and, as he continued,
+he lowered his tone to one of earnestness, striking in a man so rough,
+&quot;there are abuses, and there must be an end of them. There are
+tyrants, and they must go. There are men and women and children
+starving, and there must be an end of that. There is grinding of the
+faces of the poor, Monseigneur--not here, but everywhere round us--and
+there must be an end of that. And the poor pay taxes and the rich go
+free; the poor make the roads, and the rich use them; the poor have no
+salt, while the King eats gold. To all these things there is now to be
+an end--quietly, if the seigneurs will--but an end. An end,
+Monseigneur, though we burn châteaux,&quot; he added grimly.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_06" href="#div1Ref_06">A MEETING IN THE ROAD.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">The unlooked-for eloquence which rang in the blacksmith's words, and
+the assurance of his tone, no less than this startling disclosure of
+thoughts with which I had never dreamed of crediting him, or any
+peasant, took me so aback for a moment that I stood silent. Doury
+seized the occasion, and struck in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see now, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said complacently, &quot;the necessity for
+such a Committee. The King's peace must be maintained.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I see,&quot; I answered harshly, &quot;that there are violent men abroad, who
+were better in the stocks. Committee? Let the King's officers keep the
+King's peace! The proper machinery----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is shattered!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words were Doury's. The next moment he quailed at his presumption.
+&quot;Then let it be repaired!&quot; I thundered. &quot;<i>Mon Dieu!</i> that a set of
+tavern cooks and base-born rascals should go about the country prating
+of it, and prating to me! Go, I will have nothing to do with you or
+your Committee. Go, I say!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nevertheless--a little patience, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he persisted,
+chagrin on his pale face--&quot;nevertheless, if any of the nobility would
+give us countenance, you most of all----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There would then be some one to hang instead of Doury!&quot; I answered
+bluntly. &quot;Some one behind whom he could shield himself, and lesser
+villains hide. But I will not be the stalking-horse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And yet, in other provinces,&quot; he answered desperately, his
+disappointment more and more pronounced, &quot;M. de Liancourt and M. de
+Rochefoucauld have not disdained to----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nevertheless, I disdain!&quot; I retorted. &quot;And more, I tell you, and I
+bid you remember it, you will have to answer for the work you are
+doing. I have told you it is treason. It is treason; I will have
+neither act nor part in it. Now go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There will be burning,&quot; the smith muttered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Begone!&quot; I said sternly. &quot;If you do not----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Before the morn is old the sky will be red,&quot; he answered. &quot;On your
+head, Seigneur, be it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I aimed a blow at him with my cane; but he avoided it with a kind of
+dignity, and stalked away, Doury following him with a pale, hang-dog
+face, and his finery sitting very ill upon him. I stood and watched
+them go, and then I turned to the Curé to hear what he had to say.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I found him gone also. He, too, had slipped away; through the
+house, to intercept them at the gates, perhaps, and dissuade them. I
+waited for him, querulously tapping the walk with my stick, and
+watching the corner of the house. Presently he came round it, holding
+his hat an inch or two above his head, his lean, tall figure almost
+shadowless, for it was noon. I noticed that his lips moved as he came
+towards me; but, when I spoke, he looked up cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he said in answer to my question, &quot;I went through the house,
+and stopped them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It would be useless,&quot; I said. &quot;Men so mad as to think that they could
+replace his Majesty's Government with a Committee of smiths and
+pastrycooks----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have joined it,&quot; he answered, smiling faintly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Committee?&quot; I ejaculated, breathless with surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Even so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Impossible!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; he said quietly. &quot;Have I not always predicted this day? Is not
+this what Rousseau, with his <i>Social Contract</i>, and Beaumarchais, with
+his 'Figaro,' and every philosopher who ever repeated the one, and
+every fine lady who ever applauded the other, have been teaching?
+Well, it has come, and I have advised you, M. le Vicomte, to stand by
+your order. But I, a poor man, I stand by mine. And for the Committee
+of what seems to you, my friend, impossible people, is not any kind
+of government&quot;--this more warmly, and as if he were arguing with
+himself--&quot;better than none? Understand, Monsieur, the old machinery
+has broken down. The Intendant has fled. The people defy the
+magistrates. The soldiers side with the people. The <i>huissiers</i> and
+tax collectors are--the Good God knows where!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then,&quot; I said indignantly, &quot;it is time for the gentry to----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take the lead and govern?&quot; he rejoined. &quot;By whom? A handful of
+servants and game-keepers? Against the people? against such a mob as
+you saw in the Square at Cahors? Impossible, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the world seems to be turning upside down,&quot; I said helplessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The greater need of a strong unchanging holdfast--not of the world,&quot;
+he answered reverently; and he lifted his hat a moment from his head
+and stood in thought. Then he continued: &quot;However, the matter is this.
+I hear from Doury that the gentry are gathering at Cahors, with the
+view of combining, as you suggest, and checking the people. Now, it
+must be useless, and it may be worse. It may lead to the very excesses
+they would prevent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In Cahors?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, in the country. Buton, be sure, did not speak without warrant. He
+is a good man, but he knows some who are not, and there are lonely
+châteaux in Quercy, and dainty women who have never known the touch of
+a rough hand, and--and children.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But,&quot; I cried aghast, &quot;do you fear a Jacquerie?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God knows,&quot; he answered solemnly. &quot;The fathers have eaten sour
+grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. How many years have
+men spent at Versailles the peasant's blood, life, bone, flesh! To pay
+back at last, it may be, of their own! But God forbid, Monsieur, God
+forbid. Yet, if ever--it comes now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p style="text-align:center; letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When he was gone I could not rest. His words had raised a
+fever in me.
+What might not be afoot, what might not be going on, while I lay idle?
+And, presently, to quench my thirst for news, I mounted and rode out
+on the way to Cahors. The day was hot, the time for riding ill-chosen;
+but the exercise did me good. I began to recover from the giddiness of
+thought into which the Curé's fears, coming on the top of Buton's
+warning, had thrown me. For a while I had seen things with their eyes;
+I had allowed myself to be carried away by their imaginations; and the
+prospect of a France ruled by a set of farriers and postillions had
+not seemed so bizarre as it began to look, now that I had time,
+mounting the long hill, which lies one league from Saux and two from
+Cahors, to consider it calmly. For a moment, the wild idea of a whole
+gentry fleeing like hares before their peasantry, had not seemed so
+very wild.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, on reflection, beginning to see things in their normal sizes, I
+called myself a simpleton. A Jacquerie? Three centuries and more had
+passed since France had known the thing in the dark ages. Could any,
+save a child alone in the night, or a romantic maiden solitary in
+her rock castle, dream of its recurrence? True, as I skirted St.
+Alais, which lies a little aside from the road, at the foot of the
+hill, I saw at the village-turning a sullen group of faces that
+should have been bent over the hoe; a group, gloomy, discontented,
+waiting--waiting, with shock heads and eyes glittering under low
+brows, for God knows what. But I had seen such a gathering before; in
+bad times, when seed was lacking, or when despair, or some excessive
+outrage on the part of the <i>fermier</i>, had driven the peasants to fold
+their hands and quit the fields. And always it had ended in nothing,
+or a hanging at most. Why should I suppose that anything would come of
+it now, or that a spark in Paris must kindle a fire here?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In fact, I as good as made up my mind; and laughed at my simplicity.
+The Curé had let his predictions run away with him, and Buton's
+ignorance and credulity had done the rest. What, I now saw, could be
+more absurd than to suppose that France, the first, the most stable,
+the most highly civilised of States, wherein for two centuries none
+had resisted the royal power and stood, could become in a moment the
+theatre of barbarous excesses? What more absurd than to conceive it
+turned into the <i>Petit Trianon</i> of a gang of <i>rôturiers</i> and
+<i>canaille?</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this point in my thoughts I broke off, for, as I reached it, a
+coach came slowly over the ridge before me and began to descend the
+road. For a space it hung clear-cut against the sky, the burly figure
+of the coachman and the heads of the two lackeys who swung behind it
+visible above the hood. Then it began to drop down cautiously towards
+me. The men behind sprang down and locked the wheels, and the
+lumbering vehicle slid and groaned downwards, the wheelers pressing
+back, the leading horses tossing their heads impatiently. The road
+there descends not in <i>lacets</i>, but straight, for nearly half a mile
+between poplars; and on the summer air the screaming of the wheels and
+the jingling of the harness came distinctly to the ear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Presently I made out that the coach was Madame St. Alais'; and I felt
+inclined to turn and avoid it. But the next moment pride came to my
+aid, and I shook my reins and went on to meet it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had scarcely seen a person except Father Benôit since the affair at
+Cahors, and my cheek flamed at the thought of the <i>rencontre</i> before
+me. For the same reason the coach seemed to come on very slowly; but
+at last I came abreast of it, passed the straining horses, and looked
+into the carriage with my hat in my hand, fearing that I might see
+Madame, hoping I might see Louis, ready with a formal salute at least.
+Politeness required no less.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But sitting in the place of honour, instead of M. le Marquis, or his
+mother, or M. le Comte, was one little figure throned in the middle of
+the seat; a little figure with a pale inquiring face that blushed
+scarlet at sight of me, and eyes that opened wide with fright, and
+lips that trembled piteously. It was Mademoiselle!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had I known a moment earlier that she was in the carriage and alone, I
+should have passed by in silence; as was doubtless my duty after what
+had happened. I was the last person who should have intruded on her.
+But the men, grinning, I dare say, at the encounter--for probably
+Madame's treatment of me was the talk of the house--had drawn up, and
+I had reined up instinctively; so that before I quite understood that
+she was alone, save for two maids who sat with their backs to the
+horses, we were gazing at one another--like two fools!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle!&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur!&quot; she answered mechanically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Now, when I had said that, I had said all that I had a right to say. I
+should have saluted, and gone on with that. But something impelled me
+to add--&quot;Mademoiselle is going--to St. Alais?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her lips moved, but I heard no sound. She stared at me like one under
+a spell. The elder of her women, however, answered for her, and said
+briskly:----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, <i>oui</i>, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And Madame de St. Alais?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Madame remains at Cahors,&quot; the woman answered in the same tone, &quot;with
+M. le Marquis, who has business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, at any rate, I should have gone on; but the girl sat looking at
+me, silent and blushing; and something in the picture, something in
+the thought of her arriving alone and unprotected at St. Alais, taken
+with a memory of the lowering faces I had seen in the village,
+impelled me to stand and linger; and finally to blurt out what I had
+in my mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle,&quot; I said impulsively, ignoring her attendants, &quot;if you
+will take my advice--you will not go on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One of the women muttered &quot;<i>Ma foi!</i>&quot; under her breath. The other said
+&quot;Indeed!&quot; and tossed her head impertinently. But Mademoiselle found
+her voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, Monsieur?&quot; she said clearly and sweetly, her eyes wide with a
+surprise that for the moment overcame her shyness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because,&quot; I answered diffidently--I repented already that I had
+spoken--&quot;the state of the country is such--I mean that Madame la
+Marquise scarcely understands perhaps that--that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What, Monsieur?&quot; Mademoiselle asked primly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That at St. Alais,&quot; I stammered, &quot;there is a good deal of discontent,
+Mademoiselle, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At St. Alais?&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the neighbourhood, I should have said,&quot; I answered awkwardly.
+&quot;And--and in fine,&quot; I continued very much embarrassed, &quot;it would be
+better, in my poor opinion, for Mademoiselle to turn and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Accompany Monsieur, perhaps?&quot; one of the women said; and she giggled
+insolently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mademoiselle St. Alais flashed a look at the offender, that made me
+wink. Then with her cheeks burning, she said:----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Drive on!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was foolish and would not let ill alone. &quot;But, Mademoiselle,&quot; I
+said, &quot;a thousand pardons, but----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Drive on!&quot; she repeated; this time in a tone, which, though it was
+still sweet and clear, was not to be gainsaid. The maid who had not
+offended--the other looked no little scared--repeated the order, the
+coach began to move, and in a moment I was left in the road, sitting
+on my horse with my hat in my hand, and looking foolishly at nothing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The straight road running down between lines of poplars, the
+descending coach, lurching and jolting as it went, the faces of the
+grinning lackeys as they looked back at me through the dust--I well
+remember them all. They form a picture strangely vivid and distinct in
+that gallery where so many more important have faded into nothingness.
+I was hot, angry, vexed with myself; conscious that I had trespassed
+beyond the becoming, and that I more than deserved the repulse I had
+suffered. But through all ran a thread of a new feeling--a quite new
+feeling. Mademoiselle's face moved before my eyes--showing through the
+dust; her eyes full of dainty surprise, or disdain as delicate,
+accompanied me as I rode. I thought of her, not of Buton or Doury, the
+Committee or the Curé, the heat or the dull road. I ceased to
+speculate except on the chances of a peasant rising. That, that alone
+assumed a new and more formidable aspect; and became in a moment
+imminent and probable. The sight of Mademoiselle's childish face had
+given a reality to Buton's warnings, which all the Curé's hints had
+failed to impart to them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So much did the thought now harass me, that to escape it I shook up my
+horse, and cantered on, Gil and André following, and wondering,
+doubtless, why I did not turn. But, wholly taken up with the horrid
+visions which the blacksmith's words had called up, I took no heed of
+time until I awoke to find myself more than half-way on the road to
+Cahors, which lies three leagues and a mile from Saux. Then I drew
+rein and stood in the road, in a fit of excitement and indecision.
+Within the half-hour I might be at Madame St. Alais' door in Cahors,
+and, whatever happened then, I should have no need to reproach myself.
+Or in a little more I might be at home, ingloriously safe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Which was it to be? The moment, though I did not know it, was fateful.
+On the one hand, Mademoiselle's face, her beauty, her innocence, her
+helplessness, pleaded with me strangely, and dragged me on to give the
+warning. On the other, my pride urged me to return, and avoid such a
+reception as I had every reason to expect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the end I went on. In less than half an hour I had crossed the
+Valaridré bridge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet it must not be supposed that I decided without doubt, or went
+forward without misgiving. The taunts and sneers to which Madame had
+treated me were too recent for that; and a dozen times pride and
+resentment almost checked my steps, and I turned and went home again.
+On each occasion, however, the ugly faces and brutish eyes I had seen
+in the village rose before me; I remembered the hatred in which
+Gargouf, the St. Alais' steward, was held; I pictured the horrors that
+might be enacted before help could come from Cahors; and I went on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet with a mind made up to ridicule; which even the crowded streets,
+when I reached them, failed to relieve, though they wore an
+unmistakable air of excitement. Groups of people, busily conversing,
+were everywhere to be seen; and in two or three places men were
+standing on stools--in a fashion then new to me--haranguing knots of
+idlers. Some of the shops were shut, there were guards before others,
+and before the bakehouses. I remarked a great number of journals and
+pamphlets in men's hands, and that where these were, the talk rose
+loudest. In some places, too, my appearance seemed to create
+excitement, but this was of a doubtful character, a few greeting me
+respectfully, while more stared at me in silence. Several asked me, as
+I passed, if I brought news, and seemed disappointed when I said I did
+not; and at two points a handful of people hooted me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This angered me a little, but I forgot it in a thing still more
+surprising. Presently, as I rode, I heard my name called; and turning,
+found M. de Gontaut hurrying after me as fast as his dignity and
+lameness would permit. He leaned, as usual, on the arm of a servant,
+his other hand holding a cane and snuff-box; and two stout fellows
+followed him. I had no reason to suppose that he would appreciate the
+service I had done him more highly, or acknowledge it more gratefully,
+than on the day of the riot; and my surprise was great when he came
+up, his face all smiles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing, for months, has given me so much pleasure as this,&quot; he said,
+saluting me with overwhelming cordiality. &quot;By my faith, M. le Vicomte,
+you have outdone us all! You will have such a reception yonder! and
+you have brought two good knaves, I see. It is not fair,&quot; he
+continued, nodding his head with senile jocularity. &quot;I declare it is
+not fair. But you know the text? 'There is more joy in heaven over one
+sinner that repenteth than----' Ha! ha! Well, we must not be jealous.
+You have taught them a lesson; and now we are united.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, M. le Baron,&quot; I said in amazement, as, obeying his gesture, I
+moved on, while he limped jauntily beside me, &quot;I do not understand you
+in the least!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You don't?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No!&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! you did not think that we should hear it so soon,&quot; he replied,
+shaking his head sagely. &quot;Oh, I can tell you we are well provided. The
+campaign has begun, and the information department has not been
+neglected. Little escapes us, and we shall soon set these rogues
+right. But, for the fact, that damned rascal Doury let it out. I hear
+you told them some fine home-truths. A Committee, the insolents! And
+in our teeth! But you gave them a sharp set-back, I hear, M. le
+Vicomte. If you had joined it, now----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stopped abruptly. A man crossing the street had slightly jostled
+him. The old noble lost his temper, and on the instant raised his
+stick with a passionate oath, and the man cowered away begging his
+pardon. But M. de Gontaut was not to be appeased.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Vagabond!&quot; he cried after him, in a voice trembling with rage, &quot;you
+would throw me down again, would you? We will put you in your place
+by-and-by. We will; why, <i>Dieu!</i> when I was young----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, M. le Baron,&quot; I said to divert his attention, for two or three
+bystanders were casting ugly looks at us, and I saw that it needed
+little to bring about a fracas, &quot;are you quite sure that we shall be
+able to keep them in check?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old noble still trembled, but he drew himself up with a gesture of
+pathetic gallantry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You shall see!&quot; he cried. &quot;When it comes to hard knocks, you shall
+see, Monsieur. But here we are; and there is Madame St. Alais on the
+balcony with some of her bodyguard.&quot; He paused to kiss his hand, with
+the air of a Polignac. &quot;Up there, M. le Vicomte, you will see what you
+will see,&quot; he continued. &quot;And I--I shall be in luck, too, for I have
+brought you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed to me more like a dream than a reality. A fortnight before,
+I had been spurned from this house with insults; I had been bidden
+never to enter it again. Now, on the balconies, from which pretty
+faces and powdered heads looked down, handkerchiefs fluttered to greet
+me. On the stairs, which, crowded with servants and lackeys, shook
+under the constant stream of comers and goers, I was received with a
+hum of applause. In every corner snuff-boxes were being tapped and
+canes handled; the flashing of roguish eyes behind fans vied with the
+glitter of mirrors. And through all a lane was made for me. At the
+door Louis met me. A little farther on, Madame came half-way across
+the room to me. It was a triumph--a triumph which I found
+inexplicable, unintelligible, until I learned that the rebuff which I
+had administered to the deputation had been exaggerated a dozen times,
+nay, a hundred times, until it met even the wishes of the most
+violent; while the sober and thoughtful were too glad to hail in my
+adhesion the proof of that reaction, which the Royalist party, from
+the first day of the troubles, never ceased to expect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No wonder that, taken by surprise and intoxicated with incense, I let
+myself go. To have declared in that company and with Madame's gracious
+words in my ears, that I had not come to join them, that I had come on
+a different errand altogether, that though I had repelled the
+deputation I had no intention of acting against it, would have
+required a courage and a hardness I could not boast; while the
+circumstances of the deputation, Doury's presumption and Buton's
+hints, to say nothing of the violence of the Parisian mob, had not
+failed to impress me unfavourably. With a thousand others who had
+prepared themselves to welcome reform, I recoiled when I saw the
+lengths to which it was tending; and, though nothing had been farther
+from my mind when I entered Cahors than to join myself to the St.
+Alais faction, I found it impossible to reject their apologies on the
+spot, or explain on the instant the real purpose with which I had come
+to them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was, in fact, the sport of circumstances; weak, it will be said, in
+the wrong place and stubborn in the wrong; betraying a boy's petulance
+at one time, and a boy's fickleness at another; and now a tool and now
+a churl. Perhaps truly. But it was a time of trial; nor was I the only
+man or the oldest man who, in those days, changed his opinions, and
+again within the week went back; or who found it hard to find a
+cockade, white, black, red or tricolour, to his taste.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Besides, flattery is sweet, and I was young; moreover, I had
+Mademoiselle in my head and nothing could exceed Madame's
+graciousness. I think she valued me the more for my late revolt, and
+prided herself on my reduction in proportion as I had shown myself
+able to resist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Few words are better, M. le Vicomte,&quot; she said, with a dignity which
+honoured me equally with herself. &quot;Many things have happened since I
+saw you. We are neither of us quite of the same opinion. Forgive me. A
+woman's word and a man's sword do no dishonour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I bowed, blushing with pleasure. After a fortnight spent in solitude
+these moving groups, bowing, smiling, talking in low, earnest tones of
+the one purpose, the one aim, had immense influence with me. I felt
+the contagion. I let Madame take me into her confidence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The King&quot;--it was always the King with her--&quot;in a week or two the
+King will assert himself. As yet his ear has been abused. It will
+pass; in the meantime we must take our proper places. We must arm our
+servants and keepers, repress disorder and resist encroachment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the Committee, Madame?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She tapped me, smiling, with the ends of her dainty fingers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We will treat it as you treated it,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You think that you will be strong enough?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We,&quot; she answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We?&quot; I said, correcting myself with a blush.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not? How can it be otherwise?&quot; she replied, looking proudly round
+her. &quot;Can you look round and doubt it, M. le Vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But France?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are France,&quot; she retorted with a superb gesture.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And certainly the splendid crowd that filled her rooms was almost
+warrant for the words; a crowd of stately men and fair women such as I
+have only seen once or twice since those days. Under the surface there
+may have been pettiness and senility; the exhaustion of vice; jealousy
+and lukewarmness and dissension; but the powder and patches, the silks
+and velvets of the old <i>régime</i>, gave to all a semblance of strength,
+and at least the appearance of dignity. If few were soldiers, all wore
+swords and could use them. The fact that the small sword, so powerful
+a weapon in the duel, is useless against a crowd armed with stones and
+clubs had not yet been made clear. Nothing seemed more easy than for
+two or three hundred swordsmen to rule a province.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At any rate I found nothing but what was feasible in the notion; and
+with little real reluctance, if no great enthusiasm, I pinned on the
+white cockade. Putting all thoughts of present reform from my mind, I
+agreed that order--order was the one pressing need of the country.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On that all were agreed, and all were hopeful. I heard no misgivings,
+but a good deal of vapouring, in which poor M. de Gontaut, with the
+palsy almost upon him, had his part. No one dropped a hint of danger
+in the country, or of a revolt of the peasants. Even to me, as I stood
+in the brilliant crowd, the danger grew to seem so remote and unreal,
+that, delicacy as well as the fear of ridicule, kept me silent. I
+could not speak of Mademoiselle without awkwardness, and so the
+warning which I had come to give died on my lips. I saw that I should
+be laughed at, I fancied myself deceived, and I was silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was only when, after promising to return next day, I stood at the
+door prepared to leave, and found myself alone with Louis, that I let
+a word fall. Then I asked him with a little hesitation if he thought
+that his sister was quite safe at St. Alais.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not?&quot; he said easily, with his hand on my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The 'trouble is not in the town only,&quot; I hinted. &quot;Nor perhaps the
+worst of the trouble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shrugged his shoulders. &quot;You think too much of it, <i>mon cher</i>,&quot; he
+answered. &quot;Believe me, now that we are at one the trouble is over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And that was the evening of the 4th of August, the day on which the
+Assembly in Paris renounced at a single sitting all immunities,
+exemptions, and privileges, all feudal dues, and fines, and rights,
+all tolls, all tithes, the salt tax, the game laws, <i>capitaineries!</i>
+At one sitting, on that evening; and Louis thought that the trouble
+was over!</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_07" href="#div1Ref_07">THE ALARM.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">At that time, a brazier in the market-place, and three or four
+lanterns at street crossings, made up the most of the public lighting.
+When I paused, therefore, to breathe my horse on the brow of the
+slope, beyond the Valandré bridge, and looked back on Cahors, I saw
+only darkness, broken here and there by a blur of yellow light; that
+still, by throwing up a fragment of wall or eaves, told in a
+mysterious way of the sleeping city.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The river, a faint, shimmering line, conjectured rather than seen,
+wound round all. Above, clouds were flying across the sky, and a wind,
+cold for the time of year--cold, at least, after the heat of the
+day--chilled the blood, and slowly filled the mind with the solemnity
+of night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As I stood listening to the breathing of the horses, the excitement in
+which I had passed the last few hours died away, and left me
+wondering--wondering, and a little regretful. The exaltation gone, I
+found the scene I had just left flavourless; I even presently began to
+find it worse. Some false note in the cynical, boastful voices and the
+selfish--the utterly selfish--plans, to which I had been listening for
+hours, made itself heard in the stillness. Madame's &quot;We are France,&quot;
+which had sounded well amid the lights and glitter of the <i>salon</i>,
+among laces and <i>fripons</i> and rose-pink coats, seemed folly in the
+face of the infinite night, behind which lay twenty-five millions of
+Frenchmen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However, what I had done, I had done. I had the white cockade on my
+breast; I was pledged to order--and to my order. And it might be the
+better course. But, with reflection, enthusiasm faded; and, by some
+strange process, as it faded, and the scene in which I had just taken
+part lost its hold, the errand that had brought me to Cahors recovered
+importance. As Madame St. Alais' influence grew weak, the memory of
+Mademoiselle, sitting lonely and scared in her coach, grew vivid,
+until I turned my horse fretfully, and endeavoured to lose the thought
+in rapid movement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it is not so easy to escape from oneself at night, as in the day.
+The soughing of the wind through the chestnut trees, the drifting
+clouds, and the sharp ring of hoofs on the road, all laid as it were a
+solemn finger on the pulses and stilled them. The men behind me talked
+in sleepy voices, or rode silently. The town lay a hundred leagues
+behind. Not a light appeared on the upland. In the world of night
+through which we rode, a world of black, mysterious bulks rising
+suddenly against the grey sky, and as suddenly sinking, we were the
+only inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last we reached the hill above St. Alais, and I looked eagerly for
+lights in the valley; forgetting that, as it wanted only an hour of
+midnight, the village would have retired hours before. The
+disappointment, and the delay--for the steepness of the hill forbade
+any but a walking pace--fretted me; and when I heard, a moment later,
+a certain noise behind me, a noise I knew only too well, I flared up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stay, fool!&quot; I cried, reining in my horse, and turning in the saddle.
+&quot;That mare has broken her shoe again, and you are riding on as if
+nothing were the matter! Get down--and see. Do you think that I----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon, Monsieur,&quot; Gil muttered. He had been sleeping in his saddle.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He scrambled down. The mare he rode, a valuable one, had a knack of
+breaking her hind shoe; after which she never failed to lame herself
+at the first opportunity. Buton had tried every method of shoeing, but
+without success.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I sprang to the ground while he lifted the foot. My ear had not
+deceived me; the shoe was broken. Gil tried to remove the jagged
+fragment left on the hoof, but the mare was restive, and he had to
+desist.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She cannot go to Saux in that state,&quot; I said angrily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The men were silent for a moment, peering at the mare. Then Gil spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The St. Alais forge is not three hundred yards down the lane,
+Monsieur,&quot; he said. &quot;And the turn is yonder. We could knock up Petit
+Jean, and get him to bring his pincers here. Only----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only what?&quot; I said peevishly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I quarrelled with him at Cahors Fair, Monsieur,&quot; Gil answered
+sheepishly; &quot;and he might not come for us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well,&quot; I said gruffly, &quot;I will go. And do you stay here, and
+keep the mare quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">André held the stirrup for me to mount. The smithy, the first hovel in
+the village, was a quarter of a mile away, and, in reason, I should
+have ridden to it. But, in my irritation, I was ready to do anything
+they did not propose, and, roughly rejecting his help, I started on
+foot. Fifty paces brought me to the branch road that led to St. Alais,
+and, making out the turning with a little difficulty, I plunged into
+it; losing, in a moment, the cheerful sound of jingling bits and the
+murmur of the men's voices.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Poplars rose on high banks on either side of the lane, and made the
+place as dark as a pit, and I had almost to grope my way. A stumble
+added to my irritation, and I cursed the St. Alais for the ruts, and
+the moon for its untimely setting. The ceaseless whispering of the
+poplar leaves went with me, and, in some unaccountable way, annoyed
+me. I stumbled again, and swore at Gil, and then stopped to listen. I
+was in the road, and yet I heard the jingling of bits again, as if the
+horses were following me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stopped angrily to listen, thinking that the men had disobeyed my
+orders. Then I found that the sound came from the front, and was
+heavier and harder than the ringing of bit or bridle. I groped my way
+forward, wondering somewhat, until a faint, ruddy light, shining on
+the darkness and the poplars, prepared me for the truth--welcome,
+though it seemed of the strangest--that the forge was at work.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As I took this in, I turned a corner, and came within sight of the
+smithy; and stood in astonishment. The forge was in full blast. Two
+hammers were at work; I could see them rising and falling, and hear,
+though they seemed to be muffled, the rhythmical jarring clang as they
+struck the metal. The ruddy glare of the fire flooded the road and
+burnished the opposite trees, and flung long, black shadows on the
+sky.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such a sight filled me with the utmost astonishment, for it was nearly
+midnight. Fortunately something else I saw astonished me still more,
+and stayed my foot. Between the point where I stood by the hedge and
+the forge a number of men were moving, and flitting to and fro; men
+with bare arms and matted heads, half-naked, with skins burned black.
+It would have been hard to count them, they shifted so quickly; and I
+did not try. It was enough for me that one half of them carried pikes
+and pitchforks, that one man seemed to be detailing them into groups,
+and giving them directions; and that, notwithstanding the occasional
+jar of the hammers, an air of ferocious stealth marked their
+movements.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment I stood rooted to the spot. Then, instinctively, I
+stepped aside into the shadow of the hedge, and looked again. The man
+who acted as the leader carried an axe on his shoulder, the broad
+blade of which, as it caught the glow of the furnace, seemed to be
+bathed in blood. He was never still--this man. One moment he moved
+from group to group, gesticulating, ordering, encouraging. Now he
+pulled a man out of one troop and thrust him forcibly into another;
+now he made a little speech, which was dumb play to me, a hundred
+paces away; now he went into the forge, and his huge bulk for a moment
+intercepted the light. It was Petit Jean, the smith.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I made use of the momentary darkness which he caused on one of these
+occasions, and stole a little nearer. For I knew now what was before
+me. I knew perfectly that all this meant blood, fire, outrage, flames
+rising to heaven, screams startling the stricken night! But I must
+know more, if I would do anything. I went nearer therefore, creeping
+along the hedge, and crouching in the ditch, until no more than twelve
+yards separated me from the muster. Then I stood still, as Petit Jean
+came out again, to distribute another bundle of weapons, clutched
+instantly and eagerly by grimy hands. I could hear now, and I
+shuddered at what I heard. Gargouf was in every mouth. Gargouf, the
+St. Alais' steward, coupled with grisly tortures and slow deaths, with
+old sins, and outrages, and tyrannies, now for the first time voiced,
+now to be expiated!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last, one man laid the torch by crying aloud, &quot;To the Château! To
+the Château!&quot; and in an instant the words changed the feelings with
+which I had hitherto stared into immediate horror. I started forward.
+My impulse, for a moment, was to step into the light and confront
+them--to persuade, menace, cajole, turn them any way from their
+purpose. But, in the same moment, reflection showed me the
+hopelessness of the attempt. These were no longer peasants, dull,
+patient clods, such as I had known all my life; but maddened beasts; I
+read it in their gestures and the growl of their voices. To step
+forward would be only to sacrifice myself; and with this thought I
+crept back, gained the deeper shadow, and, turning on my heel, sped
+down the lane. The ruts and the darkness were no longer anything to
+me. If I stumbled, I did not notice it. If I fell, it was no matter.
+In less than a minute I was standing, breathless, by the astonished
+servants, striving to tell them quickly what they must do.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The village is rising!&quot; I panted. &quot;They are going to burn the
+Château, and Mademoiselle is in it! Gil, ride, gallop, lose not a
+minute, to Cahors, and tell M. le Marquis. He must bring what forces
+he can. And do you, André, go to Saux. Tell Father Benôit. Bid him do
+his utmost--bring all he can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For answer, they stared, open-mouthed, through the dusk. &quot;And the
+mare, Monsieur?&quot; one asked at last dully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fool! let her go!&quot; I cried. &quot;The mare? Do you understand? The Château
+is----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you, Monsieur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am going to the house by the garden wing. Now go! Go, men!&quot; I
+continued'. &quot;A hundred livres to each of you if the house is saved!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I said the house because I dared not speak what was really in my mind;
+because I dared not picture the girl, young, helpless, a woman, in the
+hands of those monsters. Yet it was that which goaded me now, it was
+that which gave me such strength that, before the men had ridden many
+yards, I had forced my way through the thick fence, as if it had been
+a mass of cobwebs. Once on the other side, in the open, I hastened
+across one field and a second, skirted the village, and made for the
+gardens which abutted on the east wing of the Château. I knew these
+well; the part farthest from the house, and most easy of entrance, was
+a wilderness, in which I had often played as a child. There was no
+fence round this, except a wooden paling, and none between it and the
+more orderly portion; while a side door opened from the latter into a
+passage leading to the great hall of the Château. The house, a long,
+regular building, reared by the Marquis's father, was composed of two
+wings and a main block. All faced the end of the village street at a
+distance of a hundred paces; a wide, dusty, ill-planted avenue leading
+from the iron gates, which stood always open, to the state entrance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The rioters had only a short distance to go, therefore, and no
+obstacle between them and the house; none when they reached it of
+greater consequence than ordinary doors and shutters, should the
+latter be closed. As I ran, I shuddered to think how defenceless all
+lay; and how quickly the wretches, bursting in the doors, would
+overrun the shining parquets, and sweep up the spacious staircase.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The thought added wings to my feet. I had farther to go than they had,
+and over hedges, but before the first sounds of their approach reached
+the house I was already in the wilderness, and forcing my way through
+it, stumbling over stumps and bushes, falling more than once, covered
+with dust and sweat, but still pushing on.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last I sprang into the open garden, with its shadowy walks, and
+nymphs, and fauns; and looked towards the village. A dull red light
+was beginning to show among the trunks of the avenue; a murmur of
+voices sounded in the distance. They were coming! I wasted no more
+than a single glance; then I ran down the walk, between the statues.
+In a moment I passed into the darker shadow under the house, I was at
+the door. I thrust my shoulder against it. It resisted; it resisted!
+and every moment was precious. I could no longer see the approaching
+lights nor hear the voices of the crowd--the angle of the house
+intervened; but I could imagine only too vividly how they were coming
+on; I fancied them already at the great door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I hammered on the panels with my fist; then I fumbled for the latch,
+and found it. It rose, but the door held. I shook it. I shook it again
+in a frenzy; at last, forgetting caution, I shouted--shouted more
+loudly. Then, after an age, as it seemed to me, standing panting in
+the darkness, I heard halting footsteps come along the passage, and
+saw a line of light grow, and brighten under the door. At last a
+quavering voice asked:----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. de Saux,&quot; I answered impatiently. &quot;M. de Saux! Let me in. Let me
+in, do you hear?&quot; And I struck the panels wrathfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur,&quot; the voice answered, quavering more and more, &quot;is there
+anything the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Matter? They are going to burn the house, fool!&quot; I cried. &quot;Open!
+open! if you do not wish to be burned in your beds!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment I fancied that the man still hesitated. Then he unbarred.
+In a twinkling I was inside, in a narrow passage, with dingy, stained
+walls. An old man, lean-jawed and feeble, an old valet whom I had
+often seen at worsted work in the ante-room, confronted me, holding an
+iron candlestick. The light shook in his hands, and his jaw fell as he
+looked at me. I saw that I had nothing to expect from him, and I
+snatched the bar from his hands, and set it back in its place myself.
+Then I seized the light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quick!&quot; I said passionately. &quot;To your mistress.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Upstairs! Upstairs!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had more to say, but I did not wait to hear it. Knowing the way,
+and having the candle, I left him, and hurried along the passage.
+Stumbling over three or four mattresses that lay on the floor,
+doubtless for the servants, I reached the hall. Here my taper shone a
+mere speck in a cavern of blackness; but it gave me light enough to
+see that the door was barred, and I turned to the staircase. As I set
+my foot on the lowest step the old valet, who was following me as
+fast as his trembling legs would carry him, blundered against a
+spinning-wheel that stood in the hall. It fell with a clatter, and in
+a moment a chorus of screams and cries broke out above. I sprang
+up the stairs three at a stride, and on the lobby came on the
+screamers--a terrified group, whose alarm the doubtful light of a
+tallow candle, that stood beside them on the floor, could not
+exaggerate. Nearest to me stood an old footman and a boy--their
+terror-stricken eyes met mine as I mounted the last stairs. Behind
+them, and crouching against a tapestry-covered seat that ran along the
+wall, were the rest; three or four women, who shrieked and hid their
+faces in one another's garments. They did not look up or take any heed
+of me; but continued to scream steadily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man with a quavering oath tried to still them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is Gargouf?&quot; I asked him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has gone to fasten the back doors, Monsieur,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And Mademoiselle?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is yonder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned as he spoke; and I saw behind him a heavy curtain hiding the
+oriel window of the lobby. It moved while I looked, and Mademoiselle
+emerged from its folds, her small, childish face pale, but strangely
+composed. She wore a light, loose robe, hastily arranged, and had her
+hair hanging free at her back. In the gloom and confusion, which the
+feeble candles did little to disperse, she did not at first see me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has Gargouf come back?&quot; she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Mademoiselle, but----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man was going to point me out; she interrupted him with a sharp
+cry of anger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stop these fools,&quot; she said. &quot;Oh, stop these fools! I cannot hear
+myself speak. Let some one call Gargouf! Is there no one to do
+anything?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One of the old men pottered off to do it, leaving her standing in the
+middle of the terror-stricken group; a white pathetic little figure,
+keeping fear at bay with both hands. The dark curtains behind threw
+her face and form into high relief; but admiration was the last
+thought in my mind.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle,&quot; I said, &quot;you must fly by the garden door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She started and stared at me, her eyes dilating.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur de Saux,&quot; she muttered. &quot;Are you here? I do not--I do not
+understand. I thought----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The village is rising,&quot; I said. &quot;In a moment they will be here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are here already,&quot; she answered faintly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She meant only that she had seen their approach from the window; but a
+dull murmur that at the moment rose on the air outside, and
+penetrating the walls, grew each instant louder and more sinister,
+seemed to give another significance to her words. The women listened
+with white faces, then began to scream afresh. A reckless movement of
+one of them dashed out the nearer of the two lights. The old man who
+had admitted me began to whimper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;O <i>mon Dieu!</i>&quot; I cried fiercely, &quot;can no one still these cravens?&quot;
+For the noise almost robbed me of the power of thought, and never had
+thought been more necessary. &quot;Be still, fools,&quot; I continued, &quot;no one
+will hurt <i>you</i>. And do you, Mademoiselle, please to come with me.
+There is not a moment to be lost. The garden by which I entered----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she looked at me in such a way that I stopped.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is it necessary to go?&quot; she said doubtfully. &quot;Is there no other way,
+Monsieur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The noise outside was growing louder. &quot;What men have you?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here is Gargouf,&quot; she answered promptly. &quot;He will tell you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I turned to the staircase and saw the steward's face, at all times
+harsh and grim, rising out of the well of the stairs. He had a candle
+in one hand and a pistol in the other; and his features as his eyes
+met mine wore an expression of dogged anger, the sight of which drew
+fresh cries from the women. But I rejoiced to see him, for he at least
+betrayed no signs of flinching. I asked him what men he had.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You see them,&quot; he answered drily, betraying no surprise at my
+presence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only these?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There were three more,&quot; he said. &quot;But I found the doors unbarred, and
+the men gone. I am keeping this,&quot; he continued, with a dark glance at
+his pistol, &quot;for one of them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle must go!&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shrugged his shoulders with an indifference that maddened me.
+&quot;How?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By the garden door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are there. The house is surrounded.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I cried out at that in despair; and on the instant, as if to give
+point to his words, a furious blow fell on the great doors below, and
+awakening every echo in the house, proclaimed that the moment was
+come. A second shock followed; then a rain of blows. While the maids
+shrieked and clung to one another, I looked at Mademoiselle, and she
+at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We must hide you,&quot; I muttered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There must be some place,&quot; I said, looking round me desperately, and
+disregarding her answer. The noise of the blows was deafening. &quot;In
+the----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not hide, Monsieur,&quot; she answered. Her cheeks were white, and
+her eyes seemed to flicker with each blow. But the maiden who had been
+dumb before me a few days earlier was gone; in her place I saw
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais, conscious of a hundred ancestors. &quot;They are
+our people. I will meet them,&quot; she continued, stepping forward
+bravely, though her lip trembled. &quot;Then if they dare----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are mad,&quot; I answered. &quot;They are mad! Yet it is a chance; and we
+have few! If I can get to them before they break in, I may do
+something. One moment, Mademoiselle; screen the light, will you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some one did so, and I turned feverishly and caught hold of the
+curtain. But Gargouf was before me. He seized my arm, and for the
+moment checked me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it? What are you going to do?&quot; he growled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Speak to them from the window.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They will not listen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Still I will try. What else is there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lead and iron,&quot; he answered in a tone that made me shiver. &quot;Here are
+M. le Marquis's sporting guns; they shoot straight. Take one, M. le
+Vicomte; I will take the other. There are two more, and the men can
+shoot. We can hold the staircase, at least.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I took one of the guns mechanically, amid a dismal uproar; wailing and
+the thunder of blows within, outside the savage booing of the crowd.
+No help could come for another hour; and for a moment in this
+desperate strait my heart failed me. I wondered at the steward's
+courage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are not afraid?&quot; I said. I knew how he had trampled on the poor
+wretches outside; how he had starved them and ground them down, and
+misused them through long years.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He cursed the dogs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will stand by Mademoiselle?&quot; I said feverishly. I think it was to
+hearten myself by his assurance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He squeezed my hand in a grip of iron, and I asked no more. In a
+moment, however, I cried aloud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, but they will burn the house!&quot; I said. &quot;What is the use of
+holding the staircase, when they can burn us like rats?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We shall die together,&quot; was his only answer. And he kicked one of the
+weeping, crouching women. &quot;Be still, you whelp!&quot; he said. &quot;Do you
+think that will help you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I heard the door below groan, and I sprang to the window and
+dragged aside the curtain, letting in a ruddy glow that dyed the
+ceiling the colour of blood. My one fear was that I might be too late;
+that the door would yield or the crowd break in at the back before I
+could get a hearing. Luckily, the casement gave to the hand, and I
+thrust it open, and, meeting a cold blast of air, in a twinkling was
+outside, on the narrow ledge of the window over the great doors,
+looking down on such a scene as few châteaux in France had witnessed
+since the days of the third Henry--God be thanked!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A little to one side the great dovecot was burning, and sending up a
+trail of smoke that, blown across the avenue, hid all beyond in a
+murky reek, through which the flames now and again flickered hotly.
+Men, busy as devils, black against the light, were plying the fire
+with straw. Beyond the dovecot, an outhouse and a stack were blazing;
+and nearer, immediately before the house, a crowd of moving figures
+were hurrying to and fro, some battering the doors and windows, others
+bringing fuel, all moving, yelling, laughing--laughing the laughter of
+fiends to the music of crackling flames and shivering glass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I saw Petit Jean in the forefront giving orders; and men round him.
+There were women, too, hanging on the skirts of the men; and one
+woman, in the midst of all, half-naked, screaming curses, and
+brandishing her arms. It was she who added the last touch of horror to
+the scene; and she, too, who saw me first, and pointed me out with
+dreadful words, and cursed me, and the house, and cried for our blood.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_08" href="#div1Ref_08">GARGOUF.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Some called for silence, while others stared at me stupidly, or
+pointed me out to their fellows; but the greater part took up the
+woman's cry, and, enraged by my presence, shook their fists at me, and
+shouted vile threats and viler abuse. For a minute the air rang with
+&quot;<i>A bas les Seigneurs! A bas les tyrans!</i>&quot; And I found this bad
+enough. But, presently, whether they caught sight of the steward, or
+merely returned to their first hatred, from which my appearance had
+only for the moment diverted them, the cry changed to a sullen roar of
+&quot;Gargouf! Gargouf!&quot; A roar so full of the lust for blood, and coupled
+with threats so terrible, that the heart sickened and the cheek grew
+pale at the sound.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gargouf! Gargouf! Give us Gargouf!&quot; they howled. &quot;Give us Gargouf!
+and he shall eat hot gold! Give us Gargouf, and he shall need no more
+of our daughters!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I shuddered to think that Mademoiselle heard; shuddered to think of
+the peril in which she stood. The wretches below were no longer men;
+under the influence of this frenzied woman they were mad brute beasts,
+drunk with fire and licence. As the smoke from the burning building
+eddied away for a moment across the crowd and hid it, and still that
+hoarse cry came out of the mirk, I could believe that I heard not men,
+but maddened hounds raving in the kennel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again the smoke drifted away; and some one in the rear shot at me. I
+heard the glass splinter beside me. Another, a little nearer, flung up
+a burning fragment that, alighting on the ledge, blazed and spluttered
+by my foot. I kicked it down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The act, for the moment, stilled the riot, and I seized the
+opportunity. &quot;You dogs!&quot; I said, striving to make my voice heard above
+the hissing of the flames. &quot;Begone! The soldiers from Cahors are on
+the road. I sent for them this hour back. Begone, before they come,
+and I will intercede for you. Stay, and do further mischief, and you
+shall hang, to the last man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Some answered with a yell of derision, crying out that the soldiers
+were with them. More, that the nobles were abolished, and their houses
+given to the people. One, who was drunk, kept shouting, &quot;<i>A bas la
+Bastille! A bas la Bastille!</i>&quot; with a stupid persistence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A moment more and I should lose my chance. I waved my hand! &quot;What do
+you want?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Justice!&quot; one shouted, and another, &quot;Vengeance!&quot; A third, &quot;Gargouf!&quot;
+And then all, &quot;Gargouf! Gargouf!&quot; until Petit Jean stilled the tumult.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have done!&quot; he cried to them, in his coarse, brutal voice. &quot;Have we
+come here only to yell? And do you, Seigneur, give up Gargouf, and you
+shall go free. Otherwise, we will burn the house, and all in it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You villain!&quot; I said. &quot;We have guns, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The rats have teeth, but they burn! They burn!&quot; he answered, pointing
+triumphantly, with the axe he held, to the flaming buildings. &quot;They
+burn! Yet listen, Seigneur,&quot; he continued, &quot;and you shall have a
+minute to make up your minds. Give up Gargouf to us to do with as we
+please, and the rest shall go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;All.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I trembled. &quot;But Gargouf, man?&quot; I said. &quot;Will you--what will you do
+with him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Roast him!&quot; the smith cried, with a fearful oath; and the wretches
+round him laughed like fiends. &quot;Roast him, when we have plucked him
+bare.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I shuddered. From Cahors help could not come for another hour. From
+Saux it might not come at all. The doors below me could not stand
+long, and these brutes were thirty to one, and mad with the lust of
+vengeance. With the wrongs, the crimes, the vices of centuries to
+avenge, they dreamed that the day of requital was come; and the dream
+had turned clods into devils. The very flames they had kindled gave
+them assurance of it. The fire was in their blood. <i>A bas la Bastille!
+A bas les tyrans!</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">I hesitated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One minute!&quot; the smith cried, with a boastful gesture--&quot;one minute we
+give you! Gargouf or all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wait!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I turned and went in--turned from the smoky glare, the circling
+pigeons, the grotesque black figures, and the terror and confusion of
+the night, and went in to that other scene scarcely less dreadful to
+me; though only two candles, guttering in tin sockets, lit the
+landing, and it borrowed from the outside no more than the ruddy
+reflection of horror. The women had ceased to scream and sob, and
+crowded together silent and panic-stricken. The old men and the lad
+moistened their lips, and looked furtively from the arms they handled
+to one another's faces. Mademoiselle alone stood erect, pale, firm. I
+shot a glance at the slender little figure in the white robe, then I
+looked away. I dared not say what I had in my mind. I knew that she
+had heard, and----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She said it! &quot;You have answered them?&quot; she muttered, her eyes meeting
+mine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I said, looking away again. &quot;They have given us a minute to
+decide, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I heard them,&quot; she answered shivering. &quot;Tell them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Mademoiselle----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tell them never! Never!&quot; she cried feverishly. &quot;Be quick, or they
+will think that we are dreaming of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet I hesitated--while the flames crackled outside. What, after all,
+was this rascal's life beside hers? What his tainted existence, who
+all these years had ground the faces of the poor and dishonoured the
+helpless, beside her youth? It was a dreadful moment, and I hesitated.
+&quot;Mademoiselle,&quot; I muttered at last, avoiding her eyes, &quot;you have
+not thought, perhaps. But to refuse this offer may be to sacrifice
+all--and not save him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have thought!&quot; she answered, with a passionate gesture. &quot;I have
+thought. But he was my father's steward, Monsieur, and he is my
+brother's; if he has sinned, it was for them. It is for them to pay
+the penalty. And--after all, it may not come to that,&quot; she continued,
+her face changing, and her eyes seeking mine, full of sudden terror.
+&quot;They will not dare, I think. They will never dare to----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is he?&quot; I asked hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She pointed to the corner behind her. I looked, and could scarcely
+believe my eyes. The man whom I had left full of a desperate courage,
+prepared to sell his life dearly, now crouched a huddled figure in the
+darkest angle of the tapestry seat. Though I had spoken of him in a
+low voice, and without naming him, he heard me, and looked up, and
+showed a face to match his attitude; a face pallid and sweating with
+fear; a face that, vile at the best and when redeemed by hardihood,
+looked now the vilest thing on earth. <i>Ciel!</i> that fear should reduce
+a man to that! He tried to speak as his eyes met mine, but his lips
+moved inaudibly, and he only crouched lower, the picture of panic and
+guilt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I cried out to the others to know what had happened to him. &quot;What is
+it?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No one answered; and then I seemed to know. While he had thought all
+in danger, while he had felt himself only one among many, the common
+courage of a man had supported him. But God knows what voices, only
+too well known to him, what accents of starving men and wronged women,
+had spoken in that fierce cry for his life! What plaints from the
+dead, what curses of babes hanging on dry breasts! At any rate,
+whatever he had heard in that call for his blood, <i>his</i> blood--it had
+unmanned him. In a moment, in a twinkling, it had dashed him back into
+this corner, a trembling craven, holding up his hands for his life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Such fear is infectious, and I strode to him in a rage and shook him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Get up, hound!&quot; I said. &quot;Get up and strike a blow for your life; or,
+by heaven, no one else will!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stood up. &quot;Yes, yes, Monsieur,&quot; he muttered. &quot;I will! I will stand
+up for Mademoiselle. I will----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I heard his teeth chatter, and I saw that his eyes wandered this
+way and that, as do a hare's when the dogs close on it; and I knew
+that I had nothing to expect from him. A howl outside warned me at the
+same moment that our respite was spent; and I flung him off and turned
+to the window.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Too late, however; before I could reach it, a thundering blow on the
+doors below set the candles flickering and the women shrieking; then
+for an instant I thought that all was over. A stone came through the
+window; another followed it, and another. The shattered glass fell
+over us; the draught put out one light, and the women, terrified
+beyond control, ran this way and that with the other, shrieking
+dismally. This, the yelling of the crowd outside, the sombre light and
+more sombre glare, the utter confusion and panic, so distracted me,
+that for a moment I stood irresolute, inactive, looking wildly about
+me; a poltroon waiting for some one to lead. Then a touch fell on my
+arm, and I turned and found Mademoiselle at my side, and saw her face
+upturned to mine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was white, and her eyes were wide with the terror she had so long
+repressed. Her hold on me grew heavier; she swayed against me,
+clinging to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh!&quot; she whispered in my ear in a voice that went to my heart. &quot;Save
+me! Save me! Can nothing be done? Can nothing be done, Monsieur? Must
+we die?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We must gain time,&quot; I said. My courage returned wonderfully, as I
+felt her weight on my arm. &quot;All is not over yet,&quot; I said. &quot;I will
+speak to them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And setting her on the seat, I sprang to the window and passed through
+it. Outside, things at a first glance seemed unchanged. The wavering
+flames, the glow, the trail of smoke and sparks, all were there. But a
+second glance showed that the rioters no longer moved to and fro about
+the fire, but were massed directly below me in a dense body round the
+doors, waiting for them to give way. I shouted to them frantically,
+hoping still to delay them. I called Petit Jean by name. But I could
+not make myself heard in the uproar, or they would not heed; and while
+I vainly tried, the great doors yielded at last, and with a roar of
+triumph the crowd burst in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Not a moment was to be lost. I sprang back through the window,
+clutching up as I did so the gun Gargouf had given me; and then I
+stood in amazement. The landing was empty! The rush of feet across the
+hall below shook the house. Ten seconds and the mob, whose screams of
+triumph already echoed through the passages, would be on us. But where
+was Mademoiselle? Where was Gargouf? Where were the servants, the
+waiting-maids, the boy, whom I had left here?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stood an instant paralysed, like a man in a nightmare; brought up
+short in that supreme moment. Then, as the first crash of heavy feet
+sounded on the stairs, I heard a faint scream, somewhere to my right,
+as I stood. On the instant I sprang to the door which, on that side,
+led to the left wing. I tore it open and passed through it--not a
+moment too soon. The slightest delay, and the foremost rioters must
+have seen me. As it was I had time to turn the key, which,
+fortunately, was on the inside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I hurried across the room, making my way to an open door at the
+farther end, from which light issued; I passed through the room
+beyond, which was empty, then into the last of the suite.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here I found the fugitives; who had fled so precipitately that they
+had not even thought of closing the doors behind them. In this last
+refuge--Madame's boudoir, all white and gold--I found them crouching
+among gilt-backed chairs and flowered cushions. They had brought only
+one candle with them; and the silks and gew-gaws and knick-knacks on
+which its light shone dimly, gave a peculiar horror to their white
+faces and glaring eyes, as, almost mad with terror, they huddled in
+the farthest corner and stared at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were such cowards that they put Mademoiselle foremost; or it was
+she who stood out to meet me. She knew me before they did, therefore,
+and quieted them. When I could hear my own voice, I asked where
+Gargouf was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had not discovered that he was not with them, and they cried out,
+saying that he had come that way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You followed him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This explained their flight, but not the steward's absence. What
+matter where he had gone, however, since his help could avail little.
+I looked round--looked round in despair; the very simpering Cupids on
+the walls seemed to mock our danger. I had the gun, I could fire one
+shot, I had one life in my hands. But to what end? In a moment, at any
+moment, within a minute or two at most, the doors would be forced, and
+the horde of mad brutes would pour in upon us, and----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, Monsieur, the closet staircase! He has gone by the closet
+staircase!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the boy who spoke. He alone of them had his wits about him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is it?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The lad sprang forward to show me, but Mademoiselle was before him
+with the candle. She flew back into the passage, a passage of four or
+five feet only between that room and the second of the suite; in the
+wall of this she flung open a door, apparently of a closet. I looked
+in and saw the beginning of a staircase. My heart leapt at the sight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To the floor above?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur, to the roof!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Up, up, then!&quot; I cried in a frenzy of impatience. &quot;It will give us
+time. Quick. They are coming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For I heard the door at the end of the suite, the door I had locked,
+creak and yield. They were forcing it, at any moment it might give;
+where I stood waiting to bring up the rear, their hoarse cries and
+curses came to my ears. But the good door held; it held, long enough
+at any rate. Before it gave way we were on the stairs and I had shut
+the door of the closet behind me. Then, holding to the skirts of the
+woman before me, I groped my way up quickly--up and up through
+darkness with a close smell of bats in my nostrils--and almost before
+I could believe it, I stood with the panting, trembling group on the
+roof. The glare of the burning outhouses below shone on a great stack
+of chimneys beside us and reddened the sky above, and burnished the
+leaves of the chestnut trees that rose on a level with our eyes. But
+all the lower part of the steep roofs round us, and the lead gutters
+that ran between them, lay in darkness, the denser for the contrast.
+The flames crackled below, and a thick reek of smoke swept up past the
+coping, but the noise alike of fire and riot was deadened here. The
+night wind cooled our brows, and I had a minute in which to think, to
+breathe, to look round.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is there any other way to the roof?&quot; I asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;One other, Monsieur!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where? Or do you stay here, and guard this door,&quot; I said, pressing my
+gun on the man who had answered. &quot;And let the boy come and show me.
+Mademoiselle, stay there if you please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The boy ran before me to the farther end of the roof, and in a lead
+walk, between two slopes, showed me a large trap-door. It had no
+fastening on the outside, and for a moment I stood nonplussed; then I
+saw, a few feet away, a neat pile of bricks, left there, I learned
+afterwards, in the course of some repairs. I began to remove them as
+fast as I could to the trap-door, and the boy saw and followed my
+example; in two minutes we had stacked a hundred and more on the door.
+Telling him to add another hundred to the number, I left him at the
+task and flew back to the women.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They might burn the house under us; that always, and for certain, and
+it meant a dreadful death. Yet I breathed more freely here. In the
+white and gold room below, among Madame's mirrors and Cupids, and
+silken cushions, and painted Venuses, my heart had failed me. The
+place, with its heavy perfumes, had stifled me. I had pictured the
+brutish peasants bursting in on us there--on the screaming women,
+crouching vainly behind chairs and couches; and the horror of the
+thought overcame me. Here, in the open, under the sky, we could at
+least die fighting. The depth yawned beyond the coping; the weakest
+had here no more to fear than death. Besides we had a respite, for the
+house was large, and the fire could not lick it up in a moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And help might come. I shaded my eyes from the light below, and looked
+into the darkness in the direction of the village and the Cahors road.
+In an hour, at furthest, help might come. The glare in the sky must be
+visible for miles; it would spur on the avengers. Father Benôit, too,
+if he could get help--he might be here at any time. We were not
+without hope.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly, while we stood together, the women sobbing and whimpering,
+the old man-servant spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is M. Gargouf?&quot; he muttered under his breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; I exclaimed; &quot;I had forgotten him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He came up,&quot; the man continued, peering about him. &quot;This door was
+open, M. le Vicomte, when we came to it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! then where is he?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked round too. All the roof, I have said, was dark, and not all
+of it was on the same level; and here and there chimneys broke the
+view. In the obscurity, the steward might be lurking close to us
+without our knowledge; or he might have thrown himself down in
+despair. While I looked, the boy whom I had left by the bricks came
+flying to us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is some one there!&quot; he said. And he clung to the old man in
+terror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It must be Gargouf!&quot; I answered. &quot;Wait here!&quot; And, disregarding the
+women's prayers that I would stay with them, I went quickly along the
+leads to the other trap-door, and peered about me through the gloom.
+For a moment I could see no one, though the light shining on the trees
+made it easy to discern figures standing nearer the coping. Presently,
+however, I caught the sound of some one moving; some one who was
+farther away still, at the very edge of the roof. I went on
+cautiously, expecting I do not know what; and close to a stack of
+chimneys I found Gargouf.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was crouching on the coping in the darkest part, where the end wall
+of the east wing overlooked the garden by which I had entered. This
+end wall had no windows, and the greater part of the garden below it
+lay it darkness; the angle of the house standing between it and the
+burning buildings. I supposed that the steward had sneaked hither,
+therefore, to hide; and set it down to the darkness that he did not
+know me, but, as I approached, he rose on his knees on the ledge, and
+turned on me, snarling like a dog.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stand back!&quot; he said, in a voice that was scarcely human. &quot;Stand
+back, or I will----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Steady, man,&quot; I answered quietly, beginning to think that fear had
+unhinged him. &quot;It is I, M. de Saux.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stand back!&quot; was his only answer; and, though he cowered so low
+that I could not get his figure against the shining trees, I saw a
+pistol-barrel gleam as he levelled it. &quot;Stand back! Give me a minute!
+a minute only&quot;--and his voice quavered--&quot;and I will cheat the devils
+yet! Come nearer, or give the alarm, and I will not die alone! I will
+not die alone! Stand back!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you mad?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Back, or I shoot!&quot; he growled. &quot;I will not die alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was kneeling on the very edge, with his left hand against the
+chimney. To rush upon him in that posture was to court death; and I
+had nothing to gain by it. I stepped back a pace. As I did so, at the
+moment I did so, he slid over the edge, and was gone!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I drew a deep breath and listened, flinching and drawing back
+involuntarily. But I heard no sound of a fall; and in a moment, with a
+new idea in my mind, I stepped forward to the edge, and looked over.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The steward hung in mid-air, a dozen feet below me. He was descending;
+descending foot by foot, slowly, and by jerks; a dim figure, growing
+dimmer. Instinctively I felt about me; and in a second laid my hand on
+the rope by which he hung. It was secured round the chimney. Then I
+understood. He had conceived this way of escape, perhaps had stored
+the rope for it beforehand, and, like the villain he was, had kept the
+thought to himself, that his chance might be the better, and that he
+might not have to give the first place to Mademoiselle and the women.
+In the first heat of the discovery, I almost found it in my heart to
+cut the rope, and let him fall; then I remembered that if he escaped,
+the way would lie open for others; and then, even as I thought this,
+into the garden below me, there shone a sudden flare of light, and a
+stream of a dozen rioters poured round the corner, and made for the
+door by which I had entered the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I held my breath. The steward, hanging below me, and by this time
+half-way to the ground, stopped, and moved not a limb. But he still
+swung a little this way and that, and in the strong light of the
+torches which the new-comers carried, I could see every knot in the
+rope, and even the trailing end, which, as I looked, moved on the
+ground with his motion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The wretches, making for the door, had to pass within a pace of the
+rope, of that trailing end; yet it was possible that, blinded by the
+lights they carried, and their own haste and excitement, they might
+not see it. I held my breath as the leader came abreast of it; I
+fancied that he must see it. But he passed, and disappeared in the
+doorway. Three others passed the rope together. A fifth, then three
+more, two more; I began to breathe more freely. Only one remained--a
+woman, the same whose imprecations had greeted me on my appearance at
+the window. It was not likely that she would see it. She was running
+to overtake the others; she carried a flare in her right hand, so that
+the blaze came between her and the rope. And she was waving the light
+in a mad woman's frenzy, as she danced along, hounding on the men to
+the sack.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But, as if the presence of the man who had wronged her had over her
+some subtle influence--as if some sense, unowned by others, warned her
+of his presence, even in the midst of that babel and tumult--she
+stopped short under him, with her foot almost on the threshold. I saw
+her head turn slowly. She raised her eyes, holding the torch aside.
+She saw him!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a scream of joy, she sprang to the foot of the rope, and began to
+haul at it as if in that way she might get to him sooner; while she
+filled the air with her shrieks and laughter. The men, who had gone
+into the house, heard her, and came out again; and after them others.
+I quailed, where I knelt on the parapet, as I looked down and met the
+wolfish glare of their upturned eyes; what, then, must have been the
+thoughts of the wretched man taken in his selfishness--hanging there
+helpless between earth and heaven? God knows.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He began to climb upwards, to return; and actually ascended hand over
+hand a dozen feet. But he had been supporting himself for some
+minutes, and at that point his strength failed him. Human muscles
+could do no more. He tried to haul himself up to the next knot, but
+sank back with a groan. Then he looked at me. &quot;Pull me up!&quot; he gasped
+in a voice just audible. &quot;For God's sake! For God's sake, pull me up!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the wretches below had the end of the rope, and it was impossible
+to raise him, even had I possessed the strength to do it. I told him
+so, and bade him climb--climb for his life. In a moment it would be
+too late.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He understood. He raised himself with a jerk to the next knot, and
+hung there. Another desperate effort, and he gained the next; though I
+could almost hear his muscles crack, and his breath came in gasps.
+Three more knots--they were about a foot apart--and he would reach the
+coping.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But as he turned up his face to me, I read despair in his eyes. His
+strength was gone; and while he hung there, the men began, with shouts
+of laughter, to shake the rope this way and that. He lost his grip,
+and, with a groan, slid down three or four feet; and again got hold
+and hung there--silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By this time the group below had grown into a crowd--a crowd of
+maddened beings, raving and howling, and leaping up at him as dogs
+leap at food; and the horror of the sight, though the doomed man's
+features were now in shadow, and I could not read them, overcame me. I
+rose to draw back--shuddering, listening for his fall. Instead, before
+I had quite retreated, a hot flash blinded me, and almost scorched my
+face, and, as the sharp report of a pistol rang out, the steward's
+body plunged headlong down--leaving a little cloud of smoke where I
+stood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had balked his enemies.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_09" href="#div1Ref_09">THE TRICOLOUR.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It was known afterwards that they fell upon the body and tore it, like
+the dogs they were; but I had seen enough. I reeled back, and for a
+few moments leaned against the chimney, trembling like a woman, sick
+and faint. The horrid drama had had only one spectator--myself; and
+the strange solitude from which I had viewed it, kneeling at the edge
+of the roof of the Château, with the night wind on my brow and the
+tumult far below me, had shaken me to the bottom of my soul. Had the
+ruffians come upon me then I could not have lifted a finger; but,
+fortunately, though the awakening came quickly, it came by another
+hand. I heard the rustle of feet behind me, and, turning, found
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais at my shoulder, her small face grey in the
+gloom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur,&quot; she said, &quot;will you come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I sprang up, ashamed and conscience-stricken. I had forgotten her,
+all, in the tragedy. &quot;What is it?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The house is burning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She said it so calmly, in such a voice, that I could not believe her,
+or that I understood; though it was the thing I had told myself must
+happen. &quot;What, Mademoiselle? This house?&quot; I said stupidly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; she replied, as quietly as before. &quot;The smoke is rising through
+the closet staircase. I think that they have set the east wing on
+fire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I hastened back with her, but before I reached the little door by
+which we had ascended I saw that it was true. A faint, whitish eddy of
+smoke, scarcely visible in the dusk, was rising through the crack
+between door and lintel. When we came up the women were still round it
+watching it; but while I looked, dazed and wondering what we were to
+do, the group melted away, and Mademoiselle and I were left alone
+beside the stream of smoke that grew each moment thicker and darker.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few moments before, immediately after my escape from the rooms
+below, I had thought that I could face this peril; anything,
+everything, had then seemed better than to be caught with the women,
+in the confinement of those luxurious rooms, perfumed with <i>poudre de
+rose</i>, and heavy with jasmine--to be caught there by the brutes who
+were pursuing us. Now the danger that showed itself most pressing
+seemed the worst. &quot;We must take off the bricks!&quot; I cried. &quot;Quick, and
+open that door! There is nothing else for it. Come, Mademoiselle, if
+you please!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are doing it,&quot; she answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I saw whither the women and the servants had gone. They were
+already beside the other door, the trap-door, labouring frantically to
+remove the bricks we had piled on it. In a moment I caught the
+infection of their haste.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, Mademoiselle! come!&quot; I cried, advancing involuntarily a step
+towards the group. &quot;Very likely the rogues below will be plundering
+now, and we may pass safely. At any rate, there is nothing else for
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was still flurried and shaken--I say it with shame--by Gargouf's
+fate; and when she did not answer at once, I looked round impatiently.
+To my astonishment, she was gone. In the darkness, it was not easy to
+see any one at a distance of a dozen feet, and the reek of the smoke
+was spreading. Still, she had been at my elbow a moment before, she
+could not be far off. I took a step this way and that, and looked
+again anxiously; and then I found her. She was kneeling against a
+chimney, her face buried in her hands. Her hair covered her shoulders,
+and partly hid her white robe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I thought the time ill-chosen, and I touched her angrily.
+&quot;Mademoiselle!&quot; I said. &quot;There is not a moment to be lost! Come! they
+have opened the door!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked up at me, and the still pallor of her face sobered me. &quot;I
+am not coming,&quot; she said, in a low voice. &quot;Farewell, Monsieur!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are not coming?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur; save yourself,&quot; she answered firmly and quietly. And
+she looked up at me with her hands still clasped before her, as if she
+were fain to return to her prayers, and waited only for me to go.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I gasped.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Mademoiselle!&quot; I cried, staring at the white-robed figure, that
+in the gloom--a gloom riven now and again by hot flashes, as some
+burning spark soared upwards--seemed scarcely earthly--&quot;But,
+Mademoiselle, you do not understand. This is no child's play. To stay
+here is death! death! The house is burning under us. Presently the
+roof, on which we stand, will fall in, and then----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Better that,&quot; she answered, raising her head with heaven knows
+what of womanly dignity, caught in this supreme moment by her, a
+child--&quot;Better that, than that I should fall into their hands. I am a
+St. Alais, and I can die,&quot; she continued firmly. &quot;But I must not fall
+into their hands. Do you, Monsieur, save yourself. Go now, and I will
+pray for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I for you, Mademoiselle,&quot; I answered, with a full heart. &quot;If you
+stay, I stay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at me a moment, her face troubled. Then she rose slowly to
+her feet. The servants had disappeared, the trap-door lay open; no one
+had yet come up. We had the roof to ourselves. I saw her shudder as
+she looked round; and in a second I had her in my arms--she was no
+heavier than a child--and was half-way across the roof. She uttered a
+faint cry of remonstrance, of reproach, and for an instant struggled
+with me. But I only held her the tighter, and ran on. From the
+trap-door a ladder led downwards; somehow, still holding her with one
+hand, I stumbled down it, until I reached the foot, and found myself
+in a passage, which was all dark. One way, however, a light shone at
+the end of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I carried her towards this, her hair lying across my lips, her face
+against my breast. She no longer struggled, and in a moment I came to
+the head of a staircase. It seemed to be a servant's staircase, for it
+was bare, and mean, and narrow, with white-washed walls that were not
+too clean. There were no signs of fire here, even the smoke had not
+yet reached this part; but half-way down the flight a candle,
+overturned, but still burning, lay on a step, as if some one had that
+moment dropped it. And from all the lower part of the house came up a
+great noise of riot and revelry, coarse shrieks, and shouts, and
+laughter. I paused to listen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mademoiselle lifted herself a little in my arms. &quot;Put me down,
+Monsieur,&quot; she whispered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will do what you tell me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I set her down in the angle of the passage, at the head of the stairs;
+and in a whisper I asked her what was beyond the door, which I could
+see at the foot of the flight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The kitchen,&quot; she answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If I had any cloak to cover you,&quot; I said, &quot;I think that we could
+pass. They are not searching for us. They are robbing and drinking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you get the candle?&quot; she whispered, trembling. &quot;In one of these
+rooms we may find something.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I went softly down the bare stairs, and, picking it up, returned with
+it in my hand. As I came back to her, our eyes met, and a slow blush,
+gradually deepening, crept over her face, as dawn creeps over a grey
+sky. Having come, it stayed; her eyes fell, and she turned a little
+away from me, confused and frightened. We were alone; and for the
+first time that night, I think, she remembered her loosened hair and
+the disorder of her dress--that she was a woman and I a man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a strange time to think of such things; when at any instant the
+door at the foot of the stairs before us might open, and a dozen
+ruffians stream up, bent on plunder, and worse. But the look and the
+movement warmed my heart, and set my blood running as it had never run
+before. I felt my courage return in a flood, and with it twice my
+strength. I felt capable of holding the staircase against a hundred, a
+thousand, as long as she stood at the top. Above all, I wondered how I
+could have borne her in my arms a minute before, how I could have held
+her head against my breast, and felt her hair touch my lips, and been
+insensible! Never again should I carry her so with an even pulse. The
+knowledge of that came to me as I stood beside her at the head of the
+bare stairs, affecting to listen to the noises below, that she might
+have time to recover herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A moment, and I began to listen seriously; for the uproar in the
+kitchen through which we must pass to escape, was growing louder; and
+at the same time that I noticed this, a smell of burning wood, with a
+whiff of smoke, reached my nostrils, and warned me that the fire was
+extending to the wing in which we stood. Behind us, as we stood,
+looking down the stairs, was a door; along the passage to the left by
+which we had come were other doors. I thrust the candle into
+Mademoiselle's hands, and begged her to go and look in the rooms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There may be a cloak, or something!&quot; I said eagerly. &quot;We must not
+linger. If you will look, I will----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No more; for as the last word trembled on my lips the door at the foot
+of the stairs flew open, and a man blundered through it and began to
+ascend towards us, two steps at a time. He carried a candle before
+him, and a large bar in his right hand; and a savage roar of voices
+came with him through the doorway.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He appeared so suddenly that we had no time to move. I had a side
+glimpse of Mademoiselle standing spell-bound with horror, the light
+drooping in her hand. Then I snatched the candle from her and quenched
+it; and, plucking it from the iron candlestick, stood waiting, with
+the latter in my hand--waiting, stooping forward, for the man. I had
+left my sword in the farther wing, and had no other weapon; but the
+stairs were narrow, the sloping ceiling low, and the candlestick might
+do. If his comrades did not follow him, it might do.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He came up rapidly, two-thirds of the way, holding the light high in
+front of him. Only four or five steps divided him from us! Then on a
+sudden, he stumbled, swore, and fell heavily forwards. The light in
+his hand went out, and we were in darkness!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instinctively I gripped Mademoiselle's hand in my left hand to stay
+the scream that I knew was on her lips; then we stood like two
+statues, scarcely daring to breathe. The man, so near us, and yet
+unconscious of our presence, got up swearing; and, after a terrible
+moment of suspense, during which I think he fumbled for the candle, he
+began to clatter down the stairs again. They had closed the door at
+the bottom, and he could not for a moment find the string of the
+latch. But at last he found it, and opened the door. Then I stepped
+back, and under cover of the babel that instantly poured up the
+staircase I drew Mademoiselle into the room behind us, and, closing
+the door which faced the stairs, stood listening.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I fancied that I could hear her heart beating. I could certainly hear
+my own. In this room we seemed for the moment safe; but how were we,
+without a light, to find anything to disguise her? How were we to pass
+through the kitchen? And in a moment I began to regret that I had left
+the stairs. We were in perfect darkness here and could see nothing in
+the room, which had a close, unused smell, as of mice; but even as I
+noticed this the fumes of burning wood, which had doubtless entered
+with us, grew stronger and overcame the other smell. The rushing
+wind-like sound of the fire, as it caught hold of the wing, began to
+be audible, and the distant crackling of flames. My heart sank.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle,&quot; I said softly. I still held her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur,&quot; she murmured faintly. And she seemed to lean against
+me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are there no windows in this room?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think that they are shuttered,&quot; she murmured.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With a new thought in my mind, that the way of the kitchen being
+hopeless we might escape by the windows, I moved a pace to look for
+them. I would have loosed her hand to do this, that my own might be
+free to grope before me, but to my surprise she clung to me and would
+not let me go. Then in the darkness I heard her sigh, as if she were
+about to swoon; and she fell against me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Courage, Mademoiselle, courage!&quot; I said, terrified by the mere
+thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I am frightened!&quot; she moaned in my ear. &quot;I am frightened! Save
+me, Monsieur, save me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had been so brave before that I wondered; not knowing that the
+bravest woman's courage is of this quality. But I had short time for
+wonder. Her weight hung each instant more dead in my arms, and my
+heart beating wildly as I held her I looked round for help, for a
+thought, for an idea. But all was dark. I could not remember even
+where the door stood by which we had entered. I peered in vain, for
+the slightest glimmer of light that might betray the windows. I was
+alone with her and helpless, our way of retreat cut off, the flames
+approaching. I felt her head fall back and knew that she had swooned;
+and in the dark I could do no more than support her, and listen and
+listen for the returning steps of the man, or what else would happen
+next.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a long time, a long time it seemed to me, nothing happened. Then a
+sudden burst of sound told me that the door at the foot of the stairs
+had been opened again; and on that followed a clatter of wooden shoes
+on the bare stairs. I could judge now where the door of the room was,
+and I quickly but tenderly laid Mademoiselle on the floor a little
+behind it, and waited myself on the threshold. I still had my
+candlestick, and I was desperate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I heard them pass, my heart beating; and then I heard them pause and I
+clutched my weapon; and then a voice I knew gave an order, and with a
+cry of joy I dragged open the door of the room and stood before
+them--stood before them, as they told me afterwards, with the face of
+a ghost or a man risen from the dead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were four of them, and the nearest to us was Father Benôit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The good priest fell on my neck and kissed me. &quot;You are not hurt?&quot; he
+cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I said dully. &quot;You have come then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he said. &quot;In time to save you, God be praised! God be praised!
+And Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle de St. Alais?&quot; he added eagerly,
+looking at me as if he thought I was not quite in my senses. &quot;Have you
+news of her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I turned without a word, and went back into the room. He followed
+with a light, and the three men, of whom Buton was one, pressed in
+after him. They were rough peasants, but the sight made them give
+back, and uncover themselves. Mademoiselle lay where I had left her,
+her head pillowed on a dark carpet of hair; from the midst of which
+her child's face, composed and white as in death, looked up with
+solemn half-closed eyes to the ceiling. For myself, I stared down at
+her almost without emotion, so much had I gone through. But the priest
+cried out aloud.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Mon Dieu!</i>&quot; he said, with a sob in his voice. &quot;Have they killed
+her?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I answered. &quot;She has only fainted. If there is a woman here----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no woman here that I dare trust,&quot; he answered between his
+teeth. And he bade one of the men go and get some water, adding a few
+words which I did not hear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man returned almost immediately, and Father Benôit, bidding him
+and his fellows stand back a little, moistened her lips with water,
+afterwards dashing some in her face; doing it with an air of haste
+that puzzled me until I noticed that the room was grown thick with
+smoke, and on going myself to the door saw the red glow of the fire at
+the end of the passage, and heard the distant crash of falling stones
+and timbers. Then I thought that I understood the men's attitude, and
+I suggested to Father Benôit that I should carry her out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She will never recover here,&quot; I said, with a sob in my throat. &quot;She
+will be suffocated if we do not get her into the air.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A thick volume of smoke swept along the passage as I spoke, and gave
+point to my words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; the priest said slowly, &quot;I think so, too, my son, but----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what?&quot; I cried. &quot;It is not safe to stay!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You sent to Cahors?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I answered. &quot;Has M. le Marquis come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No; and you see, M. le Vicomte, I have only these four men,&quot; he
+explained. &quot;Had I stayed to gather more I might have been too late.
+And with these only I do not know what to do. Half the poor wretches
+who have done this mischief are mad with drink. Others are strangers,
+and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I thought--I thought that it was all over,&quot; I cried in
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he answered gravely. &quot;They let us pass in after an altercation;
+I am of the Committee, and so is Buton there. But when they see you,
+and especially Mademoiselle de St. Alais--I do not know how they may
+act, my friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, <i>mon Dieu!</i>&quot; I cried. &quot;Surely they will not dare----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monseigneur, have no fear, they shall not dare!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words came out of the smoke. The speaker was Buton. As he spoke,
+he stepped forward, swinging the ponderous bar he carried, his huge
+hairy arms bare to the elbow. &quot;Yet there is one thing you must do,&quot; he
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must put on the tricolour. They will not dare to touch that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spoke with a simple pride, which at the moment I found
+unintelligible. I understand it better now. Nay, on the morrow, it was
+no riddle to me, though an abiding wonder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The priest sprang at the idea. &quot;Good,&quot; he said. &quot;Buton has hit it!
+They will respect that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And before I could speak he had detached the large rosette which he
+wore on his <i>soutane</i>, and was pinning it on my breast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now yours, Buton,&quot; he continued; and taking the smith's--it was not
+too clean--he fixed it on Mademoiselle's left shoulder. &quot;There,&quot; he
+said eagerly, when it was done. &quot;Now, M. le Vicomte, take her up.
+Quick, or we shall be stifled. Buton and I will go before you, and our
+friends here will follow you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mademoiselle was beginning to come to herself with sighs and sobs,
+when I raised her in my arms; and we were all coughing with the smoke.
+This in the passage outside was choking; had we delayed a minute
+longer we could not have passed out safely, for already the flames
+were beginning to lick the door of the next room, and dart out angry
+tongues towards us. As it was, we stumbled down the stairs in some
+fashion, one helping another; and checked for an instant by the closed
+door at the bottom, were glad to fall when it was opened pell-mell in
+the kitchen, where we stood with smarting eyes, gasping for breath.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was the grand kitchen of the Château that had seen many a feast
+prepared, and many a quarry brought home; but for Mademoiselle's sake
+I was glad that her face was against my breast, and that she could not
+see it now. A great fire, fed high with fat and hams, blazed on the
+hearth, and before it, instead of meat, the carcases of three dogs
+hung from the jack, and tainted the air with the smell of burning
+flesh. They were M. le Marquis' favourite hounds, killed in pure
+wantonness. Below them the floor, strewn with bottles, ran deep in
+wasted wine, out of which piles of shattered furniture and staved
+casks rose like islands. All that the rioters had not taken they had
+spoiled; even now in one corner a woman was filling her apron with
+salt from a huge trampled heap, and at the battered <i>dressoir</i> three
+or four men were plundering. The main body of the peasants, however,
+had retired outside, where they could be heard fiercely cheering on
+the flames, shouting when a chimney fell or a window burst, and
+flinging into the fire every living thing unlucky enough to fall into
+their hands. The plunderers, on seeing us, sneaked out with grim looks
+like wolves driven from the prey. Doubtless, they spread the news; for
+while we paused, though it was only for a moment, in the middle of the
+floor, the uproar outside ceased, and gave place to a strange silence
+in the midst of which we appeared at the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The glare of the burning house threw a light as strong as that of day
+on the scene before us; on the line of savage frenzied faces that
+confronted us, and the great pile of wreckage that stood about and
+bore witness to their fury. But for a moment the light failed to show
+us to them; we were in the shadow of the wall, and it was not until we
+had advanced some paces that the ominous silence was broken, and the
+mob, with a howl of rage, sprang forward, like bloodhounds slipped
+from the leash. Low-browed and shock-headed, half-naked, and black
+with smoke and blood, they seemed more like beasts than men; and like
+beasts they came on, snapping the teeth and snarling, while from the
+rear--for the foremost were past speech--came screams of &quot;<i>Mort aux
+Tyrans! Mort aux Accapareurs!</i>&quot; that, mingling with the tumult of the
+fire, were enough to scare the stoutest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Had my escort blenched for an instant our fate was sealed. But they
+stood firm, and before their stern front all but one man quailed and
+fell back--fell back snarling and crying for our blood. That one came
+on, and aimed a blow at me with a knife. On the instant Buton raised
+his iron bar, and with a stentorian cry of &quot;Respect the Tricolour!&quot;
+struck him to the ground, and strode over him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Respect the Tricolour!&quot; he shouted again, with the voice of a bull;
+and the effect of the words was magical. The crowd heard, fell back,
+and fell aside, staring stupidly at me and my burden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Respect the Tricolour!&quot; Father Benôit cried, raising his hand aloft;
+and he made the sign of the cross. On that in an instant a hundred
+voices took it up; and almost before I could apprehend the change,
+those who a moment earlier had been gaping for our blood were
+thrusting one another back, and shouting as with one voice, &quot;Way, way
+for the Tricolour!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was something unutterably new, strange, formidable in this
+reverence; this respect paid by these savages to a word, a ribbon, an
+idea. It made an impression on me that was never quite effaced. But at
+the moment I was scarcely conscious of this. I heard and saw things
+dully. Like a man in a dream, I walked through the crowd, and,
+stumbling under my burden, passed down the lane of brutish faces, down
+the avenue, down to the gate. There Father Benôit would have taken
+Mademoiselle from me, but I would not let him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To Saux! To Saux!&quot; I said feverishly; and then, I scarcely knew how,
+I found myself on a horse holding her before me. And we were on the
+road to Saux, lighted on our way by the flames of the burning Château.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_10" href="#div1Ref_10">THE MORNING AFTER THE STORM.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Benôit had the forethought, when we reached the cross-roads, to
+leave a man there to await the party from Cahors, and warn them of
+Mademoiselle's safety; and we had not ridden more than half a mile
+before the clatter of hoofs behind us announced that they were
+following. I was beginning to recover from the stupor into which the
+excitement of the night had thrown me, and I reined up to deliver over
+my charge, should M. de St. Alais desire to take her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he was not of the party. The leader was Louis, and his company
+consisted, to my surprise, of no more than six or seven servants, old
+M. de Gontaut, one of the Harincourts, and a strange gentleman. Their
+horses were panting and smoking with the speed at which they had come,
+and the men's eyes glittered with excitement. No one seemed to think
+it strange that I carried Mademoiselle; but all, after hurriedly
+thanking God that she was safe, hastened to ask the number of the
+rioters.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nearly a hundred,&quot; I said. &quot;As far as I could judge. But where is M.
+le Marquis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He had not returned when the alarm came.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are a small party?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Louis swore with vexation. &quot;I could get no more,&quot; he said. &quot;News came
+at the same time that Marignac's house was on fire, and he carried off
+a dozen. A score of others took fright, and thought it might be the
+same with them; and they saddled up in haste, and went to see. In
+fact,&quot; he continued bitterly, &quot;it seemed to me to be every one for
+himself. Always excepting my good friends here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. de Gontaut began to chuckle, but choked for want of breath. &quot;Beauty
+in distress!&quot; he gasped. Poor fellow, he could scarcely sit his horse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you will come on to Saux?&quot; I said. They were turning their horses
+in a cloud of steam that mistily lit up the night.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No!&quot; Louis answered, with another oath; and I did not wonder that he
+was not himself, that his usual good nature had deserted him. &quot;It is
+now or never! If we can catch them at this work----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I did not hear the rest. The trampling of their horses, as they drove
+in the spurs and started down the road, drowned the words. In a moment
+they were fifty paces away; all but one, who, detaching himself at the
+last moment, turned his horse's head, and rode up to me. It was the
+stranger, the only one of the party, not a servant, whom I did not
+know.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How are they armed, if you please?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They have at least one gun,&quot; I said, looking at him curiously. &quot;And
+by this time probably more. The mass of them had pikes and
+pitchforks.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And a leader?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Petit Jean, the smith, of St. Alais, gave orders.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said, and saluted. Then, touching his
+horse with the spur, he rode off at speed after the others.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was in no condition to help them, and I was anxious to put
+Mademoiselle, who lay in my arms like one dead, in the women's care.
+The moment they were gone, therefore, we pursued our way, Father
+Benôit and I silent and full of thought, the others chattering to one
+another without pause or stay. Mademoiselle's head lay on my right
+shoulder. I could feel the faint beating of her heart; and in that
+slow, dark ride had time to think of many things: of her courage and
+will and firmness--this poor little convent-bred one, who a fortnight
+before had not found a word to throw at me; last, but not least, of
+the womanly weakness, dear to my man's heart, that had sapped her
+reserve at last, and brought her arms to my neck and her cry to my
+ear. The faint perfume of her hair was in my nostrils; I longed to
+kiss the half-shrouded head. But, if in an hour I had learned to love
+her, I had learned to honour her more; and I repressed the impulse,
+and only held her more gently, and tried to think of other things
+until she should be out of my arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If I did not find that so easy, it was not for want of food for
+thought. The glow of the fire behind us reddened all the sky at our
+backs; the murmur of the mob pursued us; more than once, as we went, a
+figure sneaked by us in the blackness, and fled, as if to join them.
+Father Benôit fancied that there was a second fire a league to the
+east; and in the tumult and upheaval of all things on this night, and
+the consequent confusion of thought into which I had fallen, it would
+scarcely have surprised me if flames had broken out before us also,
+and announced that Saux was burning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I was spared that. On the contrary, the whole village came out to
+meet us, and accompanied us, cheering, from the gates to the door of
+the Château, where, in the glare of the lights they carried, and amid
+a great silence of curiosity and expectation, Mademoiselle was lifted
+from my saddle and carried into the house. The women who pressed round
+the door to see, stooped forward to follow her with their eyes; but
+none as I followed her.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align:center; letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Much that passes for fair at night wears a foul look by day;
+and
+things tolerable in the suffering have a knack of seeming
+fantastically impossible in the retrospect. When I awoke next morning,
+in the great chair in the hall--wherein, tradition had it, Louis the
+Thirteenth had once sat--and, after three hours of troubled sleep,
+found André standing over me, and the sun pouring in through door and
+window, I fancied for a moment that the events of the night, as I
+remembered them, were a dream. Then my eyes fell on a brace of
+pistols, which I had placed by my side over night, and on the tray at
+which Father Benôit and I had refreshed ourselves; and I knew that the
+things had happened. I sprang up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is M. de St. Alais here?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor M. le Comte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What!&quot; I said. &quot;Have none of the party come?&quot; For I had gone to sleep
+expecting to be called up to receive them within the hour.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, M. le Vicomte,&quot; the old man answered, &quot;except--except one
+gentleman who was with them, and who is now walking with M. le Curé in
+the garden. And for him----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot; I said sharply, for André, who had got on his most gloomy and
+dogmatic air, stopped with a sniff of contempt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He does not seem to be a man for whom M. le Vicomte should be
+roused,&quot; he answered obstinately. &quot;But M. le Curé would have it; and
+in these days, I suppose, we must tramp for a smith, let alone an
+officer of excise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Buton is here, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur; and walking on the terrace, as if of the family. I do
+not know what things are coming to,&quot; André continued, grumbling, and
+raising his voice as I started to go out, &quot;or what they would be at.
+But when M. le Vicomte took away the <i>carcan</i> I knew what was likely
+to happen. Oh! yes,&quot; he went on still more loudly, while he stood
+holding the tray, and looking after me with a sour face, &quot;I knew what
+would happen! I knew what would happen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, certainly, if I had not been shaken completely out of the common
+rut of thought, I should have found something odd, myself, in the
+combination of the three men whom I found on the terrace. They were
+walking up and down, Father Benôit, with downcast eyes and his hands
+behind him, in the middle. On one side of him moved Buton, coarse,
+heavy-shouldered, and clumsy, in his stained blouse; on the other side
+paced the stranger of last night, a neat, middle-sized man, very
+plainly dressed, with riding boots and a sword. Remembering that he
+had formed one of Louis' party, I was surprised to see that he wore
+the tricolour; but I forgot this in my anxiety to know what had become
+of the others. Without standing on ceremony, I asked him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They attacked the rioters, lost one man, and were beaten off,&quot; he
+answered with dry precision.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And M. le Comte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Was not hurt. He returned to Cahors, to raise more men. I, as my
+advice seemed to be taken in ill part, came here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spoke in a blunt, straightforward way, as to an equal; and at once
+seemed to be, and not to be, a gentleman. The Curé, seeing that he
+puzzled me, hastened to introduce him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said, &quot;is M. le Capitaine Hugues, late of
+the American Army. He has placed his services at the disposal of the
+Committee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For the purpose,&quot; the Captain went on, before I had made up my mind
+how to take it, &quot;of drilling and commanding a body of men to be raised
+in Quercy to keep the peace. Call them militia; call them what you
+like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was a good deal taken aback. The man, alert, active, practical, with
+the butt of a pistol peeping from his pocket, was something new to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have served his Majesty?&quot; I said at last, to gain time to think.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he answered. &quot;There are no careers in that army, unless you have
+so many quarterings. I served under General Washington.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I saw you last night with M. de St. Alais?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not, M. le Vicomte?&quot; he answered, looking at me plainly. &quot;I heard
+that a house was being burned. I had just arrived, and I placed myself
+at M. le Comte's disposal. But they had no method, and would take no
+advice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well,&quot; I said, &quot;these seem to me to be rather extreme steps. You
+know----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. de Marignac's house was burned last night,&quot; the Curé said softly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I fear that we shall hear of others. I think that we must look
+matters in the face, M. le Vicomte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is not a question of thinking or looking, but of doing!&quot; the
+Captain said, interrupting him harshly. &quot;We have a long summer's day
+before us, but if by to-night we have not done something, there will
+be a sorry dawning in Quercy to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There are the King's troops,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They refuse to obey orders. Therefore, they are worse than useless.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Their officers?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are staunch; but the people hate them. A knight of St. Louis is
+to the mob what a red rag is to a bull. I can answer for it that they
+have enough to do to keep their men in barracks, and guard their own
+heads.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I resented his familiarity, and the impatience with which he spoke;
+but, resent it as I might, I could not return to the tone I had used
+yesterday. Then it had seemed an outrageous thing that Buton should
+stand by and listen. To-day the same thing had an ordinary air. And
+this, moreover, was a different man from Doury; arguments that had
+crushed the one would have no weight with the other. I saw that, and,
+rather helplessly, I asked Father Benôit what he would have.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not answer. It was the Captain who replied. &quot;We want you to
+join the Committee,&quot; he said briskly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I discussed that yesterday,&quot; I answered with some stiffness. &quot;I
+cannot do so. Father Benôit will tell you so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is not Father Benôit's answer I want,&quot; the Captain replied. &quot;It is
+yours, M. le Vicomte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I answered yesterday,&quot; I said haughtily--&quot;and refused.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yesterday is not to-day,&quot; he retorted. &quot;M. de St. Alais' house stood
+yesterday; it is a smoking ruin today. M. de Marignac's likewise.
+Yesterday much was conjecture. To-day facts speak for themselves. A
+few hours' hesitation, and the province will be in a blaze from one
+end to the other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I could not gainsay this; at the same time there was one other thing I
+could not do, and that was change my views again. Having solemnly put
+on the white cockade in Madame St. Alais' drawing-room, I had not the
+courage to execute another <i>volte-face</i>. I could not recant again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is impossible--impossible in my case,&quot; I stammered at last
+peevishly, and in a disjointed way. &quot;Why do you come again to me? Why
+do you not go to some one else? There are two hundred others whose
+names----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Would be of no use to us,&quot; M. le Capitaine answered brusquely;
+&quot;whereas yours would reassure the fearful, attach some moderate men to
+the cause and not disgust the masses. Let me be frank with you, M. le
+Vicomte,&quot; he continued in a different tone. &quot;I want your co-operation.
+I am here to take risks, but none that are unnecessary; and I prefer
+that my commission should issue from above as well as from below. Add
+your name to the Committee and I accept their commission. Without
+doubt I could police Quercy in the name of the Third Estate, but I
+would rather hang, draw, and quarter in the name of all three.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Still, there are others----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You forget that I have got to rule the <i>canaille</i> in Cahors,&quot; he
+answered impatiently, &quot;as well as these mad clowns, who think that the
+end of the world is here. And those others you speak of----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are not acceptable,&quot; Father Benôit said gently, looking at me with
+yearning in his kind eyes. The light morning air caught the skirts of
+his cassock as he spoke, and lifted them from his lean figure. He held
+his shovel hat in his hand, between his face and the sun. I knew that
+there was a conflict in his mind as in mine, and that he would have me
+and would have me not; and the knowledge strengthened me to resist his
+words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is impossible,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was spared the necessity of answering. I had my face to the door of
+the house, and as the last word was spoken saw André issue from it
+with M. de St. Alais. The manner in which the old servant cried, &quot;M.
+le Marquis de St. Alais, to see M. le Vicomte!&quot; gave us a little
+shock, it was so full of sly triumph; but nothing on M. de St. Alais'
+part, as he approached, betrayed that he noticed this. He advanced
+with an air perfectly gay, and saluted me with good humour. For a
+moment I fancied that he did not know what had happened in the night;
+his first words, however, dispelled the idea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said, addressing me with both ease and grace, &quot;we
+are for ever grateful to you. I was abroad on business last night, and
+could do nothing; and my brother must, I am told, have come too late,
+even if, with so small a force, he could effect anything. I saw
+Mademoiselle as I passed through the house, and she gave me some
+particulars.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She has left her room?&quot; I cried in surprise. The other three had
+drawn back a little, so that we enjoyed a kind of privacy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he answered, smiling slightly at my tone. &quot;And I can assure
+you, M. le Vicomte, has spoken as highly of you as a maiden dare. For
+the rest, my mother will convey the thanks of the family to you more
+fitly than I can. Still, I may hope that you are none the worse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I muttered that I was not; but I hardly knew what I said. St. Alais'
+demeanour was so different from that which I had anticipated, his easy
+calmness and gaiety were so unlike the rage and heat which seemed
+natural in one who had just heard of the destruction of his house and
+the murder of his steward, that I was completely nonplussed. He
+appeared to be dressed with his usual care and distinction, though I
+was bound to suppose that he had been up all night; and, though the
+outrages at St. Alais and Marignac's had given the lie to his most
+confident predictions, he betrayed no sign of vexation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All this dazzled and confused me; yet I must say something. I muttered
+a hope that Mademoiselle was not greatly shaken by her experiences.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think not,&quot; he said. &quot;We St. Alais are not made of sugar. And after
+a night's rest--- But I fear that I am interrupting you?&quot; And for the
+first time he let his eyes rest on my companions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is to Father Benôit and to Buton here, that your thanks are really
+due, M. le Marquis,&quot; I said. &quot;For without their aid----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is so, is it?&quot; he said coldly. &quot;I had heard it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But not all?&quot; I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think so,&quot; he said. Then, continuing to look at them, though he
+spoke to me, he continued: &quot;Let me tell you an apologue, M. le
+Vicomte. Once upon a time there was a man who had a grudge against a
+neighbour because the good man's crops were better than his. He went,
+therefore, secretly and by night, and not all at once--not all at
+once, Messieurs, but little by little--he let on to his neighbour's
+land the stream of a river that flowed by both their farms. He
+succeeded so well that presently the flood not only covered the crops,
+but threatened to drown his neighbour, and after that his own crops
+and himself! Apprised too late of his folly---- But how do you like
+the apologue, M. le Curé?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It does not touch me,&quot; Father Benôit answered with a wan smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am no man's servant, as the slave boasted,&quot; St. Alais answered with
+a polite sneer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For shame! for shame, M. le Marquis!&quot; I cried, losing patience. &quot;I
+have told you that but for M. le Curé and the smith here, Mademoiselle
+and I----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I have told you,&quot; he answered, interrupting me with grim good
+humour, &quot;what I think of it, M. le Vicomte! That is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you do not know what happened?&quot; I persisted, stung to wrath by
+his injustice. &quot;You are not, you cannot be, aware that when Father
+Benôit and his companions arrived, Mademoiselle de St. Alais and I
+were in the most desperate plight? that they saved us only at great
+risk to themselves? and that for our safety at last you have to thank
+rather the tricolour, which those wretches respected, than any display
+of force which we were able to make.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That, too, is so, is it?&quot; he said, his face grown dark. &quot;I shall have
+something to say to it presently. But, first, may I ask you a
+question, M. le Vicomte? Am I right in supposing that these gentlemen
+are waiting on you from--pardon me if I do not get the title
+correctly--the Honourable the Committee of Public Safety?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I nodded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I presume that I may congratulate them on your answer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, you may not!&quot; I replied, with satisfaction. &quot;This gentleman&quot;--and
+I pointed to the Capitaine Hugues--&quot;has laid before me certain
+proposals and certain arguments in favour of them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But he has not laid before you the most potent of all arguments,&quot; the
+Captain said, interposing, with a dry bow. &quot;I find it, and you, M. le
+Vicomte, will find it, too, in M. le Marquis de St. Alais!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Marquis stared at him coldly. &quot;I am obliged to you,&quot; he said
+contemptuously. &quot;By-and-by, perhaps, I shall have more to say to you.
+For the present, however, I am speaking to M. le Vicomte.&quot; And he
+turned and addressed me again. &quot;These gentlemen have waited on you. Do
+I understand that you have declined their proposals?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Absolutely!&quot; I answered. &quot;But,&quot; I continued warmly, &quot;it does not
+follow that I am without gratitude or natural feeling.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; he said. Then, turning, with an easy air, &quot;I see your servant
+there,&quot; he said. &quot;May I summon him one moment?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He raised his hand, and André, who was watching us from the doorway,
+flew to take his orders.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned to me again. &quot;Have I your permission?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I bowed, wondering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go, my friend, to Mademoiselle de St. Alais,&quot; he said. &quot;She is in the
+hall. Beg her to be so good as to honour us with her presence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">André went, with his most pompous air; and we remained, wondering. No
+one spoke. I longed to consult Father Benôit by a look, but I dared
+not do so, lest the Marquis, who kept his eyes on my face, his own
+wearing an enigmatical smile, should take it for a sign of weakness.
+So we stood until Mademoiselle appeared in the doorway, and, after a
+momentary pause, came timidly along the terrace towards us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She wore a frock which I believe had been my mother's, and was too
+long for her; but it seemed to my eyes to suit her admirably. A
+kerchief covered her shoulders, and she had another laid lightly on
+her unpowdered hair, which, knotted up loosely, strayed in tiny
+ringlets over her neck and ears. To this charming disarray, her
+blushes, as she came towards us, shading her eyes from the sun, added
+the last piquancy. I had not seen her since the women lifted her from
+my saddle, and, seeing her now, coming along the terrace in the fresh
+morning light, I thought her divine! I wondered how I could have let
+her go. An insane desire to defy her brother and whirl her off, out of
+this horrid imbroglio of parties and politics, seized upon me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she did not look towards me, and my heart sank. She had eyes only
+for M. le Marquis; approaching him as if he had a magnet which drew
+her to him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle,&quot; he said gravely, &quot;I am told that your escape last
+night was due to your adoption of an emblem, which I see that you are
+still wearing. It is one which no subject of his Majesty can wear with
+honour. Will you oblige me by removing it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Pale and red by turns, she shot a piteous glance at us. &quot;Monsieur?&quot;
+she muttered, as if she did not understand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think I have spoken plainly,&quot; he said. &quot;Be good enough to remove
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wincing under the rebuke, she hesitated, looking for a moment as if
+she would burst into tears. Then, with her lip trembling, and with
+trembling fingers, she complied, and began to unfasten the tricolour,
+which the servants--without her knowledge, it may be--had removed from
+the robe she had worn to that which she now wore. It took her a long
+time to remove it, under our eyes, and I grew hot with indignation.
+But I dared not interfere, and the others looked on gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you,&quot; M. de Alais said, when, at last, she had succeeded in
+unpinning it. &quot;I know, Mademoiselle, that you are a true St. Alais,
+and would die rather than owe your life to disloyalty. Be good enough
+to throw that down, and tread upon it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She started violently at the words. I think we all did. I know that I
+took a step forward, and, but for M. le Marquis' raised hand, must
+have intervened. But I had no right; we were spectators, it was for
+her to act. She stood a moment with all our eyes upon her, stood
+staring breathless and motionless at her brother; then, still looking
+at him, with a shivering sigh, she slowly and mechanically lifted her
+hand, and dropped the ribbon. It fluttered down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tread upon it!&quot; the Marquis said ruthlessly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She trembled; her face, her child's face, grown quite white. But she
+did not move.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tread upon it!&quot; he said again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then, without looking down, she moved her foot forward, and
+touched the ribbon.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_11" href="#div1Ref_11">THE TWO CAMPS.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you, Mademoiselle; now you can go,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he need not have spoken, for the moment his sister had done his
+bidding she turned from us; before two words had passed his lips she
+was hurrying back to the house in a passion of grief, her face
+covered, and her slight figure shaken by sobs that came back to us on
+the summer air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sight stung me to rage; yet for a moment, and by a tremendous
+effort I restrained myself. I would hear him out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he either did not, or would not see the effect he had produced.
+&quot;There, Messieurs,&quot; he said, his face somewhat pale. &quot;I am obliged to
+your patience. Now you know what I think of your tricolour and your
+services. It shall shelter neither me nor mine! I hold no parley with
+assassins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I sprang forward, I could contain myself no longer. &quot;And I!&quot; I cried,
+&quot;I, M. le Marquis, have something to say, too! I have something to
+declare! A moment ago I refused that tricolour! I rejected the
+overtures of those who brought it to me. I was resolved to stand by
+you and by my brethren against my better judgment. I was of your
+party, though I did not believe in it; and you might have tied me to
+it. But this gentleman is right, you are yourself the strongest
+argument against yourself. And I do this! I do this!&quot; I repeated
+passionately. &quot;See, M. le Marquis, and know that it is your doing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With the word I snatched up the ribbon, on which Mademoiselle had
+trodden, and with fingers that trembled scarcely less than hers had
+trembled, when she unfastened it, I pinned it on my breast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bowed, with a sardonic smile. &quot;A cockade is easily changed,&quot; he
+said. But I could see that he was livid with rage; that he could have
+slain me for the rebuke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You mean,&quot; I said hotly, &quot;that I am easily turned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You put on the cap, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he retorted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The other three had withdrawn a little--not without open signs of
+disgust--and left us face to face on the spot on which we had stood
+three weeks before on the eve of his mother's reception. Still raging
+with anger on Mademoiselle's account, and minded to wound him, I
+recalled that to him, and the prophecies he had then uttered,
+prophecies which had been so ill-fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took me up at the second word. &quot;Ill-fulfilled?&quot; he said grimly.
+&quot;Yes, M. le Vicomte, but why? Because those who should support me,
+those who from one end of France to the other should support the King,
+are like you--waverers who do not know their own minds! Because the
+gentlemen of France are proving themselves churls and cravens,
+unworthy of the names they bear! Yes, ill-fulfilled,&quot; he continued
+bitterly, &quot;because you, M. de Saux, and men like you, are for this
+to-day, and for that to-morrow, and cry one hour, 'Reform,' and the
+next, 'Order!'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The denial stuck in my throat, and my passion dying down I could only
+glower at him. He saw this, and taking advantage of my momentary
+embarrassment, &quot;But enough,&quot; he continued in a tone of dignity very
+galling to me, since it was he who had behaved ill, not I. &quot;Enough of
+this. While it was possible I courted your aid, M. de Saux; and I
+acknowledge, I still acknowledge, and shall be the last to disclaim,
+the obligation under which you last night placed us. But there can
+never be true fellowship between those who wear that&quot;--and he pointed
+to the tricolour I had assumed--&quot;and those who serve the King as we
+serve him. You will pardon me, therefore, if I take my leave, and
+without delay withdraw my sister from a house in which her presence
+may be misunderstood, as mine, after what has passed, must be
+unwelcome.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He bowed again with that, and led the way into the house; while I
+followed, tongue-tied and with a sudden chill at my heart. There was
+no one in the hall except André, who was hovering about the farther
+door; but in the avenue beyond were three or four mounted servants
+waiting for M. de St. Alais, and half-way down the avenue a party of
+three were riding towards the gates. It needed but a glance to show me
+that the foremost of these was Mademoiselle, and that she rode low in
+the saddle, as if she still wept. And I turned in a hot fit to M. de
+St. Alais.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I found his eye fixed on me in such a fashion that the words died
+on my lips. He coughed drily. &quot;Ah!&quot; he said. &quot;So Mademoiselle has
+herself felt the propriety of leaving. You will permit me, then, to
+make her acknowledgments, M. de Saux, and to take leave for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He saluted me with the words and turned. He already had his foot
+raised to the stirrup when I muttered his name.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked round. &quot;Pardon!&quot; he said. &quot;Is there anything----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I beckoned to the servants to stand back. I was in misery between rage
+and shame, the hot fit gone. &quot;Monsieur,&quot; I said, &quot;there is one more
+thing to be said. This does not end all between Mademoiselle and me.
+For Mademoiselle----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We will not speak of her!&quot; he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I was not to be put down. &quot;For Mademoiselle, I do not know her
+sentiments,&quot; I continued, doggedly disregarding his interruption, &quot;nor
+whether I am agreeable to her. But for myself, M. de St. Alais, I tell
+you frankly that I love her; nor shall I change because I wear one
+tricolour or another. Therefore----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have only one thing to say,&quot; he cried, raising his hand to stay me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I gave way, breathing hard. &quot;What is it?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That you make love like a bourgeois!&quot; he answered, laughing
+insolently. &quot;Or a mad Englishman! And as Mademoiselle de St. Alais is
+not a baker's daughter, to be wooed after that fashion, I find it
+offensive. Is that enough or shall I say more, M. le Vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That will not be enough to turn me from my path!&quot; I answered. &quot;You
+forget that I carried Mademoiselle hither in my arms last night. But I
+do not forget it, and she will not forget it. We cannot be henceforth
+as we were, M. le Marquis.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You saved her life and base a claim upon it?&quot; he said scornfully.
+&quot;That is generous and like a gentleman!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, I do not!&quot; I answered passionately. &quot;But I have held Mademoiselle
+in my arms, and she has laid her head on my breast, and you can undo
+neither the one nor the other. Henceforth I have a right to woo her,
+and I shall win her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;While I live you never shall!&quot; he answered fiercely. &quot;I swear that,
+as she trod on that ribbon--at my word, at my word, Monsieur!--so she
+shall tread on your love. From this day seek a wife among your
+friends. Mademoiselle de St. Alais is not for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I trembled with rage. &quot;You know, Monsieur, that I cannot fight you!&quot; I
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor I you,&quot; he answered. &quot;I know it. Therefore,&quot; he continued,
+pausing an instant and reverting with marvellous ease to his former
+politeness, &quot;I will fly from you. Farewell, Monsieur--I do not say,
+until we meet again; for I do not think that we shall meet much in
+future.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I found nothing wherewith to answer that, and he turned and moved'
+away down the avenue. Mademoiselle and her escort had disappeared; his
+servants, obeying my gesture, were almost at the gates. I watched his
+figure as he rode under the boughs of the walnuts, that meeting low
+over his head let the sun fall on him through spare rifts; and, sore
+and miserable at heart myself, I marvelled at the gallant air he
+maintained, and the careless grace of his bearing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Certainly he had force. He had the force his fellows lacked; and he
+had it so abundantly, that as I gazed after him the words I had used
+to him seemed weak and foolish, the resolution I had flung in his
+teeth childish. After all, he was right; this, to which my feelings
+had impelled me on the spur of anger and love and the moment, was no
+French or proper way of wooing, nor one which I should have relished
+in my sister's case. Why then had I degraded Mademoiselle by it, and
+exposed myself? Men wooed mistresses that way, not wives!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So that I felt very wretched as I turned to go into the house. But
+there my eye alighted on the pistols which still lay on the table in
+the hall, and with a sudden revulsion of feeling I remembered that
+others' affairs were out of order too; that the Châteaux of St. Alais
+and Marignac lay in ashes, that last night I had saved Mademoiselle
+from death, that beyond the walnut avenue with its cool, long shade
+and dappled floor, beyond the quiet of this summer day, lay the
+seething, brawling world of Quercy and of France--the world of
+maddened peasants and frightened townsfolk, and soldiers who would not
+fight, and nobles who dared not.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, <i>Vive le Tricolor!</i> the die was cast. I went through the house
+to find Father Benôit and his companions, meaning to throw in my lot
+and return with them. But the terrace was empty; they were nowhere to
+be seen. Even of the servants I could only find André, who came
+pottering to me with his lips pursed up to grumble. I asked him where
+the Curé was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gone, M. le Vicomte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And Buton?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He too. With half the servants, for the matter of that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gone?&quot; I exclaimed. &quot;Whither?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To the village to gossip,&quot; he answered churlishly. &quot;There is not a
+turnspit now but must hear the news, and take his own leave and time
+to gather it. The world is turned upside down, I think. It is time his
+Majesty the King did something.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Did not M. le Curé leave a message?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old servant hesitated. &quot;Well, he did,&quot; he said grudgingly. &quot;He
+said that if M. le Vicomte would stay at home until the afternoon, he
+should hear from him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But he was going to Cahors!&quot; I said. &quot;He is not returning to-day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He went by the little alley to the village,&quot; André answered
+obstinately. &quot;I do not know anything about Cahors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then go to the village now,&quot; I said, &quot;and learn whether he took the
+Cahors road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The old man went grumbling, and I remained alone on the terrace. An
+abnormal quietness, as of the afternoon, lay on the house this summer
+morning. I sat down on a stone seat against the wall, and began to go
+over the events of the night, recalling with the utmost vividness
+things to which at the time I had scarcely given a glance, and
+shuddering at horrors that in the happening had barely moved me.
+Gradually my thoughts passed from these things which made my pulses
+beat; and I began to busy myself with Mademoiselle. I saw her again
+sitting low in the saddle and weeping as she went. The bees hummed in
+the warm air, the pigeons cooed softly in the dovecot, the trees on
+the lawn below me shaped themselves into an avenue over her head, and,
+thinking of her, I fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After such a night as I had spent it was not unnatural. But when I
+awoke, and saw that it was high noon, I was wild with vexation. I
+sprang up, and darting suspicious glances round me, caught André
+skulking away under the house wall. I called him back, and asked him
+why he had let me sleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought that you were tired, Monsieur,&quot; he muttered, blinking in
+the sun. &quot;M. le Vicomte is not a peasant that he may not sleep when he
+pleases.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And M. le Curé? Has he not returned?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And he went--which way?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He named a village half a league from us; and then said that my dinner
+waited.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was hungry, and for a moment asked no more, but went in and sat down
+to the meal. When I rose it was nearly two o'clock. Expecting Father
+Benôit every moment, I bade them saddle the horses that I might be
+ready to go; and then, too restless to remain still, I went into the
+village. Here I found all in turmoil. Three-fourths of the inhabitants
+were away at St. Alais inspecting the ruins, and those who remained
+thought of nothing so little as doing their ordinary work; but,
+standing in groups at their doors, or at the cross-roads, or the
+church gates, were discussing events. One asked me timidly if it was
+true that the King had given all the land to the peasants; another, if
+there were to be any more taxes; a third, a question still more
+simple. Yet with this, I met with no lack of respect; and few failed
+to express their joy that I had escaped the ruffians <i>là-bas</i>. But as
+I approached each group a subtle shade of expectation, of shyness and
+suspicion seemed to flit across faces the most familiar to me. At the
+moment I did not understand it, and even apprehended it but dimly.
+Now, after the event, now that it is too late, I know that it was the
+first symptom of the social poison doing its sure and deadly work.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With all this, I could hear nothing of M. le Curé; one saying that he
+was here, another there, a third that he had gone to Cahors; and, in
+the end, I returned to the Château in a state of discomfort and unrest
+hard to describe. I would not again leave the front of the house lest
+I should miss him; and for hours I paced the avenue, now listening at
+the gates or looking up the road, now walking quickly to and fro under
+the walnuts. In time evening fell, and night; and still I was here
+awaiting the Curé's coming, chained to the silent house; while my mind
+tortured me with pictures of what was going forward outside. The
+restless demon of the time had hold of me; the thought that I lay here
+idle, while the world heaved, made me miserable, filled me with shame.
+When André came at last to summon me to supper, I swore at him; and
+the moment I had done, I went up to the roof of the Château and
+watched the night, expecting to see again a light in the sky, and the
+far-off glare of burning houses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I saw nothing, however, and the Curé did not come; and, after a
+wakeful night, seven in the morning saw me in the saddle and on the
+road to Cahors. André complained of illness and I took Gil only. The
+country round St. Alais seemed to be deserted; but, half a league
+farther on, over the hill, I came on a score of peasants trudging
+sturdily forward. I asked them whither they were going, and why they
+were not in the fields.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are going to Cahors, Monseigneur, for arms,&quot; they said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For arms! Whom are you going to fight?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The brigands, Monseigneur. They are burning and murdering on every
+side. By the mercy of God they have not yet visited us. And to-night
+we shall be armed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Brigands!&quot; I said. &quot;What brigands?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But they could not answer that; and I left them in wonder at their
+simplicity and rode on. I had not yet done with these brigands,
+however. Half a league short of Cahors I passed through a hamlet where
+the same idea prevailed. Here they had raised a rough barricade at the
+end of the street towards the country, and I saw a man on the church
+tower keeping watch. Meanwhile every one in the place who could walk
+had gone to Cahors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; I asked. &quot;For what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To hear the news.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I began to see that my imagination had not led me astray. All the
+world was heaving, all the world was astir. Every one was hurrying to
+hear and to learn and to tell; to take arms if he had never used arms
+before, to advise if all his life he had obeyed orders, to do anything
+and everything but his daily work. After this, that I should find
+Cahors humming like a hive of bees about to swarm, and the Valandré
+bridge so crowded that I could scarcely force my way through its three
+gates, and the <i>queue</i> of people waiting for rations longer, and the
+rations shorter than ever before--after this, I say, all these things
+seemed only natural.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nor was I much surprised to find that as I rode through the streets,
+wearing the tricolour, I was hailed here and there with cheers. On the
+other hand, I noticed that wearers of white cockades were not lacking.
+They kept the wall in twos and threes, and walked with raised chins,
+and hands on sword-knots, and were watched askance by the commonalty.
+A few of them were known to me, more were strangers; and while I
+blushed under the scornful looks of the former, knowing that I must
+seem to them a renegade, I wondered who the latter were. Finally I was
+glad to escape from both by alighting at Doury's, over whose door a
+huge tricolour flag hung limp in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. le Curé de Saux? Yes, he was even then sitting with the Committee
+upstairs. Would M. le Vicomte walk up?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I did so, through a press of noisy people, who thronged the stairs and
+passages and lobbies, and talked, and gesticulated, and seemed to be
+settled there for the day. I worked my way through these at last, the
+door was opened, a fresh gust of noise came out to meet me, and I
+entered the room. In it, seated round a long table, I found a score of
+men, of whom some rose to meet me, while more kept their seats; three
+or four were speaking at once and did not stop on my entrance. I
+recognised at the farther end Father Benôit and Buton, who came to
+meet me, and Capitaine Hugues, who rose, but continued to speak.
+Besides these there were two of the smaller noblesse, who left their
+chairs, and came to me in an ecstasy, and Doury, who rose and sat down
+half a dozen times; and one or two Curés and others of that rank,
+known to me by sight. The uproar was great, the confusion equal to it.
+Still, somehow, and after a moment of tumult, I found myself received
+and welcomed and placed in a chair at the end of the table, with M. le
+Capitaine on one side of me and a notary of Cahors on the other. Then,
+under cover of the noise, I stole a few words with Father Benôit, who
+lingered a moment beside me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You could not join us yesterday?&quot; he muttered, with a pathetic look
+that only I understood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you left a message, bidding me wait for you!&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I did?&quot; he said. &quot;No; I left a message asking you to follow us--if it
+pleased you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I never got it,&quot; I replied. &quot;André told me----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! André,&quot; he answered softly. And he shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The rascal!&quot; I said; &quot;then he lied to me! And----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But some one called the Curé to his place, and we had to part. At the
+same instant most of the talkers ceased; a moment, and only two were
+left speaking, who, without paying the least regard to one another,
+continued to hold forth to their neighbours, haranguing, one on the
+social contract; the other on the brigands--the brigands who were
+everywhere burning the corn and killing the people!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last M. le Capitaine, after long waiting to speak, attacked the
+former speaker. &quot;Tut, Monsieur!&quot; he said. &quot;This is not the time for
+theory. A halfpennyworth of fact----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is worth a pound of theory!&quot; the man of the brigands--he was a
+grocer, I believe--cried eagerly; and he brought his fist down on the
+table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But now is the time!--the God-sent time, to frame the facts to the
+theory!&quot; the other combatant screamed. &quot;To form a perfect system! To
+regenerate the world, I say! To----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To regenerate the fiddlestick!&quot; his opponent answered, with equal
+heat. &quot;When brigands are at our very doors! when our crops are being
+burned and our houses plundered! when----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur,&quot; the Captain said harshly, commanding silence by the
+gravity of his tone--&quot;if you please!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, to be plain, I do not believe any more in your brigands than in
+M. l'Avoué's theories.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This time it was the grocer's turn to scream. &quot;What?&quot; he cried. &quot;When
+they have been seen at Figeac, and Cajarc, and Rodez, and----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By whom?&quot; the soldier asked sharply, interrupting him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By hundreds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Name one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it is notorious!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur--it is a notorious lie!&quot; M. le Capitaine answered
+bluntly. &quot;Believe me, the brigands with whom we have to deal are
+nearer home. Allow us to arrange with them first, and do not deafen M.
+le Vicomte with your chattering.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hear! hear!&quot; the lawyer cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this insult proved too much for the man of the brigands. He began
+again, and others joined in, for him and against him; to my despair,
+it seemed as if the quarrel were only beginning--as if peace would
+have to be made afresh.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How all this noise, tumult, and disputation, this absence of the
+politeness to which I had been accustomed all my life, this vulgar
+jostling and brawling depressed me I need not say. I sat deafened,
+lost in the scramble; of no more account, for the moment, than Buton.
+Nay of less; for while I gazed about me and listened, sunk in wonder
+at my position at a table with people of a class with whom I had never
+sat down before--save at the chance table of an inn, where my presence
+kept all within bounds--it was Buton who, by coming to the officer's
+aid, finally gained silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now you have had your say, perhaps you will let me have mine,&quot; the
+Captain said, with acerbity, taking advantage of the hearing thus
+gained for him. &quot;It is very well for you, M. l'Avoué, and you,
+Monsieur--I have forgotten your name--you are not fighting men, and my
+difficulty does not affect you. But there are half a dozen at this
+table who are placed as I am, and they understand. You may organise;
+but if your officers are carried off every morning, you will not go
+far.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How carried off?&quot; the lawyer cried, puffing out his thin cheeks.
+&quot;Members of the Committee of----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How?&quot; M. le Capitaine rejoined, cutting him short without
+ceremony--&quot;by the prick of a small sword! You do not understand; but,
+for some of us, we cannot go three paces from this door without risk
+of an insult and a challenge.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is true!&quot; the two gentlemen at the foot of the table cried with
+one voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is true, and more,&quot; the Captain continued, warming as he spoke.
+&quot;It is no chance work, but a plan. It is their plan for curbing us. I
+have seen three men in the streets to-day, who, I can swear, are
+fencing-masters in fine clothes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Assassins!&quot; the lawyer cried pompously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is all very well,&quot; Hugues said more soberly. &quot;You can call them
+what you please. But what is to be done? If we cannot move abroad
+without a challenge and a duel, we are helpless. You will have all
+your leaders picked off.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The people will avenge you!&quot; the lawyer said, with a grand air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. le Capitaine shrugged his shoulders. &quot;Thank you for nothing,&quot; he
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Benôit interposed. &quot;At present,&quot; he said anxiously, &quot;I think
+that there is only one thing to be done. You have said, M. le
+Capitaine, that some of the committee are not fighting men. Why, I
+would ask, should any fight, and play into our opponents' hands?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Par Dieu!</i> I think that you are right!&quot; Hugues answered frankly. And
+he looked round as if to collect opinions. &quot;Why should we? I am sure
+that I do not wish to fight. I have given my proofs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a short pause, during which we looked at one another
+doubtfully. &quot;Well, why not?&quot; the Captain said at last. &quot;This is not
+play, but business. We are no longer gentlemen at large, but soldiers
+under discipline.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I said stiffly, for I found all looking at me. &quot;But it is
+difficult, M. le Capitaine, for men of honour to divest themselves of
+certain ideas. If we are not to protect ourselves from insult, we sink
+to the level of beasts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have no fear, M. le Vicomte!&quot; Buton cried abruptly. &quot;The people will
+not suffer it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no; the people will not suffer it!&quot; one or two echoed; and for a
+moment the room rang with cries of indignation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, at any rate,&quot; the Captain said at last, &quot;all are now warned.
+And if, after this, they fight lightly, they do it with full knowledge
+that they are playing their adversaries' game. I hope all understand
+that. For my part,&quot; he continued, shrugging his shoulders with a dry
+laugh, &quot;they may cane me; I shall not fight them! I am no fool!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_12" href="#div1Ref_12">THE DUEL.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">I have said already how all this weighed me down; with what misgivings
+I looked along the table, from the pale, pinched features of the
+lawyer to the smug grin of the grocer, or Buton's coarse face; with
+what sinkings of heart I found myself on a sudden the equal of these
+men, addressed now with rude abruptness, and now with servility; last,
+but not least, with what despondency I listened to the wrangling which
+followed, and which it needed all the exertions of the Captain to
+control. Fortunately, the sitting did not last long. After half an
+hour of debate and conversation, during which I did what I could to
+aid the few who knew anything of business, the meeting broke up; and
+while some went out on various missions, others remained to deal with
+such affairs as arose. I was one of those appointed to stay, and I
+drew Father Benôit into a corner, and, hiding for a moment the feeling
+of despair which possessed me, I asked him if any further outbreaks
+had occurred in the country round.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he answered, secretly pressing my hand. &quot;We have done so much
+good, I think.&quot; Then, in a different tone, which showed how clearly he
+read my mind, he continued, under his breath, &quot;Ah! M. le Vicomte, let
+us only keep the peace! Let us do what lies to our hands. Let us
+protect the innocent, and then, no matter what happens. Alas, I
+foresee more than I predicted. More than I dreamed of is in peril. Let
+us only cling to----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stopped, and turned, startled by the noisy entrance of the Captain;
+who came in so abruptly that those who remained at the table sprang to
+their feet. M. Hugues' face was flushed, his eyes were gleaming with
+anger. The lawyer, who stood nearest to the door, turned a shade
+paler, and stammered out a question. But the Captain passed by him
+with a glance of contempt, and came straight to me. &quot;M. le Vicomte,&quot;
+he said out loud, blurting out his words in haste, &quot;you are a
+gentleman. You will understand me. I want your help.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stared at him. &quot;Willingly,&quot; I said. &quot;But what is the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have been insulted!&quot; he answered, his moustaches curling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the street! And by one of those puppies! But I will teach him
+manners! I am a soldier, sir, and I----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, stay, M. le Capitaine,&quot; I said, really taken aback. &quot;I
+understood that there was to be no fighting. And that you in
+particular----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tut! tut!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Would be caned before you would go out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Sacré Nom!</i>&quot; he cried, &quot;what of that? Do you think that I am not a
+gentleman because I have served in America instead of in France?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I said, scarcely able to restrain a smile. &quot;But it is playing
+into their hands. So you said yourself, a minute ago, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Will you help me, or will you not, sir?&quot; he retorted angrily. And
+then, as the lawyer tried to intervene, &quot;Be silent, you!&quot; he
+continued, turning on him so violently that the scrivener jumped back
+a pace. &quot;What do you know of these things? You miserable pettifogger!
+you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Softly, softly, M. le Capitaine,&quot; I said, startled by this outbreak,
+and by the prospect of further brawling which it disclosed. &quot;M.
+l'Avoué is doing merely his duty in remonstrating. He is in the right,
+and----</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have nothing to do with him! And for you--you will not assist me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I did not say that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, if you will, I crave your services at once! At once,&quot; he said
+more calmly; but he still kept his shoulder to the lawyer. &quot;I have
+appointed a meeting behind the Cathedral. If you will honour me, I
+must ask you to do so immediately.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I saw that it was useless to say more; that he had made up his mind;
+and for answer I took up my hat. In a moment we were moving towards
+the door. The lawyer, the grocer, half a dozen cried out on us, and
+would have stopped us. But Father Benôit remained silent, and I went
+on down the stairs, and out of the house. Outside it was easy to see
+that the quarrel and insult had had spectators; a gloomy crowd, not
+compact, but made up of watching groups, filled all the sunny open
+part of the square. The pavement, on the other hand, along which we
+had to pass to go to the Cathedral, had for its only occupants a score
+or more of gentlemen, who, wearing white cockades, walked up and down
+in threes and fours. The crowd eyed them silently; they affected to
+see nothing of the crowd. Instead, they talked and smiled carelessly,
+and with half-opened eyes; swung their canes, and saluted one another,
+and now and then stopped to exchange a word or a pinch of snuff. They
+wore an air of insolence, ill-hidden, which the silent, almost cowed
+looks of the multitude, as it watched them askance, seemed to justify.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We had to run the gauntlet of these; and my face burned with shame, as
+we passed. Many of the men, whom I met now, I had met two days before
+at Madame St. Alais', where they had seen me put on the white cockade;
+they saw me now in the opposite camp, they knew nothing of my reasons,
+and I read in their averted eyes and curling lips what they thought of
+the change. Others--and they looked at me insolently, and scarcely
+gave me room to pass--were strangers, wearing military swords, and the
+cross of St. Louis.</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Fortunately the passage was as short as it was painful. We passed
+under the north wall of the Cathedral, and through a little door into
+a garden, where lime trees tempered the glare of the sun, and the
+town, with its crowd and noise, seemed to be in a moment left behind.
+On the right rose the walls of the apse and the heavy eastern domes of
+the Cathedral; in front rose the ramparts; on the left an old,
+half-ruined tower of the fourteenth century lifted a frowning
+ivy-covered head. In the shadow, at its foot, on a piece of smooth
+sward, a group of four persons were standing waiting for us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One was M. de St. Alais, one was Louis; the others were strangers. A
+sudden thought filled me with horror. &quot;Whom are you going to fight?&quot; I
+muttered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. de St. Alais,&quot; the Captain answered, in the same tone. And then,
+being within earshot of the others, I could say no more. They stepped
+forward, and saluted us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. le Vicomte?&quot; Louis said. He was grave and stern. I scarcely knew
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I assented mechanically, and we stepped aside from the others. &quot;This
+is not a case that admits of intervention, I believe?&quot; he said,
+bowing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose not,&quot; I answered huskily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In truth, I could scarcely speak for horror. I was waking slowly to
+the consciousness of the dilemma in which I had placed myself. Were
+St. Alais to fall by the Captain's sword, what would his sister say to
+me, what would she think of me, how would she ever touch my hand? And
+yet could I wish ill to my own principal? Could I do so in honour,
+even if something sturdy and practical, something of plain gallantry
+in the man, whom I was here to second, had not already and insensibly
+won my heart?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet one of the two must fall. The great clock above my head, slowly
+telling out the hour of noon, beat the truth into my brain. For a
+moment I grew dizzy; the sun dazzled me, the trees reeled before me,
+the garden swam. The murmur of the crowd outside filled my ears. Then
+out of the mist Louis' voice, unnaturally steady, gripped my
+attention, and my brain grew clear again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you any objection to this spot?&quot; he said. &quot;The grass is dry, and
+not slippery. They will fight in shadow, and the light is good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It will do,&quot; I muttered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps you will examine it? There is, I think, no trip or fault.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I affected to do so. &quot;I find none,&quot; I said hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then we had better place our men?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had no knowledge of the skill of either combatant, but, as I turned
+to join Hugues, I was startled by the contrast which the two presented
+as they stood a little apart, their upper clothes removed. The Captain
+was the shorter by a head, and stiff and sturdy, with a clear eye and
+keen visage. M. le Marquis, on the other hand, was tall and lithe, and
+long in the arm, with a reach which threatened danger, and a smile
+almost as deadly. I thought that if his skill and coolness were on a
+par with his natural gifts, M. Hugues--But then again my head reeled.
+What did I wish?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are ready,&quot; M. Louis said impatiently; and I noticed that he
+glanced past me towards the gate of the garden. &quot;Will you measure the
+swords, M. le Vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I complied, and was about to place my man, when M. le Capitaine
+indicated by a sign that he wished to speak to me, and, disregarding
+the frowns of the other side, I led him apart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His face had lost the glow of passion which had animated it a few
+minutes before, and was pale and stern. &quot;This is a fool's trick,&quot; he
+said curtly, and under his breath. &quot;It will serve me right if that
+puppy goes through me. You will do me a favour, M. le Vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I muttered that I would do him any in my power.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I borrowed a thousand francs to fit myself out for this service,&quot; he
+continued, avoiding my eye, &quot;from a man in Paris whose name you will
+find in my valise at the inn. Should anything happen to me, I should
+be glad if you will send him what is left. That is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He shall be paid in full,&quot; I said. &quot;I will see to it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He wrung my hand, and went to his station; and Louis and I placed
+ourselves on either side of the two, ready, with our swords drawn, to
+interfere should need arise. The signal was given, the principals
+saluted, and fell on guard, and in a moment the grinding and clicking
+of the blades began, while the pigeons of the Cathedral flew in eddies
+above us, and in the middle of the garden a little fountain tinkled
+softly in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They had not made three passes before the great diversity of their
+styles became apparent. While Hugues played vigorously with his body,
+stooping, and moving, and stepping aside, but keeping his arm stiff,
+and using his wrist much, M. le Marquis held his body erect and still,
+but moved his arm, and, fencing with a school correctness, as if he
+held a foil, disdained all artifices save those of the weapon. It was
+clear that he was the better fencer, and that, of the two, the Captain
+must tire first, since he was never still, and the wrist is more
+quickly fatigued that the arm; but, in addition to this, I soon
+perceived that the Marquis was not putting forth his full strength,
+but, depending on his defence, was waiting to tire out his opponent.
+My eyes grew hot, my throat dry, as I watched breathlessly, waiting
+for the stroke that must finish all--waiting and flinching. And then,
+on a sudden, something happened. The Captain seemed to slip, yet did
+not slip, but in a moment, stooping almost prone, his left hand on the
+ground, was under the other's guard. His point was at the Marquis's
+breast, when the latter sprang back--sprang back, and just saved
+himself. Before the Captain could recover his footing, Louis dashed
+his sword aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Foul play!&quot; he cried passionately. &quot;Foul play! A stroke <i>dessous!</i> It
+is not <i>en règle</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Captain stood breathing quickly, his point to the ground. &quot;But why
+not, Monsieur?&quot; he said. Then he looked to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I scarcely understand, M. de St. Alais,&quot; I said stiffly. &quot;The
+stroke----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is not allowed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the schools,&quot; I said. &quot;But this is a duel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have never seen it used in a duel,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No matter,&quot; I answered warmly. &quot;To interfere on such provocation is
+absurd.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is absurd!&quot; I repeated firmly. &quot;After such treatment I have no
+resource but to withdraw M. le Capitaine from the field.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps you will take his place,&quot; some one behind me said with a
+sneer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I turned sharply. One of the two persons whom we had found with St.
+Alais was the speaker. I saluted him. &quot;The surgeon?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he answered angrily. &quot;I am M. du Marc, and very much at your
+service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But not a second,&quot; I rejoined. &quot;And, therefore, you have no right to
+be standing where you are, nor to be here. I must request you to
+withdraw.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have at least as much right as those,&quot; he answered, pointing to the
+roof of the Cathedral, over the battlements of which a number of heads
+could be seen peering down at us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Our friends have at least as much right as yours,&quot; he continued,
+taunting me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But they do not interfere,&quot; I answered firmly. &quot;Nor shall you. I
+request you to withdraw.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He still refused, and even tried to bluster; but this proved too much
+for Louis' stomach; he intervened sharply, and at a word from him the
+bully shrugged his shoulders and moved away. Then we four looked at
+one another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We had better proceed,&quot; the Captain said bluntly. &quot;If the stroke was
+irregular, this gentleman was right to interfere. If not----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am willing,&quot; M. de St. Alais said. And in a moment the two fell on
+guard, and to it again; but more fiercely now, and with less caution,
+the Captain more than once using a rough, sweeping parry, in greater
+favour with practical fighters than in the fencing school. This,
+though it left him exposed to a <i>riposte</i>, seemed to disconcert M. le
+Marquis, who fenced, I thought, less skilfully than before, and more
+than once seemed to be flurried by the Captain's attack. I began to
+feel doubtful of the result, my heart began to beat more quickly, the
+glitter of the blades as they slid up and down one another confused my
+sight. I looked for one moment across at Louis--and in that moment the
+end came. M. le Capitaine used again his sweeping parry, but this time
+the circle was too wide; St. Alais' blade darted serpent-like under
+his. The Captain staggered back. His sword dropped from his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before he could fall I caught him in my arms, but blood was gushing
+already from a wound in the side of his neck. He just turned his
+eyes to my face, and tried once to speak. I caught the words, &quot;You
+will----&quot; and then blood choked his voice, and his eyes slowly closed.
+He was dead, or as good as dead, before the surgeon could reach him,
+before I could lay him on the grass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I knelt a moment beside him perfectly stunned by the suddenness of the
+catastrophe; watching in a kind of fascination the surgeon feeling
+pulse and heart, and striving with his thumb to stop the bleeding. For
+a moment or two my world was reduced to the sinking grey face, the
+quivering eyelids before me, and I saw nothing, heeded nothing,
+thought of nothing else. I could not believe that the valiant spirit
+had fled already; that the stout man who had so quickly yet insensibly
+won my liking was in this moment dead; dead and growing livid, while
+the pigeons still circled overhead, and the sparrows chirped, and the
+fountain tinkled in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I cried out in my agony. &quot;Not dead?&quot; I said. &quot;Not dead so soon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, M. le Vicomte, it was bad luck,&quot; the surgeon answered, letting
+the passive head fall on the stained grass. &quot;With such a wound nothing
+can be done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rose as he spoke; but I remained on my knees, wrapt and absorbed;
+staring at the glazing eyes that a few minutes before had been full of
+life and keenness. Then with a shudder I turned my look on myself. His
+blood covered me; it was on my breast, my arm, my hands, soaking into
+my coat. From it my thoughts turned to St. Alais, and at the moment,
+as I looked instinctively round to see where he was, or if he had
+gone, I started. The deep boom of a heavy bell, tolled once, shook the
+air; while its solemn burden still hung mournfully on the ear, quick
+footsteps ran towards me, and I heard a harsh cry at my elbow. &quot;But,
+<i>mon Dieu!</i> This is murder! They are murdering us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked behind me. The speaker was Du Marc, the bully who had vainly
+tried to provoke me. The two St. Alais and the surgeon were with him,
+and all four came from the direction of the door by which we had
+entered. They passed me with averted eyes, and hurried towards a
+little postern which flanked the old tower, and opened on the
+ramparts. As they went out of sight behind a buttress that intervened
+the bell boomed out again above my head, its dull note full of menace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I awoke and understood; understood that the noise which filled my
+ears was not the burden of the bell carried on from one deep stroke to
+another, but the roar of angry voices in the square, the babel of an
+approaching crowd crying: &quot;<i>A la lanterne! A la lanterne!</i>&quot; From the
+battlements of the Cathedral, from the louvres of the domes, from
+every window of the great gloomy structure that frowned above me, men
+were making signs, and pointing with their hands, and brandishing
+their fists--at me, I thought at first, or at the body at my feet. But
+then I heard footsteps again, and I turned and found the other four
+behind me, close to me; the two St. Alais pale and stern, with bright
+eyes, the bully pale, too, but with a look which shot furtively here
+and there, and white lips.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Curse them, they are at that door, too!&quot; he cried shrilly. &quot;We are
+beset. We shall be murdered. By God, we shall be murdered, and by
+these <i>canaille!</i> By these--I call all here to witness that it was a
+fair fight! I call you to witness, M. le Vicomte, that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It will help us much,&quot; St. Alais said with a sneer, &quot;if he does. If I
+were once at home----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, but how are we to get there?&quot; Du Marc cried. He could not hide
+his terror. &quot;Do you understand,&quot; he continued querulously, addressing
+me, &quot;that we shall be murdered? Is there no other door? Speak, some
+one. Speak!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His fears appealed to me in vain. I would scarcely have stirred a
+finger to save him. But the sight of the two St. Alais standing there
+pale and irresolute, while that roar of voices grew each moment louder
+and nearer, moved me. A moment, and the mob would break in; perhaps
+finding us by Hugues' side, it might in its fury sacrifice all
+indifferently. It might; and then I heard, to give point to the
+thought, the crash of one of the doors of the garden as it gave
+way; and I cried out almost involuntarily that there was another
+door--another door, if it was open. I did not look to see if they
+followed, but, leaving the dead, I took the lead, and ran across the
+sward towards the wall of the Cathedral.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The crowd were already pouring into the garden, but a clump of shrubs
+hid us from them as we fled; and we gained unseen a little door, a
+low-browed postern in the wall of the apse, that led, I knew--for not
+long before I had conducted an English visitor over the Cathedral--to
+a sacristy connected with the crypt. My hope of finding the door open
+was slight; if I had stayed to weigh the chances I should have thought
+them desperate. But to my joy as I came up to it, closely followed by
+the others, it opened of itself, and a priest, showing his tonsured
+head in the aperture, beckoned to us to hasten. He had little need to
+do so; in a moment we had obeyed, were by his side, and panting, heard
+the bolts shoot home behind us. For the moment we were safe.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then we breathed again. We stood in the twilight of a long narrow room
+with walls and roof of stone, and three loopholes for windows. Du Marc
+was the first to speak. &quot;<i>Mon Dieu</i>, that was close,&quot; he said, wiping
+his brow, which in the cold light wore an ugly pallor. &quot;We are----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not out of the wood yet,&quot; the surgeon answered gravely, &quot;though we
+have good grounds for thanking M. le Vicomte. They have discovered us!
+Yes, they are coming!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Probably the people on the roof had watched us enter and denounced our
+place of refuge; for as he spoke, we heard a rush of feet, the door
+shook under a storm of blows, and a score of grimy savage faces showed
+at the slender arrow-slits, and glaring down, howled and spat curses
+upon us. Luckily the door was of oak, studded and plated with iron,
+fashioned in old, rough days for such an emergency, and we stood
+comparatively safe. Yet it was terrible to hear the cries of the mob,
+to feel them so close, to gauge their hatred, and know while they beat
+on the stone as though they would tear the walls with their naked
+hands, what it would be to fall into their power!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We looked at one another, and--but it may have been the dim light--I
+saw no face that was not pale. Fortunately the pause was short. The
+Curé who had admitted us, unlocked as quickly as he could an inner
+door. &quot;This way,&quot; he said--but the snarling of the beasts outside
+almost drowned his voice--&quot;if you will follow me, I will let you out
+by the south entrance. But, be quick, gentlemen, be quick,&quot; he
+continued, pushing us out before him, &quot;or they may guess what we are
+about, and be there before us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It may be imagined that after that we lost no time. We followed him as
+quickly as we could along a narrow subterranean passage, very dimly
+lit, at the end of which a flight of six steps brought us into a
+second passage. We almost ran along this, and though a locked door
+delayed us a moment--which seemed a minute, and a long one--the key
+was found and the door opened. We passed through it, and found
+ourselves in a long narrow room, the counterpart of that we had first
+entered. The curé opened the farther door of this; I looked out. The
+alley outside, the same which led beside the Cathedral to the Chapter
+House, was empty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are in time,&quot; I said, with a sigh of relief; it was pleasant to
+breathe the fresh air again. And I turned, still panting with the
+haste we had made, to thank the good Curé who had saved us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. de St. Alais, who followed me, and had kept silence throughout,
+thanked him also. Then M. le Marquis stood hesitating on the
+threshold, while I looked to see him hurry away. At last he turned to
+me. &quot;M. de Saux,&quot; he said, speaking with less aplomb than was usual
+with him--but we were all agitated--&quot;I should thank you also. But
+perhaps the situation in which we stand towards one another----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think nothing of that,&quot; I answered harshly. &quot;But that in which we
+have just stood----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah,&quot; he rejoined, shrugging his shoulders, &quot;if you take it that
+way----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do take it that way,&quot; I answered--the Captain's blood was not yet
+dry on the man's sword, and he spoke to me! &quot;I do take it that way.
+And I warn you, M. le Marquis,&quot; I continued sternly, &quot;that if you
+pursue your plan further, a plan that has already cost one brave man
+his life, it will recoil on yourselves, and that most terribly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At least I shall not ask you to shield me,&quot; he answered proudly. And
+he walked carelessly away, sheathing his sword as he went. The passage
+was still empty. There was no one to stop him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Louis followed him; Du Marc and the surgeon had already disappeared. I
+fancied that as Louis passed me he hung a moment on his heel; and that
+he would have spoken to me, would have caught my eye, would have taken
+my hand, had I given him an opening. But I saw before me Hugues' dead
+face and sunken eyes, and I set my own face like a stone, and turned
+away.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_13" href="#div1Ref_13">A LA LANTERNE.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">For, of all the things that had happened since I left the Committee
+Room, the Captain's death remained the one most real and most deeply
+bitten into my mind. He had shared with me the walk from the inn to
+the garden, and the petty annoyances that had then filled my thoughts.
+He had faced them with me, and bravely; and this late association, and
+the picture of him as he walked beside me, full of life and coarse
+wrath, rose up now and cried out against his death; cried out that it
+was impossible. So that it seemed horrible to me, and I shook with
+fear, and loathed the man whose hand had done it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nor was that all. I had known Hugues barely forty-eight hours, my
+liking for him was only an hour born; but I had his story. I could
+follow him going about to borrow the small sum of money he had
+possessed. I could trace the hopes he had built on it. I could see him
+coming here full of honest courage, believing that he had found an
+opening; a man strong, confident, looking forward, full of plans. And
+then of all, this was the end! He had hoped, he had purposed; and on
+the other side of the Cathedral, he lay stark--stark and dead on the
+grass.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed so sad and pitiful, I had the man so vividly in my mind,
+that I scarcely gave a thought to the St. Alais' danger and escape;
+that, and our hasty flight, had passed like a dream. I was content to
+listen a moment beside the church door; and then satisfied that the
+murmur of the crowd was dying in the distance, and that the city was
+quiet, I thanked the Vicar again, and warmly, and, taking leave of
+him, in my turn walked up the passage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was so still that it echoed my footsteps; and presently I began to
+think the silence odd. I began to wonder why the mob, which a few
+minutes before had shown itself so vindictive, had not found its way
+round; why the neighbourhood had become on a sudden so quiet. A few
+paces would show, however; I hastened on, and in a moment stood in the
+market-place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To my astonishment it lay sunny, tranquil, utterly deserted; a dog ran
+here and there with tail high, nosing among the garbage; a few old
+women were at the stalls on the farther side; about as many people
+were busy, putting up shutters and closing shops. But the crowd which
+had filled the place so short a time before, the <i>queue</i> about the
+corn measures, the white cockades, all were gone; I stood astonished.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment only, however. Then, in place of the silence which had
+prevailed between the high walls of the passage, a dull sound, distant
+and heavy, began to speak to me; a sullen roar, as of breakers falling
+on the beach. I started and listened. A moment more, and I was across
+the Square, and at the door of the inn. I darted into the passage, and
+up the stairs, my heart beating fast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here, too, I had left a crowd in the passages, and on the stairs. Not
+a man remained. The house seemed to be dead; at noon-day with the sun
+shining outside. I saw no one, heard no one, until I reached the door
+of the room in which I had left the Committee and entered. Here, at
+last, I found life; but the same silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Round the table were seated some dozen of the members of the
+Committee. On seeing me they started, like men detected in an act of
+which they were ashamed, some continuing to sit, sullen and scowling,
+with their elbows on the table, others stooping to their neighbours'
+ears to whisper, or listen. I noticed that many were pale and all
+gloomy; and though the room was light, and hot noon poured in through
+three windows, a something grim in the silence, and the air of
+expectation which prevailed, struck a chill to my heart.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Benôit was not of them, but Baton was, and the lawyer, and the
+grocer, and the two gentlemen, and one of the Curés, and Doury--the
+last-named pale and cringing, with fear sitting heavily on him. I
+might have thought, at a first glance round, that nothing which had
+happened outside was known to them; that they were ignorant alike of
+the duel and the riot; but a second glance assured me that they knew
+all, and more than I did; so many of them, when they had once met my
+eyes, looked away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What has happened?&quot; I asked, standing half-way between the door and
+the long table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't you know, Monsieur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I muttered, staring at them. Even here that distant murmur
+filled the air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you were at the duel, M. le Vicomte?&quot; The speaker was Buton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I said nervously. &quot;But what of that? I saw M. le Marquis safe
+on his way home, and I thought that the crowd had separated. Now--&quot;
+and I paused, listening.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You fancy that you still hear them?&quot; he said, eying me closely and
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; I fear that they are at mischief.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are afraid of that, too,&quot; the smith answered drily, setting his
+elbows on the table, and looking at me anew. &quot;It is not impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I understood. I caught Doury's eye--which would fain have escaped
+mine--and read it there. The hooting of the distant crowd rose more
+loudly on the summer stillness; as it did so, faces round the table
+grew graver, lips grew longer, some trembled and looked down; and I
+understood. &quot;My God!&quot; I cried in excitement, trembling myself. &quot;Is no
+one going to do anything, then? Are you going to sit here, while these
+demons work their will? While houses are sacked and women and
+children----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not?&quot; Buton said curtly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, why not?&quot; he answered sternly--and I began to see that he
+dominated the others; that he would not and they dared not. &quot;We went
+about to keep the peace, and see that others kept it. But your white
+cockades, your gentlemen bullies, your soldierless officers, M. le
+Vicomte--I speak without offence--would not have it. They undertook to
+bully us; and unless they learn a lesson now, they will bully us
+again. No, Monsieur,&quot; he continued, looking round with a hard
+smile--already power had changed him wondrously--&quot;let the people have
+their way for half an hour, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The people?&quot; I cried. &quot;Are the rascals and sweepings of the streets,
+the gaol-birds, the beggars and <i>forçats</i> of the town--are they the
+people?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No matter,&quot; he said frowning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But this is murder!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two or three shivered, and some looked sullenly from me, but the
+blacksmith only shrugged his shoulders. Still I did not despair, I was
+going to say more--to try threats, even prayers; but before I could
+speak, the man nearest to the windows raised his hand for silence, and
+we heard the distant riot sink, and in the momentary quiet which
+followed the sharp report of a gun ring out, succeeded by another and
+another. Then a roar of rage--distinct, articulate, full of menace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, <i>mon Dieu!</i>&quot; I cried, looking round, while I trembled with
+indignation, &quot;I cannot stand this! Will no one act? Will no one do
+anything? There must be some authority. There must be some one to curb
+this <i>canaille</i>; or presently, I warn you, I warn you all, that they
+will cut your throats also; yours, M. l'Avoué, and yours, Doury!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There was some one; and he is dead,&quot; Buton answered. The rest of the
+Committee fidgeted gloomily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And was he the only one?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They've killed him,&quot; the smith said bluntly. &quot;They must take the
+consequences.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They?&quot; I cried, in a passion of wrath and pity. &quot;Ay, and you! And
+you! I tell you that you are using this scum of the people to crush
+your enemies! But presently they will crush you too!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still no one spoke, no one answered me; no eyes met mine; then I saw
+how it was; that nothing I could say would move them; and I turned
+without another word, and I ran downstairs. I knew already, or could
+guess, whither the crowd had gone, and whence came the shouting and
+the shots; and the moment I reached the Square I turned in the
+direction of the St. Alais' house, and ran through the streets;
+through quiet streets under windows from which women looked down white
+and curious, past neat green blinds of modern houses, past a few
+staring groups; ran on, with all about me smiling, but always with
+that murmur in my ears, and at my heart grim fear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were sacking the St. Alais' house! And Mademoiselle! And Madame!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The thought of them came to me late; but having come it was not to be
+displaced. It gripped my heart and seemed to stop it. Had I saved
+Mademoiselle only for this? Had I risked all to save her from the
+frenzied peasants, only that she might fall into the more cruel hands
+of these maddened wretches, these sweepings of the city?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a dreadful thought; for I loved her, and knew, as I ran, that I
+loved her. Had I not known it I must have known it now, by the very
+measure of agony which the thought of that horror caused me. The
+distance from the Trois Rois to the house was barely four hundred
+yards, but it seemed infinite to me. It seemed an age before I stopped
+breathless and panting on the verge of the crowd, and strove to see,
+across the plain of heads, what was happening in front.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A moment, and I made out enough to relieve me; and I breathed more
+freely. The crowd had not yet won its will. It filled the street on
+either side of the St. Alais' house from wall to wall; but in front of
+the house itself, a space was still kept clear by the fire of those
+within. Now and again, a man or a knot of men would spring out of the
+ranks of the mob, and darting across this open space to the door,
+would strive to beat it in with axes and bars, and even with naked
+hands; but always there came a puff of smoke from the shuttered and
+loop-holed windows, and a second and a third, and the men fell back,
+or sank down on the stones, and lay bleeding in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a terrible sight. The wild beast rage of the mob, as they
+watched their leaders fall, yet dared not make the rush <i>en masse</i>
+which must carry the place, was enough, of itself, to appal the
+stoutest. But when to this and their fiendish cries were added other
+sounds as horrid--the screams of the wounded and the rattle of
+musketry--for some of the mob had arms, and were firing from
+neighbouring houses at the St. Alais' windows--the effect was
+appalling. I do not know why, but the sunshine, and the tall white
+houses which formed the street, and the very neatness of the
+surroundings, seemed to aggravate the bloodshed; so that for a while
+the whole, the writhing crowd, the open space with its wounded, the
+ugly cries and curses and shots, seemed unreal. I, who had come
+hot-foot to risk all, hesitated; if this was Cahors, if this was the
+quiet town I had known all my life, things had come to a pass indeed.
+If not, I was dreaming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this last was a thought too wild to be entertained for more than a
+few seconds; and with a groan I thrust myself into the press, bent
+desperately on getting through and reaching the open space; though
+what I should do when I got there, or how I could help, I had not
+considered. I had scarcely moved, however, when I felt my arm gripped,
+and some one clinging obstinately to me, held me back. I turned to
+resent the action with a blow,--I was beside myself; but the man was
+Father Benôit, and my hand fell. I caught hold of him with a cry of
+joy, and he drew me out of the press.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His face was pale and full of grief and consternation; yet by a
+wonderful chance I had found him, and I hoped. &quot;You can do something!&quot;
+I cried in his ear, gripping his hand hard. &quot;The Committee will not
+act, and this is murder! Murder, man! Do you see?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What can I do?&quot; he wailed; and he threw up his other hand with a
+gesture of despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Speak to them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Speak to them?&quot; he answered. &quot;Will mad dogs stand when you speak to
+them? Or will mad dogs listen? How can you get to them? Where can you
+speak to them? It is impossible. It is impossible, Monsieur. They
+would kill their fathers to-day, if they stood between them and
+vengeance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, what will you do?&quot; I cried passionately. &quot;What will you do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shook his head; and I saw that he meant nothing, that he could do
+nothing. And then my soul revolted. &quot;You must! You shall!&quot; I cried
+fiercely. &quot;You have raised this devil, and you must lay him! Are these
+the liberties about which you have talked to us? Are these the people
+for whom you have pleaded? Answer, answer me, what you will do!&quot; I
+cried. And I shook him furiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He covered his face with his hand. &quot;God forgive us!&quot; he said. &quot;God
+help us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked at him for the first and only time in my life with
+contempt--with rage. &quot;God help you?&quot; I cried--I was beside myself.
+&quot;God helps those who help themselves! You have brought this about!
+You! You! You have preached this! Now mend it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He trembled, and was silent. Unsupported by the passion which animated
+me, in face of the brute rage of the people, his courage sank.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now mend it!&quot; I repeated furiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot get to them,&quot; he muttered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I will make a way for you!&quot; I answered madly, recklessly.
+&quot;Follow me! Do you hear that noise? Well, we will play a part in it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A dozen guns had gone off, almost in a volley. We could not see the
+result, nor what was passing; but the hoarse roar of the mob
+intoxicated me. I cried to him to follow, and rushed into the press.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Again he caught and stayed me, clinging to me with a stubbornness
+which would not be denied. &quot;If you will go, go through the houses! Go
+through the opposite houses!&quot; he muttered in my ear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had sense enough, when he had spoken twice, to understand him and
+comply. I let him lead me aside, and in a moment we were out of the
+press, and hurrying through an alley at the back of the houses that
+faced the St. Alais' mansion. We were not the first to go that way;
+some of the more active of the rioters had caught the idea before us,
+and gone by this path to the windows, whence they were firing. We
+found two or three of the doors open, therefore, and heard the excited
+cries and curses of the men who had taken possession. However, we did
+not go far. I chose the first door, and, passing quickly by a huddled,
+panic-stricken group of women and children--probably the occupants of
+the house--who were clustered about it, I went straight through to the
+street door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two or three ruffianly men with smoke-grimed faces were firing through
+a window on the ground floor, and one of these, looking behind him as
+I passed, saw me. He called to me to stop, adding with an oath that if
+I went into the street I should be shot by the aristocrats. But in my
+excitement I took no heed; in a second I had the door open, and was
+standing in the street--alone in the sunny, cleared space. On either
+side of me, fifty paces distant, were the close ranks of the mob; in
+front of me rose the white blind face of the St. Alais' house, from
+which, even as I appeared, there came a little spit of smoke and the
+bang of a musket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The crowd, astonished to see me there alone and standing still, fell
+silent, and I held up my hand. A gun went off above my head, and
+another; and a splinter flew from one of the green shutters opposite.
+Then a voice from the crowd cried out to cease firing; and for a
+moment all was still. I stood in the midst of a hot breathless hush,
+my hand raised. It was my opportunity--I had got it by a miracle; but
+for a moment I was silent, I could find no words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last, as a low murmur began to make itself heard, I spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Men of Cahors!&quot; I cried. &quot;In the name of the Tricolour, stand!&quot; And
+trembling with agitation, acting on the impulse of the instant, I
+walked slowly across the street to the door of the besieged house, and
+under the eyes of all I took the Tricolour from my bosom, and hung it
+on the knocker of the door. Then I turned. &quot;I take possession,&quot; I
+cried hoarsely, at the top of my voice, that all might hear, &quot;I take
+possession of this house and all that are in it in the name of the
+Tricolour, and the Nation, and the Committee of Cahors. Those within
+shall be tried, and justice done upon them. But for you, I call upon
+you to depart, and go to your homes in peace, and the Committee----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I got no farther. With the word a shot whizzed by my ear, and struck
+the plaster from the wall; and then, as if the sound released all the
+passions of the people, a roar of indignation shook the air. They
+hissed and swore at me, yelled &quot;<i>A la lanterne!</i>&quot; and &quot;<i>A bas le
+traître!</i>&quot; and in an instant burst their bounds. As if invisible
+floodgates gave way, the mob on either side rushed suddenly forward,
+and, rolling towards the door in a solid mass, were in an instant upon
+me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I expected that I should be torn to pieces, but instead I was only
+buffeted and flung aside and forgotten, and in a moment was lost in
+the struggling, writhing mass of men, who flung themselves pell-mell
+upon the door, and fell over one another, and wounded one another in
+the fury with which they attacked it. Men, injured earlier, were
+trodden under foot now; but no one stayed for their cries. Twice a gun
+was fired from the house, and each shot took effect; but the press was
+so great, and the fury of the assailants, as they swarmed about the
+door, so blind, that those who were hit sank down unobserved, and
+perished under their comrades' feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Thrust against the iron railings that flanked the door, I clung to
+them, and protected from the pressure by a pillar of the porch,
+managed with some difficulty to keep my place. I could not move,
+however; I had to stand there while the crowd swayed round me, and I
+waited in dizzy, sickening horror for the crisis. It came at last. The
+panels of the door, riven and shattered, gave way; the foremost
+assailants sprang at the gap. Yet still the frame, held by one hinge,
+stood, and kept them out. As that yielded at length under their blows,
+and the door fell inward with a crash, I flung myself into the stream,
+and was carried into the house among the foremost, fortunately--for
+several fell--on my feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had the thought that I might outpace the others, and, getting first
+to the rooms upstairs, might at least fight for Mademoiselle if I
+could not save her. For I had caught the infection of the mob, my
+blood was on fire. There was no one in all the crowd more set to kill
+than I was. I raced in, therefore, with the rest; but when I reached
+the foot of the stairs I saw, and they saw, that which stopped us all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was M. de Gontaut, lifted, in that moment of extreme danger, above
+himself. He stood alone on the stairs, looking down on the invaders,
+and smiling--smiling, with everything of senility and frivolity gone
+from his face, and only the courage of his caste left. He saw his
+world tottering, the scum and rabble overwhelming it, everything which
+he had loved, and in which he had lived, passing; he saw death waiting
+for him seven steps below, and he smiled. With his slender sword
+hanging at his wrist, he tapped his snuff-box and looked down at us;
+no longer garrulous, feeble, almost--with his stories of stale
+intrigues and his pagan creed--contemptible; but steady and proud,
+with eyes that gleamed with defiance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, dogs,&quot; he said, &quot;will you earn the gallows?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a second no one moved. For a second the old noble's presence and
+fearlessness imposed on the vilest; and they stared at him, cowed by
+his eye. Then he stirred. With a quiet gesture, as of a man saluting
+before a duel, he caught up the hilt of his sword, and presented the
+lower point. &quot;Well,&quot; he said with bitter scorn in his tone, &quot;you have
+come to do it. Which of you will go to hell for the rest? For I shall
+take one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That broke the spell. With a howl, a dozen ruffians sprang up the
+stairs. I saw the bright steel flash once, twice; and one reeled back,
+and rolled down under his fellows' feet. Then a great bar swept up and
+fell on the smiling face, and the old noble dropped without a cry or a
+groan, under a storm of blows that in a moment beat the life out of
+his body.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was over in a moment, and before I could interfere. The next, a
+score of men leaped over the corpse and up the stairs, with horrid
+cries--I after them. To the right and left were locked doors, with
+panels Wätteau-painted; they dashed these in with brutal shouts, and,
+in a twinkling, flooded the splendid rooms, sweeping away, and
+breaking, and flinging down in wanton mischief, everything that came
+to hand--vases, statues, glasses, miniatures. With shrieks of triumph,
+they filled the <i>salon</i> that had known for generations only the graces
+and beauty of life; and clattered over the shining parquets that had
+been swept so long by the skirts of fair women. Everything they could
+not understand was snatched up and dashed down; in a moment the great
+Venetian mirrors were shattered, the pictures pierced and torn, the
+books flung through the windows into the street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had a glimpse of the scene as I paused on the landing. But a glance
+sufficed to convince me that the fugitives were not in these rooms,
+and I sprang on, and up the next flight. Here, short as had been my
+delay, I found others before me. As I turned the corner of the stairs
+I came on three men, listening at a door; before I could reach them
+one rose. &quot;Here they are!&quot; he cried. &quot;That is a woman's voice! Stand
+back!&quot; And he lifted a crowbar to beat in the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hold!&quot; I cried in a voice that shook him, and made him lower his
+weapon. &quot;Hold! In the name of the Committee, I command you to leave
+that door. The rest of the house is yours. Go and plunder it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The men glared at me. &quot;<i>Sacré ventre!</i>&quot; one of them hissed. &quot;Who are
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Committee!&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He cursed me, and raised his hand. &quot;Stand back!&quot; I cried furiously,
+&quot;or you shall hang!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ho! ho! An aristocrat!&quot; he retorted; and he raised his voice. &quot;This
+way, friends--this way! An aristocrat! An aristocrat!&quot; he cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the word a score of his fellows came swarming up the stairs. I saw
+myself in an instant surrounded by grimy, pocked faces and scowling
+eyes,--by haggard creatures sprung from the sewers of the town.
+Another second and they would have laid hands on me; but desperate and
+full of rage I rushed instead on the man with the bar, and, snatching
+it from him before he guessed my intention, in a twinkling laid him at
+my feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the act, however, I lost my balance, and stumbled. Before I could
+recover myself one of his comrades struck me on the head with his
+wooden shoe. The blow partially stunned me; still I got to my feet
+again and hit out wildly, and drove them back, and for a moment
+cleared the landing round me. But I was dizzy; I saw all now through a
+red haze, the figures danced before me; I could no longer think or
+aim, but only hear taunts and jeers on every side. Some one plucked my
+coat. I turned blindly. In a moment another struck me a crushing
+blow--how, or with what, I never knew--and I fell senseless and as
+good as dead.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_14" href="#div1Ref_14">IT GOES ILL.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It was August, and the leaves of the chestnuts were still green, when
+they sacked the St. Alais' house at Cahors, and I fell senseless on
+the stairs. The ash trees were bare, and the oaks clad only in russet,
+when I began to know things again; and, looking sideways from my
+pillow into the grey autumnal world, took up afresh the task of
+living. Even then many days had to elapse before I ceased to be merely
+an animal--content to eat, and drink, and sleep, and take Father
+Benôit kneeling by my bed for one of the permanent facts of life. But
+the time did come at last, in late November, when the mind awoke, as
+those who watched by me had never thought to see it awake; and,
+meeting the good Curé's eyes with my eyes, I saw him turn away and
+break into joyful weeping.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A week from that time I knew all--the story, public and private, of
+that wonderful autumn, during which I had lain like a log in my bed.
+At first, avoiding topics that touched me too nearly, Father Benôit
+told me of Paris; of the ten weeks of suspicion and suspense which
+followed the Bastille riots--weeks during which the Fauxbourgs,
+scantly checked by Lafayette and his National Guards, kept jealous
+watch on Versailles, where the Assembly sat in attendance on the King;
+of the scarcity which prevailed through this trying time, and the
+constant rumours of an attack by the Court; of the Queen's unfortunate
+banquet, which proved to be the spark that fired the mine; last of
+all, of the great march of the women to Versailles, on the 5th of
+October, which, by forcing the King and the Assembly to Paris, and
+making the King a prisoner in his own palace, put an end to this
+period of uncertainty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And since then?&quot; I said in feeble amazement. &quot;This is the 20th of
+November, you tell me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing has happened,&quot; he answered, &quot;except signs and symptoms.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And those?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shook his head gravely. &quot;Every one is enrolled in the National
+Guards--that, for one. Here in Quercy, the corps which M. Hugues took
+it in hand to form numbers some thousands. Every one is armed,
+therefore. Then, the game laws being abolished, every one is a
+sportsman. And so many nobles have emigrated, that either there are no
+nobles or all are nobles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But who governs?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Municipalities. Or, where there are none, Committees.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I could not help smiling. &quot;And your Committee, M. le Curé?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not attend it,&quot; he answered, wincing visibly. &quot;To be plain, they
+go too fast for me. But I have worse yet to tell you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On the Fourth of August the Assembly abolished the tithes of the
+Church; early in this month they proposed to confiscate the estates of
+the Church! By this time it is probably done.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What! And the clergy are to starve?&quot; I cried in indignation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not quite,&quot; he answered, smiling sadly. &quot;They are to be paid by the
+State--as long as they please the State!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He went soon after he had told me that; and I lay in amazement,
+looking through the window, and striving to picture the changed world
+that existed round me. Presently André came in with my broth. I
+thought it weak, and said so; the strong gust of outside life, which
+the news had brought into my chamber, had roused my appetite, and
+given me a distaste for <i>tisanes</i> and slops.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the old fellow took the complaint very ill. &quot;Well,&quot; he grumbled,
+&quot;and what else is to be expected, Monsieur? With little rent paid,
+and half the pigeons in the cot slaughtered, and scarcely a hare left
+in the country side? With all the world shooting and snaring, and
+smiths and tailors cocked up on horses--ay, and with swords by their
+sides--and the gentry gone, or hiding their heads in beds, it is a
+small thing if the broth is weak! If M. le Vicomte liked strong broth,
+he should have been wise enough to keep the cow himself, and not----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tut, tut, man!&quot; I said, wincing in my turn. &quot;What of Buton?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur means M. le Capitaine Buton?&quot; the old man answered with a
+sneer. &quot;He is at Cahors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And was any one punished for--for the affair at St. Alais?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No one is punished now-a-days,&quot; André replied tartly. &quot;Except
+sometimes a miller, who is hung because corn is dear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then even Petit Jean----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Petit Jean went to Paris. Doubtless he is now a Major or a Colonel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With this shot the old man left me--left me writhing. For through all
+I had not dared to ask the one thing I wished to know; the one thing
+that, as my strength increased, had grown with it, from a vague
+apprehension of evil, which the mind, when bidden do its duty, failed
+to grasp, to a dreadful anxiety only too well understood and defined;
+a brooding fear that weighed upon me like an evil dream, and in spite
+of youth sapped my life, and retarded my recovery.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have read that a fever sometimes burns out love; and that a man
+rises cured not only of his illness, but of the passion which consumed
+him, when he succumbed to it. But this was not my fate; from the
+moment when that dull anxiety about I knew not what took shape and
+form, and I saw on the green curtains of my bed a pale child's face--a
+face that now wept and now gazed at me in sad appeal--from that moment
+Mademoiselle was never out of my waking mind for an hour. God knows,
+if any thought of me on her part, if any silent cry of her heart to me
+in her troubles, had to do with this; but it was the case.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However, on the next day the fear and the weight were removed. I
+suppose that Father Benôit had made up his mind to broach the subject,
+which hitherto he had shunned with care; for his first question, after
+he had learned how I did, brought it up. &quot;You have never asked what
+happened after you were injured, M. le Vicomte?&quot; he said with a little
+hesitation. &quot;Do you remember?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I remember all,&quot; I said with a groan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He drew a breath of relief. I think he had feared that there was still
+something amiss with the brain. &quot;And yet you have never asked?&quot; he
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Man! cannot you understand why--why I have not asked?&quot; I cried
+hoarsely, rising, and sinking back in my seat in uncontrollable
+agitation. &quot;Cannot you understand that until I asked I had hope? But
+now, torture me no longer! Tell me, tell me all, man, and then----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is nothing but good to tell,&quot; he answered cheerfully,
+endeavouring to dispel my fears at the first word. &quot;You know the
+worst. Poor M. de Gontaut was killed on the stairs. He was too infirm
+to flee. The rest, to the meanest servant, got away over the roofs of
+the neighbouring houses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And escaped?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes. The town was in an uproar for many hours, but they were well
+hidden. I believe that they have left the country.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You do not know where they are, then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he answered, &quot;I never saw any of them after the outbreak. But I
+heard of them being in this or that château--at the Harincourts', and
+elsewhere. Then the Harincourts left--about the middle of October, and
+I think that M. de St. Alais and his family went with them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I lay for a while too full of thankfulness to speak. Then, &quot;And you
+know nothing more?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nothing,&quot; the Curé answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that was enough for me. When he came again I was able to walk with
+him on the terrace, and after that I gained strength rapidly. I
+remarked, however, that as my spirits rose, with air and exercise, the
+good priest's declined. His kind, sensitive face grew day by day more
+sombre, his fits of silence longer. When I asked him the reason, &quot;It
+goes ill, it goes ill,&quot; he said. &quot;And, God forgive me, I had to do
+with it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who had not?&quot; I said soberly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I should have foreseen!&quot; he answered, wringing his hands openly.
+&quot;I should have known that God's first gift to man was Order. Order,
+and to-day, in Cahors, there is no tribunal, or none that acts: the
+old magistrates are afraid, and the old laws are spurned, and no man
+can even recover a debt! Order, and the worst thing a criminal, thrown
+into prison, has now to fear is that he may be forgotten. Order, and I
+see arms everywhere, and men who cannot read teaching those who can,
+and men who pay no taxes disposing of the money of those who do! I see
+famine in the town, and the farmers and the peasants killing game or
+folding their hands; for who will work when the future is uncertain? I
+see the houses of the rich empty, and their servants starving; I see
+all trade, all commerce, all buying and selling, except of the barest
+necessaries, at an end! I see all these things, M. le Vicomte, and
+shall I not say, '<i>Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa</i>'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But liberty,&quot; I said feebly. &quot;You once said yourself that a certain
+price must----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is liberty licence to do wrong?&quot; he answered with passion--seldom had
+I seen him so moved. &quot;Is liberty licence to rob and blaspheme, and
+move your neighbour's landmark? Does tyranny cease to be tyranny, when
+the tyrants are no longer one, but a thousand? M. le Vicomte, I know
+not what to do, I know not what to do,&quot; he continued. &quot;For a little I
+would go out into the world, and at all costs unsay what I have said,
+undo what I have done! I would! I would indeed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Something more has happened?&quot; I said, startled by this outbreak.
+&quot;Something I have not heard?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Assembly took away our tithes and our estates!&quot; he answered
+bitterly. &quot;That you know. They denied our existence as a Church. That
+you know. They have now decreed the suppression of all religious
+houses. Presently they will close also our churches and cathedrals.
+And we shall be pagans!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Impossible!&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it is true.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The suppression, yes. But for the churches and cathedrals----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not?&quot; he answered despondently. &quot;God knows there is little faith
+abroad. I fear it will come. I see it coming. The greater need--that
+we who believe should testify.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I did not quite understand at the time what he meant or would be at,
+or what he had in his mind; but I saw that his scrupulous nature was
+tormented by the thought that he had hastened the catastrophe; and I
+felt uneasy when he did not appear next day at his usual time for
+visiting me. On the following day he came; but was downcast and
+taciturn, taking leave of me when he went with a sad kindness that
+almost made me call him back. The next day again he did not appear;
+nor the day after that. Then I sent for him, but too late; I sent,
+only to learn from his old housekeeper that he had left home suddenly,
+after arranging with a neighbouring curé to have his duties performed
+for a month.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was able by this time to go abroad a little, and I walked down to
+his cottage; I could learn no more there, however, than that a
+Capuchin monk had been his guest for two nights, and that M. le Curé
+had left for Cahors a few hours after the monk. That was all; I
+returned depressed and dissatisfied. Such villagers as I met by the
+way greeted me with respect, and even with sympathy--it was the first
+time I had gone into the hamlet; but the shadow of suspicion which I
+had detected on their faces some months before had grown deeper and
+darker with time. They no longer knew with certainty their places or
+mine, their rights or mine; and shy of me and doubtful of themselves,
+were glad to part from me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Near the gates of the avenue I met a man whom I knew; a wine-dealer
+from Aulnoy. I stayed to ask him if the family were at home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked at me in surprise. &quot;No, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said. &quot;They left
+the country some weeks ago--after the King was persuaded to go to
+Paris.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And M. le Baron?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For Paris?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man, a respectable bourgeois, grinned at me. &quot;No, Monsieur, I
+fancy not,&quot; he said. &quot;You know best, M. le Vicomte; but if I said
+Turin, I doubt I should be little out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have been ill,&quot; I said. &quot;And have heard nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You should go into Cahors,&quot; he answered; with rough good-nature.
+&quot;Most of the gentry are there--if they have not gone farther. It is
+safer than the country in these days. Ah, if my father had lived to
+see----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not finish the sentence in words, but raised his eyebrows and
+shoulders, saluted me, and rode away. In spite of his surprise it was
+easy to see that the change pleased him, though he veiled his
+satisfaction out of civility.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I walked home feeling lonely and depressed. The tall stone house, the
+seigneurial tower and turret and dovecot, stripped of the veil of
+foliage that in summer softened their outlines, stood up bare and
+gaunt at the end of the avenue; and seemed in some strange way to
+share my loneliness and to speak to me of evil days on which we had
+alike fallen. In losing Father Benôit I had lost my only chance of
+society just when, with returning strength, the desire for
+companionship and a more active life was awakening. I thought of this
+gloomily; and then was delighted to see, as I approached the door, a
+horse tethered to the ring beside it. There were holsters on the
+saddle, and the girths were splashed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">André was in the hall, but to my surprise, instead of informing me
+that there was a visitor, he went on dusting a table, with his back to
+me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is here?&quot; I said sharply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No one,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No one? Then whose is that horse?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The smith's, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What? Buton's?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, Buton's! It is a new thing hanging it at the front door,&quot; he
+added, with a sneer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what is he doing? Where is he?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is where he ought to be; and that is at the stables,&quot; the old
+fellow answered doggedly. &quot;I'll be bound that it is the first piece of
+honest work he has done for many a day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is he shoeing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not? Does Monsieur want him to dine with him?&quot; was the
+ill-tempered retort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I took no notice of this, but went to the stables. I could hear the
+bellows heaving; and turning the corner of the building I came on
+Buton at work in the forge with two of his men. The smith was stripped
+to his shirt, and with his great leather apron round him, and his
+bare, blackened arms, looked like the Buton of six months ago. But
+outside the forge lay a little heap of clothes neatly folded, a blue
+coat with red facings, a long blue waistcoat, and a hat with a huge
+tricolour; and as he released the horse's hoof on which he was at
+work, and straightened himself to salute me, he looked at me with a
+new look, that was something between appeal and defiance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tut, tut!&quot; I said, fleering at him. &quot;This is too great an honour, M.
+le Capitaine! To be shod by a member of the Committee!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has M. le Vicomte anything of which to complain?&quot; he said, reddening
+under the deep tan of his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I? No, indeed. I am only overwhelmed by the honour you do me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have been here to shoe once a month,&quot; he persisted stubbornly.
+&quot;Does Monsieur complain that the horses have suffered?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No. But----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Has M. le Vicomte's house suffered? Has so much as a stack of his
+corn been burned, or a colt taken from the fields, or an egg from the
+nest?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Buton nodded gloomily. &quot;Then if Monsieur has no fault to find,&quot; he
+replied, &quot;perhaps he will let me finish my work. Afterwards I will
+deliver a message I have for him. But it is for his ear, and the
+forge----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is not the place for secrets, though the smith is the man!&quot; I
+answered, with a parting gibe, fired over my shoulders. &quot;Well, come to
+me on the terrace when you have finished.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He came an hour later, looking hugely clumsy in his fine clothes; and
+with a sword--heaven save us!--a sword by his side. Presently the
+murder came out; he was the bearer of a commission appointing me
+Lieutenant-Colonel in the National Guard of the Province. &quot;It was
+given at my request,&quot; he said, with awkward pride. &quot;There were some,
+M. le Vicomte, who thought that you had not behaved altogether well in
+the matter of the riot, but I rattled their heads together. Besides I
+said, 'No Lieutenant-Colonel, no Captain!' and they cannot do without
+me. I keep this side quiet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What a position it was! Ah, what a position it was! And how for a
+moment the absurdity of it warred in my mind with the humiliation! Six
+months before I should have torn up the paper in a fury, and flung it
+in his face, and beaten him out of my presence with my cane. But much
+had happened since then; even the temptation to break into laughter,
+into peal upon peal of gloomy merriment, was not now invincible. I
+overcame it by an effort, partly out of prudence, partly from a
+better motive--a sense of the man's rough fidelity amid circumstances,
+and in face of anomalies, the most trying. I thanked him instead,
+therefore--though I almost choked; and I said I would write to the
+Committee.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still he lingered, rubbing one great foot against another; and I
+waited with mock politeness to hear his business. At length, &quot;There is
+another thing I wish to say, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he growled. &quot;M. le Curé
+has left Saux.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, he is a good man; or he was a good man,&quot; he continued
+grudgingly. &quot;But he is running into trouble, and you would do well to
+let him know that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; I said. &quot;Do you know where he is?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can guess,&quot; he answered. &quot;And where others are, too; and where
+there will presently be trouble. These Capuchin monks are not about
+the country for nothing. When the crows fly home there will be
+trouble. And I do not want him to be in it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have not the least idea where he is,&quot; I said coldly. &quot;Nor what you
+mean.&quot; The smith's tone had changed and grown savage and churlish.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has gone to Nîmes,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To Nîmes?&quot; I cried in astonishment. &quot;How do you know? It is more than
+I know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do know,&quot; he answered. &quot;And what is brewing there. And so do a
+great many more. But this time the St. Alais and their bullies, M. le
+Vicomte--ay, they are all there--will not escape us. We will break
+their necks. Yes, M. le Vicomte, make no mistake,&quot; he continued,
+glaring at me, his eyes red with suspicion and anger, &quot;mix yourselves
+up with none of this. We are the people! The people! Woe to the man or
+thing that stands in our way!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Go!&quot; I said. &quot;I have heard enough. Begone!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked at me a moment as if he would answer me. But old habits
+overcame him, and with a sullen word of farewell he turned, and went
+round the house. A minute later I heard his horse trot down the
+avenue.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had cut him short; nevertheless the instant he was gone I wished him
+back, that I might ask him more. The St. Alais at Nîmes? Father Benôit
+at Nîmes? And a plot brewing there in which all had a hand? In a
+moment the news opened a window, as it were, into a wider world,
+through which I looked, and no longer felt myself shut in by the
+lonely country round me and the lack of society. I looked and saw the
+great white dusty city of the south, and trouble rising in it, and in
+the middle of the trouble, looking at me wistfully, Denise de St.
+Alais.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Benôit had gone thither. Why might not I?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I walked up and down in a flutter of spirits, and the longer I
+considered it, the more I liked it; the longer I thought of the dull
+inaction in which I must spend my time at home, unless I consented to
+rub shoulders with Buton and his like, the more taken I was with the
+idea of leaving.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And after all why not? Why should I not go?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had my commission in my pocket, wherein I was not only appointed to
+the National Guards, but described as <i>ci-devant</i> &quot;President of the
+Council of Public Safety in the Province of Quercy&quot;; and this taking
+the place of papers or passport would render travelling easy. My long
+illness would serve as an excuse for a change of air; and explain my
+absence from home; I had in the house as much money as I needed. In a
+word, I could see no difficulty, and nothing to hinder me, if I chose
+to go. I had only to please myself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So the choice was soon made. The following day I mounted a horse for
+the first time, and rode two-thirds of a league on the road, and home
+again very tired.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next morning I rode to St. Alais, and viewed the ruins of the house
+and returned; this time I was less fatigued.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then on the following day, Sunday, I rested; and on the Monday I rode
+half-way to Cahors and back again. That evening I cleaned my pistols
+and overlooked Gil while he packed my saddle-bags, choosing two plain
+suits, one to pack and one to wear, and a hat with a small tricolour
+rosette. On the following morning, the 6th of March, I took the road;
+and parting from André on the outskirts of the village, turned my
+horse's head towards Figeac with a sense of freedom, of escape from
+difficulties and embarrassments, of hope and anticipation, that made
+that first hour delicious; and that still supported me when the March
+day began to give place to the chill darkness of evening--evening that
+in an unknown, untried place is always sombre and melancholy.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_15" href="#div1Ref_15">AT MILHAU.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">I met with many strange things on that journey. I found it strange to
+see, as I went, armed peasants in the fields; to light in each village
+on men drilling; to enter inns and find half a dozen rustics seated
+round a table with glasses and wine, and perhaps an inkpot before
+them, and to learn that they called themselves a Committee. But
+towards evening of the third day I saw a stranger thing than any of
+these. I was beginning to mount the valley of the Tarn which runs up
+into the Cevennes at Milhau; a north wind was blowing, the sky was
+overcast, the landscape grey and bare; a league before me masses of
+mountain stood up gloomily blue. On a sudden, as I walked wearily
+beside my horse, I heard voices singing in chorus; and looked about
+me. The sound, clear and sweet as fairy's music, seemed to rise from
+the earth at my feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A few yards farther, and the mystery explained itself. I found myself
+on the verge of a little dip in the ground, and saw below me the roofs
+of a hamlet, and on the hither side of it a crowd of a hundred or
+more, men and women. They were dancing and singing round a great tree,
+leafless, but decked with flags: a few old people sat about the roots
+inside the circle, and but for the cold weather and the bleak outlook,
+I might have thought that I had come on a May-day festival.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My appearance checked the singing for a moment; then two elderly
+peasants made their way through the ring and came to meet me, walking
+hand in hand. &quot;Welcome to Vlais and Giron!&quot; cried one. &quot;Welcome to
+Giron and Vlais!&quot; cried the other. And then, before I could answer,
+&quot;You come on a happy day,&quot; cried both together.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I could not help smiling. &quot;I am glad of that,&quot; I said. &quot;May I ask what
+is the reason of your meeting?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Communes of Giron and Vlais, of Vlais and Giron,&quot; they answered,
+speaking alternately, &quot;are today one. To-day, Monsieur, old boundaries
+disappear; old feuds die. The noble heart of Giron, the noble heart of
+Vlais, beat as one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I could scarcely refrain from laughing at their simplicity;
+fortunately, at that moment, the circle round the tree resumed their
+song and dance, which had even in that weather a pretty effect, as of
+a Watteau <i>fête</i>. I congratulated the two peasants on the sight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Monsieur, this is nothing,&quot; one of them answered with perfect
+gravity. &quot;It is not only that the boundaries of communes are
+disappearing; those of provinces are of the past also. At Valence,
+beyond the mountains, the two banks of the Rhone have clasped hands
+and sworn eternal amity. Henceforth all Frenchmen are brothers; all
+Frenchmen are of all provinces!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is a fine idea,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No son of France will again shed French blood!&quot; he continued.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So be it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Catholic and Protestant, Protestant and Catholic will live at peace!
+There will be no law-suits. Grain will circulate freely, unchecked by
+toils or dues. All will be free, Monsieur. All will be rich.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They said more in the same sanguine simple tone, and with the same
+naïve confidence; but my thoughts strayed from them, attracted by a
+man, who, seated among the peasants at the foot of the tree, seemed to
+my eyes to be of another class. Tall and lean, with lank black hair,
+and features of a stern, sour cast, he had nothing of outward show to
+distinguish him from those round him. His dress, a rough hunting suit,
+was old and patched; the spurs on his brown, mud-stained boots were
+rusty and bent. Yet his carriage possessed an ease the others lacked;
+and in the way he watched the circling rustics I read a quiet scorn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I did not notice that he heeded or returned my gaze, but I had not
+gone on my way a hundred paces, after taking leave of the two mayors
+and the revellers, before I heard a step, and looking round, saw the
+stranger coming after me. He beckoned, and I waited until he overtook
+me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are going to Milhau?&quot; he said, speaking abruptly, and with a
+strong country accent; yet in the tone of one addressing an equal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur,&quot; I said. &quot;But I doubt if I shall reach the town
+to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am going also,&quot; he answered. &quot;My horse is in the village.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And without saying more he walked beside me until we reached the
+hamlet. There--the place was deserted--he brought from an outhouse a
+sorry mare, and mounted. &quot;What do you think of that rubbish?&quot; he said
+suddenly as we took the road again. I had watched his proceedings in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I fear that they expect too much,&quot; I answered guardedly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He laughed; a horse-laugh full of scorn. &quot;They think that the
+millennium has come,&quot; he said. &quot;And in a month they will find their
+barns burned and their throats cut.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope not,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I hope not,&quot; he answered cynically. &quot;I hope not, of course. But
+even so <i>Vive la Nation! Vive la Revolution!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What? If that be its fruit?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, why not?&quot; he answered, his gloomy eyes fixed on me. &quot;It is every
+one for himself, and what has the old rule done for me that I should
+fear to try the new? Left me to starve on an old rock and a dovecot;
+sheltered by bare stones, and eating out of a black pot! While women
+and bankers, scented fops and lazy priests prick it before the King!
+And why? Because I remain, sir, what half the nation once were.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A Protestant?&quot; I hazarded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur. And a poor noble,&quot; he answered bitterly. &quot;The Baron de
+Géol, at your service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I gave him my name in return.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You wear the tricolour,&quot; he said; &quot;yet you think me extreme? I
+answer, that that is all very well for you; but we are different
+people. You are doubtless a family man, M. le Vicomte, with a
+wife----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On the contrary, M. le Baron.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then a mother, a sister?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I said, smiling. &quot;I have neither. I am quite alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At least with a home,&quot; he persisted, &quot;means, friends, employment, or
+the chance of employment?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I said, &quot;that is so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whereas I--I,&quot; he answered, growing guttural in his excitement,
+&quot;have none of these things. I cannot enter the army--I am a
+Protestant! I am shut off from the service of the State--I am a
+Protestant! I cannot be a lawyer or a judge--I am a Protestant! The
+King's schools are closed to me--I am a Protestant! I cannot appear at
+Court--I am a Protestant! I--in the eyes of the law I do not exist!
+I--I, Monsieur,&quot; he continued more slowly, and with an air not devoid
+of dignity, &quot;whose ancestors stood before Kings, and whose
+grandfather's great-grandfather saved the fourth Henry's life at
+Coutras--I do not exist!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But now?&quot; I said, startled by his tone of passion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, now,&quot; he answered grimly, &quot;it is going to be different. Now, it
+is going to be otherwise, unless these black crows of priests put the
+clock back again. That is why I am on the road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are going to Milhau?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I live near Milhau,&quot; he answered. &quot;And I have been from home. But I
+am not going home now. I am going farther--to Nîmes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To Nîmes?&quot; I said in surprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he said. And he looked at me askance and a trifle grimly, and
+did not say any more. By this time it was growing dark; the valley of
+the Tarn, along which our road lay, though fertile and pleasant to the
+eye in summer, wore at this season, and in the half-light, a savage
+and rugged aspect. Mountains towered on either side; and sometimes,
+where the road drew near the river, the rushing of the water as it
+swirled and eddied among the rocks below us, added its note of
+melancholy to the scene. I shivered. The uncertainty of my quest, the
+uncertainty of everything, the gloom of my companion, pressed upon me.
+I was glad when he roused himself from his brooding, and pointed to
+the lights of Milhau glimmering here and there on a little plain,
+where the mountains recede from the river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are doubtless going to the inn?&quot; he said, as we entered the
+outskirts. I assented. &quot;Then we part here,&quot; he continued. &quot;To-morrow,
+if you are going to Nîmes---- But you may prefer to travel alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Far from it,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I shall be leaving the east gate--about eight o'clock,&quot; he
+answered grudgingly. &quot;Good-night, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I bade him good-night, and leaving him there, rode into the town:
+passing through narrow, mean streets, and under dark archways and
+hanging lanterns, that swung and creaked in the wind, and did
+everything but light the squalid obscurity. Though night had fallen,
+people were moving briskly to and fro, or standing at their doors; the
+place, after the solitude through which I had ridden, had the air of a
+city; and presently I became aware that a little crowd was following
+my horse. Before I reached the inn, which stood in a dimly-lit square,
+the crowd had grown into a great one, and was beginning to press upon
+me; some who marched nearest to me staring up inquisitively into my
+face, while others, farther off, called to their neighbours, or to dim
+forms seen at basement windows, that it was he!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I found this somewhat alarming. Still they did not molest me; but when
+I halted they halted too, and I was forced to dismount almost in their
+arms. &quot;Is this the inn?&quot; I said to those nearest tome; striving to
+appear at my ease.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes! yes!&quot; they cried with one voice, &quot;that is the inn!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My horse----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We will take the horse! Enter! Enter!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had little choice, they flocked so closely round me; and, affecting
+carelessness, I complied, thinking that they would not follow, and
+that inside I should learn the meaning of their conduct. But the
+moment my back was turned they pressed in after me and beside me, and,
+almost sweeping me off my feet, urged me along the narrow passage of
+the house, whether I would or no. I tried to turn and remonstrate; but
+the foremost drowned my words in loud cries for &quot;M. Flandre! M.
+Flandre!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fortunately the person addressed was not far off. A door towards which
+I was being urged opened, and he appeared. He proved to be an
+immensely stout man, with a face to match his body; and he gazed at us
+for a moment, astounded by the invasion. Then he asked angrily what
+was the matter. &quot;<i>Ventre de Ciel!</i>&quot; he cried. &quot;Is this my house or
+yours, rascals? Who is this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Capuchin! The Capuchin!&quot; cried a dozen voices.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ho! ho!&quot; he answered, before I could speak. &quot;Bring a light.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two or three bare-armed women whom the noise had brought to the door
+of the kitchen fetched candles, and raising them above their heads
+gazed at me curiously. &quot;Ho! ho!&quot; he said again. &quot;The Capuchin is it?
+So you have got him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do I look like one?&quot; I cried angrily, thrusting back those who
+pressed on me most closely. &quot;<i>Nom de Dieu!</i> Is this the way you
+receive guests, Monsieur? Or is the town gone mad?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are not the Capuchin monk?&quot; he said, somewhat taken aback, I
+could see, by my boldness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have I not said that I am not? Do monks in your country travel in
+boots and spurs?&quot; I retorted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then your papers!&quot; he answered curtly. &quot;Your papers! I would have you
+to know,&quot; he continued, puffing out his cheeks, &quot;that I am Mayor here
+as well as host, and I keep the jail as well as the inn. Your papers,
+Monsieur, if you prefer the one to the other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Before your friends here?&quot; I said contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are good citizens,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had some fear, now I had come to the pinch, that the commission I
+carried might fail to produce all the effects with which I had
+credited it. But I had no choice, and ultimately nothing to dread; and
+after a momentary hesitation I produced it. Fortunately it was drawn
+in complimentary terms and gave the Mayor, I know not how, the idea
+that I was actually bound at the moment on an errand of state. When he
+had read it, therefore, he broke into a hundred apologies, craved
+leave to salute me, and announced to the listening crowd that they had
+made a mistake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It struck me at the time as strange, that they, the crowd, were not at
+all embarrassed by their error. On the contrary, they hastened to
+congratulate me on my acquittal, and even patted me on the shoulder in
+their good humour; some went to see that my horse was brought in, or
+to give orders on my behalf, and the rest presently dispersed, leaving
+me fain to believe that they would have hung me to the nearest
+<i>lanterne</i> with the same stolid complaisance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When only two or three remained, I asked the Mayor for whom they had
+taken me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A disguised monk, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said. &quot;A very dangerous fellow,
+who is known to be travelling with two ladies--all to Nîmes; and
+orders have been sent from a high quarter to arrest him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I am alone!&quot; I protested. &quot;I have no ladies with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shrugged his shoulders. &quot;Just so, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he answered. &quot;But
+we have got the two ladies. They were arrested this morning, while
+attempting to pass through the town in a carriage. We know, therefore,
+that he is now alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh,&quot; I said. &quot;So now you only want him? And what is the charge
+against him?&quot; I continued, remembering with a languid stirring of the
+pulses that a Capuchin monk had visited Father Benôit before his
+departure. It seemed to be strange that I should come upon the traces
+of another here.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is charged,&quot; M. Flandre answered pompously, &quot;with high treason
+against the nation, Monsieur. He has been seen here, there, and
+everywhere, at Montpellier, and Cette, and Albi, and as far away as
+Auch; and always preaching war and superstition, and corrupting the
+people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the ladies?&quot; I said smiling. &quot;Have they too been corrupting----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, M. le Vicomte. But it is believed that wishing to return to
+Nîmes, and learning that the roads were watched, he disguised himself
+and joined himself to them. Doubtless they are <i>dévotes</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor things!&quot; I said, with a shudder of compassion; every one seemed
+to be so good-tempered, and yet so hard. &quot;What will you do with them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall send for orders,&quot; he answered. &quot;In his case,&quot; he continued
+airily, &quot;I should not need them. But here is your supper. Pardon me,
+M. le Vicomte, if I do not attend on you myself. As Mayor I have to
+take care that I do not compromise--but you understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I said civilly that I did; and supper being laid, as was then the
+custom in the smaller inns, in my bedroom, I asked him to take a glass
+of wine with me, and over the meal learned much of the state of the
+country, and the fermentation that was at work along the southern
+seaboard, the priests stirring up the people with processions and
+sermons. He waxed especially eloquent upon the excitement at Nîmes,
+where the masses were bigoted Romanists, while the Protestants had a
+following, too, with the hardy peasants of the mountains behind them.
+&quot;There will be trouble, M. le Vicomte, there will be trouble there,&quot;
+he said with meaning. &quot;Things are going too well for the people <i>la
+bas</i>. They will stop them if they can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And this man?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is one of their missionaries.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I thought of Father Benôit, and sighed. &quot;By the way,&quot; the Mayor said
+abruptly, gazing at me in moony thoughtfulness, &quot;that is curious now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You come from Cahors, M. le Vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So do these women; or they say they do. The prisoners.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From Cahors?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes. It is odd now,&quot; he continued, rubbing his chin, &quot;but when I read
+your commission I did not think of that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I shrugged my shoulders impatiently. &quot;It does not follow that I am in
+the plot,&quot; I said. &quot;For goodness sake, M. le Maire, do not let us open
+the case again. You have seen my papers, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Tut! tut!&quot; he said. &quot;That is not my meaning. But you may know these
+persons.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh!&quot; I said; and then I sat a moment, staring at him between the
+candles, my hand raised, a morsel on my fork. A wild extravagant
+thought had flashed into my mind. Two ladies from Cahors? From Cahors,
+of all places? &quot;How do they call themselves?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Corvas,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh! Corvas,&quot; I said, falling to eating again, and putting the morsel
+into my mouth. And I went on with my supper.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes. A merchant's wife, she says she is. But you shall see her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't remember the name,&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Still, you may know them,&quot; he rejoined, with the dull persistence of
+a man of few ideas. &quot;It is just possible that we have made a mistake,
+for we found no papers in the carriage, and only one thing that seemed
+suspicious.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What was that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A red cockade.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A <i>red</i> cockade?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he answered. &quot;The badge of the old Leaguers, you know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But,&quot; I said, &quot;I have not heard of any party adopting that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rubbed his bald head a little doubtfully. &quot;No,&quot; he said, &quot;that is
+true. Still, it is a colour we don't like here. And two ladies
+travelling alone--alone, Monsieur! Then their driver, a half-witted
+fellow, who said that they had engaged him at Rodez, though he denied
+stoutly that he had seen the Capuchin, told two or three tales.
+However, if you will eat no more, M. le Vicomte, I will take you to
+see them. You may be able to speak for or against them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you do not think that it is too late?&quot; I said, shrinking somewhat
+from the interview.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Prisoners must not be choosers,&quot; he answered, with an unpleasant
+chuckle. And he called from the door for a lantern and his cloak.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The ladies are not here, then?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he answered, with a wink. &quot;Safe bind, safe find! But they have
+nothing to cry about. There are one or two rough fellows in the clink,
+so Babet, the jailer, has given them room in his house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At this moment the lantern came, and the Mayor having wrapped his
+portly person in a cloak, we passed out of the house. The square
+outside was utterly dark, such lights as had been burning when I
+arrived had been extinguished, perhaps by the wind, which was rising,
+and now blew keenly across the open space. The yellow glare of the
+lantern was necessary, but though it showed us a few feet of the
+roadway, and enabled us to pick our steps, it redoubled the darkness
+beyond; I could not see even the line of the roofs, and had no idea in
+what direction we had gone or how far, when M. Flandre halted
+abruptly, and, raising the lantern, threw its light on a greasy stone
+wall, from which, set deep in the stone-work, a low iron-studded door
+frowned on us. About the middle of the door hung a huge knocker, and
+above it was a small <i>grille</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Safe bind, safe find!&quot; the Mayor said again with a fat chuckle; but,
+instead of raising the knocker, he drew his stick sharply across the
+bars of the <i>grille</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The summons was understood and quickly answered. A face peered a
+moment through the grating; then the door opened to us. The Mayor took
+the lead, and we passed in, out of the night, into a close, warm air
+reeking of onions and foul tobacco, and a hundred like odours. The
+jailer silently locked the door behind us, and, taking the Mayor's
+lantern from him, led the way down a grimy, low-roofed passage barely
+wide enough for one man. He halted at the first door on the left of
+the passage, and threw it open.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. Flandre entered first, and, standing while he removed his hat, for
+an instant filled the doorway. I had time to hear and note a burst of
+obscene singing, which came from a room farther down the passage; and
+the frequent baying of a prison-dog, that, hearing us, flung itself
+against its chain, somewhere in the same direction. I noted, too, that
+the walls of the passage in which I stood were dingy and trickling
+with moisture, and then a voice, speaking in answer to M. Flandre's
+salutation, caught my ear and held me motionless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The voice was Madame's--Madame de St. Alais'!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was fortunate that I had entertained, though but a second, the
+wild, extravagant thought that had occurred to me at supper; for in a
+measure it had prepared me. And I had little time for other
+preparation, for thought, or decision. Luckily the room was thick with
+vile tobacco smoke, and the steam from linen drying by the fire; and I
+took advantage of a fit of coughing, partly assumed, to linger an
+instant on the threshold after M. Flandre had gone in. Then I followed
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were four people in the room besides the Mayor, but I had no
+eyes for the frowsy man and woman who sat playing with a filthy pack
+of cards at a table in the middle of the floor. I had only eyes for
+Madame and Mademoiselle, and them I devoured. They sat on two stools
+on the farther side of the hearth; the girl with her head laid wearily
+back against the wall, and her eyes half-closed; the mother, erect and
+watchful, meeting the Mayor's look with a smile of contempt. Neither
+the prison-house, nor danger, nor the companionship of this squalid
+hole had had power to reduce her fine spirit; but as her eyes passed
+from the Mayor and encountered mine, she started to her feet with a
+gasping cry, and stood staring at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not wonderful that for a second, peering through the reek, she
+doubted. But one there was there who did not doubt. Mademoiselle had
+sprung up in alarm at the sound of her mother's cry, and for the
+briefest moment we looked at one another. Then she sank back on her
+stool, and I heard her break into violent crying.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hallo!&quot; said the Mayor. &quot;What is this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A mistake, I fear,&quot; I said hoarsely, in words I had already composed.
+&quot;I am thankful, Madame,&quot; I continued, bowing to her with distant
+ceremony, and as much indifference as I could assume, &quot;that I am so
+fortunate as to be here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She muttered something and leaned against the wall. She had not yet
+recovered herself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You know the ladies?&quot; the Mayor said, turning to me and speaking
+roughly; even with a tinge of suspicion in his voice. And he looked
+from one to the other of us sharply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perfectly,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are from Cahors?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From that neighbourhood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But,&quot; he said, &quot;I told you their names, and you said that you did not
+know them, M. le Vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment I held my breath; gazing into Madame's face and reading
+there anxiety, and something more--a sudden terror. I took the leap--I
+could do nothing else. &quot;You told me Corvas--that the lady's name was
+Corvas,&quot; I muttered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But Madame's name is Corréas.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Corréas?&quot; he repeated, his jaw falling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Corréas. I dare say that the ladies,&quot; I continued with assumed
+politeness, &quot;did not in their fright speak very clearly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And their name is Corréas?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told you that it was,&quot; Madame answered, speaking for the first
+time, &quot;and also that I knew nothing of your Capuchin monk. And this
+last,&quot; she continued earnestly, her eyes fixed on mine in passionate
+appeal--in appeal that this time could not be mistaken--&quot;I say again,
+on my honour!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I knew that she meant this for me; and I responded to the cry. &quot;Yes,
+M. le Maire,&quot; I said, &quot;I am afraid that you have made a mistake. I can
+answer for Madame as for myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Mayor rubbed his head.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_16" href="#div1Ref_16">THREE IN A CARRIAGE.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course, if Madame--if Madame knows nothing of the monk,&quot; he said,
+looking vacantly about the dirty room, &quot;it is clear that--it seems
+clear that there has been a mistake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And only one thing remains to be done,&quot; I suggested.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But--but,&quot; he continued, with a resumption of his former importance,
+&quot;there is still one point unexplained--that of the red cockade,
+Monsieur? What of that, M. le Vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The red cockade?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, what of that?&quot; he asked briskly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had not expected this, and I looked desperately at Madame. Surely
+her woman's wit would find a way, whatever the cockade meant. &quot;Have
+you asked Madame Corréas?&quot; I said at last, feebly shifting the burden.
+&quot;Have you asked her to explain it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I would ask her,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay, do not ask me; ask M. le Vicomte,&quot; she answered lightly. &quot;Ask
+him of what colour are the facings of the National Guards of Quercy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Red!&quot; I cried, in a burst of relief. &quot;Red!&quot; I knew, for had I not
+seen Buton's coat lying by the forge? But how Madame de St. Alais knew
+I have no idea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; M. Flandre said, with the air of one still a little doubtful.
+&quot;And Madame wears the cockade for that reason?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, M. le Maire,&quot; she answered, with a roguish smile; I saw that it
+was her plan to humour him. &quot;I do not--my daughter does. If you wish
+to ask further, or the reason, you must ask her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. Flandre had the curiosity of the true bourgeois, and the love of
+the sex. He simpered. &quot;If Mademoiselle would be so good,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Denise had remained up to this point hidden behind her mother, but at
+the word she crept out, and reluctantly and like a prisoner brought to
+the bar, stood before us. It was only when she spoke, however, nay, it
+was not until she had spoken some words that I understood the full
+change that I saw in her; or why, instead of the picture of pallid
+weariness which she had presented a few minutes before, she now
+showed, as she stood forward, a face covered with blushes, and eyes
+shining and suffused.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is simple, Monsieur,&quot; she said in a low voice. &quot;My <i>fiancé</i>, M. le
+Maire, is in that regiment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you wear it for that reason?&quot; the Mayor cried, delighted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I love him,&quot; she said softly. And for a moment--for a moment her eyes
+met mine.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I know not which was the redder, she or I; or which found that
+vile and filthy room more like a palace, its tobacco-laden air more
+sweet! I had not dreamed what she was going to say, least of all had I
+dreamed what her eyes said, as for that instant they met mine and
+turned my blood to fire! I lost the Mayor's blunt answer and his
+chuckling laugh; and only returned to a sense of the present when
+Mademoiselle slipped back to hide her burning face behind her mother,
+and I saw in her place Madame, facing me, with her finger to her lip,
+and a glance of warning in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a warning not superfluous, for in the flush of my first
+enthusiasm I might have said anything. And the Mayor was in better
+hands than mine. The little touch of romance and sentiment which
+Mademoiselle's avowal had imported into the matter, had removed his
+last suspicion and won his heart. He ogled Madame, he beamed on the
+girl with fatherly gallantry. He made a jest of the monk.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A mistake, and yet one I cannot deplore, Madame,&quot; he protested, with
+clumsy civility. &quot;For it has given me the pleasure of seeing you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, M. le Maire!&quot; Madame simpered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the state of the country is really such,&quot; he continued, &quot;that
+for the beautiful sex to be travelling alone is not safe. It exposes
+them----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To worse <i>rencontres</i> than this, I fear,&quot; Madame said, darting a look
+from her fine eyes. &quot;If this were the worst we poor women had to
+fear!&quot; And she looked at him again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, Madame!&quot; he said, delighted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, alas, we have no escort.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The fat Mayor sighed, I think that he was going to offer himself. Then
+a thought struck him. &quot;Perhaps this gentleman,&quot; and he turned to me.
+&quot;You go to Nîmes, M. le Vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I said. &quot;And, of course, if Madame Corréas----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, it would be troubling M. le Vicomte,&quot; Madame said; and she went a
+step farther from me and a step nearer to M. Flandre, as if he must
+understand her hesitation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sure it could be no trouble to any one!&quot; he answered stoutly.
+&quot;But for the matter of that, if M. le Vicomte perceives any
+difficulty,&quot; and he laid his hand on his heart, &quot;I will find some
+one----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Some one?&quot; Madame said archly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Myself,&quot; the Mayor answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; she cried, &quot;if you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I thought that now I might safely step in. &quot;No, no,&quot; I said. &quot;M.
+le Maire is taking all against me. I can assure you, Madame, I shall
+be glad to be of service to you. And our roads lie together. If,
+therefore----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall be grateful,&quot; Madame answered with a delightful little
+courtesy. &quot;That is, if M. le Maire will let out his poor prisoners.
+Who, as he now knows, have done nothing worse than sympathise with
+National Guards.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will take it on myself, Madame,&quot; M. Flandre said, with vast
+importance. He had been brought to the desired point. &quot;The case is
+quite clear. But----&quot; he paused and coughed slightly, &quot;to avoid
+complications, you had better leave early. When you are gone, I shall
+know what explanations to give. And if you would not object to
+spending the night here,&quot; he continued, looking round him, with a
+touch of sheepishness, &quot;I think that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We shall mind it less than before,&quot; Madame said, with a look and a
+sigh. &quot;I feel safe since you have been to see us.&quot; And she held out a
+hand that was still white and plump.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The Mayor kissed it.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align:center; letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As I walked, a few minutes later, across the square, picking
+my steps
+by the yellow light of M. Flandre's lantern, and at times enveloped in
+the flying skirt of his cloak--for the good man had his own visions
+and for a hundred yards together forgot his company--I could have
+thought all that had passed a dream; so unreal seemed the squalid
+prison-lodging I had just left, so marvellous the ladies' presence in
+it, so incredible Mademoiselle's blushing avowal made to my face. But
+a wheezing clock overhead struck the hour before midnight, and I
+counted the strokes; a watchman, not far from me, cried, after the old
+fashion, that it was eleven o'clock and a fine night; and I stumbled
+over a stone. No, I was not dreaming.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But if I had to stumble then, to persuade myself that I was awake, how
+was it with me next morning, when, with the first glimmer of light, I
+walked beside the carriage from the inn to the prison, and saw, before
+I reached the gloomy door, Madame and Mademoiselle standing shivering
+under the wall beside it? How was it with me when I held
+Mademoiselle's hand in mine, as I helped her in, and then followed her
+in and sat opposite to her--sat opposite to her with the knowledge
+that I was so to sit for days, that I was to be her fellow-traveller,
+that we were to go to Nîmes together?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Ah, how was it, indeed? But there is nothing quite perfect; there is
+no hour in which a man says that he is quite happy; and a shadow of
+fear and stealth darkened my bliss that morning. The Mayor was there
+to see us start, and I fancy that it was his face of apprehension that
+lay at the bottom of this feeling. A moment, however, and the face was
+gone from the window; another, and the carriage began to roll quickly
+through the dim streets, while we lay back, each in a corner, hidden
+by the darkness even from one another. Still, we had the gates to
+pass, and the guard; or the watch might stop us, or some early-rising
+townsman, or any one of a hundred accidents. My heart beat fast.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But all went well. Within five minutes we had passed the gates and
+left them behind us, and were rolling in safety along the road. The
+dawn was no more than grey, the trees showed black against the sky, as
+we crossed the Tarn by the great bridge, and began to climb the valley
+of the Dourbie.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have said that we could not see one another. But on a sudden Madame
+laughed out of the darkness of her corner. &quot;O Richard, O <i>mon Roi!</i>&quot;
+she hummed. Then &quot;The fat fool!&quot; she cried; and she laughed again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I thought her cruel, and almost an ingrate; but she was Mademoiselle's
+mother, and I said nothing. Mademoiselle was opposite to me, and I was
+happy. I was happy, thinking what she would say to me, and how she
+would look at me, when the day came and she could no longer escape my
+eyes; when the day came and the dainty, half-shrouded face that
+already began to glimmer in the roomy corner of the old berlin should
+be mine to look on, to feast my eyes on, to question and read through
+long days and hours of a journey, a journey through heaven!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Already it was growing light; I had but a little longer to wait. A
+rosy flush began to tinge one half the sky; the other half, pale blue
+and flecked with golden clouds, lay behind us. A few seconds, and the
+mountain tips caught the first rays of the sun, and floated far over
+us, in golden ether. I cast one greedy glance at Mademoiselle's face,
+saw there the dawn out-blushed, I met for one second her eyes and saw
+the glory of the ether outshone--and then I looked away, trembling. It
+seemed sacrilege to look longer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly Madame laughed again, out of her corner; a laugh that made me
+wince, and grow hot. &quot;She is not made for a nun, M. le Vicomte, is
+she?&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I bounced in my seat. The speaker's tone, gay, insulting, flicked, not
+me, but the girl, like a whip.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You really, Denise, must have had practice,&quot; Madame continued
+smoothly. &quot;I love, you love, we love--you are quite perfect. Did you
+practise with M. le Directeur? Or with the big boys over the wall?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Madame!&quot; I cried. The girl had drawn her hood over her face, but I
+could fancy her shame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Madame was inexorable. &quot;Really, Denise, I do not know that I
+ever told even your father 'I love you,'&quot; she said. &quot;At any rate,
+until he had kissed me on the lips. But I suppose that you reverse the
+order----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Madame,&quot; I stammered. &quot;This is infamous!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What, Monsieur?&quot; she answered, this time heeding me. &quot;May I not
+punish my daughter in my own way?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not before me,&quot; I retorted, full of wrath. &quot;It is cruel! It is----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, before you, M. le Vicomte?&quot; Madame answered, mocking me. &quot;And why
+not before you? I cannot degrade her lower than she has herself
+stooped!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is false!&quot; I cried, in hot rage. &quot;It is a cruel falsehood!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, I can? Then if I please, I shall!&quot; Madame answered, with ruthless
+pleasantry. &quot;And you, Monsieur, will sit by and listen, if I please.
+Though, make no mistake, M. le Vicomte,&quot; she continued, leaning
+forward, and gazing keenly into my face. &quot;Because I punish her before
+you, do not think that you are, or ever shall be, of the family. Or
+that this unmaidenly, immodest----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mademoiselle uttered a cry of pain, and shrank lower in her corner.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Little fool,&quot; Madame continued coolly, &quot;who, when she was primed with
+a cock-and-bull story about the cockade, must needs add, 'I love
+him'--I love him, and she a maiden!--will ever be anything to you! That
+link was broken long ago. It was broken when your friends burned our
+house at St. Alais; it was broken when they sacked our house in
+Cahors; it was broken when they made our king a prisoner, when they
+murdered our friends, when they dragged our Church a slave at the
+chariot wheels of their triumph; ay, and broken once for all, beyond
+mending by mock heroics! Understand that fully, M. le Vicomte,&quot; Madame
+continued pitilessly. &quot;But as you saw her stoop, you shall see her
+punished. She is the first St. Alais that ever wooed a lover!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I knew that of the family which would have given the lie to that
+statement; but it was not a tale for Mademoiselle's ears, and instead
+I rose. &quot;At least, Madame,&quot; I said, bowing, &quot;I can free Mademoiselle
+from the embarrassment of my presence. And I shall do so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, you will not do even that,&quot; Madame answered unmoved. &quot;If you will
+sit down, I will tell you why.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I sat down, compelled by her tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will not do it,&quot; Madame continued, looking me coolly in the face,
+&quot;because I am bound to admit, though I no longer like you, that you
+are a gentleman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And therefore should leave you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On the contrary, for that reason you will continue to travel with
+us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Outside,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, inside,&quot; she answered quietly. &quot;We have no passport nor papers;
+without your company we should be stopped in each town through which
+we pass. It is unfortunate,&quot; Madame continued, shrugging her
+shoulders; &quot;--I did not know that the country was in so bad a state,
+or I would have taken precautions--it is unfortunate. But as it is we
+must put up with it and travel together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I felt a warm rush of joy, of triumph, of coming vengeance. &quot;Thank
+you, Madame,&quot; I said, and I bowed to her, &quot;for telling me that. It
+seems, then, that you are in my power.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And that to requite you for the pain you have just caused
+Mademoiselle, I have only to leave you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I see even now a little town before us; in three minutes we shall
+enter it. Very well, Madame. If you say another word to your daughter,
+if you insult her again in my presence by so much as a syllable, I
+leave you and go my way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To my surprise Madame St. Alais broke into a silvery laugh. &quot;You will
+not, Monsieur,&quot; she said. &quot;And yet I shall treat my daughter as I
+please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall do so!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, then? Why shall I not?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because,&quot; she answered, laughing softly, &quot;you are a gentleman, M. le
+Vicomte, and can neither leave us nor endanger us. That is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I sank back in my seat, and glared at her in speechless indignation;
+seeing in a flash my impotence and her power. The cushions burned me;
+but I could not leave them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She laughed again, well pleased. &quot;There, I have told you what you will
+not do,&quot; she said. &quot;Now I am going to tell you what you will do. In
+front, I am told, they are very suspicious. The story of Madame
+Corvas, even if backed by your word, may not suffice. You will say,
+therefore, that I am your mother, and that Mademoiselle is your
+sister. She would prefer, I daresay,&quot; Madame continued, with a cutting
+glance at her daughter, &quot;to pass for your wife. But that does not suit
+me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I breathed hard; but I was helpless as any prisoner, closely bound to
+obedience as any slave. I could not denounce them, and I could not
+leave them; honour and love were alike concerned. Yet I foresaw that I
+must listen, hour by hour, and mile by mile, to gibes at the girl's
+expense, to sneers at her modesty, to words that cut like whip-lashes.
+That was Madame's plan. The girl must travel with me, must breathe the
+same air with me, must sit for hours with the hem of her skirt
+touching my boot. It was necessary for the safety of all. But, after
+this, after what we had both heard, if her eye met mine, it could only
+fall; if her hand touched mine, she must shrink in shame. Henceforth
+there was a barrier between us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As a fact, Mademoiselle's pride came to her aid, and she sat, neither
+weeping nor protesting, nor seeking to join her forces to mine by a
+glance; but bearing all with steadfast patience, she looked out of the
+window when I pretended to sleep, and looked towards her mother when I
+sat erect. Possibly she found her compensations, and bore her
+punishment quietly for their sake. But I did not think of that.
+Possibly, too, she suffered less than I fancied; but I doubt if she
+would admit that, even to-day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At any rate she had heard me fight her battle; yet she did not speak
+to me nor I to her; and under these strange conditions we began and
+pursued the strangest journey man ever made. We drove through pleasant
+valleys growing green, over sterile passes, where winter still fringed
+the rocks with snow, through sunshine, and in the teeth of cold
+mountain winds; but we scarcely heeded any of these things. Our hearts
+and thoughts lay inside the carriage, where Madame sat smiling, and we
+two kept grim silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">About noon we halted to rest and eat at a little village inn, high up.
+It seemed to me a place almost at the end of the world, with a chaos
+of mountains rising tier on tier above it, and slopes of shale below.
+But the frenzy of the time had reached even this barren nook. Before
+we had taken two mouthfuls, the Syndic called to see our papers;
+and--God knows I had no choice--Madame passed for my mother, and
+Denise for my sister. Then, while the Syndic still stood bowing over
+my commission, and striving to learn from me what news there was
+below, a horse halted at the door, and I heard a man's voice, and in a
+breath M. le Baron de Géol walked in. There was a single decent room
+in the inn--that in which we sat--and he came into it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He uncovered, seeing ladies; and recognising me with a start smiled,
+but a trifle sourly. &quot;You set off early?&quot; he said. &quot;I waited at the
+east gate, but you did not come, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I coloured, conscience-stricken, and begged a thousand pardons. As a
+fact, I had clean forgotten him. I had not once thought of the
+appointment I had made with him at the gate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are not riding?&quot; he said, looking at my companions a little
+strangely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I answered. And I could not find another word to say. The Syndic
+still stood smiling and bowing beside me; and on a sudden I saw the
+pit on the edge of which I tottered; and my face burned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have met friends?&quot; M. le Baron persisted, looking, hat in hand,
+at Madame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I muttered. Politeness required that I should introduce him.
+But I dared not.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However, at that, he at last took the hint; and retired with the
+Syndic. The moment they were over the threshold Madame flashed out at
+me, in a passion of anger. &quot;Fool!&quot; she said, without ceremony, &quot;why
+did you not present him? Don't you know that that is the way to arouse
+suspicion, and ruin us? A child could see that you had something to
+hide. If you had presented him at once to your mother----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Madame?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He would have gone away satisfied.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I doubt it, Madame, and for a very good reason,&quot; I answered
+cynically. &quot;Seeing that yesterday I told him, with the utmost
+particularity, that I had neither mother nor sister.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That afforded me a little revenge. Madame St. Alais went white and red
+in the same instant, and sat a moment with her lips pressed together,
+and her eyes on the table. &quot;Who is he? What do you know of him?&quot; she
+said at last.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is a poor gentleman and a bigoted Protestant,&quot; I answered drily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She bit her lip. &quot;<i>Bon Dieu!</i>&quot; she muttered. &quot;Who could have foreseen
+such an accident? Do you think that he suspects anything?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Doubtless. To begin, I left early this morning, in breach of an
+agreement to travel with him. When he learns, in addition, that I am
+travelling with my mother and sister, whom yesterday I did not
+possess----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame looked at me, as if she would strike me. &quot;What will you do?&quot;
+she cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is for my mother to say,&quot; I answered politely. And I helped myself
+very indifferently to cheese. &quot;She dictated this policy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was white with rage, and perhaps alarm; I chuckled secretly,
+seeing her condition. But rage availed her little; she had to humble
+herself. &quot;What do you advise?&quot; she said at last.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is only one course open,&quot; I answered. &quot;We must brazen it out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She agreed. But this, though a very easy course to advise, was one
+anything but easy to pursue. I discovered that, a few minutes later,
+when I went out to see if the carriage was ready, and found De Géol in
+the doorway with a face as hard as his own hills. &quot;You are starting?&quot;
+he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I muttered that I was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I find that I have to congratulate you,&quot; he continued, with a smile
+of unpleasant meaning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On what, Monsieur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;On finding your family,&quot; he answered, looking at me with a bitter
+sort of humour. &quot;To discover both a mother and a sister in twenty-four
+hours must be great happiness. But--may I give you a hint, M. le
+Vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you please,&quot; I said, with desperate coolness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then if--being so happy in making discoveries--you happen to light
+next on M. Froment--on M. Froment, the firebrand of Nîmes, false
+Capuchin, and false traitor!--do not adopt him also! That is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not acquainted with him,&quot; I said coldly. He had spoken with
+passion and fire.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do not become so,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I shrugged my shoulders, and he said no more; and in a moment Madame
+and Mademoiselle came out, and took their seats, and I set out to walk
+up the hill beside the horses.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The ascent was steep and long and toilsome, and a dozen times as we
+climbed out of the valley we had to halt to breathe the cattle; a
+dozen times I looked back at the grey mountain inn lying on the
+desolate grey plateau at our feet. Always I found the Baron looking up
+at us, stern and gaunt and motionless as the house before which he
+stood. And I shivered.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_17" href="#div1Ref_17">FROMENT OF NÎMES.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">This encounter served neither to raise my spirits nor to remove the
+apprehensions with which I looked forward to our arrival in places
+more populous; places where suspicion, once roused, might be less
+easily allayed. True, Géol had not betrayed me, but he might have his
+reasons for that; nor did the fact any the more reconcile me to having
+on our trail this grim stalking-horse in whose person a fanaticism I
+had deemed dead lurked behind modern doctrines, and sought under the
+cloak of a new party to avenge old injuries. The barren slopes and
+rugged peaks that rose above us, as we plodded toilsomely onward, the
+windswept passes over which the horses scarce dragged the empty
+carriage, the melancholy fields of snow that lay to right and left,
+all tended to deepen the impression made on my mind; so that feeling
+him one with his native hills, I longed to escape from them, I longed
+to be clear of this desolation and to see before me the sunshine and
+olive slopes sweep down to the southern sea.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet even here there was a counterpoise. The peril which had startled
+me had not been lost on Madame St. Alais; it had sensibly lowered her
+tone, and damped the triumph with which she had been disposed to treat
+me. She was more quiet; and sitting in her place, or walking beside
+the labouring carriage, as it slowly wound its way round shoulders, or
+wearily climbed long <i>lacets</i>, she left me to myself. Nay, it did not
+escape me that distance, far from relieving, seemed to aggravate her
+anxiety; so that the farther we left the uncouth Baron behind, the
+more restless she grew, the more keenly she scanned the road behind
+us, and the less regard she paid to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This left me at liberty to use my eyes as I would; and I remember to
+this day that hour spent under the shoulder of Mont Aigoual.
+Mademoiselle, worn out by days and nights of exertion, had fallen
+asleep in her corner, and shaken by the jolting of the coach had let
+the cloak slip from her face. A faint flush warmed her cheeks, as if
+even in sleep she felt my eyes upon her; and though a tear presently
+stole from under her long lashes, a smile almost naïve--a smile that
+remained while the tear passed--seemed to say that the joys of that
+strange day surpassed the pains, and that in her sleep Mademoiselle
+found nothing to regret. God, how I watched that smile! How I hoped
+that it was for me, how I prayed for her! Never before had it been my
+happiness to gaze on her uncontrolled, as I did now; to trace the
+shadow where the first tendrils of her hair stole up from the smooth,
+white forehead, to learn the soft curves of lips and chin, and the
+dainty ear half-hidden; to gaze at the blue-veined eyelids half in
+fear, half in the hope that they might rise and discover me!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Denise, my Denise! I breathed the word softly, in my heart, and was
+happy. In spite of all--the cold, the journey, Géol, Madame--I was
+happy. And then in a moment I fell to earth, as I heard a voice say
+clearly, &quot;Is that he?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Madame's voice, and I turned to her. I was relieved to find
+that she was not looking my way, but was on her feet, gazing back the
+way we had come. And in a moment, whether she gave an order or the
+driver halted on his own motion, the carriage came to a stand; in a
+mountain pass, where rocks lay huddled on either side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it?&quot; I said in wonder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not answer, but on the silence of the road and the mountains
+rose the thin strain of a whistled air. The air was &quot;O Richard, <i>O mon
+Roi!</i>&quot; In that solitude of rock and fell, it piped high and thin, and
+had a weird startling effect. I thrust out my head on the other side,
+and saw a man walking after us at his leisure; as if we had passed
+him, and then stood to wait for him. He was tall and stout, wore boots
+and a common-looking cloak; but for all that he had not the air of a
+man of the country.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are going to Ganges?&quot; Madame cried to him, without preface.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Madame,&quot; he answered, as he came quietly up, and saluted her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We can take you on,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A thousand thanks,&quot; he answered, his eyes twinkling. &quot;You are too
+good. If the gentleman does not object?&quot; And he looked at me, smiling
+without disguise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, no!&quot; Madame said, with a touch of contempt in her voice, &quot;the
+gentleman will not object.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But that gave me, in the middle of my astonishment, the fillip that I
+needed. The device of the meeting was so transparent, the appearance
+of this man, in cloak and boots, on the desolate road far from any
+habitation, was so clearly a part of an arranged plan, that I could
+not swallow it; I must either fall in with it, be dupe, and play my
+<i>rôle</i> with my eyes open, or act at once. I awoke from my
+astonishment. &quot;One moment, Madame,&quot; I said. &quot;I do not know who this
+gentleman is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had resumed her seat, and the stranger had come up to the window
+on her side, and was looking in. He had a face of striking power,
+large-sized and coarse, but not unpleasant; with quick, bright eyes,
+and mobile lips that smiled easily. The hand he laid on the carriage
+door was immense.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I think my words took Madame by surprise. She flashed round on me.
+&quot;Nonsense,&quot; she cried imperiously. And to him, &quot;Get in, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I retorted, half-rising. &quot;Stay, if you please. Stay where you
+are, until----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame turned to me, furious. &quot;This is my carriage,&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Absolutely,&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then what do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only that if this gentleman enters it, I leave it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For an instant we looked at one another. Then she saw that I was
+determined, and, knowing my position, she lowered her tone. &quot;Why?&quot; she
+said, breathing quickly. &quot;Why, because he enters it, should you leave
+it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because, Madame,&quot; I answered, &quot;I see no reason for taking in a
+stranger whom we do not know. This gentleman may be everything that is
+upright----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is no stranger!&quot; she snapped. &quot;I know him. Will that satisfy you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If he will give me his name,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hitherto he had stood unmoved by the discussion, looking with a smile
+from one to the other of us; but at this he struck in. &quot;With pleasure,
+Monsieur,&quot; he said. &quot;My name is Alibon, and I am an advocate of
+Montauban, who last week had the good fortune----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I said, interrupting him brusquely, and once for all; &quot;I think
+not. Not Alibon of Montauban. Froment of Nîmes, I think, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A little tract of snow flushed by the sunset lay behind him, and by
+contrast darkened his face; I could not see how he took my words. And
+a few seconds elapsed before he answered. When he did, however, he
+spoke calmly, and I fancied I detected as much vanity as chagrin in
+his tone. &quot;Well, Monsieur,&quot; he said, &quot;and if I am? What then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you are,&quot; I replied resolutely, meeting his eyes, &quot;I decline to
+travel with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And therefore,&quot; he retorted, &quot;Madame, whose carriage this is, must
+not travel with me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, since she cannot travel without me,&quot; I answered with spirit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He frowned at that; but in a moment, &quot;And why?&quot; he said with a sneer.
+&quot;Am I not good enough for your excellency's company?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is not a question of goodness,&quot; I said bluntly, &quot;but of a
+passport, Monsieur. If you ask me, I do not travel with you because I
+hold a commission under the present Government, and I believe you to
+be working against that Government. I have lied for Madame St. Alais
+and her daughter. She was a woman and I had to save her. But I will
+not lie for you, nor be your cloak. Is that plain, Monsieur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite,&quot; he said slowly. &quot;Yet I serve the King. Whom do you serve?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Whose is this commission, Monsieur, that must not be contaminated?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I writhed under the sneer, but I was silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he continued frankly, and in a different tone.
+&quot;Be yourself, I pray. I am Froment, you have guessed it. I am also a
+fugitive, and were my name spoken in Villeraugues, a league on, I
+should hang for it. And in Ganges the like. I am at your mercy,
+therefore, and I ask you to shelter me. Let me pass through Suméne and
+Ganges as one of your party; thenceforth onwards,&quot; he added with a
+smile and a gesture of conscious pride, &quot;I can shift for myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I do not wonder I hesitated, I wonder I resisted. It seemed so small a
+thing to ask, so great a thing to refuse, that, though half a minute
+before my mind had been made up, I wavered; wavered miserably. I felt
+my face burn, I felt the passionate ardour of Madame's eyes as they
+devoured it, I felt the call of the silence for my answer. And I was
+near assenting. But as I turned feverishly in my seat to avoid
+Madame's look, my hand touched the packet which contained the
+commission, and the contact wrought a revulsion of feeling. I saw the
+thing as I had seen it before, and, rightly or wrongly, revolted from
+that which I had nearly done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I cried angrily. &quot;I will not! I will not!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You coward!&quot; Madame cried with sudden passion. And she sprang up as
+if to strike me, but sat down again trembling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It may be,&quot; I said. &quot;But I will not do it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why? Why? Why?&quot; she cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because I carry that commission; and to use it to shelter M. Froment
+were a thing M. Froment would not do himself. That is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shrugged his shoulders, and magnanimously kept silence. But she was
+furious. &quot;Quixote!&quot; she cried. &quot;Oh, you are intolerable! But you shall
+suffer for it. <i>Eh, bien</i>, Monsieur, you shall suffer for it!&quot; she
+repeated vehemently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nay, Madame, you need not threaten,&quot; I retorted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For if I would, I could not. You forget that M. de Géol is no more
+than a league behind us, and bound for Nîmes; he may appear at any
+moment. At best he is sure to lodge where we do to-night. If he
+finds,&quot; I continued drily, &quot;that I have added a brother to my growing
+family, I do not think that he will take it lightly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this, though she must have seen the sense of it, had no effect
+upon her. &quot;Oh, you are intolerable!&quot; she cried again. &quot;Let me out! Let
+me out, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This last to Froment. I did not gainsay her, and he let her out, and
+the two walked a few paces away, talking rapidly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I followed them with my eyes; and seeing him now, detached, as it
+were, and solitary in that dreary landscape--a man alone and in
+danger--I began to feel some compunction. A moment more, and I might
+have repented; but a touch fell on my sleeve, and I turned with a
+start to find Denise leaning towards me, with her face rapt and eager.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur,&quot; she whispered eagerly; before she could say more I seized
+the hand with which she had touched me, and kissed it fiercely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur, no,&quot; she whispered, drawing it from me with her face
+grown crimson--but her eyes still met mine frankly. &quot;Not now. I want
+to speak to you, to warn you, to ask you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I, Mademoiselle,&quot; I cried in the same low tone, &quot;want to bless
+you, to thank you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I want to ask you to take care of yourself,&quot; she persisted, shaking
+her head almost petulantly at me, to silence me. &quot;Listen! Some trap
+will be laid for you. My mother would not harm you, though she is
+angry; but that man is desperate, and we are in straits. Be careful,
+therefore, Monsieur, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have no fear,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, but I have fear,&quot; she answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the way in which she said that, and the way in which she looked at
+me, and looked away again like a startled bird, filled me with
+happiness--with intense happiness; so that, though Madame came back at
+that moment, and no more passed between us, not even a look, but we
+had to sink back in our seats, and affect indifference, I was a
+different man for it. Perhaps something of this appeared in my face,
+for Madame, as she came up to the door, shot a suspicious glance at
+me, a glance almost of hatred; and from me looked keenly at her
+daughter. However, nothing was said except by Froment, who came up to
+the door and closed it, after she had entered. He raised his hat to
+me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said, with a little bitterness, &quot;if a dog came to
+my door, as I came to you to-day, I would take him in!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You would do as I have done,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he said firmly; &quot;I would take him in. Nevertheless, when we meet
+at Nîmes, I hope to convert you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To what?&quot; I said coldly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To having a little faith,&quot; he answered, with dryness. &quot;To having a
+little faith in something--and risking somewhat for it, Monsieur. I
+stand here,&quot; he went on, with a gesture that was not without grandeur,
+&quot;alone and homeless, to-day; I do not know where I shall lie to-night.
+And why, M. le Vicomte? Because I alone in France have faith! Because
+I alone believe in anything! Because I alone believe even in myself!
+Do you think,&quot; he continued with rising scorn, &quot;that if you nobles
+believed in your nobility, you could be unseated? Never! Or that if
+you, who say 'Long live the King!' believed in your King, he could be
+unseated? Never! Or that if you who profess to obey the Church
+believed in her, she could be uprooted? Never! But you believe in
+nothing, you admire nothing, you reverence nothing--and therefore you
+are doomed! Yes, doomed; for even the men with whom you have linked
+yourself have a sort of bastard faith in their theories, their
+philosophy, their reforms, that are to regenerate the world. But
+you--you believe in nothing; and you shall pass, as you pass from me
+now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He waved his hand with a gesture of menace, and before I could answer,
+the carriage rolled on, and left him standing there; the grey
+landscape, cold and barren, took the place of his face at the door.
+The light was beginning to fail; we were still a league from
+Villeraugues. I was glad to feel the carriage moving, and to be free
+from him; my heart, too, was warm because Denise sat opposite me,
+and I loved her. But for all that--and though Madame, glowering at me
+from her corner, troubled me little--the thought that I had deserted
+him--that, and his words, and one word in particular, hummed in my
+head, and oppressed me with a sense of coming ill. &quot;Doomed! Doomed!&quot;
+He had said it as if he meant it. I could no longer question his
+eloquence. I could no longer be ignorant why they called him the
+firebrand of Nîmes. The hot breath of the southern city had come from
+him; the passion of world-old strifes had spoken in his voice.
+Uneasily I pondered over what he had said, and recalled the words
+spoken by Father Benôit, even by Géol, to the same effect; and so
+brooded in my corner, while the carriage jolted on and darkness fell,
+until presently we stopped in the village street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I offered Madame St. Alais my arm to descend. &quot;No, Monsieur,&quot; she
+said, repelling me with passion; &quot;I will not touch you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She meant, I think, to seclude herself and Mademoiselle, and leave me
+to sup alone. But in the inn there was only one great room for
+parlour, and kitchen, and all; and a little cupboard, veiled by a
+dingy curtain, in which the women might sleep if they pleased, but in
+which they could not possibly eat. The inn was, in fact, the worst in
+which I had stopped--the maid draggled and dirty, and smelling of the
+stable; the company three boors; the floor of earth; the windows
+unglazed. Madame, accustomed to travel, and supported by her anger,
+took all with the ease of a fine lady; but Denise, fresh from her
+convent, winced at the brawling and oaths that rose round her, and
+cowered, pale and frightened, on her stool.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A hundred times I was on the point of interfering to protect her from
+these outrages; but her eyes, when they made me happy by timidly
+seeking mine for an instant, seemed to pray me to abstain; and the
+men, as their senseless tirades showed, were delegates from Castres,
+who at a word would have raised the cry of &quot;Aristocrats!&quot; I refrained,
+therefore, and doubtless with wisdom; but even the arrival of Géol
+would have been a welcome interruption.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have said that Madame heeded them little; but it presently appeared
+that I was mistaken. After we had supped, and when the noise was at
+its height, she came to me, where I sat a little apart, and, throwing
+into her tone all the anger and disgust which her face so well masked,
+she cried in my ear that we must start at daybreak.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At daybreak--or before!&quot; she whispered fiercely. &quot;This is horrible!
+horrible!&quot; she continued. &quot;This place is killing me! I would start
+now, cold and dark as it is, if----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will speak to them,&quot; I said, taking a step towards the table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She clutched my sleeve, and pinched me until I winced. &quot;Fool!&quot; she
+said. &quot;Would you ruin us all? A word, and we are betrayed. No; but at
+daybreak we go. We shall not sleep; and the moment it is light we go!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I consented, of course; and, going to the driver, who had taken our
+place at the table, she whispered him also, and then came back to me,
+and bade me call him if he did not rise. This settled, she went
+towards the closet, whither Mademoiselle had already retired; but
+unfortunately her movements had drawn on her the attention of the
+clowns at the table, and one of these, rising suddenly as she passed,
+intercepted her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A toast, Madame! a toast!&quot; he cried, with a gross hiccough; and
+reeling on his feet, he thrust a cup of wine in front of her. &quot;A
+toast; and one that every man, woman, and child in France must drink,
+or be d----d! And that is the Tricolour! The Tricolour; and down with
+Madame Veto! The Tricolour, Madame! Drink to it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The drunken wretch pressed the cup on her, while his comrades roared,
+&quot;Drink! Drink! The Tricolour; and down with Madame Veto!&quot; and added
+jests and oaths I will not write.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was too much; I sprang to my feet to chastise the wretches. But
+Madame, who preserved her presence of mind to a marvel, checked me by
+a glance. &quot;No,&quot; she said, raising her head proudly; &quot;I will not
+drink!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; he cried with a vile laugh. &quot;An aristocrat, are we? Drink,
+nevertheless, or we shall show you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will not drink!&quot; she retorted, facing him with superb courage. &quot;And
+more, when M. de Géol arrives to-night, you will have to give an
+account to him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man's face fell. &quot;You know the Baron de Géol?&quot; he said in a
+different tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I left him at the last village, and I expect him here to-night,&quot; she
+answered coolly. &quot;And I would advise you, Monsieur, to drink your own
+toasts, and let others go! For he is not a man to brook an insult!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The brawler shrugged his shoulders, to hide his mortification. &quot;Oh! if
+you are a friend of his,&quot; he muttered, preparing to slink back to the
+table, &quot;I suppose it is all right. He is a good man. No offence. If
+you are not an aristocrat----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am no more of an aristocrat than is M. de Géol,&quot; she answered. And,
+with a cold bow, she turned, and went to the closet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The men were a little less noisy after that; for Madame had rightly
+guessed that Géol's name was known and respected. They presently
+wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and lay down on the floor; and I
+did the same, passing the night, in the result, in greater comfort
+than I expected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first, it is true, I did not sleep; but later I fell into an uneasy
+slumber, and, passing from one troubled dream to another--for which I
+had, doubtless, to thank the foul air of the room--I awoke at last
+with a start, to find some one leaning over me. Apparently it was
+still night, for all was quiet; but the red embers of the fire glowed
+on the hearth, and dimly lit up the room, enabling me to see that it
+was Madame St. Alais who had roused me. She pointed to the other men,
+who still lay snoring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush!&quot; she whispered, with her finger on her lip. &quot;It is after five.
+Jules is harnessing the horses. I have paid the woman here, and in
+five minutes we shall be ready.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the sun will not rise for another hour,&quot; I answered. This was
+early starting with a vengeance!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame, however, had set her heart upon it. &quot;Do you want to expose us
+to more of this?&quot; she said, in a furious whisper. &quot;To keep us here
+until Géol arrives, perhaps?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am ready, Madame,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This satisfied her; she flitted away without any more, and disappeared
+behind the curtain, and I heard whispering. I put on my boots, and,
+the room being very cold, stooped a moment over the fire, and drawing
+the embers together with my foot, warmed myself. Then I put on my
+cravat and sword, which I had removed, and stood ready to start. It
+seemed uselessly early; and we had started so early the day before! If
+Madame wished it, however, it was my place to give way to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a moment she came to me again; and I saw, even by that light, that
+her face was twitching with eagerness. &quot;Oh!&quot; she said; &quot;will he never
+come? That man will be all day. Go and hasten him, Monsieur! If Géol
+comes? Go, for pity's sake, and hasten him!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I wondered, thinking such haste utterly vain and foolish--it was not
+likely that Géol would arrive at this hour; but, concluding that
+Madame's nerves had failed at last, I thought it proper to comply,
+and, stepping carefully over the sleepers, reached the door. I raised
+the latch, and in a moment was outside, and had closed the door behind
+me. The bitter dawn wind, laden with a fine snow, lashed my cheeks,
+and bit through my cloak, and made me shiver. In the east the daybreak
+was only faintly apparent; in every other quarter it was still night,
+and, for all I could see, might be midnight.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Very little in charity with Madame, I picked my way, shivering, to the
+door of the stable--a mean hovel, in a line with the house, and set in
+a sea of mud. It was closed, but a dim yellow light, proceeding from a
+window towards the farther end, showed me where Jules was at work; and
+I raised the latch, and called him. He did not answer, and I had to go
+in to him, passing behind three or four wretched nags--some on their
+legs and some lying down--until I came to our horses, which stood side
+by side at the end, with the lantern hung on a hook near them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still I did not see Jules, and I was standing wondering where he
+was--for he did not answer--when, with a whish, something black struck
+me in the face. It blinded me; in a moment I found myself struggling
+in the folds of a cloak, that completely enveloped my face, while a
+grip of iron seized my arms and bound them to my sides. Taken
+completely by surprise, I tried to shout, but the heavy cloak
+stifled me; when, struggling desperately, I succeeded in uttering a
+half-choked cry, other hands than those which held me pressed the
+cloak more tightly over my face. In vain I writhed and twisted, and,
+half-suffocated, tried to free myself. I felt hands pass deftly over
+me, and knew that I was being robbed. Then, as I still resisted, the
+man who held me from behind tripped me up, and I fell, still in his
+grasp, on my face on the ground.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Fortunately I fell on some litter; but, even so, the shock drove the
+breath out of me; and what with that and the cloak, which in this new
+position threatened to strangle me outright, I lay a moment helpless,
+while the wretches bound my hands behind me, and tied my ankles
+together. Thus secured, I felt myself taken up, and carried a little
+way, and flung roughly down on a soft bed--of hay, as I knew by the
+scent. Then some one threw a truss of hay on me, and more and more
+hay, until I thought that I should be stifled, and tried frantically
+to shout. But the cloak was wound two or three times round my head,
+and, strive as I would, I could only, with all my efforts, force out a
+dull cry, that died, smothered in its folds.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_18" href="#div1Ref_18">A POOR FIGURE.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">I did not struggle long. The efforts I had made to free myself from
+the men, and this last exertion of striving to shout, brought the
+blood to my head; and so exhausted me that I lay inert, my heart
+panting as if it would suffocate me, and my lungs craving more air. I
+was in danger of being stifled in earnest, and knew it; but,
+fortunately, the horror of this fate, which a minute before had driven
+me to frantic efforts, now gave me the supreme courage to lie still,
+and, collecting myself, do all I could to get air.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was time I did. I was hot as fire, and sweating at every pore;
+however the dreadful sensation of choking went off somewhat when I had
+lain a while motionless, and by turning my head and chest a little
+to the side--which I succeeded in doing, though I could not raise
+myself--I breathed more freely. Still, my position was horrible.
+Helpless as I was, with the trusses of hay pressing on me, fresh
+pains soon rose to take the place of those allayed. The bonds on my
+wrists began to burn into my flesh, the hilt of my sword forced itself
+into my side, my back seemed to be breaking under the burden, my
+shoulders ached intolerably. I was being slowly, slowly pressed to
+death, in darkness, and when a cry--a single cry, if I could raise my
+voice--would bring relief and succour!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The thought so maddened me that, fancying after an age of this
+suffering that I heard a faint sound as of some one moving in the
+stable, I lost control of myself, and fell to struggling again; while
+groans broke from me instead of cries, and the bonds cut into my arms.
+But the paroxysm only added to my misery; the person, whoever he was,
+did not hear me, and made no further noise; or, if he did, the blood
+coursing to my head, and swelling the veins of my neck almost to
+bursting, deafened me to the sound. The horrible weight that I had
+raised for a moment sank again. I gave up, I despaired; and lay in a
+kind of swoon, unable to think, unable to remember, no longer hoping
+for relief, or planning escape, but enduring.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I must have lain thus some time, when a noise loud enough to reach my
+dulled ears roused me afresh; I listened, at first with half a heart.
+The noise was repeated; then, without further warning, a sharp pain
+darted through the calf of my leg. I screamed out; and, though the
+cloak and the hay over my head choked the cry, I caught a kind of echo
+of it. Then silence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Stupid as a in an awakened from sleep, I thought for a moment that I
+had dreamed both the cry and the pain; and groaned in my misery. The
+next moment I felt the hay that lay on me move; then the truss that
+pressed most heavily on me was lifted, and I heard voices and cries,
+and saw a faint light, and knew I was freed. In a twinkling I felt
+myself seized and drawn out, amid a murmur of cries and exclamations.
+The cloak was plucked from my head, and, dazzled and half blind, I
+found half a dozen faces gaping and staring at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, <i>mon Dieu!</i> it is the gentleman who departed this morning!&quot;
+cried a woman. And she threw up her hands in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked at her. She was the woman of the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My throat was dry and parched, my lips were swollen; but at the second
+attempt I managed to tell her to untie me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She complied, amid fresh exclamations of surprise and astonishment;
+then, as I was so stiff and benumbed as to be powerless, they lifted
+me to the door of the stable, where one set a stool, and another
+brought a cup of water. This and the cold air restored me, and in a
+minute or two I was able to stand. Meanwhile they pressed me with
+questions; but I was giddy and confused, and could not for a few
+minutes collect myself. By-and-by, however, a person who came up
+with an air of importance, and pushed aside the crowd of clowns and
+stable-helpers that surrounded me, helped me to find my voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is it?&quot; he said. &quot;What is it, Monsieur? What brought you in the
+stable?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The woman who kept the inn answered for me that she did not know; that
+one of the men going to get hay had struck his fork into my leg, and
+so found me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But who is he?&quot; the new-comer asked imperatively. He was a tall, thin
+man, with a sour face and small, suspicious eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am the Vicomte de Saux,&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Eh!&quot; he said, prolonging the syllable. &quot;And how came you, M. le
+Vicomte--if that be your name--in the stable?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have been robbed,&quot; I muttered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bobbed!&quot; he answered with a sniff. &quot;Bah! Monsieur; in this commune we
+have no robbers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Still, I have been robbed,&quot; I answered stupidly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For answer, before I knew what he was about, he plunged his hand,
+without ceremony or leave, into the pocket of my coat, and brought out
+a purse. He held it up for all to see. &quot;Robbed?&quot; he said in a tone of
+irony. &quot;I think not, Monsieur; I think not!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked at the purse in astonishment; then, mechanically putting my
+hand into my pocket, I produced first one thing, and then another, and
+stared at them. He was right. I had not been robbed. Snuff-box,
+handkerchief, my watch and seals, my knife, and a little mirror, and
+book--all were there!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And now I come to think of it,&quot; the woman said, speaking suddenly,
+&quot;there are a pair of saddle-bags in the house that must belong to the
+gentleman! I was wondering a while ago whose they were.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are mine!&quot; I cried, memory and sense returning. &quot;They are mine!
+But the ladies who were with me? They have not started?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They went these three hours back,&quot; the woman answered, staring at me.
+&quot;And I could have sworn that Monsieur went with them! But, to be sure,
+it was only just light, and a mistake is soon made.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A thought that should have occurred to me before--a horrible
+thought--darted its sting into my heart. I plunged my hand into the
+inner pocket of my coat, and drew it out empty. The commission--the
+commission to which I had trusted was gone!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I uttered a cry of rage and glared round me. &quot;What is it?&quot; said the
+sour man, meeting my eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My papers!&quot; I answered, almost gnashing my teeth, as I thought how I
+had been tricked and treated. I saw it all now. &quot;My papers!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are gone! I have been robbed of them!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed!&quot; he said drily. &quot;That remains to be proved, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I thought that he meant that I might be mistaken, as I had been
+mistaken before; and, to make certain, I turned out the pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he said, as drily as before. &quot;I see that they are not there. But
+the point is, Monsieur, were they ever there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked at him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he said, &quot;that is the point, Monsieur. Where are your papers?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I tell you I have been robbed of them!&quot; I cried, in a rage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And I say, that remains to be proved,&quot; he answered. &quot;And until it is
+proved, you do not leave here. That is all, Monsieur, and it is
+simple.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And who,&quot; I said indignantly, &quot;are you, I should like to know,
+Monsieur, who stop travellers on the highway, and ask for papers?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Merely the President of the Local Committee,&quot; he replied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And do you suppose,&quot; I said, fuming at his folly, &quot;that I bound my
+hands, and stifled myself under that hay, on purpose? On purpose to
+pass through your wretched village?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I suppose nothing, Monsieur,&quot; he answered coolly. &quot;But this is the
+road to Turin, where M. d'Artois is said to be collecting the
+disaffected; and to Nîmes, where mischievous persons are flaunting the
+red cockade. And without papers, no one passes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But what will you do with me?&quot; I asked, seeing that the clowns, who
+gaped round us, regarded him as nothing less than a Solomon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Detain you, M. le Vicomte, until you procure papers,&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, <i>mon Dieu!</i>&quot; I said. &quot;That is not so easily done here. Who is
+likely to know me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shrugged his shoulders. &quot;Monsieur does not leave without the
+papers,&quot; he said. &quot;That is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And he spoke truly, that was all. In vain I laid the facts before him,
+and asked if any one would voluntarily suffer, merely to hide his lack
+of papers, what I had undergone; in vain I asked if the state in which
+I had been found was not itself proof that I had been robbed; if a man
+could tie his own hands, and pile hay on himself. In vain even that I
+said I knew who had robbed me; the last statement only made matters
+worse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed!&quot; he said ironically. &quot;Then, pray, who was it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The rogue Froment! Froment of Nîmes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is not in this country.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed! I saw him yesterday,&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then that settles the matter,&quot; the Committee-man answered, with a
+grim smile; and his little court smiled too. &quot;After that, we certainly
+cannot lose sight of M. le Vicomte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so well did he keep his word, that when, to avoid the cold that
+began to pierce me, I went into the wretched inn, and sat down on the
+hearth to think over the position, two of the yokels accompanied me;
+and when I went out again, and stood looking distrustfully up and down
+the road, two more were at my elbow, as by magic. Whether I turned
+this way or that, one was sure to spring up, and, if I walked too far
+from the house, would touch me on the arm, and gruffly order me back.
+Mont Aigoual itself, lifting its crest, bleak, and stern, and cold,
+above the valley, was not more sure than their attendance, or more
+immovable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This added to my irritation, and for a time I was like a madman.
+Deluded by Madame St. Alais, and robbed by Froment--who, I felt sure,
+had taken my place, and was now rolling at his ease through Suméne and
+Ganges with my commission in his pocket--I strode up and down the
+road, the road that was my prison, in a fever of rage and chagrin.
+Madame's ingratitude, my own easiness, the villagers' stupidity, I
+execrated all in turn; but most, perhaps, the inaction to which they
+condemned me. I had escaped with my life, and for that should have
+been thankful; but no man cares to be duped. And one day, two days,
+three days passed; it froze and thawed, snowed and was fine; still,
+while the carriage bowled along the road to Nîmes, and carried my
+mistress farther and farther from me, I lay a prisoner in this
+wretched hamlet. I grew to loathe the squalid inn, in which I kicked
+my heels through the cold hours, the muddy road that ran by it, the
+mean row of hovels they called the village. All day, and whenever I
+went abroad, the clowns dogged and flouted me, thinking it sport; each
+evening the Committee came to stare and question. A house this way, a
+house that way, were my boundaries, while the world moved beyond the
+mountains, and France throbbed; and I knew not what might be in hand
+to separate Denise from me. No wonder that I almost chafed myself into
+madness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had left my horse at Milhau, whence the landlord had undertaken to
+forward it to Ganges within a couple of days, by the hand of an
+acquaintance who would be going that way. I expected it every hour,
+therefore, and my only hope was that its conductor might be able to
+identify me, since half a hundred at Milhau had seen my commission, or
+heard it read. But the horse did not arrive, nor any one from Milhau,
+and fearing that the release of the two ladies had caused trouble
+there, my heart sank still lower. I could not easily communicate with
+Cahors, and the Committee, with rustic independence and obstinacy,
+would neither let me go nor send me to Nîmes, where I could be
+identified. It was in vain I pressed them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no,&quot; the sour-faced Committee-man answered, the first time I
+raised the question. &quot;Presently some one who knows you will come by.
+In the meantime have patience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. le Vicomte is a gentleman many would know,&quot; the woman of the house
+chimed in; looking at me with her arms wrapped up in her apron and her
+head on one side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure! To be sure,&quot; the crowd agreed, and, rubbing their calves,
+the members of the Committee followed her lead, and looked at me with
+satisfaction, as at something that did them credit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Their stupid complacency nearly drove me mad; but to what purpose?
+&quot;After all, you are very well here,&quot; the first speaker would say,
+shrugging his shoulders. &quot;You are very well here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Better than under the hay!&quot; the man who had pricked my leg was wont
+to answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And on that--this was a nightly joke--a general laugh would follow,
+and with another admonition to be patient, the Committee would take
+its leave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Or sometimes the argument in the kitchen took a harsher and more
+dangerous turn; and one and another would recall for my benefit old
+tales of the dragooning, and Villars, and Berwick; tales, at which the
+blood crept, of horrible cruelties done and suffered, of stern
+mountain men and brave women who faced the worst that Kings could do,
+for the fate that they had chosen; of a great cause crushed but not
+destroyed, of a whole people trodden down in dust and blood, and yet
+living and growing strong.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And do you think that after this,&quot; the speaker would cry when he had
+told me these things with flashing eyes, these things that his
+grandfathers had done and suffered--&quot;do you think that after this we
+are not concerned in this business? Do you think that now, Monsieur,
+when, after all these years, vengeance is in our hand and our
+persecutors are tottering, we will sit still and see them set up
+again? Bishops and captains, canons and cardinals, where are they now?
+Where are the lands they stole from us? Gone from them! Where are the
+tithes they took with blood? Taken from them! Where is St. Etienne,
+whose father they persecuted? With his foot on their necks! And, after
+this, do you think that with all their processions and their idols and
+their Corpus Christi, they shall defy us and set up their rule again?
+No, Monsieur, no.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But there is no question of that!&quot; I said mildly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is great question of that,&quot; was the stern answer. &quot;In Nîmes and
+Montauban, at Avignon, and at Arles! We who live in the mountains have
+too often heard the storm gathering in the plain to be mistaken. These
+preachings and processions, and weeping virgins, this cry of
+Blasphemy--what do they mean, Monsieur? Blood! Blood! Blood! It has
+been so a score of times, it is so now! But this time blood will not
+be shed on one side only!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And I listened and marvelled. I began to understand that the same word
+meant one thing in one man's mouth, and in another man's mouth another
+thing; and that that which worked easily and smoothly in the north
+might in the south roll hideously through fire and blood. In Quercy we
+had lost two or three châteaux, and a handful of lives, and for a few
+hours the mob had got out of hand--all with little enthusiasm. But
+here--here I seemed to stand on the brink of a great furnace under
+which the fires of persecution still smouldered; I felt the scorching
+breath of passion on my cheek, and saw through the white-hot scum old
+enmities seething with new and fiercer ambitions, old factions with
+new bigotries. I had heard Froment, now I heard these; it remained
+only to be seen whether Froment had his followers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the meantime, pent up in this place, I found little comfort in such
+predictions; I lived on my heart, and the better part of a fortnight
+went by. The woman at the inn was well satisfied to keep me; I paid,
+and guests were rare. And the Committee took pride in me; I was a
+living, walking token of their powers, and of the importance of their
+village. Now to the mingled misery and absurdity of my position, the
+anxiety on Mademoiselle's account, which this news of Nîmes caused me,
+added the last intolerable touch, and I determined at all risks to
+escape.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">That I had no horse, and that at Suméne or Ganges I should inevitably
+be detained, had hitherto held me back from the attempt; now I could
+bear the position no longer, and after weighing all the chances, I
+determined to slip away some evening at sunset, and make my way on
+foot to Milhau. The villagers would be sure to pursue me in the
+direction of Nîmes, whither they knew that I was bound; and even if a
+party took the other road, I should have many chances of escape in the
+darkness. I counted on reaching Milhau soon after daybreak, and there,
+if the Mayor stood my friend, I might regain my horse, and with
+credentials travel to Nîmes by the same or another road.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed feasible, and that very evening fortune favoured me. The man
+who should have kept me company, upset a pot of boiling water over his
+foot, and without giving a thought to me or his duty went off groaning
+to his house. A moment later the woman of the inn was called out by a
+neighbour, and at the very hour I would have chosen, I found myself
+alone. Still I knew that I had not a moment to lose; instantly,
+therefore, I put on my cloak, and reaching down my pistols from a
+shelf on which they had been placed, I put a little food in my pocket
+and sneaked out at the rear of the house. A dog was kennelled there,
+but it knew me and wagged its tail; and in two minutes, after warily
+skirting the backs of the houses, I gained the road to Milhau, and
+stood free and alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Night had fallen, but it was not quite dark; and dreading every eye, I
+hurried on through the dusk, now peering anxiously forward, and now
+looking and listening for the first sounds of pursuit. For a few
+minutes the fear of that took up all my thoughts; later, when the one
+twinkling light that marked the village had set behind me, and night
+and the silent waste of mountains had swallowed me up, a sense of
+eeriness, of loneliness, very depressing, took possession of me.
+Denise was at Nîmes, and I was moving the other way; what accidents
+might not befall me, how many things might not happen to postpone my
+return? In the meantime she lay at the mercy of her mother and
+brothers, with all the traditions of her family, all the prejudices of
+maidenhood and her education against my suit. To what use in this
+imbroglio might not her hand be put? Or, if that were not in question,
+what in that city of strife, in that fierce struggle, of which the
+peasants had forewarned me, might not be the fate of a young girl?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Spurred by these thoughts, I pressed on feverishly, and had gone,
+perhaps, a league, when a sharp sound made by a horse's shoe striking
+a stone, caught my ear. It came from the front, and I drew to the side
+of the road, and crouched low to let the traveller go by. I fancied
+that I could distinguish the tramp of three horses, but when the men
+loomed darkly into sight, I could see only two figures.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps I rose a little too high in my anxiety to see. At any rate I
+had not counted on the horses, the nearer of which, as it passed me,
+swerved violently from me. The rider was almost dismounted by the
+violence of the movement, but in a twinkling had his horse again in
+hand, and before I knew what I was doing, was urging it upon me. I
+dared not move, for to move was to betray my presence, but this did
+not avail, for in a minute the rider made out the outline of my
+figure.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hola,&quot; he cried sharply. &quot;Who are you there, who lie in wait to break
+men's necks? Speak, man, or----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I caught his bridle. &quot;M. de Géol!&quot; I cried, my heart beating
+against my ribs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stand back!&quot; he cried, peering at me. He did not know my voice. &quot;Who
+are you? Who is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is I, M. de Saux,&quot; I answered joyfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why, man, I thought that you were at Nîmes,&quot; he exclaimed in a tone
+of great astonishment, &quot;these ten days past! We have your horse here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here? My horse?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure. Your good friend here has it in charge from Milhau. But
+where have you been? And what are you doing here?&quot; he continued
+suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I lost my passport. It was stolen by Froment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He whistled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And at Villeraugues they stopped me,&quot; I continued. &quot;I have been there
+since.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah,&quot; he said drily. &quot;That comes of travelling in bad company, M. le
+Vicomte. And to-night I suppose you were----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Going to get away,&quot; I answered bluntly. &quot;But you--I thought that you
+had passed long ago?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he said. &quot;I was detained. Now we have met, I would advise you to
+mount and return with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will,&quot; I said briskly, &quot;with the greatest pleasure. And you will be
+able to tell them who I am.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I?&quot; he answered. &quot;No, indeed. I do not know. I only know who you told
+me you were.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I fell to earth again, and for a moment stood staring through the
+darkness at him. A moment only. For then out of the darkness came a
+voice. &quot;Have no fear, M. le Vicomte, I will speak for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I started and stared. &quot;<i>Mon Dieu!</i>&quot; I said, trembling. &quot;Who spoke?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is I--Buton,&quot; came the answer. &quot;I have your horse, M. le Vicomte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Buton, the blacksmith; Captain Buton, of the Committee.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align:center; letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This for the time cut the thread of my difficulties. When we
+rode into
+the village ten minutes later, the Committee, awed by the credentials
+which Buton carried, accepted his explanation at once, and raised no
+further objection to my journey. So twelve hours afterwards we three,
+thus strangely thrown together, passed through Suméne. We slept at
+Sauve, and presently leaving behind us the late winter of the
+mountains, with its frost and snow, began to descend in sunshine the
+western slope of the Rhone valley. All day we rode through balmy air,
+between fields and gardens and olive groves; the white dust, the white
+houses, the white cliffs eloquent of the south. And a little before
+sunset we came in sight of Nîmes, and hailed the end of a journey
+that, for me, had not been without its adventures.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_19" href="#div1Ref_19">AT NÎMES.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">It will be believed that I looked on the city with no common emotions.
+I had heard enough at Villeraugues--and to that enough M. de Géol had
+added by the way a thousand details--to satisfy me that here and not
+in the north, here in the Gard, and the Bouches du Rhone, among the
+olive groves and white dust of the south, and not among the
+wheatfields and pastures of the north, the fate of the nation hung in
+the balance; and that not in Paris--where men would and yet would not,
+where Mirabeau and Lafayette, in fear of the mob, took one day a step
+towards the King, and the next, fearful lest restored he should
+punish, retraced it--could the convulsion be arrested, but here! Here,
+where the warm imagination of the Provençal still saw something holy
+in things once holy, and faction bound men to faith.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Hitherto the stream of revolution had met with no check. Obstacles
+apparently the strongest, the King, the nobles, had crumbled and sunk
+before it, almost without a struggle; it remained to be seen whether
+the third and last of the governing powers, the Church, would fare
+better. Clearly, if Froment were right, and faith must be met by
+faith, and bigotry of one kind be opposed by bigotry of another kind,
+here in the valley of the Rhone, where the Church still kept its hold,
+lay the materials nearest to the enthusiast's hand. In that case--and
+with this in my mind, I took my first long look at the city, and the
+wide low plain that lay beyond it, bathed in the sunset light--in that
+case, from this spot might fly a torch to kindle France! Hence might
+start within the next few days a conflagration as wide as the land;
+that taken up, and roaring ever higher and higher through all La
+Vendée, and Brittany, and the Côtes du Nord, might swiftly ring round
+Paris with a circle of flame.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Once get it fairly alight. But there lay the doubt; and I looked
+again, and looked with eager curiosity, at this city from which so
+much was expected; this far-stretching city of flat roofs and white
+houses, trending gently down from the last spurs of the Cevennes to
+the Rhone plain. North of it, in the outskirts rose three low hills,
+the midmost crowned with a tower, the eastern-most casting a shadow
+almost to the distant river; and from these, eastward and southward,
+the city sloped. And these hills, and the roads near us, and the plain
+already verdant, and the great workshops that here and there rose in
+the faubourgs, all, as we approached, seemed to teem with life and
+people; with people coming and going, alone and in groups, sauntering
+beyond the walls for pleasure, or hastening on business.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of these, I noticed all wore a badge of some kind; many the tricolour,
+but more a red ribbon, a red tuft, a red cockade--emblems at sight of
+which my companions' faces grew darker, and ever darker. Another thing
+characteristic of the place, the tinkling of many bells, calling to
+vespers--though I found the sound fall pleasantly on the evening
+air--was as little to their taste. They growled together, and
+increased their pace; the result of which was that insensibly I fell
+to the rear. As we entered the streets, the traffic that met us, and
+the keenness with which I looked about me, increased the distance
+between us; presently, a long line of carts and a company of National
+Guards intervening, I found myself riding alone, a hundred paces
+behind them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was not sorry; the novelty of the shifting crowd, the changing
+faces, the southern patois, the moving string of soldiers, peasants,
+workmen, women, amused me. I was less sorry when by-and-by
+something--something which I had dimly imagined might happen when I
+reached Nîmes--took real shape, there, in the crooked street; and
+struck me, as it were, in the face. As I passed under a barred window
+a little above the roadway, a window on which my eyes alighted for an
+instant, a white hand waved a handkerchief--for an instant only, just
+long enough for me to take in the action and think of Denise! Then, as
+I jerked the reins, the handkerchief was gone, the window was empty,
+on either side of me the crowd chattered, and jostled on its way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I pulled up mechanically, and looked round, my heart beating. I could
+see no one near me for whom the signal could be intended; and yet--it
+seemed odd. I could hardly believe in such good fortune; or that I had
+found Denise so soon. However, as my eyes returned doubtfully to the
+window, the handkerchief flickered in it again; and this time the
+signal was so unmistakably meant for me that, shamed out of my
+prudence, I pushed my horse through the crowd to the door, and hastily
+dismounting, threw the rein to an urchin who stood near. I was shy of
+asking him who lived in the house; and with a single glance at the
+dull white front, and the row of barred windows that ran below the
+balcony, I resigned myself to fortune, and knocked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On the instant the door flew open, and a servant appeared. I had not
+considered what I would say, and for a moment I stared at him
+foolishly. Then, at a venture, on the spur of the moment, I asked if
+Madame received.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He answered very civilly that she did, and held the door open for me
+to enter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I did so, confused and wondering; none the less when, having crossed a
+spacious hall, paved with black and white marble, and followed him up
+a staircase, I found everything I saw round me, from the man's quiet
+livery to the mouldings of the ceiling, wearing the stamp of elegance
+and refinement. Pedestals, supporting marble busts, stood in the
+angles of the staircase; there were orange trees in jars in the hall,
+and antique fragments adorned the walls. However, I saw these only in
+passing; in a moment I reached the head of the stairs, and the man
+opening a door, stood aside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I entered the room, my eyes shining; in a dream, an impossible dream,
+that held possession of me for one moment, that Denise--not
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais, but Denise, the girl who loved me and with
+whom I had never been alone, might be there to receive me. Instead, a
+stranger rose slowly from a seat in one of the window bays, and, after
+a moment's hesitation, came forward to meet me; a strange lady, tall,
+grave, and very handsome, whose dark eyes scanned me seriously, while
+the blood rose a little to her pure olive cheek.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Seeing that she was a stranger, I began to stammer an apology for my
+intrusion. She curtsied. &quot;Monsieur need not excuse himself,&quot; she said,
+smiling. &quot;He was expected, and a meal is ready. If you will allow
+Gervais,&quot; she continued, &quot;he will take you to a room, where you can
+remove the dust of the road.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Madame,&quot; I stammered, still hesitating. &quot;I am afraid that I am
+trespassing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shook her head, smiling. &quot;Be so good,&quot; she said; and waved her
+hand towards the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But my horse,&quot; I answered, standing bewildered. &quot;I have left it in
+the street.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It will be cared for,&quot; she said. &quot;Will you be so kind?&quot; And she
+pointed with a little imperious gesture to the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I went then in utter amazement. The man who had led me upstairs was
+outside. He preceded me along a wide airy passage to a bedroom, in
+which I found all that I needed to refresh my toilet. He took my coat
+and hat, and attended me with the skill of one trained to such
+offices; and in a state of desperate bewilderment, I suffered it. But
+when, recovering a little from my confusion, I opened my mouth to ask
+a question, he begged me to excuse him; Madame would explain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Madame----?&quot; I said; and looked at him interrogatively, and waited
+for him to fill the blank.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur, Madame will explain,&quot; he answered glibly, and without
+a smile; and then, seeing that I was ready, he led me back, not to the
+room I had left, but to another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I went in, like a man in a dream; not doubting, however, that now I
+should have an answer to the riddle. But I found none. The room was
+spacious, and parquet-floored, with three high narrow windows, of
+which one, partly open, let in the murmur of the street. A small wood
+fire burned on a wide hearth between carved marble pillars; and in one
+corner of the room stood a harpsichord, harp, and music-stand. Nearer
+the fire a small round table, daintily laid for supper, and lighted by
+candles, placed in old silver sconces, presented a charming picture;
+and by it stood the lady I had seen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you cold?&quot; she said, coming forward frankly, as I advanced.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Madame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then we will sit down at once,&quot; she answered. And she pointed to the
+table.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I took the seat she indicated, and saw with astonishment that covers
+were laid for two only. She caught the look, and blushed faintly, and
+her lip trembled as if with the effort to suppress a smile. But she
+said nothing, and any thought to her disadvantage which might have
+entered my mind was anticipated, not only by the sedate courtesy of
+her manner, but by the appearance of the room, the show of wealth and
+ease that surrounded her, and the very respectability of the butler
+who waited on us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you ridden far to-day?&quot; she said, crumbling a roll with her
+fingers as if she were not quite free from nervousness; and looking
+now at the table and now again at me in a way almost appealing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From Sauve, Madame,&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! And you propose to go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No farther.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am glad to hear it,&quot; she said, with a charming smile. &quot;You are a
+stranger in Nîmes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was. I do not feel so now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you,&quot; she answered, her eyes meeting mine without reserve.
+&quot;That you may feel more at home, I am going presently to tell you my
+name. Yours I do not ask.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You do not know it?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; she said, laughing; and I saw, as she laughed, that she was
+younger than I had thought; that she was little more than a girl. &quot;Of
+course, you can tell it me if you please,&quot; she added lightly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, Madame, I do please,&quot; I answered gallantly. &quot;I am the Vicomte
+de Saux, of Saux by Cahors, and am very much at your service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She held her hand suspended, and stared at me a moment in undisguised
+astonishment. I even thought that I read something like terror in her
+eyes. Then she said: &quot;Of Saux by Cahors?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Madame. And I am driven to fear,&quot; I continued, seeing the effect
+my words produced, &quot;that I am here in the place of some one else.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, no!&quot; she said. Then, her feelings seeming to find sudden vent,
+she laughed and clapped her hands. &quot;No, Monsieur,&quot; she cried gaily,
+&quot;there is no error, I assure you. On the contrary, now I know who you
+are, I will give you a toast. Alphonse! Fill M. le Vicomte's glass,
+and then leave us! So! Now, M. le Vicomte,&quot; she continued, &quot;you must
+drink with me, <i>à l'Anglaise</i>, to----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She paused and looked at me slily. &quot;I am all attention, Madame,&quot; I
+said, bowing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To <i>la belle</i> Denise!&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was my turn to start and stare now; in confusion as well as
+surprise. But she only laughed the more, and, clapping her hands with
+childish abandon, bade me, &quot;Drink, Monsieur, drink!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I did so bravely, though I coloured under her eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is well,&quot; she said, as I set down the glass. &quot;Now, Monsieur, I
+shall be able--in the proper quarter--to report you no recreant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Madame,&quot; I said, &quot;how do you know the proper quarter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do I know?&quot; she answered naïvely. &quot;Ah, that is the question.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she did not answer it; though I remarked that from this moment she
+took a different tone with me. She dropped much of the reserve which
+she had hitherto maintained, and began to pour upon me a fire of wit
+and badinage, merriment and <i>plaisanterie</i>, against which I defended
+myself as well as I could, where all the advantage of knowledge lay
+with her. Such a duel with so fair an antagonist had its charms, the
+more as Denise and my relations to her formed the main objects of her
+raillery: yet I was not sorry when a clock, striking eight, produced a
+sudden silence and a change in her, as great as that which had
+preceded it. Her face grew almost sombre, she sighed, and sat looking
+gravely before her. I ventured to ask if anything ailed her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Only this, Monsieur,&quot; she answered. &quot;That I must now put you to the
+test; and you may fail me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You wish me to do something?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wish you to give me your escort,&quot; she answered, &quot;to a place and
+back again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am ready,&quot; I cried, rising gaily. &quot;If I were not I should be a
+recreant indeed. But I think, Madame, that you were going to tell me
+your name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am Madame Catinot,&quot; she answered. And then--I do not know what she
+read in my face, &quot;I am a widow,&quot; she added, blushing deeply. &quot;For the
+rest you are no wiser.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But always at your service, Madame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So be it,&quot; she answered quietly. &quot;I will meet you, M. le Vicomte, in
+the hall, if you will presently descend thither.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I held the door for her to go out, and she went; and wondering, and
+inexpressibly puzzled by the strangeness of the adventure, I paced up
+and down the room a minute, and then followed her. A hanging lamp
+which lit the hall showed her to me standing at the foot of the
+stairs; her hair hidden by a black lace mantilla, her dress under a
+cloak of the same dark colour. The man who had admitted me gave me in
+silence my cloak and hat; and without a word Madame led the way along
+a passage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Over a door at the end of the passage was a second light. It fell on
+my hat--as I was about to put it on--and I started and stood. Instead
+of the tricolour I had been wearing in the hat, I saw a small red
+cockade!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame heard me stop, and turning, discovered what was the matter. She
+laid her hand on my arm; and the hand trembled. &quot;For an hour,
+Monsieur, only for an hour,&quot; she breathed in my ear. &quot;Give me your
+arm.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Somewhat agitated--I began to scent danger and complications--I put on
+the hat and gave her my arm, and in a moment we stood in the open air
+in a dark, narrow passage between high walls. She turned at once to
+the left, and we walked in silence a hundred, or a hundred and fifty,
+paces, which brought us to a low-browed doorway on the same side,
+through which a light poured out. Madame guiding me by a slight
+pressure, we passed through this, and a narrow vestibule beyond it;
+and in a moment I found myself, to my astonishment, in a church, half
+full of silent worshippers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame enjoined silence by laying her finger on her lip, and led the
+way along one of the dim aisles, until we came to a vacant chair
+beside a pillar. She signed to me to stand by the pillar, and herself
+knelt down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Left at liberty to survey the scene, and form my conclusions, I looked
+about me like a man in a dream. The body of the church, faintly lit,
+was rendered more gloomy by the black cloaks and veils of the vast
+kneeling crowd that filled the nave and grew each moment more dense.
+The men for the most part stood beside pillars, or at the back of the
+church; and from these parts came now and then a low stern muttering,
+the only sound that broke the heavy silence. A red lamp burning before
+the altar added one touch of sombre colour to the scene.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had not stood long before I felt the silence, and the crowd, and the
+empty vastnesses above us, begin to weigh me down; before my heart
+began to beat quickly in expectation of I knew not what. And then at
+last, when this feeling had grown almost intolerable, out of the
+silence about the altar came the first melancholy notes, the wailing
+refrain of the psalm, <i>Miserere Domine!</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had a solemn and wondrous effect as it rose and fell, in the gloom,
+in the silence, above the heads of the kneeling multitude, who one
+moment were there and the next, as the lights sank, were gone, leaving
+only blackness and emptiness and space--and that spasmodic wailing. As
+the pleading, almost desperate notes, floated down the long aisles,
+borne on the palpitating hearts of the listeners, a hand seemed to
+grasp the throat, the eyes grew dim, strong men's heads bowed lower,
+and strong men's hands trembled. <i>Miserere mei Deus! Miserere Domine!</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last it came to an end. The psalm died down, and on the darkness
+and dead silence that succeeded, a light flared up suddenly in one
+place, and showed a pale, keen face and eyes that burned, as they
+gazed, not at the dim crowd, but into the empty space above them,
+whence grim, carved visages peered vaguely out of fretted vaults. And
+the preacher began to preach.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In a low voice at first, and with little emotion, he spoke of the ways
+of God with His creatures, of the immensity of the past and the
+littleness of the present, of the Omnipotence before which time and
+space and men were nothing; of the certainty that as God, the
+Almighty, the Everlasting, the Ever-present decreed, it <i>was</i>. And
+then, in fuller tones, he went on to speak of the Church, God's agent
+on earth, and of the work which it had done in past ages, converting,
+protecting, shielding the weak, staying the strong, baptising,
+marrying, burying. God's handmaid, God's vicegerent. &quot;Of whom alone it
+comes,&quot; the preacher continued, raising his hand now, and speaking in
+a voice that throbbed louder and fuller through the spaces of the
+church, &quot;that we are more than animals, that knowing who is behind the
+veil we fear not temporal things, nor think of death as the worst
+possible, as do the unbelieving; but having that on which we rest,
+outside and beyond the world, can view unmoved the worst that the
+world can do to us. We believe; therefore, we are strong. We believe
+in God; therefore, we are stronger than the world. We believe in God;
+therefore, we are of God, and not of the world. We are above the
+world! we are about the world, and in the strength of God, who is the
+God of Hosts, shall subdue the world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He paused, holding the crowd breathless; then in a lower tone he
+continued: &quot;Yet how do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain
+thing? They trample on God! They say this exists, I see it. That
+exists, I hear it. The other exists, I touch it. And that is all--that
+is all. But does it come of what we see and hear and feel that a man
+will die for his brother? Does it come of what we see and hear
+and feel that a man will die for a thought? That he will die for a
+creed? That he will die for honour? That, withal, he will die for
+anything--for anything, while he may live? I trow not. It comes of
+God! Of God only.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And they trample on Him. In the streets, in the senate, in high
+places. And He says, 'Who is on My side?' My children, my brethren, we
+have lived long in a time of ease and safety; we have been long
+untried by aught but the ordinary troubles of life, untrained by the
+imminent issues of life and death. Now, in these late years of the
+world, it has pleased the Almighty to try us; and who is on His side?
+Who is prepared to put the unseen before the seen, honour before life,
+God before man, chivalry before baseness, the Church before the world?
+Who is on His side? Spurned in this little corner of His creation,
+bruised and bleeding and trampled under foot, yet ruler of earth and
+heaven, life and death, judgment and eternity, ruler of all the
+countless worlds of space, He comes! He comes! He comes, God Almighty,
+which was, and is, and is to be! And who is on His side?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the last word fell from his lips, and the light above his head went
+suddenly out, and darkness fell on the breathless hush, the listening
+hundreds, an indescribable wave of emotion passed through the crowd.
+Men stirred their feet with a strange, stern sound, that spreading,
+passed in muttered thunder to the vaults; while women sobbed, and here
+and there shrieked and prayed aloud. From the altar a priest in a
+voice that shook with feeling blessed the congregation; then, even as
+I awoke from a trance of attention, Madame touched my arm, and signed
+to me to follow her, and gliding quickly from her place, led the way
+down the aisle. Before the preacher's last words had ceased to ring in
+my ears or my heart had forgotten to be moved, we were walking under
+the stars with the night air cooling our faces; a moment, and we were
+in the house and stood again in the lighted salon where I had first
+found Madame Catinot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before I knew what she was going to do, she turned to me with a swift
+movement, and laid both her bare hands on my arm; and I saw that the
+tears were running down her face. &quot;Who is on My side?&quot; she cried, in a
+voice that thrilled me to the soul, so that I started where I stood.
+&quot;Who is on My side? Oh, surely you! Surely you, Monsieur, whose
+fathers' swords were drawn for God and the King! Who, born to guide,
+are surely on the side of light! Who, noble, will never leave the task
+of government to the base! O----&quot; and there, breaking off before I
+could answer, she turned from me with her hands clasped to her face.
+&quot;O God!&quot; she cried with sobs, &quot;give me this man for Thy service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stood inexpressibly troubled; moved by the sight of this woman in
+tears, shaken by the conflict in my own soul, somewhat unmanned,
+perhaps, by what I had seen. For a moment I could not speak; when I
+did, &quot;Madame,&quot; I said unsteadily, &quot;if I had known that it was for
+this! You have been kind to me, and I--I can make no return.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't say it!&quot; she cried, turning to me and pleading with me. &quot;Don't
+say it!&quot; And she laid her clasped hands on my arm and looked at me,
+and then in a moment smiled through her tears. &quot;Forgive me,&quot; she said
+humbly, &quot;forgive me. I went about it wrongly. I feel--too much. I
+asked too quickly. But you will? You will, Monsieur? You will be
+worthy of yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I groaned. &quot;I hold their commission,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Return it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But that will not acquit me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is on My side?&quot; she said softly. &quot;Who is on My side?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I drew a deep breath. In the silence of the room, the wood-ashes on
+the hearth settled down, and a clock ticked. &quot;For God! For God and the
+King!&quot; she said, looking up at me with shining eyes, with clasped
+hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I could have sworn in my pain. &quot;To what purpose?&quot; I cried almost
+rudely. &quot;If I were to say, yes, to what purpose, Madame? What could I
+do that would help you? What could I do that would avail?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Everything! Everything! You are one man more!&quot; she cried. &quot;One man
+more for the right. Listen, Monsieur. You do not know what is afoot,
+or how we are pressed, or----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stopped suddenly, abruptly; and looked at me, listening; listening
+with a new expression on her face. The door was not closed, and the
+voice of a man, speaking in the hall below, came up the staircase;
+another instant, and a quick foot crossed the hall, and sounded on the
+stairs. The man was coming up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame, face to face with me, dumb and listening with distended eyes,
+stood a moment, as if taken by surprise. At the last moment, warning
+me by a gesture to be silent, she swept to the door and went out,
+closing it--not quite closing it behind her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I judged that the man had almost reached it, for I heard him exclaim
+in surprise at her sudden appearance; then he said something in a tone
+which did not reach me. I lost her answer too, but his next words were
+audible enough.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will not open the door?&quot; he cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not of that room,&quot; she replied bravely. &quot;You can see me in the other,
+my friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then silence. I could almost hear them breathing. I could picture them
+looking defiance at one another. I grew hot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, this is intolerable!&quot; he cried at last. &quot;This is not to be borne.
+Are you to receive every stranger that comes to town? Are you to be
+closeted with them, and sup with them, and sit with them, while I eat
+my heart out outside? Am I--I <i>will</i> go in!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You shall not!&quot; she cried; but I thought that the indignation in her
+voice rang false; that laughter underlay it. &quot;It is enough that you
+insult me,&quot; she continued proudly. &quot;But if you dare to touch me, or if
+you insult him----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Him!&quot; he cried fiercely. &quot;Him, indeed! Madame, I tell you at once, I
+have borne enough. I have suffered this more than once, but----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I had no longer any doubt, and before he could add the next word I
+was at the door--I had snatched it open, and stood before him. Madame
+fell back with a cry between tears and laughter, and we stood, looking
+at one another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man was Louis St. Alais.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_20" href="#div1Ref_20">THE SEARCH.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">I had not seen Louis since the day of the duel at Cahors, when,
+parting from him at the door in the passage by the Cathedral, I had
+refused to take his hand. Then I had been sorely angry with him. But
+time and old memories and crowding events had long softened the
+feeling; and in the joy of meeting him again, of finding him in this
+unexpected stranger, nothing was further from my thoughts than to rake
+up old grudges. I held out my hand, therefore, with a laughing word.
+&quot;<i>Voilà l'Inconnu</i>, Monsieur!&quot; I said with a bow. &quot;I am here to find
+you, and I find you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He stared at me a moment in the utmost astonishment, and then
+impulsively grasping my hand he held it, and stood looking at me, with
+the old affection in his eyes. &quot;Adrien! Adrien!&quot; he said, much moved.
+&quot;Is it really you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Even so, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then, to my astonishment, he slowly dropped my hand; and his manner
+and his face changed--as a house changes when the shutters are closed.
+&quot;I am sorry for it,&quot; he said slowly, and after a long pause. And then,
+with an unmistakable flash of anger, &quot;My God, Monsieur! Why have you
+come?&quot; he cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why have I come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, why?&quot; he repeated bitterly. &quot;Why? Why have you come--to trouble
+us? You do not know what evil you are doing! You do not know, man!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know at least what good I am seeking,&quot; I answered, purely astounded
+by this sudden and inexplicable change. &quot;I have made no secret of
+that, and I make no secret of it now. No man was ever worse treated
+than I have been by your family. Your attitude now impels me to say
+that. But when I see Madame la Marquise, to-morrow, I shall tell her
+that it will take more than this to change me. I shall tell her----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will not see her!&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I shall!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will not!&quot; he retorted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before I could answer, Madame Catinot interposed. &quot;Oh, no more!&quot; she
+cried in a voice which sufficiently evinced her distress. &quot;I thought
+that you and he were friends, M. Louis? And now--now that fortune has
+brought you together again----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Would to heaven it had not!&quot; he cried, dropping his hand like a man
+in despair. And he took a turn this way and that on the floor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at him. &quot;I do not think that you have ever spoken to me in
+that tone before, Monsieur,&quot; she said in a tone of keen reproach. &quot;If
+it is due--if, I mean,&quot; she continued quietly, but with a sparkling
+eye, &quot;it is because you found M. le Vicomte with me, you infer
+something unworthy of us. You insult me as well as your friend!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Heaven forbid!&quot; he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she was roused. &quot;That is not enough,&quot; she answered firmly and
+proudly. &quot;For one week more, this is my house, M. Louis. After that it
+will be yours. Perhaps then--perhaps then,&quot; she continued, with a
+pitiful break in her voice, &quot;I shall think of to-night, and wonder I
+took no warning! Perhaps then, Monsieur, a word of kindness from you
+may be as rare as a rough word now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was not proof against that, and the sadness in her voice. He threw
+himself on his knees before her and seized her hands. &quot;Madame!
+Catherine! forgive me!&quot; he cried passionately, kissing her hands again
+and again, and taking no heed of me at all. &quot;Forgive me!&quot; he
+continued, &quot;I am miserable! You are my only comfort, my only
+compensation. I do not know, since I saw him, what I am saying.
+Forgive me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do!&quot; she said hastily. &quot;Rise, Monsieur!&quot; and she furtively wiped
+away a tear, then looked at me, blushing but happy. &quot;I do,&quot; she
+continued. &quot;But, <i>mon cher</i>, I do not understand you. The other day
+you spoke so kindly of M. de Saux; and of--pardon me--your sister, and
+of other things. To-day M. de Saux is here, and you are unhappy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am!&quot; he said, casting a haggard, miserable look at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I shrugged my shoulders and spoke up. &quot;So be it,&quot; I said proudly. &quot;But
+because I have lost a friend, Monsieur, it does not follow that I need
+lose a mistress. I have come to Nîmes to win Mademoiselle de St.
+Alais' hand. I shall not leave until I have won it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is madness!&quot; he said, with a groan. &quot;Why?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because you talk of the impossible,&quot; he answered. &quot;Because Madame de
+St. Alais is not at Nîmes--for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is at Nîmes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will have to find her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is childishness!&quot; I said. &quot;Do you mean to say that at the first
+hotel I enter I shall not be told where Madame has her lodging?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Neither at the first, nor at the last.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is in retreat?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall not tell you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With that we stood facing one another; Madame Catinot watching us a
+little aside. Clearly the events of the last few months, which had so
+changed, so hardened Madame St. Alais, had not been lost on Louis. I
+could fancy, as I confronted him, that it was M. le Marquis, the
+elder, and not the younger brother, who withstood me; only--only from
+under Louis' mask of defiance, there peeped, I still fancied, the old
+Louis' face, doubting and miserable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I tried that chord. &quot;Come,&quot; I said, making an effort to swallow my
+wrath, and speak reasonably, &quot;I think that you are not in earnest, M.
+le Comte, in what you say, and that we are both heated. Time was when
+we agreed well enough, and you were not unwilling to have me for your
+brother-in-law. Are we, because of these miserable differences----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Differences!&quot; he cried, interrupting me harshly. &quot;My mother's house
+in Cahors is an empty shell. My brother's house at St. Alais is a heap
+of ashes. And you talk of differences!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, call them what you like!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Besides,&quot; Madame Catinot interposed quickly, &quot;pardon me,
+Monsieur--besides, M. St. Alais, you know our need of converts. M. le
+Vicomte is a gentleman, and a man of sense and religion. It needs but
+a little--a very little,&quot; she continued, smiling faintly at me, &quot;to
+persuade him. And if your sister's hand would do that little, and
+Madame were agreeable?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He could not have it!&quot; he answered sullenly, looking away from me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But a week ago,&quot; Madame Catinot answered in a startled tone, &quot;you
+told me----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A week ago is not now,&quot; he said. &quot;For the rest, I have only this to
+say. I am sorry to see you here, M. le Vicomte, and I beg you to
+return. You can do no good, and you may do and suffer harm. By no
+possibility can you gain what you seek.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That remains to be seen,&quot; I answered stubbornly, roused in my turn.
+&quot;To begin with, since you say that I cannot find Mademoiselle, I shall
+adopt a very simple plan. I shall wait here until you leave, Monsieur,
+and then accompany you home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will not!&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You may depend upon it I shall!&quot; I answered defiantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Madame interposed. &quot;No, M. de Saux,&quot; she said with dignity. &quot;You
+will not do that; I am sure that you will not; it would be an abuse of
+my hospitality.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If you forbid it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do,&quot; she answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then, Madame, I cannot,&quot; I replied. &quot;But----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But nothing! Let there be a truce now, if you please,&quot; she said
+firmly. &quot;If it is to be war between you, it shall not begin here. I
+think, too--I think that I had better ask you to retire,&quot; she
+continued, with an appealing glance at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked at Louis. But he had turned away, and affected to ignore me.
+And on that I succumbed. It was impossible to answer Madame, when she
+spoke to me in that way; and equally impossible to remain in the
+house, against her will. I bowed, therefore, in silence; and with the
+best grace I could, though I was sore and angry, I took my cloak and
+hat, which I had laid on a chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sorry,&quot; Madame said kindly. And she held out her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I raised it to my lips. &quot;To-morrow--at twelve--here!&quot; she breathed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I started. I rather guessed than heard the words, so softly were they
+spoken; but her eyes made up for the lack of sound, and I understood.
+The next moment she turned from me, and with a last reluctant glance
+at Louis, who still had his back to me, I went out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man who had admitted me was in the hall. &quot;You will find your horse
+at the Louvre, Monsieur,&quot; he said, as he opened the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I rewarded him, and going out, without a thought whither I was going,
+walked along the street, plunged in reflection; until marching on
+blindly I came against a man. That awoke me, and I looked round. I had
+been in the house little more than three hours, and in Nîmes scarcely
+longer; yet so much had happened in the time that it seemed strange to
+me to find the streets unfamiliar, to find myself alone in them, at a
+loss which way to turn. Though it was hard on ten o'clock, and only a
+swaying lantern here and there made a ring of smoky light at the
+meeting of four ways, there were numbers of people still abroad; a few
+standing, but the majority going one way, the men with cloaks about
+their necks, the women with muffled heads.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Feeling the necessity, since I must get myself a lodging, of putting
+away for the moment my one absorbing thought--the question of Louis'
+behaviour--I stopped a man who was not going with the stream, and
+asked him the way to the Hôtel de Louvre. I learned not only that but
+the cause of the concourse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There has been a procession,&quot; he answered gruffly. &quot;I should have
+thought that you would know that!&quot; he added, with a glance at my hat.
+And he turned on his heel.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I remembered the red cockade I wore, and before I went farther paused
+to take it out. As I moved on again, a man came quickly up behind me,
+and as he passed thrust a paper into my hand. Before I could speak he
+was gone; but the incident and the bustle of the streets, strange at
+this late hour, helped to divert my thoughts; and I was not surprised
+when, on reaching the inn, I was told that every room was full.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My horse is here,&quot; I said, thinking that the landlord, seeing me walk
+in on foot, might distrust the weight of my purse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur; and if you like you can lie in the eating-room,&quot; he
+answered very civilly. &quot;You are welcome, and you will do no better
+elsewhere. It is as if the fair were being held at Beaucaire. The city
+is full of strangers. Almost as full as it is of those things!&quot; he
+continued querulously, and he pointed to the paper in my hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked at it, and saw that it was a manifesto headed &quot;<i>Sacrilege!
+Mary Weeps!</i>&quot; &quot;It was thrust into my hand a minute ago,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure,&quot; he answered. &quot;One morning we got up and found the walls
+white with them. Another day they were flying loose about the
+streets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you know,&quot; I asked, seeing that he had been supping, and was
+inclined to talk, &quot;where the Marquis de St. Alais is living?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur,&quot; he said. &quot;I do not know the gentleman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But he is here with his family.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is not here,&quot; he answered, shrugging his shoulders. Then in a
+lower tone, &quot;Is he red, or--or the other thing, Monsieur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Red,&quot; I said boldly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! Well, there have been two or three gentlemen going to and fro
+between our M. Froment, and Turin and Montpellier. It is said that our
+Mayor would have arrested them long ago if he had done his duty. But
+he is red too, and most of the councillors. And I don't know, for I
+take no side. Perhaps the gentleman you want is one of these?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very likely,&quot; I said. &quot;So M. Froment is here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur knows him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I said drily, &quot;a little.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, he is here, or he is not,&quot; the landlord answered, shaking his
+head. &quot;It is impossible to say.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; I asked. &quot;Does he not live here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, he lives here; at the Port d'Auguste on the old wall near the
+Capuchins. But----&quot; he looked round and then continued mysteriously,
+&quot;he goes out, where he has never gone in, Monsieur! And he has a house
+in the Amphitheatre, and it is the same there. And some say that the
+Capuchins is only another house of his. And if you go to the Cabaret
+de la Vierge, and give his name--you pay nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He said this with many nods, and then seemed on a sudden to think that
+he had said too much, and hurried away. Asking for them, I learned
+that M. de Géol and Buton, failing to get a room there, had gone to
+the Ecu de France; but I was not very sorry to be rid of them for the
+time, and accepting the host's offer, I went to the eating-room, and
+there made myself as comfortable as two hard chairs and the excitement
+of my thoughts permitted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The one thing, the one subject that absorbed me was Louis' behaviour,
+and the strange and abrupt change I had marked in it. He had been glad
+to see me, his hand had leaped to meet mine, I had read the old
+affection in his eyes; and then--then on a sudden, in a moment he had
+frozen into surly, churlish antagonism, an antagonism that had taken
+Madame Catinot by surprise, and was not without a touch of remorse,
+almost of horror. It could not be that she was dead? It could not be
+that Denise--no, my mind failed to entertain it. But I rose, trembling
+at the thought, and paced the room until daylight; listening to the
+watchman's cry, and the mournful hours, and the occasional rush of
+hurrying feet, that spoke of the perturbed city. What to me were
+Froment, or the red or the white or the tricolour, veto or no veto,
+endowment or disendowment, in comparison to that?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The house stirred at last, but I had still to wait till noon before I
+could see Madame Catinot. I spent the interval in an aimless walk
+through the town. At another time the things I saw must have filled me
+with wonder; at another time the hoary, gloomy ring of the Arènes,
+rising in tiers of frowning arches, high above the squalid roofs that
+leaned against it--and choked within by a Ghetto of the like, huddled
+where prefects once sat, and the Emperor's colours flew victorious
+round the circle--must have won my admiration by its vastness; the
+Maison Carrée by its fair proportions; the streets by the teeming
+crowds that filled them, and stood about the cabarets, and read the
+placards on the walls. But I had only thought for Louis, and my love,
+and the lagging minutes. At the first stroke of twelve I knocked at
+Madame Catinot's door; the last saw me in her presence.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It needed but a look at her face, and my heart sank; the thanks I was
+preparing to utter died on my lips as I gazed at her. She on her part
+was agitated. For a moment we were both silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last, &quot;I see that you have bad news for me, Madame,&quot; I said,
+striving to smile, and bear myself bravely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The worst, I fear,&quot; she said pitifully, smoothing her skirt. &quot;For I
+have none, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet I have heard it said that no news is good news?&quot; I said,
+wondering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her lip trembled, but she did not look at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, Madame,&quot; I persisted, though I was sick at heart. &quot;Surely you
+are going to tell me more than that? At least you can tell me where I
+can see Madame St. Alais.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur, I cannot tell you,&quot; she said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nor why M. Louis has so suddenly become hostile to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur, nor that. And I beg--as you are a gentleman,&quot; she
+continued hurriedly, &quot;that you will spare me questions! I thought that
+I could help you, and I asked you to see me to-day. I find that I can
+only give you pain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And that is all, Madame?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is all,&quot; she said, with a gesture that told more than her words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked round the silent room, I walked half way to the door. And
+then I turned back. I could not go. &quot;No!&quot; I cried vehemently, &quot;I will
+not go so! What is it you have learned, that has closed your lips,
+Madame? What are they plotting against her--that you fear to tell me?
+Speak, Madame! You did not bring me here to hear this! That I know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she only looked at me, her face full of reproach. &quot;Monsieur,&quot; she
+said, &quot;I meant kindly. Is this my reward?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And that was too much for me. I turned without a word, and went
+out--of the room and the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Outside I felt like a child in darkness, on whom the one door leading
+to life and liberty had closed, as his hand touched it. I felt a dead,
+numbing disappointment that at any moment might develop into sharp
+pain. This change in Madame Catinot, resembling so exactly the change
+in Louis St. Alais, what could be the cause of it? What had been
+revealed to her? What was the mystery, the plot, the danger that made
+them all turn from me, as if I had the plague?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For awhile I was in the depths of despair. Then the warm sunshine that
+filled the streets, and spoke of coming summer, kindled lighter
+thoughts. After all it could not be hard to find a person in Nîmes! I
+had soon found M. Louis. And this was the eighteenth century and not
+the sixteenth. Women were no longer exposed to the pressure that had
+once been brought to bear on them; nor men to the violence natural in
+old feuds.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then--as I thought of that and strove to comfort myself with it--I
+heard a noise burst into the street behind me, a roar of voices and a
+sudden trampling of hundreds of feet; and turning I saw a dense press
+of men coming towards me, waving aloft blue banners, and crucifixes,
+and flags with the Five Wounds. Some were singing and some shouting,
+all were brandishing clubs and weapons. They came along at a good
+pace, filling the street from wall to wall; and to avoid them I
+stepped into an archway, that opportunely presented itself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They came up in a moment, and swept past me with deafening shouts. It
+was difficult to see more than a forest of waving arms and staves over
+swart excited faces; but through a break in the ranks I caught a
+glimpse of three men walking in the heart of the crowd, quiet
+themselves, yet the cause and centre of all; and the middle man of the
+three was Froment. One of the others wore a cassock, and the third had
+a reckless air, and a hat cocked in the military fashion. So much I
+saw, then only rank upon rank of hurrying shouting men. After these
+again followed three or four hundred of the scum of the city, beggars
+and broken rascals and homeless men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As I turned from staring after them I found a man at my elbow; by a
+strange coincidence the very same man who, the night before, had
+directed me to the Hôtel de Louvre. I asked him if that was not M.
+Froment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he said with a sneer. &quot;And his brother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, his brother! What is his name, Monsieur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bully Froment, some call him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what are they going to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Groan outside a Protestant church to-day,&quot; he answered pithily.
+&quot;To-morrow break the windows. The next day, or as soon as they can get
+their courage to the sticking point, fire on the worshippers, and call
+in the garrison from Montpellier. After that the refugees from Turin
+will come, we shall be in revolt, and there will be dragoonings. And
+then--if the Cevennols don't step in--Monsieur will see strange
+things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the Mayor?&quot; I said. &quot;And the National Guards? Will they suffer
+it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The first is red,&quot; the man answered curtly. &quot;And two-thirds of the
+last. Monsieur will see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And with a cool nod he went on his way; while I stood a moment looking
+idly after the procession. On a sudden, as I stood, it occurred to me
+that where Froment was, the St. Alais might be; and snatching at the
+idea, wondering hugely that I had not had it before, I started
+recklessly in pursuit of the mob. The last broken wave of the crowd
+was still visible, eddying round a distant corner; and even after that
+disappeared, it was easy to trace the course it had taken by closed
+shutters and scared faces peeping from windows. I heard the mob stop
+once, and groan and howl; but before I came up with it it was on
+again, and when I at last overtook it, where one of the streets,
+before narrowing to an old gateway, opened out into a little
+square--with high dingy buildings on this side and that, and a
+meshwork of alleys running into it--the nucleus of the crowd had
+vanished, and the fringe was melting this way and that.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My aim was Froment, and I had missed him. But I was at a loss only for
+a moment, for as I stood and scanned the people trooping back into the
+town, my eye alighted on a lean figure with stooping head and a scanty
+cassock, that, wishing to cross the street, paused a moment striving
+to pass athwart the crowd. It needed a glance only; then, with a cry
+of joy, I was through the press, and at the man's side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was Father Benôit! For a moment we could not speak. Then, as we
+looked at one another, the first hasty joyful words spoken, I saw the
+very expression of dismay and discomfiture, which I had read on Louis
+St. Alais' face, dawn on his! He muttered, &quot;<i>O mon Dieu! mon Dieu!</i>&quot;
+under his breath, and wrung his hands stealthily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I was sick of this mystery, and I said so in hot words. &quot;You at
+any rate shall tell me, father!&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two or three of the passers-by heard me, and looked at us curiously.
+He drew me, to escape these, into a doorway; but still a man stood
+peering in at us. &quot;Come upstairs,&quot; the father muttered, &quot;we shall be
+quiet there.&quot; And he led the way up a stone staircase, ancient and
+sordid, serving many and cleaned by none.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you live here?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; he answered; and then stopped short, and turned to me with an
+air of confusion. &quot;But it is a poor place, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he
+continued, and he even made as if he would descend again, &quot;and perhaps
+we should be wise to go----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no!&quot; I said, burning with impatience. &quot;To your room, man! To your
+room, if you live here! I cannot wait. I have found you, and I will
+not let another minute pass before I have learned the truth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He still hesitated, and even began to mutter another objection. But I
+had only mind for one thing, and giving way to me, he preceded me
+slowly to the top of the house; where under the tiles he had a little
+room with a mattress and a chair, two or three books and a crucifix. A
+small square dormer-window admitted the light--and something else; for
+as we entered a pigeon rose from the floor and flew out by it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He uttered an exclamation of annoyance, and explained that he fed them
+sometimes. &quot;They are company,&quot; he said sadly. &quot;And I have found little
+here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet you came of your own accord,&quot; I retorted brutally. I was choking
+with anxiety, and it took that form.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To lose one more illusion,&quot; he answered. &quot;For years--you know it, M.
+le Vicomte--I looked forward to reform, to liberty, to freedom. And I
+taught others to look forward also. Well, we gained these--you know
+it, and the first use the people made of their liberty was to attack
+religion. Then I came here, because I was told that here the defenders
+of the Church would make a stand; that here the Church was strong,
+religion respected, faith still vigorous. I came to gain a little hope
+from others' hope. And I find pretended miracles, I find imposture, I
+find lies and trickery and chicanery used on one side and the other.
+And violence everywhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then in heaven's name, man, why did you not go home again?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was going a week ago,&quot; he answered. &quot;And then I did not go.
+And----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Never mind that now!&quot; I cried harshly. &quot;It is not that I want. I have
+seen Louis St. Alais, and I know that there is something amiss. He
+will not face me. He will not tell me where Madame is. He will have
+nothing to do with me. He looks at me as if I were a death's head! Now
+what is it? You know and I must know. Tell me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Mon Dieu!</i>&quot; he answered. And he looked at me with tears in his eyes.
+Then, &quot;This is what I feared,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Feared? Feared what?&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That your heart was in it, M. le Vicomte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In what? In what? Speak plainly, man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle de St. Alais'--engagement,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stood a moment staring at him. &quot;Her engagement?&quot; I whispered. &quot;To
+whom?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To M. Froment,&quot; he answered.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_21" href="#div1Ref_21">RIVALS.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is impossible!&quot; I said slowly. &quot;Froment! It is impossible!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But even while I said it, I knew that I lied; and I turned to the
+window that Benôit might not see my face. Froment! The name alone, now
+that the hint was supplied, let in the light. Fellow-traveller,
+fellow-conspirator, in turn protected and protector, his face as I had
+seen it at the carriage door in the pass by Villeraugues, rose up
+before me, and I marvelled that I had not guessed the secret earlier.
+A bourgeois and ambitious, thrown into Mademoiselle's company, what
+could be more certain than that, sooner or later, he would lift his
+eyes to her? What more likely than that Madame St. Alais, impoverished
+and embittered, afloat on the whirlpool of agitation, would be willing
+to reward his daring even with her daughter's hand? Rich already,
+success would ennoble him; for the rest I knew how the man, strong
+where so many were weak, resolute where a hundred faltered, assured of
+his purpose and steadfast in pursuing it, where others knew none, must
+loom in a woman's eyes. And I gnashed my teeth.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had my eyes fixed, as I thought these thoughts, on a little dingy,
+well-like court that lay below his window, and on the farther side of
+which, but far below me, a monastic-looking porch surmounted by a
+carved figure, formed the centre of vision. Mechanically, though I
+could have sworn that my whole mind was otherwise engaged, I watched
+two men come into the court, and go to this porch. They did not knock
+or call, but one of them struck his stick twice on the pavement; in a
+second or two the door opened, as of itself, and the men disappeared.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I saw and noted this unconsciously; yet, in all probability, it was
+the closing of the door roused me from my thoughts. &quot;Froment!&quot; I said,
+&quot;Froment!&quot; And then I turned from the window. &quot;Where is she?&quot; I said
+hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Father Benôit shook his head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You must know!&quot; I cried--indeed I saw that he did. &quot;You must know!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do know,&quot; he answered slowly, his eyes on mine. &quot;But I cannot tell
+you. I could not, were it to save your life, M. le Vicomte. I had it
+in confession.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stared at him baffled; and my heart sank at that answer, as it would
+have sunk at no other. I knew that on this door, this iron door
+without a key, I might beat my hands and spend my fury until the end
+of time and go no farther. At length, &quot;Then why--why have you told me
+so much?&quot; I cried, with a harsh laugh. &quot;Why tell me anything?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because I would have you leave Nîmes,&quot; Father Benôit answered gently,
+laying his hand on my arm, his eyes full of entreaty. &quot;Mademoiselle is
+contracted, and beyond your reach. Within a few hours, certainly as
+soon as the elections come on, there will be a rising here. I know
+you,&quot; he continued, &quot;and your feelings, and I know that your
+sympathies will be with neither party. Why stay then, M. le Vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; I said, so quickly that his hand fell from my arm as if I had
+struck him. &quot;Because until Mademoiselle is married I follow her, if it
+be to Turin! Because M. Froment is unwise to mingle love and war, and
+my sympathies are now with one side, and it is not his! It is not his!
+Why, you ask? Because--you cannot tell me, but there are those who
+can, and I go to them!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And without waiting to hear answer or remonstrance--though he cried to
+me and tried to detain me--I caught up my hat, and flew down the
+stairs; and once out of the house and in the street hastened back at
+the top of my speed to the quarter of the town I had left. The streets
+through which I passed were still crowded, but wore an air not so much
+of disorder as of expectation, as if the procession I had followed had
+left a trail behind it. Here and there I saw soldiers patrolling, and
+warning the people to be quiet; and everywhere knots of townsmen,
+whispering and scowling, who stared at me as I passed. Every tenth
+male I saw was a monk, Dominican or Capuchin, and though my whole mind
+was bent on finding M. de Géol and Buton, and learning from them what
+they knew, as enemies, of Froment's plans and strength, I felt that
+the city was in an abnormal state; and that if I would do anything
+before the convulsion took place, I must act quickly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was fortunate enough to find M. de Géol and Buton at their lodgings.
+The former, whom I had not seen since our arrival, and who doubtless
+had his opinion of the cause of my sudden disappearance in the street,
+greeted me with a scowl and a bitter sarcasm, but when I had put a few
+questions, and he found that I was in earnest, his manner changed.
+&quot;You may tell him,&quot; he said, nodding to Buton.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I saw that they too were excited, though they would fain hide it.
+&quot;What is it?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Froment's party rose at Avignon yesterday,&quot; he answered eagerly.
+&quot;Prematurely; and were crushed--crushed with heavy loss. The news has
+just arrived. It may hasten his plans.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I saw soldiers in the street,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, the Calvinists have asked for protection. But, that, and the
+patrols,&quot; De Géol answered with a grim smile, &quot;are equally a farce.
+The regiment of Guienne, which is patriotic and would assist us, and
+even be some protection, is kept within barracks by its officers; the
+mayor and municipals are red, and whatever happens will not hoist the
+flag or call out the troops. The Catholic cabarets are alive with
+armed men; in a word, my friend, if Froment succeeds in mastering the
+town, and holding it three days, M. d'Artois, governor of Montpellier,
+will be here with his garrison, and----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what was a riot will be a revolt,&quot; he said pithily. &quot;But there is
+many a slip between the cup and the lip, and there are more than sheep
+in the Cevennes Mountains!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words had scarcely passed from his lips, when a man ran into the
+room, looked at us, and raised his hand in a peculiar way. &quot;Pardon
+me,&quot; said M. de Géol quickly; and with a muttered word he followed the
+man out. Buton was not a whit behind. In a moment I was alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I supposed they would return, and I waited impatiently; but a minute
+or two passed, and they did not appear. At length, tired of waiting,
+and wondering what was afoot, I went into the yard of the inn, and
+thence into the street. Still I did not find them; but collected
+before the inn I found a group of servants and others belonging to the
+place. They were all standing silent, listening, and as I joined them
+one looked round peevishly, and raised his hand as a warning to me to
+be quiet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Before I could ask what it meant, the distant report of a gun,
+followed quickly by a second and a third, made my heart beat. A dull
+sound, made, it might be, by men shouting, or the passage of a heavy
+waggon over pavement, ensued; then more firing, each report short,
+sharp, and decisive. While we listened, and as the last red glow of
+sunset faded on the eaves above us, leaving the street cold and grey,
+a bell somewhere began to toll hurriedly, stroke upon stroke; and a
+man, dashing round a corner not far away, made towards us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the landlord of the Ecu did not wait for him. &quot;All in!&quot; he cried
+to his people, &quot;and close the great gates! And do you, Pierre, bar the
+shutters. And you, Monsieur,&quot; he continued hurriedly, turning to me,
+&quot;will do well to come in also. The town is up, and the streets will
+not be safe for strangers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I was already half-way down the street. I met the fugitive, and he
+cried to me, as I passed, that the mob were coming. I met a
+frightened, riderless horse, galloping madly along the kennel; it
+swerved from me, and almost fell on the slippery pavement. But I took
+no heed of either. I ran on until two hundred paces before me I saw
+smoke and dust, and dimly through it a row of soldiers, who, with
+their backs to me, were slowly giving way before a dense crowd that
+pressed upon them. Even as I came in sight of them, they seemed to
+break and melt away, and with a roar of triumph the mob swept over the
+place on which they had stood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had the wit to see that to force my way past the crowd was
+impossible; and I darted aside into a narrow passage darkened by wide
+flat eaves that almost hid the pale evening sky. This brought me to a
+lane, full of women, standing listening with scared faces. I hurried
+through them, and when I had gone, as I judged, far enough to outflank
+the mob, chose a lane that appeared to lead in the direction of Father
+Benôit's house. Fortunately, the crowd was engaged in the main
+streets, the byways were comparatively deserted, and without accident
+I reached the little square by the gate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Probably the attack on the soldiers had begun there, or in that
+neighbourhood, for a broken musket lay in two pieces on the pavement,
+and pale faces at upper windows followed me in a strange unwinking
+silence as I crossed the square. But no man was to be seen, and
+unmolested I reached the door of Father Benôit's staircase, and
+entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the open the light was still good, but within doors it was dusk,
+and I had not taken two steps before I tripped and fell headlong over
+some object that lay in my way. I struck the foot of the stairs
+heavily, and got up groaning; but ceased to groan and held my breath,
+as peering through the half light of the entry, I saw over what I had
+fallen. It was a man's body.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man was a monk, in the black and white robe of his order; and he
+was quite dead. It took me an instant to overcome the horror of the
+discovery, but that done, I saw easily enough how the corpse came to
+be there. Doubtless the man had been shot in the street at the
+beginning of the riot--perhaps he had been the first to attack the
+patrol; and the body had been dragged into shelter here, while his
+party swept on to vengeance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stooped and reverently adjusted the cowl which my foot had dragged
+away; and that done--it was no time for sentiment--I turned from him,
+and hurried up the stairs. Alas, when I reached Father Benôit's room
+it was empty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wondering what I should do next, I stood a moment in the failing
+light. What could I do? Then I walked aimlessly to the casement and
+looked out. In the dull, almost blind wall which met my eyes across
+the court, was one window on a level with that at which I stood, but a
+little to the side. On a sudden, as I stared stupidly at the wall near
+it, a bright light shone out in this window. A lamp had been kindled
+in the room; and darkly outlined against the glow I saw the head and
+shoulders of a woman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I almost screamed a name. It was Denise!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even while I held my breath she moved from the window, a curtain was
+drawn and all was dark. Only the plain lines of the window--and those
+fast fading in the gloom--remained; only those and the gloomy,
+well-like court, that separated me from her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I leaned a moment on the sill, my heart bounding quickly, my thoughts
+working with inconceivable rapidity. She was there, in the house
+opposite! It seemed too wonderful; it seemed inexplicable. Then I
+reflected that the house stood next to the old gate I had seen from
+the street; and had not some one told me that Froment lived in the
+Port d'Auguste?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Doubtless this was it; and she lay in his power in this house that
+adjoined it and was one with it. I leaned farther out, partly that I
+might cool my burning face, partly to see more; my eyes, greedily
+scanning the front of the house, traced the line of arrow-slits that
+marked the ascent of the staircase. I followed the line downwards; it
+ended beside the porch surmounted by a little statue, at which I had
+seen the two men enter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were still fighting in the town. I could hear the dull sound of
+distant volleys, and the tolling of bells, and now and then a wave of
+noise, of screams and yells, that rose and sank on the evening air.
+But my eyes were on the porch below; and suddenly I had a thought. I
+followed the line of arrow-slits up again--it was too dark in the
+sombre court to see them well--and marked the position of the window
+at which Denise had appeared. Then I turned, and passing through the
+room, I groped my way downstairs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had no light, and I had to go carefully with one hand on the grimy
+wall; but I knew now where the monk's body lay, and I stepped over it
+safely, and to the door, and putting out my head, looked up and down.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two men, as I did so, passed hurriedly through the little square, and,
+before reaching the gate, dived into an entry on the right, and
+disappeared. About the eaves of the highest house, that towered high
+and black above me, a faint ruddy light was beginning to dance. I
+heard voices, that came, I thought, from the tower of the gateway; and
+there, too, I thought that I saw a figure outlined against the sky.
+But otherwise, all was quiet in the neighbourhood; and I went in
+again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No matter what I did in the darkness at the foot of the stairs; I hate
+to recall it. But in a minute or two I came out a monk in cowl and
+girdle. Then I, too, dived into the entry, and in a trice found myself
+in the court. Before me was the porch, and with the barrel of the
+broken musket, which I had snatched up as I passed, I struck twice on
+the pavement.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had no time to think what would happen next, or what I was going to
+confront. The door opened instantly, and I went in; as by magic the
+door closed silently behind me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I found myself in a long, bare hall or corridor, plain and
+unfurnished, that had once perhaps been a cloister. A lighted lamp
+hung against a wall, and opposite me, on a stone seat sat two persons
+talking; three or four others were walking up and down. All paused at
+my entrance, however, and looked at me eagerly. &quot;Whence are you,
+brother?&quot; said one of them, advancing to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Cabaret Vierge,&quot; I answered at a venture. The light dazzled me,
+and I raised my hand to ward it off.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For the Chief?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, quickly then,&quot; the man said, &quot;he is on the roof. It goes well?&quot;
+he continued, looking with a smile at my weapon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It goes,&quot; I answered, holding my head low, so that my face was lost
+in the cowl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are beginning to light up, I am told?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He took up a small lamp, and opening a door in a kind of buttress that
+strengthened one of the arches, he led the way through it, and up a
+narrow winding staircase made in the thickness of the wall. Presently
+we passed an open door, and I ticked it off in my mind. It led to the
+rooms on the first floor from the ground. Twenty steps higher we
+passed another door--closed this time. Again fifteen steps and we came
+to a third. That floor held my heart, and I looked round greedily,
+desperately, for some way of evading my guide and so reaching it. But
+I saw only the smooth stones of the wall; and he continued to climb.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I halted half a dozen steps higher. &quot;What is it?&quot; he asked, looking
+down at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have dropped a note,&quot; I said; and I began to grope about the steps.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For the Chief?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here, take the light!&quot; he answered impatiently. &quot;And be quick! if
+your news is worth the telling, it is worth telling quickly. <i>Sacré!</i>
+man, what have you done?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had let the lamp fall on the steps, extinguishing it; and we were in
+darkness. In the moment of silence which followed, before he recovered
+from his surprise, I could hear the voices of men above us, and the
+tramp of their feet on the roof; and a cold draught of air met me. He
+swore another oath. &quot;Get down, get down!&quot; he cried angrily, &quot;and let
+me pass you! You are a pretty messenger to--there wait; wait until I
+fetch another light.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He squeezed by me, and left me standing in the very place I would have
+chosen, in the angle of the doorway we had just passed; before he had
+clattered down half a dozen steps I had my finger on the latch. To my
+joy the door--which might so easily have been locked--yielded to my
+knee, and passing through it, I closed it behind me. Then turning to
+the right--all was still dark--I groped my way along the wall through
+which I had entered. I knew it to be the outside wall, and dimly in
+front I discerned the faint radiance of a window. Now that the moment
+had come to put all to the test I was as calm as I could wish to be. I
+counted ten paces, and came, as I expected, to the window; ten paces
+farther and I felt my way barred by a door. This should be the
+room--the last that way; listening intently for the first sounds of
+pursuit or alarm, I felt about for a latch, found it, and tried the
+door. Again fortune favoured me, it came to my hand; but instead of
+light I found all dark as before; and then understood, as I struck
+with some violence against a second door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A stifled cry in a woman's voice came from beyond it: and some one
+asked sharply, &quot;Who is that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I gave no answer, but searched for the latch, found it, and in a
+moment the door was opened. The light which poured out dazzled me for
+a second or two; but while I stood blinking, under the lamp I had a
+vision of two girls standing at bay, one behind the other, and the
+nearer was Denise!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I stepped towards her with a cry of joy; she retreated with terror
+written on her face. &quot;What do you want?&quot; she stammered as she
+retreated. &quot;You have made some mistake. We----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I remembered the guise in which I stood, and the gun-barrel in my
+hand, and I dashed back the cowl from my face; and in a moment--it was
+of all surprises the most joyous, for I had not seen her since we sat
+opposite one another in the carriage, and then only a word had passed
+between us--in a moment she was in my arms, on my breast, and sobbing
+with her head hidden, and my lips on her hair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They told me you were dead!&quot; she cried. &quot;They told me you were dead!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I understood; and I held her to me, held her to me more and more
+closely, and said--God knows what I said. And for the moment she let
+me, and we forgot all else, our danger, the dark future, even the
+woman who stood by. We had been plighted before, and it had been
+nothing to us; now, with my lips on hers, and her arms clinging, I
+knew that it was once for all, and that only death, if death, could
+part us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Alas! that was not so far from us that we could long ignore it. In a
+minute or two she freed herself, and thrust me from her, her face pale
+and red by turns, her eyes soft and shining in the lamplight. &quot;How do
+you come here, Monsieur?&quot; she cried. &quot;And in that dress?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To see you,&quot; I answered. And at the word, I stepped forward and would
+have taken her in my arms again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But she waved me back. &quot;Oh, no, no!&quot; she cried, shuddering. &quot;Not now!
+Do you know that they will kill you? Do you know that they will kill
+you if they find you here? Go! Go! I beg of you, while you can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And leave you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, and leave me,&quot; she answered, with a gesture of despair. &quot;I
+implore you to do so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And leave you to Froment?&quot; I cried again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at me in a different way, and with a little start. &quot;You
+know that?&quot; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then know this too, Monsieur,&quot; she replied, raising her head, and
+meeting my eyes with the bravest look. &quot;Know this too: that whatever
+betide, I shall not, after this, marry him, nor any man but you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I would have fallen on my knees and kissed the hem of her gown for
+that word, but she drew back, and passionately begged me to begone.
+&quot;This house is not safe for you,&quot; she said. &quot;It is death, it is death,
+Monsieur! My mother is merciless, my brother is here; and <i>he</i>--the
+house is full of his sworn creatures. You escaped him hardly before;
+if he finds you here now he will kill you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But if I need fear him so,&quot; I answered grimly,--for I saw, now that
+she had ceased to blush, how pale and wan she was, and what dark marks
+fear had painted under her eyes--child's eyes no longer, but a
+woman's--&quot;if I need fear him so, what of you? What of you,
+Mademoiselle? Am I to leave you at his mercy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at me with a strange gravity in her face; and answered me
+so that I never forgot her answer. &quot;Monsieur,&quot; she said, &quot;was I afraid
+on the roof of the house at St. Alais? And I have more to guard now.
+Have no fear. There is a roof here, too, and I walk on it; nor shall
+my husband ever have cause to blush for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I was there,&quot; I said quickly. Heaven knows why; it was a strange
+thing to say. Yet she did not find it so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; she said--and smiled; and with the smile, her face burned again
+and her eyes grew soft, and all her dignity fled in a moment, and she
+looked at me, drooping. And in an instant she was in my arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But only for a few seconds. Then she tore herself away almost in
+anger. &quot;Oh, go, go!&quot; she cried. &quot;If you love me, go, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Swear,&quot; I said, &quot;to put a handkerchief in your window if you want
+help!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In my window?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can see it from Father Benôit's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A gleam of joy lit up her face. &quot;I will,&quot; she said. &quot;Oh, God be
+thanked that you are so near! I will. But I have Françoise, too, and
+she is true to me. As long as I have her----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She stopped with her lips apart, and the blood gone suddenly from her
+cheeks; and we looked at one another. Alas, I had stayed too long!
+There was a noise of feet coming along the passage, and a hubbub of
+voices outside, and the clatter of a door hastily closed. I think for
+a moment we scarcely breathed; and even after that it was her woman
+who was the first to move. She sprang to the door and softly locked
+it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is vain!&quot; Denise said in a harsh whisper; she leaned against the
+table, her face as white as snow. &quot;They will fetch my mother, and they
+will kill you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no other door?&quot; I muttered, staring round with hunted eyes,
+and feeling for the first time the full danger of the course I had
+taken.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What is that?&quot; I cried, pointing to the farther end of the chamber,
+where a bed stood in the alcove.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A closet,&quot; the woman answered, almost with a sob. &quot;Yes, yes,
+Monsieur, they may not search. Quick, and I can lock it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In such a case man acts on instinct. I heard the latch of the door
+tried, and then some one knocked peremptorily; and so long I
+hesitated. But a second knock followed on the first, and a voice I
+knew cried imperatively: &quot;Open, open, Françoise!&quot; and I moved towards
+the closet. The girl, distracted by the repeated summons and her
+terror, hung a moment between me and the door of the room; but in the
+end had to go to the latter, so that I drew the closet door upon
+myself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then in a moment it came upon me that if, hiding there, I was found, I
+should shame Denise; it darted through my brain that if, lurking there
+behind the closed doors among her woman's things, I was caught, I
+should harm her a hundred times more than if I stood out in the middle
+of the floor and faced the worst. And with my face on fire at the mere
+thought, I opened the door again, and stepped out; and was just in
+time. For as the door of the room flew open, and M. de St. Alais
+strode in and looked round, I was the first person he saw.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were three or four men behind him; and among them the man whom I
+had cheated on the stairs. But M. St. Alais' eyes blazing with wrath
+caught mine, and held them; and the others were nothing to me.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_22" href="#div1Ref_22">NOBLESSE OBLIGE.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet he was not the first to speak. One of the men behind him took a
+step forward, and cried, &quot;That is the man! See, he still has the
+gun-barrel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Seize him, then,&quot; M. de St. Alais replied. &quot;And take him from here!
+Monsieur,&quot; he continued, addressing me grimly, and with a grim eye,
+&quot;whoever you are, when you undertook to be a spy you counted the cost,
+I suppose? Take him away, my men!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two of the fellows strode forward, and in a moment seized my arms; and
+in the surprise of M. de St. Alais' appearance and the astonishment
+his words caused me, I made no resistance. But in such emergencies the
+mind works quickly, and in a trice I recovered myself. &quot;This is
+nonsense, M. de St. Alais!&quot; I said. &quot;You know well that I am no spy.
+You know why I am here. And for the matter of that----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know nothing!&quot; he answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I know nothing, I say!&quot; he repeated, with a mocking gesture. &quot;Except,
+Monsieur, that we find you here in a monk's dress, when you are
+clearly no monk. You had better have tried to swim the Rhone at flood,
+than entered this house to-night--I tell you that! Now away with him!
+His case will be dealt with below.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this was too much. I wrested my hands from the men who held me,
+and sprang back. &quot;You lie!&quot; I cried. &quot;You know who I am, and why I am
+here!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not know you,&quot; he answered stubbornly. &quot;Nor do I know why you
+are here. I once knew a man like you; that is true. But he was a
+gentleman, and would have died before he would have saved himself by a
+lie--by a trumped-up tale. Take him away. He has frightened
+Mademoiselle to death. I suppose he found the door open, and slipped
+in, and thought himself safe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last I understood what he meant, and that in his passion he would
+sacrifice one rather than bring in his sister's name. Nay, I saw more;
+that he viewed with a cruel exultation the dilemma in which he had
+placed me; and my brow grew damp, as I looked round wildly, trying to
+solve the question. I had the sounds of street fighting still in my
+ears; I knew that men staking all in such a strife owned few scruples
+and scant mercy. I could see that this man in particular was maddened
+by the losses and humiliations which he had suffered; and I stood in
+the way of his schemes. The risk existed, therefore, and was no mere
+threat; it seemed foolish quixotism to run it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet--and yet I hesitated. I even let the men urge me half-way
+to the door; and then--heaven knows what I should have done or whether
+I could have seen my way plainly--the knot was cut for me. With
+a scream, Denise, who since her brother's entrance had leaned,
+half-fainting, against the wall, sprang forward, and seized him by the
+arm.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no!&quot; she cried in a choked voice. &quot;No! You will not, you will not
+do this! Have pity, have mercy! I----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mademoiselle!&quot; he said, cutting her short quietly, but with a gleam
+of rage in his eyes. &quot;You are overwrought, and forget yourself. The
+scene has been too much for you. Here!&quot; he continued sharply to the
+maid, &quot;take care of your mistress. The man is a spy, and not worthy of
+her pity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But Denise clung to him. &quot;He is no spy!&quot; she cried, in a voice that
+went to my heart. &quot;He is no spy, and you know it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush, girl! Be silent!&quot; he answered furiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he had not counted on a change in her, beside which the change in
+him was petty. &quot;I will not!&quot; she answered, &quot;I will not!&quot; and to my
+astonishment, releasing the arm to which she had hitherto clung, and
+shaking back from her face the hair which her violent movements had
+loosened, she stood out and defied him. &quot;I will not!&quot; she cried. &quot;He
+is no spy, and you know it, Monsieur! He is my lover,&quot; she continued,
+with a superb gesture, &quot;and he came to see me. Do you understand? He
+was contracted to me, and he came to see me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Girl, are you mad?&quot; he snarled in the breathless hush of the room,
+the hush that followed as all looked at her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not mad,&quot; she answered, her eyes burning in her white face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then if you feel no shame do you feel no fear?&quot; he retorted in a
+terrible voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No!&quot; she cried. &quot;For I love! And I love him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I will not say what I felt when I heard that, myself helpless. For one
+thing, I was in so great a rage I scarcely knew what I felt; and for
+another, the words were barely spoken before M. le Marquis seized the
+girl roughly by the waist, and dragged her, screaming and resisting,
+to the other end of the room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">This was the signal for a scene indescribable. I sprang forward to
+protect her; in an instant the three men flung themselves upon me, and
+bore me by sheer weight towards the door. St. Alais, foaming with
+rage, shouted to them to remove me, while I called him coward, and
+cursed him and strove desperately to get at him. For a moment I made
+head against them all, though they were three to one; the maid's
+screaming added to the uproar. Then the odds prevailed; and in a
+minute they had me out, and had closed the door on her and her cries.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was panting, breathless, furious. But the moment it was done and the
+door shut, a kind of calm fell upon us. The men relaxed their hold on
+me, and stood looking at me quietly; while I leaned against the wall,
+and glowered at them. Then, &quot;There, Monsieur, have no more of that!&quot;
+one of them said civilly enough. &quot;Go peaceably, and we will be easy
+with you; otherwise----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is a cowardly hound!&quot; I cried with a sob.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Softly, Monsieur, softly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were five of them, for two had remained at the door. The passage
+was dark, but they had a lantern, and we waited in silence two or
+three minutes. Then the door opened a few inches, and the man who
+seemed to be the leader went to it, and having received his orders,
+returned.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Forward!&quot; he said. &quot;In No. 6. And do you, Petitot, fetch the key.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man named went off quickly, and we followed more slowly along the
+corridor; the steady tramp of my guards, as they marched beside me,
+awaking sullen echoes that rolled away before us. The yellow light of
+the lantern showed a white-washed wall on either side, broken on the
+right hand by a dull line of doors, as of cells. We halted presently
+before one of these, and I thought that I was to be confined there;
+and my courage rose, for I should still be near Denise. But the door,
+when opened, disclosed only a little staircase which we descended in
+single file, and so reached a bare corridor similar to that above.
+Half-way along this we stopped again, beside an open window, through
+which the night wind came in so strongly as to stir the hair, and
+force the man who carried the lantern to shield the light under
+his skirts. And not the night wind only; with it entered all the
+noises of the night and the disturbed city; hoarse cries and cheers,
+and the shrill monotonous jangle of bells, and now and then a
+pistol-shot--noises that told only too eloquently what was passing
+under the black veil that hid the chaos of streets and houses below
+us. Nay, in one place the veil was rent, and through the gap a ruddy
+column poured up from the roofs, dispersing sparks--the hot glare of
+some great fire, that blazing in the heart of the city, seemed to make
+the sky sharer in the deeds and horrors that lay beneath it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The men with me pressed to the window, and peered through it, and
+strained eyes and ears; and little wonder. Little wonder, too, that
+the man who was responsible for all, and had staked all, walked the
+roof above with tireless steps. For the struggle below was the one
+great struggle of the world, the struggle that never ceases between
+the old and the new: and it was being fought as it had been fought in
+Nîmes for centuries, savagely, ruthlessly, over kennels running with
+blood. Nor could the issue be told; only, that as it was here, it was
+likely to be through half of France. We who stood at that window,
+looked into the darkness with actual eyes; but across the border at
+Turin, and nearer at Sommières and Montpellier, thousands of Frenchmen
+bearing the greatest names of France, watched also--watched with faces
+turned to Nîmes, and hearts as anxious as ours.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I gathered from the talk of those round me, that M. Froment had seized
+the Arènes, and garrisoned it, and that the flames we saw were those
+of one of the Protestant churches; that as yet the patriots, taken by
+surprise, made little resistance, and that if the Reds could hold for
+twenty-four hours longer what they had seized, the arrival of the
+troops from Montpellier would then secure all, and at the same time
+stamp the movement with the approval of the highest parties.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it was a near thing,&quot; one of the men muttered. &quot;If we had
+not been at their throats to-night, they would have been at ours
+to-morrow!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And now, not half the companies have turned out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the villages will come in in the morning,&quot; a third cried eagerly.
+&quot;They are to toll all the bells from here to the Rhone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, but what if the Cevennols come in first? What then, man?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No one had an answer to this, and all stood watching eagerly, until
+the sound of footsteps approaching along the passage caused the men to
+draw in their heads. &quot;Here is the key,&quot; said the leader. &quot;Now,
+Monsieur!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But it was not the key that disturbed us, nor Petitot, who had been
+sent for it, but a very tall man, cloaked, and wearing his hat, who
+came hastily along the corridor with three or four behind him. As he
+approached he called out, &quot;Is Buzeaud here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man who had spoken before stood out respectfully. &quot;Yes, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Take half a dozen men, the stoutest you have downstairs,&quot; the new
+comer answered--it was Froment himself--&quot;and get as many more from the
+Vierge, and barricade the street leading beside the barracks to the
+Arsenal. You will find plenty of helpers. And occupy some of the
+houses so as to command the street. And--But what is this?&quot; he
+continued, breaking off sharply, as his eyes, passing over the group,
+stopped at me. &quot;How does this gentleman come here? And in this dress?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. le Marquis arrested him--upstairs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. le Marquis?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur, and ordered him to be confined in No. 6 for the
+present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As a spy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. Froment whistled softly, and for a moment we looked at one another.
+The wavering light of the lanterns, and perhaps the tension of the
+man's feelings, deepened the harsh lines of his massive features, and
+darkened the shadows about his eyes and mouth; but presently he drew a
+deep breath, and smiled, as if something whimsical in the situation
+struck him. &quot;So we meet again, M. le Vicomte,&quot; he said with that. &quot;I
+remember now that I have something of yours. You have come for it, I
+suppose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur, I have come for it,&quot; I said defiantly, giving him back
+look for look; and I saw that he understood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And M. le Marquis found you upstairs?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; For a moment he seemed to reflect. Then, turning to the
+men. &quot;Well, you can go, Buzeaud. I will be answerable for this
+gentleman--who had better remove that masquerade. And do you,&quot; he
+continued, addressing the two or three who had come with him, &quot;wait
+for me above. Tell M. Flandrin--it is my last word--that whatever
+happens the Mayor must not raise the flag for the troops. He may tell
+him what he pleases from me--that I will hang him from the highest
+window of the tower, if he likes--but it must not be done. You
+understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then go. I will be with you presently.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They went, leaving a lantern on the floor; and in a moment Froment and
+I were alone. I stood expectant, but he did not look at me. Instead,
+he turned to the open window, and leaning on the sill, gazed into the
+night, and so remained for some time silent; whether the orders he had
+just given had really diverted his thoughts into another channel, or
+he had not made up his mind how to treat me, I cannot determine. More
+than once I heard him sigh, however; and at last he said abruptly,
+&quot;Only three companies have risen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I do not know what moved me, but I answered in the same spirit. &quot;Out
+of how many?&quot; I said coolly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thirteen,&quot; he answered. &quot;We are out-numbered. But we moved first, we
+have the upper hand, and we must keep it. And if the villagers come in
+to-morrow----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And the Cevennols do not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes; and if the officers can hold the Guienne regiment within
+barracks, and the Mayor does not hoist the flag, calling them out, and
+the Calvinists do not surprise the Arsenal--I think we may be able to
+do so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the chances are?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Against us. The more need, Monsieur&quot;--for the first time he turned
+and looked at me with a sort of dark pride glowing in his face--&quot;of a
+man! For--do you know what we are fighting for down there? France!
+France!&quot; he continued bitterly, and letting his emotion appear, &quot;and I
+have a few hundred cutthroats and rascals and shavelings to do the
+work, while all the time your fine gentlemen lie safe and warm across
+the frontier, waiting to see what will happen! And I run risks, and
+they hold the stakes! I kill the bear, and they take the skin. They
+are safe, and if I fail I hang like Favras! Faugh! It is enough to
+make a man turn patriot and cry '<i>Vive la Nation!</i>'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He did not wait for my answer, but impatiently snatching up the
+lantern, he made a sign to me to follow him, and led the way down the
+passage. He had said not a word of my presence in the house, of my
+position, of Mademoiselle St. Alais, or how he meant to deal with me;
+and at the door, not knowing what was in his mind, I touched his
+shoulder and stopped him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pardon me,&quot; I said, with as much dignity as I could assume, &quot;but I
+should like to know what you are going to do with me, Monsieur. I need
+not tell you that I did not enter this house as a spy----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You need tell me nothing,&quot; he answered, cutting me short with
+rudeness. &quot;And for what I am going to do with you, it can be told in
+half a dozen words. I am going to keep you by me, that if the worst
+comes of this--in which event I am not likely to see the week out--you
+may protect Mademoiselle de St. Alais and convey her to a place of
+safety. To that end your commission shall be restored to you; I have
+it safe. If, on the other hand, we hold our own, and light the fire
+that shall burn up these cold-blooded <i>pedants là bas</i>, then, M. le
+Vicomte--I shall have a word to say to you. And we will talk of the
+matter as gentlemen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment I stood dumb with astonishment. We were at the door of
+the little staircase--by which I had descended--when he said this; and
+as he spoke the last word, he turned, as expecting no answer, and
+opened it, and set his foot on the lowest stair, casting the light of
+the lantern before him. I plucked him by the sleeve, and he turned,
+and faced me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;M. Froment!&quot; I muttered. And then for the life of me I could say no
+more.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is no need for words,&quot; he said grandly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are you sure--that you know all!&quot; I muttered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sure that she loves you, and that she does not love me,&quot; he
+answered with a curling lip and a ring of scorn in his voice. &quot;And
+besides that, I am sure of one thing only.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That within forty-eight hours blood will flow in every street of
+Nîmes, and Froment, the bourgeois, will be Froment le Baron--or
+nothing! In the former case, we will talk. In the latter,&quot; and he
+shrugged his shoulders with a gesture a little theatrical, &quot;it will
+not matter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With the word he turned to the stairs, and I followed him up them and
+across the upper corridor, and by the outer staircase, where I had
+evaded my guide, and so to the roof, and from it by a short wooden
+ladder to the leads of a tower; whence we overlooked, lying below us,
+all the dim black chaos of Nîmes, here rising in giant forms, rather
+felt than seen, there a medley of hot lights and deep shadows, thrown
+into relief by the glare of the burning church. In three places I
+picked out a cresset shining, high up in the sky, as it were; one on
+the rim of the Arènes, another on the roof of a distant church, a
+third on a tower beyond the town. But for the most part the town was
+now at rest. The riot had died down, the bells were silent, the wind
+blew salt from the sea and cooled our faces.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were a dozen cloaked figures on the leads, some gazing down in
+silence, others walking to and fro, talking together; but in the
+darkness it was impossible to recognise any one. Froment, after
+receiving one or two reports, withdrew to the outer side of the tower
+overlooking the country, and walked there alone, his head bowed, and
+his hands behind him, a desire to preserve his dignity having more to
+do with this, or I was mistaken, than any longing for solitude. Still,
+the others respected his wishes, and following their example I seated
+myself in an embrasure of the battlements, whence the fire, now
+growing pale, could be seen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What were the others' thoughts I cannot say. A muttered word apprised
+me that Louis St. Alais was in command at the Arènes; and that M. le
+Marquis waited only until success was assured to start for Sommières,
+whence the commandant had promised a regiment of horse should Froment
+be able to hold his own without them. The arrangement seemed to me to
+be of the strangest; but the Emigrés, fearful of compromising the
+King, and warned by the fate of Favras--who, deserted by his party,
+had suffered for a similar conspiracy a few months before--were
+nothing if not timid. And if those round me felt any indignation, they
+did not express it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The majority, however, were silent, or spoke only when some movement
+in the town, some outcry or alarm, drew from them a few eager words;
+and for myself, my thoughts were neither of the struggle below--where
+both parties lay watching each other and waiting for the day--nor of
+the morrow, nor even of Denise, but of Froment himself. If the aim of
+the man had been to impress me, he had succeeded. Seated there in the
+darkness, I felt his influence strong upon me; I felt the crisis as
+and because he felt it. I thrilled with the excitement of the
+gambler's last stake, because he had thrown the dice. I stood on the
+giddy point on which he stood, and looked into the dark future, and
+trembled for and with him. My eyes turned from others, and
+involuntarily sought his tall figure where he walked alone; with as
+little will on my part I paid him the homage due to the man who stands
+unmoved on the brink, master of his soul, though death yawns for him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">About midnight there was a general movement to descend. I had eaten
+nothing for twelve hours, and I had done much; and, notwithstanding
+the dubious position in which I stood, appetite bade me go with the
+rest. I went, therefore; and, following the stream, found myself a
+minute later on the threshold of a long room, brilliantly lit with
+lamps, and displaying tables laid with covers for sixty or more. I
+fancied that at the farther end of the apartment, and through an
+interval in the crowd of men before me, I caught a glimpse of women,
+of jewels, of flashing eyes, and a waving fan; and if anything could
+have added to the bewildering abruptness of the change from the dark,
+wind-swept leads above to the gay and splendid scene before me it was
+this. But I had scant time for reflection. Though I did not advance
+far, the press, which separated me from the upper end of the room,
+melted quickly, as one after another took his seat amid a hum of
+conversation; and in a moment I found myself gazing straight at
+Denise, who, white and wan, with a pitiful look in her eyes, sat
+beside her mother at the uppermost table, a picture of silent woe.
+Madame Catinot and two or three gentlemen and as many ladies were
+seated with them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Whether my eyes drew hers to me, or she glanced that way by chance, in
+a moment she looked at me, and rose to her feet with a low gasping
+cry, that I felt rather than heard. It was enough to lead Madame St.
+Alais' eyes to me, and she too cried out; and in a trice, while a few
+between us still talked unconscious, and the servants glided about, I
+found all at that farther table staring at me, and myself the focus of
+the room. Just then, unluckily, M. St. Alais, rather late, came in; of
+course, he too saw me. I heard an oath behind me, but I was intent on
+the farther table and Mademoiselle, and it was not until he laid his
+hand on my arm that I turned sharply and saw him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur!&quot; he cried, with another oath--and I saw that he was almost
+choking with rage--with rage and surprise. &quot;This is too much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked at him in silence. The position was so perplexing that I
+could not grasp it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How do I find you here?&quot; he continued with violence and in a voice
+that drew every eye in the room to me. He was white with anger. He had
+left me a prisoner, he found me a guest.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hardly know myself,&quot; I answered. &quot;But----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do,&quot; said a voice behind M. St. Alais. &quot;If you wish to know,
+Marquis, M. de Saux is here at my invitation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The speaker was Froment, who had just entered the room. St. Alais
+turned, as if he had been stabbed. &quot;Then I am not!&quot; he cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is as you please,&quot; Froment said steadfastly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is--and I do not please!&quot; the Marquis retorted, with a scornful
+glance, and in a tone that rang through the room. &quot;I do not please!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As I heard him, and felt myself the centre, under the lights,
+of all those eyes, I could have fancied that I was again in the St.
+Alais' <i>salon</i>, listening to the futile oath of the sword; and that
+three-quarters of a year had not elapsed since that beginning of all
+our troubles, But in a moment Froment's voice roused me from the
+dream.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well,&quot; he said gravely. &quot;But I think that you forget----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is you who forget,&quot; St. Alais cried wildly. &quot;Or you do not
+understand--or know--that this gentleman----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I forget nothing!&quot; Froment replied with a darkening face. &quot;Nothing,
+except that we are keeping my guests waiting. Least of all, do I
+forget the aid, Monsieur, which you have hitherto rendered me. But, M.
+le Marquis,&quot; he continued, with dignity, &quot;it is mine to command
+to-night, and it is for me to make dispositions. I have made them, and
+I must ask you to comply with them. I know that you will not fail me
+at a pinch. I know, and these gentlemen know, that in misfortune you
+would be my helper; but I believe also that, all going well, as it
+does, you will not throw unnecessary obstacles in my way. Come,
+Monsieur; this gentleman will not refuse to sit here. And we will sit
+at Madame's table. Oblige me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">M. St. Alais' face was like night, but the other was a man, and his
+tone was strenuous as well as courteous; and slowly and haughtily M.
+le Marquis, who, I think, had never before in his life given way,
+followed him to the farther end of the room. Left alone, I sat down
+where I was, eyed curiously by those round me; and myself, finding
+something still more curious in this strange banquet while Nîmes
+watched; this midnight merriment, while the dead still lay in the
+streets, and the air quivered, and all the world of night hung,
+listening for that which was to come.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_23" href="#div1Ref_23">THE CRISIS.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">When the grey dawn, to which so many looked forward, broke slowly over
+the waking city, it found on the leads of Froment's tower some pale
+faces; perhaps some sinking hearts. That hour, when all life lacks
+colour, and all things, the sky excepted, are black to the eye, tries
+a man's courage to the uttermost; as the cold wind that blows with it
+searches his body. Eyes that an hour before had sparkled over the
+wine--for we had sat late and drunk to the King, the Church, the Red
+Cockade, and M. d'Artois--grew thoughtful; men who, a little before,
+had shown flushed faces, shivered as they peered into the mist, and
+drew their cloaks more closely round them; and if the man was there,
+who regarded the issue of the day with perfect indifference, he was
+not of those near me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Froment had preached faith, but the faith for the most part was down
+in the street. There, I have no doubt, were many who believed, and
+were ready to rush on death, or slay without pity. And there may have
+been one or two of these with us. But in the main, the men who looked
+down with me on Nîmes that morning were hardy adventurers, or local
+followers of Froment, or officers whose regiments had dismissed them,
+or--but these were few--gentlemen, like St. Alais. All brave men, and
+some heated with wine; but not Froment only had heard of Favras
+hanged, of De Launay massacred, of Provost Flesselles shot in cold
+blood! Others beside him could make a guess at the kind of vengeance
+this strange new creature, La Nation, might take, being outraged: and
+so, when the long-expected dawn appeared at last, and warmed the
+eastern clouds, and leaping across the sea of mist which filled the
+Rhone valley, tinged the western peaks with rosy light, and found us
+watching, I saw no face among all the light fell on, that was not
+serious, not one but had some haggard, wan, or careworn touch to mark
+it mortal.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Save only Froment's. He, be the reason what it might, showed as the
+light rose a countenance not merely resolute, but cheerful. Abandoning
+the solitary habit he had maintained all night, he came forward to the
+battlements overlooking the town, and talked and even jested, rallying
+the faint-hearted, and taking success for granted. I have heard his
+enemies say that he did this because it was his nature, because he
+could not help it; because his vanity raised him, not only above the
+ordinary passions of men, but above fear; because in the conceit of
+acting his part to the admiration of all, he forgot that it was more
+than a part, and tried all fortunes and ran all risks with as little
+emotion as the actor who portrays the Cid, or takes poison in the part
+of Mithridates.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this seems to me to amount to no more than saying that he was not
+only a very vain, but a very brave man. Which I admit. No one, indeed,
+who saw him that morning could doubt it; or that, of a million, he was
+the man best fitted to command in such an emergency; resolute,
+undoubting, even gay, he reversed no orders, expressed no fears. When
+the mist rolled away--a little after four--and let the smiling plain
+be seen, and the city and the hills, and when from the direction of
+the Rhone the first harsh jangle of bells smote the ear and stilled
+the lark's song, he turned to his following with an air almost joyous.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Come, gentlemen,&quot; he said gaily, and with head erect. &quot;Let us be
+stirring! They must not say that we lie close and fear to show
+our heads abroad; or, having set others moving, are backward
+ourselves--like the tonguesters and dreamers of their knavish
+assembly, who, when they would take their King, set women in the front
+rank to take the danger also! <i>Allons</i>, Messieurs! They brought him
+from Versailles to Paris. We will escort him back! And to-day we take
+the first step!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Enthusiasm is of all things the most contagious. A murmur of assent
+greeted his words; eyes that a moment before had been dull enough,
+grew bright. &quot;<i>A bas les Traîtres!</i>&quot; cried one. &quot;<i>A bas le Tricolor!</i>&quot;
+cried another.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Froment raised his hand for silence. &quot;No, Monsieur,&quot; he said quickly.
+&quot;On the contrary, we will have a tricolour of our own. <i>Vive le Roi!
+Vive la Foi! Vive la Loi! Vivent les Trois!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The conceit took. A hundred voices shouted, &quot;<i>Vivent les Trois!</i>&quot; in
+chorus. The words were taken up on lower roofs and at windows, and in
+the streets below; until they passed noisily away, after the manner of
+file-firing, into the distance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Froment raised his hat gallantly. &quot;Thank you, gentlemen,&quot; he said. &quot;In
+the King's name, in his Majesty's name, I thank you. Before we have
+done, the Atlantic shall hear that cry, and La Manche re-echo it! And
+the Rhone shall release what the Seine has taken! To Nîmes and to you,
+all France looks this day. For freedom! For freedom to live--shall
+knaves and scriveners strangle her? For freedom to pray--they rob God,
+and defile His temples! For freedom to walk abroad--the King of France
+is a captive. Need I say more?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No! No!&quot; they cried, waving hats and swords. &quot;No! No!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I will not,&quot; he answered hardily. &quot;I will use no more words! But
+I will show that here at least, at Nîmes at least, God and the King
+are honoured, and their servants are free! Give me your escort,
+gentlemen, and we will walk through the town and visit the King's
+posts, and see if any here dare cry, '<i>A bas le Roi!</i>'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They answered with a roar of assent and menace that shook the very
+tower; and instantly trooping to the ladder, began to descend by it to
+the roof of the house, and so to the staircase. Sitting on the
+battlements of the tower, I watched them pass in a long stream across
+the leads below, their hilts and buckles glittering in the sunshine,
+their ribbons waving in the breeze, their voices sharp and high. I
+thought them, as I watched, a gallant company; the greater part were
+young, and all had a fine air; not without sympathy I saw them vanish
+one by one in the head of the staircase, by which I had ascended. One
+half had disappeared when I felt a touch on my arm, and found Froment,
+the last to leave, standing by my side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will stay here, Monsieur,&quot; he said, in an undertone of meaning,
+his eyes lowered to meet mine; &quot;if the worst happens, I need not
+charge you to look to Mademoiselle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Worst or best, I will look to her,&quot; I answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thanks,&quot; he said, his lip curling, and an ugly light for an instant
+flashing in his eyes. &quot;But in the latter case I will look to her
+myself. Don't forget, that if I win, we have still to talk, Monsieur!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yet, God grant you may win!&quot; I exclaimed involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have faith in your swordsmanship?&quot; he answered, with a slight
+sneer; and then, in a different tone, he went on: &quot;No, Monsieur, it is
+not that. It is that you are a French gentleman. And as such I leave
+Mademoiselle to your care without a qualm. God keep you!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you,&quot; I said. And I saw him go after the others.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was then about five o'clock. The sun was up, and the tower-roof,
+left silent and in my sole possession, seemed so near the sky, seemed
+so bright and peaceful and still, with the stillness of the early
+morning which is akin to innocence, that I looked about me dazed. I
+stood on a different plane from that of the world below, whence the
+roar of greeting that hailed Froment's appearance came up harshly.
+Another shout followed and another, that drove the affrighted pigeons
+in a circling cloud high above the roofs; and then the wave of sound
+began to roll away, moving with an indescribable note of menace
+southward through the city. And I remained alone on my tower, raised
+high above the strife.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Alone, with time to think; and to think some grim thoughts. Where now
+was the sweet union of which half the nation had been dreaming for
+weeks? Where the millennium of peace and fraternity to which Father
+Benôit, and the Syndics of Giron and Vlais, had looked forward? And
+the abolition of divisions? And the rights of man? And the other ten
+thousand blessings that philosophers and theorists had undertaken to
+create--the nature of man notwithstanding--their systems once adopted?
+Ay, where? From all the smiling country round came, for answer, the
+clanging of importunate bells. From the streets below rose for answer
+the sounds of riot and triumph. Along this or that road, winding
+ribbon-like across the plain, hurried little flocks of men--now seen
+for the first time--with glittering arms; and last and worst--when
+some half-hour had elapsed, and I still watched--from a distant suburb
+westward boomed out a sudden volley, and then dropping shots. The
+pigeons still wheeled, in a shining, shifting cloud, above the roofs,
+and the sparrows twittered round me, and on the tower, and on the roof
+below, where a few domestics clustered, all was sunshine and quiet and
+peace. But down in the streets, there, I knew that death was at work.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Still, for a time, I felt little excitement. It was early in the day;
+I expected no immediate issue; and I listened almost carelessly,
+following the train of thought I have traced, and gloomily comparing
+this scene of strife with the brilliant promises of a few months
+before. But little by little the anxiety of the servants who stood on
+the roof below, infected me. I began to listen more acutely; and to
+fancy that the tide of conflict was rolling nearer, that the cries and
+shots came more quickly and sharply to the ear. At last, in a place
+near the barracks, and not far off, I distinguished little puffs of
+thin white smoke rising above the roofs, and twice a rattling volley
+in the same quarter shook the windows. Then in one of the streets
+immediately below me, the whole length of which was visible, I saw
+people running--running towards me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I called to the servants to know what it was.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are attacking the arsenal, Monsieur,&quot; one answered, shading his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he only shrugged his shoulders and looked out more intently. I
+followed his example, but for a time nothing happened; then on a
+sudden, as if a door were opened that hitherto had shut off the noise,
+a babel of shouts burst out and a great crowd entered the nearer end
+of the street below me, and pouring along it with loud cries and
+brandished arms--and a crucifix and a little body of monks in the
+middle--swirled away round the farthest corner, and were gone. For
+some time, however, I could still hear the burthen of their cries, and
+trace it towards the barracks, whence the crackle of musketry came at
+intervals; and I concluded that it was a reinforcement, and that
+Froment had sent for it. After that, chancing to look down, I saw that
+half the servants, below me, had vanished, and that figures were
+beginning to skulk about the streets hitherto deserted; and I began to
+tremble. The crisis had come sooner than I had thought.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I called to one of the men and asked him where the ladies were.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked up at me with a pale face. &quot;I don't know, Monsieur,&quot; he
+answered rapidly; and he looked away again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They are below?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But he was watching too intently to answer, and only shook his head
+impatiently. I was unwilling to leave my place on the roof, and I
+called to him to take my compliments to Madame St. Alais and ask her
+to ascend. It seemed strange that she had not done so, for women are
+not generally lacking in the desire to see.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the man was too frightened to think of any one but himself--I
+fancy he was one of the cooks--and he did not move; while his
+companions only cried: &quot;Presently, presently, Monsieur!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At that, however, I lost my temper; and, going to the ladder, I ran
+down it, and strode towards them. &quot;You rascals!&quot; I cried. &quot;Where are
+the ladies?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One or two turned to me with a start. &quot;Pardon, Monsieur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where are the ladies?&quot; I repeated impatiently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah! I did not understand!&quot; the nearest answered glibly. &quot;Gone to the
+church to pray, Monsieur.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To the church?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure. By the Capuchins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And they are not here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur,&quot; he answered, his eyes straying. &quot;But--what is that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And, diverted by something, he skipped nimbly from me, his cheek a
+shade paler. I followed him to the parapet, and looked over. The view
+was not so wide as from the tower above, but the main street leading
+southward could be seen, and it was full of people; of scattered
+groups and handfuls, all coming towards us, some running, at an easy
+pace, while others walked quickly, four or five abreast, and often
+looked behind them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The servants never doubted what it meant. In a trice the group broke
+up. With a muttered, &quot;We are beaten!&quot; they ran pell-mell across the
+sunny leads to the head of the staircase, and began to descend. I
+waited awhile, looking and fearing; but the stream of fugitives ever
+continued and increased, the pace grew quicker, the last comers looked
+more frequently behind them and handled their arms; the din of
+conflict, of yells, and cries, and shots, seemed to be approaching;
+and in a moment I made up my mind to act. The staircase was clear now;
+I ran quickly down it as far as the door on the upper floor, by which
+I had entered the house that evening before. I tried this, but
+recoiled; the door was locked. With a cry of vexation, my haste
+growing feverish--for now, in the darkness of the staircase, I was in
+ignorance what was happening, and pictured the worst--I went on,
+descending round and round, until I reached the cloister-like hall, at
+the bottom.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I found this choked with men, armed, grim-faced, and furious; and
+beset by other men who still continued to pour in from the street. A
+moment later and I should have found the staircase stopped by the
+stream of people ascending; and I must have remained on the roof. As
+it was, I could not for a minute or two force myself through the
+press, but was thrust against a wall, and pinned there by the rush
+inwards. Next me, however, I found one of the servants in like case,
+and I seized him by the sleeve. &quot;Where are the ladies?&quot; I said. &quot;Have
+they returned? Are they here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I don't know,&quot; he said, his eyes roving.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Are they still at the church?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur, I don't know,&quot; he answered impatiently; and then seeing, I
+think, the man for whom he was searching, he shook me off, with the
+churlishness of fear, and, flinging himself into the crowd, was gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All the place was such a hurly-burly of men entering and leaving,
+shouting orders, or forcing themselves through the press, that I
+doubted what to do. Some were crying for Froment, others to close the
+doors; one that all was lost, another to bring up the powder. The
+disorder was enough to turn the brain, and for a minute I stood in the
+heart of it, elbowed and pushed, and tossed this way and that. Where
+were the women? Where were the women? The doubt distracted me. I
+seized half a dozen of the nearest men, and asked them; but they only
+cried out fiercely that they did not know--how should they?--and shook
+me off savagely and escaped as the servant had. For all here, with a
+few exceptions, were of the commoner sort. I could see nothing of
+Froment, nothing of St. Alais or the leaders, and only one or two of
+the gallants who had gone with them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I do not think that I was ever in a more trying position. Denise might
+be still at the church and in peril there; or she might be in the
+streets exposed to dangers on which I dare not dwell; or, on the other
+hand, she might be safe in the next room, or upstairs; or on the roof.
+In the unutterable confusion, it was impossible to know or learn, or
+even move quickly; my only hope seemed to be in Froment's return, but
+after waiting a minute, which seemed a lifetime, in the hope of seeing
+him, I lost patience and battled my way through the press to a door,
+which appeared to lead to the main part of the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Passing through it, I found the same disorder ruling; here men,
+bringing up powder from the cellars, blocked the passage; there others
+appeared to be rifling the house. I had little hope of finding those
+whom I sought below stairs; and after glancing this way and that
+without result, I lighted on a staircase, and ascending quickly to the
+second floor, hastened to Denise's room. The door was locked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I hammered on it madly and called, and waited, and listened, and
+called again; but I heard no sound from within; convinced at last. I
+left it and tried the nearest doors. The two first were locked also,
+and the rooms as silent; the third and fourth were open and empty. The
+last I entered was a man's.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The task was no long one, and occupied less than a minute. But all the
+time, while I rapped and listened and called, though the corridor in
+which I moved was quiet as death and echoed my footsteps, the house
+below rang with cries and shouts and hurrying feet; and I was in a
+fever. Madame might be on the roof. I turned that way meaning to
+ascend. Then I reflected that if I climbed to it I might find the
+staircase blocked when I came to descend again; and, cursing my folly
+for leaving the hall--simply because my quest had failed--I hurried
+back to the stairs, and dashed recklessly down them, and, stemming as
+well as I could the tide of people that surged and ebbed about the
+lower floor, I fought my way back to the hall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was just in time. As I entered by one door Froment entered by the
+other, with a little band of his braves; of whom several, I now
+observed, wore green ribbons--the Artois colours. His great stature
+raising him above the crowd of heads, I saw that he was wounded; a
+little blood was running down his cheek, and his eyes shone with a
+brilliance almost of madness. But he was still cool; he had still so
+much the command, not only of himself, but of those round him, that
+the commotion grew still and abated under his eye. In a moment men who
+before had only tumbled over and embarrassed one another, flew to
+their places; and, though the howling of a hostile mob could plainly
+be heard at the end of the street, and it was clear that he had fallen
+back before an overwhelming force, resolution seemed in a moment to
+take the place of panic, and hope of despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Standing on the threshold, and pointing this way, and that, with a
+discharged pistol which he held in his hand, he gave a few short,
+sharp orders for the barricading of the door, and saw them carried
+out, and sent this man to one post, and that man to another. Then, the
+crowd, which had before cumbered the place, melting as if by magic, he
+saw me forcing my way to him. And he beckoned to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">If he played a part, then let me say, once for all, he played it
+nobly. Even now, when I guessed that all was lost, I read no fear and
+no envy in his face; and in what he said there was no ostentation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Get out quickly,&quot; he muttered, in an undertone, forestalling by a
+hasty gesture the excited questions I had on my lips, &quot;through yonder
+door, and by the little postern at the foot of the other staircase. Go
+by the east gate, and you will find horses at the St. Geneviève
+outside. It is all over here!&quot; he added, wringing my hand hard, and
+pushing me towards the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But Mademoiselle?&quot; I cried; and I told him that she was not in the
+house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What?&quot; he said, pausing and looking at me, with his face grown
+suddenly dark. &quot;Are you mad? Do you mean that she has gone out?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She is not here,&quot; I answered. &quot;I am told that she went to the church
+with Madame St. Alais, and has not returned.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That beldam!&quot; he exclaimed, with a terrible oath, and then, &quot;God help
+them!&quot; he said--twice. And after a moment of silence, meeting my eyes
+and reading the horror in them, he laughed harshly. &quot;After all, what
+matter?&quot; he said recklessly. &quot;We shall all go together! Let us go like
+gentlemen. I did what I could. Do you hear that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He held up his hand, as a roar of musketry shook the house; and he
+gave an order. The small windows had been stopped with paving stones,
+the door made solid with the wall behind it; and daylight being shut
+out, lamps had been lighted, which gave the long whitewashed,
+stone-groined room a strange sombre look. Or it was the grim faces I
+saw round me had that effect.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am afraid that the St. Alais are cut off in the Arènes,&quot; he said
+coolly. &quot;And they are not enough to man the walls. Those cursed
+Cevennols have been too many for us. As for our friends--it is as I
+expected; they have left me to die like a bull in the ring. Well, we
+must die goring.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But in the midst of my admiration of his courage a kind of revulsion
+seized me. &quot;And Denise?&quot; I said, grasping his arm fiercely. &quot;Are we to
+leave her to perish?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked at me, his lip curling. &quot;True,&quot; he said, with a sneering
+smile. &quot;I forgot. You are not of us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am thinking of her!&quot; I cried, raging. And in that moment I hated
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But his mood changed while he looked at me. &quot;You are right, Monsieur,&quot;
+he said, in a different tone. &quot;Go! There may be a chance; but the
+church is by the Capuchins, and those dogs were baying round it when
+we fell back. They are ten to one, or--still there may be a chance,&quot;
+he continued with decision. &quot;Go, and if you find her, and escape, do
+not forget Froment of Nîmes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;By the postern?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes--take this,&quot; he answered; and abruptly drawing a pistol from his
+pocket, he forced it on me. &quot;Go, and I must go too. Good fortune,
+Monsieur, and farewell. And you, bark away, you dogs!&quot; he continued
+bitterly, addressing the unconscious mob. &quot;The bull is on foot yet,
+and will toss some of you before the ring closes!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_24" href="#div1Ref_24">THE MILLENNIUM.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">With that word he thrust me towards the door that led to the inner
+hall and the postern; and, knowing, as I did, that every moment I
+delayed might stand for a life, and that within a minute or two at
+most the rear of the building would be beset, and my chance of egress
+lost, it was to be expected that I should not hesitate.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet I did. The main body of Froment's followers had flocked upstairs,
+whence they could be heard firing from the roof and windows. He stood
+almost alone in the middle of the floor; in the attitude of one
+listening and thinking, while a group of green ribbons, who seemed to
+be the most determined of his followers, hung growling about the
+barricaded door. Something in the gloomy brightness of the room, and
+the disorder of the barricaded windows, something in the loneliness of
+his figure as he stood there, appealed to me; I even took one step
+towards him. But at that moment he looked up, his face grown dark; and
+he waved me off with a gesture almost of rage. I knew then that I had
+but a small part of his thoughts; and that at this moment, while the
+edifice he had built up with so much care and so much risk was
+crumbling about him, he was thinking not of us, but of those who had
+promised and failed him; who had given good words, and left him to
+perish. And I went.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Yet even for that moment of delay it seemed that I might pay too
+dearly. A dozen steps brought me to the low-browed door he had
+indicated, in the thickness of the wall at the foot of the main
+staircase. But already a man was adjusting the last bar. I cried to
+him to open. &quot;Open! I must go out!&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Dieu!</i> It is too late!&quot; he said, with a dark glance at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My heart sank; I feared he was right. Still he began to unbar, though
+grudgingly, and in half a minute we had the door loose. With a pistol
+in his hand, he opened it on the chain and looked out. It opened on a
+narrow passage--which, God be thanked, was still empty. He dropped the
+chain, and almost thrust me out, cried, &quot;To the left!&quot; and then, as
+dazzled by the sunlight I turned that way, I heard the door slam
+behind me and the chain rattle as it was linked again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The houses that rose on each side somewhat deadened the noise of the
+mob and the firing; but as I hurried down the alley, bareheaded and
+with the pistol which Froment had given me firmly clutched in my hand,
+I heard a fresh spirt of noise behind me, and knew that the assailants
+had entered the passage by the farther end; and that had I waited a
+moment longer I should have been too late.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As it was, my position was sufficiently forlorn, if it was not
+hopeless. Alone and a stranger, without hat or badge, knowing little
+of the streets, I might blunder at any corner into the arms of one of
+the parties--and be massacred. I had a notion that the church of the
+Capuchins was that which I had visited near Madame Catinot's; and my
+first thought was to gain the main street leading in that direction.
+This was not so easy, however; the alley in which I found myself led
+only into a second passage equally strait and gloomy. Entering this, I
+turned after a moment's hesitation to the left, but before I had gone
+a dozen paces I heard shouting in front of me; and I halted and
+retraced my steps. Hurrying in the other direction, I found myself in
+a minute in a little gloomy well-like court, with no second outlet
+that I could see, where I stood a moment panting and at a loss,
+rendered frantic and almost desperate by the thought that, while I
+hovered there uncertain, the die might be cast, and those whom I
+sought perish for lack of my aid.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was about to return, resolved to face at all risks the party of
+rioters whom I heard behind me, when an open window in the lowest
+floor of one of the houses that stood round the court caught my eye.
+It was not far from the ground, and to see was to determine; the house
+must have an outlet on the street. In a dozen strides I crossed the
+court, and resting one hand on the sill of the window, vaulted into
+the room, alighted sideways on a stool, and fell heavily to the floor.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was up in a moment unhurt, but with a woman's scream ringing in my
+ears, and a woman, a girl, cowering from me, white-faced, her back to
+the door. She had been kneeling, praying probably, by the bed; and I
+had almost fallen on her. When I looked she screamed again; I called
+to her in heaven's name to be silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The door! Only the door!&quot; I cried. &quot;Show it me. I will hurt no one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who are you?&quot; she muttered. And still shrinking from me, she stared
+at me with distended eyes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Mon Dieu!</i> What does it matter?&quot; I answered fiercely. &quot;The door,
+woman! The door into the street!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I advanced upon her, and the same fear which had paralysed her gave
+her sense again. She opened the door beside her, and pointed dumbly
+down a passage. I hurried through the passage, rejoicing at my
+success, but before I could unbar the door that I found facing me a
+second woman came out of a room at the side, and saw me, and threw up
+her hands with a cry of terror.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Which is the way to the church of the Capuchins?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She clapped one hand to her side, but she answered. &quot;To the left!&quot; she
+gasped. &quot;And then to the right! Are they coming?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I did not stay to ask whom she meant, but getting the door open at
+last I sprang through the doorway. One look up and down the street,
+however, and I was in again, and the door closed behind me. My eyes
+met the woman's, and without a word she snatched up the bar I had
+dropped and set it in the sockets. Then she turned and ran up the
+stairs, and I followed her, the girl into whose room I had leapt, and
+whose scared face showed for a second at the end of the passage,
+disappearing like a rabbit, as we passed her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I followed the woman to the window of an upper room, and we looked
+out, standing back and peering fearfully over the sill. No need, now,
+to ask why I had returned so quickly. The roar of many voices seemed
+in a moment to fill all the street, while the casement shook with the
+tread of thousands and thousands of advancing feet, as, rank after
+rank, stretching from wall to wall, the mob, or one section of it,
+swept by, the foremost marching in order, shoulder to shoulder, armed
+with muskets, and in some kind of uniform, the rearmost a savage
+rabble with naked arms and pikes and axes, who looked up at the
+windows, and shook their fists and danced and leapt as they went by,
+with a great shout of &quot;<i>Aux Arènes! Aux Arènes!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In themselves they were a sight to make a quiet man's blood run chill;
+but they had that in their midst, seeing which the woman beside me
+clutched my arm and screamed aloud. On six long pikes, raised high
+above the mob, moved six severed heads--one, the foremost, bald and
+large, and hideously leering. They lifted these to the windows, and
+shook their gory locks in sport; and so went by, and in a moment the
+street was quiet again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The woman, trembling in a chair, muttered that they had sacked
+La Vierge, the red cabaret, and that the bald head was a
+town-councillor's, her neighbour's. But I did not stay to listen. I
+left her where she was, and, hurrying down again, unbarred the door
+and went out. All was strangely quiet again. The morning sun shone
+bright and warm on the long empty street, and seemed to give the lie
+to the thing I had seen. Not a living creature was visible this way or
+that; not a face at the window. I stood a moment in the middle of the
+road, disconcerted; puzzled by the bright stillness, and uncertain
+which way I had been going. At last I remembered the woman's
+directions, and set off on the heels of the mob, until I reached the
+first turning on the right. I took this, and had not gone a hundred
+yards before I recognised, a little in front of me, Madame Catinot's
+house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It showed to the sunshine a wide blind front, long rows of shuttered
+windows, and not a sign of life. Nevertheless, here was something I
+knew, something which wore a semblance of familiarity, and I hailed it
+with hope; and, flinging myself on the door, knocked long and
+recklessly. The noise seemed fit to wake the dead; it boomed and
+echoed in every doorway of the empty street, that on the evening of my
+arrival had teemed with traffic; I shivered at the sound--I shivered
+standing conspicuous on the steps of the house, expecting a score of
+windows to be opened and heads thrust out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I had not yet learned how the extremity of panic benumbs; or how
+strong is the cowardly instinct that binds the peaceful man to his
+hearth when blood flows in the streets. Not a face showed at a
+casement, not a door opened; worse, though I knocked again and again,
+the house I would awaken remained dead and silent. I stood back and
+gazed at it, and returned, and hammered again, thinking this time
+nothing of myself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But without result. Or not quite. Far away at the end of the street
+the echo of my knocking dwelt a little, then grew into a fuller,
+deeper sound--a sound I knew. The mob was returning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I cursed my folly then for lingering; thought of the passage in the
+rear of the house that led to the church, found the entrance to it,
+and in a moment was speeding through it. The distant roar grew nearer
+and louder, but now I could see the low door of the church, and I
+slackened my pace a little. As I did so the door before me opened, and
+a man looked out. I saw his face before he saw me, and read it; saw
+terror, shame, and rage written on its mean features; and in some
+strange way I knew what he was going to do before he did it. A moment
+he glared abroad, blinking and shading his eyes in the sunshine, then
+he spied me, slid out, and with an indescribable Judas look at me,
+fled away.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He left the door ajar--I knew him in some way for the door-keeper,
+deserting his post; and in a moment I was in the church and face to
+face with a sight I shall remember while I live; for that which was
+passing outside, that which I had seen during the last few minutes,
+gave it a solemnity exceeding even that of the strange service I had
+witnessed there before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sun shut out, a few red altar lamps shed a sombre light on the
+pillars and the dim pictures and the vanishing spaces; above all, on a
+vast crowd of kneeling women, whose bowed heads and wailing voices as
+they chanted the Litany of the Virgin, filled the nave.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There were some, principally on the fringe of the assembly, who rocked
+themselves to and fro, weeping silently, or lay still as statues with
+their foreheads pressed to the cold stones; whilst others glanced this
+way and that with staring eyes, and started at the slightest sound,
+and moaned prayers with white lips. But more and more, the passionate
+utterance of the braver souls laid bonds on the others; louder and
+louder the measured rhythm of &quot;<i>Ora pro nobis! Ora pro nobis!</i>&quot; rose
+and swelled through the vaults of the roof; more and more fervent it
+grew, more and more importunate, wilder the abandonment of
+supplication, until--until I felt the tears rise in my throat, and my
+breast swell with pity and admiration--and then I saw Denise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She knelt between her mother and Madame Catinot, nearly in the front
+row of those who faced the high altar. Whence I stood, I had a side
+view of her face as she looked upward in rapt adoration--that face
+which I had once deemed so childish. Now at the thought that she
+prayed, perhaps for me--at the thought that this woman so pure and
+brave, that though little more than a child, and soft, and gentle, and
+maidenly, she could bear herself with no shadow of quailing in this
+stress of death--at the thought that she loved me, and prayed for me,
+I felt myself more or less than a man. I felt tears rising, I felt my
+breast heaving, and then--and then as I went to drop on my knees,
+against the great doors on the farther side of the church, came a
+thunderous shock, followed by a shower of blows and loud cries for
+admittance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A horrible kind of shudder ran through the kneeling crowd, and here
+and there a woman screamed and sprang up and looked wildly round. But
+for a few moments the chant still rose monotonously and filled the
+building; louder and louder the measured rhythm of &quot;<i>Ora pro nobis!
+Ora pro nobis!</i>&quot; still rose and fell and rose again with an intensity
+of supplication, a pathos of repetition that told of bursting hearts.
+At length, however, one of the leaves of the door flew open, and that
+proved too much; the sound sent three parts of the congregation
+shrieking to their feet--though a few still sang. By this time I was
+half way through the crowd, pressing to Denise's side; before I could
+reach her the other door gave way, and a dozen men flocked in
+tumultuously. I had a glimpse of a priest--afterwards I learnt that it
+was Father Benôit--standing to oppose them with a cross upraised; and
+then, by the dim light, which to them was darkness, I saw--unspeakable
+relief--that the intruders were not the leaders of the mob, but
+foremost the two St. Alais, blood-stained and black with powder, with
+drawn swords and clothes torn; and behind them a score of their
+followers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In their relief women flung themselves on the men's necks, and those
+who stood farther away burst into loud sobbing and weeping. But the
+men themselves, after securing the doors behind them, began
+immediately to move across the church to the smaller exit on the
+alley; one crying that all was lost, and another that the east gate
+was open, while a third adjured the women to separate--adding that in
+the neighbouring houses they would be safe, but that the church would
+be sacked; and that even now the Calvinists were bursting in the gates
+of the monastery through which the fugitives had retreated, after
+being driven out of the Arènes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">All, on the instant, was panic and wailing and confusion. I have heard
+it said since that the worst thing the men could have done was to take
+the church in their flight, and that had they kept aloof the women
+would not have been disturbed; that, as a fact, and in the event, the
+church was not sacked. But in such a hell as was Nîmes that morning,
+with the kennels running blood, and men's souls surprised by sudden
+defeat, it was hard to decide what was best; and I blame no one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A rush for the door followed the man's words. It drove me a little
+farther from Denise; but as she and the group round her held back and
+let the more timid or selfish go first, I had time to gain her side.
+She had drawn the hood of her cloak close round her face, and until I
+touched her arm did not see me. Then, without a word, she clung to
+me--she clung to me, looking up; I saw her face under the hood, and it
+was happy. God! It was happy, even in that scene of terror!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After that, Madame St. Alais, though she greeted me with a bitter
+smile, had no power to repel me. &quot;You are quick, Monsieur, to profit
+by your victory,&quot; she said, in a scathing tone. And that was all.
+Unrebuked, I passed my arm round Denise, and followed close on Louis
+and Madame Catinot; while Monsieur le Marquis, after speaking with his
+mother, followed. As he did so his eye fell on me, but he only smiled,
+and to something Madame said, answered aloud, &quot;<i>Mon Dieu</i>, Madame;
+what does it matter? We have thrown the last stake and lost. Let us
+leave the table!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She dropped her hood over her face; and even in that moment of fear
+and excitement I found something tragic in the act, and on a sudden
+pitied her. But it was no time for sentiment or pity; the pursuers
+were not far behind the pursued. We were still in the church and some
+paces from the threshold giving on the alley, when a rush of footsteps
+outside the great door behind us made itself heard, and the next
+instant the doors creaked under the blows hailed upon them. It was a
+question whether they would stand until we were out, and I felt the
+slender figure within my arm quiver and press more closely to me. But
+they held--they held, and an instant later the crowd before us gave
+way, and we were outside in the daylight, in the alley, hurrying
+quickly down it towards Madame Catinot's house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It seemed to me that we were safe then, or nearly safe; so glad was I
+to find myself in the open air and out of the church. The ground fell
+away a little towards Madame Catinot's, and I could see the line of
+hastening heads bobbing along before us, and here and there white
+faces turned to look back. The high walls on either hand softened the
+noise of the riot. Behind me were M. le Marquis and Madame; and again
+behind them three or four of M. le Marquis' followers brought up the
+rear. I looked back beyond these and saw that the alley opposite the
+church was still clear, and that the pursuers had not yet passed
+through the church; and I stooped to whisper a word of comfort to
+Denise. I stooped perhaps longer than was necessary, for before I was
+aware of it I found myself stumbling over Louis' heels. A backward
+wave sweeping up the alley had brought him up short and flung him
+against me. With the movement, as we all jostled one another, there
+arose far in front and rolled up the passage between the high walls a
+sound of misery; a mingling of groans and screams and wailing such as
+I hope I may never hear again. Some strove furiously to push their way
+back towards the church, and some, not understanding what was amiss,
+to go forwards, and some fell, and were trodden under foot; and for a
+few seconds the long narrow alley heaved and seethed in an agony of
+panic.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Engaged in saving Denise from the crush and keeping her on her feet, I
+did not, for a moment, understand. The first thought I had was that
+the women--three out of four were women--had gone mad or given way to
+a shameful, selfish terror. Then, as our company staggering and
+screaming rolled back upon us, until it filled but half the length of
+the passage, I heard in front a roar of cruel laughter, and saw over
+the intervening heads a serried mass of pike-points filling the end of
+the passage opposite Madame Catinot's house. Then I understood. The
+Calvinists had cut us off; and my heart stood still.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For there was no retreat. I looked behind me, and saw the alley by the
+church-porch choked with men who had reached it through the church;
+alive with harsh mocking faces, and scowling eyes, and cruel thirsty
+pikes. We were hemmed in; in the long high walls, which it was
+impossible to scale, was no door or outlet short of Madame Catinot's
+house--and that was guarded. And before and behind us were the pikes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I dream of that scene sometimes; of the sunshine, hot and bright, that
+lay ghastly on white faces distorted with fear; of women fallen on
+their knees and lifting hands this way and that; of others screaming
+and uttering frenzied prayers, or hanging on men's necks; of the long
+writhing line of humanity, wherein fear, showing itself in every
+shape, had its way; above all of the fiendish jeers and laughter of
+the victors, as they cried to the men to step out, or hurled vile
+words at the women.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even Nîmes, mother of factions, parent of a hundred quarterless
+brawls, never saw a worse scene, or one more devilish. For a few
+seconds in the surprise of this trap, in the sudden horror of finding
+ourselves, when all seemed well, at grips with death, I could only
+clutch Denise to me tighter and tighter, and hide her eyes on my
+breast, as I leaned against the wall and groaned with white lips. O
+God, I thought, the women! The women! At such a time a man would give
+all the world that there might be none, or that he had never loved
+one.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">St. Alais was the first to recover his presence of mind and act--if
+that could be called action which was no more than speech, since we
+were hopelessly enmeshed and outnumbered. Putting Madame behind him he
+waved a white kerchief to the men by the door of the church--who stood
+about thirty paces from us--and adjured them to let the women pass;
+even taunting them when they refused, and gibing at them as cowards,
+who dared not face the men unencumbered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But they only answered with jeers and threats, and savage laughter.
+&quot;No, no, M. le Prêtre!&quot; they cried. &quot;No, no! Come out and taste steel!
+Then, perhaps, we will let the women go! Or perhaps not!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You cowards!&quot; he cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But they only brandished their arms and laughed, shrieking: &quot;<i>A bas
+les traîtres! A bas les prêtres!</i> Stand out! Stand out, Messieurs!&quot;
+they continued, &quot;or we will come and pluck you from the women's
+skirts!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He glowered at them in unspeakable rage. Then a man on their side
+stepped out and stilled the tumult. &quot;Now listen!&quot; said this fellow, a
+giant, with long black hair falling over a tallowy face. &quot;We will give
+you three minutes to come out and be piked. Then the women shall go.
+Skulk there behind them, and we fire on all, and their blood be on
+your heads.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">St. Alais stood speechless. At last, &quot;You are fiends!&quot; he cried in a
+voice of horror. &quot;Would you kill us before their eyes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, or in their laps!&quot; the man retorted, amid a roar of laughter. &quot;So
+decide, decide!&quot; he continued, dancing a clumsy step and tossing a
+half-pike round his head. &quot;Three minutes by the clock there! Come out,
+or we fire on all! It will be a dainty pie! A dainty Catholic pie,
+Messieurs!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">St. Alais turned to me, his face white, his eyes staring; and he tried
+to speak. But his voice failed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And then, of what happened next I cannot tell; for, for a minute, all
+was blurred. I remember only how the sun lay hot on the wall beyond
+his face, and how black the lines of mortar showed between the old
+thin Roman bricks. We were about twenty men and perhaps fifty women,
+huddled together in a space some forty yards long. Groans burst from
+the men's lips, and such as had women in their arms--and they were
+many--leaned against the wall and tried to comfort them, and tried to
+put them from them. One man cried curses on the dogs who would murder
+us, and shook his fists at them; and some rained kisses on the pale
+senseless faces that lay on their breasts--for, thank God, many of the
+women had fainted; while others, like St. Alais, looked mute agony
+into eyes that told it again, or clasped a neighbour's hand, and
+looked up into a sky piteously blue and bright. And I--I do not know
+what I did, save look into Denise's eyes and look and look! There was
+no senselessness in them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Remember that the sun shone on all this, and the birds twittered and
+chirped in the gardens beyond the walls; that it wanted an hour or two
+of high noon, a southern noon; that in the crease of the valley the
+Rhone sparkled between its banks, and not far off the sea broke
+rippling and creaming on the shore of Les Bouches; that all nature
+rejoiced, and only we--we, pent between those dreadful walls, those
+scowling faces, saw death imminent--black death shutting out all
+things.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A hand touched me; it was St. Alais' hand. I think, nay, I know,
+for I read it in his face, that he meant to be reconciled to me.
+But when I turned to him--or it may be it was the sight of his
+sister's speechless misery moved him--he had another thought. As the
+black-haired giant called &quot;One minute gone!&quot; and his following howled,
+M. le Marquis threw up his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stay!&quot; he cried, with the old gesture of command. &quot;Stay! There is
+one man here who is not of us! Let him pass first, and go!&quot; And he
+pointed to me. &quot;He has no part with us. I swear it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A roar of cruel laughter was the answer. Then, &quot;He that is not with me
+is against me!&quot; the giant quoted impiously. And they jeered again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On that, I take no credit for what I did. In such moments of
+exaltation men are not accountable, and, for another thing, I knew
+that they would not listen, that I risked nothing. And trembling with
+rage I flung back their words. &quot;I am against you!&quot; I cried. &quot;I would
+rather die here with these, than live with you! You stain the earth!
+You pollute the air! You are fiends----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No more, for with a shrill laugh the man next me, a mere lad,
+half-witted, I think, and the same who had cursed them, sprang by me
+and rushed on the pike-points. Half a dozen met in his breast before
+our eyes--before our eyes--and with a wild scream he flung up his arms
+and was borne back against the side-wall dead and gushing blood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Instinctively I had covered Denise's face that she might not see. And
+it was well; for at that--there was a kind of mercy in it, and let me
+tell it quickly--the wretches tasting blood broke loose, and rushed on
+us. I saw St. Alais thrust his mother behind him, and almost with the
+same movement fling himself on the pikes; and I, pushing Denise down
+into the angle of the wall--though she clung to me and prayed to
+me--killed the first that came at me with Froment's pistol, and the
+next also, with the other barrel at point blank distance--feeling no
+fear, but only passion and rage. The third bore me down with his pike
+fixed in my shoulder, and for a moment I saw only the sky, and his
+scowling face black against it; and shut my eyes, expecting the blow
+that must follow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But none did follow. Instead a weight fell on me, and I began to
+struggle, and a whole battle, it seemed to me, was fought over me--in
+that horrible slaughterhouse alley, where they dragged men from
+women's arms, and forced them, screaming, to the wall, and stabbed
+them to death without pity; and things were done of which I dare not
+tell!</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_25" href="#div1Ref_25">BEYOND THE SHADOW.</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">I thank Heaven that I saw little more than I have told. A score of
+feet trampled on me as the murderers stumbled this way and that,
+and bruised me and covered me with blood that was not my own. And I
+heard screams of men in the death-throe, ear-piercing shrieks of
+women--shrieks that chilled the blood and stopped the breath--mad
+laughter, sounds of the pit. But to rise was to court instant death,
+and, though I had no hope and no looking forward, my momentary passion
+had spent itself and I lay quiet. Resistance was useless.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last I thought the end had come. The body that pressed on me, and
+partly hid me, was abruptly dragged away; the light came to my eyes,
+and a voice cried, briskly: &quot;Here is another! He is alive!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I staggered to my feet, stupidly willing to die with some sort of
+dignity. The speaker was a stranger, but by his side was Buton, and
+beyond him stood De Géol; and there were others, all staring at me,
+face beyond face. Still, I could not believe that I was saved. &quot;If you
+are going to do it, do it quickly,&quot; I muttered; and I opened my arms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;God forbid!&quot; Buton answered hurriedly. &quot;Enough has been done already,
+and too much! M. le Vicomte, lean on me! Lean on me, and come this
+way. <i>Mon Dieu</i>, I was only just in time. If they had killed you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is the fifth,&quot; said De Géol.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Buton did not answer, but taking my arm, gently urged me along, and De
+Géol taking the other side, I walked between them, through a lane of
+people who stared at me with a sort of brutish wonder--a lane of
+people with faces that looked strangely white in the sunshine. I was
+bareheaded, and the sun dazzled and confused me, but obeying the
+pressure of Buton's hand I swerved and passed through a door that
+seemed to open in the wall. As I did so I dropped a kerchief which
+some one had given me to bind up my shoulder. A man standing beside
+the door, the last man on the right-hand side of the lane of people,
+picked it up and gave it to me with a kindly alacrity. He had a pike,
+and his hands were covered with blood, and I do not doubt that he was
+one of the murderers!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Two men were carrying some one into the house before us, and at the
+sight of the helpless body and hanging head, sense and memory returned
+to me with a rush. I caught Buton by the breast of his coat and shook
+him--shook him savagely. &quot;Mademoiselle de St. Alais!&quot; I cried. &quot;What
+have you done to her, wretch? If you have----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush, Monsieur, hush,&quot; he answered reproachfully. &quot;And be yourself.
+She is safe, and here, I give you my word. She was carried in among
+the first. I don't think a hair of her head is injured.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She was carried in here?&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, M. le Vicomte.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And safe?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I believe that at that I burst into tears not altogether unmanly; for
+they were tears of thankfulness and gratitude. I had gone through very
+much, and, though the wound in my arm was a trifle, I had lost some
+blood; and the tears may be forgiven me. Nor indeed was I alone in
+weeping that day. I learned afterwards that one of the very murderers,
+a man who had been foremost in the work, cried bitterly when he came
+to himself and saw what he had done.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They killed in Nîmes on that day and the two next, about three hundred
+men, principally in the Capuchin convent--which Froment had used as a
+printing-office, and made the headquarters of his propaganda--in the
+Cabaret Rouge, and in Froment's own house, which held out until they
+brought cannon to bear on it. Not more than one-half of these fell in
+actual conflict or hot blood; the remainder were hunted down in lanes
+and houses and hiding-places, and killed where they were found, or,
+surrendering at discretion, were led to the nearest wall, and there
+shot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Later, both in Paris and the provinces, this severity was commended,
+and held up to admiration as the truest mercy; on the ground that it
+stamped out the fire of revolt which was on the point of blazing up
+and prevented it spreading to the rest of France. But, looking back, I
+find in it another thing; I find in it not mercy, but the first, or
+nearly the first, instance of that strange contempt of human life
+which marked the Revolution in its later stages; of that extravagance
+of cruelty which three years afterwards paralysed society and
+astounded the world, and, by the horrible excesses into which it
+occasionally led men, proved to the philosophers of the Human Race
+that France in the last days of the eighteenth century could do in the
+daylight, at Arras and Nantes and Paris, deeds which the tyrants of
+old confined to the dark recesses of their torture-chambers: deeds--I
+blush to say it--that no other polite country has matched in this age.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But with these crimes--and be it understood I do not refer here to the
+work of the guillotine--I thank God that I have at this time nothing
+to do. They left their traces on later pages of my life--as on the
+life of what Frenchman have they not?--and some day I may revert to
+them. But my task here barely touches them. It is enough for me to say
+that of eighteen men who shared with me the horrors of the alley by
+the Capuchins, four only lived to tell the tale, and look back on the
+walls of Nîmes; they and I owing our lives in part to the timely
+arrival of Buton and some foreign representatives, who did not share
+the Cevennols' fanaticism, and partly to the late relenting of the
+murderers themselves.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Of the four, Father Benôit and Louis St. Alais were two, and strange
+was the meeting, when we three, so wonderfully preserved, with clothes
+still torn and disordered, and faces splashed with blood, came
+together in the upstairs <i>salon</i> at Madame Catinot's. The shutters of
+the room, with the exception of one high corner shutter, were still
+closed; dead ashes lay white and cold in the empty fire-place, that
+had blazed so cheerfully in my honour the night I supped with Madame
+Catinot. The whole room was gloomy and chill, the furniture cast long
+shadows, and up the stairs came the clamour of the mob, that having
+seen us into the house eddied curiously round the scene of the murder,
+and could not have enough of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A strange meeting, for we three had all loved one another, and by
+stress of the times had been separated. Now we met as from the grave,
+ghostly figures, livid, trembling, with shaking hands and eyes burning
+with the light of fever; but with all differences purged away. &quot;My
+Brother!&quot; &quot;Your Brother!&quot; and Louis' hands met mine, as if the dead
+man who had died with the courage of his race joined them; while
+Father Benôit wrung his hands in uncontrollable grief or walked the
+room, crying: &quot;My poor children! Oh, my poor children! God have mercy
+on this land!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A low sound of women's voices, and weeping, with the hurrying of feet
+going softly to and fro, came from the next room: and that it was, I
+think, that presently calmed us, so that except for an occasional
+burst of grief on Louis' part we could talk quietly. I learned that
+Madame St. Alais lay there, sadly injured in the <i>mêlée</i>, either by
+her fall or a blow from a foot; and that Denise and Madame Catinot and
+a surgeon were with her. The very room in its gloom was funereal, and
+we talked in whispers--and then sank into silence; or again one or
+other would rise with a shudder of remembrance, and walk the room with
+heaving breast. Presently, the sound of guns coming to our ears, we
+forgot ourselves for a while and talked of Froment, and what chance of
+escape he had, and listened and heard the mob raving and howling as it
+surged by; and then talked again. But always as men who were no longer
+concerned; as men whom death had released from the common obligations.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Presently they came and called Louis, who went to his mother; and then
+after another interval Father Benôit was summoned, and I walked the
+room alone. Silence after so great commotion, solitude, when an hour
+before I had dealt death and faced it in that inferno, safety after
+danger so imminent, all stirred the depths of my heart. When, in
+addition, I thought of St. Alais' death, and recalled the brilliant
+promise, the daring, the brightness of that haughty spirit now for
+ever quenched, I felt the tears rise again. I paced the room in
+uncontrollable emotion, and was thankful for the gloom that allowed me
+to give it vent. Old times, old scenes, old affections rose up, and my
+boyhood; I remembered that we had played together, I forgot that we
+had gone different ways.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After a long time, a long, long time, when evening had nearly come,
+Louis came in to me. &quot;Will you come?&quot; he said abruptly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To Madame St. Alais?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, she wants to see you,&quot; he replied, holding the door open, and
+speaking in the dull even tone of one who knows all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After such a scene as we had passed through comes reaction; I was worn
+out and I went with him mechanically, thinking rather of the past than
+the present. But no sooner was I over the threshold of the next room,
+which, unlike that I had left, was brilliantly lit by candles set in
+sconces, the shutters being closed, than I came to myself with a
+shock. Propped up with pillows on a bed opposite the door, so that I
+met her eyes and had a full view of her face as I entered, lay Madame
+St. Alais; and I stood. Her face was white with a red spot burning in
+each cheek; her eyes matched the colour in brilliance; but it was
+neither of these things that brought me up suddenly, nor--though I
+noticed it with foreboding--the way in which she plucked at the
+coverlet when she spoke. It was something in her expression; something
+so unfitting the occasion, so bizarre and light that I stood appalled.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She saw my hesitation, and in a gay and slightly affected tone, that
+in a moment told the story, a tone more dreadful under the
+circumstances than the most pathetic outbursts, she reproached me with
+it. &quot;Welcome, M. le Vicomte,&quot; she said. &quot;And yet I am glad to see that
+you have some modesty. We will not be hard on you, however. A late
+repentance is better than none, and--where is my fan, Denise? Child,
+my fan!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Denise rose with a choking sound from her seat by the bed, and must, I
+think, have broken down; we had all nerves worn to the last thread.
+But Madame Catinot saved the situation. Hastily reaching a fan from a
+side table she laid a firm hand on the younger woman's shoulder as she
+passed, and gently pressed her back into her seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you, my dear,&quot; Madame St. Alais said, playing an instant with
+the fan, and smiling from side to side, as I had seen her smile a
+hundred times in her <i>salon</i>. &quot;And now, M. le Vicomte,&quot; she continued
+with ghastly archness, &quot;I think that you will have the grace to say
+that I was a true prophet?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I muttered something, heaven knows what; the scene, with Madame's
+smiling face, and the others' bowed shoulders and averted eyes, was
+dreadful.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I never doubted that you would have to join us,&quot; she went on, with
+complacency. &quot;And if I were cruel, I should have much to say. But as
+you have returned to your allegiance before it was too late, we will
+let bygones be bygones. His Majesty is so good that--but where are the
+others? We cannot proceed without them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked round with a touch of her native peremptoriness. &quot;Where is
+M. de Gontaut?&quot; she said. &quot;Louis, has not M. de Gontaut arrived? He
+promised to be here to witness the contract.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Louis, from his place by one of the closed windows, where he stood
+with Father Benôit and the surgeon, answered in a strained voice that
+he had not yet arrived.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame seemed to find something unnatural in his tone and our
+attitude, she looked uneasily from one to the other of us. &quot;There is
+nothing the matter, is there?&quot; she said, flirting her fan more
+vigorously. &quot;Nothing has happened?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, no, Madame,&quot; Louis answered, striving to soothe her. &quot;Doubtless
+he will be here by-and-by.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But a shadow of anxiety still clouded Madame's face. &quot;And Victor?&quot; she
+said. &quot;He has not come either? Louis, are you sure that there is
+nothing the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Madame, Madame, you will see him presently,&quot; he answered with a
+half-stifled sob; and he turned away with a gesture of horror, which,
+but for one of the curtains of the alcove, she must have seen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not, though there was enough in this to arouse a sane person's
+suspicions. As he spoke, however, Madame's eyes fell on me, and the
+piteous anxiety which had for the moment darkened her face, passed
+away as quickly as the shadow of a cloud passes on an April morning.
+She took up her fan again, and looked at me gaily. &quot;Do you know,&quot; she
+said, &quot;I had the strangest dream last night, M. le Vicomte--or was it
+when I was ill, Denise? Never mind. But I dreamed all sorts of
+horrors; that our house here was burned, and the house at Cahors, and
+that we had to fly and take refuge at Montauban, and then--I think it
+was at Nîmes. And that M. de Gontaut was murdered, and all the
+<i>canaille</i> were up in arms! As if--as if,&quot; she continued, with a
+little laugh, cut short by a gasp of pain, &quot;the King would permit such
+things, or they were possible. And there was something--something
+still more absurd about the Church.&quot; She paused, knitting her brows;
+and then with a touch of her fan dismissing the subject: &quot;But I
+forget--I forget. And just when it was most horrible I awoke. It was
+all absurd. So extravagant you would all be ill with laughing if I
+could remember it. I fancied that a pair of red-heeled shoes were as
+good as a death warrant, and powder and patches condemned you at
+once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She paused. The fan dropped from her hand, and she looked round
+uneasily. &quot;I think--I think I am not quite well yet,&quot; she said in a
+different tone, and a spasm crossed her face--it was plain that she
+was in pain. &quot;Louis!&quot; she continued petulantly, &quot;where is the notary?
+He might read the contract. Doubtless Victor and M. de Gontaut will be
+here before long. Where is he?&quot; she continued sharply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is easy to say that we might have played our parts; but the pity
+and the horror of it, falling on hearts already tortured by the scenes
+of the day, fairly unmanned us. Denise hid her face, and trembled so
+that the chair on which she sat shook; and Louis turned away
+shuddering, while I stood near the foot of the bed, frozen into
+silence. This time it was the surgeon, a thin young man of dark
+complexion, who put himself forward.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The papers are in the next room, Madame,&quot; he said gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you are not M. Pettifer?&quot; she answered querulously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Madame, he was so unwell as to be unable to leave the house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He has no right to be unwell,&quot; Madame retorted severely. &quot;Pettifer
+unwell, and Mademoiselle St. Alais' contract to be signed! But you
+have the papers?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;In the next room, Madame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fetch them! Fetch them!&quot; she answered, her eyes wandering uneasily
+from one to another. And she moved in the bed and sighed as one in
+pain. Then, &quot;Where is Victor? Why does he not come?&quot; she asked
+impatiently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think I hear him,&quot; Louis said suddenly. It was the first time he
+had spoken of his own free will, and I caught a new sound in his
+voice. &quot;I will see,&quot; he went on, and moving to the door he gave me a
+sign, as he passed, to follow him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I muttered something, and did so. In the room in which I had waited,
+the half-shuttered room of gloom and shadows, from which Louis had
+fetched me, we found the surgeon groping hastily about. &quot;Some paper,
+Monsieur,&quot; he said, looking up impatiently as we entered. &quot;Some paper!
+Almost anything should do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Stay!&quot; Louis said, his voice harsh with pain. &quot;We have had too much
+of this--this mockery. I will have no more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Monsieur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I say I will have no more!&quot; Louis answered fiercely, a sob in his
+throat. &quot;Tell her the truth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She would not believe it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At any rate, anything is better than this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you mean it, Monsieur?&quot; the surgeon asked slowly, and he looked at
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then I will have no part in it,&quot; the man answered with gravity. &quot;I
+acquit myself of all responsibility. Nor shall you do it, Monsieur,
+until you have heard what the inevitable result will be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My mother cannot recover,&quot; Louis said stubbornly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, Monsieur, nor will she live, in my opinion, more than a few
+hours. When the fever that now supports her begins to wane she will
+collapse, and die. It depends on you whether she closes her eyes,
+knowing none of the evil that has happened, or her son's death; or
+dies----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is horrible!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is for you to choose,&quot; the surgeon answered inexorably.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Louis looked round. &quot;There is paper there,&quot; he said suddenly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I suppose that we had been absent from the room no more than a couple
+of minutes, but when we returned we found Madame St. Alais calling
+impatiently for us and for Victor. &quot;Where is he? Where is he?&quot; she
+repeated feverishly. &quot;Why is he late to-day of all days? There is
+no--no quarrel between you?&quot; And she looked jealously at me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;None, Madame,&quot; I said, with tears in my voice. &quot;That I swear!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then why is he not here? And M. de Gontaut?&quot; Her eyes were still
+bright; the red spot burned still in her cheeks; but her features had
+taken a pinched look, she was changed, and her fingers were never
+still. Her voice had grown harsh and unnatural, and from time to time
+she looked round with a piteous expression as if something puzzled
+her. &quot;I am not well to-day,&quot; she muttered presently, with a painful
+effort to be herself. &quot;And I forget to be as gay as I should be.
+Mademoiselle, go to M. le Vicomte, and say something pretty to amuse
+us while we wait. And you, M. le Vicomte! In my young days it was
+usual for the <i>fiancé</i> to salute his mistress on these occasions. Fie
+on you! For shame, Monsieur! I am afraid that you are a laggard in
+love.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Denise rose, and came slowly to me before them all, but no word passed
+her pale lips, and she did not raise her eyes to mine. She remained
+passive when in accordance with Madame's permission I stooped and
+kissed her cold cheek; it grew no warmer, her eyes did not kindle. Yet
+I was satisfied, more than satisfied; for as I leant over her I felt
+her little hands--little hands I longed to take in mine and shelter
+and protect--I felt them clutch and hold the front of my coat, as the
+child clings to its mother's neck. I passed my arm round her before
+them all, and so we stood at the foot of Madame's bed, and she looked
+at us.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She laughed gaily. &quot;Poor little mouse!&quot; she said. &quot;She is shy yet. Be
+good to her, <i>mon cher</i>, she is a tender morsel, and--I don't feel
+well! I don't feel well,&quot; Madame repeated, abruptly breaking off, and
+lifting herself in bed, while one hand went with difficulty to her
+head. &quot;I don't--what is it?&quot; she continued, the colour visibly fading
+from her face and leaving it white and drawn, while fear leapt into
+her staring eyes. &quot;What is it? Fetch--fetch some one, will you?
+The--the doctor! And Victor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Denise slipped from my arm, and flew to her side. I stood a moment,
+then the surgeon touched my arm. &quot;Go!&quot; he muttered. &quot;Go. Leave her to
+the women. It will be quickly over.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so Madame St. Alais gave Mademoiselle to me at last; and the
+compact for our marriage, into which she had entered so many years
+before with my dead father, was fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align:center; letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Madame died next morning, being taken not only from the evil
+to come,
+but from that which was then present, and roared and eddied through
+the streets of Nîmes round the unburied body of her son; for she died
+without awaking from the delirium which followed her hurt. I went in
+to see her lying dead and little changed; and in the quiet decorum of
+the lighted chamber I thought reverently of the change which one
+year--one brief year had made, coming at the end of fifty years of
+prosperity. It seemed pitiful to me then, as I stooped and kissed the
+waxen hand--very pitiful; now, knowing what the future had in store,
+remembering the twenty years of exile and poverty and tedium and hope
+deferred, that were to be the lot of so many of her friends, of so
+many of those who had graced her <i>salons</i> at St. Alais and Cahors, I
+think her happy. Possessed of energy as well as pride, a rare
+combination in our order, she and hers dared greatly and greatly lost;
+staked all and lost all. Yet better that, than the prison or the
+guillotine; or growing old and decrepit in a strange land, to return
+to a <i>patrie</i> that had long forgotten them; that stood in the roads
+and jeered at the old berlins and petticoats and headgear that were
+the fashion in the days of the Polignacs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I have said that the riots in Nîmes lasted three days. On the last
+Buton came to me and told us we must go; that to avoid worse things we
+must leave the city without delay, or he and the more moderate party
+who had saved us would no longer be responsible. On this, Louis was
+for retiring to Montpellier, and thence to the <i>émigrés</i> at Turin; and
+for a few hours I was of the same mind, desiring most of all to place
+the women in safety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I owe it to Buton that I did not take a step hard to recall, and of
+which I am sure that I should have repented later. He asked me bluntly
+whither I was going, and when I told him, set his back against the
+door. &quot;God forbid!&quot; he said. &quot;Who go, go. Few will return.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I answered him with heat. &quot;Nonsense!&quot; I cried. &quot;I tell you, within a
+year you will be on your knees to us to come back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why?&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You cannot keep order without us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With ease,&quot; he answered coolly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Look at the state of things here!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It will pass.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But who will govern?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The fittest,&quot; he replied doggedly. &quot;For do you still think, M. le
+Vicomte--after all that has happened--that a man to make laws must
+have a title--saving your presence? Do you still think that the wheat
+will not grow, nor the hens lay eggs, unless the Seigneur's shadow
+falls on them? Do you think that to fight, a man must have powder on
+his head as well as in his musket?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think,&quot; I retorted, &quot;that when a man who does not know the sea
+turns pilot it is time to leave the vessel!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The pilot will learn,&quot; he answered. &quot;And for quitting the vessel, let
+those go who have no business on board. Be guided, Monseigneur,&quot; he
+continued in a different tone. &quot;Be guided. They have killed in Nîmes
+three hundred in three days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you say, stay?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ay, for there is blood between us,&quot; he answered grimly. &quot;That has
+been done now which will not easily be forgiven; that has been done
+which will abide. Go abroad after this--and stay abroad! Or rather do
+not--do not, but be guided,&quot; he continued, with rough emotion in his
+voice. &quot;Go home to the Château, and be quiet, Monsieur, and no one
+will harm you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was much in what he said. At any rate, I thought the advice so
+good that, after some hesitation, I not only determined to follow it,
+but I gave it to the others. But Louis would not change his mind. A
+horror of the country had seized him since his escape; and he would
+go. He raised no opposition, however, when I asked him to give me
+Denise; and within twenty-four hours of her mother's death she became
+my wife, in that dark-shuttered house by the Capuchins' alley, Father
+Benôit performing the service. Louis was at the same time married to
+Madame Catinot, who was to share his exile. Needless to say there were
+no rejoicings at these weddings; no <i>fête</i> and no joy-bells, and no
+bride-clothes, but sobs and wailings, and cold lips and passive hands.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But a bright day has sometimes a weeping dawn, and though for three
+years or more our life knew perils enough and some sorrows--the story
+of which I may one day tell--and we shared the lot of all Frenchmen in
+those times of shame and stress, I had never, no, not for a day or an
+hour, cause to repent the deed done so hurriedly at Nîmes. Clinging
+hands and warm lips, eyes that shone as brightly in a prison as a
+palace, cheered me, when things were worst; and when better days came,
+and with them grey hairs and a new France, my wife found means still
+to grace, and ever more and more to share my life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">One word of the man to whom under God I owe it that I won her. He
+survived, but I never saw Froment of Nîmes again. On the third day of
+the riots cannon were brought to bear on his tower, it was stormed,
+and the garrison were put to the sword, one man only, I believe,
+escaping with his life. That man was Froment, the indomitable, the
+most capable leader that the Royalists of France ever boasted. He got
+safely to the frontier and thence to Turin, where he was received with
+honour by those whose aid might a little earlier have saved all. Who
+fails must expect buffets, however; the cold shoulder was presently
+turned to him; he was slighted, and as the years went on his
+complaints grew louder. Once I sought to find and assist him, but he
+was then engaged in some enterprise on the African coast, and my
+circumstances were such that I could have done little had I found him.
+Soon afterwards, I believe, he died, though certain information never
+reached me. But dead or alive I owe him gratitude, respect, and other
+things, among which I count the greatest happiness of my life.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Cockade, by Stanley J. Weyman
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Cockade, by Stanley J. Weyman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Red Cockade
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2012 [EBook #39297]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED COCKADE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the
+Web Archive (University of Toronto)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://www.archive.org/details/redcockade00weymuoft
+      (University of Toronto)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE RED COCKADE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                      _WORKS BY STANLEY WEYMAN_.
+
+       The House of the Wolf.
+       A Gentleman of France.
+       Under the Red Robe.
+       My Lady Rotha.
+       The New Rector.
+       The Story of Francis Cludde.
+       The Man in Black.
+       From the Memoirs of a Minister of France.
+       The Red Cockade.
+
+
+
+
+                      ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "'MESSIEURS,' HE CRIED." _See page_ 21.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE RED COCKADE
+
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+                            STANLEY WEYMAN
+               AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                LONDON
+                       LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+                                 1895
+
+
+
+
+                              CONTENTS.
+
+
+   CHAPTER
+
+         I. The Marquis de St. Alais.
+
+        II. The Ordeal.
+
+       III. In the Assembly.
+
+        IV. L'ami du Peuple.
+
+         V. The Deputation.
+
+        VI. A Meeting in the Road.
+
+       VII. The Alarm.
+
+      VIII. Gargouf.
+
+        IX. The Tricolour.
+
+         X. The Morning after the Storm.
+
+        XI. The Two Camps.
+
+       XII. The Duel.
+
+      XIII. A la Lanterne.
+
+       XIV. It Goes Ill.
+
+        XV. At Milhau.
+
+       XVI. Three in a Carriage.
+
+      XVII. Froment of Nimes.
+
+     XVIII. A Poor Figure.
+
+       XIX. At Nimes
+
+        XX. The Search.
+
+       XXI. Rivals.
+
+      XXII. Noblesse Oblige.
+
+     XXIII. The Crisis.
+
+      XXIV. The Millennium.
+
+       XXV. Beyond the Shadow.
+
+
+
+
+
+                           THE RED COCKADE.
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I.
+
+                      THE MARQUIS DE ST. ALAIS.
+
+
+When we reached the terraced walk, which my father made a little
+before his death, and which, running under the windows at the rear of
+the Chateau, separates the house from the new lawn, St. Alais looked
+round with eyes of scarcely-veiled contempt.
+
+"What have you done with the garden?" he asked, his lip curling.
+
+"My father removed it to the other side of the house," I answered.
+
+"Out of sight?"
+
+"Yes," I said; "it is beyond the rose garden."
+
+"English fashion!" he answered with a shrug and a polite sneer. "And
+you prefer to see all this grass from your windows?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I do."
+
+"Ah! And that plantation? It hides the village, I suppose, from the
+house?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He laughed. "Yes," he said. "I notice that that is the way of all who
+prate of the people, and freedom, and fraternity. They love the
+people; but they love them at a distance, on the farther side of a
+park or a high yew hedge. Now, at St. Alais I like to have my folks
+under my eye, and then, if they do not behave, there is the _carcan_.
+By the way, what have you done with yours, Vicomte? It used to stand
+opposite the entrance."
+
+"I have burned it," I said, feeling the blood mount to my temples.
+
+"Your father did, you mean?" he answered, with a glance of surprise.
+
+"No," I said stubbornly, hating myself for being ashamed of that
+before St. Alais of which I had been proud enough when alone. "I did.
+I burned it last winter. I think the day of such things is past."
+
+The Marquis was not my senior by more than five years; but those five
+years, spent in Paris and Versailles, gave him a wondrous advantage,
+and I felt his look of contemptuous surprise as I should have felt a
+blow. However, he did not say anything at the moment, but after a
+short pause changed the subject and began to speak of my father;
+recalling him and things in connection with him in a tone of respect
+and affection that in a moment disarmed my resentment.
+
+"The first time that I shot a bird on the wing I was in his company!"
+he said, with the wonderful charm of manner that had been St. Alais'
+even in boyhood.
+
+"Twelve years ago," I said.
+
+"Even so, Monsieur," he replied with a laughing bow. "In those days
+there was a small boy with bare legs, who ran after me, and called me
+Victor, and thought me the greatest of men. I little dreamed that he
+would ever live to expound the rights of man to me. And, _Dieu!_
+Vicomte, I must keep Louis from you, or you will make him as great a
+reformer as yourself. However," he continued, passing from that
+subject with a smile and an easy gesture, "I did not come here to talk
+of him, but of one, M. le Vicomte, in whom you should feel even
+greater interest."
+
+I felt the blood mount to my temples again, but for a different
+reason. "Mademoiselle has come home?" I said.
+
+"Yesterday," he answered. "She will go with my mother to Cahors
+to-morrow, and take her first peep at the world. I do not doubt that
+among the many new things she will see, none will interest her more
+than the Vicomte de Saux."
+
+"Mademoiselle is well?" I said clumsily.
+
+"Perfectly," he answered with grave politeness, "as you will see for
+yourself to-morrow evening, if we do not meet on the road. I daresay
+that you will like a week or so to commend yourself to her, M. le
+Vicomte? And after that, whenever Madame la Marquise and you can
+settle the date, and so forth, the match had better come off--while I
+am here."
+
+I bowed. I had been expecting to hear this for a week past; but from
+Louis, who was on brotherly terms with me, not from Victor. The latter
+had indeed been my boyish idol; but that was years ago, before Court
+life and a long stay at Versailles and St. Cloud had changed him into
+the splendid-looking man I saw before me, the raillery of whose eye I
+found it as difficult to meet as I found it impossible to match the
+aplomb of his manner. Still, I strove to make such acknowledgments as
+became me; and to adopt that nice mixture of self-respect, politeness,
+and devotion which I knew that the occasion, formally treated,
+required. But my tongue stumbled, and in a moment he relieved me.
+
+"Well, you must tell that to Denise," he said pleasantly; "doubtless
+you will find her a patient listener. At first, of course," he
+continued, pulling on his gauntlets and smiling faintly, "she will be
+a little shy. I have no doubt that the good sisters have brought her
+up to regard a man in much the same light as a wolf; and a suitor as
+something worse. But, _eh bien, mon ami!_ women are women after all,
+and in a week or two you will commend yourself. We may hope, then, to
+see you to-morrow evening--if not before?"
+
+"Most certainly, M. le Marquis."
+
+"Why not Victor?" he answered, laying his hand on my arm with a touch
+of the old _bonhomie_. "We shall soon be brothers, and then,
+doubtless, shall hate one another. In the meantime, give me your
+company to the gates. There was one other thing I wanted to name to
+you. Let me see--what was it?"
+
+But either he could not immediately remember, or he found a difficulty
+in introducing the subject, for we were nearly half-way down the
+avenue of walnut trees that leads to the village when he spoke again.
+Then he plunged into the matter abruptly.
+
+"You have heard of this protest?" he said.
+
+"Yes," I answered reluctantly and with a foresight of trouble.
+
+"You will sign it, of course?"
+
+He had hesitated before he asked the question; I hesitated before I
+answered it. The protest to which he referred--how formal the phrase
+now sounds, though we know that under it lay the beginning of trouble
+and a new world--was one which it was proposed to move in the coming
+meeting of the _noblesse_ at Cahors; its aim, to condemn the conduct
+of our representatives at Versailles, in consenting to sit with the
+Third Estate.
+
+Now, for myself, whatever had been my original views on this
+question--and, as a fact, I should have preferred to see reform
+following the English model, the nobles' house remaining separate--I
+regarded the step, now it was taken, and legalised by the King, as
+irrevocable; and protest as useless. More, I could not help knowing
+that those who were moving the protest desired also to refuse all
+reform, to cling to all privileges, to balk all hopes of better
+government; hopes, which had been rising higher, day by day, since the
+elections, and which it might not now be so safe or so easy to balk.
+Without swallowing convictions, therefore, which were pretty well
+known, I could not see my way to supporting it. And I hesitated.
+
+"Well?" he said at last, finding me still silent.
+
+"I do not think that I can," I answered, flushing.
+
+"Can support it?"
+
+"No," I said.
+
+He laughed genially. "Pooh!" he said. "I think that you will. I want
+your promise, Vicomte. It is a small matter; a trifle, and of no
+importance; but we must be unanimous. That is the one thing
+necessary."
+
+I shook my head. We had both come to a halt under the trees, a little
+within the gates. His servant was leading the horses up and down the
+road.
+
+"Come," he persisted pleasantly: "you do not think that anything is
+going to come of this chaotic States General, which his Majesty was
+mad enough to let Neckar summon? They met on the 4th of May; this is
+the 17th of July; and to this date they have done nothing but wrangle!
+Nothing! Presently they will be dismissed, and there will be an end of
+it!"
+
+"Why protest, then?" I said rather feebly.
+
+"I will tell you, my friend," he answered, smiling indulgently and
+tapping his boot with his whip. "Have you heard the latest news?"
+
+"What is it?" I replied cautiously. "Then I will tell you if I have
+heard it."
+
+"The King has dismissed Neckar!"
+
+"No!" I cried, unable to hide my surprise.
+
+"Yes," he answered; "the banker is dismissed. In a week his States
+General or National Assembly, or whatever he pleases to call it, will
+go too, and we shall be where we were before. Only, in the meantime,
+and to strengthen the King in the wise course he is at last pursuing,
+we must show that we are alive. We must show our sympathy with him. We
+must act. We must protest."
+
+"But, M. le Marquis," I said, a little heated, perhaps, by the news,
+"are you sure that the people will quietly endure this? Never was so
+bitter a winter as last winter; never a worse harvest, or such
+pinching. On the top of these, their hopes have been raised, and their
+minds excited by the elections, and----
+
+"Whom have we to thank for that?" he said, with a whimsical glance at
+me. "But, never fear, Vicomte; they will endure it. I know Paris; and
+I can assure you that it is not the Paris of the Fronde, though M. de
+Mirabeau would play the Retz. It is a peaceable, sensible Paris, and
+it will not rise. Except a bread riot or two, it has seen no rising to
+speak of for a century and a half: nothing that two companies of Swiss
+could not deal with as easily as D'Argenson cleared the Cour des
+Miracles. Believe me, there is no danger of that kind: with the least
+management, all will go well!"
+
+But his news had roused my antagonism. I found it more easy to resist
+him now.
+
+"I do not know," I said coldly; "I do not think that the matter is so
+simple as you say. The King must have money, or be bankrupt; the
+people have no money to pay him. I do not see how things can go back
+to the old state."
+
+M. de St. Alais looked at me with a gleam of anger in his eyes.
+
+"You mean, Vicomte," he said, "that you do not wish them to go back?"
+
+"I mean that the old state was impossible," I said stiffly. "It could
+not last. It cannot return."
+
+For a moment he did not answer, and we stood confronting one
+another--he just without, I just within, the gateway--the cool foliage
+stretching over us, the dust and July sunshine in the road beyond him;
+and if my face reflected his, it was flushed, and set, and determined.
+But in a twinkling his changed; he broke into an easy, polite laugh,
+and shrugged his shoulders with a touch of contempt.
+
+"Well," he said, "we will not argue; but I hope that you will sign.
+Think it over, M. le Vicomte, think it over. Because"--he paused, and
+looked at me gaily--"we do not know what may be depending upon it."
+
+"That is a reason," I answered quickly, "for thinking more before
+I----
+
+"It is a reason for thinking more before you refuse," he said, bowing
+very low, and this time without smiling. Then he turned to his horse,
+and his servant held the stirrup while he mounted. When he was in the
+saddle and had gathered up the reins, he bent his face to mine.
+
+"Of course," he said, speaking in a low voice, and with a searching
+look at me, "a contract is a contract, M. le Vicomte; and the
+Montagues and Capulets, like your _carcan_, are out of date. But, all
+the same, we must go one way--_comprenez-vous?_--we must go one
+way--or separate! At least, I think so."
+
+And nodding pleasantly, as if he had uttered in these words a
+compliment instead of a threat, he rode off; leaving me to stand and
+fret and fume, and finally to stride back under the trees with my
+thoughts in a whirl, and all my plans and hopes jarring one another in
+a petty copy of the confusion that that day prevailed, though I
+guessed it but dimly, from one end of France to the other.
+
+For I could not be blind to his meaning; nor ignorant that he had, no
+matter how politely, bidden me choose between the alliance with his
+family, which my father had arranged for me, and the political views
+in which my father had brought me up, and which a year's residence in
+England had not failed to strengthen. Alone in the Chateau since my
+father's death, I had lived a good deal in the future--in day-dreams
+of Denise de St. Alais, the fair girl who was to be my wife, and whom
+I had not seen since she went to her convent school; in day-dreams,
+also, of work to be done in spreading round me the prosperity I had
+seen in England. Now, St. Alais' words menaced one or other of these
+prospects; and that was bad enough. But, in truth, it was not that, so
+much as his presumption, that stung me; that made me swear one moment
+and laugh the next, in a kind of irritation not difficult to
+understand. I was twenty-two, he was twenty-seven; and he dictated to
+me! We were country bumpkins, he of the _haute politique_, and he had
+come from Versailles or from Paris to drill us! If I went his way I
+might marry his sister; if not, I might not! That was the position.
+
+No wonder that before he had left me half an hour I had made up my
+mind to resist him; and so spent the rest of the day composing sound
+and unanswerable reasons for the course I intended to take; now
+conning over a letter in which M. de Liancourt set forth his plan of
+reform, now summarising the opinions with which M. de Rochefoucauld
+had favoured me on his last journey to Luchon. In half an hour and the
+heat of temper! thinking no more than ten thousand others, who that
+week chose one of two courses, what I was doing. Gargouf, the St.
+Alais' steward, who doubtless heard that day the news of Neckar's
+fall, and rejoiced, had no foresight of what it meant to him. Father
+Benoit, the cure, who supped with me that evening, and heard the
+tidings with sorrow--he, too, had no special vision. And the
+innkeeper's son at La Bastide, by Cahors--probably he, also, heard the
+news; but no shadow of a sceptre fell across his path, nor any of a
+_baton_ on that of the notary at the other La Bastide. A notary, a
+_baton_! An innkeeper, a sceptre! _Mon Dieu!_ what conjunctions they
+would have seemed in those days! We should have been wiser than
+Daniel, and more prudent than Joseph, if we had foreseen such things
+under the old _regime_--in the old France, in the old world, that died
+in that month of July, 1789!
+
+And yet there were signs, even then, to be read by those with eyes,
+that foretold something, if but a tithe of the inconceivable future;
+of which signs I myself remarked sufficient by the way next day to
+fill my mind with other thoughts than private resentment; with some
+nobler aims than self-assertion. Riding to Cahors, with Gil and Andre
+at my back, I saw not only the havoc caused by the great frosts of the
+winter and spring, not only walnut trees blackened and withered, vines
+stricken, rye killed, a huge proportion of the land fallow, desert,
+gloomy and unsown: not only those common signs of poverty to which use
+had accustomed me--though on my first return from England I had viewed
+them with horror--mud cabins, I mean, and unglazed windows, starved
+cattle, and women bent double, gathering weeds. But I saw other things
+more ominous; a strange herding of men at cross-roads and bridges,
+where they waited for they knew not what; a something lowering in
+these men's silence, a something expectant in their faces; worst of
+all, a something dangerous in their scowling eyes and sunken cheeks.
+Hunger had pinched them; the elections had roused them. I trembled to
+think of the issue, and that in the hint of danger I had given St.
+Alais, I had been only too near the mark.
+
+A league farther on, where the woodlands skirt Cahors, I lost sight of
+these things; but for a time only. They reappeared presently in
+another form. The first view of the town, as, girt by the shining Lot,
+and protected by ramparts and towers, it nestles under the steep
+hills, is apt to take the eye; its matchless bridge, and time-worn
+Cathedral, and great palace seldom failing to rouse the admiration
+even of those who know them. But that day I saw none of these things.
+As I passed down towards the market-place they were selling grain
+under a guard of soldiers with fixed bayonets; and the starved faces
+of the waiting crowd that filled all that side of the square, their
+shrunken, half-naked figures, and dark looks, and the sullen
+muttering, which seemed so much at odds with the sunshine, occupied
+me, to the exclusion of everything else.
+
+Or not quite. I had eyes for one other thing, and that was the
+astonishing indifference with which those whom curiosity, or business,
+or habit had brought to the spot, viewed this spectacle. The inns were
+full of the gentry of the province, come to the Assembly; they looked
+on from the windows, as at a show, and talked and jested as if at home
+in their chateaux. Before the doors of the Cathedral a group of ladies
+and clergymen walked to and fro, and now and then they turned a
+listless eye on what was passing; but for the most part they seemed to
+be unconscious of it, or, at the best, to have no concern with it. I
+have heard it said since, that in those days we had two worlds in
+France, as far apart as hell and heaven; and what I saw that evening
+went far to prove it.
+
+In the square a shop at which pamphlets and journals were sold was
+full of customers, though other shops in the neighbourhood were
+closed, their owners fearing mischief. On the skirts of the crowd, and
+a little aloof from it, I saw Gargouf, the St. Alais' steward. He was
+talking to a countryman; and, as I passed, I heard him say with a
+gibe, "Well, has your National Assembly fed you yet?"
+
+"Not yet," the clown answered stupidly, "but I am told that in a few
+days they will satisfy everybody."
+
+"Not they!" the agent answered brutally. "Why, do you think that they
+will feed you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, by your leave; it is certain," the man said. "And, besides,
+every one is agreed----"
+
+But then Gargouf saw me, saluted me, and I heard no more. A moment
+later, however, I came on one of my own people, Buton, the blacksmith,
+in the middle of a muttering group. He looked at me sheepishly,
+finding himself caught; and I stopped, and rated him soundly, and saw
+him start for home before I went to my quarters.
+
+These were at the Trois Rois, where I always lay when in town; Doury,
+the innkeeper, providing a supper ordinary for the gentry at eight
+o'clock, at which it was the custom to dress and powder.
+
+The St. Alais had their own house in Cahors, and, as the Marquis had
+forewarned me, entertained that evening. The greater part of the
+company, indeed, repaired to them after the meal. I went myself a
+little late, that I might avoid any private talk with the Marquis; I
+found the rooms already full and brilliantly lighted, the staircase
+crowded with valets, and the strains of a harpsichord trickling
+melodiously from the windows. Madame de St. Alais was in the habit of
+entertaining the best company in the province; with less splendour,
+perhaps, than some, but with so much ease, and taste, and good
+breeding, that I look in vain for such a house in these days.
+
+Ordinarily, she preferred to people her rooms with pleasant groups,
+that, gracefully disposed, gave to a _salon_ an air elegant and
+pleasing, and in character with the costume of those days, the silks
+and laces, powder and diamonds, the full hoops and red-heeled shoes.
+But on this occasion the crowd and the splendour of the entertainment
+apprised me, as soon as I crossed the threshold, that I was assisting
+at a party of more than ordinary importance; nor had I advanced far
+before I guessed that it was a political rather than a social
+gathering. All, or almost all, who would attend the Assembly next day
+were here; and though, as I wound my way through the glittering crowd,
+I heard very little serious talk--so little, that I marvelled to think
+that people could discuss the respective merits of French and Italian
+opera, of Gretry and Bianchi, and the like, while so much hung in the
+balance--of the effect intended I had no doubt; nor that Madame, in
+assembling all the wit and beauty of the province, was aiming at
+things higher than amusement.
+
+With, I am bound to confess, a degree of success. At any rate it was
+difficult to mix with the throng which filled her rooms, to run the
+gauntlet of bright eyes and witty tongues, to breathe the atmosphere
+laden with perfume and music, without falling under the spell, without
+forgetting. Inside the door M. de Gontaut, one of my father's oldest
+friends, was talking with the two Harincourts. He greeted me with a
+sly smile, and pointed politely inwards.
+
+"Pass on, Monsieur," he said. "The farthest room. Ah! my friend, I
+wish I were young again!"
+
+"Your gain would be my loss, M. le Baron," I said civilly, and slid by
+him. Next, I had to speak to two or three ladies, who detained me with
+wicked congratulations of the same kind; and then I came on Louis. He
+clasped my hand, and we stood a moment together. The crowd elbowed us;
+a simpering fool at his shoulder was prating of the social contract.
+But as I felt the pressure of Louis' hand, and looked into his eyes,
+it seemed to me that a breath of air from the woods penetrated the
+room, and swept aside the heavy perfumes.
+
+Yet there was trouble in his look. He asked me if I had seen Victor.
+
+"Yesterday," I said, understanding him perfectly, and what was amiss.
+"Not to-day."
+
+"Nor Denise?"
+
+"No. I have not had the honour of seeing Mademoiselle."
+
+"Then, come," he answered. "My mother expected you earlier. What did
+you think of Victor?"
+
+"That he went Victor, and has returned a great personage!" I said,
+smiling.
+
+Louis laughed faintly, and lifted his eyebrows with a comical air of
+sufferance.
+
+"I was afraid so," he said. "He did not seem to be very well pleased
+with you. But we must all do his bidding--eh, Monsieur? And, in the
+meantime, come. My mother and Denise are in the farthest room."
+
+He led the way thither as he spoke; but we had first to go through the
+card-room, and then the crowd about the farther doorway was so dense
+that we could not immediately enter; and so I had time--while
+outwardly smiling and bowing--to feel a little suspense. At last we
+slipped through and entered a smaller room, where were only Madame la
+Marquise--who was standing in the middle of the floor talking with the
+Abbe Mesnil--two or three ladies, and Denise de St. Alais.
+
+Mademoiselle had her seat on a couch by one of the ladies; and
+naturally my eyes went first to her. She was dressed in white, and it
+struck me with the force of a blow how small, how childish she was!
+Very fair, of the purest complexion, and perfectly formed, she seemed
+to derive an extravagant, an absurd, air of dignity from the formality
+of her dress, from the height of the powdered hair that strained
+upwards from her forehead, from the stiffness of her brocaded
+petticoat. But she was very small. I had time to note this, to feel a
+little disappointment, and to fancy that, cast in a larger mould, she
+would have been supremely handsome; and then the lady beside her,
+seeing me, spoke to her, and the child--she was really little
+more--looked up, her face grown crimson. Our eyes met--thank God! she
+had Louis' eyes--and she looked down again, blushing painfully.
+
+I advanced to pay my respects to Madame, and kissed the hand, which,
+without at once breaking off her conversation, she extended to me.
+
+"But such powers!" the Abbe, who had something of the reputation of a
+_philosophe_, was saying to her. "Without limit! Without check!
+Misused, Madame----"
+
+"But the King is too good!" Madame la Marquise answered, smiling.
+
+"When well advised, I agree. But then the deficit?"
+
+The Marquise shrugged her shoulders. "His Majesty must have money,"
+she said.
+
+"Yes--but whence?" the Abbe asked, with answering shrug.
+
+"The King was too good at the beginning," Madame replied, with a
+touch of severity. "He should have made them register the edicts.
+However, the Parliament has always given way, and will do so again."
+
+"The Parliament--yes," the Abbe retorted, smiling indulgently. "But it
+is no longer a question of the Parliament; and the States General----"
+
+"States General pass," Madame responded grandly. "The King remains!"
+
+"Yet if trouble comes?"
+
+"It will not," Madame answered with the same grand air. "His Majesty
+will prevent it." And then with a word or two more she dismissed the
+Abbe and turned to me. She tapped me on the shoulder with her fan.
+"Ah! truant," she said, with a glance in which kindness and a little
+austerity were mingled. "I do not know what I am to say to you!
+Indeed, from the account Victor gave me yesterday, I hardly knew
+whether to expect you this evening or not. Are you sure that it is you
+who are here?"
+
+"I will answer for my heart, Madame," I answered, laying my hand upon
+it.
+
+Her eyes twinkled kindly.
+
+"Then," she said, "bring it where it is due, Monsieur." And she turned
+with a fine air of ceremony, and led me to her daughter. "Denise," she
+said, "this is M. le Vicomte de Saux, the son of my old, my good
+friend. M. le Vicomte--my daughter. Perhaps you will amuse her while I
+go back to the Abbe."
+
+Probably Mademoiselle had spent the evening in an agony of shyness,
+expecting this moment; for she curtesied to the floor, and then stood
+dumb and confused, forgetting even to sit down, until I covered her
+with fresh blushes by begging her to do so. When she had complied, I
+took my stand before her, with my hat in my hand; but between seeking
+for the right compliment, and trying to trace a likeness between her
+and the wild, brown-faced child of thirteen, whom I had known four
+years before--and from the dignified height of nineteen immeasurably
+despised--I grew shy myself.
+
+"You came home last week, Mademoiselle?" I said at last.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur," she answered, in a whisper, and with downcast eyes.
+
+"It must be a great change for you!"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+Silence: then, "Doubtless the Sisters were good to you?" I suggested.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Yet, you were not sorry to leave?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+But on that the meaning of what she had last said came home to her, or
+she felt the banality of her answers; for, on a sudden, she looked
+swiftly up at me, her face scarlet, and, if I was not mistaken, she
+was within a little of bursting into tears. The thought appalled me. I
+stooped lower.
+
+"Mademoiselle!" I said hurriedly, "pray do not be afraid of me.
+Whatever happens, you shall never have need to fear me. I beg of you
+to look on me as a friend--as your brother's friend. Louis is my----"
+
+Crash! While the name hung on my lips, something struck me on the
+back, and I staggered forward, almost into her arms; amid a shiver of
+broken glass, a flickering of lights, a rising chorus of screams and
+cries. For a moment I could not think what was happening, or had
+happened; the blow had taken away my breath. I was conscious only of
+Mademoiselle clinging terrified to my arm, of her face, wild with
+fright, looking up to me, of the sudden cessation of the music. Then,
+as people pressed in on us, and I began to recover, I turned and saw
+that the window behind me had been driven in, and the lead and panes
+shattered; and that among the _debris_ on the floor lay a great stone.
+It was that which had struck me.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER II.
+
+                             THE ORDEAL.
+
+
+It was wonderful how quickly the room filled--filled with angry faces,
+so that almost before I knew what had happened, I found a crowd round
+me, asking what it was; M. de St. Alais foremost. As all spoke at
+once, and in the background where they could not see, ladies were
+screaming and chattering, I might have found it difficult to explain.
+But the shattered window and the great stone on the floor spoke for
+themselves, and told more quickly than I could what had taken place.
+
+On the instant, with a speed which surprised me, the sight blew into a
+flame passions already smouldering. A dozen voices cried, "Out on the
+_canaille!_" In a moment some one in the background followed this up
+with "Swords, Messieurs, swords!" Then, in a trice half the gentlemen
+were elbowing one another towards the door, St. Alais, who burned to
+avenge the insult offered to his guests, taking the lead. M. de
+Gontaut and one or two of the elders tried to restrain him, but their
+remonstrances were in vain, and in a moment the room was almost
+emptied of men. They poured out into the street, and began to scour it
+with drawn blades and raised voices. A dozen valets, running out
+officiously with flambeaux, aided in the search; for a few minutes the
+street, as we who remained viewed it from the windows, seemed to be
+alive with moving lights and figures.
+
+But the rascals who had flung the stone, whatever the motive which
+inspired them, had fled in time; and presently our party returned,
+some a little ashamed of their violence, others laughing as they
+entered, and bewailing their silk stockings and spattered shoes; while
+a few, less fashionable or more impetuous, continued to denounce the
+insult, and threaten vengeance. At another time, the act might have
+seemed trivial, a childish insult; but in the strained state of public
+feeling it had an unpleasant and menacing air which was not lost on
+the more thoughtful. During the absence of the street party, the
+draught from the broken window had blown a curtain against some
+candles and set it alight; and though the stuff had been torn down
+with little damage, it still smoked among the _debris_ on the floor.
+This, with the startled faces of the ladies, and the shattered glass,
+gave a look of disorder and ruin to the room, where a few minutes
+before all had worn so seemly and festive an air.
+
+It did not surprise me, therefore, that St. Alais' face, stern enough
+at his entrance, grew darker as he looked round.
+
+"Where is my sister?" he said abruptly, almost rudely.
+
+"Here," Madame la Marquise answered. Denise had flown long before to
+her side, and was clinging to her.
+
+"She is not hurt?"
+
+"No," Madame answered, playfully tapping the girl's cheek. "M. de Saux
+had most reason to complain."
+
+"Save me from my friends, eh, Monsieur?" St. Alais said, with an
+unpleasant smile.
+
+I started. The words were not much in themselves, but the sneer
+underlying them was plain. I could scarcely pass it by. "If you think,
+M. le Marquis," I said sharply, "that I knew anything of this
+outrage----"
+
+"That you knew anything? _Ma foi_, no!" he replied lightly, and with
+a courtly gesture of deprecation. "We have not fallen to that yet.
+That any gentleman in this company should sink to play the fellow to
+those--is not possible! But I think we may draw a useful lesson from
+this, Messieurs," he continued, turning from me and addressing the
+company. "And that is a lesson to hold our own, or we shall soon lose
+all."
+
+A hum of approbation ran round the room.
+
+"To maintain privileges, or we shall lose rights."
+
+Twenty voices were raised in assent.
+
+"To stand now," he continued, his colour high, his hand raised, "or
+never!"
+
+"Then now! Now!"
+
+The cry rose suddenly not from one, but from a hundred throats--of men
+and women; in a moment the room catching his tone seemed to throb with
+enthusiasm, with the pulse of resolve. Men's eyes grew bright under
+the candles, they breathed quickly, and with heightened colour. Even
+the weakest felt the influence; the fool who had prated of the social
+contract and the rights of man was as loud as any. "Now! Now!" they
+cried with one voice.
+
+What followed on that I have never completely fathomed; nor whether it
+was a thing arranged, or merely an inspiration, born of the common
+enthusiasm. But while the windows still shook with that shout, and
+every eye was on him, M. de Alais stepped forward, the most gallant
+and perfect figure, and with a splendid gesture drew his sword.
+
+"Gentlemen!" he cried, "we are of one mind, of one voice. Let us be
+also in the fashion. If, while all the world is fighting to get and
+hold, we alone stand still and on the defensive--we court attack, and,
+what is worse, defeat! Let us unite then, while it is still time, and
+show that, in Quercy at least, our Order will stand or fall together.
+You have heard of the oath of the Tennis Court and the 20th of June.
+Let us, too, take an oath--this 22nd of July; not with uplifted hands
+like a club of wordy debaters, promising all things to all men; but
+with uplifted swords. As nobles and gentlemen, let us swear to stand
+by the rights, the privileges, and the exemptions of our Order!"
+
+A shout that made the candles flicker and jump, that filled the
+street, and was heard even in the distant market-place, greeted the
+proposal. Some drew their swords at once, and flourished them above
+their heads; while ladies waved their fans or kerchiefs. But the
+majority cried, "To the larger room! To the larger room!" And on the
+instant, as if in obedience to an order, the company turned that way,
+and flushed, and eager, pressed through the narrow doorway into the
+next room.
+
+There may have been some among them less enthusiastic than others;
+some more earnest in show than at heart; none, I am sure, who, on
+this, followed so slowly, so reluctantly, with so heavy a heart, and
+sure a presage of evil as I did. Already I foresaw the dilemma before
+me; but angry, hot-faced, and uncertain, I could discern no way out of
+it.
+
+If I could have escaped, and slipped clear from the room, I would have
+done so without scruple; but the stairs were on the farther side of
+the great room which we were entering, and a dense crowd cut me off
+from them; moreover, I felt that St. Alais' eye was upon me, and that,
+if he had not framed the ordeal to meet my case, and extort my
+support, he was at least determined, now that his blood was fired,
+that I should not evade it.
+
+Still I would not hasten the evil day, and I lingered near the inner
+door, hoping; but the Marquis, on reaching the middle of the room,
+mounted a chair and turned round; and so contrived still to face me.
+The mob of gentlemen formed themselves round him, the younger and more
+tumultuous uttering cries of "_Vive la Noblesse!_" And a fringe of
+ladies encircled all. The lights, the brilliant dresses and jewels on
+which they shone, the impassioned faces, the waving kerchiefs and
+bright eyes, rendered the scene one to be remembered, though at the
+moment I was conscious only of St. Alais' gaze.
+
+"Messieurs," he cried, "draw your swords, if you please!"
+
+They flashed out at the word, with a steely glitter which the mirrors
+reflected; and M. de St. Alais passed his eye slowly round, while all
+waited for the word. He stopped; his eye was on me.
+
+"M. de Saux," he said politely, "we are waiting for you."
+
+Naturally all turned to me. I strove to mutter something, and signed
+to him with my hand to go on. But I was too much confused to speak
+clearly; my only hope was that he would comply, out of prudence.
+
+But that was the last thing he thought of doing. "Will you take your
+place, Monsieur?" he said smoothly.
+
+Then I could escape no longer. A hundred eyes, some impatient, some
+merely curious, rested on me. My face burned.
+
+"I cannot do so," I answered.
+
+There fell a great silence from one end of the room to the other.
+
+"Why not, Monsieur, if I may ask?" St. Alais said still smoothly.
+
+"Because I am not--entirely at one with you," I stammered, meeting all
+eyes as bravely as I could. "My opinions are known, M. de St. Alais,"
+I went on more steadfastly. "I cannot swear."
+
+He stayed with his hand a dozen who would have cried out upon me.
+
+"Gently, Messieurs," he said, with a gesture of dignity, "gently, if
+you please. This is no place for threats. M. de Saux is my guest; and
+I have too great a respect for him not to respect his scruples. But I
+think that there is another way. I shall not venture to argue with him
+myself. But--Madame," he continued, smiling as he turned with an
+inimitable air to his mother, "I think that if you would permit
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais to play the recruiting-sergeant--for this
+one time--she could not fail to heal the breach."
+
+A murmur of laughter and subdued applause, a flutter of fans and
+women's eyes greeted the proposal. But, for a moment, Madame la
+Marquise, smiling and sphinx-like, stood still, and did not speak.
+Then she turned to her daughter, who, at the mention of her name, had
+cowered back, shrinking from sight.
+
+"Go, Denise," she said simply. "Ask M. de Saux to honour you by
+becoming your recruit."
+
+The girl came forward slowly, and with a visible tremor; nor shall I
+ever forget the misery of that moment, or the shame and obstinacy that
+alternately surged through my brain as I awaited her. Thought, quicker
+than lightning, showed me the trap into which I had fallen, a trap far
+more horrible than the dilemma I had foreseen. Nor was the poor girl
+herself, as she stood before me, tortured by shyness, and stammering
+her little petition in words barely intelligible, the least part of my
+pain.
+
+For to refuse her, in face of all those people, seemed a thing
+impossible. It seemed a thing as brutal as to strike her; an act as
+cruel, as churlish, as unworthy of a gentleman as to trample any
+helpless sensitive thing under foot! And I felt that; I felt it to the
+utmost. But I felt also that to assent was to turn my back on
+consistency, and my life; to consent to be a dupe, the victim of a
+ruse; to be a coward, though every one there might applaud me. I saw
+both these things, and for a moment I hesitated between rage and pity;
+while lights and fair faces, inquisitive or scornful, shifted mazily
+before my eyes. At last--
+
+"Mademoiselle, I cannot," I muttered. "I cannot."
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+It was not the girl's word, but Madame's, and it rang high and sharp
+through the room; so that I thanked God for the intervention. It
+cleared in a moment the confusion from my brain. I became myself. I
+turned to her; I bowed.
+
+"No, Madame, I cannot," I said firmly, doubting no longer, but
+stubborn, defiant, resolute. "My opinions are known. And I will not,
+even for Mademoiselle's sake, give the lie to them."
+
+As the last word fell from my lips, a glove, flung by an unseen hand,
+struck me on the cheek; and then for a moment the room seemed to go
+mad. Amid a storm of hisses, of "_Vaurien!_" and "_A bas le traitre!_"
+a dozen blades were brandished in my face, a dozen challenges were
+flung at my head. I had not learned at that time how excitable is a
+crowd, how much less merciful than any member of it; and surprised and
+deafened by the tumult, which the shrieks of the ladies did not tend
+to diminish, I recoiled a pace.
+
+M. de St. Alais took advantage of the moment. He sprang down, and
+thrusting aside the blades which threatened me, flung himself in front
+of me.
+
+"Messieurs, listen!" he cried, above the uproar. "Listen, I beg! This
+gentleman is my guest. He is no longer of us, but he must go unharmed.
+A way! A way, if you please, for M. le Vicomte de Saux."
+
+They obeyed him reluctantly, and falling back to one side or the
+other, opened a way across the room to the door. He turned to me, and
+bowed low--his courtliest bow.
+
+"This way, Monsieur le Vicomte, if you please," he said. "Madame la
+Marquise will not trespass on your time any longer."
+
+I followed him with a burning face, down the narrow lane of shining
+parquet, under the chandelier, between the lines of mocking eyes; and
+not a man interposed. In dead silence I followed him to the door.
+There he stood aside, and bowed to me, and I to him; and I walked out
+mechanically--walked out alone.
+
+I passed through the lobby. The crowd of peeping, grinning lackeys
+that filled it stared at me, all eyes; but I was scarcely conscious of
+their impertinence or their presence. Until I reached the street, and
+the cold air revived me, I went like a man stunned, and unable to
+think. The blow had fallen on me so suddenly, so unexpectedly.
+
+When I did come a little to myself, my first feeling was rage. I had
+gone into M. de St. Alais' house that evening, possessing everything;
+I came out, stripped of friends, reputation, my betrothed! I had gone
+in, trusting to his friendship, the friendship that was a tradition in
+our families; he had worsted me by a trick. I stood in the street, and
+groaned as I thought of it; as I pictured the sorry figure I had cut
+amongst them, and reflected on what was before me.
+
+For, presently, I began to think that I had been a fool--that I should
+have given way. I could not, as I stood in the street there, foresee
+the future; nor know for certain that the old France was passing, and
+that even now, in Paris, its death-knell had gone forth. I had to live
+by the opinions of the people round me; to think, as I paced the
+streets, how I should face the company to-morrow, and whether I should
+fly, or whether I should fight. For in the meeting on the morrow----
+
+Ah! the Assembly. The word turned my thoughts into a new channel. I
+could have my revenge there. That I might not raise a jarring note
+_there_, they had cajoled me, and when cajolery failed, had insulted
+me. Well, I would show them that the new way would succeed no better
+than the old, and that where they had thought to suppress a Saux they
+had raised a Mirabeau. From this point I passed the night in a fever.
+Resentment spurred ambition; rage against my caste, a love of the
+people. Every sign of misery and famine that had passed before my eyes
+during the day recurred now, and was garnered for use. The early
+daylight found me still pacing my room, still thinking, composing,
+reciting; when Andre, my old body-servant, who had been also my
+father's, came at seven with a note in his hand, I was still in my
+clothes.
+
+Doubtless he had heard downstairs a garbled account of what had
+occurred, and my cheek burned. I took no notice of his gloomy looks,
+however, but, without speaking, I opened the note. It was not signed,
+but the handwriting was Louis'.
+
+"Go home," it ran, "and do not show yourself at the Assembly. They
+will challenge you one by one; the event is certain. Leave Cahors at
+once, or you are a dead man."
+
+That was all! I smiled bitterly at the weakness of the man who could
+do no more for his friend than this.
+
+"Who gave it to you?" I asked Andre.
+
+"A servant, Monsieur."
+
+"Whose?"
+
+But he muttered that he did not know; and I did not press him. He
+assisted me to change my dress; when I had done, he asked me at what
+hour I needed the horses.
+
+"The horses! For what?" I said, turning and staring at him.
+
+"To return, Monsieur."
+
+"But I do not return to-day!" I said in cold displeasure. "Of what are
+you speaking? We came only yesterday."
+
+"True, Monsieur," he muttered, continuing to potter over my dressing
+things, and keeping his back to me. "Still, it is a good day for
+returning."
+
+"You have been reading this note!" I cried wrathfully. "Who told you
+that----"
+
+"All the town knows!" he answered, shrugging his shoulders coolly. "It
+is, 'Andre, take your master home!' and, 'Andre, you have a hot-pate
+for a master,' and Andre this, and Andre that, until I am fairly
+muddled! Gil has a bloody nose, fighting a Harincourt lad that called
+Monsieur a fool; but for me, I am too old for fighting. And there is
+one other thing I am too old for," he continued, with a sniff.
+
+"What is that, impertinent?" I cried.
+
+"To bury another master."
+
+I waited a minute. Then I said: "You think that I shall be killed?"
+
+"It is the talk of the town!"
+
+I thought a moment. Then: "You served my father, Andre," I said.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur."
+
+"Yet you would have me run away?"
+
+He turned to me, and flung up his hands in despair.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" he cried, "I don't know what I would have! We are ruined
+by these _canaille_. As if God made them to do anything but dig and
+work; or we could do without poor! If you had never taken up with
+them, Monsieur----"
+
+"Silence, man!" I said sternly. "You know nothing about it. Go down
+now, and another time be more careful. You talk of the _canaille_ and
+the poor! What are you yourself?"
+
+"I, Monsieur?" he cried, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes--you!"
+
+He stared at me a moment with a face of bewilderment. Then slowly and
+sorrowfully he shook his head, and went out. He began to think me mad.
+
+When he was gone I did not at once move. I fancied it likely that if I
+showed myself in the streets before the Assembly met, I should be
+challenged, and forced to fight. I waited, therefore, until the hour
+of meeting was past; waited in the dull upper room, feeling the
+bitterness of isolation, and thinking, sometimes of Louis St. Alais,
+who had let me go, and spoken no word in my behalf, sometimes of men's
+unreasonableness; for in some of the provinces half of the nobility
+were of my way of thinking. I thought of Saux, too; and I will not say
+that I felt no temptation to adopt the course which Andre had
+suggested--to withdraw quietly thither, and then at some later time,
+when men's minds were calmer, to vindicate my courage. But a certain
+stubbornness, which my father had before me, and which I have heard
+people say comes of an English strain in the race, conspired with
+resentment to keep me in the way I had marked out. At a quarter past
+ten, therefore, when I thought that the last of the Members would have
+preceded me to the Assembly, I went downstairs, with hot cheeks, but
+eyes that were stern enough; and finding Andre and Gil waiting at the
+door, bade them follow me to the Chapter House beside the Cathedral,
+where the meetings were held.
+
+Afterwards I was told that, had I used my eyes, I must have noticed
+the excitement which prevailed in the streets; the crowd, dense, yet
+silent, that filled the Square and all the neighbouring ways; the air
+of expectancy, the closed shops, the cessation of business, the
+whispering groups in alleys and at doors. But I was wrapped up in
+myself, like one going on a forlorn hope; and of all remarked only one
+thing--that as I crossed the Square a man called out, "God bless you,
+Monsieur!" and another, "_Vive Saux!_" and that thereon a dozen or
+more took off their caps. This I did notice; but mechanically only.
+The next moment I was in the entry which leads alongside one wall of
+the Cathedral to the Chapter House, and a crowd of clerks and
+servants, who blocked it almost from wall to wall, were making way for
+me to pass; not without looks of astonishment and curiosity.
+
+Threading my way through them, I entered the empty vestibule, kept
+clear by two or three ushers. Here the change from sunshine to shadow,
+from the life and light and stir which prevailed outside, to the
+silence of this vaulted chamber, was so great that it struck a chill
+to my heart. Here, in the greyness and stillness, the importance of
+the step I was about to take, the madness of the challenge I was about
+to fling down, in the teeth of my brethren, rose before me; and if my
+mind had not been braced to the utmost by resentment and obstinacy, I
+must have turned back. But already my feet rang noisily on the stone
+pavement, and forbade retreat. I could hear a monotonous voice droning
+in the Chamber beyond the closed door; and I crossed to that door,
+setting my teeth hard, and preparing myself to play the man, whatever
+awaited me.
+
+Another moment, and I should have been inside. My hand was already on
+the latch, when some one, who had been sitting on the stone bench in
+the shadow under the window, sprang up, and hurried to stop me. It was
+Louis de St. Alais. He reached me before I could open the door, and,
+thrusting himself in front of me, set his back against the panels.
+
+"Stop, man! for God's sake, stop!" he cried passionately, yet kept his
+voice low. "What can one do against two hundred? Go back, man, go
+back, and I will----"
+
+"_You will!_" I answered with fierce contempt, yet in the same low
+tone--the ushers were staring curiously at us from the door by which I
+had entered. "You will? You will do, I suppose, as much as you did
+last night, Monsieur."
+
+"Never mind that now!" he answered earnestly; though he winced, and
+the colour rose to his brow. "Only go! Go to Saux, and----"
+
+"Keep out of the way!"
+
+"Yes," he said, "and keep out of the way. If you will do that----"
+
+"Keep out of the way?" I repeated savagely.
+
+"Yes, yes; then everything will blow over."
+
+"Thank you!" I said slowly; and I trembled with rage. "And how much,
+may I ask, are you to have, M. le Comte, for ridding the Assembly of
+me?"
+
+He stared at me. "Adrien!" he cried.
+
+But I was ruthless. "No, Monsieur le Comte--not Adrien!" I said
+proudly; "I am that only to my friends."
+
+"And I am no longer one?"
+
+I raised my eyebrows contemptuously. "_After last night?_" I said.
+"After last night? Is it possible, Monsieur, that you fancy you played
+a friendly part? I came into your house, your guest, your friend, your
+all but relative; and you laid a trap for me, you held me up to
+ridicule and odium, you----"
+
+"I did?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Perhaps not with your own voice. But you stood by and saw it done!
+You stood by and said no word for me! You stood by and raised no
+finger for me! If you call that friendship----"
+
+He stopped me with a gesture full of dignity. "You forget one thing,
+M. le Vicomte," he said, in a tone of proud reticence.
+
+"Name it!" I answered disdainfully.
+
+"That Mademoiselle de St. Alais is my sister!"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"And that, whether the fault was yours or not, you last evening
+treated her lightly--before two hundred people! You forget that, M. le
+Vicomte."
+
+"I treated her lightly?" I replied, in a fresh excess of rage. We had
+moved, as if by common consent, a little from the door, and by this
+time were glaring into one another's eyes. "And with whom lay the
+fault if I did? With whom lay the fault, Monsieur? You gave me the
+choice--nay, you forced me to make choice between slighting her and
+giving up opinions and convictions which I hold, in which I have been
+bred, in which----"
+
+"_Opinions!_" he said more harshly than he had yet spoken. "And what
+are, after all, opinions? Pardon me, I see that I annoy you, Monsieur.
+But I am not philosophic; I have not been to England; and I cannot
+understand a man----"
+
+"Giving up anything for his opinions!" I cried, with a savage sneer.
+"No, Monsieur, I daresay you cannot. If a man will not stand by his
+friends he will not stand by his opinions. To do either the one or the
+other, M. le Comte, a man must not be a coward."
+
+He grew pale, and looked at me strangely. "Hush, Monsieur!" he
+said--involuntarily, it seemed to me. And a spasm crossed his face, as
+if a sharp pain shot through him.
+
+But I was beside myself with passion. "A coward!" I repeated. "Do you
+understand me, M. le Comte? Or do you wish me to go inside and repeat
+the word before the Assembly?"
+
+"There is no need," he said, growing as red as he had before been
+pale.
+
+"There should be none," I answered, with a sneer. "May I conclude that
+you will meet me after the Assembly rises?"
+
+He bowed without speaking; and then, and not till then, something in
+his silence and his looks pierced the armour of my rage; and on a
+sudden I grew sick at heart, and cold. It was too late, however; I had
+said that which could never be unsaid. The memory of his patience, of
+his goodness, of his forbearance, came after the event. I saluted him
+formally; he replied; and I turned grimly to the door again.
+
+But I was not to pass through it yet.
+
+A second time when I had the latch in my grasp, and the door an inch
+open, a hand plucked me back; so forcibly, that the latch rattled as
+it fell, and I turned in a rage. To my astonishment it was Louis
+again, but with a changed face--a face of strange excitement. He
+retained his hold on me.
+
+"No," he said, between his teeth. "You have called me a coward, M. le
+Vicomte, and I will not wait! Not an hour. You shall fight me now.
+There is a garden at the back, and----"
+
+But I had grown as cold as he hot. "I shall do nothing of the kind," I
+said, cutting him short. "After the Assembly----"
+
+He raised his hand and deliberately struck me with his glove across
+the face.
+
+"Will that persuade you, then?" he said, as I involuntarily recoiled.
+"After that, Monsieur, if you are a gentleman, you will fight me.
+There is a garden at the back, and in ten minutes----"
+
+"In ten minutes the Assembly may have risen," I said.
+
+"I will not keep you so long!" he answered sternly. "Come, sir! Or
+must I strike you again?"
+
+"I will come," I said slowly. "After you, Monsieur."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III.
+
+                           IN THE ASSEMBLY.
+
+
+The blow, and the insult with which he accompanied it, put an end for
+the moment to my repentance. But short as was the distance across the
+floor from the one door to the other, it gave me time to think again;
+to remember that this was Louis; and that whatever cause I had had to
+complain of him, whatever grounds to suspect that he was the tool of
+others, no friend could have done more to assuage my wrath, nor the
+most honest more to withhold me from entering on an impossible task.
+Melting quickly, melting almost instantly, I felt with a kind of
+horror that if kindness alone had led him to interpose, I had made him
+the worst return in the world; in fine, before the outer door could be
+opened to us, I repented anew. When the usher held it for me to pass,
+I bade him close it, and, to Louis' surprise, turned, and, muttering
+something, ran back. Before he could do more than utter a cry I was
+across the vestibule; a moment, and I had the door of the Assembly
+open.
+
+Instantly I saw before me--I suppose that my hand had raised the latch
+noisily--tiers of surprised faces all turned my way. I heard a murmur
+of mingled annoyance and laughter. The next moment I was threading my
+way to my place with the monotonous voice of the President in my ears,
+and the scene round me so changed--from that low-toned altercation
+outside, to this Chamber full of light and life, and thronged with
+starers--that I sank into my seat, dazzled and abashed; and almost
+forgetful for the time of the purpose which brought me thither.
+
+A little, and my face grew hotter still; and with good reason. Each of
+the benches on which we sat held three. I shared mine with one of the
+Harincourts and M. d'Aulnoy, my place being between them. I had
+scarcely taken it five seconds, when Harincourt rose slowly, and,
+without turning his face to me, moved away down the gangway, and,
+fanning himself delicately with his hat, assumed a leaning position
+against a desk with his gaze on the President. Half a minute, and
+D'Aulnoy followed his example. Then the three behind me rose, and
+quietly and without looking at me found other places. The three before
+me followed suit. In two minutes I sat alone, isolated, a mark for all
+eyes; a kind of leper in the Assembly!
+
+I ought to have been prepared for some such demonstration. But I was
+not, and my cheeks burned, as if the curious looks to which I was
+exposed were a hot fire. It was impossible for me, taken by surprise,
+to hide my embarrassment; for, wherever I gazed, I met sneering eyes
+and contemptuous glances; and pride would not let me hang my head. For
+many minutes, therefore, I was unconscious of everything but that
+scorching gaze. I could not hear what was going forward. The
+President's voice was a dull, meaningless drawl to me.
+
+Yet all the while anger and resentment were hardening me in my
+resolve; and, presently, the cloud passed from my mind, and left me
+exulting. The monotonous reading, to which I had listened without
+understanding it, came to an end, and was followed by short, sharp
+interrogations--a question and an answer, a name and a reply. It was
+that awoke me. The drawl had been the reading of the cahier; now they
+were voting on it.
+
+Presently it would be my turn; it was coming to my turn now. With each
+vote--I need not say that all were affirmative--more faces, and yet
+more, were turned to the place where I sat; more eyes, some hostile,
+some triumphant, some merely curious, were directed to my face. Under
+other circumstances this might have cowed me; now it did not. I was
+wrought up to face it. The unfriendly looks of so many who had called
+themselves my friends, the scornful glances of new men of ennobled
+families, who had been glad of my father's countenance, the
+consciousness that all had deserted me merely because I maintained in
+practice opinions which half of them had proclaimed in words--these
+things hardened me to a pitch of scorn no whit below that of my
+opponents; while the knowledge that to blench now must cover me with
+lasting shame closed the door to thoughts of surrender.
+
+The Assembly, on the other hand, felt the novelty of its position. Men
+were not yet accustomed to the war of the Senate; to duels of words
+more deadly than those of the sword: and a certain doubt, a certain
+hesitation, held the majority in suspense, watching to see what would
+happen. Moreover, the leaders, both M. de St. Alais, who headed the
+hotter and prouder party of the Court, and the nobles of the Robe and
+Parliament, who had only lately discovered that their interest lay in
+the same direction, found themselves embarrassed by the very smallness
+of the opposition; since a substantial majority must have been
+accepted as a fact, whereas one man--one man only standing in the way
+of unanimity--presented himself as a thing to be removed, if the way
+could be discovered.
+
+"M. le Comte de Cantal?" the President cried, and looked, not at the
+person he named, but at me.
+
+"Content!"
+
+"M. le Vicomte de Marignac?"
+
+"Content!"
+
+The next name I could not hear, for in my excitement it seemed that
+all in the Chamber were looking at me, that voice was failing me, that
+when the moment came I should sit dumb and paralysed, unable to speak,
+and for ever disgraced. I thought of this, not of what was passing;
+then, in a moment, self-control returned; I heard the last name before
+mine, that of M. d'Aulnoy, heard the answer given. Then my own name,
+echoing in hollow silence.
+
+"M. le Vicomte de Saux?"
+
+I stood up. I spoke, my voice sounding harsh, and like another man's.
+"I dissent from this cahier!" I cried.
+
+I expected an outburst of wrath; it did not come. Instead, a peal of
+laughter, in which I distinguished St. Alais' tones, rang through the
+room, and brought the blood to my cheeks. The laughter lasted some
+time, rose and fell, and rose again; while I stood pilloried. Yet this
+had one effect the laughers did not anticipate. On occasions the most
+taciturn become eloquent. I forgot the periods from Rochefoucauld and
+Liancourt, which I had so carefully prepared; I forgot the passages
+from Turgot, of which I had made notes, and I broke out in a strain I
+had not foreseen or intended.
+
+"Messieurs!" I cried, hurling my voice through the Chamber, "I dissent
+from this cahier because it is effete and futile; because, if for no
+other reason, the time when it could have been of service is past. You
+claim your privileges; they are gone! Your exemptions; they are gone!
+You protest against the union of your representatives with those of
+the people; but they have sat with them! They have sat with them, and
+you can no more undo that by a protest than you can set back the tide!
+The thing is done. The dog is hungry, you have given it a bone. Do you
+think to get the bone back, unmouthed, whole, without loss? Then you
+are mad. But this is not all, nor the principal of my objections to
+this cahier. France to-day stands naked, bankrupt, without treasury,
+without money. Do you think to help her, to clothe her, to enrich her,
+by maintaining your privileges, by maintaining your exemptions, by
+standing out for the last jot and tittle of your rights? No,
+Messieurs. In the old days those exemptions, those rights, those
+privileges, wherein our ancestors gloried, and gloried well, were
+given to them because they were the buckler of France. They maintained
+and armed and led men; the commonalty did the rest. But now the people
+fight, the people pay, the people do all. Yes, Messieurs, it is true;
+it is true that which we have all heard, '_Le manant paye pour
+tout!_'"
+
+I paused; expecting that now, at last, the long-delayed outburst of
+anger would come. Instead, before any in the Chamber could speak,
+there rose through the windows, which looked on the market-place, and
+had been widely opened on account of the heat, a great cry of
+applause; the shout of the street, that for the first time heard its
+wrongs voiced. It was full of assent and rejoicing, yet no attack
+could have disconcerted me more completely. I stood astonished, and
+silenced.
+
+The effect which it had on me was slight, however, in comparison with
+that which it had on my opponents. The cries of dissent they were
+about to utter died stillborn at the portent; and, for a moment, men
+stared at one another as if they could not believe their ears. For
+that moment a silence of rage, of surprise, prevailed through the
+whole Chamber. Then M. de St. Alais sprang to his feet.
+
+"What is this?" he cried, his handsome face dark with excitement. "Has
+the King ordered us, too, to sit with the third estate? Has he so
+humiliated us? If not, M. le President--if not, I say," he continued,
+sternly putting down an attempt at applause, "and if this be not a
+conspiracy between some of our body and the _canaille_ to bring about
+another Jacquerie----"
+
+The President, a weak man of a Robe family, interrupted him. "Have a
+care, Monsieur," he said. "The windows are still open."
+
+"Open?"
+
+The President nodded.
+
+"And what if they are? What of it?" St. Alais answered harshly. "What
+of it, Monsieur?" he continued, looking round him with an eye which
+seemed to collect and express the scorn of the more fiery spirits. "If
+so, let it be so! Let them be open. Let the people hear both sides,
+and not only those who flatter them; those who, by building on their
+weakness and ignorance, and canting about their rights and our wrongs,
+think to exalt themselves into Retzs and Cromwells! Yes, Monsieur le
+President," he continued, while I strove in vain to interrupt him, and
+half the Assembly rose to their feet in confusion, "I repeat the
+phrase--who, to the ambition of a Cromwell or a Retz add their
+violence, not their parts!"
+
+The injustice of the reproach stung me, and I turned on him. "M. le
+Marquis!" I cried hotly, "if, by that phrase, you refer to me----"
+
+He laughed scornfully. "As you please, Monsieur," he said.
+
+"I fling it back! I repudiate it!" I cried. "M. de St. Alais has
+called me a Retz--a Cromwell----"
+
+"Pardon me," he interposed swiftly; "a would-be Retz!"
+
+"A traitor, either way!" I answered, striving against the laughter,
+which at his repartee flashed through the room, bringing the blood
+rushing to my face. "A traitor either way! But I say that he is the
+traitor who to-day advises the King to his hurt."
+
+"And not he who comes here with a mob at his back?" St. Alais
+retorted, with heat almost equal to my own. "Who, one man, would
+brow-beat a hundred, and dictate to this Assembly?"
+
+"Monsieur repeats himself," I cried, cutting him short in my turn,
+though no laughter followed my gibe. "I deny what he says. I fling
+back his accusations; I retort upon him! And, for the rest, I object
+to this cahier, I dissent from it, I----"
+
+But the Assembly was at the end of its patience. A roar of "Withdraw!
+withdraw!" drowned my voice, and, in a moment, the meeting so orderly
+a few minutes before, became a scene of wild uproar. A few of the
+elder men continued to keep their seats, but the majority rose; some
+had already sprung to the windows, and closed them, and still stood
+with their feet on the ledge, looking down on the confusion. Others
+had gone to the door and taken their stand there, perhaps with the
+idea of resisting intrusion. The President in vain cried for silence.
+His voice, equally with mine, was lost in the persistent clamour,
+which swelled to a louder pitch whenever I offered to speak, and sank
+only when I desisted.
+
+At length M. de St. Alais raised his hand, and with little difficulty
+procured silence. Before I could take advantage of it, the President
+interposed. "The Assembly of the noblesse of Quercy," he said
+hurriedly, "is in favour of this cahier, maintaining our ancient
+rights, privileges, and exemptions. The Vicomte de Saux alone
+protests. The cahier will be presented."
+
+"I protest!" I cried weakly.
+
+"I have said so," the President answered, with a sneer. And a peal of
+derisive laughter, mingled with shouts of applause, ran round the
+Chamber. "The cahier will be presented. The matter is concluded."
+
+Then, in a moment, magically, as it seemed to me, the Chamber resumed
+its ordinary aspect. The Members who had risen returned to their
+seats, those who had closed the windows descended, a few retired, the
+President proceeded with some ordinary business. Every trace of the
+storm disappeared. In a twinkling all was as it had been.
+
+Even where I sat; for no isolation, no division from my fellows could
+exceed that in which I had sat before. But whereas before I had had my
+weapon in reserve and my revenge in prospect, that was no longer so. I
+had shot my bolt, and I sat miserable, fettered by the silence and the
+strange glances that hemmed me in, and growing each moment more
+depressed and more self-conscious; longing to escape, yet shrinking
+from moving, even from looking about me.
+
+In this condition not the least of my misery lay in the reflection
+that I had done no good; that I had suffered for a quixotism, and
+shown myself stubborn and obstinate to no purpose. Too late, I
+considered that I might have maintained my principles and yet
+conformed; I might have stated my convictions and waived them in
+deference to the majority. I might have----
+
+But alas! whatever I might have done, I had not done it; and the die
+was cast. I had declared myself against my order; I had forfeited all
+I could claim from my order. Henceforth, I was not of it. It was no
+fancy that already men who had occasion to pass before me drew their
+skirts aside and bowed formally as to one of another class!
+
+How long I should have endured this penance--these veiled insults and
+the courtesy that stung deeper--before I plucked up spirit to
+withdraw, I cannot say. It was an interposition from without that
+broke the spell. An usher came to me with a note. I opened it with
+clumsy fingers under a fire of hostile eyes, and found that it was
+from Louis.
+
+"If you have a spark of honour"--it ran--"you will meet me, without a
+moment's delay, in the garden at the back of the Chapter House. Do so,
+and you may still call yourself a gentleman. Refuse, or delay even for
+ten minutes, and I will publish your shame from one end of Quercy to
+the other. He cannot call himself Adrien du Pont de Saux, who puts up
+with a blow!"
+
+I read it twice while the usher waited. The words had a cruel,
+heartless ring in them; the taunting challenge was brutal in its
+directness. Yet my heart grew soft as I read, and I had much ado to
+keep the tears from my eyes--under all those eyes. For Louis did not
+deceive me this time. This note, so unlike him, this desperate attempt
+to draw me out, and save me from opponents more ruthless, were too
+transparent to delude me; and, in a moment, the icy bands which had
+been growing over me melted. I still sat alone; but I was not quite
+deserted. I could hold up my head again, for I had a friend. I
+remembered that, after all, through all, I was Adrien du Pont de Saux,
+guiltless of aught worse than holding in Quercy opinions which the
+Lameths and Mirabeaus, the Liancourts and Rochefoucaulds held in their
+provinces; guiltless, I told myself, of aught besides standing for
+right and justice.
+
+But the usher waited. I took from the desk before me a scrap of paper,
+and wrote my answer. "Adrien does not fight with Louis because St.
+Alais struck Saux."
+
+I wrapped it up and gave it to the usher; then I sat back a different
+man, able to meet all eyes, with a heart armed against all
+misfortunes. Friendship, generosity, love, still existed, though the
+gentry of Quercy, the Gontauts, and Marignacs, sat aloof. Life would
+still hold sweets, though the grass should grow in the walnut avenue,
+and my shield should never quarter the arms of St. Alais.
+
+So I took courage, stood up, and moved to go out. But the moment I did
+so, a dozen Members sprang to their feet also; and, as I walked down
+one gangway towards the door, they crowded down another parallel with
+it; offensively, openly, with the evident intention of intercepting me
+before I could escape. The commotion was so great that the President
+paused in his reading to watch the result; while the mass of Members
+who kept their places, rose that they might have a better view. I saw
+that I was to be publicly insulted, and a fierce joy took the place of
+every other feeling. If I went slowly, it was not through fear; the
+pent-up passions of the last hour inspired me, and I would not have
+hastened the climax for the world. I reached the foot of the gangway,
+in another moment we must have come into collision, when an abrupt
+explosion of voices, a great roar in the street, that penetrated
+through the closed windows, brought us to a halt. We paused, listening
+and glaring, while the few who had not stood up before, rose
+hurriedly, and the President, startled and suspicious, asked what it
+was.
+
+For answer the sound rose again--dull, prolonged, shaking the windows;
+a hoarse shout of triumph. It fell--not ceasing, but passing away into
+the distance--and then once more it swelled up. It was unlike any
+shout I had ever heard.
+
+Little by little articulate words grew out of it, or succeeded it;
+until the air shook with the measured rhythm of one stern sentence.
+"_A bas la Bastille! A bas la Bastille!_"
+
+We were to hear many such cries in the time to come, and grow
+accustomed to such alarms; to the hungry roar in the street, and the
+loud knocking at the door that spelled fate. But they were a new thing
+then, and the Assembly, as much outraged as alarmed by this second
+trespass on its dignity, could only look at its President, and mutter
+wrathful threats against the _canaille_. The _canaille_ that had
+crouched for a century seemed in some unaccountable way to be changing
+its posture!
+
+One man cried out one thing, and one another; that the streets should
+be cleared, the regiment sent for, or complaint made to the Intendant.
+They were still speaking when the door opened and a Member came in. It
+was Louis de St. Alais, and his face was aglow with excitement.
+Commonly the most modest and quiet of men, he stood forward now, and
+raised his hand imperatively for silence.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, in a loud, ringing voice, "there is strange
+news! A courier with letters for my brother, M. de St. Alais, has
+spoken in the street. He brings strange tidings."
+
+"What?" two or three cried.
+
+"The Bastille has fallen!"
+
+No one understood--how should they?--but all were silent. Then, "What
+do you mean, M. St. Alais?" the President asked, in bewilderment; and
+he raised his hand that the silence might be preserved. "The Bastille
+has fallen? How? What is it?"
+
+"It was captured on Tuesday by the mob of Paris," Louis answered
+distinctly, his eyes bright, "and M. de Launay, the Governor, murdered
+in cold blood."
+
+"The Bastille captured? By the mob?" the President exclaimed
+incredulously. "It is impossible, Monsieur. You must have
+misunderstood."
+
+Louis shook his head. "It is true, I fear," he said.
+
+"And M. de Launay?"
+
+"That too, I fear, M. le President."
+
+Then, indeed, men looked at one another; startled, pale-faced, asking
+each mute questions of his fellows; while in the street outside the
+hum of disorder and rejoicing grew moment by moment more steady and
+continuous. Men looked at each other alarmed, and could not believe.
+The Bastille which had stood so many centuries, captured? The Governor
+killed? Impossible, they muttered, impossible. For what, in that case,
+was the King doing? What the army? What the Governor of Paris?
+
+Old M. de Gontaut put the thought into words. "But the King?" he said,
+as soon as he could get a hearing. "Doubtless his Majesty has already
+punished the wretches?"
+
+The answer came from an unexpected quarter, in words as little
+expected. M. de St. Alais, to whom Louis had handed a letter, rose
+from his seat with an open paper in his hand. Doubtless, if he had
+taken time to consider, he would have seen the imprudence of making
+public all he knew; but the surprise and mortification of the news he
+had received--news that gave the lie to his confident assurances, news
+that made the most certain doubt the ground on which they stood, swept
+away his discretion. He spoke.
+
+"I do not know what the King was doing," he said, in mocking accents,
+"at Versailles; but I can tell you how the army was employed in Paris.
+The Garde Francaise were foremost in the attack. Besenval, with such
+troops as have not deserted, has withdrawn. The city is in the hands
+of the mob. They have shot Flesselles, the Provost, and elected
+Bailly, Mayor. They have raised a Militia and armed it. They have
+appointed Lafayette, General. They have adopted a badge. They
+have----"
+
+"But, _mon Dieu!_" the President cried aghast. "This is a revolt!"
+
+"Precisely, Monsieur," St. Alais answered.
+
+"And what does the King?"
+
+"He is so good--that he has done nothing," was the bitter answer.
+
+"And the States General?--the National Assembly at Versailles?"
+
+"Oh, they? They too have done nothing."
+
+"It is Paris, then?" the President said.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, it is Paris," the Marquis answered. "But Paris?" the
+President exclaimed helplessly. "Paris has been quiet so many years."
+
+To this, however, the thought in every one's mind, there seemed to be
+no answer. St. Alais sat down again, and, for a moment, the Assembly
+remained stunned by astonishment, prostrate under these new, these
+marvellous facts. No better comment on the discussions in which it had
+been engaged a few minutes before could have been found. Its Members
+had been dreaming of their rights, their privileges, their exemptions;
+they awoke to find Paris in flames, the army in revolt, order and law
+in the utmost peril.
+
+But St. Alais was not the man to be long wanting to his part, nor one
+to abdicate of his free will a leadership which vigour and audacity
+had secured for him. He sprang to his feet again, and in an
+impassioned harangue called upon the Assembly to remember the Fronde.
+
+"As Paris was then, Paris is now!" he cried. "Fickle and seditious, to
+be won by no gifts, but always to be overcome by famine. Best assured
+that the fat bourgeois will not long do without the white bread of
+Gonesse, nor the tippler without the white wine of Arbois! Cut these
+off, the mad will grow sane, and the traitor loyal. Their National
+Guards, and their Badges, and their Mayors, and their General? Do you
+think that these will long avail against the forces of order, of
+loyalty, against the King, the nobility, the clergy, against France?
+No, gentlemen, it is impossible," he continued, looking round him with
+warmth. "Paris would have deposed the great Henry and exiled Mazarin;
+but in the result it licked their shoes. It will be so again, only we
+must stand together, we must be firm. We must see that these disorders
+spread no farther. It is the King's to govern, and the people's to
+obey. It has been so, and it will be so to the end!"
+
+His words were not many, but they were timely and vigorous; and they
+served to reassure the Assembly. All that large majority, which in
+every gathering of men has no more imagination than serves to paint
+the future in the colours of the past, found his arguments perfectly
+convincing; while the few who saw more clearly, and by the light of
+instinct, or cold reason, discerned that the state of France had no
+precedent in its history, felt, nevertheless, the infection of his
+confidence. A universal shout of applause greeted his last sentence,
+and, amid tumultuous cries, the concourse, which had remained on its
+feet, poured into the gangways, and made for the door; a desire to see
+and hear what was going forward moving all to get out as quickly as
+possible, though it was not likely that more could be learned than was
+already known.
+
+I shared this feeling myself, and, forgetting in the excitement of the
+moment my part in the day's debate, I pressed to the door. The
+Bastille fallen? The Governor killed? Paris in the hands of the mob?
+Such tidings were enough to set the brain in a whirl, and breed
+forgetfulness of nearer matters. Others, in the preoccupation of the
+moment, seemed to be equally oblivious, and I forced my way out with
+the rest.
+
+But in the doorway I happened, by a little clumsiness, to touch one of
+the Harincourts. He turned his head, saw who it was had touched him,
+and tried to stop. The pressure was too great, however, and he was
+borne on in front of me, struggling and muttering something I could
+not hear. I guessed what it was, however, by the manner in which
+others, abreast of him, and as helpless, turned their heads and
+sneered at me; and I was considering how I could best encounter what
+was to come, when the sight which met our gaze, as we at last issued
+from the narrow passage and faced the market-place--two steps below
+us--drove their existence for a moment from my mind.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IV.
+
+                           L'AMI DU PEUPLE.
+
+
+There were others who stood also; impressed by a sight which, in the
+light of the news we had just heard, that astonishing, that amazing
+news, seemed to have especial significance. We had not yet grown
+accustomed in France to crowds. For centuries the one man, the
+individual, King, Cardinal, Noble, or Bishop, had stood forward, and
+the many, the multitude, had melted away under his eye; had bowed and
+passed.
+
+But here, within our view, rose the cold lowering dawn of a new day.
+Perhaps, if we had not heard what we had heard--that news, I mean--or
+if the people had not heard it, the effect on us, the action on their
+part, might have been different. As it was, the crowd that faced us in
+the Square as we came out, the great crowd that faced us and stretched
+from wall to wall, silent, vigilant, menacing, showed not a sign of
+flinching; and we did. We stood astonished, each halting as he came
+out, and looking, and then consulting his neighbour's eyes to learn
+what he thought.
+
+We had over our heads the great Cathedral, from the shadow of which we
+issued. We had among us many who had been wont to see a hundred
+peasants tremble at their frown. But in a moment, in a twinkling, as
+if that news from Paris had shaken the foundations of Society, we
+found these things in question. The crowd in the Square did not
+tremble. In a silence that was grimmer than howling it gave back look
+for look. Nor only that; but as we issued, they made no way for us,
+and those of the Assembly who had already gone down, had to walk along
+the skirts of the press to get to the inn. We who came later saw this,
+and it had its weight with us. We were Nobles of the province; but we
+were only two hundred, and between us and the Trois Rois, between us
+and our horses and servants, stretched this line of gloomy faces,
+these thousands of silent men.
+
+No wonder that the sight, and something that underlay the sight,
+diverted my mind for a moment from M. Harincourt and his purpose, and
+that I looked abroad; while he, too, stood gaping and frowning, and
+forgot me. Perforce we had to go down; one by one reluctantly, a
+meagre string winding across the face of the crowd; sullen defiance on
+one side, scorn on the other. In Cahors it came to be remembered as
+the first triumph of the people, the first step in the degradation of
+the privileged. A word had brought it about. A word, _the Bastille
+fallen_, had combined the floating groups, and formed of them this
+which we saw--the people.
+
+Under such circumstances it needed only the slightest spark to bring
+about an explosion; and that was presently supplied. M. de Gontaut, a
+tall, thin, old man, who could remember the early days of the late
+King, walked a little way in front of me. He was lame, and used a
+cane, and as a rule a servant's arm. This morning, the lackey was not
+forthcoming, and he felt the inconvenience of skirting instead of
+crossing the square. Nevertheless he was not foolish enough to thrust
+himself into the crowd; and all might have gone well, if a rogue in
+the front rank of the throng had not, perhaps by accident, tripped up
+the cane with his foot. M. le Baron turned in a flash, every hair of
+his eyebrows on end, and struck the fellow with his stick.
+
+"Stand back, rascal!" he cried, trembling, and threatening to repeat
+the blow. "If I had you, I would soon----"
+
+The man spat at him.
+
+M. de Gontaut uttered an oath, and in ungovernable rage struck the
+wretch two or three blows--how many I could not see, though I was only
+a few paces behind. Apparently the man did not strike back, but
+shrank, cowed by the old noble's fury. But those behind flung him
+forward, with cries of "Shame! _A bas la Noblesse!_" and he fell
+against M. de Gontaut. In a moment the Baron was on the ground.
+
+It was so quickly done that only those in the immediate neighbourhood,
+St. Alais, the Harincourts, and myself, saw the fall. Probably the mob
+meant no great harm; they had not yet lost all reverence. But at the
+time, with the tale of De Launay in my ears, and my imagination
+inflamed, I thought that they intended M. de Gontaut's death, and as I
+saw his old head fall, I sprang forward to protect him.
+
+St. Alais was before me, however. Bounding forward, with rage not less
+than Gontaut's, he hurled the aggressor back with a blow which sent
+him into the arms of his supporters. Then dragging M. de Gontaut to
+his feet, the Marquis whipped out his sword, and darting the bright
+point hither and thither with the skill of a practised fencer, in a
+twinkling he cleared a space round him, and made the nearest give back
+with shrieks and curses.
+
+Unfortunately he touched one man; the fellow was not hurt, but at the
+prick he sank down screaming, and in a second the mood of the crowd
+changed. Shrieks, half-playful, gave way to a howl of rage. Some one
+flung a stick, which struck the Marquis on the chest, and for a moment
+stopped him. The next instant he sprang at the man who had thrown it,
+and would have run him through, but the fellow fled, and the crowd,
+with a yell of triumph, closed over his path. This stopped St. Alais
+in mid course, and left him only the choice between retreating, or
+wounding people who were innocent.
+
+He fell back with a sneering word, and sheathed his sword. But the
+moment his back was turned a stone struck him on the head, and he
+staggered forward. As he fell the crowd uttered a yell, and half a
+dozen men dashed at him to trample on him.
+
+Their blood was up; this time I made no mistake, I read mischief in
+their eyes. The scream of the man whom he had wounded, though the
+fellow was more frightened than hurt, was in their ears. One of the
+Harincourts struck down the foremost, but this only enraged without
+checking them. In a moment he was swept aside and flung back, stunned
+and reeling; and the crowd rushed upon their victim.
+
+I threw myself before him. I had just time to do that, and cry "Shame!
+shame!" and force back one or two; and then my intervention must have
+come to nothing, it must have fared as ill with me as with him, if in
+the nick of time, with a ring of grimy faces threatening us, and a
+dozen hands upraised, I had not been recognised. Buton, the blacksmith
+of Saux--one of the foremost--screamed out my name, and turning with
+outstretched arms, forced back his neighbours. A man of huge strength,
+it was as much as he could do to stem the torrent; but in a moment his
+frenzied cries became heard and understood. Others recognised me, the
+crowd fell back. Some one raised a cry of "_Vive Saux!_ Long live the
+friend of the people!" and the shout being taken up first in one place
+and then in another, in a trice the Square rang with the words.
+
+I had not then learned the fickleness of the multitude, or that from
+_A bas_ to _vive_ is the step of an instant; and despite myself, and
+though I despised myself for the feeling, I felt my heart swell on the
+wave of sound. "_Vive Saux! Vive l'ami du peuple!_" My equals had
+scorned me, but the people--the people whose faces wore a new look
+to-day, the people to whom this one word, the Bastille fallen, had
+given new life--acclaimed me. For a moment, even while I cried to
+them, and shook my hands to them to be silent, there flashed on me the
+things it meant; the things they had to give, power and tribuneship!
+"_Vive Saux!_ long live the friend of the people!" The air shook with
+the sound; the domes above me gave it back. I felt myself lifted up on
+it; I felt myself for the minute another and a greater man!
+
+Then I turned and met St. Alais' eye, and I fell to earth. He had
+risen, and, pale with rage, was wiping the dust from his coat with a
+handkerchief. A little blood was flowing from the wound in his head,
+but he paid no heed to it, in the intentness with which he was staring
+at me, as if he read my thoughts. As soon as something like silence
+was obtained, he spoke.
+
+"Perhaps if your friends have quite done with us, M. de Saux--we may
+go home?" he said, his voice trembling a little.
+
+I stammered something in answer to the sneer, and turned to accompany
+him; though my way to the inn lay in the opposite direction. Only the
+two Harincourts and M. de Gontaut were with us. The rest of the
+Assembly had either got clear, or were viewing the fracas from the
+door of the Chapter House, where they stood, cut off from us by a wall
+of people. I offered my arm to M. de Gontaut, but he declined it with
+a frigid bow, and took Harincourt's; and M. le Marquis, when I turned
+to him, said, with a cold smile, that they need not trouble me.
+
+"Doubtless we shall be safe," he sneered, "if you will give orders to
+that effect."
+
+I bowed, without retorting on him; he bowed; and he turned away. But
+the crowd had either read his attitude aright, or gathered that there
+was an altercation between us, for the moment he moved they set up a
+howl. Two or three stones were thrown, notwithstanding Buton's efforts
+to prevent it; and before the party had retired ten yards the rabble
+began to press on them savagely. Embarrassed by M. de Gontaut's
+presence and helplessness, the other three could do nothing. For an
+instant I had a view of St. Alais standing gallantly at bay with the
+old noble behind him, and the blood trickling down his cheek. Then I
+followed them, the crowd made instant way for me, again the air rang
+with cheers, and the Square in the hot July sunshine seemed a sea of
+waving hands.
+
+M. de St. Alais turned to me. He could still smile, and with
+marvellous self-command, in one and the same instant he recovered from
+his discomfiture and changed his tactics.
+
+"I am afraid that after all we must trouble you," he said politely.
+"M. le Baron is not a young man, and your people, M. de Saux, are
+somewhat obstreperous."
+
+"What can I do?" I said sullenly. I had not the heart to leave them to
+their fortunes; at the same time I was as little disposed to accept
+the onus he would lay on me.
+
+"Accompany us home," he said pleasantly, drawing out his snuff-box and
+taking a pinch.
+
+The people had fallen silent again, but watched us heedfully. "If you
+think it will serve?" I answered.
+
+"It will," he said briskly. "You know, M. le Vicomte, that a man is
+born and a man dies every minute? Believe me no King dies--but another
+King is born."
+
+I winced under the sarcasm, under the laughing contempt of his eye.
+Yet I saw nothing for it but to comply, and I bowed and turned to go
+with them. The crowd opened before us; amid mingled cheers and yells
+we moved away. I intended only to accompany them to the outskirts of
+the throng, and then to gain the inn by a by-path, get my horses and
+be gone. But a party of the crowd continued to follow us through the
+streets, and I found no opportunity. Almost before I knew it, we were
+at the St. Alais' door, still with this rough attendance at our heels.
+
+Madame and Mademoiselle, with two or three women, were on the balcony,
+looking and listening; at the door below stood a group of scared
+servants. While I looked, however, Madame left her place above and in
+a moment appeared at the door, the servants making way for her. She
+stared in wonder at us, and from us to the rabble that followed; then
+her eye caught the bloodstains on M. de St. Alais' cravat, and she
+cried out to know if he was hurt.
+
+"No, Madame," he said lightly. "But M. de Gontaut has had a fall."
+
+"What has happened?" she asked quickly. "The town seems to have gone
+mad! I heard a great noise a while ago, and the servants brought in a
+wild tale about the Bastille."
+
+"It is true."
+
+"What? That the Bastille----"
+
+"Has been taken by the mob, Madame; and M. de Launay murdered."
+
+"Impossible!" Madame cried with flashing eyes. "That old man?"
+
+"Yes," M. de St. Alais answered with treacherous suavity. "Messieurs
+the Mob are no respecters of persons. Fortunately, however," he went
+on, smiling at me in a way that brought the blood to my cheeks, "they
+have leaders more prudent and sagacious than themselves."
+
+But Madame had no ears for his last words, no thought save of this
+astonishing news from Paris. She stood, her cheeks on fire, her eyes
+full of tears; she had known De Launay. "Oh, but the King will punish
+them!" she cried at last. "The wretches! The ingrates! They should all
+be broken on the wheel! Doubtless the King has already punished them."
+
+"He will, by-and-by, if he has not yet," St. Alais answered. "But for
+the moment, you will easily understand, Madame, that things are out of
+joint. Men's heads are turned, and they do not know themselves. We
+have had a little trouble here. M. de Gontaut has been roughly
+handled, and I have not entirely escaped. If M. de Saux had not had
+his people well in hand," he continued, turning to me with a laughing
+eye, "I am afraid that we should have come off worse."
+
+Madame stared at me, and, beginning slowly to comprehend, seemed to
+freeze before me. The light died out of her haughty face. She looked
+at me grimly. I had a glimpse of Mademoiselle's startled eyes behind
+her, and of the peeping servants; then Madame spoke. "Are these some
+of--M. de Saux's people?" she asked, stepping forward a pace, and
+pointing to the crew of ruffians who had halted a few paces away, and
+were watching us doubtfully.
+
+"A handful," M. de St. Alais answered lightly. "Just his bodyguard,
+Madame. But pray do not speak of him so harshly; for, being my mother,
+you must be obliged to him. If he did not quite save my life, at least
+he saved my beauty."
+
+"With those?" she said scornfully.
+
+"With those or from those," he answered gaily. "Besides, for a day or
+two we may need his protection. I am sure that, if you ask him,
+Madame, he will not refuse it."
+
+I stood, raging and helpless, under the lash of his tongue; and Madame
+de St. Alais looked at me. "Is it possible," she said at last, "that
+M. de Saux has thrown in his lot with wretches such as those?" And she
+pointed with magnificent scorn to the scowling crew behind me. "With
+wretches who----"
+
+"Hush, Madame," M. le Marquis said in his gibing fashion. "You are too
+bold. For the moment they are our masters, and M. de Saux is theirs.
+We must, therefore----"
+
+"We must not!" she answered impetuously, raising herself to her full
+height and speaking with flashing eyes. "What? Would you have me
+palter with the scum of the streets? With the dirt under our feet?
+With the sweepings of the gutter? Never! I and mine have no part with
+traitors!"
+
+"Madame!" I cried, stung to speech by her injustice. "You do not know
+what you say! If I have been able to stand between your son and
+danger, it has been through no vileness such as you impute to me."
+
+"Impute?" she exclaimed. "What need of imputation, Monsieur, with
+those wretches behind you? Is it necessary to cry '_A bas le roi!_' to
+be a traitor? Is not that man as guilty who fosters false hopes, and
+misleads the ignorant? Who hints what he dare not say, and holds out
+what he dares not promise? Is he not the worst of traitors? For shame,
+Monsieur, for shame!" she continued. "If your father----"
+
+"Oh!" I cried. "This is intolerable!"
+
+She caught me up with a bitter gibe. "It is!" she retorted. "It _is_
+intolerable--that the King's fortresses should be taken by the rabble,
+and old men slain by scullions! It is intolerable that nobles should
+forget whence they are sprung, and stoop to the kennel! It is
+intolerable that the King's name should be flouted, and catchwords set
+above it! All these things are intolerable; but they are not of our
+doing. They are your acts. And for you," she continued--and suddenly
+stepping by me, she addressed the group of rascals who lingered,
+listening and scowling, a few paces away--"for you, poor fools, do not
+be deceived. This gentleman has told you, doubtless, that there is no
+longer a King of France! That there are to be no more taxes nor
+_corvees_; that the poor will be rich, and everybody noble! Well,
+believe him if you please. There have been poor and rich, noble and
+simple, spenders and makers, since the world began, and a King in
+France. But believe him if you please. Only now go! Leave my house.
+Go, or I will call out my servants, and whip you through the streets
+like dogs! To your kennels, I say!"
+
+She stamped her foot, and to my astonishment, the men, who must have
+known that her threat was an empty one, sneaked away like the dogs to
+which she had compared them. In a moment--I could scarcely believe
+it--the street was empty. The men who had come near to killing M. de
+Gontaut, who had stoned M. de St. Alais, quailed before a woman! In a
+twinkling the last man was gone, and she turned to me, her face
+flushed, her eyes gleaming with scorn.
+
+"There, sir," she said, "take that lesson to heart. That is your brave
+people! And now, Monsieur, do you go too! Henceforth my house is no
+place for you. I will have no traitors under my roof--no, not for a
+moment."
+
+She signed to me to go with the same insolent contempt which had
+abashed the crowd; but before I went I said one word. "You were my
+father's friend, Madame," I said before them all.
+
+She looked at me harshly, but did not answer.
+
+"It would have better become you, therefore," I continued, "to help me
+than to hurt me. As it is, were I the most loyal of his Majesty's
+subjects, you have done enough to drive me to treason. In the future,
+Madame la Marquise, I beg that you will remember that."
+
+And I turned and went, trembling with rage.
+
+The crowd in the Square had melted by this time, but the streets were
+full of those who had composed it; who now stood about in eager
+groups, discussing what had happened. The word Bastille was on every
+tongue; and, as I passed, way was made for me, and caps were lifted.
+"God bless you, M. de Saux," and, "You are a good man," were muttered
+in my ear. If there seemed to be less noise and less excitement than
+in the morning, the air of purpose that everywhere prevailed was not
+to be mistaken.
+
+This was so clear that, though noon was barely past, shopkeepers had
+closed their shops and bakers their bakehouses; and a calm, more
+ominous than the storm that had preceded it, brooded over the town.
+The majority of the Assembly had dispersed in haste, for I saw none of
+the Members, though I heard that a large body had gone to the
+barracks. No one molested me--the fall of the Bastille served me so
+far--and I mounted, and rode out of town, without seeing any one, even
+Louis.
+
+To tell the truth, I was in a fever to be at home; in a fever to
+consult the only man who, it seemed to me, could advise me in this
+crisis. In front of me, I saw it plainly, stretched two roads; the one
+easy and smooth, if perilous, the other arid and toilsome. Madame had
+called me the Tribune of the People, a would-be Retz, a would-be
+Mirabeau. The people had cried my name, had hailed me as a saviour.
+Should I fit on the cap? Should I take up the _role?_ My own caste had
+spurned me. Should I snatch at the dangerous honour offered to me, and
+stand or fall with the people?
+
+With the people? It sounded well, but, in those days, it was a vaguer
+phrase than it is now; and I asked myself who, that had ever taken up
+that cause, had stood? A bread riot, a tumult, a local revolt--such
+as this which had cost M. de Launay his life--of things of that size
+the people had shown themselves capable; but of no lasting victory.
+Always the King had held his own, always the nobles had kept their
+privileges. Why should it be otherwise now?
+
+There were reasons. Yes, truly; but they seemed less cogent, the
+weight of precedent against them heavier, when I came to think, with a
+trembling heart, of acting on them. And the odium of deserting my
+order was no small matter to face. Hitherto I had been innocent; if
+they had put out the lip at me, they had done it wrongfully. But if I
+accepted this part, the part they assigned to me, I must be prepared
+to face not only the worst in case of failure, but in success to be a
+pariah. To be Tribune of the People, and an outcast from my kind!
+
+I rode hard to keep pace with these thoughts; and I did not doubt that
+I should be the first to bring the tale to Saux. But in those days
+nothing was more marvellous than the speed with which news of this
+kind crossed the country. It passed from mouth to mouth, from eye to
+eye; the air seemed to carry it. It went before the quickest
+traveller.
+
+Everywhere, therefore, I found it known. Known by people who had stood
+for days at cross-roads, waiting for they knew not what; known by
+scowling men on village bridges, who talked in low voices and eyed the
+towers of the Chateau; known by stewards and agents, men of the stamp
+of Gargouf, who smiled incredulously, or talked, like Madame St.
+Alais, of the King, and how good he was, and how many he would hang
+for it. Known, last of all, by Father Benoit, the man I would consult.
+He met me at the gate of the Chateau, opposite the place where the
+_carcan_ had stood. It was too dark to see his face, but I knew the
+fall of his _soutane_ and the shape of his hat. I sent on Gil and
+Andre, and he walked beside me up the avenue, with his hand on the
+withers of my horse.
+
+"Well, M. le Vicomte, it has come at last," he said.
+
+"You have heard?"
+
+"Buton told me."
+
+"What? Is he here?" I said in surprise. "I saw him at Cahors less than
+three hours ago."
+
+"Such news gives a man wings," Father Benoit answered with energy. "I
+say again, it has come. It has come, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"Something," I said prudently.
+
+"Everything," he answered confidently. "The mob took the Bastille, but
+who headed them? The soldiers; the Garde Francaise. Well, M. le
+Vicomte, if the army cannot be trusted, there is an end of abuses, an
+end of exemptions, of extortions, of bread famines, of Foulons and
+Berthiers, of grinding the faces of the poor, of----"
+
+The Cure's list was not half exhausted when I cut it short. "But if
+the army is with the mob, where will things stop?" I said wearily.
+
+"We must see to that," he answered.
+
+"Come and sup with me," I said, "I have something to tell you, and
+more to ask you."
+
+He assented gladly. "For there will be no sleep for me to-night," he
+said, his eye sparkling. "This is great news, glorious news, M. le
+Vicomte. Your father would have heard it with joy."
+
+"And M. de Launay?" I said as I dismounted.
+
+"There can be no change without suffering," he answered stoutly,
+though his face fell a little. "His fathers sinned, and he has paid
+the penalty. But God rest his soul! I have heard that he was a good
+man."
+
+"And died in his duty," I said rather tartly.
+
+"Amen," Father Benoit answered.
+
+Yet it was not until we were sat down in the Chestnut Parlour (which
+the servants called the English Room), and, with candles between us,
+were busy with our cheese and fruit, that I appreciated to the full
+the impression which the news had made on the Cure. Then, as he
+talked, as he told and listened, his long limbs and lean form trembled
+with excitement; his thin face worked. "It is the end," he said. "You
+may depend upon it, M. le Vicomte, it is the end. Your father told me
+many times that in money lay the secret of power. Money, he used to
+say, pays the army, the army secures all. A while ago the money
+failed. Now the army fails. There is nothing left."
+
+"The King?" I said, unconsciously quoting Madame la Marquise.
+
+"God bless his Majesty!" the Cure answered heartily. "He means well,
+and now he will be able to do well, because the nation will be with
+him. But without the nation, without money or an army--a name only.
+And the name did not save the Bastille."
+
+Then, beginning with the scene at Madame de St. Alais' reception, I
+told him all that had happened to me; the oath of the sword, the
+debate in the Assembly, the tumult in the Square--last of all, the
+harsh words with which Madame had given me my _conge_; all. As he
+listened he was extraordinarily moved. When I described the scene in
+the Chamber, he could not be still, but in his enthusiasm, walked
+about the parlour, muttering. And, when I told him how the crowd had
+cried "_Vive Saux!_" he repeated the words softly and looked at me
+with delighted eyes. But when I came--halting somewhat in my speech,
+and colouring and playing with my bread to hide my disorder--to tell
+him my thoughts on the way home, and the choice that, as it seemed to
+me, was offered to me, he sat down, and fell also to crumbling his
+bread and was silent.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V.
+
+                           THE DEPUTATION.
+
+
+He sat silent so long, with his eyes on the table, that presently I
+grew nettled; wondering what ailed him, and why he did not speak and
+say the things that I expected. I had been so confident of the advice
+he would give me, that, from the first, I had tinged my story with the
+appropriate colour. I had let my bitterness be seen; I had suppressed
+no scornful word, but supplied him with all the ground he could desire
+for giving me the advice I supposed to be upon his lips.
+
+And yet he did not speak. A hundred times I had heard him declare his
+sympathy with the people, his hatred of the corruption, the
+selfishness, the abuses of the Government; within the hour I had seen
+his eye kindle as he spoke of the fall of the Bastille. It was at his
+word I had burned the _carcan_; at his instance I had spent a large
+sum in feeding the village during the famine of the past year. Yet
+now--now, when I expected him to rise up and bid me do my part, he was
+silent!
+
+I had to speak at last. "Well?" I said irritably. "Have you nothing to
+say, M. le Cure?" And I moved one of the candles so as to get a better
+view of his features. But he still looked down at the table, he still
+avoided my eye, his thin face thoughtful, his hand toying with the
+crumbs.
+
+At last, "M. le Vicomte," he said softly, "through my mother's mother
+I, too, am noble."
+
+I gasped; not at the fact with which I was familiar, but at the
+application I thought he intended. "And for that," I said amazed, "you
+would----"
+
+He raised his hand to stop me. "No," he said gently, "I would not.
+Because, for all that, I am of the people by birth, and of the poor by
+my calling. But----"
+
+"But what?" I said peevishly.
+
+Instead of answering me he rose from his seat, and, taking up one of
+the candles, turned to the panelled wall behind him, on which hung a
+full-length portrait of my father, framed in a curious border of
+carved foliage. He read the name below it. "Antoine du Pont, Vicomte
+de Saux," he said, as if to himself. "He was a good man, and a friend
+to the poor. God keep him."
+
+He lingered a moment, gazing at the grave, handsome face, and
+doubtless recalling many things; then he passed, holding the candle
+aloft, to another picture which flanked the table: each wall boasted
+one. "Adrien du Pont, Vicomte de Saux," he read, "Colonel of the
+Regiment Flamande. He was killed, I think, at Minden. Knight of St.
+Louis and of the King's Bedchamber. A handsome man, and doubtless a
+gallant gentleman. I never knew him."
+
+I answered nothing, but my face began to burn as he passed to a third
+picture behind me. "Antoine du Pont, Vicomte de Saux," he read,
+holding up the candle, "Marshal and Peer of France, Knight of the
+King's Orders, a Colonel of the Household and of the King's Council.
+Died of the plague at Genoa in 1710. I think I have heard that he
+married a Rohan."
+
+He looked long, then passed to the fourth wall, and stood a moment
+quite silent. "And this one?" he said at last. "He, I think, has the
+noblest face of all. Antoine, Seigneur du Pont de Saux, of the Order
+of St. John of Jerusalem, Preceptor of the French tongue. Died at
+Valetta in the year after the Great Siege--of his wounds, some say; of
+incredible labours and exertions, say the Order. A Christian soldier."
+
+It was the last picture, and, after gazing at it a moment, he brought
+the candle back and set it down with its two fellows on the shining
+table; that, with the panelled walls, swallowed up the light, and left
+only our faces white and bright, with a halo round them, and darkness
+behind them. He bowed to me. "M. le Vicomte," he said at last, in a
+voice which shook a little, "you come of a noble stock."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. "It is known," I said. "And for that?"
+
+"I dare not advise you."
+
+"But the cause is good!" I cried.
+
+"Yes," he answered slowly. "I have been saying so all my life. I dare
+not say otherwise now. But--the cause of the people is the people's.
+Leave it to the people."
+
+"_You_ say that!" I answered, staring at him, angry and perplexed.
+"You, who have told me a hundred times that I am of the people! that
+the nobility are of the people; that there are only two things in
+France, the King and the people."
+
+He smiled somewhat sadly; tapping on the table with his fingers. "That
+was theory," he said. "I try to put it into practice, and my heart
+fails me. Because I, too, have a little nobility, M. le Vicomte, and
+know what it is."
+
+"I don't understand you," I said in despair. "You blow hot and cold,
+M. le Cure. I told you just now that I spoke for the people at the
+meeting of the noblesse, and you approved."
+
+"It was nobly done."
+
+"Yet now?"
+
+"I say the same thing," Father Benoit answered, his fine face
+illumined with feeling. "It was nobly done. Fight for the people, M.
+le Vicomte, but among your fellows. Let your voice be heard there,
+where all you will gain for yourself will be obloquy and black looks.
+But if it comes, if it has come, to a struggle between your class and
+the commons, between the nobility and the vulgar; if the noble must
+side with his fellows or take the people's pay, then"--Father Benoit's
+voice trembled a little, and his thin white hand tapped softly on the
+table--"I would rather see you ranked with your kind."
+
+"Against the people?"
+
+"Yes, against the people," he answered, shrinking a little.
+
+I was astonished. "Why, great heaven," I said, "the smallest
+logic----"
+
+"Ah!" he answered, shaking his head sadly, and looking at me with kind
+eyes. "There you beat me; logic is against me. Reason, too. The cause
+of the people, the cause of reform, of honesty, of cheap grain, of
+equal justice, _must_ be a good one. And who forwards it must be in
+the right. That is so, M. le Vicomte. Nay, more than that. If the
+people are left to fight their battle alone the danger of excesses is
+greater. I see that. But instinct does not let me act on the
+knowledge."
+
+"Yet, M. de Mirabeau?" I said. "I have heard you call him a great
+man."
+
+"It is true," Father Benoit answered, keeping his eyes on mine, while
+he drummed softly on the table with his fingers.
+
+"I have heard you speak of him with admiration."
+
+"Often."
+
+"And of M. de Lafayette?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And the Lameths?"
+
+M. le Cure nodded.
+
+"Yet all these," I said stubbornly, "all these are nobles--nobles
+leading the people!"
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"And you do not blame them?"
+
+"No, I do not blame them."
+
+"Nay, you admire them! You admire them, Father," I persisted,
+glowering at him.
+
+"I know I do," he said. "I know that I am weak and a fool. Perhaps
+worse, M. le Vicomte, in that I have not the courage of my
+convictions. But, though I admire those men, though I think them great
+and to be admired, I have heard men speak of them who thought
+otherwise; and--it may be weak--but I knew you as a boy, and I would
+not have men speak so of you. There are things we admire at a
+distance," he continued, looking at me a little drolly, to hide the
+affection that shone in his eyes, "which we, nevertheless, do not
+desire to find in those we love. Odium heaped on a stranger is nothing
+to us; on our friends, it were worse than death."
+
+He stopped, his voice trembling; and we were both silent for a while.
+Still, I would not let him see how much his words had touched me; and
+by-and-by----
+
+"But my father?" I said. "He was strongly on the side of reform!"
+
+"Yes, by the nobles, for the people."
+
+"But the nobles have cast me out!" I answered. "Because I have gone a
+yard, I have lost all. Shall I not go two, and win all back?"
+
+"Win all," he said softly--"but lose how much?"
+
+"Yet if the people win? And you say they will?"
+
+"Even then, Tribune of the People," he answered gently, "and an
+outcast!"
+
+They were the very words I had applied to myself as I rode; and I
+started. With sudden vividness I saw the picture they presented; and I
+understood why Father Benoit had hesitated so long in my case. With
+the purest intentions and the most upright heart, I could not make
+myself other than what I was; I should rise, were my efforts crowned
+with success, to a point of splendid isolation; suspected by the
+people, whose benefactor I had been, hated and cursed by the nobles
+whom I had deserted.
+
+Such a prospect would have been far from deterring some; and others it
+might have lured. But I found myself, in this moment of clear vision,
+no hero. Old prejudices stirred in the blood, old traditions, born of
+centuries of precedence and privilege, awoke in the memory. A shiver
+of doubt and mistrust--such as, I suppose, has tormented reformers
+from the first, and caused all but the hardiest to flinch--passed
+through me, as I gazed across the candles at the Cure. I feared the
+people--the unknown. The howl of exultation, that had rent the air in
+the Market-place at Cahors, the brutal cries that had hailed Gontaut's
+fall, rang again in my ears. I shrank back, as a man shrinks who finds
+himself on the brink of an abyss, and through the wavering mist,
+parted for a brief instant by the wind, sees the cruel rocks and
+jagged points that wait for him below.
+
+It was a moment of extraordinary prevision, and though it passed, and
+speedily left me conscious once more of the silent room and the good
+Cure--who affected to be snuffing one of the long candles--the effect
+it produced on my mind continued. After Father Benoit had taken his
+leave, and the house was closed, I walked for an hour up and down the
+walnut avenue; now standing to gaze between the open iron gates that
+gave upon the road; now turning my back on them, and staring at the
+grey, gaunt, steep-roofed house with its flanking tower and round
+_tourelles_.
+
+Henceforth, I made up my mind, I would stand aside. I would welcome
+reform, I would do in private what I could to forward it; but I would
+not a second time set myself against my fellows. I had had the courage
+of my opinions. Henceforth, no man could say that I had hidden them,
+but after this I would stand aside and watch the course of events.
+
+A cock crowed at the rear of the house--untimely; and across the
+hushed fields, through the dusk, came the barking of a distant dog. As
+I stood listening, while the solemn stars gazed down, the slight which
+St. Alais had put upon me dwindled--dwindled to its true dimensions. I
+thought of Mademoiselle Denise, of the bride I had lost, with a faint
+regret that was almost amusement. What would she think of this sudden
+rupture? I wondered. Of this strange loss of her _fiance?_ Would it
+awaken her curiosity, her interest? Or would she, fresh from her
+convent school, think that things in the world went commonly so--that
+_fiances_ came and passed, and receptions found their natural end in
+riot?
+
+I laughed softly, pleased that I had made up my mind. But, had I
+known, as I listened to the rustling of the poplars in the road, and
+the sounds that came out of the darkened world beyond them, what was
+passing there--had I known that, I should have felt even greater
+satisfaction. For this was Wednesday, the 22nd of July; and that night
+Paris still palpitated after viewing strange things. For the first
+time she had heard the horrid cry, "_A la lanterne!_" and seen a man,
+old and white-headed, hanged, and tortured, until death freed him. She
+had seen another, the very Intendant of the City, flung down, trampled
+and torn to pieces in his own streets--publicly, in full day, in the
+presence of thousands. She had seen these things, trembling; and other
+things also--things that had made the cheeks of reformers grow pale,
+and betrayed to all thinking men that below Lafayette, below Bailly,
+below the Municipality and the Electoral Committee, roared and seethed
+the awakened forces of the Faubourgs, of St. Antoine, and St. Marceau!
+
+What could be expected, what was to be expected, but that such
+outrages, remaining unpunished, should spread? Within a week the
+provinces followed the lead of Paris. Already, on the 21st the mob of
+Strasbourg had sacked the Hotel de Ville and destroyed the Archives;
+and during the same week, the Bastilles at Bordeaux and Caen were
+taken and destroyed. At Rouen, at Rennes, at Lyons, at St. Malo, were
+great riots, with fighting; and nearer Paris, at Poissy, and St.
+Germain, the populace hung the millers. But, as far as Cahors was
+concerned, it was not until the astonishing tidings of the King's
+surrender reached us, a few days later--tidings that on the 17th of
+July he had entered insurgent Paris, and tamely acquiesced in the
+destruction of the Bastille--it was not until that news reached us,
+and hard on its heels a rumour of the second rising on the 22nd, and
+the slaughter of Foulon and Berthier--it was not until then, I say,
+that the country round us began to be moved. Father Benoit, with a
+face of astonishment and doubt, brought me the tidings, and we walked
+on the terrace discussing it. Probably reports, containing more or
+less of the truth, had reached the city before, and, giving men
+something else to think of, had saved me from challenge or
+molestation. But, in the country where I had spent the week in moody
+unrest, and not unfrequently reversing in the morning the decision at
+which I had arrived in the night, I had heard nothing until the Cure
+came--I think on the morning of the 29th of July.
+
+"And what do you think now?" I said thoughtfully, when I had listened
+to his tale.
+
+"Only what I did before," he answered stoutly. "It has come. Without
+money, and therefore without soldiers who will fight, with a starving
+people, with men's minds full of theories and abstractions, that all
+tend towards change, what can a Government do?"
+
+
+"Apparently it can cease to govern," I said tartly; "and that is not
+what any one wants."
+
+"There must be a period of unrest," he replied, but less confidently.
+"The forces of order, however, the forces of the law have always
+triumphed. I don't doubt that they will again."
+
+"After a period of unrest?"
+
+"Yes," he answered. "After a period of unrest. And, I confess, I wish
+that we were through that. But we must be of good heart, M. le
+Vicomte. We must trust the people; we must confide in their good
+sense, their capacity for government, their moderation----"
+
+I had to interrupt him. "What is it, Gil?" I said with a gesture of
+apology. The servant had come out of the house and was waiting to
+speak to me.
+
+"M. Doury, M. le Vicomte, from Cahors," he answered.
+
+"The inn-keeper?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur; and Buton. They ask to see you."
+
+"Together?" I said. It seemed a strange conjunction.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Well, show them here," answered, after consulting my companion's
+face. "But Doury? I paid my bill. What can he want?"
+
+"We shall see," Father Benoit answered, his eyes on the door. "Here
+they come. Ah! Now, M. le Vicomte," he continued in a lower tone, "I
+feel less confident."
+
+I suppose he guessed something akin to the truth; but for my part I
+was completely at a loss. The innkeeper, a sleek, complaisant man, of
+whom, though I had known him some years, I had never seen much beyond
+the crown of his head, nor ever thought of him as apart from his
+guests and his ordinary, wore, as he advanced, a strange motley of
+dignity and subservience; now strutting with pursed lips, and an air
+of extreme importance, and now stooping to bow in a shame-faced and
+half-hearted manner. His costume was as great a surprise as his
+appearance, for, instead of his citizen's suit of black, he sported a
+blue coat with gold buttons, and a canary waistcoat, and he carried a
+gold-headed cane; sober splendours, which, nevertheless, paled before
+two large bunches of ribbons, white, red, and blue, which he wore, one
+on his breast, and one in his hat.
+
+His companion, who followed a foot or two behind, his giant frame and
+sun-burned face setting off the citizen's plumpness, was similarly
+bedizened. But though be-ribboned and in strange company, he was still
+Baton, the smith. His face reddened as he met my eyes, and he shielded
+himself as well as he could behind Doury's form.
+
+"Good-morning, Doury," I said. I could have laughed at the awkward
+complaisance of the man's manner, if something in the gravity of the
+Cure's face had not restrained me. "What brings you to Saux?" I
+continued. "And what can I do for you?"
+
+"If it please you, M. le Vicomte," he began. Then he paused, and
+straightening himself--for habit had bent his back--he continued
+abruptly, "Public business, Monsieur, with you on it."
+
+"With me?' I said, amazed. On public business?"
+
+He smiled in a sickly way, but stuck to his text. "Even so, Monsieur,"
+he said. "There are such great changes, and--and so great need of
+advice."
+
+"That I ought not to wonder at M. Doury seeking it at Saux?"
+
+"Even so, Monsieur."
+
+I did not try to hide my contempt and amusement; but shrugged my
+shoulders, and looked at the Cure.
+
+"Well," I said, after a moment of silence, "and what is it? Have you
+been selling bad wine? Or do you want the number of courses limited by
+Act of the States General? Or----"
+
+"Monsieur," he said, drawing himself up with an attempt at dignity,
+"this is no time for jesting. In the present crisis inn-keepers have
+as much at stake as, with reverence, the noblesse; and deserted by
+those who should lead them----"
+
+"What, the inn-keepers?" I cried.
+
+He grew as red as a beetroot. "M. le Vicomte understands that I mean
+the people," he said stiffly. "Who deserted, I say, by their natural
+leaders----"
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"M. le Duc d'Artois, M. le Prince de Conde, M. le Duc de Polignac,
+M.----"
+
+"Bah!" I said. "How have they deserted?"
+
+"_Pardieu_, Monsieur! Have you not heard?"
+
+"Have I not heard what?"
+
+"That they have left France? That on the night of the 17th, three days
+after the capture of the Bastille, the princes of the blood left
+France by stealth, and----"
+
+"Impossible!" I said. "Impossible! Why should they leave?"
+
+"That is the very question, M. le Vicomte," he answered, with eager
+forwardness, "that is being asked. Some say that they thought to
+punish Paris by withdrawing from it. Some that they did it to show
+their disapproval of his most gracious Majesty's amnesty, which was
+announced on that day. Some that they stand in fear. Some even that
+they anticipated Foulon's fate----"
+
+"Fool!" I cried, stopping him sternly--for I found this too much for
+my stomach--"you rave! Go back to your menus and your bouillis! What
+do you know about State affairs? Why, in my grandfather's time," I
+continued wrathfully, "if you had spoken of princes of the blood after
+that fashion, you would have tasted bread and water for six months,
+and been lucky had you got off unwhipped!"
+
+He quailed before me, and forgetting his new part in old habits,
+muttered an apology. He had not meant to give offence, he said. He had
+not understood. Nevertheless, I was preparing to read him a lesson
+when, to my astonishment, Buton intervened.
+
+"But, Monsieur, that is thirty years back," he said doggedly.
+
+"What, villain?" I exclaimed, almost breathless with astonishment,
+"what do you in this _galere?_"
+
+"I am with him," he answered, indicating his companion by a sullen
+gesture.
+
+"On State business?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Why, _mon Dieu_," I cried, staring at them between amusement and
+incredulity, "if this is true, why did you not bring the watch-dog as
+well! And Farmer Jean's ram? And the good-wife's cat? And M. Doury's
+turnspit? And----"
+
+M. le Cure touched my arm. "Perhaps you had better hear what they have
+to say," he observed softly. "Afterwards, M. le Vicomte----"
+
+I nodded sulkily. "What is it, then?" I said. "Ask what you want to
+ask."
+
+"The Intendant has fled," Doury answered, recovering something of his
+lost dignity, "and we are forming, in pursuance of advice received
+from Paris, and following the glorious example of that city, a
+Committee; a Committee to administer the affairs of the district. From
+that Committee, I, Monsieur, with my good friend here, have the honour
+to be a deputation."
+
+"With him?" I said, unable to control myself longer. "But, in heaven's
+name, what has he to do with the Committee? Or the affairs of the
+district?"
+
+And I pointed with relentless finger at Buton, who reddened under his
+tan, and moved his huge feet uneasily, but did not speak.
+
+"He is a member of it," the inn-keeper answered, regarding his
+colleague with a side glance, which seemed to express anything but
+liking. "This Committee, to be as perfect as possible, Monsieur le
+Vicomte will understand, must represent all classes."
+
+"Even mine, I suppose," I said, with a sneer.
+
+"It is on that business we have come," he answered awkwardly. "To ask,
+in a word, M. le Vicomte, that you will allow yourself to be elected a
+member, and not only a member----
+
+"What elevation!"
+
+"But President of the Committee."
+
+After all--it was no more than I had been foreseeing! It had come
+suddenly, but in the main it was only that in sober fact which I had
+foreseen in a dream. Styled the mandate of the people, it had sounded
+well; by the mouth of Doury, the inn-keeper, Buton assessor, it jarred
+every nerve in me. I say, it should not have surprised me; while such
+things were happening in the world, with a King who stood by and saw
+his fortress taken, and his servants killed, and pardoned the rebels;
+with an Intendant of Paris slaughtered in his own streets; with
+rumours and riots in every province, and flying princes, and swinging
+millers, there was really nothing wonderful in the invitation. And
+now, looking back, I find nothing surprising in it. I have lived to
+see men of the same trade as Doury, stand by the throne, glittering in
+stars and orders; and a smith born in the forge sit down to dine with
+Emperors. But that July day on the terrace at Saux, the offer seemed
+of all farces the wildest, and of all impertinences the most absurd.
+
+"Thanks, Monsieur," I said, at last, when I had sufficiently recovered
+from my astonishment. "If I understand you rightly, you ask me to sit
+on the same Committee with that man?" And I pointed grimly to Buton.
+"With the peasant born on my land, and subject yesterday to my
+justice? With the serf whom my fathers freed? With the workman living
+on my wages?"
+
+Doury glanced at his colleague. "Well, M. le Vicomte," he said, with a
+cough, "to be perfect, you understand, a Committee must represent
+all."
+
+"A Committee!" I retorted, unable to repress my scorn. "It is a new
+thing in France. And what is the perfect Committee to do?"
+
+Doury on a sudden recovered himself, and swelled with importance. "The
+Intendant has fled," he said, "and people no longer trust the
+magistrates. There are rumours of brigands, too; and corn is required.
+With all this the Committee must deal. It must take measures to keep
+the peace, to supply the city, to satisfy the soldiers, to hold
+meetings, and consider future steps. Besides, M. le Vicomte," he
+continued, puffing out his cheeks, "it will correspond with Paris; it
+will administer the law; it will----"
+
+"In a word," I said quietly, "it will govern. The King, I suppose,
+having abdicated."
+
+Doury shrank bodily, and even lost some of his colour. "God forbid!"
+he said, in a whining tone. "It will do all in his Majesty's name."
+
+"And by his authority?"
+
+The inn-keeper stared at me, startled and nonplussed; and muttered
+something about the people.
+
+"Ah!" I said. "It is the people who invite me to govern, then, is it?
+With an inn-keeper and a peasant? And other inn-keepers and peasants,
+I suppose? To govern! To usurp his Majesty's functions? To supersede
+his magistrates; to bribe his forces? In a word, friend Doury," I
+continued suavely, "to commit treason. Treason, you understand?"
+
+The inn-keeper did; and he wiped his forehead with a shaking hand, and
+stood, scared and speechless, looking at me piteously. A second time
+the blacksmith took it on himself to answer.
+
+"Monseigneur," he muttered, drawing his great black hand across his
+beard.
+
+"Buton," I answered suavely, "permit me. For a man who aspires to
+govern the country, you are too respectful."
+
+"You have omitted one thing it is for the Committee to do," the smith
+answered hoarsely, looking--like a timid, yet sullen, dog--anywhere
+but in my face.
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"To protect the Seigneurs."
+
+I stared at him, between anger and surprise. This was a new light.
+After a pause, "From whom?" I said curtly.
+
+"Their people," he answered.
+
+"Their Butons," I said. "I see. We are to be burned in our beds, are
+we?"
+
+He stood sulkily silent.
+
+"Thank you, Buton," I said. "And that is your return for a winter's
+corn. Thanks! In this world it is profitable to do good!"
+
+The man reddened through his tan, and on a sudden looked at me for the
+first time. "You know that you lie, M. le Vicomte!" he said.
+
+"Lie, sirrah?" I cried.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur," he answered. "You know that I would die for the
+seigneur, as much as if the iron collar were round my neck! That
+before fire touched the house of Saux it should burn me! That I am my
+lord's man, alive and dead. But, Monseigneur," and, as he continued,
+he lowered his tone to one of earnestness, striking in a man so rough,
+"there are abuses, and there must be an end of them. There are
+tyrants, and they must go. There are men and women and children
+starving, and there must be an end of that. There is grinding of the
+faces of the poor, Monseigneur--not here, but everywhere round us--and
+there must be an end of that. And the poor pay taxes and the rich go
+free; the poor make the roads, and the rich use them; the poor have no
+salt, while the King eats gold. To all these things there is now to be
+an end--quietly, if the seigneurs will--but an end. An end,
+Monseigneur, though we burn chateaux," he added grimly.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VI.
+
+                        A MEETING IN THE ROAD.
+
+
+The unlooked-for eloquence which rang in the blacksmith's words, and
+the assurance of his tone, no less than this startling disclosure of
+thoughts with which I had never dreamed of crediting him, or any
+peasant, took me so aback for a moment that I stood silent. Doury
+seized the occasion, and struck in.
+
+"You see now, M. le Vicomte," he said complacently, "the necessity for
+such a Committee. The King's peace must be maintained."
+
+"I see," I answered harshly, "that there are violent men abroad, who
+were better in the stocks. Committee? Let the King's officers keep the
+King's peace! The proper machinery----"
+
+"It is shattered!"
+
+The words were Doury's. The next moment he quailed at his presumption.
+"Then let it be repaired!" I thundered. "_Mon Dieu!_ that a set of
+tavern cooks and base-born rascals should go about the country prating
+of it, and prating to me! Go, I will have nothing to do with you or
+your Committee. Go, I say!"
+
+"Nevertheless--a little patience, M. le Vicomte," he persisted,
+chagrin on his pale face--"nevertheless, if any of the nobility would
+give us countenance, you most of all----"
+
+"There would then be some one to hang instead of Doury!" I answered
+bluntly. "Some one behind whom he could shield himself, and lesser
+villains hide. But I will not be the stalking-horse."
+
+"And yet, in other provinces," he answered desperately, his
+disappointment more and more pronounced, "M. de Liancourt and M. de
+Rochefoucauld have not disdained to----"
+
+"Nevertheless, I disdain!" I retorted. "And more, I tell you, and I
+bid you remember it, you will have to answer for the work you are
+doing. I have told you it is treason. It is treason; I will have
+neither act nor part in it. Now go."
+
+"There will be burning," the smith muttered.
+
+"Begone!" I said sternly. "If you do not----"
+
+"Before the morn is old the sky will be red," he answered. "On your
+head, Seigneur, be it!"
+
+I aimed a blow at him with my cane; but he avoided it with a kind of
+dignity, and stalked away, Doury following him with a pale, hang-dog
+face, and his finery sitting very ill upon him. I stood and watched
+them go, and then I turned to the Cure to hear what he had to say.
+
+But I found him gone also. He, too, had slipped away; through the
+house, to intercept them at the gates, perhaps, and dissuade them. I
+waited for him, querulously tapping the walk with my stick, and
+watching the corner of the house. Presently he came round it, holding
+his hat an inch or two above his head, his lean, tall figure almost
+shadowless, for it was noon. I noticed that his lips moved as he came
+towards me; but, when I spoke, he looked up cheerfully.
+
+"Yes," he said in answer to my question, "I went through the house,
+and stopped them."
+
+"It would be useless," I said. "Men so mad as to think that they could
+replace his Majesty's Government with a Committee of smiths and
+pastrycooks----"
+
+"I have joined it," he answered, smiling faintly.
+
+"The Committee?" I ejaculated, breathless with surprise.
+
+"Even so."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Why?" he said quietly. "Have I not always predicted this day? Is not
+this what Rousseau, with his _Social Contract_, and Beaumarchais, with
+his 'Figaro,' and every philosopher who ever repeated the one, and
+every fine lady who ever applauded the other, have been teaching?
+Well, it has come, and I have advised you, M. le Vicomte, to stand by
+your order. But I, a poor man, I stand by mine. And for the Committee
+of what seems to you, my friend, impossible people, is not any kind
+of government"--this more warmly, and as if he were arguing with
+himself--"better than none? Understand, Monsieur, the old machinery
+has broken down. The Intendant has fled. The people defy the
+magistrates. The soldiers side with the people. The _huissiers_ and
+tax collectors are--the Good God knows where!"
+
+"Then," I said indignantly, "it is time for the gentry to----"
+
+"Take the lead and govern?" he rejoined. "By whom? A handful of
+servants and game-keepers? Against the people? against such a mob as
+you saw in the Square at Cahors? Impossible, Monsieur."
+
+"But the world seems to be turning upside down," I said helplessly.
+
+"The greater need of a strong unchanging holdfast--not of the world,"
+he answered reverently; and he lifted his hat a moment from his head
+and stood in thought. Then he continued: "However, the matter is this.
+I hear from Doury that the gentry are gathering at Cahors, with the
+view of combining, as you suggest, and checking the people. Now, it
+must be useless, and it may be worse. It may lead to the very excesses
+they would prevent."
+
+"In Cahors?"
+
+"No, in the country. Buton, be sure, did not speak without warrant. He
+is a good man, but he knows some who are not, and there are lonely
+chateaux in Quercy, and dainty women who have never known the touch of
+a rough hand, and--and children."
+
+"But," I cried aghast, "do you fear a Jacquerie?"
+
+"God knows," he answered solemnly. "The fathers have eaten sour
+grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. How many years have
+men spent at Versailles the peasant's blood, life, bone, flesh! To pay
+back at last, it may be, of their own! But God forbid, Monsieur, God
+forbid. Yet, if ever--it comes now."
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+When he was gone I could not rest. His words had raised a fever in me.
+What might not be afoot, what might not be going on, while I lay idle?
+And, presently, to quench my thirst for news, I mounted and rode out
+on the way to Cahors. The day was hot, the time for riding ill-chosen;
+but the exercise did me good. I began to recover from the giddiness of
+thought into which the Cure's fears, coming on the top of Buton's
+warning, had thrown me. For a while I had seen things with their eyes;
+I had allowed myself to be carried away by their imaginations; and the
+prospect of a France ruled by a set of farriers and postillions had
+not seemed so bizarre as it began to look, now that I had time,
+mounting the long hill, which lies one league from Saux and two from
+Cahors, to consider it calmly. For a moment, the wild idea of a whole
+gentry fleeing like hares before their peasantry, had not seemed so
+very wild.
+
+Now, on reflection, beginning to see things in their normal sizes, I
+called myself a simpleton. A Jacquerie? Three centuries and more had
+passed since France had known the thing in the dark ages. Could any,
+save a child alone in the night, or a romantic maiden solitary in
+her rock castle, dream of its recurrence? True, as I skirted St.
+Alais, which lies a little aside from the road, at the foot of the
+hill, I saw at the village-turning a sullen group of faces that
+should have been bent over the hoe; a group, gloomy, discontented,
+waiting--waiting, with shock heads and eyes glittering under low
+brows, for God knows what. But I had seen such a gathering before; in
+bad times, when seed was lacking, or when despair, or some excessive
+outrage on the part of the _fermier_, had driven the peasants to fold
+their hands and quit the fields. And always it had ended in nothing,
+or a hanging at most. Why should I suppose that anything would come of
+it now, or that a spark in Paris must kindle a fire here?
+
+In fact, I as good as made up my mind; and laughed at my simplicity.
+The Cure had let his predictions run away with him, and Buton's
+ignorance and credulity had done the rest. What, I now saw, could be
+more absurd than to suppose that France, the first, the most stable,
+the most highly civilised of States, wherein for two centuries none
+had resisted the royal power and stood, could become in a moment the
+theatre of barbarous excesses? What more absurd than to conceive it
+turned into the _Petit Trianon_ of a gang of _roturiers_ and
+_canaille?_
+
+At this point in my thoughts I broke off, for, as I reached it, a
+coach came slowly over the ridge before me and began to descend the
+road. For a space it hung clear-cut against the sky, the burly figure
+of the coachman and the heads of the two lackeys who swung behind it
+visible above the hood. Then it began to drop down cautiously towards
+me. The men behind sprang down and locked the wheels, and the
+lumbering vehicle slid and groaned downwards, the wheelers pressing
+back, the leading horses tossing their heads impatiently. The road
+there descends not in _lacets_, but straight, for nearly half a mile
+between poplars; and on the summer air the screaming of the wheels and
+the jingling of the harness came distinctly to the ear.
+
+Presently I made out that the coach was Madame St. Alais'; and I felt
+inclined to turn and avoid it. But the next moment pride came to my
+aid, and I shook my reins and went on to meet it.
+
+I had scarcely seen a person except Father Benoit since the affair at
+Cahors, and my cheek flamed at the thought of the _rencontre_ before
+me. For the same reason the coach seemed to come on very slowly; but
+at last I came abreast of it, passed the straining horses, and looked
+into the carriage with my hat in my hand, fearing that I might see
+Madame, hoping I might see Louis, ready with a formal salute at least.
+Politeness required no less.
+
+But sitting in the place of honour, instead of M. le Marquis, or his
+mother, or M. le Comte, was one little figure throned in the middle of
+the seat; a little figure with a pale inquiring face that blushed
+scarlet at sight of me, and eyes that opened wide with fright, and
+lips that trembled piteously. It was Mademoiselle!
+
+Had I known a moment earlier that she was in the carriage and alone, I
+should have passed by in silence; as was doubtless my duty after what
+had happened. I was the last person who should have intruded on her.
+But the men, grinning, I dare say, at the encounter--for probably
+Madame's treatment of me was the talk of the house--had drawn up, and
+I had reined up instinctively; so that before I quite understood that
+she was alone, save for two maids who sat with their backs to the
+horses, we were gazing at one another--like two fools!
+
+"Mademoiselle!" I said.
+
+"Monsieur!" she answered mechanically.
+
+Now, when I had said that, I had said all that I had a right to say. I
+should have saluted, and gone on with that. But something impelled me
+to add--"Mademoiselle is going--to St. Alais?"
+
+Her lips moved, but I heard no sound. She stared at me like one under
+a spell. The elder of her women, however, answered for her, and said
+briskly:----
+
+"Ah, _oui_, Monsieur."
+
+"And Madame de St. Alais?"
+
+"Madame remains at Cahors," the woman answered in the same tone, "with
+M. le Marquis, who has business."
+
+Then, at any rate, I should have gone on; but the girl sat looking at
+me, silent and blushing; and something in the picture, something in
+the thought of her arriving alone and unprotected at St. Alais, taken
+with a memory of the lowering faces I had seen in the village,
+impelled me to stand and linger; and finally to blurt out what I had
+in my mind.
+
+"Mademoiselle," I said impulsively, ignoring her attendants, "if you
+will take my advice--you will not go on."
+
+One of the women muttered "_Ma foi!_" under her breath. The other said
+"Indeed!" and tossed her head impertinently. But Mademoiselle found
+her voice.
+
+"Why, Monsieur?" she said clearly and sweetly, her eyes wide with a
+surprise that for the moment overcame her shyness.
+
+"Because," I answered diffidently--I repented already that I had
+spoken--"the state of the country is such--I mean that Madame la
+Marquise scarcely understands perhaps that--that----"
+
+"What, Monsieur?" Mademoiselle asked primly.
+
+"That at St. Alais," I stammered, "there is a good deal of discontent,
+Mademoiselle, and----"
+
+"At St. Alais?" she said.
+
+"In the neighbourhood, I should have said," I answered awkwardly.
+"And--and in fine," I continued very much embarrassed, "it would be
+better, in my poor opinion, for Mademoiselle to turn and----"
+
+"Accompany Monsieur, perhaps?" one of the women said; and she giggled
+insolently.
+
+Mademoiselle St. Alais flashed a look at the offender, that made me
+wink. Then with her cheeks burning, she said:----
+
+"Drive on!"
+
+I was foolish and would not let ill alone. "But, Mademoiselle," I
+said, "a thousand pardons, but----"
+
+"Drive on!" she repeated; this time in a tone, which, though it was
+still sweet and clear, was not to be gainsaid. The maid who had not
+offended--the other looked no little scared--repeated the order, the
+coach began to move, and in a moment I was left in the road, sitting
+on my horse with my hat in my hand, and looking foolishly at nothing.
+
+The straight road running down between lines of poplars, the
+descending coach, lurching and jolting as it went, the faces of the
+grinning lackeys as they looked back at me through the dust--I well
+remember them all. They form a picture strangely vivid and distinct in
+that gallery where so many more important have faded into nothingness.
+I was hot, angry, vexed with myself; conscious that I had trespassed
+beyond the becoming, and that I more than deserved the repulse I had
+suffered. But through all ran a thread of a new feeling--a quite new
+feeling. Mademoiselle's face moved before my eyes--showing through the
+dust; her eyes full of dainty surprise, or disdain as delicate,
+accompanied me as I rode. I thought of her, not of Buton or Doury, the
+Committee or the Cure, the heat or the dull road. I ceased to
+speculate except on the chances of a peasant rising. That, that alone
+assumed a new and more formidable aspect; and became in a moment
+imminent and probable. The sight of Mademoiselle's childish face had
+given a reality to Buton's warnings, which all the Cure's hints had
+failed to impart to them.
+
+So much did the thought now harass me, that to escape it I shook up my
+horse, and cantered on, Gil and Andre following, and wondering,
+doubtless, why I did not turn. But, wholly taken up with the horrid
+visions which the blacksmith's words had called up, I took no heed of
+time until I awoke to find myself more than half-way on the road to
+Cahors, which lies three leagues and a mile from Saux. Then I drew
+rein and stood in the road, in a fit of excitement and indecision.
+Within the half-hour I might be at Madame St. Alais' door in Cahors,
+and, whatever happened then, I should have no need to reproach myself.
+Or in a little more I might be at home, ingloriously safe.
+
+Which was it to be? The moment, though I did not know it, was fateful.
+On the one hand, Mademoiselle's face, her beauty, her innocence, her
+helplessness, pleaded with me strangely, and dragged me on to give the
+warning. On the other, my pride urged me to return, and avoid such a
+reception as I had every reason to expect.
+
+In the end I went on. In less than half an hour I had crossed the
+Valaridre bridge.
+
+Yet it must not be supposed that I decided without doubt, or went
+forward without misgiving. The taunts and sneers to which Madame had
+treated me were too recent for that; and a dozen times pride and
+resentment almost checked my steps, and I turned and went home again.
+On each occasion, however, the ugly faces and brutish eyes I had seen
+in the village rose before me; I remembered the hatred in which
+Gargouf, the St. Alais' steward, was held; I pictured the horrors that
+might be enacted before help could come from Cahors; and I went on.
+
+Yet with a mind made up to ridicule; which even the crowded streets,
+when I reached them, failed to relieve, though they wore an
+unmistakable air of excitement. Groups of people, busily conversing,
+were everywhere to be seen; and in two or three places men were
+standing on stools--in a fashion then new to me--haranguing knots of
+idlers. Some of the shops were shut, there were guards before others,
+and before the bakehouses. I remarked a great number of journals and
+pamphlets in men's hands, and that where these were, the talk rose
+loudest. In some places, too, my appearance seemed to create
+excitement, but this was of a doubtful character, a few greeting me
+respectfully, while more stared at me in silence. Several asked me, as
+I passed, if I brought news, and seemed disappointed when I said I did
+not; and at two points a handful of people hooted me.
+
+This angered me a little, but I forgot it in a thing still more
+surprising. Presently, as I rode, I heard my name called; and turning,
+found M. de Gontaut hurrying after me as fast as his dignity and
+lameness would permit. He leaned, as usual, on the arm of a servant,
+his other hand holding a cane and snuff-box; and two stout fellows
+followed him. I had no reason to suppose that he would appreciate the
+service I had done him more highly, or acknowledge it more gratefully,
+than on the day of the riot; and my surprise was great when he came
+up, his face all smiles.
+
+"Nothing, for months, has given me so much pleasure as this," he said,
+saluting me with overwhelming cordiality. "By my faith, M. le Vicomte,
+you have outdone us all! You will have such a reception yonder! and
+you have brought two good knaves, I see. It is not fair," he
+continued, nodding his head with senile jocularity. "I declare it is
+not fair. But you know the text? 'There is more joy in heaven over one
+sinner that repenteth than----' Ha! ha! Well, we must not be jealous.
+You have taught them a lesson; and now we are united."
+
+"But, M. le Baron," I said in amazement, as, obeying his gesture, I
+moved on, while he limped jauntily beside me, "I do not understand you
+in the least!"
+
+"You don't?"
+
+"No!" I said.
+
+"Ah! you did not think that we should hear it so soon," he replied,
+shaking his head sagely. "Oh, I can tell you we are well provided. The
+campaign has begun, and the information department has not been
+neglected. Little escapes us, and we shall soon set these rogues
+right. But, for the fact, that damned rascal Doury let it out. I hear
+you told them some fine home-truths. A Committee, the insolents! And
+in our teeth! But you gave them a sharp set-back, I hear, M. le
+Vicomte. If you had joined it, now----"
+
+He stopped abruptly. A man crossing the street had slightly jostled
+him. The old noble lost his temper, and on the instant raised his
+stick with a passionate oath, and the man cowered away begging his
+pardon. But M. de Gontaut was not to be appeased.
+
+"Vagabond!" he cried after him, in a voice trembling with rage, "you
+would throw me down again, would you? We will put you in your place
+by-and-by. We will; why, _Dieu!_ when I was young----"
+
+"But, M. le Baron," I said to divert his attention, for two or three
+bystanders were casting ugly looks at us, and I saw that it needed
+little to bring about a fracas, "are you quite sure that we shall be
+able to keep them in check?"
+
+The old noble still trembled, but he drew himself up with a gesture of
+pathetic gallantry.
+
+"You shall see!" he cried. "When it comes to hard knocks, you shall
+see, Monsieur. But here we are; and there is Madame St. Alais on the
+balcony with some of her bodyguard." He paused to kiss his hand, with
+the air of a Polignac. "Up there, M. le Vicomte, you will see what you
+will see," he continued. "And I--I shall be in luck, too, for I have
+brought you."
+
+It seemed to me more like a dream than a reality. A fortnight before,
+I had been spurned from this house with insults; I had been bidden
+never to enter it again. Now, on the balconies, from which pretty
+faces and powdered heads looked down, handkerchiefs fluttered to greet
+me. On the stairs, which, crowded with servants and lackeys, shook
+under the constant stream of comers and goers, I was received with a
+hum of applause. In every corner snuff-boxes were being tapped and
+canes handled; the flashing of roguish eyes behind fans vied with the
+glitter of mirrors. And through all a lane was made for me. At the
+door Louis met me. A little farther on, Madame came half-way across
+the room to me. It was a triumph--a triumph which I found
+inexplicable, unintelligible, until I learned that the rebuff which I
+had administered to the deputation had been exaggerated a dozen times,
+nay, a hundred times, until it met even the wishes of the most
+violent; while the sober and thoughtful were too glad to hail in my
+adhesion the proof of that reaction, which the Royalist party, from
+the first day of the troubles, never ceased to expect.
+
+No wonder that, taken by surprise and intoxicated with incense, I let
+myself go. To have declared in that company and with Madame's gracious
+words in my ears, that I had not come to join them, that I had come on
+a different errand altogether, that though I had repelled the
+deputation I had no intention of acting against it, would have
+required a courage and a hardness I could not boast; while the
+circumstances of the deputation, Doury's presumption and Buton's
+hints, to say nothing of the violence of the Parisian mob, had not
+failed to impress me unfavourably. With a thousand others who had
+prepared themselves to welcome reform, I recoiled when I saw the
+lengths to which it was tending; and, though nothing had been farther
+from my mind when I entered Cahors than to join myself to the St.
+Alais faction, I found it impossible to reject their apologies on the
+spot, or explain on the instant the real purpose with which I had come
+to them.
+
+I was, in fact, the sport of circumstances; weak, it will be said, in
+the wrong place and stubborn in the wrong; betraying a boy's petulance
+at one time, and a boy's fickleness at another; and now a tool and now
+a churl. Perhaps truly. But it was a time of trial; nor was I the only
+man or the oldest man who, in those days, changed his opinions, and
+again within the week went back; or who found it hard to find a
+cockade, white, black, red or tricolour, to his taste.
+
+Besides, flattery is sweet, and I was young; moreover, I had
+Mademoiselle in my head and nothing could exceed Madame's
+graciousness. I think she valued me the more for my late revolt, and
+prided herself on my reduction in proportion as I had shown myself
+able to resist.
+
+"Few words are better, M. le Vicomte," she said, with a dignity which
+honoured me equally with herself. "Many things have happened since I
+saw you. We are neither of us quite of the same opinion. Forgive me. A
+woman's word and a man's sword do no dishonour."
+
+I bowed, blushing with pleasure. After a fortnight spent in solitude
+these moving groups, bowing, smiling, talking in low, earnest tones of
+the one purpose, the one aim, had immense influence with me. I felt
+the contagion. I let Madame take me into her confidence.
+
+"The King"--it was always the King with her--"in a week or two the
+King will assert himself. As yet his ear has been abused. It will
+pass; in the meantime we must take our proper places. We must arm our
+servants and keepers, repress disorder and resist encroachment."
+
+"And the Committee, Madame?"
+
+She tapped me, smiling, with the ends of her dainty fingers.
+
+"We will treat it as you treated it," she said.
+
+"You think that you will be strong enough?"
+
+"We," she answered.
+
+"We?" I said, correcting myself with a blush.
+
+"Why not? How can it be otherwise?" she replied, looking proudly round
+her. "Can you look round and doubt it, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"But France?" I said.
+
+"We are France," she retorted with a superb gesture.
+
+And certainly the splendid crowd that filled her rooms was almost
+warrant for the words; a crowd of stately men and fair women such as I
+have only seen once or twice since those days. Under the surface there
+may have been pettiness and senility; the exhaustion of vice; jealousy
+and lukewarmness and dissension; but the powder and patches, the silks
+and velvets of the old _regime_, gave to all a semblance of strength,
+and at least the appearance of dignity. If few were soldiers, all wore
+swords and could use them. The fact that the small sword, so powerful
+a weapon in the duel, is useless against a crowd armed with stones and
+clubs had not yet been made clear. Nothing seemed more easy than for
+two or three hundred swordsmen to rule a province.
+
+At any rate I found nothing but what was feasible in the notion; and
+with little real reluctance, if no great enthusiasm, I pinned on the
+white cockade. Putting all thoughts of present reform from my mind, I
+agreed that order--order was the one pressing need of the country.
+
+On that all were agreed, and all were hopeful. I heard no misgivings,
+but a good deal of vapouring, in which poor M. de Gontaut, with the
+palsy almost upon him, had his part. No one dropped a hint of danger
+in the country, or of a revolt of the peasants. Even to me, as I stood
+in the brilliant crowd, the danger grew to seem so remote and unreal,
+that, delicacy as well as the fear of ridicule, kept me silent. I
+could not speak of Mademoiselle without awkwardness, and so the
+warning which I had come to give died on my lips. I saw that I should
+be laughed at, I fancied myself deceived, and I was silent.
+
+It was only when, after promising to return next day, I stood at the
+door prepared to leave, and found myself alone with Louis, that I let
+a word fall. Then I asked him with a little hesitation if he thought
+that his sister was quite safe at St. Alais.
+
+"Why not?" he said easily, with his hand on my shoulder.
+
+"The 'trouble is not in the town only," I hinted. "Nor perhaps the
+worst of the trouble."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "You think too much of it, _mon cher_," he
+answered. "Believe me, now that we are at one the trouble is over."
+
+And that was the evening of the 4th of August, the day on which the
+Assembly in Paris renounced at a single sitting all immunities,
+exemptions, and privileges, all feudal dues, and fines, and rights,
+all tolls, all tithes, the salt tax, the game laws, _capitaineries!_
+At one sitting, on that evening; and Louis thought that the trouble
+was over!
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII.
+
+                              THE ALARM.
+
+
+At that time, a brazier in the market-place, and three or four
+lanterns at street crossings, made up the most of the public lighting.
+When I paused, therefore, to breathe my horse on the brow of the
+slope, beyond the Valandre bridge, and looked back on Cahors, I saw
+only darkness, broken here and there by a blur of yellow light; that
+still, by throwing up a fragment of wall or eaves, told in a
+mysterious way of the sleeping city.
+
+The river, a faint, shimmering line, conjectured rather than seen,
+wound round all. Above, clouds were flying across the sky, and a wind,
+cold for the time of year--cold, at least, after the heat of the
+day--chilled the blood, and slowly filled the mind with the solemnity
+of night.
+
+As I stood listening to the breathing of the horses, the excitement in
+which I had passed the last few hours died away, and left me
+wondering--wondering, and a little regretful. The exaltation gone, I
+found the scene I had just left flavourless; I even presently began to
+find it worse. Some false note in the cynical, boastful voices and the
+selfish--the utterly selfish--plans, to which I had been listening for
+hours, made itself heard in the stillness. Madame's "We are France,"
+which had sounded well amid the lights and glitter of the _salon_,
+among laces and _fripons_ and rose-pink coats, seemed folly in the
+face of the infinite night, behind which lay twenty-five millions of
+Frenchmen.
+
+However, what I had done, I had done. I had the white cockade on my
+breast; I was pledged to order--and to my order. And it might be the
+better course. But, with reflection, enthusiasm faded; and, by some
+strange process, as it faded, and the scene in which I had just taken
+part lost its hold, the errand that had brought me to Cahors recovered
+importance. As Madame St. Alais' influence grew weak, the memory of
+Mademoiselle, sitting lonely and scared in her coach, grew vivid,
+until I turned my horse fretfully, and endeavoured to lose the thought
+in rapid movement.
+
+But it is not so easy to escape from oneself at night, as in the day.
+The soughing of the wind through the chestnut trees, the drifting
+clouds, and the sharp ring of hoofs on the road, all laid as it were a
+solemn finger on the pulses and stilled them. The men behind me talked
+in sleepy voices, or rode silently. The town lay a hundred leagues
+behind. Not a light appeared on the upland. In the world of night
+through which we rode, a world of black, mysterious bulks rising
+suddenly against the grey sky, and as suddenly sinking, we were the
+only inhabitants.
+
+At last we reached the hill above St. Alais, and I looked eagerly for
+lights in the valley; forgetting that, as it wanted only an hour of
+midnight, the village would have retired hours before. The
+disappointment, and the delay--for the steepness of the hill forbade
+any but a walking pace--fretted me; and when I heard, a moment later,
+a certain noise behind me, a noise I knew only too well, I flared up.
+
+"Stay, fool!" I cried, reining in my horse, and turning in the saddle.
+"That mare has broken her shoe again, and you are riding on as if
+nothing were the matter! Get down--and see. Do you think that I----"
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur," Gil muttered. He had been sleeping in his saddle.
+
+He scrambled down. The mare he rode, a valuable one, had a knack of
+breaking her hind shoe; after which she never failed to lame herself
+at the first opportunity. Buton had tried every method of shoeing, but
+without success.
+
+I sprang to the ground while he lifted the foot. My ear had not
+deceived me; the shoe was broken. Gil tried to remove the jagged
+fragment left on the hoof, but the mare was restive, and he had to
+desist.
+
+"She cannot go to Saux in that state," I said angrily.
+
+The men were silent for a moment, peering at the mare. Then Gil spoke.
+
+"The St. Alais forge is not three hundred yards down the lane,
+Monsieur," he said. "And the turn is yonder. We could knock up Petit
+Jean, and get him to bring his pincers here. Only----"
+
+"Only what?" I said peevishly.
+
+"I quarrelled with him at Cahors Fair, Monsieur," Gil answered
+sheepishly; "and he might not come for us."
+
+"Very well," I said gruffly, "I will go. And do you stay here, and
+keep the mare quiet."
+
+Andre held the stirrup for me to mount. The smithy, the first hovel in
+the village, was a quarter of a mile away, and, in reason, I should
+have ridden to it. But, in my irritation, I was ready to do anything
+they did not propose, and, roughly rejecting his help, I started on
+foot. Fifty paces brought me to the branch road that led to St. Alais,
+and, making out the turning with a little difficulty, I plunged into
+it; losing, in a moment, the cheerful sound of jingling bits and the
+murmur of the men's voices.
+
+Poplars rose on high banks on either side of the lane, and made the
+place as dark as a pit, and I had almost to grope my way. A stumble
+added to my irritation, and I cursed the St. Alais for the ruts, and
+the moon for its untimely setting. The ceaseless whispering of the
+poplar leaves went with me, and, in some unaccountable way, annoyed
+me. I stumbled again, and swore at Gil, and then stopped to listen. I
+was in the road, and yet I heard the jingling of bits again, as if the
+horses were following me.
+
+I stopped angrily to listen, thinking that the men had disobeyed my
+orders. Then I found that the sound came from the front, and was
+heavier and harder than the ringing of bit or bridle. I groped my way
+forward, wondering somewhat, until a faint, ruddy light, shining on
+the darkness and the poplars, prepared me for the truth--welcome,
+though it seemed of the strangest--that the forge was at work.
+
+As I took this in, I turned a corner, and came within sight of the
+smithy; and stood in astonishment. The forge was in full blast. Two
+hammers were at work; I could see them rising and falling, and hear,
+though they seemed to be muffled, the rhythmical jarring clang as they
+struck the metal. The ruddy glare of the fire flooded the road and
+burnished the opposite trees, and flung long, black shadows on the
+sky.
+
+Such a sight filled me with the utmost astonishment, for it was nearly
+midnight. Fortunately something else I saw astonished me still more,
+and stayed my foot. Between the point where I stood by the hedge and
+the forge a number of men were moving, and flitting to and fro; men
+with bare arms and matted heads, half-naked, with skins burned black.
+It would have been hard to count them, they shifted so quickly; and I
+did not try. It was enough for me that one half of them carried pikes
+and pitchforks, that one man seemed to be detailing them into groups,
+and giving them directions; and that, notwithstanding the occasional
+jar of the hammers, an air of ferocious stealth marked their
+movements.
+
+For a moment I stood rooted to the spot. Then, instinctively, I
+stepped aside into the shadow of the hedge, and looked again. The man
+who acted as the leader carried an axe on his shoulder, the broad
+blade of which, as it caught the glow of the furnace, seemed to be
+bathed in blood. He was never still--this man. One moment he moved
+from group to group, gesticulating, ordering, encouraging. Now he
+pulled a man out of one troop and thrust him forcibly into another;
+now he made a little speech, which was dumb play to me, a hundred
+paces away; now he went into the forge, and his huge bulk for a moment
+intercepted the light. It was Petit Jean, the smith.
+
+I made use of the momentary darkness which he caused on one of these
+occasions, and stole a little nearer. For I knew now what was before
+me. I knew perfectly that all this meant blood, fire, outrage, flames
+rising to heaven, screams startling the stricken night! But I must
+know more, if I would do anything. I went nearer therefore, creeping
+along the hedge, and crouching in the ditch, until no more than twelve
+yards separated me from the muster. Then I stood still, as Petit Jean
+came out again, to distribute another bundle of weapons, clutched
+instantly and eagerly by grimy hands. I could hear now, and I
+shuddered at what I heard. Gargouf was in every mouth. Gargouf, the
+St. Alais' steward, coupled with grisly tortures and slow deaths, with
+old sins, and outrages, and tyrannies, now for the first time voiced,
+now to be expiated!
+
+At last, one man laid the torch by crying aloud, "To the Chateau! To
+the Chateau!" and in an instant the words changed the feelings with
+which I had hitherto stared into immediate horror. I started forward.
+My impulse, for a moment, was to step into the light and confront
+them--to persuade, menace, cajole, turn them any way from their
+purpose. But, in the same moment, reflection showed me the
+hopelessness of the attempt. These were no longer peasants, dull,
+patient clods, such as I had known all my life; but maddened beasts; I
+read it in their gestures and the growl of their voices. To step
+forward would be only to sacrifice myself; and with this thought I
+crept back, gained the deeper shadow, and, turning on my heel, sped
+down the lane. The ruts and the darkness were no longer anything to
+me. If I stumbled, I did not notice it. If I fell, it was no matter.
+In less than a minute I was standing, breathless, by the astonished
+servants, striving to tell them quickly what they must do.
+
+"The village is rising!" I panted. "They are going to burn the
+Chateau, and Mademoiselle is in it! Gil, ride, gallop, lose not a
+minute, to Cahors, and tell M. le Marquis. He must bring what forces
+he can. And do you, Andre, go to Saux. Tell Father Benoit. Bid him do
+his utmost--bring all he can."
+
+For answer, they stared, open-mouthed, through the dusk. "And the
+mare, Monsieur?" one asked at last dully.
+
+"Fool! let her go!" I cried. "The mare? Do you understand? The Chateau
+is----"
+
+"And you, Monsieur?"
+
+"I am going to the house by the garden wing. Now go! Go, men!" I
+continued'. "A hundred livres to each of you if the house is saved!"
+
+I said the house because I dared not speak what was really in my mind;
+because I dared not picture the girl, young, helpless, a woman, in the
+hands of those monsters. Yet it was that which goaded me now, it was
+that which gave me such strength that, before the men had ridden many
+yards, I had forced my way through the thick fence, as if it had been
+a mass of cobwebs. Once on the other side, in the open, I hastened
+across one field and a second, skirted the village, and made for the
+gardens which abutted on the east wing of the Chateau. I knew these
+well; the part farthest from the house, and most easy of entrance, was
+a wilderness, in which I had often played as a child. There was no
+fence round this, except a wooden paling, and none between it and the
+more orderly portion; while a side door opened from the latter into a
+passage leading to the great hall of the Chateau. The house, a long,
+regular building, reared by the Marquis's father, was composed of two
+wings and a main block. All faced the end of the village street at a
+distance of a hundred paces; a wide, dusty, ill-planted avenue leading
+from the iron gates, which stood always open, to the state entrance.
+
+The rioters had only a short distance to go, therefore, and no
+obstacle between them and the house; none when they reached it of
+greater consequence than ordinary doors and shutters, should the
+latter be closed. As I ran, I shuddered to think how defenceless all
+lay; and how quickly the wretches, bursting in the doors, would
+overrun the shining parquets, and sweep up the spacious staircase.
+
+The thought added wings to my feet. I had farther to go than they had,
+and over hedges, but before the first sounds of their approach reached
+the house I was already in the wilderness, and forcing my way through
+it, stumbling over stumps and bushes, falling more than once, covered
+with dust and sweat, but still pushing on.
+
+At last I sprang into the open garden, with its shadowy walks, and
+nymphs, and fauns; and looked towards the village. A dull red light
+was beginning to show among the trunks of the avenue; a murmur of
+voices sounded in the distance. They were coming! I wasted no more
+than a single glance; then I ran down the walk, between the statues.
+In a moment I passed into the darker shadow under the house, I was at
+the door. I thrust my shoulder against it. It resisted; it resisted!
+and every moment was precious. I could no longer see the approaching
+lights nor hear the voices of the crowd--the angle of the house
+intervened; but I could imagine only too vividly how they were coming
+on; I fancied them already at the great door.
+
+I hammered on the panels with my fist; then I fumbled for the latch,
+and found it. It rose, but the door held. I shook it. I shook it again
+in a frenzy; at last, forgetting caution, I shouted--shouted more
+loudly. Then, after an age, as it seemed to me, standing panting in
+the darkness, I heard halting footsteps come along the passage, and
+saw a line of light grow, and brighten under the door. At last a
+quavering voice asked:----
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"M. de Saux," I answered impatiently. "M. de Saux! Let me in. Let me
+in, do you hear?" And I struck the panels wrathfully.
+
+"Monsieur," the voice answered, quavering more and more, "is there
+anything the matter?"
+
+"Matter? They are going to burn the house, fool!" I cried. "Open!
+open! if you do not wish to be burned in your beds!"
+
+For a moment I fancied that the man still hesitated. Then he unbarred.
+In a twinkling I was inside, in a narrow passage, with dingy, stained
+walls. An old man, lean-jawed and feeble, an old valet whom I had
+often seen at worsted work in the ante-room, confronted me, holding an
+iron candlestick. The light shook in his hands, and his jaw fell as he
+looked at me. I saw that I had nothing to expect from him, and I
+snatched the bar from his hands, and set it back in its place myself.
+Then I seized the light.
+
+"Quick!" I said passionately. "To your mistress."
+
+"Monsieur?"
+
+"Upstairs! Upstairs!"
+
+He had more to say, but I did not wait to hear it. Knowing the way,
+and having the candle, I left him, and hurried along the passage.
+Stumbling over three or four mattresses that lay on the floor,
+doubtless for the servants, I reached the hall. Here my taper shone a
+mere speck in a cavern of blackness; but it gave me light enough to
+see that the door was barred, and I turned to the staircase. As I set
+my foot on the lowest step the old valet, who was following me as
+fast as his trembling legs would carry him, blundered against a
+spinning-wheel that stood in the hall. It fell with a clatter, and in
+a moment a chorus of screams and cries broke out above. I sprang
+up the stairs three at a stride, and on the lobby came on the
+screamers--a terrified group, whose alarm the doubtful light of a
+tallow candle, that stood beside them on the floor, could not
+exaggerate. Nearest to me stood an old footman and a boy--their
+terror-stricken eyes met mine as I mounted the last stairs. Behind
+them, and crouching against a tapestry-covered seat that ran along the
+wall, were the rest; three or four women, who shrieked and hid their
+faces in one another's garments. They did not look up or take any heed
+of me; but continued to scream steadily.
+
+The old man with a quavering oath tried to still them.
+
+"Where is Gargouf?" I asked him.
+
+"He has gone to fasten the back doors, Monsieur," he answered.
+
+"And Mademoiselle?"
+
+"She is yonder."
+
+He turned as he spoke; and I saw behind him a heavy curtain hiding the
+oriel window of the lobby. It moved while I looked, and Mademoiselle
+emerged from its folds, her small, childish face pale, but strangely
+composed. She wore a light, loose robe, hastily arranged, and had her
+hair hanging free at her back. In the gloom and confusion, which the
+feeble candles did little to disperse, she did not at first see me.
+
+"Has Gargouf come back?" she asked.
+
+"No, Mademoiselle, but----"
+
+The man was going to point me out; she interrupted him with a sharp
+cry of anger.
+
+"Stop these fools," she said. "Oh, stop these fools! I cannot hear
+myself speak. Let some one call Gargouf! Is there no one to do
+anything?"
+
+One of the old men pottered off to do it, leaving her standing in the
+middle of the terror-stricken group; a white pathetic little figure,
+keeping fear at bay with both hands. The dark curtains behind threw
+her face and form into high relief; but admiration was the last
+thought in my mind.
+
+"Mademoiselle," I said, "you must fly by the garden door."
+
+She started and stared at me, her eyes dilating.
+
+"Monsieur de Saux," she muttered. "Are you here? I do not--I do not
+understand. I thought----"
+
+"The village is rising," I said. "In a moment they will be here."
+
+"They are here already," she answered faintly.
+
+She meant only that she had seen their approach from the window; but a
+dull murmur that at the moment rose on the air outside, and
+penetrating the walls, grew each instant louder and more sinister,
+seemed to give another significance to her words. The women listened
+with white faces, then began to scream afresh. A reckless movement of
+one of them dashed out the nearer of the two lights. The old man who
+had admitted me began to whimper.
+
+"O _mon Dieu!_" I cried fiercely, "can no one still these cravens?"
+For the noise almost robbed me of the power of thought, and never had
+thought been more necessary. "Be still, fools," I continued, "no one
+will hurt _you_. And do you, Mademoiselle, please to come with me.
+There is not a moment to be lost. The garden by which I entered----"
+
+But she looked at me in such a way that I stopped.
+
+"Is it necessary to go?" she said doubtfully. "Is there no other way,
+Monsieur?"
+
+The noise outside was growing louder. "What men have you?" I said.
+
+"Here is Gargouf," she answered promptly. "He will tell you."
+
+I turned to the staircase and saw the steward's face, at all times
+harsh and grim, rising out of the well of the stairs. He had a candle
+in one hand and a pistol in the other; and his features as his eyes
+met mine wore an expression of dogged anger, the sight of which drew
+fresh cries from the women. But I rejoiced to see him, for he at least
+betrayed no signs of flinching. I asked him what men he had.
+
+"You see them," he answered drily, betraying no surprise at my
+presence.
+
+"Only these?"
+
+"There were three more," he said. "But I found the doors unbarred, and
+the men gone. I am keeping this," he continued, with a dark glance at
+his pistol, "for one of them."
+
+"Mademoiselle must go!" I said.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders with an indifference that maddened me.
+"How?" he asked.
+
+"By the garden door."
+
+"They are there. The house is surrounded."
+
+I cried out at that in despair; and on the instant, as if to give
+point to his words, a furious blow fell on the great doors below, and
+awakening every echo in the house, proclaimed that the moment was
+come. A second shock followed; then a rain of blows. While the maids
+shrieked and clung to one another, I looked at Mademoiselle, and she
+at me.
+
+"We must hide you," I muttered.
+
+"No," she said.
+
+"There must be some place," I said, looking round me desperately, and
+disregarding her answer. The noise of the blows was deafening. "In
+the----"
+
+"I will not hide, Monsieur," she answered. Her cheeks were white, and
+her eyes seemed to flicker with each blow. But the maiden who had been
+dumb before me a few days earlier was gone; in her place I saw
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais, conscious of a hundred ancestors. "They are
+our people. I will meet them," she continued, stepping forward
+bravely, though her lip trembled. "Then if they dare----"
+
+"They are mad," I answered. "They are mad! Yet it is a chance; and we
+have few! If I can get to them before they break in, I may do
+something. One moment, Mademoiselle; screen the light, will you?"
+
+Some one did so, and I turned feverishly and caught hold of the
+curtain. But Gargouf was before me. He seized my arm, and for the
+moment checked me.
+
+"What is it? What are you going to do?" he growled.
+
+"Speak to them from the window."
+
+"They will not listen."
+
+"Still I will try. What else is there?"
+
+"Lead and iron," he answered in a tone that made me shiver. "Here are
+M. le Marquis's sporting guns; they shoot straight. Take one, M. le
+Vicomte; I will take the other. There are two more, and the men can
+shoot. We can hold the staircase, at least."
+
+I took one of the guns mechanically, amid a dismal uproar; wailing and
+the thunder of blows within, outside the savage booing of the crowd.
+No help could come for another hour; and for a moment in this
+desperate strait my heart failed me. I wondered at the steward's
+courage.
+
+"You are not afraid?" I said. I knew how he had trampled on the poor
+wretches outside; how he had starved them and ground them down, and
+misused them through long years.
+
+He cursed the dogs.
+
+"You will stand by Mademoiselle?" I said feverishly. I think it was to
+hearten myself by his assurance.
+
+He squeezed my hand in a grip of iron, and I asked no more. In a
+moment, however, I cried aloud.
+
+"Ah, but they will burn the house!" I said. "What is the use of
+holding the staircase, when they can burn us like rats?"
+
+"We shall die together," was his only answer. And he kicked one of the
+weeping, crouching women. "Be still, you whelp!" he said. "Do you
+think that will help you?"
+
+But I heard the door below groan, and I sprang to the window and
+dragged aside the curtain, letting in a ruddy glow that dyed the
+ceiling the colour of blood. My one fear was that I might be too late;
+that the door would yield or the crowd break in at the back before I
+could get a hearing. Luckily, the casement gave to the hand, and I
+thrust it open, and, meeting a cold blast of air, in a twinkling was
+outside, on the narrow ledge of the window over the great doors,
+looking down on such a scene as few chateaux in France had witnessed
+since the days of the third Henry--God be thanked!
+
+A little to one side the great dovecot was burning, and sending up a
+trail of smoke that, blown across the avenue, hid all beyond in a
+murky reek, through which the flames now and again flickered hotly.
+Men, busy as devils, black against the light, were plying the fire
+with straw. Beyond the dovecot, an outhouse and a stack were blazing;
+and nearer, immediately before the house, a crowd of moving figures
+were hurrying to and fro, some battering the doors and windows, others
+bringing fuel, all moving, yelling, laughing--laughing the laughter of
+fiends to the music of crackling flames and shivering glass.
+
+I saw Petit Jean in the forefront giving orders; and men round him.
+There were women, too, hanging on the skirts of the men; and one
+woman, in the midst of all, half-naked, screaming curses, and
+brandishing her arms. It was she who added the last touch of horror to
+the scene; and she, too, who saw me first, and pointed me out with
+dreadful words, and cursed me, and the house, and cried for our blood.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER VIII.
+
+                               GARGOUF.
+
+
+Some called for silence, while others stared at me stupidly, or
+pointed me out to their fellows; but the greater part took up the
+woman's cry, and, enraged by my presence, shook their fists at me, and
+shouted vile threats and viler abuse. For a minute the air rang with
+"_A bas les Seigneurs! A bas les tyrans!_" And I found this bad
+enough. But, presently, whether they caught sight of the steward, or
+merely returned to their first hatred, from which my appearance had
+only for the moment diverted them, the cry changed to a sullen roar of
+"Gargouf! Gargouf!" A roar so full of the lust for blood, and coupled
+with threats so terrible, that the heart sickened and the cheek grew
+pale at the sound.
+
+"Gargouf! Gargouf! Give us Gargouf!" they howled. "Give us Gargouf!
+and he shall eat hot gold! Give us Gargouf, and he shall need no more
+of our daughters!"
+
+I shuddered to think that Mademoiselle heard; shuddered to think of
+the peril in which she stood. The wretches below were no longer men;
+under the influence of this frenzied woman they were mad brute beasts,
+drunk with fire and licence. As the smoke from the burning building
+eddied away for a moment across the crowd and hid it, and still that
+hoarse cry came out of the mirk, I could believe that I heard not men,
+but maddened hounds raving in the kennel.
+
+Again the smoke drifted away; and some one in the rear shot at me. I
+heard the glass splinter beside me. Another, a little nearer, flung up
+a burning fragment that, alighting on the ledge, blazed and spluttered
+by my foot. I kicked it down.
+
+The act, for the moment, stilled the riot, and I seized the
+opportunity. "You dogs!" I said, striving to make my voice heard above
+the hissing of the flames. "Begone! The soldiers from Cahors are on
+the road. I sent for them this hour back. Begone, before they come,
+and I will intercede for you. Stay, and do further mischief, and you
+shall hang, to the last man!"
+
+Some answered with a yell of derision, crying out that the soldiers
+were with them. More, that the nobles were abolished, and their houses
+given to the people. One, who was drunk, kept shouting, "_A bas la
+Bastille! A bas la Bastille!_" with a stupid persistence.
+
+A moment more and I should lose my chance. I waved my hand! "What do
+you want?" I cried.
+
+"Justice!" one shouted, and another, "Vengeance!" A third, "Gargouf!"
+And then all, "Gargouf! Gargouf!" until Petit Jean stilled the tumult.
+
+"Have done!" he cried to them, in his coarse, brutal voice. "Have we
+come here only to yell? And do you, Seigneur, give up Gargouf, and you
+shall go free. Otherwise, we will burn the house, and all in it."
+
+"You villain!" I said. "We have guns, and----"
+
+"The rats have teeth, but they burn! They burn!" he answered, pointing
+triumphantly, with the axe he held, to the flaming buildings. "They
+burn! Yet listen, Seigneur," he continued, "and you shall have a
+minute to make up your minds. Give up Gargouf to us to do with as we
+please, and the rest shall go."
+
+"All?"
+
+"All."
+
+I trembled. "But Gargouf, man?" I said. "Will you--what will you do
+with him?"
+
+"Roast him!" the smith cried, with a fearful oath; and the wretches
+round him laughed like fiends. "Roast him, when we have plucked him
+bare."
+
+I shuddered. From Cahors help could not come for another hour. From
+Saux it might not come at all. The doors below me could not stand
+long, and these brutes were thirty to one, and mad with the lust of
+vengeance. With the wrongs, the crimes, the vices of centuries to
+avenge, they dreamed that the day of requital was come; and the dream
+had turned clods into devils. The very flames they had kindled gave
+them assurance of it. The fire was in their blood. _A bas la Bastille!
+A bas les tyrans!_
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"One minute!" the smith cried, with a boastful gesture--"one minute we
+give you! Gargouf or all."
+
+"Wait!"
+
+I turned and went in--turned from the smoky glare, the circling
+pigeons, the grotesque black figures, and the terror and confusion of
+the night, and went in to that other scene scarcely less dreadful to
+me; though only two candles, guttering in tin sockets, lit the
+landing, and it borrowed from the outside no more than the ruddy
+reflection of horror. The women had ceased to scream and sob, and
+crowded together silent and panic-stricken. The old men and the lad
+moistened their lips, and looked furtively from the arms they handled
+to one another's faces. Mademoiselle alone stood erect, pale, firm. I
+shot a glance at the slender little figure in the white robe, then I
+looked away. I dared not say what I had in my mind. I knew that she
+had heard, and----
+
+She said it! "You have answered them?" she muttered, her eyes meeting
+mine.
+
+"No," I said, looking away again. "They have given us a minute to
+decide, and----"
+
+"I heard them," she answered shivering. "Tell them."
+
+"But, Mademoiselle----"
+
+"Tell them never! Never!" she cried feverishly. "Be quick, or they
+will think that we are dreaming of it."
+
+Yet I hesitated--while the flames crackled outside. What, after all,
+was this rascal's life beside hers? What his tainted existence, who
+all these years had ground the faces of the poor and dishonoured the
+helpless, beside her youth? It was a dreadful moment, and I hesitated.
+"Mademoiselle," I muttered at last, avoiding her eyes, "you have
+not thought, perhaps. But to refuse this offer may be to sacrifice
+all--and not save him."
+
+"I have thought!" she answered, with a passionate gesture. "I have
+thought. But he was my father's steward, Monsieur, and he is my
+brother's; if he has sinned, it was for them. It is for them to pay
+the penalty. And--after all, it may not come to that," she continued,
+her face changing, and her eyes seeking mine, full of sudden terror.
+"They will not dare, I think. They will never dare to----"
+
+"Where is he?" I asked hoarsely.
+
+She pointed to the corner behind her. I looked, and could scarcely
+believe my eyes. The man whom I had left full of a desperate courage,
+prepared to sell his life dearly, now crouched a huddled figure in the
+darkest angle of the tapestry seat. Though I had spoken of him in a
+low voice, and without naming him, he heard me, and looked up, and
+showed a face to match his attitude; a face pallid and sweating with
+fear; a face that, vile at the best and when redeemed by hardihood,
+looked now the vilest thing on earth. _Ciel!_ that fear should reduce
+a man to that! He tried to speak as his eyes met mine, but his lips
+moved inaudibly, and he only crouched lower, the picture of panic and
+guilt.
+
+I cried out to the others to know what had happened to him. "What is
+it?" I said.
+
+No one answered; and then I seemed to know. While he had thought all
+in danger, while he had felt himself only one among many, the common
+courage of a man had supported him. But God knows what voices, only
+too well known to him, what accents of starving men and wronged women,
+had spoken in that fierce cry for his life! What plaints from the
+dead, what curses of babes hanging on dry breasts! At any rate,
+whatever he had heard in that call for his blood, _his_ blood--it had
+unmanned him. In a moment, in a twinkling, it had dashed him back into
+this corner, a trembling craven, holding up his hands for his life.
+
+Such fear is infectious, and I strode to him in a rage and shook him.
+
+"Get up, hound!" I said. "Get up and strike a blow for your life; or,
+by heaven, no one else will!"
+
+He stood up. "Yes, yes, Monsieur," he muttered. "I will! I will stand
+up for Mademoiselle. I will----"
+
+But I heard his teeth chatter, and I saw that his eyes wandered this
+way and that, as do a hare's when the dogs close on it; and I knew
+that I had nothing to expect from him. A howl outside warned me at the
+same moment that our respite was spent; and I flung him off and turned
+to the window.
+
+Too late, however; before I could reach it, a thundering blow on the
+doors below set the candles flickering and the women shrieking; then
+for an instant I thought that all was over. A stone came through the
+window; another followed it, and another. The shattered glass fell
+over us; the draught put out one light, and the women, terrified
+beyond control, ran this way and that with the other, shrieking
+dismally. This, the yelling of the crowd outside, the sombre light and
+more sombre glare, the utter confusion and panic, so distracted me,
+that for a moment I stood irresolute, inactive, looking wildly about
+me; a poltroon waiting for some one to lead. Then a touch fell on my
+arm, and I turned and found Mademoiselle at my side, and saw her face
+upturned to mine.
+
+It was white, and her eyes were wide with the terror she had so long
+repressed. Her hold on me grew heavier; she swayed against me,
+clinging to me.
+
+"Oh!" she whispered in my ear in a voice that went to my heart. "Save
+me! Save me! Can nothing be done? Can nothing be done, Monsieur? Must
+we die?"
+
+"We must gain time," I said. My courage returned wonderfully, as I
+felt her weight on my arm. "All is not over yet," I said. "I will
+speak to them."
+
+And setting her on the seat, I sprang to the window and passed through
+it. Outside, things at a first glance seemed unchanged. The wavering
+flames, the glow, the trail of smoke and sparks, all were there. But a
+second glance showed that the rioters no longer moved to and fro about
+the fire, but were massed directly below me in a dense body round the
+doors, waiting for them to give way. I shouted to them frantically,
+hoping still to delay them. I called Petit Jean by name. But I could
+not make myself heard in the uproar, or they would not heed; and while
+I vainly tried, the great doors yielded at last, and with a roar of
+triumph the crowd burst in.
+
+Not a moment was to be lost. I sprang back through the window,
+clutching up as I did so the gun Gargouf had given me; and then I
+stood in amazement. The landing was empty! The rush of feet across the
+hall below shook the house. Ten seconds and the mob, whose screams of
+triumph already echoed through the passages, would be on us. But where
+was Mademoiselle? Where was Gargouf? Where were the servants, the
+waiting-maids, the boy, whom I had left here?
+
+I stood an instant paralysed, like a man in a nightmare; brought up
+short in that supreme moment. Then, as the first crash of heavy feet
+sounded on the stairs, I heard a faint scream, somewhere to my right,
+as I stood. On the instant I sprang to the door which, on that side,
+led to the left wing. I tore it open and passed through it--not a
+moment too soon. The slightest delay, and the foremost rioters must
+have seen me. As it was I had time to turn the key, which,
+fortunately, was on the inside.
+
+Then I hurried across the room, making my way to an open door at the
+farther end, from which light issued; I passed through the room
+beyond, which was empty, then into the last of the suite.
+
+Here I found the fugitives; who had fled so precipitately that they
+had not even thought of closing the doors behind them. In this last
+refuge--Madame's boudoir, all white and gold--I found them crouching
+among gilt-backed chairs and flowered cushions. They had brought only
+one candle with them; and the silks and gew-gaws and knick-knacks on
+which its light shone dimly, gave a peculiar horror to their white
+faces and glaring eyes, as, almost mad with terror, they huddled in
+the farthest corner and stared at me.
+
+They were such cowards that they put Mademoiselle foremost; or it was
+she who stood out to meet me. She knew me before they did, therefore,
+and quieted them. When I could hear my own voice, I asked where
+Gargouf was.
+
+They had not discovered that he was not with them, and they cried out,
+saying that he had come that way.
+
+"You followed him?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+This explained their flight, but not the steward's absence. What
+matter where he had gone, however, since his help could avail little.
+I looked round--looked round in despair; the very simpering Cupids on
+the walls seemed to mock our danger. I had the gun, I could fire one
+shot, I had one life in my hands. But to what end? In a moment, at any
+moment, within a minute or two at most, the doors would be forced, and
+the horde of mad brutes would pour in upon us, and----
+
+"Ah, Monsieur, the closet staircase! He has gone by the closet
+staircase!"
+
+It was the boy who spoke. He alone of them had his wits about him.
+
+"Where is it?" I said.
+
+The lad sprang forward to show me, but Mademoiselle was before him
+with the candle. She flew back into the passage, a passage of four or
+five feet only between that room and the second of the suite; in the
+wall of this she flung open a door, apparently of a closet. I looked
+in and saw the beginning of a staircase. My heart leapt at the sight.
+
+"To the floor above?" I said.
+
+"No, Monsieur, to the roof!"
+
+"Up, up, then!" I cried in a frenzy of impatience. "It will give us
+time. Quick. They are coming."
+
+For I heard the door at the end of the suite, the door I had locked,
+creak and yield. They were forcing it, at any moment it might give;
+where I stood waiting to bring up the rear, their hoarse cries and
+curses came to my ears. But the good door held; it held, long enough
+at any rate. Before it gave way we were on the stairs and I had shut
+the door of the closet behind me. Then, holding to the skirts of the
+woman before me, I groped my way up quickly--up and up through
+darkness with a close smell of bats in my nostrils--and almost before
+I could believe it, I stood with the panting, trembling group on the
+roof. The glare of the burning outhouses below shone on a great stack
+of chimneys beside us and reddened the sky above, and burnished the
+leaves of the chestnut trees that rose on a level with our eyes. But
+all the lower part of the steep roofs round us, and the lead gutters
+that ran between them, lay in darkness, the denser for the contrast.
+The flames crackled below, and a thick reek of smoke swept up past the
+coping, but the noise alike of fire and riot was deadened here. The
+night wind cooled our brows, and I had a minute in which to think, to
+breathe, to look round.
+
+"Is there any other way to the roof?" I asked anxiously.
+
+"One other, Monsieur!"
+
+"Where? Or do you stay here, and guard this door," I said, pressing my
+gun on the man who had answered. "And let the boy come and show me.
+Mademoiselle, stay there if you please."
+
+The boy ran before me to the farther end of the roof, and in a lead
+walk, between two slopes, showed me a large trap-door. It had no
+fastening on the outside, and for a moment I stood nonplussed; then I
+saw, a few feet away, a neat pile of bricks, left there, I learned
+afterwards, in the course of some repairs. I began to remove them as
+fast as I could to the trap-door, and the boy saw and followed my
+example; in two minutes we had stacked a hundred and more on the door.
+Telling him to add another hundred to the number, I left him at the
+task and flew back to the women.
+
+They might burn the house under us; that always, and for certain, and
+it meant a dreadful death. Yet I breathed more freely here. In the
+white and gold room below, among Madame's mirrors and Cupids, and
+silken cushions, and painted Venuses, my heart had failed me. The
+place, with its heavy perfumes, had stifled me. I had pictured the
+brutish peasants bursting in on us there--on the screaming women,
+crouching vainly behind chairs and couches; and the horror of the
+thought overcame me. Here, in the open, under the sky, we could at
+least die fighting. The depth yawned beyond the coping; the weakest
+had here no more to fear than death. Besides we had a respite, for the
+house was large, and the fire could not lick it up in a moment.
+
+And help might come. I shaded my eyes from the light below, and looked
+into the darkness in the direction of the village and the Cahors road.
+In an hour, at furthest, help might come. The glare in the sky must be
+visible for miles; it would spur on the avengers. Father Benoit, too,
+if he could get help--he might be here at any time. We were not
+without hope.
+
+Suddenly, while we stood together, the women sobbing and whimpering,
+the old man-servant spoke.
+
+"Where is M. Gargouf?" he muttered under his breath.
+
+"Ah!" I exclaimed; "I had forgotten him."
+
+"He came up," the man continued, peering about him. "This door was
+open, M. le Vicomte, when we came to it."
+
+"Ah! then where is he?"
+
+I looked round too. All the roof, I have said, was dark, and not all
+of it was on the same level; and here and there chimneys broke the
+view. In the obscurity, the steward might be lurking close to us
+without our knowledge; or he might have thrown himself down in
+despair. While I looked, the boy whom I had left by the bricks came
+flying to us.
+
+"There is some one there!" he said. And he clung to the old man in
+terror.
+
+"It must be Gargouf!" I answered. "Wait here!" And, disregarding the
+women's prayers that I would stay with them, I went quickly along the
+leads to the other trap-door, and peered about me through the gloom.
+For a moment I could see no one, though the light shining on the trees
+made it easy to discern figures standing nearer the coping. Presently,
+however, I caught the sound of some one moving; some one who was
+farther away still, at the very edge of the roof. I went on
+cautiously, expecting I do not know what; and close to a stack of
+chimneys I found Gargouf.
+
+He was crouching on the coping in the darkest part, where the end wall
+of the east wing overlooked the garden by which I had entered. This
+end wall had no windows, and the greater part of the garden below it
+lay it darkness; the angle of the house standing between it and the
+burning buildings. I supposed that the steward had sneaked hither,
+therefore, to hide; and set it down to the darkness that he did not
+know me, but, as I approached, he rose on his knees on the ledge, and
+turned on me, snarling like a dog.
+
+"Stand back!" he said, in a voice that was scarcely human. "Stand
+back, or I will----"
+
+"Steady, man," I answered quietly, beginning to think that fear had
+unhinged him. "It is I, M. de Saux."
+
+"Stand back!" was his only answer; and, though he cowered so low
+that I could not get his figure against the shining trees, I saw a
+pistol-barrel gleam as he levelled it. "Stand back! Give me a minute!
+a minute only"--and his voice quavered--"and I will cheat the devils
+yet! Come nearer, or give the alarm, and I will not die alone! I will
+not die alone! Stand back!"
+
+"Are you mad?" I said.
+
+"Back, or I shoot!" he growled. "I will not die alone."
+
+He was kneeling on the very edge, with his left hand against the
+chimney. To rush upon him in that posture was to court death; and I
+had nothing to gain by it. I stepped back a pace. As I did so, at the
+moment I did so, he slid over the edge, and was gone!
+
+I drew a deep breath and listened, flinching and drawing back
+involuntarily. But I heard no sound of a fall; and in a moment, with a
+new idea in my mind, I stepped forward to the edge, and looked over.
+
+The steward hung in mid-air, a dozen feet below me. He was descending;
+descending foot by foot, slowly, and by jerks; a dim figure, growing
+dimmer. Instinctively I felt about me; and in a second laid my hand on
+the rope by which he hung. It was secured round the chimney. Then I
+understood. He had conceived this way of escape, perhaps had stored
+the rope for it beforehand, and, like the villain he was, had kept the
+thought to himself, that his chance might be the better, and that he
+might not have to give the first place to Mademoiselle and the women.
+In the first heat of the discovery, I almost found it in my heart to
+cut the rope, and let him fall; then I remembered that if he escaped,
+the way would lie open for others; and then, even as I thought this,
+into the garden below me, there shone a sudden flare of light, and a
+stream of a dozen rioters poured round the corner, and made for the
+door by which I had entered the house.
+
+I held my breath. The steward, hanging below me, and by this time
+half-way to the ground, stopped, and moved not a limb. But he still
+swung a little this way and that, and in the strong light of the
+torches which the new-comers carried, I could see every knot in the
+rope, and even the trailing end, which, as I looked, moved on the
+ground with his motion.
+
+The wretches, making for the door, had to pass within a pace of the
+rope, of that trailing end; yet it was possible that, blinded by the
+lights they carried, and their own haste and excitement, they might
+not see it. I held my breath as the leader came abreast of it; I
+fancied that he must see it. But he passed, and disappeared in the
+doorway. Three others passed the rope together. A fifth, then three
+more, two more; I began to breathe more freely. Only one remained--a
+woman, the same whose imprecations had greeted me on my appearance at
+the window. It was not likely that she would see it. She was running
+to overtake the others; she carried a flare in her right hand, so that
+the blaze came between her and the rope. And she was waving the light
+in a mad woman's frenzy, as she danced along, hounding on the men to
+the sack.
+
+But, as if the presence of the man who had wronged her had over her
+some subtle influence--as if some sense, unowned by others, warned her
+of his presence, even in the midst of that babel and tumult--she
+stopped short under him, with her foot almost on the threshold. I saw
+her head turn slowly. She raised her eyes, holding the torch aside.
+She saw him!
+
+With a scream of joy, she sprang to the foot of the rope, and began to
+haul at it as if in that way she might get to him sooner; while she
+filled the air with her shrieks and laughter. The men, who had gone
+into the house, heard her, and came out again; and after them others.
+I quailed, where I knelt on the parapet, as I looked down and met the
+wolfish glare of their upturned eyes; what, then, must have been the
+thoughts of the wretched man taken in his selfishness--hanging there
+helpless between earth and heaven? God knows.
+
+He began to climb upwards, to return; and actually ascended hand over
+hand a dozen feet. But he had been supporting himself for some
+minutes, and at that point his strength failed him. Human muscles
+could do no more. He tried to haul himself up to the next knot, but
+sank back with a groan. Then he looked at me. "Pull me up!" he gasped
+in a voice just audible. "For God's sake! For God's sake, pull me up!"
+
+But the wretches below had the end of the rope, and it was impossible
+to raise him, even had I possessed the strength to do it. I told him
+so, and bade him climb--climb for his life. In a moment it would be
+too late.
+
+He understood. He raised himself with a jerk to the next knot, and
+hung there. Another desperate effort, and he gained the next; though I
+could almost hear his muscles crack, and his breath came in gasps.
+Three more knots--they were about a foot apart--and he would reach the
+coping.
+
+But as he turned up his face to me, I read despair in his eyes. His
+strength was gone; and while he hung there, the men began, with shouts
+of laughter, to shake the rope this way and that. He lost his grip,
+and, with a groan, slid down three or four feet; and again got hold
+and hung there--silent.
+
+By this time the group below had grown into a crowd--a crowd of
+maddened beings, raving and howling, and leaping up at him as dogs
+leap at food; and the horror of the sight, though the doomed man's
+features were now in shadow, and I could not read them, overcame me. I
+rose to draw back--shuddering, listening for his fall. Instead, before
+I had quite retreated, a hot flash blinded me, and almost scorched my
+face, and, as the sharp report of a pistol rang out, the steward's
+body plunged headlong down--leaving a little cloud of smoke where I
+stood.
+
+He had balked his enemies.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IX.
+
+                            THE TRICOLOUR.
+
+
+It was known afterwards that they fell upon the body and tore it, like
+the dogs they were; but I had seen enough. I reeled back, and for a
+few moments leaned against the chimney, trembling like a woman, sick
+and faint. The horrid drama had had only one spectator--myself; and
+the strange solitude from which I had viewed it, kneeling at the edge
+of the roof of the Chateau, with the night wind on my brow and the
+tumult far below me, had shaken me to the bottom of my soul. Had the
+ruffians come upon me then I could not have lifted a finger; but,
+fortunately, though the awakening came quickly, it came by another
+hand. I heard the rustle of feet behind me, and, turning, found
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais at my shoulder, her small face grey in the
+gloom.
+
+"Monsieur," she said, "will you come?"
+
+I sprang up, ashamed and conscience-stricken. I had forgotten her,
+all, in the tragedy. "What is it?" I said.
+
+"The house is burning."
+
+She said it so calmly, in such a voice, that I could not believe her,
+or that I understood; though it was the thing I had told myself must
+happen. "What, Mademoiselle? This house?" I said stupidly.
+
+"Yes," she replied, as quietly as before. "The smoke is rising through
+the closet staircase. I think that they have set the east wing on
+fire."
+
+I hastened back with her, but before I reached the little door by
+which we had ascended I saw that it was true. A faint, whitish eddy of
+smoke, scarcely visible in the dusk, was rising through the crack
+between door and lintel. When we came up the women were still round it
+watching it; but while I looked, dazed and wondering what we were to
+do, the group melted away, and Mademoiselle and I were left alone
+beside the stream of smoke that grew each moment thicker and darker.
+
+A few moments before, immediately after my escape from the rooms
+below, I had thought that I could face this peril; anything,
+everything, had then seemed better than to be caught with the women,
+in the confinement of those luxurious rooms, perfumed with _poudre de
+rose_, and heavy with jasmine--to be caught there by the brutes who
+were pursuing us. Now the danger that showed itself most pressing
+seemed the worst. "We must take off the bricks!" I cried. "Quick, and
+open that door! There is nothing else for it. Come, Mademoiselle, if
+you please!"
+
+"They are doing it," she answered.
+
+Then I saw whither the women and the servants had gone. They were
+already beside the other door, the trap-door, labouring frantically to
+remove the bricks we had piled on it. In a moment I caught the
+infection of their haste.
+
+"Come, Mademoiselle! come!" I cried, advancing involuntarily a step
+towards the group. "Very likely the rogues below will be plundering
+now, and we may pass safely. At any rate, there is nothing else for
+it."
+
+I was still flurried and shaken--I say it with shame--by Gargouf's
+fate; and when she did not answer at once, I looked round impatiently.
+To my astonishment, she was gone. In the darkness, it was not easy to
+see any one at a distance of a dozen feet, and the reek of the smoke
+was spreading. Still, she had been at my elbow a moment before, she
+could not be far off. I took a step this way and that, and looked
+again anxiously; and then I found her. She was kneeling against a
+chimney, her face buried in her hands. Her hair covered her shoulders,
+and partly hid her white robe.
+
+I thought the time ill-chosen, and I touched her angrily.
+"Mademoiselle!" I said. "There is not a moment to be lost! Come! they
+have opened the door!"
+
+She looked up at me, and the still pallor of her face sobered me. "I
+am not coming," she said, in a low voice. "Farewell, Monsieur!"
+
+"You are not coming?" I cried.
+
+"No, Monsieur; save yourself," she answered firmly and quietly. And
+she looked up at me with her hands still clasped before her, as if she
+were fain to return to her prayers, and waited only for me to go.
+
+I gasped.
+
+"But, Mademoiselle!" I cried, staring at the white-robed figure, that
+in the gloom--a gloom riven now and again by hot flashes, as some
+burning spark soared upwards--seemed scarcely earthly--"But,
+Mademoiselle, you do not understand. This is no child's play. To stay
+here is death! death! The house is burning under us. Presently the
+roof, on which we stand, will fall in, and then----"
+
+"Better that," she answered, raising her head with heaven knows
+what of womanly dignity, caught in this supreme moment by her, a
+child--"Better that, than that I should fall into their hands. I am a
+St. Alais, and I can die," she continued firmly. "But I must not fall
+into their hands. Do you, Monsieur, save yourself. Go now, and I will
+pray for you."
+
+"And I for you, Mademoiselle," I answered, with a full heart. "If you
+stay, I stay."
+
+She looked at me a moment, her face troubled. Then she rose slowly to
+her feet. The servants had disappeared, the trap-door lay open; no one
+had yet come up. We had the roof to ourselves. I saw her shudder as
+she looked round; and in a second I had her in my arms--she was no
+heavier than a child--and was half-way across the roof. She uttered a
+faint cry of remonstrance, of reproach, and for an instant struggled
+with me. But I only held her the tighter, and ran on. From the
+trap-door a ladder led downwards; somehow, still holding her with one
+hand, I stumbled down it, until I reached the foot, and found myself
+in a passage, which was all dark. One way, however, a light shone at
+the end of it.
+
+I carried her towards this, her hair lying across my lips, her face
+against my breast. She no longer struggled, and in a moment I came to
+the head of a staircase. It seemed to be a servant's staircase, for it
+was bare, and mean, and narrow, with white-washed walls that were not
+too clean. There were no signs of fire here, even the smoke had not
+yet reached this part; but half-way down the flight a candle,
+overturned, but still burning, lay on a step, as if some one had that
+moment dropped it. And from all the lower part of the house came up a
+great noise of riot and revelry, coarse shrieks, and shouts, and
+laughter. I paused to listen.
+
+Mademoiselle lifted herself a little in my arms. "Put me down,
+Monsieur," she whispered.
+
+"You will come?"
+
+"I will do what you tell me."
+
+I set her down in the angle of the passage, at the head of the stairs;
+and in a whisper I asked her what was beyond the door, which I could
+see at the foot of the flight.
+
+"The kitchen," she answered.
+
+"If I had any cloak to cover you," I said, "I think that we could
+pass. They are not searching for us. They are robbing and drinking."
+
+"Will you get the candle?" she whispered, trembling. "In one of these
+rooms we may find something."
+
+I went softly down the bare stairs, and, picking it up, returned with
+it in my hand. As I came back to her, our eyes met, and a slow blush,
+gradually deepening, crept over her face, as dawn creeps over a grey
+sky. Having come, it stayed; her eyes fell, and she turned a little
+away from me, confused and frightened. We were alone; and for the
+first time that night, I think, she remembered her loosened hair and
+the disorder of her dress--that she was a woman and I a man.
+
+It was a strange time to think of such things; when at any instant the
+door at the foot of the stairs before us might open, and a dozen
+ruffians stream up, bent on plunder, and worse. But the look and the
+movement warmed my heart, and set my blood running as it had never run
+before. I felt my courage return in a flood, and with it twice my
+strength. I felt capable of holding the staircase against a hundred, a
+thousand, as long as she stood at the top. Above all, I wondered how I
+could have borne her in my arms a minute before, how I could have held
+her head against my breast, and felt her hair touch my lips, and been
+insensible! Never again should I carry her so with an even pulse. The
+knowledge of that came to me as I stood beside her at the head of the
+bare stairs, affecting to listen to the noises below, that she might
+have time to recover herself.
+
+A moment, and I began to listen seriously; for the uproar in the
+kitchen through which we must pass to escape, was growing louder; and
+at the same time that I noticed this, a smell of burning wood, with a
+whiff of smoke, reached my nostrils, and warned me that the fire was
+extending to the wing in which we stood. Behind us, as we stood,
+looking down the stairs, was a door; along the passage to the left by
+which we had come were other doors. I thrust the candle into
+Mademoiselle's hands, and begged her to go and look in the rooms.
+
+"There may be a cloak, or something!" I said eagerly. "We must not
+linger. If you will look, I will----"
+
+No more; for as the last word trembled on my lips the door at the foot
+of the stairs flew open, and a man blundered through it and began to
+ascend towards us, two steps at a time. He carried a candle before
+him, and a large bar in his right hand; and a savage roar of voices
+came with him through the doorway.
+
+He appeared so suddenly that we had no time to move. I had a side
+glimpse of Mademoiselle standing spell-bound with horror, the light
+drooping in her hand. Then I snatched the candle from her and quenched
+it; and, plucking it from the iron candlestick, stood waiting, with
+the latter in my hand--waiting, stooping forward, for the man. I had
+left my sword in the farther wing, and had no other weapon; but the
+stairs were narrow, the sloping ceiling low, and the candlestick might
+do. If his comrades did not follow him, it might do.
+
+He came up rapidly, two-thirds of the way, holding the light high in
+front of him. Only four or five steps divided him from us! Then on a
+sudden, he stumbled, swore, and fell heavily forwards. The light in
+his hand went out, and we were in darkness!
+
+Instinctively I gripped Mademoiselle's hand in my left hand to stay
+the scream that I knew was on her lips; then we stood like two
+statues, scarcely daring to breathe. The man, so near us, and yet
+unconscious of our presence, got up swearing; and, after a terrible
+moment of suspense, during which I think he fumbled for the candle, he
+began to clatter down the stairs again. They had closed the door at
+the bottom, and he could not for a moment find the string of the
+latch. But at last he found it, and opened the door. Then I stepped
+back, and under cover of the babel that instantly poured up the
+staircase I drew Mademoiselle into the room behind us, and, closing
+the door which faced the stairs, stood listening.
+
+I fancied that I could hear her heart beating. I could certainly hear
+my own. In this room we seemed for the moment safe; but how were we,
+without a light, to find anything to disguise her? How were we to pass
+through the kitchen? And in a moment I began to regret that I had left
+the stairs. We were in perfect darkness here and could see nothing in
+the room, which had a close, unused smell, as of mice; but even as I
+noticed this the fumes of burning wood, which had doubtless entered
+with us, grew stronger and overcame the other smell. The rushing
+wind-like sound of the fire, as it caught hold of the wing, began to
+be audible, and the distant crackling of flames. My heart sank.
+
+"Mademoiselle," I said softly. I still held her hand.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur," she murmured faintly. And she seemed to lean against
+me.
+
+"Are there no windows in this room?"
+
+"I think that they are shuttered," she murmured.
+
+With a new thought in my mind, that the way of the kitchen being
+hopeless we might escape by the windows, I moved a pace to look for
+them. I would have loosed her hand to do this, that my own might be
+free to grope before me, but to my surprise she clung to me and would
+not let me go. Then in the darkness I heard her sigh, as if she were
+about to swoon; and she fell against me.
+
+"Courage, Mademoiselle, courage!" I said, terrified by the mere
+thought.
+
+"Oh, I am frightened!" she moaned in my ear. "I am frightened! Save
+me, Monsieur, save me!"
+
+She had been so brave before that I wondered; not knowing that the
+bravest woman's courage is of this quality. But I had short time for
+wonder. Her weight hung each instant more dead in my arms, and my
+heart beating wildly as I held her I looked round for help, for a
+thought, for an idea. But all was dark. I could not remember even
+where the door stood by which we had entered. I peered in vain, for
+the slightest glimmer of light that might betray the windows. I was
+alone with her and helpless, our way of retreat cut off, the flames
+approaching. I felt her head fall back and knew that she had swooned;
+and in the dark I could do no more than support her, and listen and
+listen for the returning steps of the man, or what else would happen
+next.
+
+For a long time, a long time it seemed to me, nothing happened. Then a
+sudden burst of sound told me that the door at the foot of the stairs
+had been opened again; and on that followed a clatter of wooden shoes
+on the bare stairs. I could judge now where the door of the room was,
+and I quickly but tenderly laid Mademoiselle on the floor a little
+behind it, and waited myself on the threshold. I still had my
+candlestick, and I was desperate.
+
+I heard them pass, my heart beating; and then I heard them pause and I
+clutched my weapon; and then a voice I knew gave an order, and with a
+cry of joy I dragged open the door of the room and stood before
+them--stood before them, as they told me afterwards, with the face of
+a ghost or a man risen from the dead.
+
+There were four of them, and the nearest to us was Father Benoit.
+
+The good priest fell on my neck and kissed me. "You are not hurt?" he
+cried.
+
+"No," I said dully. "You have come then?"
+
+"Yes," he said. "In time to save you, God be praised! God be praised!
+And Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle de St. Alais?" he added eagerly,
+looking at me as if he thought I was not quite in my senses. "Have you
+news of her?"
+
+I turned without a word, and went back into the room. He followed
+with a light, and the three men, of whom Buton was one, pressed in
+after him. They were rough peasants, but the sight made them give
+back, and uncover themselves. Mademoiselle lay where I had left her,
+her head pillowed on a dark carpet of hair; from the midst of which
+her child's face, composed and white as in death, looked up with
+solemn half-closed eyes to the ceiling. For myself, I stared down at
+her almost without emotion, so much had I gone through. But the priest
+cried out aloud.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" he said, with a sob in his voice. "Have they killed
+her?"
+
+"No," I answered. "She has only fainted. If there is a woman here----"
+
+"There is no woman here that I dare trust," he answered between his
+teeth. And he bade one of the men go and get some water, adding a few
+words which I did not hear.
+
+The man returned almost immediately, and Father Benoit, bidding him
+and his fellows stand back a little, moistened her lips with water,
+afterwards dashing some in her face; doing it with an air of haste
+that puzzled me until I noticed that the room was grown thick with
+smoke, and on going myself to the door saw the red glow of the fire at
+the end of the passage, and heard the distant crash of falling stones
+and timbers. Then I thought that I understood the men's attitude, and
+I suggested to Father Benoit that I should carry her out.
+
+"She will never recover here," I said, with a sob in my throat. "She
+will be suffocated if we do not get her into the air."
+
+A thick volume of smoke swept along the passage as I spoke, and gave
+point to my words.
+
+"Yes," the priest said slowly, "I think so, too, my son, but----"
+
+"But what?" I cried. "It is not safe to stay!"
+
+"You sent to Cahors?"
+
+"Yes," I answered. "Has M. le Marquis come?"
+
+"No; and you see, M. le Vicomte, I have only these four men," he
+explained. "Had I stayed to gather more I might have been too late.
+And with these only I do not know what to do. Half the poor wretches
+who have done this mischief are mad with drink. Others are strangers,
+and----"
+
+"But I thought--I thought that it was all over," I cried in
+astonishment.
+
+"No," he answered gravely. "They let us pass in after an altercation;
+I am of the Committee, and so is Buton there. But when they see you,
+and especially Mademoiselle de St. Alais--I do not know how they may
+act, my friend."
+
+"But, _mon Dieu!_" I cried. "Surely they will not dare----"
+
+"No, Monseigneur, have no fear, they shall not dare!"
+
+The words came out of the smoke. The speaker was Buton. As he spoke,
+he stepped forward, swinging the ponderous bar he carried, his huge
+hairy arms bare to the elbow. "Yet there is one thing you must do," he
+said.
+
+"What?"
+
+"You must put on the tricolour. They will not dare to touch that."
+
+He spoke with a simple pride, which at the moment I found
+unintelligible. I understand it better now. Nay, on the morrow, it was
+no riddle to me, though an abiding wonder.
+
+The priest sprang at the idea. "Good," he said. "Buton has hit it!
+They will respect that."
+
+And before I could speak he had detached the large rosette which he
+wore on his _soutane_, and was pinning it on my breast.
+
+"Now yours, Buton," he continued; and taking the smith's--it was not
+too clean--he fixed it on Mademoiselle's left shoulder. "There," he
+said eagerly, when it was done. "Now, M. le Vicomte, take her up.
+Quick, or we shall be stifled. Buton and I will go before you, and our
+friends here will follow you."
+
+Mademoiselle was beginning to come to herself with sighs and sobs,
+when I raised her in my arms; and we were all coughing with the smoke.
+This in the passage outside was choking; had we delayed a minute
+longer we could not have passed out safely, for already the flames
+were beginning to lick the door of the next room, and dart out angry
+tongues towards us. As it was, we stumbled down the stairs in some
+fashion, one helping another; and checked for an instant by the closed
+door at the bottom, were glad to fall when it was opened pell-mell in
+the kitchen, where we stood with smarting eyes, gasping for breath.
+
+It was the grand kitchen of the Chateau that had seen many a feast
+prepared, and many a quarry brought home; but for Mademoiselle's sake
+I was glad that her face was against my breast, and that she could not
+see it now. A great fire, fed high with fat and hams, blazed on the
+hearth, and before it, instead of meat, the carcases of three dogs
+hung from the jack, and tainted the air with the smell of burning
+flesh. They were M. le Marquis' favourite hounds, killed in pure
+wantonness. Below them the floor, strewn with bottles, ran deep in
+wasted wine, out of which piles of shattered furniture and staved
+casks rose like islands. All that the rioters had not taken they had
+spoiled; even now in one corner a woman was filling her apron with
+salt from a huge trampled heap, and at the battered _dressoir_ three
+or four men were plundering. The main body of the peasants, however,
+had retired outside, where they could be heard fiercely cheering on
+the flames, shouting when a chimney fell or a window burst, and
+flinging into the fire every living thing unlucky enough to fall into
+their hands. The plunderers, on seeing us, sneaked out with grim looks
+like wolves driven from the prey. Doubtless, they spread the news; for
+while we paused, though it was only for a moment, in the middle of the
+floor, the uproar outside ceased, and gave place to a strange silence
+in the midst of which we appeared at the door.
+
+The glare of the burning house threw a light as strong as that of day
+on the scene before us; on the line of savage frenzied faces that
+confronted us, and the great pile of wreckage that stood about and
+bore witness to their fury. But for a moment the light failed to show
+us to them; we were in the shadow of the wall, and it was not until we
+had advanced some paces that the ominous silence was broken, and the
+mob, with a howl of rage, sprang forward, like bloodhounds slipped
+from the leash. Low-browed and shock-headed, half-naked, and black
+with smoke and blood, they seemed more like beasts than men; and like
+beasts they came on, snapping the teeth and snarling, while from the
+rear--for the foremost were past speech--came screams of "_Mort aux
+Tyrans! Mort aux Accapareurs!_" that, mingling with the tumult of the
+fire, were enough to scare the stoutest.
+
+Had my escort blenched for an instant our fate was sealed. But they
+stood firm, and before their stern front all but one man quailed and
+fell back--fell back snarling and crying for our blood. That one came
+on, and aimed a blow at me with a knife. On the instant Buton raised
+his iron bar, and with a stentorian cry of "Respect the Tricolour!"
+struck him to the ground, and strode over him.
+
+"Respect the Tricolour!" he shouted again, with the voice of a bull;
+and the effect of the words was magical. The crowd heard, fell back,
+and fell aside, staring stupidly at me and my burden.
+
+"Respect the Tricolour!" Father Benoit cried, raising his hand aloft;
+and he made the sign of the cross. On that in an instant a hundred
+voices took it up; and almost before I could apprehend the change,
+those who a moment earlier had been gaping for our blood were
+thrusting one another back, and shouting as with one voice, "Way, way
+for the Tricolour!"
+
+There was something unutterably new, strange, formidable in this
+reverence; this respect paid by these savages to a word, a ribbon, an
+idea. It made an impression on me that was never quite effaced. But at
+the moment I was scarcely conscious of this. I heard and saw things
+dully. Like a man in a dream, I walked through the crowd, and,
+stumbling under my burden, passed down the lane of brutish faces, down
+the avenue, down to the gate. There Father Benoit would have taken
+Mademoiselle from me, but I would not let him.
+
+"To Saux! To Saux!" I said feverishly; and then, I scarcely knew how,
+I found myself on a horse holding her before me. And we were on the
+road to Saux, lighted on our way by the flames of the burning Chateau.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X.
+
+                     THE MORNING AFTER THE STORM.
+
+
+Father Benoit had the forethought, when we reached the cross-roads, to
+leave a man there to await the party from Cahors, and warn them of
+Mademoiselle's safety; and we had not ridden more than half a mile
+before the clatter of hoofs behind us announced that they were
+following. I was beginning to recover from the stupor into which the
+excitement of the night had thrown me, and I reined up to deliver over
+my charge, should M. de St. Alais desire to take her.
+
+But he was not of the party. The leader was Louis, and his company
+consisted, to my surprise, of no more than six or seven servants, old
+M. de Gontaut, one of the Harincourts, and a strange gentleman. Their
+horses were panting and smoking with the speed at which they had come,
+and the men's eyes glittered with excitement. No one seemed to think
+it strange that I carried Mademoiselle; but all, after hurriedly
+thanking God that she was safe, hastened to ask the number of the
+rioters.
+
+"Nearly a hundred," I said. "As far as I could judge. But where is M.
+le Marquis?"
+
+"He had not returned when the alarm came."
+
+"You are a small party?"
+
+Louis swore with vexation. "I could get no more," he said. "News came
+at the same time that Marignac's house was on fire, and he carried off
+a dozen. A score of others took fright, and thought it might be the
+same with them; and they saddled up in haste, and went to see. In
+fact," he continued bitterly, "it seemed to me to be every one for
+himself. Always excepting my good friends here."
+
+M. de Gontaut began to chuckle, but choked for want of breath. "Beauty
+in distress!" he gasped. Poor fellow, he could scarcely sit his horse.
+
+"But you will come on to Saux?" I said. They were turning their horses
+in a cloud of steam that mistily lit up the night.
+
+"No!" Louis answered, with another oath; and I did not wonder that he
+was not himself, that his usual good nature had deserted him. "It is
+now or never! If we can catch them at this work----"
+
+I did not hear the rest. The trampling of their horses, as they drove
+in the spurs and started down the road, drowned the words. In a moment
+they were fifty paces away; all but one, who, detaching himself at the
+last moment, turned his horse's head, and rode up to me. It was the
+stranger, the only one of the party, not a servant, whom I did not
+know.
+
+"How are they armed, if you please?" he asked.
+
+"They have at least one gun," I said, looking at him curiously. "And
+by this time probably more. The mass of them had pikes and
+pitchforks."
+
+"And a leader?"
+
+"Petit Jean, the smith, of St. Alais, gave orders."
+
+"Thank you, M. le Vicomte," he said, and saluted. Then, touching his
+horse with the spur, he rode off at speed after the others.
+
+I was in no condition to help them, and I was anxious to put
+Mademoiselle, who lay in my arms like one dead, in the women's care.
+The moment they were gone, therefore, we pursued our way, Father
+Benoit and I silent and full of thought, the others chattering to one
+another without pause or stay. Mademoiselle's head lay on my right
+shoulder. I could feel the faint beating of her heart; and in that
+slow, dark ride had time to think of many things: of her courage and
+will and firmness--this poor little convent-bred one, who a fortnight
+before had not found a word to throw at me; last, but not least, of
+the womanly weakness, dear to my man's heart, that had sapped her
+reserve at last, and brought her arms to my neck and her cry to my
+ear. The faint perfume of her hair was in my nostrils; I longed to
+kiss the half-shrouded head. But, if in an hour I had learned to love
+her, I had learned to honour her more; and I repressed the impulse,
+and only held her more gently, and tried to think of other things
+until she should be out of my arms.
+
+If I did not find that so easy, it was not for want of food for
+thought. The glow of the fire behind us reddened all the sky at our
+backs; the murmur of the mob pursued us; more than once, as we went, a
+figure sneaked by us in the blackness, and fled, as if to join them.
+Father Benoit fancied that there was a second fire a league to the
+east; and in the tumult and upheaval of all things on this night, and
+the consequent confusion of thought into which I had fallen, it would
+scarcely have surprised me if flames had broken out before us also,
+and announced that Saux was burning.
+
+But I was spared that. On the contrary, the whole village came out to
+meet us, and accompanied us, cheering, from the gates to the door of
+the Chateau, where, in the glare of the lights they carried, and amid
+a great silence of curiosity and expectation, Mademoiselle was lifted
+from my saddle and carried into the house. The women who pressed round
+the door to see, stooped forward to follow her with their eyes; but
+none as I followed her.
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+Much that passes for fair at night wears a foul look by day; and
+things tolerable in the suffering have a knack of seeming
+fantastically impossible in the retrospect. When I awoke next morning,
+in the great chair in the hall--wherein, tradition had it, Louis the
+Thirteenth had once sat--and, after three hours of troubled sleep,
+found Andre standing over me, and the sun pouring in through door and
+window, I fancied for a moment that the events of the night, as I
+remembered them, were a dream. Then my eyes fell on a brace of
+pistols, which I had placed by my side over night, and on the tray at
+which Father Benoit and I had refreshed ourselves; and I knew that the
+things had happened. I sprang up.
+
+"Is M. de St. Alais here?" I said.
+
+"No, Monsieur."
+
+"Nor M. le Comte?"
+
+"No, Monsieur."
+
+"What!" I said. "Have none of the party come?" For I had gone to sleep
+expecting to be called up to receive them within the hour.
+
+"No, M. le Vicomte," the old man answered, "except--except one
+gentleman who was with them, and who is now walking with M. le Cure in
+the garden. And for him----"
+
+"Well?" I said sharply, for Andre, who had got on his most gloomy and
+dogmatic air, stopped with a sniff of contempt.
+
+"He does not seem to be a man for whom M. le Vicomte should be
+roused," he answered obstinately. "But M. le Cure would have it; and
+in these days, I suppose, we must tramp for a smith, let alone an
+officer of excise."
+
+"Buton is here, then?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur; and walking on the terrace, as if of the family. I do
+not know what things are coming to," Andre continued, grumbling, and
+raising his voice as I started to go out, "or what they would be at.
+But when M. le Vicomte took away the _carcan_ I knew what was likely
+to happen. Oh! yes," he went on still more loudly, while he stood
+holding the tray, and looking after me with a sour face, "I knew what
+would happen! I knew what would happen!"
+
+And, certainly, if I had not been shaken completely out of the common
+rut of thought, I should have found something odd, myself, in the
+combination of the three men whom I found on the terrace. They were
+walking up and down, Father Benoit, with downcast eyes and his hands
+behind him, in the middle. On one side of him moved Buton, coarse,
+heavy-shouldered, and clumsy, in his stained blouse; on the other side
+paced the stranger of last night, a neat, middle-sized man, very
+plainly dressed, with riding boots and a sword. Remembering that he
+had formed one of Louis' party, I was surprised to see that he wore
+the tricolour; but I forgot this in my anxiety to know what had become
+of the others. Without standing on ceremony, I asked him.
+
+"They attacked the rioters, lost one man, and were beaten off," he
+answered with dry precision.
+
+"And M. le Comte?"
+
+"Was not hurt. He returned to Cahors, to raise more men. I, as my
+advice seemed to be taken in ill part, came here."
+
+He spoke in a blunt, straightforward way, as to an equal; and at once
+seemed to be, and not to be, a gentleman. The Cure, seeing that he
+puzzled me, hastened to introduce him.
+
+"This, M. le Vicomte," he said, "is M. le Capitaine Hugues, late of
+the American Army. He has placed his services at the disposal of the
+Committee."
+
+"For the purpose," the Captain went on, before I had made up my mind
+how to take it, "of drilling and commanding a body of men to be raised
+in Quercy to keep the peace. Call them militia; call them what you
+like."
+
+I was a good deal taken aback. The man, alert, active, practical, with
+the butt of a pistol peeping from his pocket, was something new to me.
+
+"You have served his Majesty?" I said at last, to gain time to think.
+
+"No," he answered. "There are no careers in that army, unless you have
+so many quarterings. I served under General Washington."
+
+"But I saw you last night with M. de St. Alais?"
+
+"Why not, M. le Vicomte?" he answered, looking at me plainly. "I heard
+that a house was being burned. I had just arrived, and I placed myself
+at M. le Comte's disposal. But they had no method, and would take no
+advice."
+
+"Well," I said, "these seem to me to be rather extreme steps. You
+know----"
+
+"M. de Marignac's house was burned last night," the Cure said softly.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"And I fear that we shall hear of others. I think that we must look
+matters in the face, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"It is not a question of thinking or looking, but of doing!" the
+Captain said, interrupting him harshly. "We have a long summer's day
+before us, but if by to-night we have not done something, there will
+be a sorry dawning in Quercy to-morrow."
+
+"There are the King's troops," I said.
+
+"They refuse to obey orders. Therefore, they are worse than useless."
+
+"Their officers?"
+
+"They are staunch; but the people hate them. A knight of St. Louis is
+to the mob what a red rag is to a bull. I can answer for it that they
+have enough to do to keep their men in barracks, and guard their own
+heads."
+
+I resented his familiarity, and the impatience with which he spoke;
+but, resent it as I might, I could not return to the tone I had used
+yesterday. Then it had seemed an outrageous thing that Buton should
+stand by and listen. To-day the same thing had an ordinary air. And
+this, moreover, was a different man from Doury; arguments that had
+crushed the one would have no weight with the other. I saw that, and,
+rather helplessly, I asked Father Benoit what he would have.
+
+He did not answer. It was the Captain who replied. "We want you to
+join the Committee," he said briskly.
+
+"I discussed that yesterday," I answered with some stiffness. "I
+cannot do so. Father Benoit will tell you so."
+
+"It is not Father Benoit's answer I want," the Captain replied. "It is
+yours, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"I answered yesterday," I said haughtily--"and refused."
+
+"Yesterday is not to-day," he retorted. "M. de St. Alais' house stood
+yesterday; it is a smoking ruin today. M. de Marignac's likewise.
+Yesterday much was conjecture. To-day facts speak for themselves. A
+few hours' hesitation, and the province will be in a blaze from one
+end to the other."
+
+I could not gainsay this; at the same time there was one other thing I
+could not do, and that was change my views again. Having solemnly put
+on the white cockade in Madame St. Alais' drawing-room, I had not the
+courage to execute another _volte-face_. I could not recant again.
+
+"It is impossible--impossible in my case," I stammered at last
+peevishly, and in a disjointed way. "Why do you come again to me? Why
+do you not go to some one else? There are two hundred others whose
+names----"
+
+"Would be of no use to us," M. le Capitaine answered brusquely;
+"whereas yours would reassure the fearful, attach some moderate men to
+the cause and not disgust the masses. Let me be frank with you, M. le
+Vicomte," he continued in a different tone. "I want your co-operation.
+I am here to take risks, but none that are unnecessary; and I prefer
+that my commission should issue from above as well as from below. Add
+your name to the Committee and I accept their commission. Without
+doubt I could police Quercy in the name of the Third Estate, but I
+would rather hang, draw, and quarter in the name of all three."
+
+"Still, there are others----"
+
+"You forget that I have got to rule the _canaille_ in Cahors," he
+answered impatiently, "as well as these mad clowns, who think that the
+end of the world is here. And those others you speak of----"
+
+"Are not acceptable," Father Benoit said gently, looking at me with
+yearning in his kind eyes. The light morning air caught the skirts of
+his cassock as he spoke, and lifted them from his lean figure. He held
+his shovel hat in his hand, between his face and the sun. I knew that
+there was a conflict in his mind as in mine, and that he would have me
+and would have me not; and the knowledge strengthened me to resist his
+words.
+
+"It is impossible," I said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+I was spared the necessity of answering. I had my face to the door of
+the house, and as the last word was spoken saw Andre issue from it
+with M. de St. Alais. The manner in which the old servant cried, "M.
+le Marquis de St. Alais, to see M. le Vicomte!" gave us a little
+shock, it was so full of sly triumph; but nothing on M. de St. Alais'
+part, as he approached, betrayed that he noticed this. He advanced
+with an air perfectly gay, and saluted me with good humour. For a
+moment I fancied that he did not know what had happened in the night;
+his first words, however, dispelled the idea.
+
+"M. le Vicomte," he said, addressing me with both ease and grace, "we
+are for ever grateful to you. I was abroad on business last night, and
+could do nothing; and my brother must, I am told, have come too late,
+even if, with so small a force, he could effect anything. I saw
+Mademoiselle as I passed through the house, and she gave me some
+particulars."
+
+"She has left her room?" I cried in surprise. The other three had
+drawn back a little, so that we enjoyed a kind of privacy.
+
+"Yes," he answered, smiling slightly at my tone. "And I can assure
+you, M. le Vicomte, has spoken as highly of you as a maiden dare. For
+the rest, my mother will convey the thanks of the family to you more
+fitly than I can. Still, I may hope that you are none the worse."
+
+I muttered that I was not; but I hardly knew what I said. St. Alais'
+demeanour was so different from that which I had anticipated, his easy
+calmness and gaiety were so unlike the rage and heat which seemed
+natural in one who had just heard of the destruction of his house and
+the murder of his steward, that I was completely nonplussed. He
+appeared to be dressed with his usual care and distinction, though I
+was bound to suppose that he had been up all night; and, though the
+outrages at St. Alais and Marignac's had given the lie to his most
+confident predictions, he betrayed no sign of vexation.
+
+All this dazzled and confused me; yet I must say something. I muttered
+a hope that Mademoiselle was not greatly shaken by her experiences.
+
+"I think not," he said. "We St. Alais are not made of sugar. And after
+a night's rest--- But I fear that I am interrupting you?" And for the
+first time he let his eyes rest on my companions.
+
+"It is to Father Benoit and to Buton here, that your thanks are really
+due, M. le Marquis," I said. "For without their aid----"
+
+"That is so, is it?" he said coldly. "I had heard it."
+
+"But not all?" I exclaimed.
+
+"I think so," he said. Then, continuing to look at them, though he
+spoke to me, he continued: "Let me tell you an apologue, M. le
+Vicomte. Once upon a time there was a man who had a grudge against a
+neighbour because the good man's crops were better than his. He went,
+therefore, secretly and by night, and not all at once--not all at
+once, Messieurs, but little by little--he let on to his neighbour's
+land the stream of a river that flowed by both their farms. He
+succeeded so well that presently the flood not only covered the crops,
+but threatened to drown his neighbour, and after that his own crops
+and himself! Apprised too late of his folly---- But how do you like
+the apologue, M. le Cure?"
+
+"It does not touch me," Father Benoit answered with a wan smile.
+
+"I am no man's servant, as the slave boasted," St. Alais answered with
+a polite sneer.
+
+"For shame! for shame, M. le Marquis!" I cried, losing patience. "I
+have told you that but for M. le Cure and the smith here, Mademoiselle
+and I----"
+
+"And I have told you," he answered, interrupting me with grim good
+humour, "what I think of it, M. le Vicomte! That is all."
+
+"But you do not know what happened?" I persisted, stung to wrath by
+his injustice. "You are not, you cannot be, aware that when Father
+Benoit and his companions arrived, Mademoiselle de St. Alais and I
+were in the most desperate plight? that they saved us only at great
+risk to themselves? and that for our safety at last you have to thank
+rather the tricolour, which those wretches respected, than any display
+of force which we were able to make."
+
+"That, too, is so, is it?" he said, his face grown dark. "I shall have
+something to say to it presently. But, first, may I ask you a
+question, M. le Vicomte? Am I right in supposing that these gentlemen
+are waiting on you from--pardon me if I do not get the title
+correctly--the Honourable the Committee of Public Safety?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"And I presume that I may congratulate them on your answer?"
+
+"No, you may not!" I replied, with satisfaction. "This gentleman"--and
+I pointed to the Capitaine Hugues--"has laid before me certain
+proposals and certain arguments in favour of them."
+
+"But he has not laid before you the most potent of all arguments," the
+Captain said, interposing, with a dry bow. "I find it, and you, M. le
+Vicomte, will find it, too, in M. le Marquis de St. Alais!"
+
+The Marquis stared at him coldly. "I am obliged to you," he said
+contemptuously. "By-and-by, perhaps, I shall have more to say to you.
+For the present, however, I am speaking to M. le Vicomte." And he
+turned and addressed me again. "These gentlemen have waited on you. Do
+I understand that you have declined their proposals?"
+
+"Absolutely!" I answered. "But," I continued warmly, "it does not
+follow that I am without gratitude or natural feeling."
+
+"Ah!" he said. Then, turning, with an easy air, "I see your servant
+there," he said. "May I summon him one moment?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+He raised his hand, and Andre, who was watching us from the doorway,
+flew to take his orders.
+
+He turned to me again. "Have I your permission?"
+
+I bowed, wondering.
+
+"Go, my friend, to Mademoiselle de St. Alais," he said. "She is in the
+hall. Beg her to be so good as to honour us with her presence."
+
+Andre went, with his most pompous air; and we remained, wondering. No
+one spoke. I longed to consult Father Benoit by a look, but I dared
+not do so, lest the Marquis, who kept his eyes on my face, his own
+wearing an enigmatical smile, should take it for a sign of weakness.
+So we stood until Mademoiselle appeared in the doorway, and, after a
+momentary pause, came timidly along the terrace towards us.
+
+She wore a frock which I believe had been my mother's, and was too
+long for her; but it seemed to my eyes to suit her admirably. A
+kerchief covered her shoulders, and she had another laid lightly on
+her unpowdered hair, which, knotted up loosely, strayed in tiny
+ringlets over her neck and ears. To this charming disarray, her
+blushes, as she came towards us, shading her eyes from the sun, added
+the last piquancy. I had not seen her since the women lifted her from
+my saddle, and, seeing her now, coming along the terrace in the fresh
+morning light, I thought her divine! I wondered how I could have let
+her go. An insane desire to defy her brother and whirl her off, out of
+this horrid imbroglio of parties and politics, seized upon me.
+
+But she did not look towards me, and my heart sank. She had eyes only
+for M. le Marquis; approaching him as if he had a magnet which drew
+her to him.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said gravely, "I am told that your escape last
+night was due to your adoption of an emblem, which I see that you are
+still wearing. It is one which no subject of his Majesty can wear with
+honour. Will you oblige me by removing it?"
+
+Pale and red by turns, she shot a piteous glance at us. "Monsieur?"
+she muttered, as if she did not understand.
+
+"I think I have spoken plainly," he said. "Be good enough to remove
+it."
+
+Wincing under the rebuke, she hesitated, looking for a moment as if
+she would burst into tears. Then, with her lip trembling, and with
+trembling fingers, she complied, and began to unfasten the tricolour,
+which the servants--without her knowledge, it may be--had removed from
+the robe she had worn to that which she now wore. It took her a long
+time to remove it, under our eyes, and I grew hot with indignation.
+But I dared not interfere, and the others looked on gravely.
+
+"Thank you," M. de Alais said, when, at last, she had succeeded in
+unpinning it. "I know, Mademoiselle, that you are a true St. Alais,
+and would die rather than owe your life to disloyalty. Be good enough
+to throw that down, and tread upon it."
+
+She started violently at the words. I think we all did. I know that I
+took a step forward, and, but for M. le Marquis' raised hand, must
+have intervened. But I had no right; we were spectators, it was for
+her to act. She stood a moment with all our eyes upon her, stood
+staring breathless and motionless at her brother; then, still looking
+at him, with a shivering sigh, she slowly and mechanically lifted her
+hand, and dropped the ribbon. It fluttered down.
+
+"Tread upon it!" the Marquis said ruthlessly.
+
+She trembled; her face, her child's face, grown quite white. But she
+did not move.
+
+"Tread upon it!" he said again.
+
+And then, without looking down, she moved her foot forward, and
+touched the ribbon.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XI.
+
+                            THE TWO CAMPS.
+
+
+"Thank you, Mademoiselle; now you can go," he said.
+
+But he need not have spoken, for the moment his sister had done his
+bidding she turned from us; before two words had passed his lips she
+was hurrying back to the house in a passion of grief, her face
+covered, and her slight figure shaken by sobs that came back to us on
+the summer air.
+
+The sight stung me to rage; yet for a moment, and by a tremendous
+effort I restrained myself. I would hear him out.
+
+But he either did not, or would not see the effect he had produced.
+"There, Messieurs," he said, his face somewhat pale. "I am obliged to
+your patience. Now you know what I think of your tricolour and your
+services. It shall shelter neither me nor mine! I hold no parley with
+assassins."
+
+I sprang forward, I could contain myself no longer. "And I!" I cried,
+"I, M. le Marquis, have something to say, too! I have something to
+declare! A moment ago I refused that tricolour! I rejected the
+overtures of those who brought it to me. I was resolved to stand by
+you and by my brethren against my better judgment. I was of your
+party, though I did not believe in it; and you might have tied me to
+it. But this gentleman is right, you are yourself the strongest
+argument against yourself. And I do this! I do this!" I repeated
+passionately. "See, M. le Marquis, and know that it is your doing!"
+
+With the word I snatched up the ribbon, on which Mademoiselle had
+trodden, and with fingers that trembled scarcely less than hers had
+trembled, when she unfastened it, I pinned it on my breast.
+
+He bowed, with a sardonic smile. "A cockade is easily changed," he
+said. But I could see that he was livid with rage; that he could have
+slain me for the rebuke.
+
+"You mean," I said hotly, "that I am easily turned."
+
+"You put on the cap, M. le Vicomte," he retorted.
+
+The other three had withdrawn a little--not without open signs of
+disgust--and left us face to face on the spot on which we had stood
+three weeks before on the eve of his mother's reception. Still raging
+with anger on Mademoiselle's account, and minded to wound him, I
+recalled that to him, and the prophecies he had then uttered,
+prophecies which had been so ill-fulfilled.
+
+He took me up at the second word. "Ill-fulfilled?" he said grimly.
+"Yes, M. le Vicomte, but why? Because those who should support me,
+those who from one end of France to the other should support the King,
+are like you--waverers who do not know their own minds! Because the
+gentlemen of France are proving themselves churls and cravens,
+unworthy of the names they bear! Yes, ill-fulfilled," he continued
+bitterly, "because you, M. de Saux, and men like you, are for this
+to-day, and for that to-morrow, and cry one hour, 'Reform,' and the
+next, 'Order!'"
+
+The denial stuck in my throat, and my passion dying down I could only
+glower at him. He saw this, and taking advantage of my momentary
+embarrassment, "But enough," he continued in a tone of dignity very
+galling to me, since it was he who had behaved ill, not I. "Enough of
+this. While it was possible I courted your aid, M. de Saux; and I
+acknowledge, I still acknowledge, and shall be the last to disclaim,
+the obligation under which you last night placed us. But there can
+never be true fellowship between those who wear that"--and he pointed
+to the tricolour I had assumed--"and those who serve the King as we
+serve him. You will pardon me, therefore, if I take my leave, and
+without delay withdraw my sister from a house in which her presence
+may be misunderstood, as mine, after what has passed, must be
+unwelcome."
+
+He bowed again with that, and led the way into the house; while I
+followed, tongue-tied and with a sudden chill at my heart. There was
+no one in the hall except Andre, who was hovering about the farther
+door; but in the avenue beyond were three or four mounted servants
+waiting for M. de St. Alais, and half-way down the avenue a party of
+three were riding towards the gates. It needed but a glance to show me
+that the foremost of these was Mademoiselle, and that she rode low in
+the saddle, as if she still wept. And I turned in a hot fit to M. de
+St. Alais.
+
+But I found his eye fixed on me in such a fashion that the words died
+on my lips. He coughed drily. "Ah!" he said. "So Mademoiselle has
+herself felt the propriety of leaving. You will permit me, then, to
+make her acknowledgments, M. de Saux, and to take leave for her."
+
+He saluted me with the words and turned. He already had his foot
+raised to the stirrup when I muttered his name.
+
+He looked round. "Pardon!" he said. "Is there anything----"
+
+I beckoned to the servants to stand back. I was in misery between rage
+and shame, the hot fit gone. "Monsieur," I said, "there is one more
+thing to be said. This does not end all between Mademoiselle and me.
+For Mademoiselle----"
+
+"We will not speak of her!" he exclaimed.
+
+But I was not to be put down. "For Mademoiselle, I do not know her
+sentiments," I continued, doggedly disregarding his interruption, "nor
+whether I am agreeable to her. But for myself, M. de St. Alais, I tell
+you frankly that I love her; nor shall I change because I wear one
+tricolour or another. Therefore----"
+
+"I have only one thing to say," he cried, raising his hand to stay me.
+
+I gave way, breathing hard. "What is it?" I said.
+
+"That you make love like a bourgeois!" he answered, laughing
+insolently. "Or a mad Englishman! And as Mademoiselle de St. Alais is
+not a baker's daughter, to be wooed after that fashion, I find it
+offensive. Is that enough or shall I say more, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"That will not be enough to turn me from my path!" I answered. "You
+forget that I carried Mademoiselle hither in my arms last night. But I
+do not forget it, and she will not forget it. We cannot be henceforth
+as we were, M. le Marquis."
+
+"You saved her life and base a claim upon it?" he said scornfully.
+"That is generous and like a gentleman!"
+
+"No, I do not!" I answered passionately. "But I have held Mademoiselle
+in my arms, and she has laid her head on my breast, and you can undo
+neither the one nor the other. Henceforth I have a right to woo her,
+and I shall win her."
+
+"While I live you never shall!" he answered fiercely. "I swear that,
+as she trod on that ribbon--at my word, at my word, Monsieur!--so she
+shall tread on your love. From this day seek a wife among your
+friends. Mademoiselle de St. Alais is not for you."
+
+I trembled with rage. "You know, Monsieur, that I cannot fight you!" I
+said.
+
+"Nor I you," he answered. "I know it. Therefore," he continued,
+pausing an instant and reverting with marvellous ease to his former
+politeness, "I will fly from you. Farewell, Monsieur--I do not say,
+until we meet again; for I do not think that we shall meet much in
+future."
+
+I found nothing wherewith to answer that, and he turned and moved'
+away down the avenue. Mademoiselle and her escort had disappeared; his
+servants, obeying my gesture, were almost at the gates. I watched his
+figure as he rode under the boughs of the walnuts, that meeting low
+over his head let the sun fall on him through spare rifts; and, sore
+and miserable at heart myself, I marvelled at the gallant air he
+maintained, and the careless grace of his bearing.
+
+Certainly he had force. He had the force his fellows lacked; and he
+had it so abundantly, that as I gazed after him the words I had used
+to him seemed weak and foolish, the resolution I had flung in his
+teeth childish. After all, he was right; this, to which my feelings
+had impelled me on the spur of anger and love and the moment, was no
+French or proper way of wooing, nor one which I should have relished
+in my sister's case. Why then had I degraded Mademoiselle by it, and
+exposed myself? Men wooed mistresses that way, not wives!
+
+So that I felt very wretched as I turned to go into the house. But
+there my eye alighted on the pistols which still lay on the table in
+the hall, and with a sudden revulsion of feeling I remembered that
+others' affairs were out of order too; that the Chateaux of St. Alais
+and Marignac lay in ashes, that last night I had saved Mademoiselle
+from death, that beyond the walnut avenue with its cool, long shade
+and dappled floor, beyond the quiet of this summer day, lay the
+seething, brawling world of Quercy and of France--the world of
+maddened peasants and frightened townsfolk, and soldiers who would not
+fight, and nobles who dared not.
+
+Then, _Vive le Tricolor!_ the die was cast. I went through the house
+to find Father Benoit and his companions, meaning to throw in my lot
+and return with them. But the terrace was empty; they were nowhere to
+be seen. Even of the servants I could only find Andre, who came
+pottering to me with his lips pursed up to grumble. I asked him where
+the Cure was.
+
+"Gone, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"And Buton?"
+
+"He too. With half the servants, for the matter of that."
+
+"Gone?" I exclaimed. "Whither?"
+
+"To the village to gossip," he answered churlishly. "There is not a
+turnspit now but must hear the news, and take his own leave and time
+to gather it. The world is turned upside down, I think. It is time his
+Majesty the King did something."
+
+"Did not M. le Cure leave a message?"
+
+The old servant hesitated. "Well, he did," he said grudgingly. "He
+said that if M. le Vicomte would stay at home until the afternoon, he
+should hear from him."
+
+"But he was going to Cahors!" I said. "He is not returning to-day?"
+
+"He went by the little alley to the village," Andre answered
+obstinately. "I do not know anything about Cahors."
+
+"Then go to the village now," I said, "and learn whether he took the
+Cahors road."
+
+The old man went grumbling, and I remained alone on the terrace. An
+abnormal quietness, as of the afternoon, lay on the house this summer
+morning. I sat down on a stone seat against the wall, and began to go
+over the events of the night, recalling with the utmost vividness
+things to which at the time I had scarcely given a glance, and
+shuddering at horrors that in the happening had barely moved me.
+Gradually my thoughts passed from these things which made my pulses
+beat; and I began to busy myself with Mademoiselle. I saw her again
+sitting low in the saddle and weeping as she went. The bees hummed in
+the warm air, the pigeons cooed softly in the dovecot, the trees on
+the lawn below me shaped themselves into an avenue over her head, and,
+thinking of her, I fell asleep.
+
+After such a night as I had spent it was not unnatural. But when I
+awoke, and saw that it was high noon, I was wild with vexation. I
+sprang up, and darting suspicious glances round me, caught Andre
+skulking away under the house wall. I called him back, and asked him
+why he had let me sleep.
+
+"I thought that you were tired, Monsieur," he muttered, blinking in
+the sun. "M. le Vicomte is not a peasant that he may not sleep when he
+pleases."
+
+"And M. le Cure? Has he not returned?"
+
+"No, Monsieur."
+
+"And he went--which way?"
+
+He named a village half a league from us; and then said that my dinner
+waited.
+
+I was hungry, and for a moment asked no more, but went in and sat down
+to the meal. When I rose it was nearly two o'clock. Expecting Father
+Benoit every moment, I bade them saddle the horses that I might be
+ready to go; and then, too restless to remain still, I went into the
+village. Here I found all in turmoil. Three-fourths of the inhabitants
+were away at St. Alais inspecting the ruins, and those who remained
+thought of nothing so little as doing their ordinary work; but,
+standing in groups at their doors, or at the cross-roads, or the
+church gates, were discussing events. One asked me timidly if it was
+true that the King had given all the land to the peasants; another, if
+there were to be any more taxes; a third, a question still more
+simple. Yet with this, I met with no lack of respect; and few failed
+to express their joy that I had escaped the ruffians _la-bas_. But as
+I approached each group a subtle shade of expectation, of shyness and
+suspicion seemed to flit across faces the most familiar to me. At the
+moment I did not understand it, and even apprehended it but dimly.
+Now, after the event, now that it is too late, I know that it was the
+first symptom of the social poison doing its sure and deadly work.
+
+With all this, I could hear nothing of M. le Cure; one saying that he
+was here, another there, a third that he had gone to Cahors; and, in
+the end, I returned to the Chateau in a state of discomfort and unrest
+hard to describe. I would not again leave the front of the house lest
+I should miss him; and for hours I paced the avenue, now listening at
+the gates or looking up the road, now walking quickly to and fro under
+the walnuts. In time evening fell, and night; and still I was here
+awaiting the Cure's coming, chained to the silent house; while my mind
+tortured me with pictures of what was going forward outside. The
+restless demon of the time had hold of me; the thought that I lay here
+idle, while the world heaved, made me miserable, filled me with shame.
+When Andre came at last to summon me to supper, I swore at him; and
+the moment I had done, I went up to the roof of the Chateau and
+watched the night, expecting to see again a light in the sky, and the
+far-off glare of burning houses.
+
+I saw nothing, however, and the Cure did not come; and, after a
+wakeful night, seven in the morning saw me in the saddle and on the
+road to Cahors. Andre complained of illness and I took Gil only. The
+country round St. Alais seemed to be deserted; but, half a league
+farther on, over the hill, I came on a score of peasants trudging
+sturdily forward. I asked them whither they were going, and why they
+were not in the fields.
+
+"We are going to Cahors, Monseigneur, for arms," they said.
+
+"For arms! Whom are you going to fight?"
+
+"The brigands, Monseigneur. They are burning and murdering on every
+side. By the mercy of God they have not yet visited us. And to-night
+we shall be armed."
+
+"Brigands!" I said. "What brigands?"
+
+But they could not answer that; and I left them in wonder at their
+simplicity and rode on. I had not yet done with these brigands,
+however. Half a league short of Cahors I passed through a hamlet where
+the same idea prevailed. Here they had raised a rough barricade at the
+end of the street towards the country, and I saw a man on the church
+tower keeping watch. Meanwhile every one in the place who could walk
+had gone to Cahors.
+
+"Why?" I asked. "For what?"
+
+"To hear the news."
+
+Then I began to see that my imagination had not led me astray. All the
+world was heaving, all the world was astir. Every one was hurrying to
+hear and to learn and to tell; to take arms if he had never used arms
+before, to advise if all his life he had obeyed orders, to do anything
+and everything but his daily work. After this, that I should find
+Cahors humming like a hive of bees about to swarm, and the Valandre
+bridge so crowded that I could scarcely force my way through its three
+gates, and the _queue_ of people waiting for rations longer, and the
+rations shorter than ever before--after this, I say, all these things
+seemed only natural.
+
+Nor was I much surprised to find that as I rode through the streets,
+wearing the tricolour, I was hailed here and there with cheers. On the
+other hand, I noticed that wearers of white cockades were not lacking.
+They kept the wall in twos and threes, and walked with raised chins,
+and hands on sword-knots, and were watched askance by the commonalty.
+A few of them were known to me, more were strangers; and while I
+blushed under the scornful looks of the former, knowing that I must
+seem to them a renegade, I wondered who the latter were. Finally I was
+glad to escape from both by alighting at Doury's, over whose door a
+huge tricolour flag hung limp in the sunshine.
+
+M. le Cure de Saux? Yes, he was even then sitting with the Committee
+upstairs. Would M. le Vicomte walk up?
+
+I did so, through a press of noisy people, who thronged the stairs and
+passages and lobbies, and talked, and gesticulated, and seemed to be
+settled there for the day. I worked my way through these at last, the
+door was opened, a fresh gust of noise came out to meet me, and I
+entered the room. In it, seated round a long table, I found a score of
+men, of whom some rose to meet me, while more kept their seats; three
+or four were speaking at once and did not stop on my entrance. I
+recognised at the farther end Father Benoit and Buton, who came to
+meet me, and Capitaine Hugues, who rose, but continued to speak.
+Besides these there were two of the smaller noblesse, who left their
+chairs, and came to me in an ecstasy, and Doury, who rose and sat down
+half a dozen times; and one or two Cures and others of that rank,
+known to me by sight. The uproar was great, the confusion equal to it.
+Still, somehow, and after a moment of tumult, I found myself received
+and welcomed and placed in a chair at the end of the table, with M. le
+Capitaine on one side of me and a notary of Cahors on the other. Then,
+under cover of the noise, I stole a few words with Father Benoit, who
+lingered a moment beside me.
+
+"You could not join us yesterday?" he muttered, with a pathetic look
+that only I understood.
+
+"But you left a message, bidding me wait for you!" I answered.
+
+"I did?" he said. "No; I left a message asking you to follow us--if it
+pleased you."
+
+"Then I never got it," I replied. "Andre told me----"
+
+"Ah! Andre," he answered softly. And he shook his head.
+
+"The rascal!" I said; "then he lied to me! And----"
+
+But some one called the Cure to his place, and we had to part. At the
+same instant most of the talkers ceased; a moment, and only two were
+left speaking, who, without paying the least regard to one another,
+continued to hold forth to their neighbours, haranguing, one on the
+social contract; the other on the brigands--the brigands who were
+everywhere burning the corn and killing the people!
+
+At last M. le Capitaine, after long waiting to speak, attacked the
+former speaker. "Tut, Monsieur!" he said. "This is not the time for
+theory. A halfpennyworth of fact----
+
+"Is worth a pound of theory!" the man of the brigands--he was a
+grocer, I believe--cried eagerly; and he brought his fist down on the
+table.
+
+"But now is the time!--the God-sent time, to frame the facts to the
+theory!" the other combatant screamed. "To form a perfect system! To
+regenerate the world, I say! To----"
+
+"To regenerate the fiddlestick!" his opponent answered, with equal
+heat. "When brigands are at our very doors! when our crops are being
+burned and our houses plundered! when----"
+
+"Monsieur," the Captain said harshly, commanding silence by the
+gravity of his tone--"if you please!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then, to be plain, I do not believe any more in your brigands than in
+M. l'Avoue's theories."
+
+This time it was the grocer's turn to scream. "What?" he cried. "When
+they have been seen at Figeac, and Cajarc, and Rodez, and----
+
+"By whom?" the soldier asked sharply, interrupting him.
+
+"By hundreds."
+
+"Name one."
+
+"But it is notorious!"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur--it is a notorious lie!" M. le Capitaine answered
+bluntly. "Believe me, the brigands with whom we have to deal are
+nearer home. Allow us to arrange with them first, and do not deafen M.
+le Vicomte with your chattering."
+
+"Hear! hear!" the lawyer cried.
+
+But this insult proved too much for the man of the brigands. He began
+again, and others joined in, for him and against him; to my despair,
+it seemed as if the quarrel were only beginning--as if peace would
+have to be made afresh.
+
+How all this noise, tumult, and disputation, this absence of the
+politeness to which I had been accustomed all my life, this vulgar
+jostling and brawling depressed me I need not say. I sat deafened,
+lost in the scramble; of no more account, for the moment, than Buton.
+Nay of less; for while I gazed about me and listened, sunk in wonder
+at my position at a table with people of a class with whom I had never
+sat down before--save at the chance table of an inn, where my presence
+kept all within bounds--it was Buton who, by coming to the officer's
+aid, finally gained silence.
+
+"Now you have had your say, perhaps you will let me have mine," the
+Captain said, with acerbity, taking advantage of the hearing thus
+gained for him. "It is very well for you, M. l'Avoue, and you,
+Monsieur--I have forgotten your name--you are not fighting men, and my
+difficulty does not affect you. But there are half a dozen at this
+table who are placed as I am, and they understand. You may organise;
+but if your officers are carried off every morning, you will not go
+far."
+
+"How carried off?" the lawyer cried, puffing out his thin cheeks.
+"Members of the Committee of----"
+
+"How?" M. le Capitaine rejoined, cutting him short without
+ceremony--"by the prick of a small sword! You do not understand; but,
+for some of us, we cannot go three paces from this door without risk
+of an insult and a challenge."
+
+"That is true!" the two gentlemen at the foot of the table cried with
+one voice.
+
+"It is true, and more," the Captain continued, warming as he spoke.
+"It is no chance work, but a plan. It is their plan for curbing us. I
+have seen three men in the streets to-day, who, I can swear, are
+fencing-masters in fine clothes."
+
+"Assassins!" the lawyer cried pompously.
+
+"That is all very well," Hugues said more soberly. "You can call them
+what you please. But what is to be done? If we cannot move abroad
+without a challenge and a duel, we are helpless. You will have all
+your leaders picked off."
+
+"The people will avenge you!" the lawyer said, with a grand air.
+
+M. le Capitaine shrugged his shoulders. "Thank you for nothing," he
+said.
+
+Father Benoit interposed. "At present," he said anxiously, "I think
+that there is only one thing to be done. You have said, M. le
+Capitaine, that some of the committee are not fighting men. Why, I
+would ask, should any fight, and play into our opponents' hands?"
+
+"_Par Dieu!_ I think that you are right!" Hugues answered frankly. And
+he looked round as if to collect opinions. "Why should we? I am sure
+that I do not wish to fight. I have given my proofs."
+
+There was a short pause, during which we looked at one another
+doubtfully. "Well, why not?" the Captain said at last. "This is not
+play, but business. We are no longer gentlemen at large, but soldiers
+under discipline."
+
+"Yes," I said stiffly, for I found all looking at me. "But it is
+difficult, M. le Capitaine, for men of honour to divest themselves of
+certain ideas. If we are not to protect ourselves from insult, we sink
+to the level of beasts."
+
+"Have no fear, M. le Vicomte!" Buton cried abruptly. "The people will
+not suffer it!"
+
+"No, no; the people will not suffer it!" one or two echoed; and for a
+moment the room rang with cries of indignation.
+
+"Well, at any rate," the Captain said at last, "all are now warned.
+And if, after this, they fight lightly, they do it with full knowledge
+that they are playing their adversaries' game. I hope all understand
+that. For my part," he continued, shrugging his shoulders with a dry
+laugh, "they may cane me; I shall not fight them! I am no fool!"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XII.
+
+                              THE DUEL.
+
+
+I have said already how all this weighed me down; with what misgivings
+I looked along the table, from the pale, pinched features of the
+lawyer to the smug grin of the grocer, or Buton's coarse face; with
+what sinkings of heart I found myself on a sudden the equal of these
+men, addressed now with rude abruptness, and now with servility; last,
+but not least, with what despondency I listened to the wrangling which
+followed, and which it needed all the exertions of the Captain to
+control. Fortunately, the sitting did not last long. After half an
+hour of debate and conversation, during which I did what I could to
+aid the few who knew anything of business, the meeting broke up; and
+while some went out on various missions, others remained to deal with
+such affairs as arose. I was one of those appointed to stay, and I
+drew Father Benoit into a corner, and, hiding for a moment the feeling
+of despair which possessed me, I asked him if any further outbreaks
+had occurred in the country round.
+
+"No," he answered, secretly pressing my hand. "We have done so much
+good, I think." Then, in a different tone, which showed how clearly he
+read my mind, he continued, under his breath, "Ah! M. le Vicomte, let
+us only keep the peace! Let us do what lies to our hands. Let us
+protect the innocent, and then, no matter what happens. Alas, I
+foresee more than I predicted. More than I dreamed of is in peril. Let
+us only cling to----"
+
+He stopped, and turned, startled by the noisy entrance of the Captain;
+who came in so abruptly that those who remained at the table sprang to
+their feet. M. Hugues' face was flushed, his eyes were gleaming with
+anger. The lawyer, who stood nearest to the door, turned a shade
+paler, and stammered out a question. But the Captain passed by him
+with a glance of contempt, and came straight to me. "M. le Vicomte,"
+he said out loud, blurting out his words in haste, "you are a
+gentleman. You will understand me. I want your help."
+
+I stared at him. "Willingly," I said. "But what is the matter?"
+
+"I have been insulted!" he answered, his moustaches curling.
+
+"How?"
+
+"In the street! And by one of those puppies! But I will teach him
+manners! I am a soldier, sir, and I----"
+
+"But, stay, M. le Capitaine," I said, really taken aback. "I
+understood that there was to be no fighting. And that you in
+particular----"
+
+"Tut! tut!"
+
+"Would be caned before you would go out."
+
+"_Sacre Nom!_" he cried, "what of that? Do you think that I am not a
+gentleman because I have served in America instead of in France?"
+
+"No," I said, scarcely able to restrain a smile. "But it is playing
+into their hands. So you said yourself, a minute ago, and----"
+
+"Will you help me, or will you not, sir?" he retorted angrily. And
+then, as the lawyer tried to intervene, "Be silent, you!" he
+continued, turning on him so violently that the scrivener jumped back
+a pace. "What do you know of these things? You miserable pettifogger!
+you----"
+
+"Softly, softly, M. le Capitaine," I said, startled by this outbreak,
+and by the prospect of further brawling which it disclosed. "M.
+l'Avoue is doing merely his duty in remonstrating. He is in the right,
+and----
+
+"I have nothing to do with him! And for you--you will not assist me?"
+
+"I did not say that."
+
+"Then, if you will, I crave your services at once! At once," he said
+more calmly; but he still kept his shoulder to the lawyer. "I have
+appointed a meeting behind the Cathedral. If you will honour me, I
+must ask you to do so immediately."
+
+I saw that it was useless to say more; that he had made up his mind;
+and for answer I took up my hat. In a moment we were moving towards
+the door. The lawyer, the grocer, half a dozen cried out on us, and
+would have stopped us. But Father Benoit remained silent, and I went
+on down the stairs, and out of the house. Outside it was easy to see
+that the quarrel and insult had had spectators; a gloomy crowd, not
+compact, but made up of watching groups, filled all the sunny open
+part of the square. The pavement, on the other hand, along which we
+had to pass to go to the Cathedral, had for its only occupants a score
+or more of gentlemen, who, wearing white cockades, walked up and down
+in threes and fours. The crowd eyed them silently; they affected to
+see nothing of the crowd. Instead, they talked and smiled carelessly,
+and with half-opened eyes; swung their canes, and saluted one another,
+and now and then stopped to exchange a word or a pinch of snuff. They
+wore an air of insolence, ill-hidden, which the silent, almost cowed
+looks of the multitude, as it watched them askance, seemed to justify.
+
+We had to run the gauntlet of these; and my face burned with shame, as
+we passed. Many of the men, whom I met now, I had met two days before
+at Madame St. Alais', where they had seen me put on the white cockade;
+they saw me now in the opposite camp, they knew nothing of my reasons,
+and I read in their averted eyes and curling lips what they thought of
+the change. Others--and they looked at me insolently, and scarcely
+gave me room to pass--were strangers, wearing military swords, and the
+cross of St. Louis.
+
+
+Fortunately the passage was as short as it was painful. We passed
+under the north wall of the Cathedral, and through a little door into
+a garden, where lime trees tempered the glare of the sun, and the
+town, with its crowd and noise, seemed to be in a moment left behind.
+On the right rose the walls of the apse and the heavy eastern domes of
+the Cathedral; in front rose the ramparts; on the left an old,
+half-ruined tower of the fourteenth century lifted a frowning
+ivy-covered head. In the shadow, at its foot, on a piece of smooth
+sward, a group of four persons were standing waiting for us.
+
+One was M. de St. Alais, one was Louis; the others were strangers. A
+sudden thought filled me with horror. "Whom are you going to fight?" I
+muttered.
+
+"M. de St. Alais," the Captain answered, in the same tone. And then,
+being within earshot of the others, I could say no more. They stepped
+forward, and saluted us.
+
+"M. le Vicomte?" Louis said. He was grave and stern. I scarcely knew
+him.
+
+I assented mechanically, and we stepped aside from the others. "This
+is not a case that admits of intervention, I believe?" he said,
+bowing.
+
+"I suppose not," I answered huskily.
+
+In truth, I could scarcely speak for horror. I was waking slowly to
+the consciousness of the dilemma in which I had placed myself. Were
+St. Alais to fall by the Captain's sword, what would his sister say to
+me, what would she think of me, how would she ever touch my hand? And
+yet could I wish ill to my own principal? Could I do so in honour,
+even if something sturdy and practical, something of plain gallantry
+in the man, whom I was here to second, had not already and insensibly
+won my heart?
+
+Yet one of the two must fall. The great clock above my head, slowly
+telling out the hour of noon, beat the truth into my brain. For a
+moment I grew dizzy; the sun dazzled me, the trees reeled before me,
+the garden swam. The murmur of the crowd outside filled my ears. Then
+out of the mist Louis' voice, unnaturally steady, gripped my
+attention, and my brain grew clear again.
+
+"Have you any objection to this spot?" he said. "The grass is dry, and
+not slippery. They will fight in shadow, and the light is good."
+
+"It will do," I muttered.
+
+"Perhaps you will examine it? There is, I think, no trip or fault."
+
+I affected to do so. "I find none," I said hoarsely.
+
+"Then we had better place our men?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+I had no knowledge of the skill of either combatant, but, as I turned
+to join Hugues, I was startled by the contrast which the two presented
+as they stood a little apart, their upper clothes removed. The Captain
+was the shorter by a head, and stiff and sturdy, with a clear eye and
+keen visage. M. le Marquis, on the other hand, was tall and lithe, and
+long in the arm, with a reach which threatened danger, and a smile
+almost as deadly. I thought that if his skill and coolness were on a
+par with his natural gifts, M. Hugues--But then again my head reeled.
+What did I wish?
+
+"We are ready," M. Louis said impatiently; and I noticed that he
+glanced past me towards the gate of the garden. "Will you measure the
+swords, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+I complied, and was about to place my man, when M. le Capitaine
+indicated by a sign that he wished to speak to me, and, disregarding
+the frowns of the other side, I led him apart.
+
+His face had lost the glow of passion which had animated it a few
+minutes before, and was pale and stern. "This is a fool's trick," he
+said curtly, and under his breath. "It will serve me right if that
+puppy goes through me. You will do me a favour, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+I muttered that I would do him any in my power.
+
+"I borrowed a thousand francs to fit myself out for this service," he
+continued, avoiding my eye, "from a man in Paris whose name you will
+find in my valise at the inn. Should anything happen to me, I should
+be glad if you will send him what is left. That is all."
+
+"He shall be paid in full," I said. "I will see to it."
+
+He wrung my hand, and went to his station; and Louis and I placed
+ourselves on either side of the two, ready, with our swords drawn, to
+interfere should need arise. The signal was given, the principals
+saluted, and fell on guard, and in a moment the grinding and clicking
+of the blades began, while the pigeons of the Cathedral flew in eddies
+above us, and in the middle of the garden a little fountain tinkled
+softly in the sunshine.
+
+They had not made three passes before the great diversity of their
+styles became apparent. While Hugues played vigorously with his body,
+stooping, and moving, and stepping aside, but keeping his arm stiff,
+and using his wrist much, M. le Marquis held his body erect and still,
+but moved his arm, and, fencing with a school correctness, as if he
+held a foil, disdained all artifices save those of the weapon. It was
+clear that he was the better fencer, and that, of the two, the Captain
+must tire first, since he was never still, and the wrist is more
+quickly fatigued that the arm; but, in addition to this, I soon
+perceived that the Marquis was not putting forth his full strength,
+but, depending on his defence, was waiting to tire out his opponent.
+My eyes grew hot, my throat dry, as I watched breathlessly, waiting
+for the stroke that must finish all--waiting and flinching. And then,
+on a sudden, something happened. The Captain seemed to slip, yet did
+not slip, but in a moment, stooping almost prone, his left hand on the
+ground, was under the other's guard. His point was at the Marquis's
+breast, when the latter sprang back--sprang back, and just saved
+himself. Before the Captain could recover his footing, Louis dashed
+his sword aside.
+
+"Foul play!" he cried passionately. "Foul play! A stroke _dessous!_ It
+is not _en regle_."
+
+The Captain stood breathing quickly, his point to the ground. "But why
+not, Monsieur?" he said. Then he looked to me.
+
+"I scarcely understand, M. de St. Alais," I said stiffly. "The
+stroke----"
+
+"Is not allowed."
+
+"In the schools," I said. "But this is a duel."
+
+"I have never seen it used in a duel," he said.
+
+"No matter," I answered warmly. "To interfere on such provocation is
+absurd."
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+"Is absurd!" I repeated firmly. "After such treatment I have no
+resource but to withdraw M. le Capitaine from the field."
+
+"Perhaps you will take his place," some one behind me said with a
+sneer.
+
+I turned sharply. One of the two persons whom we had found with St.
+Alais was the speaker. I saluted him. "The surgeon?" I said.
+
+"No," he answered angrily. "I am M. du Marc, and very much at your
+service."
+
+"But not a second," I rejoined. "And, therefore, you have no right to
+be standing where you are, nor to be here. I must request you to
+withdraw."
+
+"I have at least as much right as those," he answered, pointing to the
+roof of the Cathedral, over the battlements of which a number of heads
+could be seen peering down at us.
+
+I stared.
+
+"Our friends have at least as much right as yours," he continued,
+taunting me.
+
+"But they do not interfere," I answered firmly. "Nor shall you. I
+request you to withdraw."
+
+He still refused, and even tried to bluster; but this proved too much
+for Louis' stomach; he intervened sharply, and at a word from him the
+bully shrugged his shoulders and moved away. Then we four looked at
+one another.
+
+"We had better proceed," the Captain said bluntly. "If the stroke was
+irregular, this gentleman was right to interfere. If not----"
+
+"I am willing," M. de St. Alais said. And in a moment the two fell on
+guard, and to it again; but more fiercely now, and with less caution,
+the Captain more than once using a rough, sweeping parry, in greater
+favour with practical fighters than in the fencing school. This,
+though it left him exposed to a _riposte_, seemed to disconcert M. le
+Marquis, who fenced, I thought, less skilfully than before, and more
+than once seemed to be flurried by the Captain's attack. I began to
+feel doubtful of the result, my heart began to beat more quickly, the
+glitter of the blades as they slid up and down one another confused my
+sight. I looked for one moment across at Louis--and in that moment the
+end came. M. le Capitaine used again his sweeping parry, but this time
+the circle was too wide; St. Alais' blade darted serpent-like under
+his. The Captain staggered back. His sword dropped from his hand.
+
+Before he could fall I caught him in my arms, but blood was gushing
+already from a wound in the side of his neck. He just turned his
+eyes to my face, and tried once to speak. I caught the words, "You
+will----" and then blood choked his voice, and his eyes slowly closed.
+He was dead, or as good as dead, before the surgeon could reach him,
+before I could lay him on the grass.
+
+I knelt a moment beside him perfectly stunned by the suddenness of the
+catastrophe; watching in a kind of fascination the surgeon feeling
+pulse and heart, and striving with his thumb to stop the bleeding. For
+a moment or two my world was reduced to the sinking grey face, the
+quivering eyelids before me, and I saw nothing, heeded nothing,
+thought of nothing else. I could not believe that the valiant spirit
+had fled already; that the stout man who had so quickly yet insensibly
+won my liking was in this moment dead; dead and growing livid, while
+the pigeons still circled overhead, and the sparrows chirped, and the
+fountain tinkled in the sunshine.
+
+I cried out in my agony. "Not dead?" I said. "Not dead so soon?"
+
+"Yes, M. le Vicomte, it was bad luck," the surgeon answered, letting
+the passive head fall on the stained grass. "With such a wound nothing
+can be done."
+
+He rose as he spoke; but I remained on my knees, wrapt and absorbed;
+staring at the glazing eyes that a few minutes before had been full of
+life and keenness. Then with a shudder I turned my look on myself. His
+blood covered me; it was on my breast, my arm, my hands, soaking into
+my coat. From it my thoughts turned to St. Alais, and at the moment,
+as I looked instinctively round to see where he was, or if he had
+gone, I started. The deep boom of a heavy bell, tolled once, shook the
+air; while its solemn burden still hung mournfully on the ear, quick
+footsteps ran towards me, and I heard a harsh cry at my elbow. "But,
+_mon Dieu!_ This is murder! They are murdering us!"
+
+I looked behind me. The speaker was Du Marc, the bully who had vainly
+tried to provoke me. The two St. Alais and the surgeon were with him,
+and all four came from the direction of the door by which we had
+entered. They passed me with averted eyes, and hurried towards a
+little postern which flanked the old tower, and opened on the
+ramparts. As they went out of sight behind a buttress that intervened
+the bell boomed out again above my head, its dull note full of menace.
+
+Then I awoke and understood; understood that the noise which filled my
+ears was not the burden of the bell carried on from one deep stroke to
+another, but the roar of angry voices in the square, the babel of an
+approaching crowd crying: "_A la lanterne! A la lanterne!_" From the
+battlements of the Cathedral, from the louvres of the domes, from
+every window of the great gloomy structure that frowned above me, men
+were making signs, and pointing with their hands, and brandishing
+their fists--at me, I thought at first, or at the body at my feet. But
+then I heard footsteps again, and I turned and found the other four
+behind me, close to me; the two St. Alais pale and stern, with bright
+eyes, the bully pale, too, but with a look which shot furtively here
+and there, and white lips.
+
+"Curse them, they are at that door, too!" he cried shrilly. "We are
+beset. We shall be murdered. By God, we shall be murdered, and by
+these _canaille!_ By these--I call all here to witness that it was a
+fair fight! I call you to witness, M. le Vicomte, that----"
+
+"It will help us much," St. Alais said with a sneer, "if he does. If I
+were once at home----"
+
+"Ay, but how are we to get there?" Du Marc cried. He could not hide
+his terror. "Do you understand," he continued querulously, addressing
+me, "that we shall be murdered? Is there no other door? Speak, some
+one. Speak!"
+
+His fears appealed to me in vain. I would scarcely have stirred a
+finger to save him. But the sight of the two St. Alais standing there
+pale and irresolute, while that roar of voices grew each moment louder
+and nearer, moved me. A moment, and the mob would break in; perhaps
+finding us by Hugues' side, it might in its fury sacrifice all
+indifferently. It might; and then I heard, to give point to the
+thought, the crash of one of the doors of the garden as it gave
+way; and I cried out almost involuntarily that there was another
+door--another door, if it was open. I did not look to see if they
+followed, but, leaving the dead, I took the lead, and ran across the
+sward towards the wall of the Cathedral.
+
+The crowd were already pouring into the garden, but a clump of shrubs
+hid us from them as we fled; and we gained unseen a little door, a
+low-browed postern in the wall of the apse, that led, I knew--for not
+long before I had conducted an English visitor over the Cathedral--to
+a sacristy connected with the crypt. My hope of finding the door open
+was slight; if I had stayed to weigh the chances I should have thought
+them desperate. But to my joy as I came up to it, closely followed by
+the others, it opened of itself, and a priest, showing his tonsured
+head in the aperture, beckoned to us to hasten. He had little need to
+do so; in a moment we had obeyed, were by his side, and panting, heard
+the bolts shoot home behind us. For the moment we were safe.
+
+Then we breathed again. We stood in the twilight of a long narrow room
+with walls and roof of stone, and three loopholes for windows. Du Marc
+was the first to speak. "_Mon Dieu_, that was close," he said, wiping
+his brow, which in the cold light wore an ugly pallor. "We are----"
+
+"Not out of the wood yet," the surgeon answered gravely, "though we
+have good grounds for thanking M. le Vicomte. They have discovered us!
+Yes, they are coming!"
+
+Probably the people on the roof had watched us enter and denounced our
+place of refuge; for as he spoke, we heard a rush of feet, the door
+shook under a storm of blows, and a score of grimy savage faces showed
+at the slender arrow-slits, and glaring down, howled and spat curses
+upon us. Luckily the door was of oak, studded and plated with iron,
+fashioned in old, rough days for such an emergency, and we stood
+comparatively safe. Yet it was terrible to hear the cries of the mob,
+to feel them so close, to gauge their hatred, and know while they beat
+on the stone as though they would tear the walls with their naked
+hands, what it would be to fall into their power!
+
+We looked at one another, and--but it may have been the dim light--I
+saw no face that was not pale. Fortunately the pause was short. The
+Cure who had admitted us, unlocked as quickly as he could an inner
+door. "This way," he said--but the snarling of the beasts outside
+almost drowned his voice--"if you will follow me, I will let you out
+by the south entrance. But, be quick, gentlemen, be quick," he
+continued, pushing us out before him, "or they may guess what we are
+about, and be there before us."
+
+It may be imagined that after that we lost no time. We followed him as
+quickly as we could along a narrow subterranean passage, very dimly
+lit, at the end of which a flight of six steps brought us into a
+second passage. We almost ran along this, and though a locked door
+delayed us a moment--which seemed a minute, and a long one--the key
+was found and the door opened. We passed through it, and found
+ourselves in a long narrow room, the counterpart of that we had first
+entered. The cure opened the farther door of this; I looked out. The
+alley outside, the same which led beside the Cathedral to the Chapter
+House, was empty.
+
+"We are in time," I said, with a sigh of relief; it was pleasant to
+breathe the fresh air again. And I turned, still panting with the
+haste we had made, to thank the good Cure who had saved us.
+
+M. de St. Alais, who followed me, and had kept silence throughout,
+thanked him also. Then M. le Marquis stood hesitating on the
+threshold, while I looked to see him hurry away. At last he turned to
+me. "M. de Saux," he said, speaking with less aplomb than was usual
+with him--but we were all agitated--"I should thank you also. But
+perhaps the situation in which we stand towards one another----"
+
+"I think nothing of that," I answered harshly. "But that in which we
+have just stood----"
+
+"Ah," he rejoined, shrugging his shoulders, "if you take it that
+way----"
+
+"I do take it that way," I answered--the Captain's blood was not yet
+dry on the man's sword, and he spoke to me! "I do take it that way.
+And I warn you, M. le Marquis," I continued sternly, "that if you
+pursue your plan further, a plan that has already cost one brave man
+his life, it will recoil on yourselves, and that most terribly."
+
+"At least I shall not ask you to shield me," he answered proudly. And
+he walked carelessly away, sheathing his sword as he went. The passage
+was still empty. There was no one to stop him.
+
+Louis followed him; Du Marc and the surgeon had already disappeared. I
+fancied that as Louis passed me he hung a moment on his heel; and that
+he would have spoken to me, would have caught my eye, would have taken
+my hand, had I given him an opening. But I saw before me Hugues' dead
+face and sunken eyes, and I set my own face like a stone, and turned
+away.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XIII.
+
+                            A LA LANTERNE.
+
+
+For, of all the things that had happened since I left the Committee
+Room, the Captain's death remained the one most real and most deeply
+bitten into my mind. He had shared with me the walk from the inn to
+the garden, and the petty annoyances that had then filled my thoughts.
+He had faced them with me, and bravely; and this late association, and
+the picture of him as he walked beside me, full of life and coarse
+wrath, rose up now and cried out against his death; cried out that it
+was impossible. So that it seemed horrible to me, and I shook with
+fear, and loathed the man whose hand had done it.
+
+Nor was that all. I had known Hugues barely forty-eight hours, my
+liking for him was only an hour born; but I had his story. I could
+follow him going about to borrow the small sum of money he had
+possessed. I could trace the hopes he had built on it. I could see him
+coming here full of honest courage, believing that he had found an
+opening; a man strong, confident, looking forward, full of plans. And
+then of all, this was the end! He had hoped, he had purposed; and on
+the other side of the Cathedral, he lay stark--stark and dead on the
+grass.
+
+It seemed so sad and pitiful, I had the man so vividly in my mind,
+that I scarcely gave a thought to the St. Alais' danger and escape;
+that, and our hasty flight, had passed like a dream. I was content to
+listen a moment beside the church door; and then satisfied that the
+murmur of the crowd was dying in the distance, and that the city was
+quiet, I thanked the Vicar again, and warmly, and, taking leave of
+him, in my turn walked up the passage.
+
+It was so still that it echoed my footsteps; and presently I began to
+think the silence odd. I began to wonder why the mob, which a few
+minutes before had shown itself so vindictive, had not found its way
+round; why the neighbourhood had become on a sudden so quiet. A few
+paces would show, however; I hastened on, and in a moment stood in the
+market-place.
+
+To my astonishment it lay sunny, tranquil, utterly deserted; a dog ran
+here and there with tail high, nosing among the garbage; a few old
+women were at the stalls on the farther side; about as many people
+were busy, putting up shutters and closing shops. But the crowd which
+had filled the place so short a time before, the _queue_ about the
+corn measures, the white cockades, all were gone; I stood astonished.
+
+For a moment only, however. Then, in place of the silence which had
+prevailed between the high walls of the passage, a dull sound, distant
+and heavy, began to speak to me; a sullen roar, as of breakers falling
+on the beach. I started and listened. A moment more, and I was across
+the Square, and at the door of the inn. I darted into the passage, and
+up the stairs, my heart beating fast.
+
+Here, too, I had left a crowd in the passages, and on the stairs. Not
+a man remained. The house seemed to be dead; at noon-day with the sun
+shining outside. I saw no one, heard no one, until I reached the door
+of the room in which I had left the Committee and entered. Here, at
+last, I found life; but the same silence.
+
+Round the table were seated some dozen of the members of the
+Committee. On seeing me they started, like men detected in an act of
+which they were ashamed, some continuing to sit, sullen and scowling,
+with their elbows on the table, others stooping to their neighbours'
+ears to whisper, or listen. I noticed that many were pale and all
+gloomy; and though the room was light, and hot noon poured in through
+three windows, a something grim in the silence, and the air of
+expectation which prevailed, struck a chill to my heart.
+
+Father Benoit was not of them, but Baton was, and the lawyer, and the
+grocer, and the two gentlemen, and one of the Cures, and Doury--the
+last-named pale and cringing, with fear sitting heavily on him. I
+might have thought, at a first glance round, that nothing which had
+happened outside was known to them; that they were ignorant alike of
+the duel and the riot; but a second glance assured me that they knew
+all, and more than I did; so many of them, when they had once met my
+eyes, looked away.
+
+"What has happened?" I asked, standing half-way between the door and
+the long table.
+
+"Don't you know, Monsieur?"
+
+"No," I muttered, staring at them. Even here that distant murmur
+filled the air.
+
+"But you were at the duel, M. le Vicomte?" The speaker was Buton.
+
+"Yes," I said nervously. "But what of that? I saw M. le Marquis safe
+on his way home, and I thought that the crowd had separated. Now--"
+and I paused, listening.
+
+"You fancy that you still hear them?" he said, eying me closely and
+smiling.
+
+"Yes; I fear that they are at mischief."
+
+"We are afraid of that, too," the smith answered drily, setting his
+elbows on the table, and looking at me anew. "It is not impossible."
+
+Then I understood. I caught Doury's eye--which would fain have escaped
+mine--and read it there. The hooting of the distant crowd rose more
+loudly on the summer stillness; as it did so, faces round the table
+grew graver, lips grew longer, some trembled and looked down; and I
+understood. "My God!" I cried in excitement, trembling myself. "Is no
+one going to do anything, then? Are you going to sit here, while these
+demons work their will? While houses are sacked and women and
+children----"
+
+"Why not?" Buton said curtly.
+
+"Why not?" I cried.
+
+"Ay, why not?" he answered sternly--and I began to see that he
+dominated the others; that he would not and they dared not. "We went
+about to keep the peace, and see that others kept it. But your white
+cockades, your gentlemen bullies, your soldierless officers, M. le
+Vicomte--I speak without offence--would not have it. They undertook to
+bully us; and unless they learn a lesson now, they will bully us
+again. No, Monsieur," he continued, looking round with a hard
+smile--already power had changed him wondrously--"let the people have
+their way for half an hour, and----"
+
+"The people?" I cried. "Are the rascals and sweepings of the streets,
+the gaol-birds, the beggars and _forcats_ of the town--are they the
+people?"
+
+"No matter," he said frowning.
+
+"But this is murder!"
+
+Two or three shivered, and some looked sullenly from me, but the
+blacksmith only shrugged his shoulders. Still I did not despair, I was
+going to say more--to try threats, even prayers; but before I could
+speak, the man nearest to the windows raised his hand for silence, and
+we heard the distant riot sink, and in the momentary quiet which
+followed the sharp report of a gun ring out, succeeded by another and
+another. Then a roar of rage--distinct, articulate, full of menace.
+
+"Oh, _mon Dieu!_" I cried, looking round, while I trembled with
+indignation, "I cannot stand this! Will no one act? Will no one do
+anything? There must be some authority. There must be some one to curb
+this _canaille_; or presently, I warn you, I warn you all, that they
+will cut your throats also; yours, M. l'Avoue, and yours, Doury!"
+
+"There was some one; and he is dead," Buton answered. The rest of the
+Committee fidgeted gloomily.
+
+"And was he the only one?"
+
+"They've killed him," the smith said bluntly. "They must take the
+consequences."
+
+"They?" I cried, in a passion of wrath and pity. "Ay, and you! And
+you! I tell you that you are using this scum of the people to crush
+your enemies! But presently they will crush you too!"
+
+Still no one spoke, no one answered me; no eyes met mine; then I saw
+how it was; that nothing I could say would move them; and I turned
+without another word, and I ran downstairs. I knew already, or could
+guess, whither the crowd had gone, and whence came the shouting and
+the shots; and the moment I reached the Square I turned in the
+direction of the St. Alais' house, and ran through the streets;
+through quiet streets under windows from which women looked down white
+and curious, past neat green blinds of modern houses, past a few
+staring groups; ran on, with all about me smiling, but always with
+that murmur in my ears, and at my heart grim fear.
+
+They were sacking the St. Alais' house! And Mademoiselle! And Madame!
+
+The thought of them came to me late; but having come it was not to be
+displaced. It gripped my heart and seemed to stop it. Had I saved
+Mademoiselle only for this? Had I risked all to save her from the
+frenzied peasants, only that she might fall into the more cruel hands
+of these maddened wretches, these sweepings of the city?
+
+It was a dreadful thought; for I loved her, and knew, as I ran, that I
+loved her. Had I not known it I must have known it now, by the very
+measure of agony which the thought of that horror caused me. The
+distance from the Trois Rois to the house was barely four hundred
+yards, but it seemed infinite to me. It seemed an age before I stopped
+breathless and panting on the verge of the crowd, and strove to see,
+across the plain of heads, what was happening in front.
+
+A moment, and I made out enough to relieve me; and I breathed more
+freely. The crowd had not yet won its will. It filled the street on
+either side of the St. Alais' house from wall to wall; but in front of
+the house itself, a space was still kept clear by the fire of those
+within. Now and again, a man or a knot of men would spring out of the
+ranks of the mob, and darting across this open space to the door,
+would strive to beat it in with axes and bars, and even with naked
+hands; but always there came a puff of smoke from the shuttered and
+loop-holed windows, and a second and a third, and the men fell back,
+or sank down on the stones, and lay bleeding in the sunshine.
+
+It was a terrible sight. The wild beast rage of the mob, as they
+watched their leaders fall, yet dared not make the rush _en masse_
+which must carry the place, was enough, of itself, to appal the
+stoutest. But when to this and their fiendish cries were added other
+sounds as horrid--the screams of the wounded and the rattle of
+musketry--for some of the mob had arms, and were firing from
+neighbouring houses at the St. Alais' windows--the effect was
+appalling. I do not know why, but the sunshine, and the tall white
+houses which formed the street, and the very neatness of the
+surroundings, seemed to aggravate the bloodshed; so that for a while
+the whole, the writhing crowd, the open space with its wounded, the
+ugly cries and curses and shots, seemed unreal. I, who had come
+hot-foot to risk all, hesitated; if this was Cahors, if this was the
+quiet town I had known all my life, things had come to a pass indeed.
+If not, I was dreaming.
+
+But this last was a thought too wild to be entertained for more than a
+few seconds; and with a groan I thrust myself into the press, bent
+desperately on getting through and reaching the open space; though
+what I should do when I got there, or how I could help, I had not
+considered. I had scarcely moved, however, when I felt my arm gripped,
+and some one clinging obstinately to me, held me back. I turned to
+resent the action with a blow,--I was beside myself; but the man was
+Father Benoit, and my hand fell. I caught hold of him with a cry of
+joy, and he drew me out of the press.
+
+His face was pale and full of grief and consternation; yet by a
+wonderful chance I had found him, and I hoped. "You can do something!"
+I cried in his ear, gripping his hand hard. "The Committee will not
+act, and this is murder! Murder, man! Do you see?"
+
+"What can I do?" he wailed; and he threw up his other hand with a
+gesture of despair.
+
+"Speak to them."
+
+"Speak to them?" he answered. "Will mad dogs stand when you speak to
+them? Or will mad dogs listen? How can you get to them? Where can you
+speak to them? It is impossible. It is impossible, Monsieur. They
+would kill their fathers to-day, if they stood between them and
+vengeance."
+
+"Then, what will you do?" I cried passionately. "What will you do?"
+
+He shook his head; and I saw that he meant nothing, that he could do
+nothing. And then my soul revolted. "You must! You shall!" I cried
+fiercely. "You have raised this devil, and you must lay him! Are these
+the liberties about which you have talked to us? Are these the people
+for whom you have pleaded? Answer, answer me, what you will do!" I
+cried. And I shook him furiously.
+
+He covered his face with his hand. "God forgive us!" he said. "God
+help us!"
+
+I looked at him for the first and only time in my life with
+contempt--with rage. "God help you?" I cried--I was beside myself.
+"God helps those who help themselves! You have brought this about!
+You! You! You have preached this! Now mend it!"
+
+He trembled, and was silent. Unsupported by the passion which animated
+me, in face of the brute rage of the people, his courage sank.
+
+"Now mend it!" I repeated furiously.
+
+"I cannot get to them," he muttered.
+
+"Then I will make a way for you!" I answered madly, recklessly.
+"Follow me! Do you hear that noise? Well, we will play a part in it!"
+
+A dozen guns had gone off, almost in a volley. We could not see the
+result, nor what was passing; but the hoarse roar of the mob
+intoxicated me. I cried to him to follow, and rushed into the press.
+
+Again he caught and stayed me, clinging to me with a stubbornness
+which would not be denied. "If you will go, go through the houses! Go
+through the opposite houses!" he muttered in my ear.
+
+I had sense enough, when he had spoken twice, to understand him and
+comply. I let him lead me aside, and in a moment we were out of the
+press, and hurrying through an alley at the back of the houses that
+faced the St. Alais' mansion. We were not the first to go that way;
+some of the more active of the rioters had caught the idea before us,
+and gone by this path to the windows, whence they were firing. We
+found two or three of the doors open, therefore, and heard the excited
+cries and curses of the men who had taken possession. However, we did
+not go far. I chose the first door, and, passing quickly by a huddled,
+panic-stricken group of women and children--probably the occupants of
+the house--who were clustered about it, I went straight through to the
+street door.
+
+Two or three ruffianly men with smoke-grimed faces were firing through
+a window on the ground floor, and one of these, looking behind him as
+I passed, saw me. He called to me to stop, adding with an oath that if
+I went into the street I should be shot by the aristocrats. But in my
+excitement I took no heed; in a second I had the door open, and was
+standing in the street--alone in the sunny, cleared space. On either
+side of me, fifty paces distant, were the close ranks of the mob; in
+front of me rose the white blind face of the St. Alais' house, from
+which, even as I appeared, there came a little spit of smoke and the
+bang of a musket.
+
+The crowd, astonished to see me there alone and standing still, fell
+silent, and I held up my hand. A gun went off above my head, and
+another; and a splinter flew from one of the green shutters opposite.
+Then a voice from the crowd cried out to cease firing; and for a
+moment all was still. I stood in the midst of a hot breathless hush,
+my hand raised. It was my opportunity--I had got it by a miracle; but
+for a moment I was silent, I could find no words.
+
+At last, as a low murmur began to make itself heard, I spoke.
+
+"Men of Cahors!" I cried. "In the name of the Tricolour, stand!" And
+trembling with agitation, acting on the impulse of the instant, I
+walked slowly across the street to the door of the besieged house, and
+under the eyes of all I took the Tricolour from my bosom, and hung it
+on the knocker of the door. Then I turned. "I take possession," I
+cried hoarsely, at the top of my voice, that all might hear, "I take
+possession of this house and all that are in it in the name of the
+Tricolour, and the Nation, and the Committee of Cahors. Those within
+shall be tried, and justice done upon them. But for you, I call upon
+you to depart, and go to your homes in peace, and the Committee----"
+
+I got no farther. With the word a shot whizzed by my ear, and struck
+the plaster from the wall; and then, as if the sound released all the
+passions of the people, a roar of indignation shook the air. They
+hissed and swore at me, yelled "_A la lanterne!_" and "_A bas le
+traitre!_" and in an instant burst their bounds. As if invisible
+floodgates gave way, the mob on either side rushed suddenly forward,
+and, rolling towards the door in a solid mass, were in an instant upon
+me.
+
+I expected that I should be torn to pieces, but instead I was only
+buffeted and flung aside and forgotten, and in a moment was lost in
+the struggling, writhing mass of men, who flung themselves pell-mell
+upon the door, and fell over one another, and wounded one another in
+the fury with which they attacked it. Men, injured earlier, were
+trodden under foot now; but no one stayed for their cries. Twice a gun
+was fired from the house, and each shot took effect; but the press was
+so great, and the fury of the assailants, as they swarmed about the
+door, so blind, that those who were hit sank down unobserved, and
+perished under their comrades' feet.
+
+Thrust against the iron railings that flanked the door, I clung to
+them, and protected from the pressure by a pillar of the porch,
+managed with some difficulty to keep my place. I could not move,
+however; I had to stand there while the crowd swayed round me, and I
+waited in dizzy, sickening horror for the crisis. It came at last. The
+panels of the door, riven and shattered, gave way; the foremost
+assailants sprang at the gap. Yet still the frame, held by one hinge,
+stood, and kept them out. As that yielded at length under their blows,
+and the door fell inward with a crash, I flung myself into the stream,
+and was carried into the house among the foremost, fortunately--for
+several fell--on my feet.
+
+I had the thought that I might outpace the others, and, getting first
+to the rooms upstairs, might at least fight for Mademoiselle if I
+could not save her. For I had caught the infection of the mob, my
+blood was on fire. There was  no one in all the crowd more set to kill
+than I was. I raced in, therefore, with the rest; but when I reached
+the foot of the stairs I saw, and they saw, that which stopped us all.
+
+It was M. de Gontaut, lifted, in that moment of extreme danger, above
+himself. He stood alone on the stairs, looking down on the invaders,
+and smiling--smiling, with everything of senility and frivolity gone
+from his face, and only the courage of his caste left. He saw his
+world tottering, the scum and rabble overwhelming it, everything which
+he had loved, and in which he had lived, passing; he saw death waiting
+for him seven steps below, and he smiled. With his slender sword
+hanging at his wrist, he tapped his snuff-box and looked down at us;
+no longer garrulous, feeble, almost--with his stories of stale
+intrigues and his pagan creed--contemptible; but steady and proud,
+with eyes that gleamed with defiance.
+
+"Well, dogs," he said, "will you earn the gallows?"
+
+For a second no one moved. For a second the old noble's presence and
+fearlessness imposed on the vilest; and they stared at him, cowed by
+his eye. Then he stirred. With a quiet gesture, as of a man saluting
+before a duel, he caught up the hilt of his sword, and presented the
+lower point. "Well," he said with bitter scorn in his tone, "you have
+come to do it. Which of you will go to hell for the rest? For I shall
+take one."
+
+That broke the spell. With a howl, a dozen ruffians sprang up the
+stairs. I saw the bright steel flash once, twice; and one reeled back,
+and rolled down under his fellows' feet. Then a great bar swept up and
+fell on the smiling face, and the old noble dropped without a cry or a
+groan, under a storm of blows that in a moment beat the life out of
+his body.
+
+It was over in a moment, and before I could interfere. The next, a
+score of men leaped over the corpse and up the stairs, with horrid
+cries--I after them. To the right and left were locked doors, with
+panels Waetteau-painted; they dashed these in with brutal shouts, and,
+in a twinkling, flooded the splendid rooms, sweeping away, and
+breaking, and flinging down in wanton mischief, everything that came
+to hand--vases, statues, glasses, miniatures. With shrieks of triumph,
+they filled the _salon_ that had known for generations only the graces
+and beauty of life; and clattered over the shining parquets that had
+been swept so long by the skirts of fair women. Everything they could
+not understand was snatched up and dashed down; in a moment the great
+Venetian mirrors were shattered, the pictures pierced and torn, the
+books flung through the windows into the street.
+
+I had a glimpse of the scene as I paused on the landing. But a glance
+sufficed to convince me that the fugitives were not in these rooms,
+and I sprang on, and up the next flight. Here, short as had been my
+delay, I found others before me. As I turned the corner of the stairs
+I came on three men, listening at a door; before I could reach them
+one rose. "Here they are!" he cried. "That is a woman's voice! Stand
+back!" And he lifted a crowbar to beat in the door.
+
+"Hold!" I cried in a voice that shook him, and made him lower his
+weapon. "Hold! In the name of the Committee, I command you to leave
+that door. The rest of the house is yours. Go and plunder it."
+
+The men glared at me. "_Sacre ventre!_" one of them hissed. "Who are
+you?"
+
+"The Committee!" I answered.
+
+He cursed me, and raised his hand. "Stand back!" I cried furiously,
+"or you shall hang!"
+
+"Ho! ho! An aristocrat!" he retorted; and he raised his voice. "This
+way, friends--this way! An aristocrat! An aristocrat!" he cried.
+
+At the word a score of his fellows came swarming up the stairs. I saw
+myself in an instant surrounded by grimy, pocked faces and scowling
+eyes,--by haggard creatures sprung from the sewers of the town.
+Another second and they would have laid hands on me; but desperate and
+full of rage I rushed instead on the man with the bar, and, snatching
+it from him before he guessed my intention, in a twinkling laid him at
+my feet.
+
+In the act, however, I lost my balance, and stumbled. Before I could
+recover myself one of his comrades struck me on the head with his
+wooden shoe. The blow partially stunned me; still I got to my feet
+again and hit out wildly, and drove them back, and for a moment
+cleared the landing round me. But I was dizzy; I saw all now through a
+red haze, the figures danced before me; I could no longer think or
+aim, but only hear taunts and jeers on every side. Some one plucked my
+coat. I turned blindly. In a moment another struck me a crushing
+blow--how, or with what, I never knew--and I fell senseless and as
+good as dead.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIV.
+
+                             IT GOES ILL.
+
+
+It was August, and the leaves of the chestnuts were still green, when
+they sacked the St. Alais' house at Cahors, and I fell senseless on
+the stairs. The ash trees were bare, and the oaks clad only in russet,
+when I began to know things again; and, looking sideways from my
+pillow into the grey autumnal world, took up afresh the task of
+living. Even then many days had to elapse before I ceased to be merely
+an animal--content to eat, and drink, and sleep, and take Father
+Benoit kneeling by my bed for one of the permanent facts of life. But
+the time did come at last, in late November, when the mind awoke, as
+those who watched by me had never thought to see it awake; and,
+meeting the good Cure's eyes with my eyes, I saw him turn away and
+break into joyful weeping.
+
+A week from that time I knew all--the story, public and private, of
+that wonderful autumn, during which I had lain like a log in my bed.
+At first, avoiding topics that touched me too nearly, Father Benoit
+told me of Paris; of the ten weeks of suspicion and suspense which
+followed the Bastille riots--weeks during which the Fauxbourgs,
+scantly checked by Lafayette and his National Guards, kept jealous
+watch on Versailles, where the Assembly sat in attendance on the King;
+of the scarcity which prevailed through this trying time, and the
+constant rumours of an attack by the Court; of the Queen's unfortunate
+banquet, which proved to be the spark that fired the mine; last of
+all, of the great march of the women to Versailles, on the 5th of
+October, which, by forcing the King and the Assembly to Paris, and
+making the King a prisoner in his own palace, put an end to this
+period of uncertainty.
+
+"And since then?" I said in feeble amazement. "This is the 20th of
+November, you tell me?"
+
+"Nothing has happened," he answered, "except signs and symptoms."
+
+"And those?"
+
+He shook his head gravely. "Every one is enrolled in the National
+Guards--that, for one. Here in Quercy, the corps which M. Hugues took
+it in hand to form numbers some thousands. Every one is armed,
+therefore. Then, the game laws being abolished, every one is a
+sportsman. And so many nobles have emigrated, that either there are no
+nobles or all are nobles."
+
+"But who governs?"
+
+"The Municipalities. Or, where there are none, Committees."
+
+I could not help smiling. "And your Committee, M. le Cure?" I said.
+
+"I do not attend it," he answered, wincing visibly. "To be plain, they
+go too fast for me. But I have worse yet to tell you!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"On the Fourth of August the Assembly abolished the tithes of the
+Church; early in this month they proposed to confiscate the estates of
+the Church! By this time it is probably done."
+
+"What! And the clergy are to starve?" I cried in indignation.
+
+"Not quite," he answered, smiling sadly. "They are to be paid by the
+State--as long as they please the State!"
+
+He went soon after he had told me that; and I lay in amazement,
+looking through the window, and striving to picture the changed world
+that existed round me. Presently Andre came in with my broth. I
+thought it weak, and said so; the strong gust of outside life, which
+the news had brought into my chamber, had roused my appetite, and
+given me a distaste for _tisanes_ and slops.
+
+But the old fellow took the complaint very ill. "Well," he grumbled,
+"and what else is to be expected, Monsieur? With little rent paid,
+and half the pigeons in the cot slaughtered, and scarcely a hare left
+in the country side? With all the world shooting and snaring, and
+smiths and tailors cocked up on horses--ay, and with swords by their
+sides--and the gentry gone, or hiding their heads in beds, it is a
+small thing if the broth is weak! If M. le Vicomte liked strong broth,
+he should have been wise enough to keep the cow himself, and not----"
+
+"Tut, tut, man!" I said, wincing in my turn. "What of Buton?"
+
+"Monsieur means M. le Capitaine Buton?" the old man answered with a
+sneer. "He is at Cahors."
+
+"And was any one punished for--for the affair at St. Alais?"
+
+"No one is punished now-a-days," Andre replied tartly. "Except
+sometimes a miller, who is hung because corn is dear."
+
+"Then even Petit Jean----"
+
+"Petit Jean went to Paris. Doubtless he is now a Major or a Colonel."
+
+With this shot the old man left me--left me writhing. For through all
+I had not dared to ask the one thing I wished to know; the one thing
+that, as my strength increased, had grown with it, from a vague
+apprehension of evil, which the mind, when bidden do its duty, failed
+to grasp, to a dreadful anxiety only too well understood and defined;
+a brooding fear that weighed upon me like an evil dream, and in spite
+of youth sapped my life, and retarded my recovery.
+
+I have read that a fever sometimes burns out love; and that a man
+rises cured not only of his illness, but of the passion which consumed
+him, when he succumbed to it. But this was not my fate; from the
+moment when that dull anxiety about I knew not what took shape and
+form, and I saw on the green curtains of my bed a pale child's face--a
+face that now wept and now gazed at me in sad appeal--from that moment
+Mademoiselle was never out of my waking mind for an hour. God knows,
+if any thought of me on her part, if any silent cry of her heart to me
+in her troubles, had to do with this; but it was the case.
+
+However, on the next day the fear and the weight were removed. I
+suppose that Father Benoit had made up his mind to broach the subject,
+which hitherto he had shunned with care; for his first question, after
+he had learned how I did, brought it up. "You have never asked what
+happened after you were injured, M. le Vicomte?" he said with a little
+hesitation. "Do you remember?"
+
+"I remember all," I said with a groan.
+
+He drew a breath of relief. I think he had feared that there was still
+something amiss with the brain. "And yet you have never asked?" he
+said.
+
+"Man! cannot you understand why--why I have not asked?" I cried
+hoarsely, rising, and sinking back in my seat in uncontrollable
+agitation. "Cannot you understand that until I asked I had hope? But
+now, torture me no longer! Tell me, tell me all, man, and then----"
+
+"There is nothing but good to tell," he answered cheerfully,
+endeavouring to dispel my fears at the first word. "You know the
+worst. Poor M. de Gontaut was killed on the stairs. He was too infirm
+to flee. The rest, to the meanest servant, got away over the roofs of
+the neighbouring houses."
+
+"And escaped?"
+
+"Yes. The town was in an uproar for many hours, but they were well
+hidden. I believe that they have left the country."
+
+"You do not know where they are, then?"
+
+"No," he answered, "I never saw any of them after the outbreak. But I
+heard of them being in this or that chateau--at the Harincourts', and
+elsewhere. Then the Harincourts left--about the middle of October, and
+I think that M. de St. Alais and his family went with them."
+
+I lay for a while too full of thankfulness to speak. Then, "And you
+know nothing more?"
+
+"Nothing," the Cure answered.
+
+But that was enough for me. When he came again I was able to walk with
+him on the terrace, and after that I gained strength rapidly. I
+remarked, however, that as my spirits rose, with air and exercise, the
+good priest's declined. His kind, sensitive face grew day by day more
+sombre, his fits of silence longer. When I asked him the reason, "It
+goes ill, it goes ill," he said. "And, God forgive me, I had to do
+with it."
+
+"Who had not?" I said soberly.
+
+"But I should have foreseen!" he answered, wringing his hands openly.
+"I should have known that God's first gift to man was Order. Order,
+and to-day, in Cahors, there is no tribunal, or none that acts: the
+old magistrates are afraid, and the old laws are spurned, and no man
+can even recover a debt! Order, and the worst thing a criminal, thrown
+into prison, has now to fear is that he may be forgotten. Order, and I
+see arms everywhere, and men who cannot read teaching those who can,
+and men who pay no taxes disposing of the money of those who do! I see
+famine in the town, and the farmers and the peasants killing game or
+folding their hands; for who will work when the future is uncertain? I
+see the houses of the rich empty, and their servants starving; I see
+all trade, all commerce, all buying and selling, except of the barest
+necessaries, at an end! I see all these things, M. le Vicomte, and
+shall I not say, '_Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa_'?"
+
+"But liberty," I said feebly. "You once said yourself that a certain
+price must----"
+
+"Is liberty licence to do wrong?" he answered with passion--seldom had
+I seen him so moved. "Is liberty licence to rob and blaspheme, and
+move your neighbour's landmark? Does tyranny cease to be tyranny, when
+the tyrants are no longer one, but a thousand? M. le Vicomte, I know
+not what to do, I know not what to do," he continued. "For a little I
+would go out into the world, and at all costs unsay what I have said,
+undo what I have done! I would! I would indeed!"
+
+"Something more has happened?" I said, startled by this outbreak.
+"Something I have not heard?"
+
+"The Assembly took away our tithes and our estates!" he answered
+bitterly. "That you know. They denied our existence as a Church. That
+you know. They have now decreed the suppression of all religious
+houses. Presently they will close also our churches and cathedrals.
+And we shall be pagans!"
+
+"Impossible!" I said.
+
+"But it is true."
+
+"The suppression, yes. But for the churches and cathedrals----"
+
+"Why not?" he answered despondently. "God knows there is little faith
+abroad. I fear it will come. I see it coming. The greater need--that
+we who believe should testify."
+
+I did not quite understand at the time what he meant or would be at,
+or what he had in his mind; but I saw that his scrupulous nature was
+tormented by the thought that he had hastened the catastrophe; and I
+felt uneasy when he did not appear next day at his usual time for
+visiting me. On the following day he came; but was downcast and
+taciturn, taking leave of me when he went with a sad kindness that
+almost made me call him back. The next day again he did not appear;
+nor the day after that. Then I sent for him, but too late; I sent,
+only to learn from his old housekeeper that he had left home suddenly,
+after arranging with a neighbouring cure to have his duties performed
+for a month.
+
+I was able by this time to go abroad a little, and I walked down to
+his cottage; I could learn no more there, however, than that a
+Capuchin monk had been his guest for two nights, and that M. le Cure
+had left for Cahors a few hours after the monk. That was all; I
+returned depressed and dissatisfied. Such villagers as I met by the
+way greeted me with respect, and even with sympathy--it was the first
+time I had gone into the hamlet; but the shadow of suspicion which I
+had detected on their faces some months before had grown deeper and
+darker with time. They no longer knew with certainty their places or
+mine, their rights or mine; and shy of me and doubtful of themselves,
+were glad to part from me.
+
+Near the gates of the avenue I met a man whom I knew; a wine-dealer
+from Aulnoy. I stayed to ask him if the family were at home.
+
+He looked at me in surprise. "No, M. le Vicomte," he said. "They left
+the country some weeks ago--after the King was persuaded to go to
+Paris."
+
+"And M. le Baron?"
+
+"He too."
+
+"For Paris?"
+
+The man, a respectable bourgeois, grinned at me. "No, Monsieur, I
+fancy not," he said. "You know best, M. le Vicomte; but if I said
+Turin, I doubt I should be little out."
+
+"I have been ill," I said. "And have heard nothing."
+
+"You should go into Cahors," he answered; with rough good-nature.
+"Most of the gentry are there--if they have not gone farther. It is
+safer than the country in these days. Ah, if my father had lived to
+see----"
+
+He did not finish the sentence in words, but raised his eyebrows and
+shoulders, saluted me, and rode away. In spite of his surprise it was
+easy to see that the change pleased him, though he veiled his
+satisfaction out of civility.
+
+I walked home feeling lonely and depressed. The tall stone house, the
+seigneurial tower and turret and dovecot, stripped of the veil of
+foliage that in summer softened their outlines, stood up bare and
+gaunt at the end of the avenue; and seemed in some strange way to
+share my loneliness and to speak to me of evil days on which we had
+alike fallen. In losing Father Benoit I had lost my only chance of
+society just when, with returning strength, the desire for
+companionship and a more active life was awakening. I thought of this
+gloomily; and then was delighted to see, as I approached the door, a
+horse tethered to the ring beside it. There were holsters on the
+saddle, and the girths were splashed.
+
+Andre was in the hall, but to my surprise, instead of informing me
+that there was a visitor, he went on dusting a table, with his back to
+me.
+
+"Who is here?" I said sharply.
+
+"No one," he answered.
+
+"No one? Then whose is that horse?"
+
+"The smith's, Monsieur."
+
+"What? Buton's?"
+
+"Ay, Buton's! It is a new thing hanging it at the front door," he
+added, with a sneer.
+
+"But what is he doing? Where is he?"
+
+"He is where he ought to be; and that is at the stables," the old
+fellow answered doggedly. "I'll be bound that it is the first piece of
+honest work he has done for many a day."
+
+"Is he shoeing?"
+
+"Why not? Does Monsieur want him to dine with him?" was the
+ill-tempered retort.
+
+I took no notice of this, but went to the stables. I could hear the
+bellows heaving; and turning the corner of the building I came on
+Buton at work in the forge with two of his men. The smith was stripped
+to his shirt, and with his great leather apron round him, and his
+bare, blackened arms, looked like the Buton of six months ago. But
+outside the forge lay a little heap of clothes neatly folded, a blue
+coat with red facings, a long blue waistcoat, and a hat with a huge
+tricolour; and as he released the horse's hoof on which he was at
+work, and straightened himself to salute me, he looked at me with a
+new look, that was something between appeal and defiance.
+
+"Tut, tut!" I said, fleering at him. "This is too great an honour, M.
+le Capitaine! To be shod by a member of the Committee!"
+
+"Has M. le Vicomte anything of which to complain?" he said, reddening
+under the deep tan of his face.
+
+"I? No, indeed. I am only overwhelmed by the honour you do me."
+
+"I have been here to shoe once a month," he persisted stubbornly.
+"Does Monsieur complain that the horses have suffered?"
+
+"No. But----"
+
+"Has M. le Vicomte's house suffered? Has so much as a stack of his
+corn been burned, or a colt taken from the fields, or an egg from the
+nest?"
+
+"No," I said.
+
+Buton nodded gloomily. "Then if Monsieur has no fault to find," he
+replied, "perhaps he will let me finish my work. Afterwards I will
+deliver a message I have for him. But it is for his ear, and the
+forge----"
+
+"Is not the place for secrets, though the smith is the man!" I
+answered, with a parting gibe, fired over my shoulders. "Well, come to
+me on the terrace when you have finished."
+
+He came an hour later, looking hugely clumsy in his fine clothes; and
+with a sword--heaven save us!--a sword by his side. Presently the
+murder came out; he was the bearer of a commission appointing me
+Lieutenant-Colonel in the National Guard of the Province. "It was
+given at my request," he said, with awkward pride. "There were some,
+M. le Vicomte, who thought that you had not behaved altogether well in
+the matter of the riot, but I rattled their heads together. Besides I
+said, 'No Lieutenant-Colonel, no Captain!' and they cannot do without
+me. I keep this side quiet."
+
+What a position it was! Ah, what a position it was! And how for a
+moment the absurdity of it warred in my mind with the humiliation! Six
+months before I should have torn up the paper in a fury, and flung it
+in his face, and beaten him out of my presence with my cane. But much
+had happened since then; even the temptation to break into laughter,
+into peal upon peal of gloomy merriment, was not now invincible. I
+overcame it by an effort, partly out of prudence, partly from a
+better motive--a sense of the man's rough fidelity amid circumstances,
+and in face of anomalies, the most trying. I thanked him instead,
+therefore--though I almost choked; and I said I would write to the
+Committee.
+
+Still he lingered, rubbing one great foot against another; and I
+waited with mock politeness to hear his business. At length, "There is
+another thing I wish to say, M. le Vicomte," he growled. "M. le Cure
+has left Saux."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Well, he is a good man; or he was a good man," he continued
+grudgingly. "But he is running into trouble, and you would do well to
+let him know that."
+
+"Why?" I said. "Do you know where he is?"
+
+"I can guess," he answered. "And where others are, too; and where
+there will presently be trouble. These Capuchin monks are not about
+the country for nothing. When the crows fly home there will be
+trouble. And I do not want him to be in it."
+
+"I have not the least idea where he is," I said coldly. "Nor what you
+mean." The smith's tone had changed and grown savage and churlish.
+
+"He has gone to Nimes," he answered.
+
+"To Nimes?" I cried in astonishment. "How do you know? It is more than
+I know."
+
+"I do know," he answered. "And what is brewing there. And so do a
+great many more. But this time the St. Alais and their bullies, M. le
+Vicomte--ay, they are all there--will not escape us. We will break
+their necks. Yes, M. le Vicomte, make no mistake," he continued,
+glaring at me, his eyes red with suspicion and anger, "mix yourselves
+up with none of this. We are the people! The people! Woe to the man or
+thing that stands in our way!"
+
+"Go!" I said. "I have heard enough. Begone!"
+
+He looked at me a moment as if he would answer me. But old habits
+overcame him, and with a sullen word of farewell he turned, and went
+round the house. A minute later I heard his horse trot down the
+avenue.
+
+I had cut him short; nevertheless the instant he was gone I wished him
+back, that I might ask him more. The St. Alais at Nimes? Father Benoit
+at Nimes? And a plot brewing there in which all had a hand? In a
+moment the news opened a window, as it were, into a wider world,
+through which I looked, and no longer felt myself shut in by the
+lonely country round me and the lack of society. I looked and saw the
+great white dusty city of the south, and trouble rising in it, and in
+the middle of the trouble, looking at me wistfully, Denise de St.
+Alais.
+
+Father Benoit had gone thither. Why might not I?
+
+I walked up and down in a flutter of spirits, and the longer I
+considered it, the more I liked it; the longer I thought of the dull
+inaction in which I must spend my time at home, unless I consented to
+rub shoulders with Buton and his like, the more taken I was with the
+idea of leaving.
+
+And after all why not? Why should I not go?
+
+I had my commission in my pocket, wherein I was not only appointed to
+the National Guards, but described as _ci-devant_ "President of the
+Council of Public Safety in the Province of Quercy"; and this taking
+the place of papers or passport would render travelling easy. My long
+illness would serve as an excuse for a change of air; and explain my
+absence from home; I had in the house as much money as I needed. In a
+word, I could see no difficulty, and nothing to hinder me, if I chose
+to go. I had only to please myself.
+
+So the choice was soon made. The following day I mounted a horse for
+the first time, and rode two-thirds of a league on the road, and home
+again very tired.
+
+Next morning I rode to St. Alais, and viewed the ruins of the house
+and returned; this time I was less fatigued.
+
+Then on the following day, Sunday, I rested; and on the Monday I rode
+half-way to Cahors and back again. That evening I cleaned my pistols
+and overlooked Gil while he packed my saddle-bags, choosing two plain
+suits, one to pack and one to wear, and a hat with a small tricolour
+rosette. On the following morning, the 6th of March, I took the road;
+and parting from Andre on the outskirts of the village, turned my
+horse's head towards Figeac with a sense of freedom, of escape from
+difficulties and embarrassments, of hope and anticipation, that made
+that first hour delicious; and that still supported me when the March
+day began to give place to the chill darkness of evening--evening that
+in an unknown, untried place is always sombre and melancholy.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XV.
+
+                              AT MILHAU.
+
+
+I met with many strange things on that journey. I found it strange to
+see, as I went, armed peasants in the fields; to light in each village
+on men drilling; to enter inns and find half a dozen rustics seated
+round a table with glasses and wine, and perhaps an inkpot before
+them, and to learn that they called themselves a Committee. But
+towards evening of the third day I saw a stranger thing than any of
+these. I was beginning to mount the valley of the Tarn which runs up
+into the Cevennes at Milhau; a north wind was blowing, the sky was
+overcast, the landscape grey and bare; a league before me masses of
+mountain stood up gloomily blue. On a sudden, as I walked wearily
+beside my horse, I heard voices singing in chorus; and looked about
+me. The sound, clear and sweet as fairy's music, seemed to rise from
+the earth at my feet.
+
+A few yards farther, and the mystery explained itself. I found myself
+on the verge of a little dip in the ground, and saw below me the roofs
+of a hamlet, and on the hither side of it a crowd of a hundred or
+more, men and women. They were dancing and singing round a great tree,
+leafless, but decked with flags: a few old people sat about the roots
+inside the circle, and but for the cold weather and the bleak outlook,
+I might have thought that I had come on a May-day festival.
+
+My appearance checked the singing for a moment; then two elderly
+peasants made their way through the ring and came to meet me, walking
+hand in hand. "Welcome to Vlais and Giron!" cried one. "Welcome to
+Giron and Vlais!" cried the other. And then, before I could answer,
+"You come on a happy day," cried both together.
+
+I could not help smiling. "I am glad of that," I said. "May I ask what
+is the reason of your meeting?"
+
+"The Communes of Giron and Vlais, of Vlais and Giron," they answered,
+speaking alternately, "are today one. To-day, Monsieur, old boundaries
+disappear; old feuds die. The noble heart of Giron, the noble heart of
+Vlais, beat as one."
+
+I could scarcely refrain from laughing at their simplicity;
+fortunately, at that moment, the circle round the tree resumed their
+song and dance, which had even in that weather a pretty effect, as of
+a Watteau _fete_. I congratulated the two peasants on the sight.
+
+"But, Monsieur, this is nothing," one of them answered with perfect
+gravity. "It is not only that the boundaries of communes are
+disappearing; those of provinces are of the past also. At Valence,
+beyond the mountains, the two banks of the Rhone have clasped hands
+and sworn eternal amity. Henceforth all Frenchmen are brothers; all
+Frenchmen are of all provinces!"
+
+"That is a fine idea," I said.
+
+"No son of France will again shed French blood!" he continued.
+
+"So be it."
+
+"Catholic and Protestant, Protestant and Catholic will live at peace!
+There will be no law-suits. Grain will circulate freely, unchecked by
+toils or dues. All will be free, Monsieur. All will be rich."
+
+They said more in the same sanguine simple tone, and with the same
+naive confidence; but my thoughts strayed from them, attracted by a
+man, who, seated among the peasants at the foot of the tree, seemed to
+my eyes to be of another class. Tall and lean, with lank black hair,
+and features of a stern, sour cast, he had nothing of outward show to
+distinguish him from those round him. His dress, a rough hunting suit,
+was old and patched; the spurs on his brown, mud-stained boots were
+rusty and bent. Yet his carriage possessed an ease the others lacked;
+and in the way he watched the circling rustics I read a quiet scorn.
+
+I did not notice that he heeded or returned my gaze, but I had not
+gone on my way a hundred paces, after taking leave of the two mayors
+and the revellers, before I heard a step, and looking round, saw the
+stranger coming after me. He beckoned, and I waited until he overtook
+me.
+
+"You are going to Milhau?" he said, speaking abruptly, and with a
+strong country accent; yet in the tone of one addressing an equal.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur," I said. "But I doubt if I shall reach the town
+to-night."
+
+"I am going also," he answered. "My horse is in the village."
+
+And without saying more he walked beside me until we reached the
+hamlet. There--the place was deserted--he brought from an outhouse a
+sorry mare, and mounted. "What do you think of that rubbish?" he said
+suddenly as we took the road again. I had watched his proceedings in
+silence.
+
+"I fear that they expect too much," I answered guardedly.
+
+He laughed; a horse-laugh full of scorn. "They think that the
+millennium has come," he said. "And in a month they will find their
+barns burned and their throats cut."
+
+"I hope not," I said.
+
+"Oh, I hope not," he answered cynically. "I hope not, of course. But
+even so _Vive la Nation! Vive la Revolution!_"
+
+"What? If that be its fruit?" I asked.
+
+"Ay, why not?" he answered, his gloomy eyes fixed on me. "It is every
+one for himself, and what has the old rule done for me that I should
+fear to try the new? Left me to starve on an old rock and a dovecot;
+sheltered by bare stones, and eating out of a black pot! While women
+and bankers, scented fops and lazy priests prick it before the King!
+And why? Because I remain, sir, what half the nation once were."
+
+"A Protestant?" I hazarded.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur. And a poor noble," he answered bitterly. "The Baron de
+Geol, at your service."
+
+I gave him my name in return.
+
+"You wear the tricolour," he said; "yet you think me extreme? I
+answer, that that is all very well for you; but we are different
+people. You are doubtless a family man, M. le Vicomte, with a
+wife----"
+
+"On the contrary, M. le Baron."
+
+"Then a mother, a sister?"
+
+"No," I said, smiling. "I have neither. I am quite alone."
+
+"At least with a home," he persisted, "means, friends, employment, or
+the chance of employment?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "that is so."
+
+"Whereas I--I," he answered, growing guttural in his excitement,
+"have none of these things. I cannot enter the army--I am a
+Protestant! I am shut off from the service of the State--I am a
+Protestant! I cannot be a lawyer or a judge--I am a Protestant! The
+King's schools are closed to me--I am a Protestant! I cannot appear at
+Court--I am a Protestant! I--in the eyes of the law I do not exist!
+I--I, Monsieur," he continued more slowly, and with an air not devoid
+of dignity, "whose ancestors stood before Kings, and whose
+grandfather's great-grandfather saved the fourth Henry's life at
+Coutras--I do not exist!"
+
+"But now?" I said, startled by his tone of passion.
+
+"Ay, now," he answered grimly, "it is going to be different. Now, it
+is going to be otherwise, unless these black crows of priests put the
+clock back again. That is why I am on the road."
+
+"You are going to Milhau?"
+
+"I live near Milhau," he answered. "And I have been from home. But I
+am not going home now. I am going farther--to Nimes."
+
+"To Nimes?" I said in surprise.
+
+"Yes," he said. And he looked at me askance and a trifle grimly, and
+did not say any more. By this time it was growing dark; the valley of
+the Tarn, along which our road lay, though fertile and pleasant to the
+eye in summer, wore at this season, and in the half-light, a savage
+and rugged aspect. Mountains towered on either side; and sometimes,
+where the road drew near the river, the rushing of the water as it
+swirled and eddied among the rocks below us, added its note of
+melancholy to the scene. I shivered. The uncertainty of my quest, the
+uncertainty of everything, the gloom of my companion, pressed upon me.
+I was glad when he roused himself from his brooding, and pointed to
+the lights of Milhau glimmering here and there on a little plain,
+where the mountains recede from the river.
+
+"You are doubtless going to the inn?" he said, as we entered the
+outskirts. I assented. "Then we part here," he continued. "To-morrow,
+if you are going to Nimes---- But you may prefer to travel alone."
+
+"Far from it," I said.
+
+"Well, I shall be leaving the east gate--about eight o'clock," he
+answered grudgingly. "Good-night, Monsieur."
+
+I bade him good-night, and leaving him there, rode into the town:
+passing through narrow, mean streets, and under dark archways and
+hanging lanterns, that swung and creaked in the wind, and did
+everything but light the squalid obscurity. Though night had fallen,
+people were moving briskly to and fro, or standing at their doors; the
+place, after the solitude through which I had ridden, had the air of a
+city; and presently I became aware that a little crowd was following
+my horse. Before I reached the inn, which stood in a dimly-lit square,
+the crowd had grown into a great one, and was beginning to press upon
+me; some who marched nearest to me staring up inquisitively into my
+face, while others, farther off, called to their neighbours, or to dim
+forms seen at basement windows, that it was he!
+
+I found this somewhat alarming. Still they did not molest me; but when
+I halted they halted too, and I was forced to dismount almost in their
+arms. "Is this the inn?" I said to those nearest tome; striving to
+appear at my ease.
+
+"Yes! yes!" they cried with one voice, "that is the inn!"
+
+"My horse----"
+
+"We will take the horse! Enter! Enter!"
+
+I had little choice, they flocked so closely round me; and, affecting
+carelessness, I complied, thinking that they would not follow, and
+that inside I should learn the meaning of their conduct. But the
+moment my back was turned they pressed in after me and beside me, and,
+almost sweeping me off my feet, urged me along the narrow passage of
+the house, whether I would or no. I tried to turn and remonstrate; but
+the foremost drowned my words in loud cries for "M. Flandre! M.
+Flandre!"
+
+Fortunately the person addressed was not far off. A door towards which
+I was being urged opened, and he appeared. He proved to be an
+immensely stout man, with a face to match his body; and he gazed at us
+for a moment, astounded by the invasion. Then he asked angrily what
+was the matter. "_Ventre de Ciel!_" he cried. "Is this my house or
+yours, rascals? Who is this?"
+
+"The Capuchin! The Capuchin!" cried a dozen voices.
+
+"Ho! ho!" he answered, before I could speak. "Bring a light."
+
+Two or three bare-armed women whom the noise had brought to the door
+of the kitchen fetched candles, and raising them above their heads
+gazed at me curiously. "Ho! ho!" he said again. "The Capuchin is it?
+So you have got him."
+
+"Do I look like one?" I cried angrily, thrusting back those who
+pressed on me most closely. "_Nom de Dieu!_ Is this the way you
+receive guests, Monsieur? Or is the town gone mad?"
+
+"You are not the Capuchin monk?" he said, somewhat taken aback, I
+could see, by my boldness.
+
+"Have I not said that I am not? Do monks in your country travel in
+boots and spurs?" I retorted.
+
+"Then your papers!" he answered curtly. "Your papers! I would have you
+to know," he continued, puffing out his cheeks, "that I am Mayor here
+as well as host, and I keep the jail as well as the inn. Your papers,
+Monsieur, if you prefer the one to the other."
+
+"Before your friends here?" I said contemptuously.
+
+"They are good citizens," he answered.
+
+I had some fear, now I had come to the pinch, that the commission I
+carried might fail to produce all the effects with which I had
+credited it. But I had no choice, and ultimately nothing to dread; and
+after a momentary hesitation I produced it. Fortunately it was drawn
+in complimentary terms and gave the Mayor, I know not how, the idea
+that I was actually bound at the moment on an errand of state. When he
+had read it, therefore, he broke into a hundred apologies, craved
+leave to salute me, and announced to the listening crowd that they had
+made a mistake.
+
+It struck me at the time as strange, that they, the crowd, were not at
+all embarrassed by their error. On the contrary, they hastened to
+congratulate me on my acquittal, and even patted me on the shoulder in
+their good humour; some went to see that my horse was brought in, or
+to give orders on my behalf, and the rest presently dispersed, leaving
+me fain to believe that they would have hung me to the nearest
+_lanterne_ with the same stolid complaisance.
+
+When only two or three remained, I asked the Mayor for whom they had
+taken me.
+
+"A disguised monk, M. le Vicomte," he said. "A very dangerous fellow,
+who is known to be travelling with two ladies--all to Nimes; and
+orders have been sent from a high quarter to arrest him."
+
+"But I am alone!" I protested. "I have no ladies with me."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Just so, M. le Vicomte," he answered. "But
+we have got the two ladies. They were arrested this morning, while
+attempting to pass through the town in a carriage. We know, therefore,
+that he is now alone."
+
+"Oh," I said. "So now you only want him? And what is the charge
+against him?" I continued, remembering with a languid stirring of the
+pulses that a Capuchin monk had visited Father Benoit before his
+departure. It seemed to be strange that I should come upon the traces
+of another here.
+
+"He is charged," M. Flandre answered pompously, "with high treason
+against the nation, Monsieur. He has been seen here, there, and
+everywhere, at Montpellier, and Cette, and Albi, and as far away as
+Auch; and always preaching war and superstition, and corrupting the
+people."
+
+"And the ladies?" I said smiling. "Have they too been corrupting----"
+
+"No, M. le Vicomte. But it is believed that wishing to return to
+Nimes, and learning that the roads were watched, he disguised himself
+and joined himself to them. Doubtless they are _devotes_."
+
+"Poor things!" I said, with a shudder of compassion; every one seemed
+to be so good-tempered, and yet so hard. "What will you do with them?"
+
+"I shall send for orders," he answered. "In his case," he continued
+airily, "I should not need them. But here is your supper. Pardon me,
+M. le Vicomte, if I do not attend on you myself. As Mayor I have to
+take care that I do not compromise--but you understand?"
+
+I said civilly that I did; and supper being laid, as was then the
+custom in the smaller inns, in my bedroom, I asked him to take a glass
+of wine with me, and over the meal learned much of the state of the
+country, and the fermentation that was at work along the southern
+seaboard, the priests stirring up the people with processions and
+sermons. He waxed especially eloquent upon the excitement at Nimes,
+where the masses were bigoted Romanists, while the Protestants had a
+following, too, with the hardy peasants of the mountains behind them.
+"There will be trouble, M. le Vicomte, there will be trouble there,"
+he said with meaning. "Things are going too well for the people _la
+bas_. They will stop them if they can."
+
+"And this man?"
+
+"Is one of their missionaries."
+
+I thought of Father Benoit, and sighed. "By the way," the Mayor said
+abruptly, gazing at me in moony thoughtfulness, "that is curious now!"
+
+"What?" I said.
+
+"You come from Cahors, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"So do these women; or they say they do. The prisoners."
+
+"From Cahors?"
+
+"Yes. It is odd now," he continued, rubbing his chin, "but when I read
+your commission I did not think of that."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders impatiently. "It does not follow that I am in
+the plot," I said. "For goodness sake, M. le Maire, do not let us open
+the case again. You have seen my papers, and----"
+
+"Tut! tut!" he said. "That is not my meaning. But you may know these
+persons."
+
+"Oh!" I said; and then I sat a moment, staring at him between the
+candles, my hand raised, a morsel on my fork. A wild extravagant
+thought had flashed into my mind. Two ladies from Cahors? From Cahors,
+of all places? "How do they call themselves?" I asked.
+
+"Corvas," he answered.
+
+"Oh! Corvas," I said, falling to eating again, and putting the morsel
+into my mouth. And I went on with my supper.
+
+"Yes. A merchant's wife, she says she is. But you shall see her."
+
+"I don't remember the name," I answered.
+
+"Still, you may know them," he rejoined, with the dull persistence of
+a man of few ideas. "It is just possible that we have made a mistake,
+for we found no papers in the carriage, and only one thing that seemed
+suspicious."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"A red cockade."
+
+"A _red_ cockade?"
+
+"Yes," he answered. "The badge of the old Leaguers, you know."
+
+"But," I said, "I have not heard of any party adopting that."
+
+He rubbed his bald head a little doubtfully. "No," he said, "that is
+true. Still, it is a colour we don't like here. And two ladies
+travelling alone--alone, Monsieur! Then their driver, a half-witted
+fellow, who said that they had engaged him at Rodez, though he denied
+stoutly that he had seen the Capuchin, told two or three tales.
+However, if you will eat no more, M. le Vicomte, I will take you to
+see them. You may be able to speak for or against them."
+
+"If you do not think that it is too late?" I said, shrinking somewhat
+from the interview.
+
+"Prisoners must not be choosers," he answered, with an unpleasant
+chuckle. And he called from the door for a lantern and his cloak.
+
+"The ladies are not here, then?" I said.
+
+"No," he answered, with a wink. "Safe bind, safe find! But they have
+nothing to cry about. There are one or two rough fellows in the clink,
+so Babet, the jailer, has given them room in his house."
+
+At this moment the lantern came, and the Mayor having wrapped his
+portly person in a cloak, we passed out of the house. The square
+outside was utterly dark, such lights as had been burning when I
+arrived had been extinguished, perhaps by the wind, which was rising,
+and now blew keenly across the open space. The yellow glare of the
+lantern was necessary, but though it showed us a few feet of the
+roadway, and enabled us to pick our steps, it redoubled the darkness
+beyond; I could not see even the line of the roofs, and had no idea in
+what direction we had gone or how far, when M. Flandre halted
+abruptly, and, raising the lantern, threw its light on a greasy stone
+wall, from which, set deep in the stone-work, a low iron-studded door
+frowned on us. About the middle of the door hung a huge knocker, and
+above it was a small _grille_.
+
+"Safe bind, safe find!" the Mayor said again with a fat chuckle; but,
+instead of raising the knocker, he drew his stick sharply across the
+bars of the _grille_.
+
+The summons was understood and quickly answered. A face peered a
+moment through the grating; then the door opened to us. The Mayor took
+the lead, and we passed in, out of the night, into a close, warm air
+reeking of onions and foul tobacco, and a hundred like odours. The
+jailer silently locked the door behind us, and, taking the Mayor's
+lantern from him, led the way down a grimy, low-roofed passage barely
+wide enough for one man. He halted at the first door on the left of
+the passage, and threw it open.
+
+M. Flandre entered first, and, standing while he removed his hat, for
+an instant filled the doorway. I had time to hear and note a burst of
+obscene singing, which came from a room farther down the passage; and
+the frequent baying of a prison-dog, that, hearing us, flung itself
+against its chain, somewhere in the same direction. I noted, too, that
+the walls of the passage in which I stood were dingy and trickling
+with moisture, and then a voice, speaking in answer to M. Flandre's
+salutation, caught my ear and held me motionless.
+
+The voice was Madame's--Madame de St. Alais'!
+
+It was fortunate that I had entertained, though but a second, the
+wild, extravagant thought that had occurred to me at supper; for in a
+measure it had prepared me. And I had little time for other
+preparation, for thought, or decision. Luckily the room was thick with
+vile tobacco smoke, and the steam from linen drying by the fire; and I
+took advantage of a fit of coughing, partly assumed, to linger an
+instant on the threshold after M. Flandre had gone in. Then I followed
+him.
+
+There were four people in the room besides the Mayor, but I had no
+eyes for the frowsy man and woman who sat playing with a filthy pack
+of cards at a table in the middle of the floor. I had only eyes for
+Madame and Mademoiselle, and them I devoured. They sat on two stools
+on the farther side of the hearth; the girl with her head laid wearily
+back against the wall, and her eyes half-closed; the mother, erect and
+watchful, meeting the Mayor's look with a smile of contempt. Neither
+the prison-house, nor danger, nor the companionship of this squalid
+hole had had power to reduce her fine spirit; but as her eyes passed
+from the Mayor and encountered mine, she started to her feet with a
+gasping cry, and stood staring at me.
+
+It was not wonderful that for a second, peering through the reek, she
+doubted. But one there was there who did not doubt. Mademoiselle had
+sprung up in alarm at the sound of her mother's cry, and for the
+briefest moment we looked at one another. Then she sank back on her
+stool, and I heard her break into violent crying.
+
+"Hallo!" said the Mayor. "What is this?"
+
+"A mistake, I fear," I said hoarsely, in words I had already composed.
+"I am thankful, Madame," I continued, bowing to her with distant
+ceremony, and as much indifference as I could assume, "that I am so
+fortunate as to be here."
+
+She muttered something and leaned against the wall. She had not yet
+recovered herself.
+
+"You know the ladies?" the Mayor said, turning to me and speaking
+roughly; even with a tinge of suspicion in his voice. And he looked
+from one to the other of us sharply.
+
+"Perfectly," I said.
+
+"They are from Cahors?"
+
+"From that neighbourhood."
+
+"But," he said, "I told you their names, and you said that you did not
+know them, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+For a moment I held my breath; gazing into Madame's face and reading
+there anxiety, and something more--a sudden terror. I took the leap--I
+could do nothing else. "You told me Corvas--that the lady's name was
+Corvas," I muttered.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"But Madame's name is Correas."
+
+"Correas?" he repeated, his jaw falling.
+
+"Yes, Correas. I dare say that the ladies," I continued with assumed
+politeness, "did not in their fright speak very clearly."
+
+"And their name is Correas?"
+
+"I told you that it was," Madame answered, speaking for the first
+time, "and also that I knew nothing of your Capuchin monk. And this
+last," she continued earnestly, her eyes fixed on mine in passionate
+appeal--in appeal that this time could not be mistaken--"I say again,
+on my honour!"
+
+I knew that she meant this for me; and I responded to the cry. "Yes,
+M. le Maire," I said, "I am afraid that you have made a mistake. I can
+answer for Madame as for myself."
+
+The Mayor rubbed his head.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVI.
+
+                         THREE IN A CARRIAGE.
+
+
+"Of course, if Madame--if Madame knows nothing of the monk," he said,
+looking vacantly about the dirty room, "it is clear that--it seems
+clear that there has been a mistake."
+
+"And only one thing remains to be done," I suggested.
+
+"But--but," he continued, with a resumption of his former importance,
+"there is still one point unexplained--that of the red cockade,
+Monsieur? What of that, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"The red cockade?" I said.
+
+"Ay, what of that?" he asked briskly.
+
+I had not expected this, and I looked desperately at Madame. Surely
+her woman's wit would find a way, whatever the cockade meant. "Have
+you asked Madame Correas?" I said at last, feebly shifting the burden.
+"Have you asked her to explain it?"
+
+"No," he answered.
+
+"Then I would ask her," I said.
+
+"Nay, do not ask me; ask M. le Vicomte," she answered lightly. "Ask
+him of what colour are the facings of the National Guards of Quercy?"
+
+"Red!" I cried, in a burst of relief. "Red!" I knew, for had I not
+seen Buton's coat lying by the forge? But how Madame de St. Alais knew
+I have no idea.
+
+"Ah!" M. Flandre said, with the air of one still a little doubtful.
+"And Madame wears the cockade for that reason?"
+
+"No, M. le Maire," she answered, with a roguish smile; I saw that it
+was her plan to humour him. "I do not--my daughter does. If you wish
+to ask further, or the reason, you must ask her."
+
+M. Flandre had the curiosity of the true bourgeois, and the love of
+the sex. He simpered. "If Mademoiselle would be so good," he said.
+
+Denise had remained up to this point hidden behind her mother, but at
+the word she crept out, and reluctantly and like a prisoner brought to
+the bar, stood before us. It was only when she spoke, however, nay, it
+was not until she had spoken some words that I understood the full
+change that I saw in her; or why, instead of the picture of pallid
+weariness which she had presented a few minutes before, she now
+showed, as she stood forward, a face covered with blushes, and eyes
+shining and suffused.
+
+"It is simple, Monsieur," she said in a low voice. "My _fiance_, M. le
+Maire, is in that regiment."
+
+"And you wear it for that reason?" the Mayor cried, delighted.
+
+"I love him," she said softly. And for a moment--for a moment her eyes
+met mine.
+
+Then I know not which was the redder, she or I; or which found that
+vile and filthy room more like a palace, its tobacco-laden air more
+sweet! I had not dreamed what she was going to say, least of all had I
+dreamed what her eyes said, as for that instant they met mine and
+turned my blood to fire! I lost the Mayor's blunt answer and his
+chuckling laugh; and only returned to a sense of the present when
+Mademoiselle slipped back to hide her burning face behind her mother,
+and I saw in her place Madame, facing me, with her finger to her lip,
+and a glance of warning in her eyes.
+
+It was a warning not superfluous, for in the flush of my first
+enthusiasm I might have said anything. And the Mayor was in better
+hands than mine. The little touch of romance and sentiment which
+Mademoiselle's avowal had imported into the matter, had removed his
+last suspicion and won his heart. He ogled Madame, he beamed on the
+girl with fatherly gallantry. He made a jest of the monk.
+
+"A mistake, and yet one I cannot deplore, Madame," he protested, with
+clumsy civility. "For it has given me the pleasure of seeing you."
+
+"Oh, M. le Maire!" Madame simpered.
+
+"But the state of the country is really such," he continued, "that
+for the beautiful sex to be travelling alone is not safe. It exposes
+them----"
+
+"To worse _rencontres_ than this, I fear," Madame said, darting a look
+from her fine eyes. "If this were the worst we poor women had to
+fear!" And she looked at him again.
+
+"Ah, Madame!" he said, delighted.
+
+"But, alas, we have no escort."
+
+The fat Mayor sighed, I think that he was going to offer himself. Then
+a thought struck him. "Perhaps this gentleman," and he turned to me.
+"You go to Nimes, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "And, of course, if Madame Correas----"
+
+"Oh, it would be troubling M. le Vicomte," Madame said; and she went a
+step farther from me and a step nearer to M. Flandre, as if he must
+understand her hesitation.
+
+"I am sure it could be no trouble to any one!" he answered stoutly.
+"But for the matter of that, if M. le Vicomte perceives any
+difficulty," and he laid his hand on his heart, "I will find some
+one----"
+
+"Some one?" Madame said archly.
+
+"Myself," the Mayor answered.
+
+"Ah!" she cried, "if you----"
+
+But I thought that now I might safely step in. "No, no," I said. "M.
+le Maire is taking all against me. I can assure you, Madame, I shall
+be glad to be of service to you. And our roads lie together. If,
+therefore----"
+
+"I shall be grateful," Madame answered with a delightful little
+courtesy. "That is, if M. le Maire will let out his poor prisoners.
+Who, as he now knows, have done nothing worse than sympathise with
+National Guards."
+
+"I will take it on myself, Madame," M. Flandre said, with vast
+importance. He had been brought to the desired point. "The case is
+quite clear. But----" he paused and coughed slightly, "to avoid
+complications, you had better leave early. When you are gone, I shall
+know what explanations to give. And if you would not object to
+spending the night here," he continued, looking round him, with a
+touch of sheepishness, "I think that----"
+
+"We shall mind it less than before," Madame said, with a look and a
+sigh. "I feel safe since you have been to see us." And she held out a
+hand that was still white and plump.
+
+The Mayor kissed it.
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+As I walked, a few minutes later, across the square, picking my steps
+by the yellow light of M. Flandre's lantern, and at times enveloped in
+the flying skirt of his cloak--for the good man had his own visions
+and for a hundred yards together forgot his company--I could have
+thought all that had passed a dream; so unreal seemed the squalid
+prison-lodging I had just left, so marvellous the ladies' presence in
+it, so incredible Mademoiselle's blushing avowal made to my face. But
+a wheezing clock overhead struck the hour before midnight, and I
+counted the strokes; a watchman, not far from me, cried, after the old
+fashion, that it was eleven o'clock and a fine night; and I stumbled
+over a stone. No, I was not dreaming.
+
+But if I had to stumble then, to persuade myself that I was awake, how
+was it with me next morning, when, with the first glimmer of light, I
+walked beside the carriage from the inn to the prison, and saw, before
+I reached the gloomy door, Madame and Mademoiselle standing shivering
+under the wall beside it? How was it with me when I held
+Mademoiselle's hand in mine, as I helped her in, and then followed her
+in and sat opposite to her--sat opposite to her with the knowledge
+that I was so to sit for days, that I was to be her fellow-traveller,
+that we were to go to Nimes together?
+
+Ah, how was it, indeed? But there is nothing quite perfect; there is
+no hour in which a man says that he is quite happy; and a shadow of
+fear and stealth darkened my bliss that morning. The Mayor was there
+to see us start, and I fancy that it was his face of apprehension that
+lay at the bottom of this feeling. A moment, however, and the face was
+gone from the window; another, and the carriage began to roll quickly
+through the dim streets, while we lay back, each in a corner, hidden
+by the darkness even from one another. Still, we had the gates to
+pass, and the guard; or the watch might stop us, or some early-rising
+townsman, or any one of a hundred accidents. My heart beat fast.
+
+But all went well. Within five minutes we had passed the gates and
+left them behind us, and were rolling in safety along the road. The
+dawn was no more than grey, the trees showed black against the sky, as
+we crossed the Tarn by the great bridge, and began to climb the valley
+of the Dourbie.
+
+I have said that we could not see one another. But on a sudden Madame
+laughed out of the darkness of her corner. "O Richard, O _mon Roi!_"
+she hummed. Then "The fat fool!" she cried; and she laughed again.
+
+I thought her cruel, and almost an ingrate; but she was Mademoiselle's
+mother, and I said nothing. Mademoiselle was opposite to me, and I was
+happy. I was happy, thinking what she would say to me, and how she
+would look at me, when the day came and she could no longer escape my
+eyes; when the day came and the dainty, half-shrouded face that
+already began to glimmer in the roomy corner of the old berlin should
+be mine to look on, to feast my eyes on, to question and read through
+long days and hours of a journey, a journey through heaven!
+
+Already it was growing light; I had but a little longer to wait. A
+rosy flush began to tinge one half the sky; the other half, pale blue
+and flecked with golden clouds, lay behind us. A few seconds, and the
+mountain tips caught the first rays of the sun, and floated far over
+us, in golden ether. I cast one greedy glance at Mademoiselle's face,
+saw there the dawn out-blushed, I met for one second her eyes and saw
+the glory of the ether outshone--and then I looked away, trembling. It
+seemed sacrilege to look longer.
+
+Suddenly Madame laughed again, out of her corner; a laugh that made me
+wince, and grow hot. "She is not made for a nun, M. le Vicomte, is
+she?" she said.
+
+I bounced in my seat. The speaker's tone, gay, insulting, flicked, not
+me, but the girl, like a whip.
+
+"You really, Denise, must have had practice," Madame continued
+smoothly. "I love, you love, we love--you are quite perfect. Did you
+practise with M. le Directeur? Or with the big boys over the wall?"
+
+"Madame!" I cried. The girl had drawn her hood over her face, but I
+could fancy her shame.
+
+But Madame was inexorable. "Really, Denise, I do not know that I
+ever told even your father 'I love you,'" she said. "At any rate,
+until he had kissed me on the lips. But I suppose that you reverse the
+order----"
+
+"Madame," I stammered. "This is infamous!"
+
+"What, Monsieur?" she answered, this time heeding me. "May I not
+punish my daughter in my own way?"
+
+"Not before me," I retorted, full of wrath. "It is cruel! It is----"
+
+"Oh, before you, M. le Vicomte?" Madame answered, mocking me. "And why
+not before you? I cannot degrade her lower than she has herself
+stooped!"
+
+"It is false!" I cried, in hot rage. "It is a cruel falsehood!"
+
+"Oh, I can? Then if I please, I shall!" Madame answered, with ruthless
+pleasantry. "And you, Monsieur, will sit by and listen, if I please.
+Though, make no mistake, M. le Vicomte," she continued, leaning
+forward, and gazing keenly into my face. "Because I punish her before
+you, do not think that you are, or ever shall be, of the family. Or
+that this unmaidenly, immodest----"
+
+Mademoiselle uttered a cry of pain, and shrank lower in her corner.
+
+"Little fool," Madame continued coolly, "who, when she was primed with
+a cock-and-bull story about the cockade, must needs add, 'I love
+him'--I love him, and she a maiden!--will ever be anything to you! That
+link was broken long ago. It was broken when your friends burned our
+house at St. Alais; it was broken when they sacked our house in
+Cahors; it was broken when they made our king a prisoner, when they
+murdered our friends, when they dragged our Church a slave at the
+chariot wheels of their triumph; ay, and broken once for all, beyond
+mending by mock heroics! Understand that fully, M. le Vicomte," Madame
+continued pitilessly. "But as you saw her stoop, you shall see her
+punished. She is the first St. Alais that ever wooed a lover!"
+
+I knew that of the family which would have given the lie to that
+statement; but it was not a tale for Mademoiselle's ears, and instead
+I rose. "At least, Madame," I said, bowing, "I can free Mademoiselle
+from the embarrassment of my presence. And I shall do so."
+
+"No, you will not do even that," Madame answered unmoved. "If you will
+sit down, I will tell you why."
+
+I sat down, compelled by her tone.
+
+"You will not do it," Madame continued, looking me coolly in the face,
+"because I am bound to admit, though I no longer like you, that you
+are a gentleman."
+
+"And therefore should leave you."
+
+"On the contrary, for that reason you will continue to travel with
+us."
+
+"Outside," I said.
+
+"No, inside," she answered quietly. "We have no passport nor papers;
+without your company we should be stopped in each town through which
+we pass. It is unfortunate," Madame continued, shrugging her
+shoulders; "--I did not know that the country was in so bad a state,
+or I would have taken precautions--it is unfortunate. But as it is we
+must put up with it and travel together."
+
+I felt a warm rush of joy, of triumph, of coming vengeance. "Thank
+you, Madame," I said, and I bowed to her, "for telling me that. It
+seems, then, that you are in my power."
+
+"Ah?"
+
+"And that to requite you for the pain you have just caused
+Mademoiselle, I have only to leave you."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I see even now a little town before us; in three minutes we shall
+enter it. Very well, Madame. If you say another word to your daughter,
+if you insult her again in my presence by so much as a syllable, I
+leave you and go my way."
+
+To my surprise Madame St. Alais broke into a silvery laugh. "You will
+not, Monsieur," she said. "And yet I shall treat my daughter as I
+please."
+
+"I shall do so!"
+
+"You will not."
+
+"Why, then? Why shall I not?" I cried.
+
+"Because," she answered, laughing softly, "you are a gentleman, M. le
+Vicomte, and can neither leave us nor endanger us. That is all."
+
+I sank back in my seat, and glared at her in speechless indignation;
+seeing in a flash my impotence and her power. The cushions burned me;
+but I could not leave them.
+
+She laughed again, well pleased. "There, I have told you what you will
+not do," she said. "Now I am going to tell you what you will do. In
+front, I am told, they are very suspicious. The story of Madame
+Corvas, even if backed by your word, may not suffice. You will say,
+therefore, that I am your mother, and that Mademoiselle is your
+sister. She would prefer, I daresay," Madame continued, with a cutting
+glance at her daughter, "to pass for your wife. But that does not suit
+me."
+
+I breathed hard; but I was helpless as any prisoner, closely bound to
+obedience as any slave. I could not denounce them, and I could not
+leave them; honour and love were alike concerned. Yet I foresaw that I
+must listen, hour by hour, and mile by mile, to gibes at the girl's
+expense, to sneers at her modesty, to words that cut like whip-lashes.
+That was Madame's plan. The girl must travel with me, must breathe the
+same air with me, must sit for hours with the hem of her skirt
+touching my boot. It was necessary for the safety of all. But, after
+this, after what we had both heard, if her eye met mine, it could only
+fall; if her hand touched mine, she must shrink in shame. Henceforth
+there was a barrier between us.
+
+As a fact, Mademoiselle's pride came to her aid, and she sat, neither
+weeping nor protesting, nor seeking to join her forces to mine by a
+glance; but bearing all with steadfast patience, she looked out of the
+window when I pretended to sleep, and looked towards her mother when I
+sat erect. Possibly she found her compensations, and bore her
+punishment quietly for their sake. But I did not think of that.
+Possibly, too, she suffered less than I fancied; but I doubt if she
+would admit that, even to-day.
+
+At any rate she had heard me fight her battle; yet she did not speak
+to me nor I to her; and under these strange conditions we began and
+pursued the strangest journey man ever made. We drove through pleasant
+valleys growing green, over sterile passes, where winter still fringed
+the rocks with snow, through sunshine, and in the teeth of cold
+mountain winds; but we scarcely heeded any of these things. Our hearts
+and thoughts lay inside the carriage, where Madame sat smiling, and we
+two kept grim silence.
+
+About noon we halted to rest and eat at a little village inn, high up.
+It seemed to me a place almost at the end of the world, with a chaos
+of mountains rising tier on tier above it, and slopes of shale below.
+But the frenzy of the time had reached even this barren nook. Before
+we had taken two mouthfuls, the Syndic called to see our papers;
+and--God knows I had no choice--Madame passed for my mother, and
+Denise for my sister. Then, while the Syndic still stood bowing over
+my commission, and striving to learn from me what news there was
+below, a horse halted at the door, and I heard a man's voice, and in a
+breath M. le Baron de Geol walked in. There was a single decent room
+in the inn--that in which we sat--and he came into it.
+
+He uncovered, seeing ladies; and recognising me with a start smiled,
+but a trifle sourly. "You set off early?" he said. "I waited at the
+east gate, but you did not come, Monsieur."
+
+I coloured, conscience-stricken, and begged a thousand pardons. As a
+fact, I had clean forgotten him. I had not once thought of the
+appointment I had made with him at the gate.
+
+"You are not riding?" he said, looking at my companions a little
+strangely.
+
+"No," I answered. And I could not find another word to say. The Syndic
+still stood smiling and bowing beside me; and on a sudden I saw the
+pit on the edge of which I tottered; and my face burned.
+
+"You have met friends?" M. le Baron persisted, looking, hat in hand,
+at Madame.
+
+"Yes," I muttered. Politeness required that I should introduce him.
+But I dared not.
+
+However, at that, he at last took the hint; and retired with the
+Syndic. The moment they were over the threshold Madame flashed out at
+me, in a passion of anger. "Fool!" she said, without ceremony, "why
+did you not present him? Don't you know that that is the way to arouse
+suspicion, and ruin us? A child could see that you had something to
+hide. If you had presented him at once to your mother----"
+
+"Yes, Madame?"
+
+"He would have gone away satisfied."
+
+"I doubt it, Madame, and for a very good reason," I answered
+cynically. "Seeing that yesterday I told him, with the utmost
+particularity, that I had neither mother nor sister."
+
+That afforded me a little revenge. Madame St. Alais went white and red
+in the same instant, and sat a moment with her lips pressed together,
+and her eyes on the table. "Who is he? What do you know of him?" she
+said at last.
+
+"He is a poor gentleman and a bigoted Protestant," I answered drily.
+
+She bit her lip. "_Bon Dieu!_" she muttered. "Who could have foreseen
+such an accident? Do you think that he suspects anything?"
+
+"Doubtless. To begin, I left early this morning, in breach of an
+agreement to travel with him. When he learns, in addition, that I am
+travelling with my mother and sister, whom yesterday I did not
+possess----"
+
+Madame looked at me, as if she would strike me. "What will you do?"
+she cried.
+
+"It is for my mother to say," I answered politely. And I helped myself
+very indifferently to cheese. "She dictated this policy."
+
+She was white with rage, and perhaps alarm; I chuckled secretly,
+seeing her condition. But rage availed her little; she had to humble
+herself. "What do you advise?" she said at last.
+
+"There is only one course open," I answered. "We must brazen it out."
+
+She agreed. But this, though a very easy course to advise, was one
+anything but easy to pursue. I discovered that, a few minutes later,
+when I went out to see if the carriage was ready, and found De Geol in
+the doorway with a face as hard as his own hills. "You are starting?"
+he said.
+
+I muttered that I was.
+
+"I find that I have to congratulate you," he continued, with a smile
+of unpleasant meaning.
+
+"On what, Monsieur?"
+
+"On finding your family," he answered, looking at me with a bitter
+sort of humour. "To discover both a mother and a sister in twenty-four
+hours must be great happiness. But--may I give you a hint, M. le
+Vicomte?"
+
+"If you please," I said, with desperate coolness.
+
+"Then if--being so happy in making discoveries--you happen to light
+next on M. Froment--on M. Froment, the firebrand of Nimes, false
+Capuchin, and false traitor!--do not adopt him also! That is all."
+
+"I am not acquainted with him," I said coldly. He had spoken with
+passion and fire.
+
+"Do not become so," he answered.
+
+I shrugged my shoulders, and he said no more; and in a moment Madame
+and Mademoiselle came out, and took their seats, and I set out to walk
+up the hill beside the horses.
+
+The ascent was steep and long and toilsome, and a dozen times as we
+climbed out of the valley we had to halt to breathe the cattle; a
+dozen times I looked back at the grey mountain inn lying on the
+desolate grey plateau at our feet. Always I found the Baron looking up
+at us, stern and gaunt and motionless as the house before which he
+stood. And I shivered.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVII.
+
+                          FROMENT OF NIMES.
+
+
+This encounter served neither to raise my spirits nor to remove the
+apprehensions with which I looked forward to our arrival in places
+more populous; places where suspicion, once roused, might be less
+easily allayed. True, Geol had not betrayed me, but he might have his
+reasons for that; nor did the fact any the more reconcile me to having
+on our trail this grim stalking-horse in whose person a fanaticism I
+had deemed dead lurked behind modern doctrines, and sought under the
+cloak of a new party to avenge old injuries. The barren slopes and
+rugged peaks that rose above us, as we plodded toilsomely onward, the
+windswept passes over which the horses scarce dragged the empty
+carriage, the melancholy fields of snow that lay to right and left,
+all tended to deepen the impression made on my mind; so that feeling
+him one with his native hills, I longed to escape from them, I longed
+to be clear of this desolation and to see before me the sunshine and
+olive slopes sweep down to the southern sea.
+
+Yet even here there was a counterpoise. The peril which had startled
+me had not been lost on Madame St. Alais; it had sensibly lowered her
+tone, and damped the triumph with which she had been disposed to treat
+me. She was more quiet; and sitting in her place, or walking beside
+the labouring carriage, as it slowly wound its way round shoulders, or
+wearily climbed long _lacets_, she left me to myself. Nay, it did not
+escape me that distance, far from relieving, seemed to aggravate her
+anxiety; so that the farther we left the uncouth Baron behind, the
+more restless she grew, the more keenly she scanned the road behind
+us, and the less regard she paid to me.
+
+This left me at liberty to use my eyes as I would; and I remember to
+this day that hour spent under the shoulder of Mont Aigoual.
+Mademoiselle, worn out by days and nights of exertion, had fallen
+asleep in her corner, and shaken by the jolting of the coach had let
+the cloak slip from her face. A faint flush warmed her cheeks, as if
+even in sleep she felt my eyes upon her; and though a tear presently
+stole from under her long lashes, a smile almost naive--a smile that
+remained while the tear passed--seemed to say that the joys of that
+strange day surpassed the pains, and that in her sleep Mademoiselle
+found nothing to regret. God, how I watched that smile! How I hoped
+that it was for me, how I prayed for her! Never before had it been my
+happiness to gaze on her uncontrolled, as I did now; to trace the
+shadow where the first tendrils of her hair stole up from the smooth,
+white forehead, to learn the soft curves of lips and chin, and the
+dainty ear half-hidden; to gaze at the blue-veined eyelids half in
+fear, half in the hope that they might rise and discover me!
+
+Denise, my Denise! I breathed the word softly, in my heart, and was
+happy. In spite of all--the cold, the journey, Geol, Madame--I was
+happy. And then in a moment I fell to earth, as I heard a voice say
+clearly, "Is that he?"
+
+It was Madame's voice, and I turned to her. I was relieved to find
+that she was not looking my way, but was on her feet, gazing back the
+way we had come. And in a moment, whether she gave an order or the
+driver halted on his own motion, the carriage came to a stand; in a
+mountain pass, where rocks lay huddled on either side.
+
+"What is it?" I said in wonder.
+
+She did not answer, but on the silence of the road and the mountains
+rose the thin strain of a whistled air. The air was "O Richard, _O mon
+Roi!_" In that solitude of rock and fell, it piped high and thin, and
+had a weird startling effect. I thrust out my head on the other side,
+and saw a man walking after us at his leisure; as if we had passed
+him, and then stood to wait for him. He was tall and stout, wore boots
+and a common-looking cloak; but for all that he had not the air of a
+man of the country.
+
+"You are going to Ganges?" Madame cried to him, without preface.
+
+"Yes, Madame," he answered, as he came quietly up, and saluted her.
+
+"We can take you on," she said.
+
+"A thousand thanks," he answered, his eyes twinkling. "You are too
+good. If the gentleman does not object?" And he looked at me, smiling
+without disguise.
+
+"Oh, no!" Madame said, with a touch of contempt in her voice, "the
+gentleman will not object."
+
+But that gave me, in the middle of my astonishment, the fillip that I
+needed. The device of the meeting was so transparent, the appearance
+of this man, in cloak and boots, on the desolate road far from any
+habitation, was so clearly a part of an arranged plan, that I could
+not swallow it; I must either fall in with it, be dupe, and play my
+_role_ with my eyes open, or act at once. I awoke from my
+astonishment. "One moment, Madame," I said. "I do not know who this
+gentleman is."
+
+She had resumed her seat, and the stranger had come up to the window
+on her side, and was looking in. He had a face of striking power,
+large-sized and coarse, but not unpleasant; with quick, bright eyes,
+and mobile lips that smiled easily. The hand he laid on the carriage
+door was immense.
+
+I think my words took Madame by surprise. She flashed round on me.
+"Nonsense," she cried imperiously. And to him, "Get in, Monsieur."
+
+"No," I retorted, half-rising. "Stay, if you please. Stay where you
+are, until----"
+
+Madame turned to me, furious. "This is my carriage," she said.
+
+"Absolutely," I answered.
+
+"Then what do you mean?"
+
+"Only that if this gentleman enters it, I leave it."
+
+For an instant we looked at one another. Then she saw that I was
+determined, and, knowing my position, she lowered her tone. "Why?" she
+said, breathing quickly. "Why, because he enters it, should you leave
+it?"
+
+"Because, Madame," I answered, "I see no reason for taking in a
+stranger whom we do not know. This gentleman may be everything that is
+upright----"
+
+"He is no stranger!" she snapped. "I know him. Will that satisfy you?"
+
+"If he will give me his name," I said.
+
+Hitherto he had stood unmoved by the discussion, looking with a smile
+from one to the other of us; but at this he struck in. "With pleasure,
+Monsieur," he said. "My name is Alibon, and I am an advocate of
+Montauban, who last week had the good fortune----"
+
+"No," I said, interrupting him brusquely, and once for all; "I think
+not. Not Alibon of Montauban. Froment of Nimes, I think, Monsieur."
+
+A little tract of snow flushed by the sunset lay behind him, and by
+contrast darkened his face; I could not see how he took my words. And
+a few seconds elapsed before he answered. When he did, however, he
+spoke calmly, and I fancied I detected as much vanity as chagrin in
+his tone. "Well, Monsieur," he said, "and if I am? What then?"
+
+"If you are," I replied resolutely, meeting his eyes, "I decline to
+travel with you."
+
+"And therefore," he retorted, "Madame, whose carriage this is, must
+not travel with me!"
+
+"No, since she cannot travel without me," I answered with spirit.
+
+He frowned at that; but in a moment, "And why?" he said with a sneer.
+"Am I not good enough for your excellency's company?"
+
+"It is not a question of goodness," I said bluntly, "but of a
+passport, Monsieur. If you ask me, I do not travel with you because I
+hold a commission under the present Government, and I believe you to
+be working against that Government. I have lied for Madame St. Alais
+and her daughter. She was a woman and I had to save her. But I will
+not lie for you, nor be your cloak. Is that plain, Monsieur?"
+
+"Quite," he said slowly. "Yet I serve the King. Whom do you serve?"
+
+I was silent.
+
+"Whose is this commission, Monsieur, that must not be contaminated?"
+
+I writhed under the sneer, but I was silent.
+
+"Come, M. le Vicomte," he continued frankly, and in a different tone.
+"Be yourself, I pray. I am Froment, you have guessed it. I am also a
+fugitive, and were my name spoken in Villeraugues, a league on, I
+should hang for it. And in Ganges the like. I am at your mercy,
+therefore, and I ask you to shelter me. Let me pass through Sumene and
+Ganges as one of your party; thenceforth onwards," he added with a
+smile and a gesture of conscious pride, "I can shift for myself."
+
+I do not wonder I hesitated, I wonder I resisted. It seemed so small a
+thing to ask, so great a thing to refuse, that, though half a minute
+before my mind had been made up, I wavered; wavered miserably. I felt
+my face burn, I felt the passionate ardour of Madame's eyes as they
+devoured it, I felt the call of the silence for my answer. And I was
+near assenting. But as I turned feverishly in my seat to avoid
+Madame's look, my hand touched the packet which contained the
+commission, and the contact wrought a revulsion of feeling. I saw the
+thing as I had seen it before, and, rightly or wrongly, revolted from
+that which I had nearly done.
+
+"No," I cried angrily. "I will not! I will not!"
+
+"You coward!" Madame cried with sudden passion. And she sprang up as
+if to strike me, but sat down again trembling.
+
+"It may be," I said. "But I will not do it."
+
+"Why? Why? Why?" she cried.
+
+"Because I carry that commission; and to use it to shelter M. Froment
+were a thing M. Froment would not do himself. That is all."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and magnanimously kept silence. But she was
+furious. "Quixote!" she cried. "Oh, you are intolerable! But you shall
+suffer for it. _Eh, bien_, Monsieur, you shall suffer for it!" she
+repeated vehemently.
+
+"Nay, Madame, you need not threaten," I retorted.
+
+"For if I would, I could not. You forget that M. de Geol is no more
+than a league behind us, and bound for Nimes; he may appear at any
+moment. At best he is sure to lodge where we do to-night. If he
+finds," I continued drily, "that I have added a brother to my growing
+family, I do not think that he will take it lightly."
+
+But this, though she must have seen the sense of it, had no effect
+upon her. "Oh, you are intolerable!" she cried again. "Let me out! Let
+me out, Monsieur."
+
+This last to Froment. I did not gainsay her, and he let her out, and
+the two walked a few paces away, talking rapidly.
+
+I followed them with my eyes; and seeing him now, detached, as it
+were, and solitary in that dreary landscape--a man alone and in
+danger--I began to feel some compunction. A moment more, and I might
+have repented; but a touch fell on my sleeve, and I turned with a
+start to find Denise leaning towards me, with her face rapt and eager.
+
+"Monsieur," she whispered eagerly; before she could say more I seized
+the hand with which she had touched me, and kissed it fiercely.
+
+"No, Monsieur, no," she whispered, drawing it from me with her face
+grown crimson--but her eyes still met mine frankly. "Not now. I want
+to speak to you, to warn you, to ask you----"
+
+"And I, Mademoiselle," I cried in the same low tone, "want to bless
+you, to thank you----"
+
+"I want to ask you to take care of yourself," she persisted, shaking
+her head almost petulantly at me, to silence me. "Listen! Some trap
+will be laid for you. My mother would not harm you, though she is
+angry; but that man is desperate, and we are in straits. Be careful,
+therefore, Monsieur, and----"
+
+"Have no fear," I said.
+
+"Ah, but I have fear," she answered.
+
+And the way in which she said that, and the way in which she looked at
+me, and looked away again like a startled bird, filled me with
+happiness--with intense happiness; so that, though Madame came back at
+that moment, and no more passed between us, not even a look, but we
+had to sink back in our seats, and affect indifference, I was a
+different man for it. Perhaps something of this appeared in my face,
+for Madame, as she came up to the door, shot a suspicious glance at
+me, a glance almost of hatred; and from me looked keenly at her
+daughter. However, nothing was said except by Froment, who came up to
+the door and closed it, after she had entered. He raised his hat to
+me.
+
+"M. le Vicomte," he said, with a little bitterness, "if a dog came to
+my door, as I came to you to-day, I would take him in!"
+
+"You would do as I have done," I said.
+
+"No," he said firmly; "I would take him in. Nevertheless, when we meet
+at Nimes, I hope to convert you."
+
+"To what?" I said coldly.
+
+"To having a little faith," he answered, with dryness. "To having a
+little faith in something--and risking somewhat for it, Monsieur. I
+stand here," he went on, with a gesture that was not without grandeur,
+"alone and homeless, to-day; I do not know where I shall lie to-night.
+And why, M. le Vicomte? Because I alone in France have faith! Because
+I alone believe in anything! Because I alone believe even in myself!
+Do you think," he continued with rising scorn, "that if you nobles
+believed in your nobility, you could be unseated? Never! Or that if
+you, who say 'Long live the King!' believed in your King, he could be
+unseated? Never! Or that if you who profess to obey the Church
+believed in her, she could be uprooted? Never! But you believe in
+nothing, you admire nothing, you reverence nothing--and therefore you
+are doomed! Yes, doomed; for even the men with whom you have linked
+yourself have a sort of bastard faith in their theories, their
+philosophy, their reforms, that are to regenerate the world. But
+you--you believe in nothing; and you shall pass, as you pass from me
+now!"
+
+He waved his hand with a gesture of menace, and before I could answer,
+the carriage rolled on, and left him standing there; the grey
+landscape, cold and barren, took the place of his face at the door.
+The light was beginning to fail; we were still a league from
+Villeraugues. I was glad to feel the carriage moving, and to be free
+from him; my heart, too, was warm because Denise sat opposite me,
+and I loved her. But for all that--and though Madame, glowering at me
+from her corner, troubled me little--the thought that I had deserted
+him--that, and his words, and one word in particular, hummed in my
+head, and oppressed me with a sense of coming ill. "Doomed! Doomed!"
+He had said it as if he meant it. I could no longer question his
+eloquence. I could no longer be ignorant why they called him the
+firebrand of Nimes. The hot breath of the southern city had come from
+him; the passion of world-old strifes had spoken in his voice.
+Uneasily I pondered over what he had said, and recalled the words
+spoken by Father Benoit, even by Geol, to the same effect; and so
+brooded in my corner, while the carriage jolted on and darkness fell,
+until presently we stopped in the village street.
+
+I offered Madame St. Alais my arm to descend. "No, Monsieur," she
+said, repelling me with passion; "I will not touch you."
+
+She meant, I think, to seclude herself and Mademoiselle, and leave me
+to sup alone. But in the inn there was only one great room for
+parlour, and kitchen, and all; and a little cupboard, veiled by a
+dingy curtain, in which the women might sleep if they pleased, but in
+which they could not possibly eat. The inn was, in fact, the worst in
+which I had stopped--the maid draggled and dirty, and smelling of the
+stable; the company three boors; the floor of earth; the windows
+unglazed. Madame, accustomed to travel, and supported by her anger,
+took all with the ease of a fine lady; but Denise, fresh from her
+convent, winced at the brawling and oaths that rose round her, and
+cowered, pale and frightened, on her stool.
+
+A hundred times I was on the point of interfering to protect her from
+these outrages; but her eyes, when they made me happy by timidly
+seeking mine for an instant, seemed to pray me to abstain; and the
+men, as their senseless tirades showed, were delegates from Castres,
+who at a word would have raised the cry of "Aristocrats!" I refrained,
+therefore, and doubtless with wisdom; but even the arrival of Geol
+would have been a welcome interruption.
+
+I have said that Madame heeded them little; but it presently appeared
+that I was mistaken. After we had supped, and when the noise was at
+its height, she came to me, where I sat a little apart, and, throwing
+into her tone all the anger and disgust which her face so well masked,
+she cried in my ear that we must start at daybreak.
+
+"At daybreak--or before!" she whispered fiercely. "This is horrible!
+horrible!" she continued. "This place is killing me! I would start
+now, cold and dark as it is, if----"
+
+"I will speak to them," I said, taking a step towards the table.
+
+She clutched my sleeve, and pinched me until I winced. "Fool!" she
+said. "Would you ruin us all? A word, and we are betrayed. No; but at
+daybreak we go. We shall not sleep; and the moment it is light we go!"
+
+I consented, of course; and, going to the driver, who had taken our
+place at the table, she whispered him also, and then came back to me,
+and bade me call him if he did not rise. This settled, she went
+towards the closet, whither Mademoiselle had already retired; but
+unfortunately her movements had drawn on her the attention of the
+clowns at the table, and one of these, rising suddenly as she passed,
+intercepted her.
+
+"A toast, Madame! a toast!" he cried, with a gross hiccough; and
+reeling on his feet, he thrust a cup of wine in front of her. "A
+toast; and one that every man, woman, and child in France must drink,
+or be d----d! And that is the Tricolour! The Tricolour; and down with
+Madame Veto! The Tricolour, Madame! Drink to it!"
+
+The drunken wretch pressed the cup on her, while his comrades roared,
+"Drink! Drink! The Tricolour; and down with Madame Veto!" and added
+jests and oaths I will not write.
+
+This was too much; I sprang to my feet to chastise the wretches. But
+Madame, who preserved her presence of mind to a marvel, checked me by
+a glance. "No," she said, raising her head proudly; "I will not
+drink!"
+
+"Ah!" he cried with a vile laugh. "An aristocrat, are we? Drink,
+nevertheless, or we shall show you----"
+
+"I will not drink!" she retorted, facing him with superb courage. "And
+more, when M. de Geol arrives to-night, you will have to give an
+account to him."
+
+The man's face fell. "You know the Baron de Geol?" he said in a
+different tone.
+
+"I left him at the last village, and I expect him here to-night," she
+answered coolly. "And I would advise you, Monsieur, to drink your own
+toasts, and let others go! For he is not a man to brook an insult!"
+
+The brawler shrugged his shoulders, to hide his mortification. "Oh! if
+you are a friend of his," he muttered, preparing to slink back to the
+table, "I suppose it is all right. He is a good man. No offence. If
+you are not an aristocrat----"
+
+"I am no more of an aristocrat than is M. de Geol," she answered. And,
+with a cold bow, she turned, and went to the closet.
+
+The men were a little less noisy after that; for Madame had rightly
+guessed that Geol's name was known and respected. They presently
+wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and lay down on the floor; and I
+did the same, passing the night, in the result, in greater comfort
+than I expected.
+
+At first, it is true, I did not sleep; but later I fell into an uneasy
+slumber, and, passing from one troubled dream to another--for which I
+had, doubtless, to thank the foul air of the room--I awoke at last
+with a start, to find some one leaning over me. Apparently it was
+still night, for all was quiet; but the red embers of the fire glowed
+on the hearth, and dimly lit up the room, enabling me to see that it
+was Madame St. Alais who had roused me. She pointed to the other men,
+who still lay snoring.
+
+"Hush!" she whispered, with her finger on her lip. "It is after five.
+Jules is harnessing the horses. I have paid the woman here, and in
+five minutes we shall be ready."
+
+"But the sun will not rise for another hour," I answered. This was
+early starting with a vengeance!
+
+Madame, however, had set her heart upon it. "Do you want to expose us
+to more of this?" she said, in a furious whisper. "To keep us here
+until Geol arrives, perhaps?"
+
+"I am ready, Madame," I said.
+
+This satisfied her; she flitted away without any more, and disappeared
+behind the curtain, and I heard whispering. I put on my boots, and,
+the room being very cold, stooped a moment over the fire, and drawing
+the embers together with my foot, warmed myself. Then I put on my
+cravat and sword, which I had removed, and stood ready to start. It
+seemed uselessly early; and we had started so early the day before! If
+Madame wished it, however, it was my place to give way to her.
+
+In a moment she came to me again; and I saw, even by that light, that
+her face was twitching with eagerness. "Oh!" she said; "will he never
+come? That man will be all day. Go and hasten him, Monsieur! If Geol
+comes? Go, for pity's sake, and hasten him!"
+
+I wondered, thinking such haste utterly vain and foolish--it was not
+likely that Geol would arrive at this hour; but, concluding that
+Madame's nerves had failed at last, I thought it proper to comply,
+and, stepping carefully over the sleepers, reached the door. I raised
+the latch, and in a moment was outside, and had closed the door behind
+me. The bitter dawn wind, laden with a fine snow, lashed my cheeks,
+and bit through my cloak, and made me shiver. In the east the daybreak
+was only faintly apparent; in every other quarter it was still night,
+and, for all I could see, might be midnight.
+
+Very little in charity with Madame, I picked my way, shivering, to the
+door of the stable--a mean hovel, in a line with the house, and set in
+a sea of mud. It was closed, but a dim yellow light, proceeding from a
+window towards the farther end, showed me where Jules was at work; and
+I raised the latch, and called him. He did not answer, and I had to go
+in to him, passing behind three or four wretched nags--some on their
+legs and some lying down--until I came to our horses, which stood side
+by side at the end, with the lantern hung on a hook near them.
+
+Still I did not see Jules, and I was standing wondering where he
+was--for he did not answer--when, with a whish, something black struck
+me in the face. It blinded me; in a moment I found myself struggling
+in the folds of a cloak, that completely enveloped my face, while a
+grip of iron seized my arms and bound them to my sides. Taken
+completely by surprise, I tried to shout, but the heavy cloak
+stifled me; when, struggling desperately, I succeeded in uttering a
+half-choked cry, other hands than those which held me pressed the
+cloak more tightly over my face. In vain I writhed and twisted, and,
+half-suffocated, tried to free myself. I felt hands pass deftly over
+me, and knew that I was being robbed. Then, as I still resisted, the
+man who held me from behind tripped me up, and I fell, still in his
+grasp, on my face on the ground.
+
+Fortunately I fell on some litter; but, even so, the shock drove the
+breath out of me; and what with that and the cloak, which in this new
+position threatened to strangle me outright, I lay a moment helpless,
+while the wretches bound my hands behind me, and tied my ankles
+together. Thus secured, I felt myself taken up, and carried a little
+way, and flung roughly down on a soft bed--of hay, as I knew by the
+scent. Then some one threw a truss of hay on me, and more and more
+hay, until I thought that I should be stifled, and tried frantically
+to shout. But the cloak was wound two or three times round my head,
+and, strive as I would, I could only, with all my efforts, force out a
+dull cry, that died, smothered in its folds.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+                            A POOR FIGURE.
+
+
+I did not struggle long. The efforts I had made to free myself from
+the men, and this last exertion of striving to shout, brought the
+blood to my head; and so exhausted me that I lay inert, my heart
+panting as if it would suffocate me, and my lungs craving more air. I
+was in danger of being stifled in earnest, and knew it; but,
+fortunately, the horror of this fate, which a minute before had driven
+me to frantic efforts, now gave me the supreme courage to lie still,
+and, collecting myself, do all I could to get air.
+
+It was time I did. I was hot as fire, and sweating at every pore;
+however the dreadful sensation of choking went off somewhat when I had
+lain a while motionless, and by turning my head and chest a little
+to the side--which I succeeded in doing, though I could not raise
+myself--I breathed more freely. Still, my position was horrible.
+Helpless as I was, with the trusses of hay pressing on me, fresh
+pains soon rose to take the place of those allayed. The bonds on my
+wrists began to burn into my flesh, the hilt of my sword forced itself
+into my side, my back seemed to be breaking under the burden, my
+shoulders ached intolerably. I was being slowly, slowly pressed to
+death, in darkness, and when a cry--a single cry, if I could raise my
+voice--would bring relief and succour!
+
+The thought so maddened me that, fancying after an age of this
+suffering that I heard a faint sound as of some one moving in the
+stable, I lost control of myself, and fell to struggling again; while
+groans broke from me instead of cries, and the bonds cut into my arms.
+But the paroxysm only added to my misery; the person, whoever he was,
+did not hear me, and made no further noise; or, if he did, the blood
+coursing to my head, and swelling the veins of my neck almost to
+bursting, deafened me to the sound. The horrible weight that I had
+raised for a moment sank again. I gave up, I despaired; and lay in a
+kind of swoon, unable to think, unable to remember, no longer hoping
+for relief, or planning escape, but enduring.
+
+I must have lain thus some time, when a noise loud enough to reach my
+dulled ears roused me afresh; I listened, at first with half a heart.
+The noise was repeated; then, without further warning, a sharp pain
+darted through the calf of my leg. I screamed out; and, though the
+cloak and the hay over my head choked the cry, I caught a kind of echo
+of it. Then silence.
+
+Stupid as a in an awakened from sleep, I thought for a moment that I
+had dreamed both the cry and the pain; and groaned in my misery. The
+next moment I felt the hay that lay on me move; then the truss that
+pressed most heavily on me was lifted, and I heard voices and cries,
+and saw a faint light, and knew I was freed. In a twinkling I felt
+myself seized and drawn out, amid a murmur of cries and exclamations.
+The cloak was plucked from my head, and, dazzled and half blind, I
+found half a dozen faces gaping and staring at me.
+
+"Why, _mon Dieu!_ it is the gentleman who departed this morning!"
+cried a woman. And she threw up her hands in astonishment.
+
+I looked at her. She was the woman of the house.
+
+My throat was dry and parched, my lips were swollen; but at the second
+attempt I managed to tell her to untie me.
+
+She complied, amid fresh exclamations of surprise and astonishment;
+then, as I was so stiff and benumbed as to be powerless, they lifted
+me to the door of the stable, where one set a stool, and another
+brought a cup of water. This and the cold air restored me, and in a
+minute or two I was able to stand. Meanwhile they pressed me with
+questions; but I was giddy and confused, and could not for a few
+minutes collect myself. By-and-by, however, a person who came up
+with an air of importance, and pushed aside the crowd of clowns and
+stable-helpers that surrounded me, helped me to find my voice.
+
+"What is it?" he said. "What is it, Monsieur? What brought you in the
+stable?"
+
+The woman who kept the inn answered for me that she did not know; that
+one of the men going to get hay had struck his fork into my leg, and
+so found me.
+
+"But who is he?" the new-comer asked imperatively. He was a tall, thin
+man, with a sour face and small, suspicious eyes.
+
+"I am the Vicomte de Saux," I answered.
+
+"Eh!" he said, prolonging the syllable. "And how came you, M. le
+Vicomte--if that be your name--in the stable?"
+
+"I have been robbed," I muttered.
+
+"Bobbed!" he answered with a sniff. "Bah! Monsieur; in this commune we
+have no robbers."
+
+"Still, I have been robbed," I answered stupidly.
+
+For answer, before I knew what he was about, he plunged his hand,
+without ceremony or leave, into the pocket of my coat, and brought out
+a purse. He held it up for all to see. "Robbed?" he said in a tone of
+irony. "I think not, Monsieur; I think not!"
+
+I looked at the purse in astonishment; then, mechanically putting my
+hand into my pocket, I produced first one thing, and then another, and
+stared at them. He was right. I had not been robbed. Snuff-box,
+handkerchief, my watch and seals, my knife, and a little mirror, and
+book--all were there!
+
+"And now I come to think of it," the woman said, speaking suddenly,
+"there are a pair of saddle-bags in the house that must belong to the
+gentleman! I was wondering a while ago whose they were."
+
+"They are mine!" I cried, memory and sense returning. "They are mine!
+But the ladies who were with me? They have not started?"
+
+"They went these three hours back," the woman answered, staring at me.
+"And I could have sworn that Monsieur went with them! But, to be sure,
+it was only just light, and a mistake is soon made."
+
+A thought that should have occurred to me before--a horrible
+thought--darted its sting into my heart. I plunged my hand into the
+inner pocket of my coat, and drew it out empty. The commission--the
+commission to which I had trusted was gone!
+
+I uttered a cry of rage and glared round me. "What is it?" said the
+sour man, meeting my eyes.
+
+"My papers!" I answered, almost gnashing my teeth, as I thought how I
+had been tricked and treated. I saw it all now. "My papers!"
+
+"Well?" he said.
+
+"They are gone! I have been robbed of them!"
+
+"Indeed!" he said drily. "That remains to be proved, Monsieur."
+
+I thought that he meant that I might be mistaken, as I had been
+mistaken before; and, to make certain, I turned out the pocket.
+
+"No," he said, as drily as before. "I see that they are not there. But
+the point is, Monsieur, were they ever there?"
+
+I looked at him.
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is the point, Monsieur. Where are your papers?"
+
+"I tell you I have been robbed of them!" I cried, in a rage.
+
+"And I say, that remains to be proved," he answered. "And until it is
+proved, you do not leave here. That is all, Monsieur, and it is
+simple."
+
+"And who," I said indignantly, "are you, I should like to know,
+Monsieur, who stop travellers on the highway, and ask for papers?"
+
+"Merely the President of the Local Committee," he replied.
+
+"And do you suppose," I said, fuming at his folly, "that I bound my
+hands, and stifled myself under that hay, on purpose? On purpose to
+pass through your wretched village?"
+
+"I suppose nothing, Monsieur," he answered coolly. "But this is the
+road to Turin, where M. d'Artois is said to be collecting the
+disaffected; and to Nimes, where mischievous persons are flaunting the
+red cockade. And without papers, no one passes."
+
+"But what will you do with me?" I asked, seeing that the clowns, who
+gaped round us, regarded him as nothing less than a Solomon.
+
+"Detain you, M. le Vicomte, until you procure papers," he answered.
+
+"But, _mon Dieu!_" I said. "That is not so easily done here. Who is
+likely to know me?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "Monsieur does not leave without the
+papers," he said. "That is all."
+
+And he spoke truly, that was all. In vain I laid the facts before him,
+and asked if any one would voluntarily suffer, merely to hide his lack
+of papers, what I had undergone; in vain I asked if the state in which
+I had been found was not itself proof that I had been robbed; if a man
+could tie his own hands, and pile hay on himself. In vain even that I
+said I knew who had robbed me; the last statement only made matters
+worse.
+
+"Indeed!" he said ironically. "Then, pray, who was it?"
+
+"The rogue Froment! Froment of Nimes!"
+
+"He is not in this country."
+
+"Indeed! I saw him yesterday," I answered.
+
+"Then that settles the matter," the Committee-man answered, with a
+grim smile; and his little court smiled too. "After that, we certainly
+cannot lose sight of M. le Vicomte."
+
+And so well did he keep his word, that when, to avoid the cold that
+began to pierce me, I went into the wretched inn, and sat down on the
+hearth to think over the position, two of the yokels accompanied me;
+and when I went out again, and stood looking distrustfully up and down
+the road, two more were at my elbow, as by magic. Whether I turned
+this way or that, one was sure to spring up, and, if I walked too far
+from the house, would touch me on the arm, and gruffly order me back.
+Mont Aigoual itself, lifting its crest, bleak, and stern, and cold,
+above the valley, was not more sure than their attendance, or more
+immovable.
+
+This added to my irritation, and for a time I was like a madman.
+Deluded by Madame St. Alais, and robbed by Froment--who, I felt sure,
+had taken my place, and was now rolling at his ease through Sumene and
+Ganges with my commission in his pocket--I strode up and down the
+road, the road that was my prison, in a fever of rage and chagrin.
+Madame's ingratitude, my own easiness, the villagers' stupidity, I
+execrated all in turn; but most, perhaps, the inaction to which they
+condemned me. I had escaped with my life, and for that should have
+been thankful; but no man cares to be duped. And one day, two days,
+three days passed; it froze and thawed, snowed and was fine; still,
+while the carriage bowled along the road to Nimes, and carried my
+mistress farther and farther from me, I lay a prisoner in this
+wretched hamlet. I grew to loathe the squalid inn, in which I kicked
+my heels through the cold hours, the muddy road that ran by it, the
+mean row of hovels they called the village. All day, and whenever I
+went abroad, the clowns dogged and flouted me, thinking it sport; each
+evening the Committee came to stare and question. A house this way, a
+house that way, were my boundaries, while the world moved beyond the
+mountains, and France throbbed; and I knew not what might be in hand
+to separate Denise from me. No wonder that I almost chafed myself into
+madness.
+
+I had left my horse at Milhau, whence the landlord had undertaken to
+forward it to Ganges within a couple of days, by the hand of an
+acquaintance who would be going that way. I expected it every hour,
+therefore, and my only hope was that its conductor might be able to
+identify me, since half a hundred at Milhau had seen my commission, or
+heard it read. But the horse did not arrive, nor any one from Milhau,
+and fearing that the release of the two ladies had caused trouble
+there, my heart sank still lower. I could not easily communicate with
+Cahors, and the Committee, with rustic independence and obstinacy,
+would neither let me go nor send me to Nimes, where I could be
+identified. It was in vain I pressed them.
+
+"No, no," the sour-faced Committee-man answered, the first time I
+raised the question. "Presently some one who knows you will come by.
+In the meantime have patience."
+
+"M. le Vicomte is a gentleman many would know," the woman of the house
+chimed in; looking at me with her arms wrapped up in her apron and her
+head on one side.
+
+"To be sure! To be sure," the crowd agreed, and, rubbing their calves,
+the members of the Committee followed her lead, and looked at me with
+satisfaction, as at something that did them credit.
+
+Their stupid complacency nearly drove me mad; but to what purpose?
+"After all, you are very well here," the first speaker would say,
+shrugging his shoulders. "You are very well here."
+
+"Better than under the hay!" the man who had pricked my leg was wont
+to answer.
+
+And on that--this was a nightly joke--a general laugh would follow,
+and with another admonition to be patient, the Committee would take
+its leave.
+
+Or sometimes the argument in the kitchen took a harsher and more
+dangerous turn; and one and another would recall for my benefit old
+tales of the dragooning, and Villars, and Berwick; tales, at which the
+blood crept, of horrible cruelties done and suffered, of stern
+mountain men and brave women who faced the worst that Kings could do,
+for the fate that they had chosen; of a great cause crushed but not
+destroyed, of a whole people trodden down in dust and blood, and yet
+living and growing strong.
+
+"And do you think that after this," the speaker would cry when he had
+told me these things with flashing eyes, these things that his
+grandfathers had done and suffered--"do you think that after this we
+are not concerned in this business? Do you think that now, Monsieur,
+when, after all these years, vengeance is in our hand and our
+persecutors are tottering, we will sit still and see them set up
+again? Bishops and captains, canons and cardinals, where are they now?
+Where are the lands they stole from us? Gone from them! Where are the
+tithes they took with blood? Taken from them! Where is St. Etienne,
+whose father they persecuted? With his foot on their necks! And, after
+this, do you think that with all their processions and their idols and
+their Corpus Christi, they shall defy us and set up their rule again?
+No, Monsieur, no."
+
+"But there is no question of that!" I said mildly.
+
+"There is great question of that," was the stern answer. "In Nimes and
+Montauban, at Avignon, and at Arles! We who live in the mountains have
+too often heard the storm gathering in the plain to be mistaken. These
+preachings and processions, and weeping virgins, this cry of
+Blasphemy--what do they mean, Monsieur? Blood! Blood! Blood! It has
+been so a score of times, it is so now! But this time blood will not
+be shed on one side only!"
+
+And I listened and marvelled. I began to understand that the same word
+meant one thing in one man's mouth, and in another man's mouth another
+thing; and that that which worked easily and smoothly in the north
+might in the south roll hideously through fire and blood. In Quercy we
+had lost two or three chateaux, and a handful of lives, and for a few
+hours the mob had got out of hand--all with little enthusiasm. But
+here--here I seemed to stand on the brink of a great furnace under
+which the fires of persecution still smouldered; I felt the scorching
+breath of passion on my cheek, and saw through the white-hot scum old
+enmities seething with new and fiercer ambitions, old factions with
+new bigotries. I had heard Froment, now I heard these; it remained
+only to be seen whether Froment had his followers.
+
+In the meantime, pent up in this place, I found little comfort in such
+predictions; I lived on my heart, and the better part of a fortnight
+went by. The woman at the inn was well satisfied to keep me; I paid,
+and guests were rare. And the Committee took pride in me; I was a
+living, walking token of their powers, and of the importance of their
+village. Now to the mingled misery and absurdity of my position, the
+anxiety on Mademoiselle's account, which this news of Nimes caused me,
+added the last intolerable touch, and I determined at all risks to
+escape.
+
+That I had no horse, and that at Sumene or Ganges I should inevitably
+be detained, had hitherto held me back from the attempt; now I could
+bear the position no longer, and after weighing all the chances, I
+determined to slip away some evening at sunset, and make my way on
+foot to Milhau. The villagers would be sure to pursue me in the
+direction of Nimes, whither they knew that I was bound; and even if a
+party took the other road, I should have many chances of escape in the
+darkness. I counted on reaching Milhau soon after daybreak, and there,
+if the Mayor stood my friend, I might regain my horse, and with
+credentials travel to Nimes by the same or another road.
+
+It seemed feasible, and that very evening fortune favoured me. The man
+who should have kept me company, upset a pot of boiling water over his
+foot, and without giving a thought to me or his duty went off groaning
+to his house. A moment later the woman of the inn was called out by a
+neighbour, and at the very hour I would have chosen, I found myself
+alone. Still I knew that I had not a moment to lose; instantly,
+therefore, I put on my cloak, and reaching down my pistols from a
+shelf on which they had been placed, I put a little food in my pocket
+and sneaked out at the rear of the house. A dog was kennelled there,
+but it knew me and wagged its tail; and in two minutes, after warily
+skirting the backs of the houses, I gained the road to Milhau, and
+stood free and alone.
+
+Night had fallen, but it was not quite dark; and dreading every eye, I
+hurried on through the dusk, now peering anxiously forward, and now
+looking and listening for the first sounds of pursuit. For a few
+minutes the fear of that took up all my thoughts; later, when the one
+twinkling light that marked the village had set behind me, and night
+and the silent waste of mountains had swallowed me up, a sense of
+eeriness, of loneliness, very depressing, took possession of me.
+Denise was at Nimes, and I was moving the other way; what accidents
+might not befall me, how many things might not happen to postpone my
+return? In the meantime she lay at the mercy of her mother and
+brothers, with all the traditions of her family, all the prejudices of
+maidenhood and her education against my suit. To what use in this
+imbroglio might not her hand be put? Or, if that were not in question,
+what in that city of strife, in that fierce struggle, of which the
+peasants had forewarned me, might not be the fate of a young girl?
+
+Spurred by these thoughts, I pressed on feverishly, and had gone,
+perhaps, a league, when a sharp sound made by a horse's shoe striking
+a stone, caught my ear. It came from the front, and I drew to the side
+of the road, and crouched low to let the traveller go by. I fancied
+that I could distinguish the tramp of three horses, but when the men
+loomed darkly into sight, I could see only two figures.
+
+Perhaps I rose a little too high in my anxiety to see. At any rate I
+had not counted on the horses, the nearer of which, as it passed me,
+swerved violently from me. The rider was almost dismounted by the
+violence of the movement, but in a twinkling had his horse again in
+hand, and before I knew what I was doing, was urging it upon me. I
+dared not move, for to move was to betray my presence, but this did
+not avail, for in a minute the rider made out the outline of my
+figure.
+
+"Hola," he cried sharply. "Who are you there, who lie in wait to break
+men's necks? Speak, man, or----"
+
+But I caught his bridle. "M. de Geol!" I cried, my heart beating
+against my ribs.
+
+"Stand back!" he cried, peering at me. He did not know my voice. "Who
+are you? Who is it?"
+
+"It is I, M. de Saux," I answered joyfully.
+
+"Why, man, I thought that you were at Nimes," he exclaimed in a tone
+of great astonishment, "these ten days past! We have your horse here."
+
+"Here? My horse?"
+
+"To be sure. Your good friend here has it in charge from Milhau. But
+where have you been? And what are you doing here?" he continued
+suspiciously.
+
+"I lost my passport. It was stolen by Froment."
+
+He whistled.
+
+"And at Villeraugues they stopped me," I continued. "I have been there
+since."
+
+"Ah," he said drily. "That comes of travelling in bad company, M. le
+Vicomte. And to-night I suppose you were----"
+
+"Going to get away," I answered bluntly. "But you--I thought that you
+had passed long ago?"
+
+"No," he said. "I was detained. Now we have met, I would advise you to
+mount and return with me."
+
+"I will," I said briskly, "with the greatest pleasure. And you will be
+able to tell them who I am."
+
+"I?" he answered. "No, indeed. I do not know. I only know who you told
+me you were."
+
+I fell to earth again, and for a moment stood staring through the
+darkness at him. A moment only. For then out of the darkness came a
+voice. "Have no fear, M. le Vicomte, I will speak for you."
+
+I started and stared. "_Mon Dieu!_" I said, trembling. "Who spoke?"
+
+"It is I--Buton," came the answer. "I have your horse, M. le Vicomte."
+
+It was Buton, the blacksmith; Captain Buton, of the Committee.
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+This for the time cut the thread of my difficulties. When we rode into
+the village ten minutes later, the Committee, awed by the credentials
+which Buton carried, accepted his explanation at once, and raised no
+further objection to my journey. So twelve hours afterwards we three,
+thus strangely thrown together, passed through Sumene. We slept at
+Sauve, and presently leaving behind us the late winter of the
+mountains, with its frost and snow, began to descend in sunshine the
+western slope of the Rhone valley. All day we rode through balmy air,
+between fields and gardens and olive groves; the white dust, the white
+houses, the white cliffs eloquent of the south. And a little before
+sunset we came in sight of Nimes, and hailed the end of a journey
+that, for me, had not been without its adventures.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIX.
+
+                              AT NIMES.
+
+
+It will be believed that I looked on the city with no common emotions.
+I had heard enough at Villeraugues--and to that enough M. de Geol had
+added by the way a thousand details--to satisfy me that here and not
+in the north, here in the Gard, and the Bouches du Rhone, among the
+olive groves and white dust of the south, and not among the
+wheatfields and pastures of the north, the fate of the nation hung in
+the balance; and that not in Paris--where men would and yet would not,
+where Mirabeau and Lafayette, in fear of the mob, took one day a step
+towards the King, and the next, fearful lest restored he should
+punish, retraced it--could the convulsion be arrested, but here! Here,
+where the warm imagination of the Provencal still saw something holy
+in things once holy, and faction bound men to faith.
+
+Hitherto the stream of revolution had met with no check. Obstacles
+apparently the strongest, the King, the nobles, had crumbled and sunk
+before it, almost without a struggle; it remained to be seen whether
+the third and last of the governing powers, the Church, would fare
+better. Clearly, if Froment were right, and faith must be met by
+faith, and bigotry of one kind be opposed by bigotry of another kind,
+here in the valley of the Rhone, where the Church still kept its hold,
+lay the materials nearest to the enthusiast's hand. In that case--and
+with this in my mind, I took my first long look at the city, and the
+wide low plain that lay beyond it, bathed in the sunset light--in that
+case, from this spot might fly a torch to kindle France! Hence might
+start within the next few days a conflagration as wide as the land;
+that taken up, and roaring ever higher and higher through all La
+Vendee, and Brittany, and the Cotes du Nord, might swiftly ring round
+Paris with a circle of flame.
+
+Once get it fairly alight. But there lay the doubt; and I looked
+again, and looked with eager curiosity, at this city from which so
+much was expected; this far-stretching city of flat roofs and white
+houses, trending gently down from the last spurs of the Cevennes to
+the Rhone plain. North of it, in the outskirts rose three low hills,
+the midmost crowned with a tower, the eastern-most casting a shadow
+almost to the distant river; and from these, eastward and southward,
+the city sloped. And these hills, and the roads near us, and the plain
+already verdant, and the great workshops that here and there rose in
+the faubourgs, all, as we approached, seemed to teem with life and
+people; with people coming and going, alone and in groups, sauntering
+beyond the walls for pleasure, or hastening on business.
+
+Of these, I noticed all wore a badge of some kind; many the tricolour,
+but more a red ribbon, a red tuft, a red cockade--emblems at sight of
+which my companions' faces grew darker, and ever darker. Another thing
+characteristic of the place, the tinkling of many bells, calling to
+vespers--though I found the sound fall pleasantly on the evening
+air--was as little to their taste. They growled together, and
+increased their pace; the result of which was that insensibly I fell
+to the rear. As we entered the streets, the traffic that met us, and
+the keenness with which I looked about me, increased the distance
+between us; presently, a long line of carts and a company of National
+Guards intervening, I found myself riding alone, a hundred paces
+behind them.
+
+I was not sorry; the novelty of the shifting crowd, the changing
+faces, the southern patois, the moving string of soldiers, peasants,
+workmen, women, amused me. I was less sorry when by-and-by
+something--something which I had dimly imagined might happen when I
+reached Nimes--took real shape, there, in the crooked street; and
+struck me, as it were, in the face. As I passed under a barred window
+a little above the roadway, a window on which my eyes alighted for an
+instant, a white hand waved a handkerchief--for an instant only, just
+long enough for me to take in the action and think of Denise! Then, as
+I jerked the reins, the handkerchief was gone, the window was empty,
+on either side of me the crowd chattered, and jostled on its way.
+
+I pulled up mechanically, and looked round, my heart beating. I could
+see no one near me for whom the signal could be intended; and yet--it
+seemed odd. I could hardly believe in such good fortune; or that I had
+found Denise so soon. However, as my eyes returned doubtfully to the
+window, the handkerchief flickered in it again; and this time the
+signal was so unmistakably meant for me that, shamed out of my
+prudence, I pushed my horse through the crowd to the door, and hastily
+dismounting, threw the rein to an urchin who stood near. I was shy of
+asking him who lived in the house; and with a single glance at the
+dull white front, and the row of barred windows that ran below the
+balcony, I resigned myself to fortune, and knocked.
+
+On the instant the door flew open, and a servant appeared. I had not
+considered what I would say, and for a moment I stared at him
+foolishly. Then, at a venture, on the spur of the moment, I asked if
+Madame received.
+
+He answered very civilly that she did, and held the door open for me
+to enter.
+
+I did so, confused and wondering; none the less when, having crossed a
+spacious hall, paved with black and white marble, and followed him up
+a staircase, I found everything I saw round me, from the man's quiet
+livery to the mouldings of the ceiling, wearing the stamp of elegance
+and refinement. Pedestals, supporting marble busts, stood in the
+angles of the staircase; there were orange trees in jars in the hall,
+and antique fragments adorned the walls. However, I saw these only in
+passing; in a moment I reached the head of the stairs, and the man
+opening a door, stood aside.
+
+I entered the room, my eyes shining; in a dream, an impossible dream,
+that held possession of me for one moment, that Denise--not
+Mademoiselle de St. Alais, but Denise, the girl who loved me and with
+whom I had never been alone, might be there to receive me. Instead, a
+stranger rose slowly from a seat in one of the window bays, and, after
+a moment's hesitation, came forward to meet me; a strange lady, tall,
+grave, and very handsome, whose dark eyes scanned me seriously, while
+the blood rose a little to her pure olive cheek.
+
+Seeing that she was a stranger, I began to stammer an apology for my
+intrusion. She curtsied. "Monsieur need not excuse himself," she said,
+smiling. "He was expected, and a meal is ready. If you will allow
+Gervais," she continued, "he will take you to a room, where you can
+remove the dust of the road."
+
+"But, Madame," I stammered, still hesitating. "I am afraid that I am
+trespassing."
+
+She shook her head, smiling. "Be so good," she said; and waved her
+hand towards the door.
+
+"But my horse," I answered, standing bewildered. "I have left it in
+the street."
+
+"It will be cared for," she said. "Will you be so kind?" And she
+pointed with a little imperious gesture to the door.
+
+I went then in utter amazement. The man who had led me upstairs was
+outside. He preceded me along a wide airy passage to a bedroom, in
+which I found all that I needed to refresh my toilet. He took my coat
+and hat, and attended me with the skill of one trained to such
+offices; and in a state of desperate bewilderment, I suffered it. But
+when, recovering a little from my confusion, I opened my mouth to ask
+a question, he begged me to excuse him; Madame would explain.
+
+"Madame----?" I said; and looked at him interrogatively, and waited
+for him to fill the blank.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, Madame will explain," he answered glibly, and without
+a smile; and then, seeing that I was ready, he led me back, not to the
+room I had left, but to another.
+
+I went in, like a man in a dream; not doubting, however, that now I
+should have an answer to the riddle. But I found none. The room was
+spacious, and parquet-floored, with three high narrow windows, of
+which one, partly open, let in the murmur of the street. A small wood
+fire burned on a wide hearth between carved marble pillars; and in one
+corner of the room stood a harpsichord, harp, and music-stand. Nearer
+the fire a small round table, daintily laid for supper, and lighted by
+candles, placed in old silver sconces, presented a charming picture;
+and by it stood the lady I had seen.
+
+"Are you cold?" she said, coming forward frankly, as I advanced.
+
+"No, Madame."
+
+"Then we will sit down at once," she answered. And she pointed to the
+table.
+
+I took the seat she indicated, and saw with astonishment that covers
+were laid for two only. She caught the look, and blushed faintly, and
+her lip trembled as if with the effort to suppress a smile. But she
+said nothing, and any thought to her disadvantage which might have
+entered my mind was anticipated, not only by the sedate courtesy of
+her manner, but by the appearance of the room, the show of wealth and
+ease that surrounded her, and the very respectability of the butler
+who waited on us.
+
+"Have you ridden far to-day?" she said, crumbling a roll with her
+fingers as if she were not quite free from nervousness; and looking
+now at the table and now again at me in a way almost appealing.
+
+"From Sauve, Madame," I answered.
+
+"Ah! And you propose to go?"
+
+"No farther."
+
+"I am glad to hear it," she said, with a charming smile. "You are a
+stranger in Nimes?"
+
+"I was. I do not feel so now."
+
+"Thank you," she answered, her eyes meeting mine without reserve.
+"That you may feel more at home, I am going presently to tell you my
+name. Yours I do not ask."
+
+"You do not know it?" I cried.
+
+"No," she said, laughing; and I saw, as she laughed, that she was
+younger than I had thought; that she was little more than a girl. "Of
+course, you can tell it me if you please," she added lightly.
+
+"Then, Madame, I do please," I answered gallantly. "I am the Vicomte
+de Saux, of Saux by Cahors, and am very much at your service."
+
+She held her hand suspended, and stared at me a moment in undisguised
+astonishment. I even thought that I read something like terror in her
+eyes. Then she said: "Of Saux by Cahors?"
+
+"Yes, Madame. And I am driven to fear," I continued, seeing the effect
+my words produced, "that I am here in the place of some one else."
+
+"Oh, no!" she said. Then, her feelings seeming to find sudden vent,
+she laughed and clapped her hands. "No, Monsieur," she cried gaily,
+"there is no error, I assure you. On the contrary, now I know who you
+are, I will give you a toast. Alphonse! Fill M. le Vicomte's glass,
+and then leave us! So! Now, M. le Vicomte," she continued, "you must
+drink with me, _a l'Anglaise_, to----"
+
+She paused and looked at me slily. "I am all attention, Madame," I
+said, bowing.
+
+"To _la belle_ Denise!" she said.
+
+It was my turn to start and stare now; in confusion as well as
+surprise. But she only laughed the more, and, clapping her hands with
+childish abandon, bade me, "Drink, Monsieur, drink!"
+
+I did so bravely, though I coloured under her eyes.
+
+"That is well," she said, as I set down the glass. "Now, Monsieur, I
+shall be able--in the proper quarter--to report you no recreant."
+
+"But, Madame," I said, "how do you know the proper quarter?"
+
+"How do I know?" she answered naively. "Ah, that is the question."
+
+But she did not answer it; though I remarked that from this moment she
+took a different tone with me. She dropped much of the reserve which
+she had hitherto maintained, and began to pour upon me a fire of wit
+and badinage, merriment and _plaisanterie_, against which I defended
+myself as well as I could, where all the advantage of knowledge lay
+with her. Such a duel with so fair an antagonist had its charms, the
+more as Denise and my relations to her formed the main objects of her
+raillery: yet I was not sorry when a clock, striking eight, produced a
+sudden silence and a change in her, as great as that which had
+preceded it. Her face grew almost sombre, she sighed, and sat looking
+gravely before her. I ventured to ask if anything ailed her.
+
+"Only this, Monsieur," she answered. "That I must now put you to the
+test; and you may fail me."
+
+"You wish me to do something?"
+
+"I wish you to give me your escort," she answered, "to a place and
+back again."
+
+"I am ready," I cried, rising gaily. "If I were not I should be a
+recreant indeed. But I think, Madame, that you were going to tell me
+your name."
+
+"I am Madame Catinot," she answered. And then--I do not know what she
+read in my face, "I am a widow," she added, blushing deeply. "For the
+rest you are no wiser."
+
+"But always at your service, Madame."
+
+"So be it," she answered quietly. "I will meet you, M. le Vicomte, in
+the hall, if you will presently descend thither."
+
+I held the door for her to go out, and she went; and wondering, and
+inexpressibly puzzled by the strangeness of the adventure, I paced up
+and down the room a minute, and then followed her. A hanging lamp
+which lit the hall showed her to me standing at the foot of the
+stairs; her hair hidden by a black lace mantilla, her dress under a
+cloak of the same dark colour. The man who had admitted me gave me in
+silence my cloak and hat; and without a word Madame led the way along
+a passage.
+
+Over a door at the end of the passage was a second light. It fell on
+my hat--as I was about to put it on--and I started and stood. Instead
+of the tricolour I had been wearing in the hat, I saw a small red
+cockade!
+
+Madame heard me stop, and turning, discovered what was the matter. She
+laid her hand on my arm; and the hand trembled. "For an hour,
+Monsieur, only for an hour," she breathed in my ear. "Give me your
+arm."
+
+Somewhat agitated--I began to scent danger and complications--I put on
+the hat and gave her my arm, and in a moment we stood in the open air
+in a dark, narrow passage between high walls. She turned at once to
+the left, and we walked in silence a hundred, or a hundred and fifty,
+paces, which brought us to a low-browed doorway on the same side,
+through which a light poured out. Madame guiding me by a slight
+pressure, we passed through this, and a narrow vestibule beyond it;
+and in a moment I found myself, to my astonishment, in a church, half
+full of silent worshippers.
+
+Madame enjoined silence by laying her finger on her lip, and led the
+way along one of the dim aisles, until we came to a vacant chair
+beside a pillar. She signed to me to stand by the pillar, and herself
+knelt down.
+
+Left at liberty to survey the scene, and form my conclusions, I looked
+about me like a man in a dream. The body of the church, faintly lit,
+was rendered more gloomy by the black cloaks and veils of the vast
+kneeling crowd that filled the nave and grew each moment more dense.
+The men for the most part stood beside pillars, or at the back of the
+church; and from these parts came now and then a low stern muttering,
+the only sound that broke the heavy silence. A red lamp burning before
+the altar added one touch of sombre colour to the scene.
+
+I had not stood long before I felt the silence, and the crowd, and the
+empty vastnesses above us, begin to weigh me down; before my heart
+began to beat quickly in expectation of I knew not what. And then at
+last, when this feeling had grown almost intolerable, out of the
+silence about the altar came the first melancholy notes, the wailing
+refrain of the psalm, _Miserere Domine!_
+
+It had a solemn and wondrous effect as it rose and fell, in the gloom,
+in the silence, above the heads of the kneeling multitude, who one
+moment were there and the next, as the lights sank, were gone, leaving
+only blackness and emptiness and space--and that spasmodic wailing. As
+the pleading, almost desperate notes, floated down the long aisles,
+borne on the palpitating hearts of the listeners, a hand seemed to
+grasp the throat, the eyes grew dim, strong men's heads bowed lower,
+and strong men's hands trembled. _Miserere mei Deus! Miserere Domine!_
+
+At last it came to an end. The psalm died down, and on the darkness
+and dead silence that succeeded, a light flared up suddenly in one
+place, and showed a pale, keen face and eyes that burned, as they
+gazed, not at the dim crowd, but into the empty space above them,
+whence grim, carved visages peered vaguely out of fretted vaults. And
+the preacher began to preach.
+
+In a low voice at first, and with little emotion, he spoke of the ways
+of God with His creatures, of the immensity of the past and the
+littleness of the present, of the Omnipotence before which time and
+space and men were nothing; of the certainty that as God, the
+Almighty, the Everlasting, the Ever-present decreed, it _was_. And
+then, in fuller tones, he went on to speak of the Church, God's agent
+on earth, and of the work which it had done in past ages, converting,
+protecting, shielding the weak, staying the strong, baptising,
+marrying, burying. God's handmaid, God's vicegerent. "Of whom alone it
+comes," the preacher continued, raising his hand now, and speaking in
+a voice that throbbed louder and fuller through the spaces of the
+church, "that we are more than animals, that knowing who is behind the
+veil we fear not temporal things, nor think of death as the worst
+possible, as do the unbelieving; but having that on which we rest,
+outside and beyond the world, can view unmoved the worst that the
+world can do to us. We believe; therefore, we are strong. We believe
+in God; therefore, we are stronger than the world. We believe in God;
+therefore, we are of God, and not of the world. We are above the
+world! we are about the world, and in the strength of God, who is the
+God of Hosts, shall subdue the world."
+
+He paused, holding the crowd breathless; then in a lower tone he
+continued: "Yet how do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain
+thing? They trample on God! They say this exists, I see it. That
+exists, I hear it. The other exists, I touch it. And that is all--that
+is all. But does it come of what we see and hear and feel that a man
+will die for his brother? Does it come of what we see and hear
+and feel that a man will die for a thought? That he will die for a
+creed? That he will die for honour? That, withal, he will die for
+anything--for anything, while he may live? I trow not. It comes of
+God! Of God only.
+
+"And they trample on Him. In the streets, in the senate, in high
+places. And He says, 'Who is on My side?' My children, my brethren, we
+have lived long in a time of ease and safety; we have been long
+untried by aught but the ordinary troubles of life, untrained by the
+imminent issues of life and death. Now, in these late years of the
+world, it has pleased the Almighty to try us; and who is on His side?
+Who is prepared to put the unseen before the seen, honour before life,
+God before man, chivalry before baseness, the Church before the world?
+Who is on His side? Spurned in this little corner of His creation,
+bruised and bleeding and trampled under foot, yet ruler of earth and
+heaven, life and death, judgment and eternity, ruler of all the
+countless worlds of space, He comes! He comes! He comes, God Almighty,
+which was, and is, and is to be! And who is on His side?"
+
+As the last word fell from his lips, and the light above his head went
+suddenly out, and darkness fell on the breathless hush, the listening
+hundreds, an indescribable wave of emotion passed through the crowd.
+Men stirred their feet with a strange, stern sound, that spreading,
+passed in muttered thunder to the vaults; while women sobbed, and here
+and there shrieked and prayed aloud. From the altar a priest in a
+voice that shook with feeling blessed the congregation; then, even as
+I awoke from a trance of attention, Madame touched my arm, and signed
+to me to follow her, and gliding quickly from her place, led the way
+down the aisle. Before the preacher's last words had ceased to ring in
+my ears or my heart had forgotten to be moved, we were walking under
+the stars with the night air cooling our faces; a moment, and we were
+in the house and stood again in the lighted salon where I had first
+found Madame Catinot.
+
+Before I knew what she was going to do, she turned to me with a swift
+movement, and laid both her bare hands on my arm; and I saw that the
+tears were running down her face. "Who is on My side?" she cried, in a
+voice that thrilled me to the soul, so that I started where I stood.
+"Who is on My side? Oh, surely you! Surely you, Monsieur, whose
+fathers' swords were drawn for God and the King! Who, born to guide,
+are surely on the side of light! Who, noble, will never leave the task
+of government to the base! O----" and there, breaking off before I
+could answer, she turned from me with her hands clasped to her face.
+"O God!" she cried with sobs, "give me this man for Thy service."
+
+I stood inexpressibly troubled; moved by the sight of this woman in
+tears, shaken by the conflict in my own soul, somewhat unmanned,
+perhaps, by what I had seen. For a moment I could not speak; when I
+did, "Madame," I said unsteadily, "if I had known that it was for
+this! You have been kind to me, and I--I can make no return."
+
+"Don't say it!" she cried, turning to me and pleading with me. "Don't
+say it!" And she laid her clasped hands on my arm and looked at me,
+and then in a moment smiled through her tears. "Forgive me," she said
+humbly, "forgive me. I went about it wrongly. I feel--too much. I
+asked too quickly. But you will? You will, Monsieur? You will be
+worthy of yourself?"
+
+I groaned. "I hold their commission," I said.
+
+"Return it!"
+
+"But that will not acquit me!"
+
+"Who is on My side?" she said softly. "Who is on My side?"
+
+I drew a deep breath. In the silence of the room, the wood-ashes on
+the hearth settled down, and a clock ticked. "For God! For God and the
+King!" she said, looking up at me with shining eyes, with clasped
+hands.
+
+I could have sworn in my pain. "To what purpose?" I cried almost
+rudely. "If I were to say, yes, to what purpose, Madame? What could I
+do that would help you? What could I do that would avail?"
+
+"Everything! Everything! You are one man more!" she cried. "One man
+more for the right. Listen, Monsieur. You do not know what is afoot,
+or how we are pressed, or----"
+
+She stopped suddenly, abruptly; and looked at me, listening; listening
+with a new expression on her face. The door was not closed, and the
+voice of a man, speaking in the hall below, came up the staircase;
+another instant, and a quick foot crossed the hall, and sounded on the
+stairs. The man was coming up.
+
+Madame, face to face with me, dumb and listening with distended eyes,
+stood a moment, as if taken by surprise. At the last moment, warning
+me by a gesture to be silent, she swept to the door and went out,
+closing it--not quite closing it behind her.
+
+I judged that the man had almost reached it, for I heard him exclaim
+in surprise at her sudden appearance; then he said something in a tone
+which did not reach me. I lost her answer too, but his next words were
+audible enough.
+
+"You will not open the door?" he cried.
+
+"Not of that room," she replied bravely. "You can see me in the other,
+my friend."
+
+Then silence. I could almost hear them breathing. I could picture them
+looking defiance at one another. I grew hot.
+
+"Oh, this is intolerable!" he cried at last. "This is not to be borne.
+Are you to receive every stranger that comes to town? Are you to be
+closeted with them, and sup with them, and sit with them, while I eat
+my heart out outside? Am I--I _will_ go in!"
+
+"You shall not!" she cried; but I thought that the indignation in her
+voice rang false; that laughter underlay it. "It is enough that you
+insult me," she continued proudly. "But if you dare to touch me, or if
+you insult him----"
+
+"Him!" he cried fiercely. "Him, indeed! Madame, I tell you at once, I
+have borne enough. I have suffered this more than once, but----"
+
+But I had no longer any doubt, and before he could add the next word I
+was at the door--I had snatched it open, and stood before him. Madame
+fell back with a cry between tears and laughter, and we stood, looking
+at one another.
+
+The man was Louis St. Alais.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XX.
+
+                             THE SEARCH.
+
+
+I had not seen Louis since the day of the duel at Cahors, when,
+parting from him at the door in the passage by the Cathedral, I had
+refused to take his hand. Then I had been sorely angry with him. But
+time and old memories and crowding events had long softened the
+feeling; and in the joy of meeting him again, of finding him in this
+unexpected stranger, nothing was further from my thoughts than to rake
+up old grudges. I held out my hand, therefore, with a laughing word.
+"_Voila l'Inconnu_, Monsieur!" I said with a bow. "I am here to find
+you, and I find you!"
+
+He stared at me a moment in the utmost astonishment, and then
+impulsively grasping my hand he held it, and stood looking at me, with
+the old affection in his eyes. "Adrien! Adrien!" he said, much moved.
+"Is it really you?"
+
+"Even so, Monsieur."
+
+"And here?"
+
+"Here," I said.
+
+Then, to my astonishment, he slowly dropped my hand; and his manner
+and his face changed--as a house changes when the shutters are closed.
+"I am sorry for it," he said slowly, and after a long pause. And then,
+with an unmistakable flash of anger, "My God, Monsieur! Why have you
+come?" he cried.
+
+"Why have I come?"
+
+"Ay, why?" he repeated bitterly. "Why? Why have you come--to trouble
+us? You do not know what evil you are doing! You do not know, man!"
+
+"I know at least what good I am seeking," I answered, purely astounded
+by this sudden and inexplicable change. "I have made no secret of
+that, and I make no secret of it now. No man was ever worse treated
+than I have been by your family. Your attitude now impels me to say
+that. But when I see Madame la Marquise, to-morrow, I shall tell her
+that it will take more than this to change me. I shall tell her----"
+
+"You will not see her!" he answered.
+
+"But I shall!"
+
+"You will not!" he retorted.
+
+Before I could answer, Madame Catinot interposed. "Oh, no more!" she
+cried in a voice which sufficiently evinced her distress. "I thought
+that you and he were friends, M. Louis? And now--now that fortune has
+brought you together again----"
+
+"Would to heaven it had not!" he cried, dropping his hand like a man
+in despair. And he took a turn this way and that on the floor.
+
+She looked at him. "I do not think that you have ever spoken to me in
+that tone before, Monsieur," she said in a tone of keen reproach. "If
+it is due--if, I mean," she continued quietly, but with a sparkling
+eye, "it is because you found M. le Vicomte with me, you infer
+something unworthy of us. You insult me as well as your friend!"
+
+"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed.
+
+But she was roused. "That is not enough," she answered firmly and
+proudly. "For one week more, this is my house, M. Louis. After that it
+will be yours. Perhaps then--perhaps then," she continued, with a
+pitiful break in her voice, "I shall think of to-night, and wonder I
+took no warning! Perhaps then, Monsieur, a word of kindness from you
+may be as rare as a rough word now!"
+
+He was not proof against that, and the sadness in her voice. He threw
+himself on his knees before her and seized her hands. "Madame!
+Catherine! forgive me!" he cried passionately, kissing her hands again
+and again, and taking no heed of me at all. "Forgive me!" he
+continued, "I am miserable! You are my only comfort, my only
+compensation. I do not know, since I saw him, what I am saying.
+Forgive me!"
+
+"I do!" she said hastily. "Rise, Monsieur!" and she furtively wiped
+away a tear, then looked at me, blushing but happy. "I do," she
+continued. "But, _mon cher_, I do not understand you. The other day
+you spoke so kindly of M. de Saux; and of--pardon me--your sister, and
+of other things. To-day M. de Saux is here, and you are unhappy."
+
+"I am!" he said, casting a haggard, miserable look at me.
+
+I shrugged my shoulders and spoke up. "So be it," I said proudly. "But
+because I have lost a friend, Monsieur, it does not follow that I need
+lose a mistress. I have come to Nimes to win Mademoiselle de St.
+Alais' hand. I shall not leave until I have won it."
+
+"This is madness!" he said, with a groan. "Why?"
+
+"Because you talk of the impossible," he answered. "Because Madame de
+St. Alais is not at Nimes--for you."
+
+"She is at Nimes!"
+
+"You will have to find her."
+
+"That is childishness!" I said. "Do you mean to say that at the first
+hotel I enter I shall not be told where Madame has her lodging?"
+
+"Neither at the first, nor at the last."
+
+"She is in retreat?"
+
+"I shall not tell you."
+
+With that we stood facing one another; Madame Catinot watching us a
+little aside. Clearly the events of the last few months, which had so
+changed, so hardened Madame St. Alais, had not been lost on Louis. I
+could fancy, as I confronted him, that it was M. le Marquis, the
+elder, and not the younger brother, who withstood me; only--only from
+under Louis' mask of defiance, there peeped, I still fancied, the old
+Louis' face, doubting and miserable.
+
+I tried that chord. "Come," I said, making an effort to swallow my
+wrath, and speak reasonably, "I think that you are not in earnest, M.
+le Comte, in what you say, and that we are both heated. Time was when
+we agreed well enough, and you were not unwilling to have me for your
+brother-in-law. Are we, because of these miserable differences----"
+
+"Differences!" he cried, interrupting me harshly. "My mother's house
+in Cahors is an empty shell. My brother's house at St. Alais is a heap
+of ashes. And you talk of differences!"
+
+"Well, call them what you like!"
+
+"Besides," Madame Catinot interposed quickly, "pardon me,
+Monsieur--besides, M. St. Alais, you know our need of converts. M. le
+Vicomte is a gentleman, and a man of sense and religion. It needs but
+a little--a very little," she continued, smiling faintly at me, "to
+persuade him. And if your sister's hand would do that little, and
+Madame were agreeable?"
+
+"He could not have it!" he answered sullenly, looking away from me.
+
+"But a week ago," Madame Catinot answered in a startled tone, "you
+told me----"
+
+"A week ago is not now," he said. "For the rest, I have only this to
+say. I am sorry to see you here, M. le Vicomte, and I beg you to
+return. You can do no good, and you may do and suffer harm. By no
+possibility can you gain what you seek."
+
+"That remains to be seen," I answered stubbornly, roused in my turn.
+"To begin with, since you say that I cannot find Mademoiselle, I shall
+adopt a very simple plan. I shall wait here until you leave, Monsieur,
+and then accompany you home."
+
+"You will not!" he said.
+
+"You may depend upon it I shall!" I answered defiantly.
+
+But Madame interposed. "No, M. de Saux," she said with dignity. "You
+will not do that; I am sure that you will not; it would be an abuse of
+my hospitality."
+
+"If you forbid it?"
+
+"I do," she answered.
+
+"Then, Madame, I cannot," I replied. "But----"
+
+"But nothing! Let there be a truce now, if you please," she said
+firmly. "If it is to be war between you, it shall not begin here. I
+think, too--I think that I had better ask you to retire," she
+continued, with an appealing glance at me.
+
+I looked at Louis. But he had turned away, and affected to ignore me.
+And on that I succumbed. It was impossible to answer Madame, when she
+spoke to me in that way; and equally impossible to remain in the
+house, against her will. I bowed, therefore, in silence; and with the
+best grace I could, though I was sore and angry, I took my cloak and
+hat, which I had laid on a chair.
+
+"I am sorry," Madame said kindly. And she held out her hand.
+
+I raised it to my lips. "To-morrow--at twelve--here!" she breathed.
+
+I started. I rather guessed than heard the words, so softly were they
+spoken; but her eyes made up for the lack of sound, and I understood.
+The next moment she turned from me, and with a last reluctant glance
+at Louis, who still had his back to me, I went out.
+
+The man who had admitted me was in the hall. "You will find your horse
+at the Louvre, Monsieur," he said, as he opened the door.
+
+I rewarded him, and going out, without a thought whither I was going,
+walked along the street, plunged in reflection; until marching on
+blindly I came against a man. That awoke me, and I looked round. I had
+been in the house little more than three hours, and in Nimes scarcely
+longer; yet so much had happened in the time that it seemed strange to
+me to find the streets unfamiliar, to find myself alone in them, at a
+loss which way to turn. Though it was hard on ten o'clock, and only a
+swaying lantern here and there made a ring of smoky light at the
+meeting of four ways, there were numbers of people still abroad; a few
+standing, but the majority going one way, the men with cloaks about
+their necks, the women with muffled heads.
+
+Feeling the necessity, since I must get myself a lodging, of putting
+away for the moment my one absorbing thought--the question of Louis'
+behaviour--I stopped a man who was not going with the stream, and
+asked him the way to the Hotel de Louvre. I learned not only that but
+the cause of the concourse.
+
+"There has been a procession," he answered gruffly. "I should have
+thought that you would know that!" he added, with a glance at my hat.
+And he turned on his heel.
+
+I remembered the red cockade I wore, and before I went farther paused
+to take it out. As I moved on again, a man came quickly up behind me,
+and as he passed thrust a paper into my hand. Before I could speak he
+was gone; but the incident and the bustle of the streets, strange at
+this late hour, helped to divert my thoughts; and I was not surprised
+when, on reaching the inn, I was told that every room was full.
+
+"My horse is here," I said, thinking that the landlord, seeing me walk
+in on foot, might distrust the weight of my purse.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur; and if you like you can lie in the eating-room," he
+answered very civilly. "You are welcome, and you will do no better
+elsewhere. It is as if the fair were being held at Beaucaire. The city
+is full of strangers. Almost as full as it is of those things!" he
+continued querulously, and he pointed to the paper in my hand.
+
+I looked at it, and saw that it was a manifesto headed "_Sacrilege!
+Mary Weeps!_" "It was thrust into my hand a minute ago," I said.
+
+"To be sure," he answered. "One morning we got up and found the walls
+white with them. Another day they were flying loose about the
+streets."
+
+"Do you know," I asked, seeing that he had been supping, and was
+inclined to talk, "where the Marquis de St. Alais is living?"
+
+"No, Monsieur," he said. "I do not know the gentleman."
+
+"But he is here with his family."
+
+"Who is not here," he answered, shrugging his shoulders. Then in a
+lower tone, "Is he red, or--or the other thing, Monsieur?"
+
+"Red," I said boldly.
+
+"Ah! Well, there have been two or three gentlemen going to and fro
+between our M. Froment, and Turin and Montpellier. It is said that our
+Mayor would have arrested them long ago if he had done his duty. But
+he is red too, and most of the councillors. And I don't know, for I
+take no side. Perhaps the gentleman you want is one of these?"
+
+"Very likely," I said. "So M. Froment is here?"
+
+"Monsieur knows him?"
+
+"Yes," I said drily, "a little."
+
+"Well, he is here, or he is not," the landlord answered, shaking his
+head. "It is impossible to say."
+
+"Why?" I asked. "Does he not live here?"
+
+"Yes, he lives here; at the Port d'Auguste on the old wall near the
+Capuchins. But----" he looked round and then continued mysteriously,
+"he goes out, where he has never gone in, Monsieur! And he has a house
+in the Amphitheatre, and it is the same there. And some say that the
+Capuchins is only another house of his. And if you go to the Cabaret
+de la Vierge, and give his name--you pay nothing."
+
+He said this with many nods, and then seemed on a sudden to think that
+he had said too much, and hurried away. Asking for them, I learned
+that M. de Geol and Buton, failing to get a room there, had gone to
+the Ecu de France; but I was not very sorry to be rid of them for the
+time, and accepting the host's offer, I went to the eating-room, and
+there made myself as comfortable as two hard chairs and the excitement
+of my thoughts permitted.
+
+The one thing, the one subject that absorbed me was Louis' behaviour,
+and the strange and abrupt change I had marked in it. He had been glad
+to see me, his hand had leaped to meet mine, I had read the old
+affection in his eyes; and then--then on a sudden, in a moment he had
+frozen into surly, churlish antagonism, an antagonism that had taken
+Madame Catinot by surprise, and was not without a touch of remorse,
+almost of horror. It could not be that she was dead? It could not be
+that Denise--no, my mind failed to entertain it. But I rose, trembling
+at the thought, and paced the room until daylight; listening to the
+watchman's cry, and the mournful hours, and the occasional rush of
+hurrying feet, that spoke of the perturbed city. What to me were
+Froment, or the red or the white or the tricolour, veto or no veto,
+endowment or disendowment, in comparison to that?
+
+The house stirred at last, but I had still to wait till noon before I
+could see Madame Catinot. I spent the interval in an aimless walk
+through the town. At another time the things I saw must have filled me
+with wonder; at another time the hoary, gloomy ring of the Arenes,
+rising in tiers of frowning arches, high above the squalid roofs that
+leaned against it--and choked within by a Ghetto of the like, huddled
+where prefects once sat, and the Emperor's colours flew victorious
+round the circle--must have won my admiration by its vastness; the
+Maison Carree by its fair proportions; the streets by the teeming
+crowds that filled them, and stood about the cabarets, and read the
+placards on the walls. But I had only thought for Louis, and my love,
+and the lagging minutes. At the first stroke of twelve I knocked at
+Madame Catinot's door; the last saw me in her presence.
+
+It needed but a look at her face, and my heart sank; the thanks I was
+preparing to utter died on my lips as I gazed at her. She on her part
+was agitated. For a moment we were both silent.
+
+At last, "I see that you have bad news for me, Madame," I said,
+striving to smile, and bear myself bravely.
+
+"The worst, I fear," she said pitifully, smoothing her skirt. "For I
+have none, Monsieur."
+
+"Yet I have heard it said that no news is good news?" I said,
+wondering.
+
+Her lip trembled, but she did not look at me.
+
+"Come, Madame," I persisted, though I was sick at heart. "Surely you
+are going to tell me more than that? At least you can tell me where I
+can see Madame St. Alais."
+
+"No, Monsieur, I cannot tell you," she said in a low voice.
+
+"Nor why M. Louis has so suddenly become hostile to me?"
+
+"No, Monsieur, nor that. And I beg--as you are a gentleman," she
+continued hurriedly, "that you will spare me questions! I thought that
+I could help you, and I asked you to see me to-day. I find that I can
+only give you pain."
+
+"And that is all, Madame?"
+
+"That is all," she said, with a gesture that told more than her words.
+
+I looked round the silent room, I walked half way to the door. And
+then I turned back. I could not go. "No!" I cried vehemently, "I will
+not go so! What is it you have learned, that has closed your lips,
+Madame? What are they plotting against her--that you fear to tell me?
+Speak, Madame! You did not bring me here to hear this! That I know."
+
+But she only looked at me, her face full of reproach. "Monsieur," she
+said, "I meant kindly. Is this my reward?"
+
+And that was too much for me. I turned without a word, and went
+out--of the room and the house.
+
+Outside I felt like a child in darkness, on whom the one door leading
+to life and liberty had closed, as his hand touched it. I felt a dead,
+numbing disappointment that at any moment might develop into sharp
+pain. This change in Madame Catinot, resembling so exactly the change
+in Louis St. Alais, what could be the cause of it? What had been
+revealed to her? What was the mystery, the plot, the danger that made
+them all turn from me, as if I had the plague?
+
+For awhile I was in the depths of despair. Then the warm sunshine that
+filled the streets, and spoke of coming summer, kindled lighter
+thoughts. After all it could not be hard to find a person in Nimes! I
+had soon found M. Louis. And this was the eighteenth century and not
+the sixteenth. Women were no longer exposed to the pressure that had
+once been brought to bear on them; nor men to the violence natural in
+old feuds.
+
+And then--as I thought of that and strove to comfort myself with it--I
+heard a noise burst into the street behind me, a roar of voices and a
+sudden trampling of hundreds of feet; and turning I saw a dense press
+of men coming towards me, waving aloft blue banners, and crucifixes,
+and flags with the Five Wounds. Some were singing and some shouting,
+all were brandishing clubs and weapons. They came along at a good
+pace, filling the street from wall to wall; and to avoid them I
+stepped into an archway, that opportunely presented itself.
+
+They came up in a moment, and swept past me with deafening shouts. It
+was difficult to see more than a forest of waving arms and staves over
+swart excited faces; but through a break in the ranks I caught a
+glimpse of three men walking in the heart of the crowd, quiet
+themselves, yet the cause and centre of all; and the middle man of the
+three was Froment. One of the others wore a cassock, and the third had
+a reckless air, and a hat cocked in the military fashion. So much I
+saw, then only rank upon rank of hurrying shouting men. After these
+again followed three or four hundred of the scum of the city, beggars
+and broken rascals and homeless men.
+
+As I turned from staring after them I found a man at my elbow; by a
+strange coincidence the very same man who, the night before, had
+directed me to the Hotel de Louvre. I asked him if that was not M.
+Froment.
+
+"Yes," he said with a sneer. "And his brother."
+
+"Oh, his brother! What is his name, Monsieur?"
+
+"Bully Froment, some call him."
+
+"And what are they going to do?"
+
+"Groan outside a Protestant church to-day," he answered pithily.
+"To-morrow break the windows. The next day, or as soon as they can get
+their courage to the sticking point, fire on the worshippers, and call
+in the garrison from Montpellier. After that the refugees from Turin
+will come, we shall be in revolt, and there will be dragoonings. And
+then--if the Cevennols don't step in--Monsieur will see strange
+things."
+
+"But the Mayor?" I said. "And the National Guards? Will they suffer
+it?"
+
+"The first is red," the man answered curtly. "And two-thirds of the
+last. Monsieur will see."
+
+And with a cool nod he went on his way; while I stood a moment looking
+idly after the procession. On a sudden, as I stood, it occurred to me
+that where Froment was, the St. Alais might be; and snatching at the
+idea, wondering hugely that I had not had it before, I started
+recklessly in pursuit of the mob. The last broken wave of the crowd
+was still visible, eddying round a distant corner; and even after that
+disappeared, it was easy to trace the course it had taken by closed
+shutters and scared faces peeping from windows. I heard the mob stop
+once, and groan and howl; but before I came up with it it was on
+again, and when I at last overtook it, where one of the streets,
+before narrowing to an old gateway, opened out into a little
+square--with high dingy buildings on this side and that, and a
+meshwork of alleys running into it--the nucleus of the crowd had
+vanished, and the fringe was melting this way and that.
+
+My aim was Froment, and I had missed him. But I was at a loss only for
+a moment, for as I stood and scanned the people trooping back into the
+town, my eye alighted on a lean figure with stooping head and a scanty
+cassock, that, wishing to cross the street, paused a moment striving
+to pass athwart the crowd. It needed a glance only; then, with a cry
+of joy, I was through the press, and at the man's side.
+
+It was Father Benoit! For a moment we could not speak. Then, as we
+looked at one another, the first hasty joyful words spoken, I saw the
+very expression of dismay and discomfiture, which I had read on Louis
+St. Alais' face, dawn on his! He muttered, "_O mon Dieu! mon Dieu!_"
+under his breath, and wrung his hands stealthily.
+
+But I was sick of this mystery, and I said so in hot words. "You at
+any rate shall tell me, father!" I cried.
+
+Two or three of the passers-by heard me, and looked at us curiously.
+He drew me, to escape these, into a doorway; but still a man stood
+peering in at us. "Come upstairs," the father muttered, "we shall be
+quiet there." And he led the way up a stone staircase, ancient and
+sordid, serving many and cleaned by none.
+
+"Do you live here?" I said.
+
+"Yes," he answered; and then stopped short, and turned to me with an
+air of confusion. "But it is a poor place, M. le Vicomte," he
+continued, and he even made as if he would descend again, "and perhaps
+we should be wise to go----"
+
+"No, no!" I said, burning with impatience. "To your room, man! To your
+room, if you live here! I cannot wait. I have found you, and I will
+not let another minute pass before I have learned the truth."
+
+He still hesitated, and even began to mutter another objection. But I
+had only mind for one thing, and giving way to me, he preceded me
+slowly to the top of the house; where under the tiles he had a little
+room with a mattress and a chair, two or three books and a crucifix. A
+small square dormer-window admitted the light--and something else; for
+as we entered a pigeon rose from the floor and flew out by it.
+
+He uttered an exclamation of annoyance, and explained that he fed them
+sometimes. "They are company," he said sadly. "And I have found little
+here."
+
+"Yet you came of your own accord," I retorted brutally. I was choking
+with anxiety, and it took that form.
+
+"To lose one more illusion," he answered. "For years--you know it, M.
+le Vicomte--I looked forward to reform, to liberty, to freedom. And I
+taught others to look forward also. Well, we gained these--you know
+it, and the first use the people made of their liberty was to attack
+religion. Then I came here, because I was told that here the defenders
+of the Church would make a stand; that here the Church was strong,
+religion respected, faith still vigorous. I came to gain a little hope
+from others' hope. And I find pretended miracles, I find imposture, I
+find lies and trickery and chicanery used on one side and the other.
+And violence everywhere."
+
+"Then in heaven's name, man, why did you not go home again?" I cried.
+
+"I was going a week ago," he answered. "And then I did not go.
+And----"
+
+"Never mind that now!" I cried harshly. "It is not that I want. I have
+seen Louis St. Alais, and I know that there is something amiss. He
+will not face me. He will not tell me where Madame is. He will have
+nothing to do with me. He looks at me as if I were a death's head! Now
+what is it? You know and I must know. Tell me."
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" he answered. And he looked at me with tears in his eyes.
+Then, "This is what I feared," he said.
+
+"Feared? Feared what?" I cried.
+
+"That your heart was in it, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"In what? In what? Speak plainly, man."
+
+"Mademoiselle de St. Alais'--engagement," he said.
+
+I stood a moment staring at him. "Her engagement?" I whispered. "To
+whom?"
+
+"To M. Froment," he answered.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXI.
+
+                               RIVALS.
+
+
+"It is impossible!" I said slowly. "Froment! It is impossible!"
+
+But even while I said it, I knew that I lied; and I turned to the
+window that Benoit might not see my face. Froment! The name alone, now
+that the hint was supplied, let in the light. Fellow-traveller,
+fellow-conspirator, in turn protected and protector, his face as I had
+seen it at the carriage door in the pass by Villeraugues, rose up
+before me, and I marvelled that I had not guessed the secret earlier.
+A bourgeois and ambitious, thrown into Mademoiselle's company, what
+could be more certain than that, sooner or later, he would lift his
+eyes to her? What more likely than that Madame St. Alais, impoverished
+and embittered, afloat on the whirlpool of agitation, would be willing
+to reward his daring even with her daughter's hand? Rich already,
+success would ennoble him; for the rest I knew how the man, strong
+where so many were weak, resolute where a hundred faltered, assured of
+his purpose and steadfast in pursuing it, where others knew none, must
+loom in a woman's eyes. And I gnashed my teeth.
+
+I had my eyes fixed, as I thought these thoughts, on a little dingy,
+well-like court that lay below his window, and on the farther side of
+which, but far below me, a monastic-looking porch surmounted by a
+carved figure, formed the centre of vision. Mechanically, though I
+could have sworn that my whole mind was otherwise engaged, I watched
+two men come into the court, and go to this porch. They did not knock
+or call, but one of them struck his stick twice on the pavement; in a
+second or two the door opened, as of itself, and the men disappeared.
+
+I saw and noted this unconsciously; yet, in all probability, it was
+the closing of the door roused me from my thoughts. "Froment!" I said,
+"Froment!" And then I turned from the window. "Where is she?" I said
+hoarsely.
+
+Father Benoit shook his head.
+
+"You must know!" I cried--indeed I saw that he did. "You must know!"
+
+"I do know," he answered slowly, his eyes on mine. "But I cannot tell
+you. I could not, were it to save your life, M. le Vicomte. I had it
+in confession."
+
+I stared at him baffled; and my heart sank at that answer, as it would
+have sunk at no other. I knew that on this door, this iron door
+without a key, I might beat my hands and spend my fury until the end
+of time and go no farther. At length, "Then why--why have you told me
+so much?" I cried, with a harsh laugh. "Why tell me anything?"
+
+"Because I would have you leave Nimes," Father Benoit answered gently,
+laying his hand on my arm, his eyes full of entreaty. "Mademoiselle is
+contracted, and beyond your reach. Within a few hours, certainly as
+soon as the elections come on, there will be a rising here. I know
+you," he continued, "and your feelings, and I know that your
+sympathies will be with neither party. Why stay then, M. le Vicomte?"
+
+"Why?" I said, so quickly that his hand fell from my arm as if I had
+struck him. "Because until Mademoiselle is married I follow her, if it
+be to Turin! Because M. Froment is unwise to mingle love and war, and
+my sympathies are now with one side, and it is not his! It is not his!
+Why, you ask? Because--you cannot tell me, but there are those who
+can, and I go to them!"
+
+And without waiting to hear answer or remonstrance--though he cried to
+me and tried to detain me--I caught up my hat, and flew down the
+stairs; and once out of the house and in the street hastened back at
+the top of my speed to the quarter of the town I had left. The streets
+through which I passed were still crowded, but wore an air not so much
+of disorder as of expectation, as if the procession I had followed had
+left a trail behind it. Here and there I saw soldiers patrolling, and
+warning the people to be quiet; and everywhere knots of townsmen,
+whispering and scowling, who stared at me as I passed. Every tenth
+male I saw was a monk, Dominican or Capuchin, and though my whole mind
+was bent on finding M. de Geol and Buton, and learning from them what
+they knew, as enemies, of Froment's plans and strength, I felt that
+the city was in an abnormal state; and that if I would do anything
+before the convulsion took place, I must act quickly.
+
+I was fortunate enough to find M. de Geol and Buton at their lodgings.
+The former, whom I had not seen since our arrival, and who doubtless
+had his opinion of the cause of my sudden disappearance in the street,
+greeted me with a scowl and a bitter sarcasm, but when I had put a few
+questions, and he found that I was in earnest, his manner changed.
+"You may tell him," he said, nodding to Buton.
+
+Then I saw that they too were excited, though they would fain hide it.
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"Froment's party rose at Avignon yesterday," he answered eagerly.
+"Prematurely; and were crushed--crushed with heavy loss. The news has
+just arrived. It may hasten his plans."
+
+"I saw soldiers in the street," I said.
+
+"Yes, the Calvinists have asked for protection. But, that, and the
+patrols," De Geol answered with a grim smile, "are equally a farce.
+The regiment of Guienne, which is patriotic and would assist us, and
+even be some protection, is kept within barracks by its officers; the
+mayor and municipals are red, and whatever happens will not hoist the
+flag or call out the troops. The Catholic cabarets are alive with
+armed men; in a word, my friend, if Froment succeeds in mastering the
+town, and holding it three days, M. d'Artois, governor of Montpellier,
+will be here with his garrison, and----"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"And what was a riot will be a revolt," he said pithily. "But there is
+many a slip between the cup and the lip, and there are more than sheep
+in the Cevennes Mountains!"
+
+The words had scarcely passed from his lips, when a man ran into the
+room, looked at us, and raised his hand in a peculiar way. "Pardon
+me," said M. de Geol quickly; and with a muttered word he followed the
+man out. Buton was not a whit behind. In a moment I was alone.
+
+I supposed they would return, and I waited impatiently; but a minute
+or two passed, and they did not appear. At length, tired of waiting,
+and wondering what was afoot, I went into the yard of the inn, and
+thence into the street. Still I did not find them; but collected
+before the inn I found a group of servants and others belonging to the
+place. They were all standing silent, listening, and as I joined them
+one looked round peevishly, and raised his hand as a warning to me to
+be quiet.
+
+Before I could ask what it meant, the distant report of a gun,
+followed quickly by a second and a third, made my heart beat. A dull
+sound, made, it might be, by men shouting, or the passage of a heavy
+waggon over pavement, ensued; then more firing, each report short,
+sharp, and decisive. While we listened, and as the last red glow of
+sunset faded on the eaves above us, leaving the street cold and grey,
+a bell somewhere began to toll hurriedly, stroke upon stroke; and a
+man, dashing round a corner not far away, made towards us.
+
+But the landlord of the Ecu did not wait for him. "All in!" he cried
+to his people, "and close the great gates! And do you, Pierre, bar the
+shutters. And you, Monsieur," he continued hurriedly, turning to me,
+"will do well to come in also. The town is up, and the streets will
+not be safe for strangers."
+
+But I was already half-way down the street. I met the fugitive, and he
+cried to me, as I passed, that the mob were coming. I met a
+frightened, riderless horse, galloping madly along the kennel; it
+swerved from me, and almost fell on the slippery pavement. But I took
+no heed of either. I ran on until two hundred paces before me I saw
+smoke and dust, and dimly through it a row of soldiers, who, with
+their backs to me, were slowly giving way before a dense crowd that
+pressed upon them. Even as I came in sight of them, they seemed to
+break and melt away, and with a roar of triumph the mob swept over the
+place on which they had stood.
+
+I had the wit to see that to force my way past the crowd was
+impossible; and I darted aside into a narrow passage darkened by wide
+flat eaves that almost hid the pale evening sky. This brought me to a
+lane, full of women, standing listening with scared faces. I hurried
+through them, and when I had gone, as I judged, far enough to outflank
+the mob, chose a lane that appeared to lead in the direction of Father
+Benoit's house. Fortunately, the crowd was engaged in the main
+streets, the byways were comparatively deserted, and without accident
+I reached the little square by the gate.
+
+Probably the attack on the soldiers had begun there, or in that
+neighbourhood, for a broken musket lay in two pieces on the pavement,
+and pale faces at upper windows followed me in a strange unwinking
+silence as I crossed the square. But no man was to be seen, and
+unmolested I reached the door of Father Benoit's staircase, and
+entered.
+
+In the open the light was still good, but within doors it was dusk,
+and I had not taken two steps before I tripped and fell headlong over
+some object that lay in my way. I struck the foot of the stairs
+heavily, and got up groaning; but ceased to groan and held my breath,
+as peering through the half light of the entry, I saw over what I had
+fallen. It was a man's body.
+
+The man was a monk, in the black and white robe of his order; and he
+was quite dead. It took me an instant to overcome the horror of the
+discovery, but that done, I saw easily enough how the corpse came to
+be there. Doubtless the man had been shot in the street at the
+beginning of the riot--perhaps he had been the first to attack the
+patrol; and the body had been dragged into shelter here, while his
+party swept on to vengeance.
+
+I stooped and reverently adjusted the cowl which my foot had dragged
+away; and that done--it was no time for sentiment--I turned from him,
+and hurried up the stairs. Alas, when I reached Father Benoit's room
+it was empty.
+
+Wondering what I should do next, I stood a moment in the failing
+light. What could I do? Then I walked aimlessly to the casement and
+looked out. In the dull, almost blind wall which met my eyes across
+the court, was one window on a level with that at which I stood, but a
+little to the side. On a sudden, as I stared stupidly at the wall near
+it, a bright light shone out in this window. A lamp had been kindled
+in the room; and darkly outlined against the glow I saw the head and
+shoulders of a woman.
+
+I almost screamed a name. It was Denise!
+
+Even while I held my breath she moved from the window, a curtain was
+drawn and all was dark. Only the plain lines of the window--and those
+fast fading in the gloom--remained; only those and the gloomy,
+well-like court, that separated me from her.
+
+I leaned a moment on the sill, my heart bounding quickly, my thoughts
+working with inconceivable rapidity. She was there, in the house
+opposite! It seemed too wonderful; it seemed inexplicable. Then I
+reflected that the house stood next to the old gate I had seen from
+the street; and had not some one told me that Froment lived in the
+Port d'Auguste?
+
+Doubtless this was it; and she lay in his power in this house that
+adjoined it and was one with it. I leaned farther out, partly that I
+might cool my burning face, partly to see more; my eyes, greedily
+scanning the front of the house, traced the line of arrow-slits that
+marked the ascent of the staircase. I followed the line downwards; it
+ended beside the porch surmounted by a little statue, at which I had
+seen the two men enter.
+
+They were still fighting in the town. I could hear the dull sound of
+distant volleys, and the tolling of bells, and now and then a wave of
+noise, of screams and yells, that rose and sank on the evening air.
+But my eyes were on the porch below; and suddenly I had a thought. I
+followed the line of arrow-slits up again--it was too dark in the
+sombre court to see them well--and marked the position of the window
+at which Denise had appeared. Then I turned, and passing through the
+room, I groped my way downstairs.
+
+I had no light, and I had to go carefully with one hand on the grimy
+wall; but I knew now where the monk's body lay, and I stepped over it
+safely, and to the door, and putting out my head, looked up and down.
+
+Two men, as I did so, passed hurriedly through the little square, and,
+before reaching the gate, dived into an entry on the right, and
+disappeared. About the eaves of the highest house, that towered high
+and black above me, a faint ruddy light was beginning to dance. I
+heard voices, that came, I thought, from the tower of the gateway; and
+there, too, I thought that I saw a figure outlined against the sky.
+But otherwise, all was quiet in the neighbourhood; and I went in
+again.
+
+No matter what I did in the darkness at the foot of the stairs; I hate
+to recall it. But in a minute or two I came out a monk in cowl and
+girdle. Then I, too, dived into the entry, and in a trice found myself
+in the court. Before me was the porch, and with the barrel of the
+broken musket, which I had snatched up as I passed, I struck twice on
+the pavement.
+
+I had no time to think what would happen next, or what I was going to
+confront. The door opened instantly, and I went in; as by magic the
+door closed silently behind me.
+
+I found myself in a long, bare hall or corridor, plain and
+unfurnished, that had once perhaps been a cloister. A lighted lamp
+hung against a wall, and opposite me, on a stone seat sat two persons
+talking; three or four others were walking up and down. All paused at
+my entrance, however, and looked at me eagerly. "Whence are you,
+brother?" said one of them, advancing to me.
+
+"The Cabaret Vierge," I answered at a venture. The light dazzled me,
+and I raised my hand to ward it off.
+
+"For the Chief?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Come, quickly then," the man said, "he is on the roof. It goes well?"
+he continued, looking with a smile at my weapon.
+
+"It goes," I answered, holding my head low, so that my face was lost
+in the cowl.
+
+"They are beginning to light up, I am told?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He took up a small lamp, and opening a door in a kind of buttress that
+strengthened one of the arches, he led the way through it, and up a
+narrow winding staircase made in the thickness of the wall. Presently
+we passed an open door, and I ticked it off in my mind. It led to the
+rooms on the first floor from the ground. Twenty steps higher we
+passed another door--closed this time. Again fifteen steps and we came
+to a third. That floor held my heart, and I looked round greedily,
+desperately, for some way of evading my guide and so reaching it. But
+I saw only the smooth stones of the wall; and he continued to climb.
+
+I halted half a dozen steps higher. "What is it?" he asked, looking
+down at me.
+
+"I have dropped a note," I said; and I began to grope about the steps.
+
+"For the Chief?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Here, take the light!" he answered impatiently. "And be quick! if
+your news is worth the telling, it is worth telling quickly. _Sacre!_
+man, what have you done?"
+
+I had let the lamp fall on the steps, extinguishing it; and we were in
+darkness. In the moment of silence which followed, before he recovered
+from his surprise, I could hear the voices of men above us, and the
+tramp of their feet on the roof; and a cold draught of air met me. He
+swore another oath. "Get down, get down!" he cried angrily, "and let
+me pass you! You are a pretty messenger to--there wait; wait until I
+fetch another light."
+
+He squeezed by me, and left me standing in the very place I would have
+chosen, in the angle of the doorway we had just passed; before he had
+clattered down half a dozen steps I had my finger on the latch. To my
+joy the door--which might so easily have been locked--yielded to my
+knee, and passing through it, I closed it behind me. Then turning to
+the right--all was still dark--I groped my way along the wall through
+which I had entered. I knew it to be the outside wall, and dimly in
+front I discerned the faint radiance of a window. Now that the moment
+had come to put all to the test I was as calm as I could wish to be. I
+counted ten paces, and came, as I expected, to the window; ten paces
+farther and I felt my way barred by a door. This should be the
+room--the last that way; listening intently for the first sounds of
+pursuit or alarm, I felt about for a latch, found it, and tried the
+door. Again fortune favoured me, it came to my hand; but instead of
+light I found all dark as before; and then understood, as I struck
+with some violence against a second door.
+
+A stifled cry in a woman's voice came from beyond it: and some one
+asked sharply, "Who is that?"
+
+I gave no answer, but searched for the latch, found it, and in a
+moment the door was opened. The light which poured out dazzled me for
+a second or two; but while I stood blinking, under the lamp I had a
+vision of two girls standing at bay, one behind the other, and the
+nearer was Denise!
+
+I stepped towards her with a cry of joy; she retreated with terror
+written on her face. "What do you want?" she stammered as she
+retreated. "You have made some mistake. We----"
+
+Then I remembered the guise in which I stood, and the gun-barrel in my
+hand, and I dashed back the cowl from my face; and in a moment--it was
+of all surprises the most joyous, for I had not seen her since we sat
+opposite one another in the carriage, and then only a word had passed
+between us--in a moment she was in my arms, on my breast, and sobbing
+with her head hidden, and my lips on her hair.
+
+"They told me you were dead!" she cried. "They told me you were dead!"
+
+Then I understood; and I held her to me, held her to me more and more
+closely, and said--God knows what I said. And for the moment she let
+me, and we forgot all else, our danger, the dark future, even the
+woman who stood by. We had been plighted before, and it had been
+nothing to us; now, with my lips on hers, and her arms clinging, I
+knew that it was once for all, and that only death, if death, could
+part us.
+
+Alas! that was not so far from us that we could long ignore it. In a
+minute or two she freed herself, and thrust me from her, her face pale
+and red by turns, her eyes soft and shining in the lamplight. "How do
+you come here, Monsieur?" she cried. "And in that dress?"
+
+"To see you," I answered. And at the word, I stepped forward and would
+have taken her in my arms again.
+
+But she waved me back. "Oh, no, no!" she cried, shuddering. "Not now!
+Do you know that they will kill you? Do you know that they will kill
+you if they find you here? Go! Go! I beg of you, while you can."
+
+"And leave you?"
+
+"Yes, and leave me," she answered, with a gesture of despair. "I
+implore you to do so."
+
+"And leave you to Froment?" I cried again.
+
+She looked at me in a different way, and with a little start. "You
+know that?" she said.
+
+"Yes," I answered.
+
+"Then know this too, Monsieur," she replied, raising her head, and
+meeting my eyes with the bravest look. "Know this too: that whatever
+betide, I shall not, after this, marry him, nor any man but you!"
+
+I would have fallen on my knees and kissed the hem of her gown for
+that word, but she drew back, and passionately begged me to begone.
+"This house is not safe for you," she said. "It is death, it is death,
+Monsieur! My mother is merciless, my brother is here; and _he_--the
+house is full of his sworn creatures. You escaped him hardly before;
+if he finds you here now he will kill you."
+
+"But if I need fear him so," I answered grimly,--for I saw, now that
+she had ceased to blush, how pale and wan she was, and what dark marks
+fear had painted under her eyes--child's eyes no longer, but a
+woman's--"if I need fear him so, what of you? What of you,
+Mademoiselle? Am I to leave you at his mercy?"
+
+She looked at me with a strange gravity in her face; and answered me
+so that I never forgot her answer. "Monsieur," she said, "was I afraid
+on the roof of the house at St. Alais? And I have more to guard now.
+Have no fear. There is a roof here, too, and I walk on it; nor shall
+my husband ever have cause to blush for me."
+
+"But I was there," I said quickly. Heaven knows why; it was a strange
+thing to say. Yet she did not find it so.
+
+"Yes," she said--and smiled; and with the smile, her face burned again
+and her eyes grew soft, and all her dignity fled in a moment, and she
+looked at me, drooping. And in an instant she was in my arms.
+
+But only for a few seconds. Then she tore herself away almost in
+anger. "Oh, go, go!" she cried. "If you love me, go, Monsieur."
+
+"Swear," I said, "to put a handkerchief in your window if you want
+help!"
+
+"In my window?"
+
+"I can see it from Father Benoit's."
+
+A gleam of joy lit up her face. "I will," she said. "Oh, God be
+thanked that you are so near! I will. But I have Francoise, too, and
+she is true to me. As long as I have her----"
+
+She stopped with her lips apart, and the blood gone suddenly from her
+cheeks; and we looked at one another. Alas, I had stayed too long!
+There was a noise of feet coming along the passage, and a hubbub of
+voices outside, and the clatter of a door hastily closed. I think for
+a moment we scarcely breathed; and even after that it was her woman
+who was the first to move. She sprang to the door and softly locked
+it.
+
+"It is vain!" Denise said in a harsh whisper; she leaned against the
+table, her face as white as snow. "They will fetch my mother, and they
+will kill you."
+
+"There is no other door?" I muttered, staring round with hunted eyes,
+and feeling for the first time the full danger of the course I had
+taken.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"What is that?" I cried, pointing to the farther end of the chamber,
+where a bed stood in the alcove.
+
+"A closet," the woman answered, almost with a sob. "Yes, yes,
+Monsieur, they may not search. Quick, and I can lock it."
+
+In such a case man acts on instinct. I heard the latch of the door
+tried, and then some one knocked peremptorily; and so long I
+hesitated. But a second knock followed on the first, and a voice I
+knew cried imperatively: "Open, open, Francoise!" and I moved towards
+the closet. The girl, distracted by the repeated summons and her
+terror, hung a moment between me and the door of the room; but in the
+end had to go to the latter, so that I drew the closet door upon
+myself.
+
+Then in a moment it came upon me that if, hiding there, I was found, I
+should shame Denise; it darted through my brain that if, lurking there
+behind the closed doors among her woman's things, I was caught, I
+should harm her a hundred times more than if I stood out in the middle
+of the floor and faced the worst. And with my face on fire at the mere
+thought, I opened the door again, and stepped out; and was just in
+time. For as the door of the room flew open, and M. de St. Alais
+strode in and looked round, I was the first person he saw.
+
+There were three or four men behind him; and among them the man whom I
+had cheated on the stairs. But M. St. Alais' eyes blazing with wrath
+caught mine, and held them; and the others were nothing to me.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXII.
+
+                           NOBLESSE OBLIGE.
+
+
+Yet he was not the first to speak. One of the men behind him took a
+step forward, and cried, "That is the man! See, he still has the
+gun-barrel."
+
+"Seize him, then," M. de St. Alais replied. "And take him from here!
+Monsieur," he continued, addressing me grimly, and with a grim eye,
+"whoever you are, when you undertook to be a spy you counted the cost,
+I suppose? Take him away, my men!"
+
+Two of the fellows strode forward, and in a moment seized my arms; and
+in the surprise of M. de St. Alais' appearance and the astonishment
+his words caused me, I made no resistance. But in such emergencies the
+mind works quickly, and in a trice I recovered myself. "This is
+nonsense, M. de St. Alais!" I said. "You know well that I am no spy.
+You know why I am here. And for the matter of that----"
+
+"I know nothing!" he answered.
+
+"But----"
+
+"I know nothing, I say!" he repeated, with a mocking gesture. "Except,
+Monsieur, that we find you here in a monk's dress, when you are
+clearly no monk. You had better have tried to swim the Rhone at flood,
+than entered this house to-night--I tell you that! Now away with him!
+His case will be dealt with below."
+
+But this was too much. I wrested my hands from the men who held me,
+and sprang back. "You lie!" I cried. "You know who I am, and why I am
+here!"
+
+"I do not know you," he answered stubbornly. "Nor do I know why you
+are here. I once knew a man like you; that is true. But he was a
+gentleman, and would have died before he would have saved himself by a
+lie--by a trumped-up tale. Take him away. He has frightened
+Mademoiselle to death. I suppose he found the door open, and slipped
+in, and thought himself safe."
+
+At last I understood what he meant, and that in his passion he would
+sacrifice one rather than bring in his sister's name. Nay, I saw more;
+that he viewed with a cruel exultation the dilemma in which he had
+placed me; and my brow grew damp, as I looked round wildly, trying to
+solve the question. I had the sounds of street fighting still in my
+ears; I knew that men staking all in such a strife owned few scruples
+and scant mercy. I could see that this man in particular was maddened
+by the losses and humiliations which he had suffered; and I stood in
+the way of his schemes. The risk existed, therefore, and was no mere
+threat; it seemed foolish quixotism to run it.
+
+And yet--and yet I hesitated. I even let the men urge me half-way
+to the door; and then--heaven knows what I should have done or whether
+I could have seen my way plainly--the knot was cut for me. With
+a scream, Denise, who since her brother's entrance had leaned,
+half-fainting, against the wall, sprang forward, and seized him by the
+arm.
+
+"No, no!" she cried in a choked voice. "No! You will not, you will not
+do this! Have pity, have mercy! I----"
+
+"Mademoiselle!" he said, cutting her short quietly, but with a gleam
+of rage in his eyes. "You are overwrought, and forget yourself. The
+scene has been too much for you. Here!" he continued sharply to the
+maid, "take care of your mistress. The man is a spy, and not worthy of
+her pity."
+
+But Denise clung to him. "He is no spy!" she cried, in a voice that
+went to my heart. "He is no spy, and you know it!"
+
+"Hush, girl! Be silent!" he answered furiously.
+
+But he had not counted on a change in her, beside which the change in
+him was petty. "I will not!" she answered, "I will not!" and to my
+astonishment, releasing the arm to which she had hitherto clung, and
+shaking back from her face the hair which her violent movements had
+loosened, she stood out and defied him. "I will not!" she cried. "He
+is no spy, and you know it, Monsieur! He is my lover," she continued,
+with a superb gesture, "and he came to see me. Do you understand? He
+was contracted to me, and he came to see me!"
+
+"Girl, are you mad?" he snarled in the breathless hush of the room,
+the hush that followed as all looked at her.
+
+"I am not mad," she answered, her eyes burning in her white face.
+
+"Then if you feel no shame do you feel no fear?" he retorted in a
+terrible voice.
+
+"No!" she cried. "For I love! And I love him."
+
+I will not say what I felt when I heard that, myself helpless. For one
+thing, I was in so great a rage I scarcely knew what I felt; and for
+another, the words were barely spoken before M. le Marquis seized the
+girl roughly by the waist, and dragged her, screaming and resisting,
+to the other end of the room.
+
+This was the signal for a scene indescribable. I sprang forward to
+protect her; in an instant the three men flung themselves upon me, and
+bore me by sheer weight towards the door. St. Alais, foaming with
+rage, shouted to them to remove me, while I called him coward, and
+cursed him and strove desperately to get at him. For a moment I made
+head against them all, though they were three to one; the maid's
+screaming added to the uproar. Then the odds prevailed; and in a
+minute they had me out, and had closed the door on her and her cries.
+
+I was panting, breathless, furious. But the moment it was done and the
+door shut, a kind of calm fell upon us. The men relaxed their hold on
+me, and stood looking at me quietly; while I leaned against the wall,
+and glowered at them. Then, "There, Monsieur, have no more of that!"
+one of them said civilly enough. "Go peaceably, and we will be easy
+with you; otherwise----"
+
+"He is a cowardly hound!" I cried with a sob.
+
+"Softly, Monsieur, softly."
+
+There were five of them, for two had remained at the door. The passage
+was dark, but they had a lantern, and we waited in silence two or
+three minutes. Then the door opened a few inches, and the man who
+seemed to be the leader went to it, and having received his orders,
+returned.
+
+"Forward!" he said. "In No. 6. And do you, Petitot, fetch the key."
+
+The man named went off quickly, and we followed more slowly along the
+corridor; the steady tramp of my guards, as they marched beside me,
+awaking sullen echoes that rolled away before us. The yellow light of
+the lantern showed a white-washed wall on either side, broken on the
+right hand by a dull line of doors, as of cells. We halted presently
+before one of these, and I thought that I was to be confined there;
+and my courage rose, for I should still be near Denise. But the door,
+when opened, disclosed only a little staircase which we descended in
+single file, and so reached a bare corridor similar to that above.
+Half-way along this we stopped again, beside an open window, through
+which the night wind came in so strongly as to stir the hair, and
+force the man who carried the lantern to shield the light under
+his skirts. And not the night wind only; with it entered all the
+noises of the night and the disturbed city; hoarse cries and cheers,
+and the shrill monotonous jangle of bells, and now and then a
+pistol-shot--noises that told only too eloquently what was passing
+under the black veil that hid the chaos of streets and houses below
+us. Nay, in one place the veil was rent, and through the gap a ruddy
+column poured up from the roofs, dispersing sparks--the hot glare of
+some great fire, that blazing in the heart of the city, seemed to make
+the sky sharer in the deeds and horrors that lay beneath it.
+
+The men with me pressed to the window, and peered through it, and
+strained eyes and ears; and little wonder. Little wonder, too, that
+the man who was responsible for all, and had staked all, walked the
+roof above with tireless steps. For the struggle below was the one
+great struggle of the world, the struggle that never ceases between
+the old and the new: and it was being fought as it had been fought in
+Nimes for centuries, savagely, ruthlessly, over kennels running with
+blood. Nor could the issue be told; only, that as it was here, it was
+likely to be through half of France. We who stood at that window,
+looked into the darkness with actual eyes; but across the border at
+Turin, and nearer at Sommieres and Montpellier, thousands of Frenchmen
+bearing the greatest names of France, watched also--watched with faces
+turned to Nimes, and hearts as anxious as ours.
+
+I gathered from the talk of those round me, that M. Froment had seized
+the Arenes, and garrisoned it, and that the flames we saw were those
+of one of the Protestant churches; that as yet the patriots, taken by
+surprise, made little resistance, and that if the Reds could hold for
+twenty-four hours longer what they had seized, the arrival of the
+troops from Montpellier would then secure all, and at the same time
+stamp the movement with the approval of the highest parties.
+
+"But it was a near thing," one of the men muttered. "If we had
+not been at their throats to-night, they would have been at ours
+to-morrow!"
+
+"And now, not half the companies have turned out."
+
+"But the villages will come in in the morning," a third cried eagerly.
+"They are to toll all the bells from here to the Rhone."
+
+"Ay, but what if the Cevennols come in first? What then, man?"
+
+No one had an answer to this, and all stood watching eagerly, until
+the sound of footsteps approaching along the passage caused the men to
+draw in their heads. "Here is the key," said the leader. "Now,
+Monsieur!"
+
+But it was not the key that disturbed us, nor Petitot, who had been
+sent for it, but a very tall man, cloaked, and wearing his hat, who
+came hastily along the corridor with three or four behind him. As he
+approached he called out, "Is Buzeaud here?"
+
+The man who had spoken before stood out respectfully. "Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Take half a dozen men, the stoutest you have downstairs," the new
+comer answered--it was Froment himself--"and get as many more from the
+Vierge, and barricade the street leading beside the barracks to the
+Arsenal. You will find plenty of helpers. And occupy some of the
+houses so as to command the street. And--But what is this?" he
+continued, breaking off sharply, as his eyes, passing over the group,
+stopped at me. "How does this gentleman come here? And in this dress?"
+
+"M. le Marquis arrested him--upstairs."
+
+"M. le Marquis?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, and ordered him to be confined in No. 6 for the
+present."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"As a spy."
+
+M. Froment whistled softly, and for a moment we looked at one another.
+The wavering light of the lanterns, and perhaps the tension of the
+man's feelings, deepened the harsh lines of his massive features, and
+darkened the shadows about his eyes and mouth; but presently he drew a
+deep breath, and smiled, as if something whimsical in the situation
+struck him. "So we meet again, M. le Vicomte," he said with that. "I
+remember now that I have something of yours. You have come for it, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, I have come for it," I said defiantly, giving him back
+look for look; and I saw that he understood.
+
+"And M. le Marquis found you upstairs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah!" For a moment he seemed to reflect. Then, turning to the
+men. "Well, you can go, Buzeaud. I will be answerable for this
+gentleman--who had better remove that masquerade. And do you," he
+continued, addressing the two or three who had come with him, "wait
+for me above. Tell M. Flandrin--it is my last word--that whatever
+happens the Mayor must not raise the flag for the troops. He may tell
+him what he pleases from me--that I will hang him from the highest
+window of the tower, if he likes--but it must not be done. You
+understand?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur."
+
+"Then go. I will be with you presently."
+
+They went, leaving a lantern on the floor; and in a moment Froment and
+I were alone. I stood expectant, but he did not look at me. Instead,
+he turned to the open window, and leaning on the sill, gazed into the
+night, and so remained for some time silent; whether the orders he had
+just given had really diverted his thoughts into another channel, or
+he had not made up his mind how to treat me, I cannot determine. More
+than once I heard him sigh, however; and at last he said abruptly,
+"Only three companies have risen?"
+
+I do not know what moved me, but I answered in the same spirit. "Out
+of how many?" I said coolly.
+
+"Thirteen," he answered. "We are out-numbered. But we moved first, we
+have the upper hand, and we must keep it. And if the villagers come in
+to-morrow----"
+
+"And the Cevennols do not."
+
+"Yes; and if the officers can hold the Guienne regiment within
+barracks, and the Mayor does not hoist the flag, calling them out, and
+the Calvinists do not surprise the Arsenal--I think we may be able to
+do so."
+
+"But the chances are?"
+
+"Against us. The more need, Monsieur"--for the first time he turned
+and looked at me with a sort of dark pride glowing in his face--"of a
+man! For--do you know what we are fighting for down there? France!
+France!" he continued bitterly, and letting his emotion appear, "and I
+have a few hundred cutthroats and rascals and shavelings to do the
+work, while all the time your fine gentlemen lie safe and warm across
+the frontier, waiting to see what will happen! And I run risks, and
+they hold the stakes! I kill the bear, and they take the skin. They
+are safe, and if I fail I hang like Favras! Faugh! It is enough to
+make a man turn patriot and cry '_Vive la Nation!_'"
+
+He did not wait for my answer, but impatiently snatching up the
+lantern, he made a sign to me to follow him, and led the way down the
+passage. He had said not a word of my presence in the house, of my
+position, of Mademoiselle St. Alais, or how he meant to deal with me;
+and at the door, not knowing what was in his mind, I touched his
+shoulder and stopped him.
+
+"Pardon me," I said, with as much dignity as I could assume, "but I
+should like to know what you are going to do with me, Monsieur. I need
+not tell you that I did not enter this house as a spy----"
+
+"You need tell me nothing," he answered, cutting me short with
+rudeness. "And for what I am going to do with you, it can be told in
+half a dozen words. I am going to keep you by me, that if the worst
+comes of this--in which event I am not likely to see the week out--you
+may protect Mademoiselle de St. Alais and convey her to a place of
+safety. To that end your commission shall be restored to you; I have
+it safe. If, on the other hand, we hold our own, and light the fire
+that shall burn up these cold-blooded _pedants la bas_, then, M. le
+Vicomte--I shall have a word to say to you. And we will talk of the
+matter as gentlemen."
+
+For a moment I stood dumb with astonishment. We were at the door of
+the little staircase--by which I had descended--when he said this; and
+as he spoke the last word, he turned, as expecting no answer, and
+opened it, and set his foot on the lowest stair, casting the light of
+the lantern before him. I plucked him by the sleeve, and he turned,
+and faced me.
+
+"M. Froment!" I muttered. And then for the life of me I could say no
+more.
+
+"There is no need for words," he said grandly.
+
+"Are you sure--that you know all!" I muttered.
+
+"I am sure that she loves you, and that she does not love me," he
+answered with a curling lip and a ring of scorn in his voice. "And
+besides that, I am sure of one thing only."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"That within forty-eight hours blood will flow in every street of
+Nimes, and Froment, the bourgeois, will be Froment le Baron--or
+nothing! In the former case, we will talk. In the latter," and he
+shrugged his shoulders with a gesture a little theatrical, "it will
+not matter."
+
+With the word he turned to the stairs, and I followed him up them and
+across the upper corridor, and by the outer staircase, where I had
+evaded my guide, and so to the roof, and from it by a short wooden
+ladder to the leads of a tower; whence we overlooked, lying below us,
+all the dim black chaos of Nimes, here rising in giant forms, rather
+felt than seen, there a medley of hot lights and deep shadows, thrown
+into relief by the glare of the burning church. In three places I
+picked out a cresset shining, high up in the sky, as it were; one on
+the rim of the Arenes, another on the roof of a distant church, a
+third on a tower beyond the town. But for the most part the town was
+now at rest. The riot had died down, the bells were silent, the wind
+blew salt from the sea and cooled our faces.
+
+There were a dozen cloaked figures on the leads, some gazing down in
+silence, others walking to and fro, talking together; but in the
+darkness it was impossible to recognise any one. Froment, after
+receiving one or two reports, withdrew to the outer side of the tower
+overlooking the country, and walked there alone, his head bowed, and
+his hands behind him, a desire to preserve his dignity having more to
+do with this, or I was mistaken, than any longing for solitude. Still,
+the others respected his wishes, and following their example I seated
+myself in an embrasure of the battlements, whence the fire, now
+growing pale, could be seen.
+
+What were the others' thoughts I cannot say. A muttered word apprised
+me that Louis St. Alais was in command at the Arenes; and that M. le
+Marquis waited only until success was assured to start for Sommieres,
+whence the commandant had promised a regiment of horse should Froment
+be able to hold his own without them. The arrangement seemed to me to
+be of the strangest; but the Emigres, fearful of compromising the
+King, and warned by the fate of Favras--who, deserted by his party,
+had suffered for a similar conspiracy a few months before--were
+nothing if not timid. And if those round me felt any indignation, they
+did not express it.
+
+The majority, however, were silent, or spoke only when some movement
+in the town, some outcry or alarm, drew from them a few eager words;
+and for myself, my thoughts were neither of the struggle below--where
+both parties lay watching each other and waiting for the day--nor of
+the morrow, nor even of Denise, but of Froment himself. If the aim of
+the man had been to impress me, he had succeeded. Seated there in the
+darkness, I felt his influence strong upon me; I felt the crisis as
+and because he felt it. I thrilled with the excitement of the
+gambler's last stake, because he had thrown the dice. I stood on the
+giddy point on which he stood, and looked into the dark future, and
+trembled for and with him. My eyes turned from others, and
+involuntarily sought his tall figure where he walked alone; with as
+little will on my part I paid him the homage due to the man who stands
+unmoved on the brink, master of his soul, though death yawns for him.
+
+About midnight there was a general movement to descend. I had eaten
+nothing for twelve hours, and I had done much; and, notwithstanding
+the dubious position in which I stood, appetite bade me go with the
+rest. I went, therefore; and, following the stream, found myself a
+minute later on the threshold of a long room, brilliantly lit with
+lamps, and displaying tables laid with covers for sixty or more. I
+fancied that at the farther end of the apartment, and through an
+interval in the crowd of men before me, I caught a glimpse of women,
+of jewels, of flashing eyes, and a waving fan; and if anything could
+have added to the bewildering abruptness of the change from the dark,
+wind-swept leads above to the gay and splendid scene before me it was
+this. But I had scant time for reflection. Though I did not advance
+far, the press, which separated me from the upper end of the room,
+melted quickly, as one after another took his seat amid a hum of
+conversation; and in a moment I found myself gazing straight at
+Denise, who, white and wan, with a pitiful look in her eyes, sat
+beside her mother at the uppermost table, a picture of silent woe.
+Madame Catinot and two or three gentlemen and as many ladies were
+seated with them.
+
+Whether my eyes drew hers to me, or she glanced that way by chance, in
+a moment she looked at me, and rose to her feet with a low gasping
+cry, that I felt rather than heard. It was enough to lead Madame St.
+Alais' eyes to me, and she too cried out; and in a trice, while a few
+between us still talked unconscious, and the servants glided about, I
+found all at that farther table staring at me, and myself the focus of
+the room. Just then, unluckily, M. St. Alais, rather late, came in; of
+course, he too saw me. I heard an oath behind me, but I was intent on
+the farther table and Mademoiselle, and it was not until he laid his
+hand on my arm that I turned sharply and saw him.
+
+"Monsieur!" he cried, with another oath--and I saw that he was almost
+choking with rage--with rage and surprise. "This is too much."
+
+I looked at him in silence. The position was so perplexing that I
+could not grasp it.
+
+"How do I find you here?" he continued with violence and in a voice
+that drew every eye in the room to me. He was white with anger. He had
+left me a prisoner, he found me a guest.
+
+"I hardly know myself," I answered. "But----"
+
+"I do," said a voice behind M. St. Alais. "If you wish to know,
+Marquis, M. de Saux is here at my invitation."
+
+The speaker was Froment, who had just entered the room. St. Alais
+turned, as if he had been stabbed. "Then I am not!" he cried.
+
+"That is as you please," Froment said steadfastly.
+
+"It is--and I do not please!" the Marquis retorted, with a scornful
+glance, and in a tone that rang through the room. "I do not please!"
+
+As I heard him, and felt myself the centre, under the lights,
+of all those eyes, I could have fancied that I was again in the St.
+Alais' _salon_, listening to the futile oath of the sword; and that
+three-quarters of a year had not elapsed since that beginning of all
+our troubles, But in a moment Froment's voice roused me from the
+dream.
+
+"Very well," he said gravely. "But I think that you forget----"
+
+"It is you who forget," St. Alais cried wildly. "Or you do not
+understand--or know--that this gentleman----"
+
+"I forget nothing!" Froment replied with a darkening face. "Nothing,
+except that we are keeping my guests waiting. Least of all, do I
+forget the aid, Monsieur, which you have hitherto rendered me. But, M.
+le Marquis," he continued, with dignity, "it is mine to command
+to-night, and it is for me to make dispositions. I have made them, and
+I must ask you to comply with them. I know that you will not fail me
+at a pinch. I know, and these gentlemen know, that in misfortune you
+would be my helper; but I believe also that, all going well, as it
+does, you will not throw unnecessary obstacles in my way. Come,
+Monsieur; this gentleman will not refuse to sit here. And we will sit
+at Madame's table. Oblige me."
+
+M. St. Alais' face was like night, but the other was a man, and his
+tone was strenuous as well as courteous; and slowly and haughtily M.
+le Marquis, who, I think, had never before in his life given way,
+followed him to the farther end of the room. Left alone, I sat down
+where I was, eyed curiously by those round me; and myself, finding
+something still more curious in this strange banquet while Nimes
+watched; this midnight merriment, while the dead still lay in the
+streets, and the air quivered, and all the world of night hung,
+listening for that which was to come.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+                             THE CRISIS.
+
+
+When the grey dawn, to which so many looked forward, broke slowly over
+the waking city, it found on the leads of Froment's tower some pale
+faces; perhaps some sinking hearts. That hour, when all life lacks
+colour, and all things, the sky excepted, are black to the eye, tries
+a man's courage to the uttermost; as the cold wind that blows with it
+searches his body. Eyes that an hour before had sparkled over the
+wine--for we had sat late and drunk to the King, the Church, the Red
+Cockade, and M. d'Artois--grew thoughtful; men who, a little before,
+had shown flushed faces, shivered as they peered into the mist, and
+drew their cloaks more closely round them; and if the man was there,
+who regarded the issue of the day with perfect indifference, he was
+not of those near me.
+
+Froment had preached faith, but the faith for the most part was down
+in the street. There, I have no doubt, were many who believed, and
+were ready to rush on death, or slay without pity. And there may have
+been one or two of these with us. But in the main, the men who looked
+down with me on Nimes that morning were hardy adventurers, or local
+followers of Froment, or officers whose regiments had dismissed them,
+or--but these were few--gentlemen, like St. Alais. All brave men, and
+some heated with wine; but not Froment only had heard of Favras
+hanged, of De Launay massacred, of Provost Flesselles shot in cold
+blood! Others beside him could make a guess at the kind of vengeance
+this strange new creature, La Nation, might take, being outraged: and
+so, when the long-expected dawn appeared at last, and warmed the
+eastern clouds, and leaping across the sea of mist which filled the
+Rhone valley, tinged the western peaks with rosy light, and found us
+watching, I saw no face among all the light fell on, that was not
+serious, not one but had some haggard, wan, or careworn touch to mark
+it mortal.
+
+Save only Froment's. He, be the reason what it might, showed as the
+light rose a countenance not merely resolute, but cheerful. Abandoning
+the solitary habit he had maintained all night, he came forward to the
+battlements overlooking the town, and talked and even jested, rallying
+the faint-hearted, and taking success for granted. I have heard his
+enemies say that he did this because it was his nature, because he
+could not help it; because his vanity raised him, not only above the
+ordinary passions of men, but above fear; because in the conceit of
+acting his part to the admiration of all, he forgot that it was more
+than a part, and tried all fortunes and ran all risks with as little
+emotion as the actor who portrays the Cid, or takes poison in the part
+of Mithridates.
+
+But this seems to me to amount to no more than saying that he was not
+only a very vain, but a very brave man. Which I admit. No one, indeed,
+who saw him that morning could doubt it; or that, of a million, he was
+the man best fitted to command in such an emergency; resolute,
+undoubting, even gay, he reversed no orders, expressed no fears. When
+the mist rolled away--a little after four--and let the smiling plain
+be seen, and the city and the hills, and when from the direction of
+the Rhone the first harsh jangle of bells smote the ear and stilled
+the lark's song, he turned to his following with an air almost joyous.
+
+"Come, gentlemen," he said gaily, and with head erect. "Let us be
+stirring! They must not say that we lie close and fear to show
+our heads abroad; or, having set others moving, are backward
+ourselves--like the tonguesters and dreamers of their knavish
+assembly, who, when they would take their King, set women in the front
+rank to take the danger also! _Allons_, Messieurs! They brought him
+from Versailles to Paris. We will escort him back! And to-day we take
+the first step!"
+
+Enthusiasm is of all things the most contagious. A murmur of assent
+greeted his words; eyes that a moment before had been dull enough,
+grew bright. "_A bas les Traitres!_" cried one. "_A bas le Tricolor!_"
+cried another.
+
+Froment raised his hand for silence. "No, Monsieur," he said quickly.
+"On the contrary, we will have a tricolour of our own. _Vive le Roi!
+Vive la Foi! Vive la Loi! Vivent les Trois!_"
+
+The conceit took. A hundred voices shouted, "_Vivent les Trois!_" in
+chorus. The words were taken up on lower roofs and at windows, and in
+the streets below; until they passed noisily away, after the manner of
+file-firing, into the distance.
+
+Froment raised his hat gallantly. "Thank you, gentlemen," he said. "In
+the King's name, in his Majesty's name, I thank you. Before we have
+done, the Atlantic shall hear that cry, and La Manche re-echo it! And
+the Rhone shall release what the Seine has taken! To Nimes and to you,
+all France looks this day. For freedom! For freedom to live--shall
+knaves and scriveners strangle her? For freedom to pray--they rob God,
+and defile His temples! For freedom to walk abroad--the King of France
+is a captive. Need I say more?"
+
+"No! No!" they cried, waving hats and swords. "No! No!"
+
+"Then I will not," he answered hardily. "I will use no more words! But
+I will show that here at least, at Nimes at least, God and the King
+are honoured, and their servants are free! Give me your escort,
+gentlemen, and we will walk through the town and visit the King's
+posts, and see if any here dare cry, '_A bas le Roi!_'"
+
+They answered with a roar of assent and menace that shook the very
+tower; and instantly trooping to the ladder, began to descend by it to
+the roof of the house, and so to the staircase. Sitting on the
+battlements of the tower, I watched them pass in a long stream across
+the leads below, their hilts and buckles glittering in the sunshine,
+their ribbons waving in the breeze, their voices sharp and high. I
+thought them, as I watched, a gallant company; the greater part were
+young, and all had a fine air; not without sympathy I saw them vanish
+one by one in the head of the staircase, by which I had ascended. One
+half had disappeared when I felt a touch on my arm, and found Froment,
+the last to leave, standing by my side.
+
+"You will stay here, Monsieur," he said, in an undertone of meaning,
+his eyes lowered to meet mine; "if the worst happens, I need not
+charge you to look to Mademoiselle."
+
+"Worst or best, I will look to her," I answered.
+
+"Thanks," he said, his lip curling, and an ugly light for an instant
+flashing in his eyes. "But in the latter case I will look to her
+myself. Don't forget, that if I win, we have still to talk, Monsieur!"
+
+"Yet, God grant you may win!" I exclaimed involuntarily.
+
+"You have faith in your swordsmanship?" he answered, with a slight
+sneer; and then, in a different tone, he went on: "No, Monsieur, it is
+not that. It is that you are a French gentleman. And as such I leave
+Mademoiselle to your care without a qualm. God keep you!"
+
+"And you," I said. And I saw him go after the others.
+
+It was then about five o'clock. The sun was up, and the tower-roof,
+left silent and in my sole possession, seemed so near the sky, seemed
+so bright and peaceful and still, with the stillness of the early
+morning which is akin to innocence, that I looked about me dazed. I
+stood on a different plane from that of the world below, whence the
+roar of greeting that hailed Froment's appearance came up harshly.
+Another shout followed and another, that drove the affrighted pigeons
+in a circling cloud high above the roofs; and then the wave of sound
+began to roll away, moving with an indescribable note of menace
+southward through the city. And I remained alone on my tower, raised
+high above the strife.
+
+Alone, with time to think; and to think some grim thoughts. Where now
+was the sweet union of which half the nation had been dreaming for
+weeks? Where the millennium of peace and fraternity to which Father
+Benoit, and the Syndics of Giron and Vlais, had looked forward? And
+the abolition of divisions? And the rights of man? And the other ten
+thousand blessings that philosophers and theorists had undertaken to
+create--the nature of man notwithstanding--their systems once adopted?
+Ay, where? From all the smiling country round came, for answer, the
+clanging of importunate bells. From the streets below rose for answer
+the sounds of riot and triumph. Along this or that road, winding
+ribbon-like across the plain, hurried little flocks of men--now seen
+for the first time--with glittering arms; and last and worst--when
+some half-hour had elapsed, and I still watched--from a distant suburb
+westward boomed out a sudden volley, and then dropping shots. The
+pigeons still wheeled, in a shining, shifting cloud, above the roofs,
+and the sparrows twittered round me, and on the tower, and on the roof
+below, where a few domestics clustered, all was sunshine and quiet and
+peace. But down in the streets, there, I knew that death was at work.
+
+Still, for a time, I felt little excitement. It was early in the day;
+I expected no immediate issue; and I listened almost carelessly,
+following the train of thought I have traced, and gloomily comparing
+this scene of strife with the brilliant promises of a few months
+before. But little by little the anxiety of the servants who stood on
+the roof below, infected me. I began to listen more acutely; and to
+fancy that the tide of conflict was rolling nearer, that the cries and
+shots came more quickly and sharply to the ear. At last, in a place
+near the barracks, and not far off, I distinguished little puffs of
+thin white smoke rising above the roofs, and twice a rattling volley
+in the same quarter shook the windows. Then in one of the streets
+immediately below me, the whole length of which was visible, I saw
+people running--running towards me.
+
+I called to the servants to know what it was.
+
+"They are attacking the arsenal, Monsieur," one answered, shading his
+eyes.
+
+"Who?" I said.
+
+But he only shrugged his shoulders and looked out more intently. I
+followed his example, but for a time nothing happened; then on a
+sudden, as if a door were opened that hitherto had shut off the noise,
+a babel of shouts burst out and a great crowd entered the nearer end
+of the street below me, and pouring along it with loud cries and
+brandished arms--and a crucifix and a little body of monks in the
+middle--swirled away round the farthest corner, and were gone. For
+some time, however, I could still hear the burthen of their cries, and
+trace it towards the barracks, whence the crackle of musketry came at
+intervals; and I concluded that it was a reinforcement, and that
+Froment had sent for it. After that, chancing to look down, I saw that
+half the servants, below me, had vanished, and that figures were
+beginning to skulk about the streets hitherto deserted; and I began to
+tremble. The crisis had come sooner than I had thought.
+
+I called to one of the men and asked him where the ladies were.
+
+He looked up at me with a pale face. "I don't know, Monsieur," he
+answered rapidly; and he looked away again.
+
+"They are below?"
+
+But he was watching too intently to answer, and only shook his head
+impatiently. I was unwilling to leave my place on the roof, and I
+called to him to take my compliments to Madame St. Alais and ask her
+to ascend. It seemed strange that she had not done so, for women are
+not generally lacking in the desire to see.
+
+But the man was too frightened to think of any one but himself--I
+fancy he was one of the cooks--and he did not move; while his
+companions only cried: "Presently, presently, Monsieur!"
+
+At that, however, I lost my temper; and, going to the ladder, I ran
+down it, and strode towards them. "You rascals!" I cried. "Where are
+the ladies?"
+
+One or two turned to me with a start. "Pardon, Monsieur?"
+
+"Where are the ladies?" I repeated impatiently.
+
+"Ah! I did not understand!" the nearest answered glibly. "Gone to the
+church to pray, Monsieur."
+
+"To the church?"
+
+"To be sure. By the Capuchins."
+
+"And they are not here?"
+
+"No, Monsieur," he answered, his eyes straying. "But--what is that?"
+
+And, diverted by something, he skipped nimbly from me, his cheek a
+shade paler. I followed him to the parapet, and looked over. The view
+was not so wide as from the tower above, but the main street leading
+southward could be seen, and it was full of people; of scattered
+groups and handfuls, all coming towards us, some running, at an easy
+pace, while others walked quickly, four or five abreast, and often
+looked behind them.
+
+The servants never doubted what it meant. In a trice the group broke
+up. With a muttered, "We are beaten!" they ran pell-mell across the
+sunny leads to the head of the staircase, and began to descend. I
+waited awhile, looking and fearing; but the stream of fugitives ever
+continued and increased, the pace grew quicker, the last comers looked
+more frequently behind them and handled their arms; the din of
+conflict, of yells, and cries, and shots, seemed to be approaching;
+and in a moment I made up my mind to act. The staircase was clear now;
+I ran quickly down it as far as the door on the upper floor, by which
+I had entered the house that evening before. I tried this, but
+recoiled; the door was locked. With a cry of vexation, my haste
+growing feverish--for now, in the darkness of the staircase, I was in
+ignorance what was happening, and pictured the worst--I went on,
+descending round and round, until I reached the cloister-like hall, at
+the bottom.
+
+I found this choked with men, armed, grim-faced, and furious; and
+beset by other men who still continued to pour in from the street. A
+moment later and I should have found the staircase stopped by the
+stream of people ascending; and I must have remained on the roof. As
+it was, I could not for a minute or two force myself through the
+press, but was thrust against a wall, and pinned there by the rush
+inwards. Next me, however, I found one of the servants in like case,
+and I seized him by the sleeve. "Where are the ladies?" I said. "Have
+they returned? Are they here?"
+
+"I don't know," he said, his eyes roving.
+
+"Are they still at the church?"
+
+"Monsieur, I don't know," he answered impatiently; and then seeing, I
+think, the man for whom he was searching, he shook me off, with the
+churlishness of fear, and, flinging himself into the crowd, was gone.
+
+All the place was such a hurly-burly of men entering and leaving,
+shouting orders, or forcing themselves through the press, that I
+doubted what to do. Some were crying for Froment, others to close the
+doors; one that all was lost, another to bring up the powder. The
+disorder was enough to turn the brain, and for a minute I stood in the
+heart of it, elbowed and pushed, and tossed this way and that. Where
+were the women? Where were the women? The doubt distracted me. I
+seized half a dozen of the nearest men, and asked them; but they only
+cried out fiercely that they did not know--how should they?--and shook
+me off savagely and escaped as the servant had. For all here, with a
+few exceptions, were of the commoner sort. I could see nothing of
+Froment, nothing of St. Alais or the leaders, and only one or two of
+the gallants who had gone with them.
+
+I do not think that I was ever in a more trying position. Denise might
+be still at the church and in peril there; or she might be in the
+streets exposed to dangers on which I dare not dwell; or, on the other
+hand, she might be safe in the next room, or upstairs; or on the roof.
+In the unutterable confusion, it was impossible to know or learn, or
+even move quickly; my only hope seemed to be in Froment's return, but
+after waiting a minute, which seemed a lifetime, in the hope of seeing
+him, I lost patience and battled my way through the press to a door,
+which appeared to lead to the main part of the house.
+
+Passing through it, I found the same disorder ruling; here men,
+bringing up powder from the cellars, blocked the passage; there others
+appeared to be rifling the house. I had little hope of finding those
+whom I sought below stairs; and after glancing this way and that
+without result, I lighted on a staircase, and ascending quickly to the
+second floor, hastened to Denise's room. The door was locked.
+
+I hammered on it madly and called, and waited, and listened, and
+called again; but I heard no sound from within; convinced at last. I
+left it and tried the nearest doors. The two first were locked also,
+and the rooms as silent; the third and fourth were open and empty. The
+last I entered was a man's.
+
+The task was no long one, and occupied less than a minute. But all the
+time, while I rapped and listened and called, though the corridor in
+which I moved was quiet as death and echoed my footsteps, the house
+below rang with cries and shouts and hurrying feet; and I was in a
+fever. Madame might be on the roof. I turned that way meaning to
+ascend. Then I reflected that if I climbed to it I might find the
+staircase blocked when I came to descend again; and, cursing my folly
+for leaving the hall--simply because my quest had failed--I hurried
+back to the stairs, and dashed recklessly down them, and, stemming as
+well as I could the tide of people that surged and ebbed about the
+lower floor, I fought my way back to the hall.
+
+I was just in time. As I entered by one door Froment entered by the
+other, with a little band of his braves; of whom several, I now
+observed, wore green ribbons--the Artois colours. His great stature
+raising him above the crowd of heads, I saw that he was wounded; a
+little blood was running down his cheek, and his eyes shone with a
+brilliance almost of madness. But he was still cool; he had still so
+much the command, not only of himself, but of those round him, that
+the commotion grew still and abated under his eye. In a moment men who
+before had only tumbled over and embarrassed one another, flew to
+their places; and, though the howling of a hostile mob could plainly
+be heard at the end of the street, and it was clear that he had fallen
+back before an overwhelming force, resolution seemed in a moment to
+take the place of panic, and hope of despair.
+
+Standing on the threshold, and pointing this way, and that, with a
+discharged pistol which he held in his hand, he gave a few short,
+sharp orders for the barricading of the door, and saw them carried
+out, and sent this man to one post, and that man to another. Then, the
+crowd, which had before cumbered the place, melting as if by magic, he
+saw me forcing my way to him. And he beckoned to me.
+
+If he played a part, then let me say, once for all, he played it
+nobly. Even now, when I guessed that all was lost, I read no fear and
+no envy in his face; and in what he said there was no ostentation.
+
+"Get out quickly," he muttered, in an undertone, forestalling by a
+hasty gesture the excited questions I had on my lips, "through yonder
+door, and by the little postern at the foot of the other staircase. Go
+by the east gate, and you will find horses at the St. Genevieve
+outside. It is all over here!" he added, wringing my hand hard, and
+pushing me towards the door.
+
+"But Mademoiselle?" I cried; and I told him that she was not in the
+house.
+
+"What?" he said, pausing and looking at me, with his face grown
+suddenly dark. "Are you mad? Do you mean that she has gone out?"
+
+"She is not here," I answered. "I am told that she went to the church
+with Madame St. Alais, and has not returned."
+
+"That beldam!" he exclaimed, with a terrible oath, and then, "God help
+them!" he said--twice. And after a moment of silence, meeting my eyes
+and reading the horror in them, he laughed harshly. "After all, what
+matter?" he said recklessly. "We shall all go together! Let us go like
+gentlemen. I did what I could. Do you hear that?"
+
+He held up his hand, as a roar of musketry shook the house; and he
+gave an order. The small windows had been stopped with paving stones,
+the door made solid with the wall behind it; and daylight being shut
+out, lamps had been lighted, which gave the long whitewashed,
+stone-groined room a strange sombre look. Or it was the grim faces I
+saw round me had that effect.
+
+"I am afraid that the St. Alais are cut off in the Arenes," he said
+coolly. "And they are not enough to man the walls. Those cursed
+Cevennols have been too many for us. As for our friends--it is as I
+expected; they have left me to die like a bull in the ring. Well, we
+must die goring."
+
+But in the midst of my admiration of his courage a kind of revulsion
+seized me. "And Denise?" I said, grasping his arm fiercely. "Are we to
+leave her to perish?"
+
+He looked at me, his lip curling. "True," he said, with a sneering
+smile. "I forgot. You are not of us."
+
+"I am thinking of her!" I cried, raging. And in that moment I hated
+him.
+
+But his mood changed while he looked at me. "You are right, Monsieur,"
+he said, in a different tone. "Go! There may be a chance; but the
+church is by the Capuchins, and those dogs were baying round it when
+we fell back. They are ten to one, or--still there may be a chance,"
+he continued with decision. "Go, and if you find her, and escape, do
+not forget Froment of Nimes."
+
+"By the postern?" I said.
+
+"Yes--take this," he answered; and abruptly drawing a pistol from his
+pocket, he forced it on me. "Go, and I must go too. Good fortune,
+Monsieur, and farewell. And you, bark away, you dogs!" he continued
+bitterly, addressing the unconscious mob. "The bull is on foot yet,
+and will toss some of you before the ring closes!"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+                           THE MILLENNIUM.
+
+
+With that word he thrust me towards the door that led to the inner
+hall and the postern; and, knowing, as I did, that every moment I
+delayed might stand for a life, and that within a minute or two at
+most the rear of the building would be beset, and my chance of egress
+lost, it was to be expected that I should not hesitate.
+
+Yet I did. The main body of Froment's followers had flocked upstairs,
+whence they could be heard firing from the roof and windows. He stood
+almost alone in the middle of the floor; in the attitude of one
+listening and thinking, while a group of green ribbons, who seemed to
+be the most determined of his followers, hung growling about the
+barricaded door. Something in the gloomy brightness of the room, and
+the disorder of the barricaded windows, something in the loneliness of
+his figure as he stood there, appealed to me; I even took one step
+towards him. But at that moment he looked up, his face grown dark; and
+he waved me off with a gesture almost of rage. I knew then that I had
+but a small part of his thoughts; and that at this moment, while the
+edifice he had built up with so much care and so much risk was
+crumbling about him, he was thinking not of us, but of those who had
+promised and failed him; who had given good words, and left him to
+perish. And I went.
+
+Yet even for that moment of delay it seemed that I might pay too
+dearly. A dozen steps brought me to the low-browed door he had
+indicated, in the thickness of the wall at the foot of the main
+staircase. But already a man was adjusting the last bar. I cried to
+him to open. "Open! I must go out!" I cried.
+
+"_Dieu!_ It is too late!" he said, with a dark glance at me.
+
+My heart sank; I feared he was right. Still he began to unbar, though
+grudgingly, and in half a minute we had the door loose. With a pistol
+in his hand, he opened it on the chain and looked out. It opened on a
+narrow passage--which, God be thanked, was still empty. He dropped the
+chain, and almost thrust me out, cried, "To the left!" and then, as
+dazzled by the sunlight I turned that way, I heard the door slam
+behind me and the chain rattle as it was linked again.
+
+The houses that rose on each side somewhat deadened the noise of the
+mob and the firing; but as I hurried down the alley, bareheaded and
+with the pistol which Froment had given me firmly clutched in my hand,
+I heard a fresh spirt of noise behind me, and knew that the assailants
+had entered the passage by the farther end; and that had I waited a
+moment longer I should have been too late.
+
+As it was, my position was sufficiently forlorn, if it was not
+hopeless. Alone and a stranger, without hat or badge, knowing little
+of the streets, I might blunder at any corner into the arms of one of
+the parties--and be massacred. I had a notion that the church of the
+Capuchins was that which I had visited near Madame Catinot's; and my
+first thought was to gain the main street leading in that direction.
+This was not so easy, however; the alley in which I found myself led
+only into a second passage equally strait and gloomy. Entering this, I
+turned after a moment's hesitation to the left, but before I had gone
+a dozen paces I heard shouting in front of me; and I halted and
+retraced my steps. Hurrying in the other direction, I found myself in
+a minute in a little gloomy well-like court, with no second outlet
+that I could see, where I stood a moment panting and at a loss,
+rendered frantic and almost desperate by the thought that, while I
+hovered there uncertain, the die might be cast, and those whom I
+sought perish for lack of my aid.
+
+I was about to return, resolved to face at all risks the party of
+rioters whom I heard behind me, when an open window in the lowest
+floor of one of the houses that stood round the court caught my eye.
+It was not far from the ground, and to see was to determine; the house
+must have an outlet on the street. In a dozen strides I crossed the
+court, and resting one hand on the sill of the window, vaulted into
+the room, alighted sideways on a stool, and fell heavily to the floor.
+
+I was up in a moment unhurt, but with a woman's scream ringing in my
+ears, and a woman, a girl, cowering from me, white-faced, her back to
+the door. She had been kneeling, praying probably, by the bed; and I
+had almost fallen on her. When I looked she screamed again; I called
+to her in heaven's name to be silent.
+
+"The door! Only the door!" I cried. "Show it me. I will hurt no one."
+
+"Who are you?" she muttered. And still shrinking from me, she stared
+at me with distended eyes.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_ What does it matter?" I answered fiercely. "The door,
+woman! The door into the street!"
+
+I advanced upon her, and the same fear which had paralysed her gave
+her sense again. She opened the door beside her, and pointed dumbly
+down a passage. I hurried through the passage, rejoicing at my
+success, but before I could unbar the door that I found facing me a
+second woman came out of a room at the side, and saw me, and threw up
+her hands with a cry of terror.
+
+"Which is the way to the church of the Capuchins?" I said.
+
+She clapped one hand to her side, but she answered. "To the left!" she
+gasped. "And then to the right! Are they coming?"
+
+I did not stay to ask whom she meant, but getting the door open at
+last I sprang through the doorway. One look up and down the street,
+however, and I was in again, and the door closed behind me. My eyes
+met the woman's, and without a word she snatched up the bar I had
+dropped and set it in the sockets. Then she turned and ran up the
+stairs, and I followed her, the girl into whose room I had leapt, and
+whose scared face showed for a second at the end of the passage,
+disappearing like a rabbit, as we passed her.
+
+I followed the woman to the window of an upper room, and we looked
+out, standing back and peering fearfully over the sill. No need, now,
+to ask why I had returned so quickly. The roar of many voices seemed
+in a moment to fill all the street, while the casement shook with the
+tread of thousands and thousands of advancing feet, as, rank after
+rank, stretching from wall to wall, the mob, or one section of it,
+swept by, the foremost marching in order, shoulder to shoulder, armed
+with muskets, and in some kind of uniform, the rearmost a savage
+rabble with naked arms and pikes and axes, who looked up at the
+windows, and shook their fists and danced and leapt as they went by,
+with a great shout of "_Aux Arenes! Aux Arenes!_"
+
+In themselves they were a sight to make a quiet man's blood run chill;
+but they had that in their midst, seeing which the woman beside me
+clutched my arm and screamed aloud. On six long pikes, raised high
+above the mob, moved six severed heads--one, the foremost, bald and
+large, and hideously leering. They lifted these to the windows, and
+shook their gory locks in sport; and so went by, and in a moment the
+street was quiet again.
+
+The woman, trembling in a chair, muttered that they had sacked
+La Vierge, the red cabaret, and that the bald head was a
+town-councillor's, her neighbour's. But I did not stay to listen. I
+left her where she was, and, hurrying down again, unbarred the door
+and went out. All was strangely quiet again. The morning sun shone
+bright and warm on the long empty street, and seemed to give the lie
+to the thing I had seen. Not a living creature was visible this way or
+that; not a face at the window. I stood a moment in the middle of the
+road, disconcerted; puzzled by the bright stillness, and uncertain
+which way I had been going. At last I remembered the woman's
+directions, and set off on the heels of the mob, until I reached the
+first turning on the right. I took this, and had not gone a hundred
+yards before I recognised, a little in front of me, Madame Catinot's
+house.
+
+It showed to the sunshine a wide blind front, long rows of shuttered
+windows, and not a sign of life. Nevertheless, here was something I
+knew, something which wore a semblance of familiarity, and I hailed it
+with hope; and, flinging myself on the door, knocked long and
+recklessly. The noise seemed fit to wake the dead; it boomed and
+echoed in every doorway of the empty street, that on the evening of my
+arrival had teemed with traffic; I shivered at the sound--I shivered
+standing conspicuous on the steps of the house, expecting a score of
+windows to be opened and heads thrust out.
+
+But I had not yet learned how the extremity of panic benumbs; or how
+strong is the cowardly instinct that binds the peaceful man to his
+hearth when blood flows in the streets. Not a face showed at a
+casement, not a door opened; worse, though I knocked again and again,
+the house I would awaken remained dead and silent. I stood back and
+gazed at it, and returned, and hammered again, thinking this time
+nothing of myself.
+
+But without result. Or not quite. Far away at the end of the street
+the echo of my knocking dwelt a little, then grew into a fuller,
+deeper sound--a sound I knew. The mob was returning.
+
+I cursed my folly then for lingering; thought of the passage in the
+rear of the house that led to the church, found the entrance to it,
+and in a moment was speeding through it. The distant roar grew nearer
+and louder, but now I could see the low door of the church, and I
+slackened my pace a little. As I did so the door before me opened, and
+a man looked out. I saw his face before he saw me, and read it; saw
+terror, shame, and rage written on its mean features; and in some
+strange way I knew what he was going to do before he did it. A moment
+he glared abroad, blinking and shading his eyes in the sunshine, then
+he spied me, slid out, and with an indescribable Judas look at me,
+fled away.
+
+He left the door ajar--I knew him in some way for the door-keeper,
+deserting his post; and in a moment I was in the church and face to
+face with a sight I shall remember while I live; for that which was
+passing outside, that which I had seen during the last few minutes,
+gave it a solemnity exceeding even that of the strange service I had
+witnessed there before.
+
+The sun shut out, a few red altar lamps shed a sombre light on the
+pillars and the dim pictures and the vanishing spaces; above all, on a
+vast crowd of kneeling women, whose bowed heads and wailing voices as
+they chanted the Litany of the Virgin, filled the nave.
+
+There were some, principally on the fringe of the assembly, who rocked
+themselves to and fro, weeping silently, or lay still as statues with
+their foreheads pressed to the cold stones; whilst others glanced this
+way and that with staring eyes, and started at the slightest sound,
+and moaned prayers with white lips. But more and more, the passionate
+utterance of the braver souls laid bonds on the others; louder and
+louder the measured rhythm of "_Ora pro nobis! Ora pro nobis!_" rose
+and swelled through the vaults of the roof; more and more fervent it
+grew, more and more importunate, wilder the abandonment of
+supplication, until--until I felt the tears rise in my throat, and my
+breast swell with pity and admiration--and then I saw Denise.
+
+She knelt between her mother and Madame Catinot, nearly in the front
+row of those who faced the high altar. Whence I stood, I had a side
+view of her face as she looked upward in rapt adoration--that face
+which I had once deemed so childish. Now at the thought that she
+prayed, perhaps for me--at the thought that this woman so pure and
+brave, that though little more than a child, and soft, and gentle, and
+maidenly, she could bear herself with no shadow of quailing in this
+stress of death--at the thought that she loved me, and prayed for me,
+I felt myself more or less than a man. I felt tears rising, I felt my
+breast heaving, and then--and then as I went to drop on my knees,
+against the great doors on the farther side of the church, came a
+thunderous shock, followed by a shower of blows and loud cries for
+admittance.
+
+A horrible kind of shudder ran through the kneeling crowd, and here
+and there a woman screamed and sprang up and looked wildly round. But
+for a few moments the chant still rose monotonously and filled the
+building; louder and louder the measured rhythm of "_Ora pro nobis!
+Ora pro nobis!_" still rose and fell and rose again with an intensity
+of supplication, a pathos of repetition that told of bursting hearts.
+At length, however, one of the leaves of the door flew open, and that
+proved too much; the sound sent three parts of the congregation
+shrieking to their feet--though a few still sang. By this time I was
+half way through the crowd, pressing to Denise's side; before I could
+reach her the other door gave way, and a dozen men flocked in
+tumultuously. I had a glimpse of a priest--afterwards I learnt that it
+was Father Benoit--standing to oppose them with a cross upraised; and
+then, by the dim light, which to them was darkness, I saw--unspeakable
+relief--that the intruders were not the leaders of the mob, but
+foremost the two St. Alais, blood-stained and black with powder, with
+drawn swords and clothes torn; and behind them a score of their
+followers.
+
+In their relief women flung themselves on the men's necks, and those
+who stood farther away burst into loud sobbing and weeping. But the
+men themselves, after securing the doors behind them, began
+immediately to move across the church to the smaller exit on the
+alley; one crying that all was lost, and another that the east gate
+was open, while a third adjured the women to separate--adding that in
+the neighbouring houses they would be safe, but that the church would
+be sacked; and that even now the Calvinists were bursting in the gates
+of the monastery through which the fugitives had retreated, after
+being driven out of the Arenes.
+
+All, on the instant, was panic and wailing and confusion. I have heard
+it said since that the worst thing the men could have done was to take
+the church in their flight, and that had they kept aloof the women
+would not have been disturbed; that, as a fact, and in the event, the
+church was not sacked. But in such a hell as was Nimes that morning,
+with the kennels running blood, and men's souls surprised by sudden
+defeat, it was hard to decide what was best; and I blame no one.
+
+A rush for the door followed the man's words. It drove me a little
+farther from Denise; but as she and the group round her held back and
+let the more timid or selfish go first, I had time to gain her side.
+She had drawn the hood of her cloak close round her face, and until I
+touched her arm did not see me. Then, without a word, she clung to
+me--she clung to me, looking up; I saw her face under the hood, and it
+was happy. God! It was happy, even in that scene of terror!
+
+After that, Madame St. Alais, though she greeted me with a bitter
+smile, had no power to repel me. "You are quick, Monsieur, to profit
+by your victory," she said, in a scathing tone. And that was all.
+Unrebuked, I passed my arm round Denise, and followed close on Louis
+and Madame Catinot; while Monsieur le Marquis, after speaking with his
+mother, followed. As he did so his eye fell on me, but he only smiled,
+and to something Madame said, answered aloud, "_Mon Dieu_, Madame;
+what does it matter? We have thrown the last stake and lost. Let us
+leave the table!"
+
+She dropped her hood over her face; and even in that moment of fear
+and excitement I found something tragic in the act, and on a sudden
+pitied her. But it was no time for sentiment or pity; the pursuers
+were not far behind the pursued. We were still in the church and some
+paces from the threshold giving on the alley, when a rush of footsteps
+outside the great door behind us made itself heard, and the next
+instant the doors creaked under the blows hailed upon them. It was a
+question whether they would stand until we were out, and I felt the
+slender figure within my arm quiver and press more closely to me. But
+they held--they held, and an instant later the crowd before us gave
+way, and we were outside in the daylight, in the alley, hurrying
+quickly down it towards Madame Catinot's house.
+
+It seemed to me that we were safe then, or nearly safe; so glad was I
+to find myself in the open air and out of the church. The ground fell
+away a little towards Madame Catinot's, and I could see the line of
+hastening heads bobbing along before us, and here and there white
+faces turned to look back. The high walls on either hand softened the
+noise of the riot. Behind me were M. le Marquis and Madame; and again
+behind them three or four of M. le Marquis' followers brought up the
+rear. I looked back beyond these and saw that the alley opposite the
+church was still clear, and that the pursuers had not yet passed
+through the church; and I stooped to whisper a word of comfort to
+Denise. I stooped perhaps longer than was necessary, for before I was
+aware of it I found myself stumbling over Louis' heels. A backward
+wave sweeping up the alley had brought him up short and flung him
+against me. With the movement, as we all jostled one another, there
+arose far in front and rolled up the passage between the high walls a
+sound of misery; a mingling of groans and screams and wailing such as
+I hope I may never hear again. Some strove furiously to push their way
+back towards the church, and some, not understanding what was amiss,
+to go forwards, and some fell, and were trodden under foot; and for a
+few seconds the long narrow alley heaved and seethed in an agony of
+panic.
+
+Engaged in saving Denise from the crush and keeping her on her feet, I
+did not, for a moment, understand. The first thought I had was that
+the women--three out of four were women--had gone mad or given way to
+a shameful, selfish terror. Then, as our company staggering and
+screaming rolled back upon us, until it filled but half the length of
+the passage, I heard in front a roar of cruel laughter, and saw over
+the intervening heads a serried mass of pike-points filling the end of
+the passage opposite Madame Catinot's house. Then I understood. The
+Calvinists had cut us off; and my heart stood still.
+
+For there was no retreat. I looked behind me, and saw the alley by the
+church-porch choked with men who had reached it through the church;
+alive with harsh mocking faces, and scowling eyes, and cruel thirsty
+pikes. We were hemmed in; in the long high walls, which it was
+impossible to scale, was no door or outlet short of Madame Catinot's
+house--and that was guarded. And before and behind us were the pikes.
+
+I dream of that scene sometimes; of the sunshine, hot and bright, that
+lay ghastly on white faces distorted with fear; of women fallen on
+their knees and lifting hands this way and that; of others screaming
+and uttering frenzied prayers, or hanging on men's necks; of the long
+writhing line of humanity, wherein fear, showing itself in every
+shape, had its way; above all of the fiendish jeers and laughter of
+the victors, as they cried to the men to step out, or hurled vile
+words at the women.
+
+Even Nimes, mother of factions, parent of a hundred quarterless
+brawls, never saw a worse scene, or one more devilish. For a few
+seconds in the surprise of this trap, in the sudden horror of finding
+ourselves, when all seemed well, at grips with death, I could only
+clutch Denise to me tighter and tighter, and hide her eyes on my
+breast, as I leaned against the wall and groaned with white lips. O
+God, I thought, the women! The women! At such a time a man would give
+all the world that there might be none, or that he had never loved
+one.
+
+St. Alais was the first to recover his presence of mind and act--if
+that could be called action which was no more than speech, since we
+were hopelessly enmeshed and outnumbered. Putting Madame behind him he
+waved a white kerchief to the men by the door of the church--who stood
+about thirty paces from us--and adjured them to let the women pass;
+even taunting them when they refused, and gibing at them as cowards,
+who dared not face the men unencumbered.
+
+But they only answered with jeers and threats, and savage laughter.
+"No, no, M. le Pretre!" they cried. "No, no! Come out and taste steel!
+Then, perhaps, we will let the women go! Or perhaps not!"
+
+"You cowards!" he cried.
+
+But they only brandished their arms and laughed, shrieking: "_A bas
+les traitres! A bas les pretres!_ Stand out! Stand out, Messieurs!"
+they continued, "or we will come and pluck you from the women's
+skirts!"
+
+He glowered at them in unspeakable rage. Then a man on their side
+stepped out and stilled the tumult. "Now listen!" said this fellow, a
+giant, with long black hair falling over a tallowy face. "We will give
+you three minutes to come out and be piked. Then the women shall go.
+Skulk there behind them, and we fire on all, and their blood be on
+your heads."
+
+St. Alais stood speechless. At last, "You are fiends!" he cried in a
+voice of horror. "Would you kill us before their eyes?"
+
+"Ay, or in their laps!" the man retorted, amid a roar of laughter. "So
+decide, decide!" he continued, dancing a clumsy step and tossing a
+half-pike round his head. "Three minutes by the clock there! Come out,
+or we fire on all! It will be a dainty pie! A dainty Catholic pie,
+Messieurs!"
+
+St. Alais turned to me, his face white, his eyes staring; and he tried
+to speak. But his voice failed.
+
+And then, of what happened next I cannot tell; for, for a minute, all
+was blurred. I remember only how the sun lay hot on the wall beyond
+his face, and how black the lines of mortar showed between the old
+thin Roman bricks. We were about twenty men and perhaps fifty women,
+huddled together in a space some forty yards long. Groans burst from
+the men's lips, and such as had women in their arms--and they were
+many--leaned against the wall and tried to comfort them, and tried to
+put them from them. One man cried curses on the dogs who would murder
+us, and shook his fists at them; and some rained kisses on the pale
+senseless faces that lay on their breasts--for, thank God, many of the
+women had fainted; while others, like St. Alais, looked mute agony
+into eyes that told it again, or clasped a neighbour's hand, and
+looked up into a sky piteously blue and bright. And I--I do not know
+what I did, save look into Denise's eyes and look and look! There was
+no senselessness in them.
+
+Remember that the sun shone on all this, and the birds twittered and
+chirped in the gardens beyond the walls; that it wanted an hour or two
+of high noon, a southern noon; that in the crease of the valley the
+Rhone sparkled between its banks, and not far off the sea broke
+rippling and creaming on the shore of Les Bouches; that all nature
+rejoiced, and only we--we, pent between those dreadful walls, those
+scowling faces, saw death imminent--black death shutting out all
+things.
+
+A hand touched me; it was St. Alais' hand. I think, nay, I know,
+for I read it in his face, that he meant to be reconciled to me.
+But when I turned to him--or it may be it was the sight of his
+sister's speechless misery moved him--he had another thought. As the
+black-haired giant called "One minute gone!" and his following howled,
+M. le Marquis threw up his hand.
+
+"Stay!" he cried, with the old gesture of command. "Stay! There is
+one man here who is not of us! Let him pass first, and go!" And he
+pointed to me. "He has no part with us. I swear it!"
+
+A roar of cruel laughter was the answer. Then, "He that is not with me
+is against me!" the giant quoted impiously. And they jeered again.
+
+On that, I take no credit for what I did. In such moments of
+exaltation men are not accountable, and, for another thing, I knew
+that they would not listen, that I risked nothing. And trembling with
+rage I flung back their words. "I am against you!" I cried. "I would
+rather die here with these, than live with you! You stain the earth!
+You pollute the air! You are fiends----"
+
+No more, for with a shrill laugh the man next me, a mere lad,
+half-witted, I think, and the same who had cursed them, sprang by me
+and rushed on the pike-points. Half a dozen met in his breast before
+our eyes--before our eyes--and with a wild scream he flung up his arms
+and was borne back against the side-wall dead and gushing blood.
+
+Instinctively I had covered Denise's face that she might not see. And
+it was well; for at that--there was a kind of mercy in it, and let me
+tell it quickly--the wretches tasting blood broke loose, and rushed on
+us. I saw St. Alais thrust his mother behind him, and almost with the
+same movement fling himself on the pikes; and I, pushing Denise down
+into the angle of the wall--though she clung to me and prayed to
+me--killed the first that came at me with Froment's pistol, and the
+next also, with the other barrel at point blank distance--feeling no
+fear, but only passion and rage. The third bore me down with his pike
+fixed in my shoulder, and for a moment I saw only the sky, and his
+scowling face black against it; and shut my eyes, expecting the blow
+that must follow.
+
+But none did follow. Instead a weight fell on me, and I began to
+struggle, and a whole battle, it seemed to me, was fought over me--in
+that horrible slaughterhouse alley, where they dragged men from
+women's arms, and forced them, screaming, to the wall, and stabbed
+them to death without pity; and things were done of which I dare not
+tell!
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXV.
+
+                          BEYOND THE SHADOW.
+
+
+I thank Heaven that I saw little more than I have told. A score of
+feet trampled on me as the murderers stumbled this way and that,
+and bruised me and covered me with blood that was not my own. And I
+heard screams of men in the death-throe, ear-piercing shrieks of
+women--shrieks that chilled the blood and stopped the breath--mad
+laughter, sounds of the pit. But to rise was to court instant death,
+and, though I had no hope and no looking forward, my momentary passion
+had spent itself and I lay quiet. Resistance was useless.
+
+At last I thought the end had come. The body that pressed on me, and
+partly hid me, was abruptly dragged away; the light came to my eyes,
+and a voice cried, briskly: "Here is another! He is alive!"
+
+I staggered to my feet, stupidly willing to die with some sort of
+dignity. The speaker was a stranger, but by his side was Buton, and
+beyond him stood De Geol; and there were others, all staring at me,
+face beyond face. Still, I could not believe that I was saved. "If you
+are going to do it, do it quickly," I muttered; and I opened my arms.
+
+"God forbid!" Buton answered hurriedly. "Enough has been done already,
+and too much! M. le Vicomte, lean on me! Lean on me, and come this
+way. _Mon Dieu_, I was only just in time. If they had killed you----"
+
+"That is the fifth," said De Geol.
+
+Buton did not answer, but taking my arm, gently urged me along, and De
+Geol taking the other side, I walked between them, through a lane of
+people who stared at me with a sort of brutish wonder--a lane of
+people with faces that looked strangely white in the sunshine. I was
+bareheaded, and the sun dazzled and confused me, but obeying the
+pressure of Buton's hand I swerved and passed through a door that
+seemed to open in the wall. As I did so I dropped a kerchief which
+some one had given me to bind up my shoulder. A man standing beside
+the door, the last man on the right-hand side of the lane of people,
+picked it up and gave it to me with a kindly alacrity. He had a pike,
+and his hands were covered with blood, and I do not doubt that he was
+one of the murderers!
+
+Two men were carrying some one into the house before us, and at the
+sight of the helpless body and hanging head, sense and memory returned
+to me with a rush. I caught Buton by the breast of his coat and shook
+him--shook him savagely. "Mademoiselle de St. Alais!" I cried. "What
+have you done to her, wretch? If you have----"
+
+"Hush, Monsieur, hush," he answered reproachfully. "And be yourself.
+She is safe, and here, I give you my word. She was carried in among
+the first. I don't think a hair of her head is injured."
+
+"She was carried in here?" I said.
+
+"Yes, M. le Vicomte."
+
+"And safe?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+I believe that at that I burst into tears not altogether unmanly; for
+they were tears of thankfulness and gratitude. I had gone through very
+much, and, though the wound in my arm was a trifle, I had lost some
+blood; and the tears may be forgiven me. Nor indeed was I alone in
+weeping that day. I learned afterwards that one of the very murderers,
+a man who had been foremost in the work, cried bitterly when he came
+to himself and saw what he had done.
+
+They killed in Nimes on that day and the two next, about three hundred
+men, principally in the Capuchin convent--which Froment had used as a
+printing-office, and made the headquarters of his propaganda--in the
+Cabaret Rouge, and in Froment's own house, which held out until they
+brought cannon to bear on it. Not more than one-half of these fell in
+actual conflict or hot blood; the remainder were hunted down in lanes
+and houses and hiding-places, and killed where they were found, or,
+surrendering at discretion, were led to the nearest wall, and there
+shot.
+
+Later, both in Paris and the provinces, this severity was commended,
+and held up to admiration as the truest mercy; on the ground that it
+stamped out the fire of revolt which was on the point of blazing up
+and prevented it spreading to the rest of France. But, looking back, I
+find in it another thing; I find in it not mercy, but the first, or
+nearly the first, instance of that strange contempt of human life
+which marked the Revolution in its later stages; of that extravagance
+of cruelty which three years afterwards paralysed society and
+astounded the world, and, by the horrible excesses into which it
+occasionally led men, proved to the philosophers of the Human Race
+that France in the last days of the eighteenth century could do in the
+daylight, at Arras and Nantes and Paris, deeds which the tyrants of
+old confined to the dark recesses of their torture-chambers: deeds--I
+blush to say it--that no other polite country has matched in this age.
+
+But with these crimes--and be it understood I do not refer here to the
+work of the guillotine--I thank God that I have at this time nothing
+to do. They left their traces on later pages of my life--as on the
+life of what Frenchman have they not?--and some day I may revert to
+them. But my task here barely touches them. It is enough for me to say
+that of eighteen men who shared with me the horrors of the alley by
+the Capuchins, four only lived to tell the tale, and look back on the
+walls of Nimes; they and I owing our lives in part to the timely
+arrival of Buton and some foreign representatives, who did not share
+the Cevennols' fanaticism, and partly to the late relenting of the
+murderers themselves.
+
+Of the four, Father Benoit and Louis St. Alais were two, and strange
+was the meeting, when we three, so wonderfully preserved, with clothes
+still torn and disordered, and faces splashed with blood, came
+together in the upstairs _salon_ at Madame Catinot's. The shutters of
+the room, with the exception of one high corner shutter, were still
+closed; dead ashes lay white and cold in the empty fire-place, that
+had blazed so cheerfully in my honour the night I supped with Madame
+Catinot. The whole room was gloomy and chill, the furniture cast long
+shadows, and up the stairs came the clamour of the mob, that having
+seen us into the house eddied curiously round the scene of the murder,
+and could not have enough of it.
+
+A strange meeting, for we three had all loved one another, and by
+stress of the times had been separated. Now we met as from the grave,
+ghostly figures, livid, trembling, with shaking hands and eyes burning
+with the light of fever; but with all differences purged away. "My
+Brother!" "Your Brother!" and Louis' hands met mine, as if the dead
+man who had died with the courage of his race joined them; while
+Father Benoit wrung his hands in uncontrollable grief or walked the
+room, crying: "My poor children! Oh, my poor children! God have mercy
+on this land!"
+
+A low sound of women's voices, and weeping, with the hurrying of feet
+going softly to and fro, came from the next room: and that it was, I
+think, that presently calmed us, so that except for an occasional
+burst of grief on Louis' part we could talk quietly. I learned that
+Madame St. Alais lay there, sadly injured in the _melee_, either by
+her fall or a blow from a foot; and that Denise and Madame Catinot and
+a surgeon were with her. The very room in its gloom was funereal, and
+we talked in whispers--and then sank into silence; or again one or
+other would rise with a shudder of remembrance, and walk the room with
+heaving breast. Presently, the sound of guns coming to our ears, we
+forgot ourselves for a while and talked of Froment, and what chance of
+escape he had, and listened and heard the mob raving and howling as it
+surged by; and then talked again. But always as men who were no longer
+concerned; as men whom death had released from the common obligations.
+
+Presently they came and called Louis, who went to his mother; and then
+after another interval Father Benoit was summoned, and I walked the
+room alone. Silence after so great commotion, solitude, when an hour
+before I had dealt death and faced it in that inferno, safety after
+danger so imminent, all stirred the depths of my heart. When, in
+addition, I thought of St. Alais' death, and recalled the brilliant
+promise, the daring, the brightness of that haughty spirit now for
+ever quenched, I felt the tears rise again. I paced the room in
+uncontrollable emotion, and was thankful for the gloom that allowed me
+to give it vent. Old times, old scenes, old affections rose up, and my
+boyhood; I remembered that we had played together, I forgot that we
+had gone different ways.
+
+After a long time, a long, long time, when evening had nearly come,
+Louis came in to me. "Will you come?" he said abruptly.
+
+"To Madame St. Alais?"
+
+"Yes, she wants to see you," he replied, holding the door open, and
+speaking in the dull even tone of one who knows all.
+
+After such a scene as we had passed through comes reaction; I was worn
+out and I went with him mechanically, thinking rather of the past than
+the present. But no sooner was I over the threshold of the next room,
+which, unlike that I had left, was brilliantly lit by candles set in
+sconces, the shutters being closed, than I came to myself with a
+shock. Propped up with pillows on a bed opposite the door, so that I
+met her eyes and had a full view of her face as I entered, lay Madame
+St. Alais; and I stood. Her face was white with a red spot burning in
+each cheek; her eyes matched the colour in brilliance; but it was
+neither of these things that brought me up suddenly, nor--though I
+noticed it with foreboding--the way in which she plucked at the
+coverlet when she spoke. It was something in her expression; something
+so unfitting the occasion, so bizarre and light that I stood appalled.
+
+She saw my hesitation, and in a gay and slightly affected tone, that
+in a moment told the story, a tone more dreadful under the
+circumstances than the most pathetic outbursts, she reproached me with
+it. "Welcome, M. le Vicomte," she said. "And yet I am glad to see that
+you have some modesty. We will not be hard on you, however. A late
+repentance is better than none, and--where is my fan, Denise? Child,
+my fan!"
+
+Denise rose with a choking sound from her seat by the bed, and must, I
+think, have broken down; we had all nerves worn to the last thread.
+But Madame Catinot saved the situation. Hastily reaching a fan from a
+side table she laid a firm hand on the younger woman's shoulder as she
+passed, and gently pressed her back into her seat.
+
+"Thank you, my dear," Madame St. Alais said, playing an instant with
+the fan, and smiling from side to side, as I had seen her smile a
+hundred times in her _salon_. "And now, M. le Vicomte," she continued
+with ghastly archness, "I think that you will have the grace to say
+that I was a true prophet?"
+
+I muttered something, heaven knows what; the scene, with Madame's
+smiling face, and the others' bowed shoulders and averted eyes, was
+dreadful.
+
+"I never doubted that you would have to join us," she went on, with
+complacency. "And if I were cruel, I should have much to say. But as
+you have returned to your allegiance before it was too late, we will
+let bygones be bygones. His Majesty is so good that--but where are the
+others? We cannot proceed without them."
+
+She looked round with a touch of her native peremptoriness. "Where is
+M. de Gontaut?" she said. "Louis, has not M. de Gontaut arrived? He
+promised to be here to witness the contract."
+
+Louis, from his place by one of the closed windows, where he stood
+with Father Benoit and the surgeon, answered in a strained voice that
+he had not yet arrived.
+
+Madame seemed to find something unnatural in his tone and our
+attitude, she looked uneasily from one to the other of us. "There is
+nothing the matter, is there?" she said, flirting her fan more
+vigorously. "Nothing has happened?"
+
+"No, no, Madame," Louis answered, striving to soothe her. "Doubtless
+he will be here by-and-by."
+
+But a shadow of anxiety still clouded Madame's face. "And Victor?" she
+said. "He has not come either? Louis, are you sure that there is
+nothing the matter?"
+
+"Madame, Madame, you will see him presently," he answered with a
+half-stifled sob; and he turned away with a gesture of horror, which,
+but for one of the curtains of the alcove, she must have seen.
+
+She did not, though there was enough in this to arouse a sane person's
+suspicions. As he spoke, however, Madame's eyes fell on me, and the
+piteous anxiety which had for the moment darkened her face, passed
+away as quickly as the shadow of a cloud passes on an April morning.
+She took up her fan again, and looked at me gaily. "Do you know," she
+said, "I had the strangest dream last night, M. le Vicomte--or was it
+when I was ill, Denise? Never mind. But I dreamed all sorts of
+horrors; that our house here was burned, and the house at Cahors, and
+that we had to fly and take refuge at Montauban, and then--I think it
+was at Nimes. And that M. de Gontaut was murdered, and all the
+_canaille_ were up in arms! As if--as if," she continued, with a
+little laugh, cut short by a gasp of pain, "the King would permit such
+things, or they were possible. And there was something--something
+still more absurd about the Church." She paused, knitting her brows;
+and then with a touch of her fan dismissing the subject: "But I
+forget--I forget. And just when it was most horrible I awoke. It was
+all absurd. So extravagant you would all be ill with laughing if I
+could remember it. I fancied that a pair of red-heeled shoes were as
+good as a death warrant, and powder and patches condemned you at
+once."
+
+She paused. The fan dropped from her hand, and she looked round
+uneasily. "I think--I think I am not quite well yet," she said in a
+different tone, and a spasm crossed her face--it was plain that she
+was in pain. "Louis!" she continued petulantly, "where is the notary?
+He might read the contract. Doubtless Victor and M. de Gontaut will be
+here before long. Where is he?" she continued sharply.
+
+It is easy to say that we might have played our parts; but the pity
+and the horror of it, falling on hearts already tortured by the scenes
+of the day, fairly unmanned us. Denise hid her face, and trembled so
+that the chair on which she sat shook; and Louis turned away
+shuddering, while I stood near the foot of the bed, frozen into
+silence. This time it was the surgeon, a thin young man of dark
+complexion, who put himself forward.
+
+"The papers are in the next room, Madame," he said gravely.
+
+"But you are not M. Pettifer?" she answered querulously.
+
+"No, Madame, he was so unwell as to be unable to leave the house."
+
+"He has no right to be unwell," Madame retorted severely. "Pettifer
+unwell, and Mademoiselle St. Alais' contract to be signed! But you
+have the papers?"
+
+"In the next room, Madame."
+
+"Fetch them! Fetch them!" she answered, her eyes wandering uneasily
+from one to another. And she moved in the bed and sighed as one in
+pain. Then, "Where is Victor? Why does he not come?" she asked
+impatiently.
+
+"I think I hear him," Louis said suddenly. It was the first time he
+had spoken of his own free will, and I caught a new sound in his
+voice. "I will see," he went on, and moving to the door he gave me a
+sign, as he passed, to follow him.
+
+I muttered something, and did so. In the room in which I had waited,
+the half-shuttered room of gloom and shadows, from which Louis had
+fetched me, we found the surgeon groping hastily about. "Some paper,
+Monsieur," he said, looking up impatiently as we entered. "Some paper!
+Almost anything should do."
+
+"Stay!" Louis said, his voice harsh with pain. "We have had too much
+of this--this mockery. I will have no more."
+
+"Monsieur?"
+
+"I say I will have no more!" Louis answered fiercely, a sob in his
+throat. "Tell her the truth."
+
+"She would not believe it."
+
+"At any rate, anything is better than this."
+
+"Do you mean it, Monsieur?" the surgeon asked slowly, and he looked at
+him.
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then I will have no part in it," the man answered with gravity. "I
+acquit myself of all responsibility. Nor shall you do it, Monsieur,
+until you have heard what the inevitable result will be."
+
+"My mother cannot recover," Louis said stubbornly.
+
+"No, Monsieur, nor will she live, in my opinion, more than a few
+hours. When the fever that now supports her begins to wane she will
+collapse, and die. It depends on you whether she closes her eyes,
+knowing none of the evil that has happened, or her son's death; or
+dies----"
+
+"It is horrible!"
+
+"It is for you to choose," the surgeon answered inexorably.
+
+Louis looked round. "There is paper there," he said suddenly.
+
+I suppose that we had been absent from the room no more than a couple
+of minutes, but when we returned we found Madame St. Alais calling
+impatiently for us and for Victor. "Where is he? Where is he?" she
+repeated feverishly. "Why is he late to-day of all days? There is
+no--no quarrel between you?" And she looked jealously at me.
+
+"None, Madame," I said, with tears in my voice. "That I swear!"
+
+"Then why is he not here? And M. de Gontaut?" Her eyes were still
+bright; the red spot burned still in her cheeks; but her features had
+taken a pinched look, she was changed, and her fingers were never
+still. Her voice had grown harsh and unnatural, and from time to time
+she looked round with a piteous expression as if something puzzled
+her. "I am not well to-day," she muttered presently, with a painful
+effort to be herself. "And I forget to be as gay as I should be.
+Mademoiselle, go to M. le Vicomte, and say something pretty to amuse
+us while we wait. And you, M. le Vicomte! In my young days it was
+usual for the _fiance_ to salute his mistress on these occasions. Fie
+on you! For shame, Monsieur! I am afraid that you are a laggard in
+love."
+
+Denise rose, and came slowly to me before them all, but no word passed
+her pale lips, and she did not raise her eyes to mine. She remained
+passive when in accordance with Madame's permission I stooped and
+kissed her cold cheek; it grew no warmer, her eyes did not kindle. Yet
+I was satisfied, more than satisfied; for as I leant over her I felt
+her little hands--little hands I longed to take in mine and shelter
+and protect--I felt them clutch and hold the front of my coat, as the
+child clings to its mother's neck. I passed my arm round her before
+them all, and so we stood at the foot of Madame's bed, and she looked
+at us.
+
+She laughed gaily. "Poor little mouse!" she said. "She is shy yet. Be
+good to her, _mon cher_, she is a tender morsel, and--I don't feel
+well! I don't feel well," Madame repeated, abruptly breaking off, and
+lifting herself in bed, while one hand went with difficulty to her
+head. "I don't--what is it?" she continued, the colour visibly fading
+from her face and leaving it white and drawn, while fear leapt into
+her staring eyes. "What is it? Fetch--fetch some one, will you?
+The--the doctor! And Victor."
+
+Denise slipped from my arm, and flew to her side. I stood a moment,
+then the surgeon touched my arm. "Go!" he muttered. "Go. Leave her to
+the women. It will be quickly over."
+
+And so Madame St. Alais gave Mademoiselle to me at last; and the
+compact for our marriage, into which she had entered so many years
+before with my dead father, was fulfilled.
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+Madame died next morning, being taken not only from the evil to come,
+but from that which was then present, and roared and eddied through
+the streets of Nimes round the unburied body of her son; for she died
+without awaking from the delirium which followed her hurt. I went in
+to see her lying dead and little changed; and in the quiet decorum of
+the lighted chamber I thought reverently of the change which one
+year--one brief year had made, coming at the end of fifty years of
+prosperity. It seemed pitiful to me then, as I stooped and kissed the
+waxen hand--very pitiful; now, knowing what the future had in store,
+remembering the twenty years of exile and poverty and tedium and hope
+deferred, that were to be the lot of so many of her friends, of so
+many of those who had graced her _salons_ at St. Alais and Cahors, I
+think her happy. Possessed of energy as well as pride, a rare
+combination in our order, she and hers dared greatly and greatly lost;
+staked all and lost all. Yet better that, than the prison or the
+guillotine; or growing old and decrepit in a strange land, to return
+to a _patrie_ that had long forgotten them; that stood in the roads
+and jeered at the old berlins and petticoats and headgear that were
+the fashion in the days of the Polignacs.
+
+I have said that the riots in Nimes lasted three days. On the last
+Buton came to me and told us we must go; that to avoid worse things we
+must leave the city without delay, or he and the more moderate party
+who had saved us would no longer be responsible. On this, Louis was
+for retiring to Montpellier, and thence to the _emigres_ at Turin; and
+for a few hours I was of the same mind, desiring most of all to place
+the women in safety.
+
+I owe it to Buton that I did not take a step hard to recall, and of
+which I am sure that I should have repented later. He asked me bluntly
+whither I was going, and when I told him, set his back against the
+door. "God forbid!" he said. "Who go, go. Few will return."
+
+I answered him with heat. "Nonsense!" I cried. "I tell you, within a
+year you will be on your knees to us to come back."
+
+"Why?" he said.
+
+"You cannot keep order without us!"
+
+"With ease," he answered coolly.
+
+"Look at the state of things here!"
+
+"It will pass."
+
+"But who will govern?"
+
+"The fittest," he replied doggedly. "For do you still think, M. le
+Vicomte--after all that has happened--that a man to make laws must
+have a title--saving your presence? Do you still think that the wheat
+will not grow, nor the hens lay eggs, unless the Seigneur's shadow
+falls on them? Do you think that to fight, a man must have powder on
+his head as well as in his musket?"
+
+"I think," I retorted, "that when a man who does not know the sea
+turns pilot it is time to leave the vessel!"
+
+"The pilot will learn," he answered. "And for quitting the vessel, let
+those go who have no business on board. Be guided, Monseigneur," he
+continued in a different tone. "Be guided. They have killed in Nimes
+three hundred in three days."
+
+"And you say, stay?"
+
+"Ay, for there is blood between us," he answered grimly. "That has
+been done now which will not easily be forgiven; that has been done
+which will abide. Go abroad after this--and stay abroad! Or rather do
+not--do not, but be guided," he continued, with rough emotion in his
+voice. "Go home to the Chateau, and be quiet, Monsieur, and no one
+will harm you."
+
+There was much in what he said. At any rate, I thought the advice so
+good that, after some hesitation, I not only determined to follow it,
+but I gave it to the others. But Louis would not change his mind. A
+horror of the country had seized him since his escape; and he would
+go. He raised no opposition, however, when I asked him to give me
+Denise; and within twenty-four hours of her mother's death she became
+my wife, in that dark-shuttered house by the Capuchins' alley, Father
+Benoit performing the service. Louis was at the same time married to
+Madame Catinot, who was to share his exile. Needless to say there were
+no rejoicings at these weddings; no _fete_ and no joy-bells, and no
+bride-clothes, but sobs and wailings, and cold lips and passive hands.
+
+But a bright day has sometimes a weeping dawn, and though for three
+years or more our life knew perils enough and some sorrows--the story
+of which I may one day tell--and we shared the lot of all Frenchmen in
+those times of shame and stress, I had never, no, not for a day or an
+hour, cause to repent the deed done so hurriedly at Nimes. Clinging
+hands and warm lips, eyes that shone as brightly in a prison as a
+palace, cheered me, when things were worst; and when better days came,
+and with them grey hairs and a new France, my wife found means still
+to grace, and ever more and more to share my life.
+
+One word of the man to whom under God I owe it that I won her. He
+survived, but I never saw Froment of Nimes again. On the third day of
+the riots cannon were brought to bear on his tower, it was stormed,
+and the garrison were put to the sword, one man only, I believe,
+escaping with his life. That man was Froment, the indomitable, the
+most capable leader that the Royalists of France ever boasted. He got
+safely to the frontier and thence to Turin, where he was received with
+honour by those whose aid might a little earlier have saved all. Who
+fails must expect buffets, however; the cold shoulder was presently
+turned to him; he was slighted, and as the years went on his
+complaints grew louder. Once I sought to find and assist him, but he
+was then engaged in some enterprise on the African coast, and my
+circumstances were such that I could have done little had I found him.
+Soon afterwards, I believe, he died, though certain information never
+reached me. But dead or alive I owe him gratitude, respect, and other
+things, among which I count the greatest happiness of my life.
+
+
+
+
+                               THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Cockade, by Stanley J. Weyman
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