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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73516 ***





 THE MARCHIONESS
 OF
 BRINVILLIERS

 THE POISONER OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

 A Romance of Old Paris

 By ALBERT SMITH

 LONDON
 RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET
 Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
 1886




 [image: img_01.jpg
 caption: The Escape of Lachaussée Prevented]




 CONTENTS

 CHAPTER I.
 The Mountebank of the Carrefour du Châtelet

 CHAPTER II.
 The Boat-Mill on the River

 CHAPTER III.
 The Arrest of the Physician

 CHAPTER IV.
 The Students of 1665

 CHAPTER V.
 Sainte-Croix and his Creature

 CHAPTER VI.
 Maître Glazer, the Apothecary, and his man, Panurge, Discourse with
 the People on Poisons--The Visit of the Marchioness

 CHAPTER VII.
 Louise Gauthier Falls into the Hands of Lachaussée

 CHAPTER VIII.
 The Catacombs of the Bièvre and their Occupants

 CHAPTER IX.
 The Revenge of Sainte-Croix--The Rencontre in the Bastille

 CHAPTER X.
 What further befel Louise in the Catacombs of the Bièvre

 CHAPTER XI.
 Maître Picard Prosecutes a Successful Crusade against the Students

 CHAPTER XII.
 Exili Spreads the Snare for Sainte-Croix, who falls into it

 CHAPTER XIII.
 Gaudin Learns Strange Secrets in the Bastille

 CHAPTER XIV.
 The Château in the Country--The Meeting--Le Premier Pas

 CHAPTER XV.
 Versailles--The Rival Actresses--The Discovery

 CHAPTER XVI.
 The Grotto of Thetis--The Good and Evil Angels

 CHAPTER XVII.
 The Gascon Goes through Fire and Water to Attract Attention--The
 Brother and Sister

 CHAPTER XVIII.
 The Rue de L’Hirondelle

 CHAPTER XIX.
 The Mischief still Thickens on all Sides

 CHAPTER XX.
 Two Great Villains

 CHAPTER XXI.
 The Dead-house of the Hôtel Dieu, and the Orgy at the Hôtel de Cluny

 CHAPTER XXII.
 The Orgy at the Hôtel de Cluny

 CHAPTER XXIII.
 Sainte-Croix and Marie Encounter an Uninvited Guest

 CHAPTER XXIV.
 Louise Gauthier falls into Dangerous Hands

 CHAPTER XXV.
 Marie has Louise in her Power--The Last Carousal

 CHAPTER XXVI.
 Sainte-Croix Discovers the Great Secret sooner than he expected

 CHAPTER XXVII.
 Matters Become very Serious for all Parties--The Discovery and the
 Flight

 CHAPTER XXVIII.
 The Flight of Marie to Liége--Paris--The Gibbet of Montfaucon

 CHAPTER XXIX.
 Philippe Avails himself of Maître Picard’s Horse for the Marchioness

 CHAPTER XXX.
 The Stratagem at Mortefontaine--Senlis--The Accident

 CHAPTER XXXI.
 Philippe Glazer Throws Desgrais off the Scent

 CHAPTER XXXII.
 Offemont to Liége--An Old Acquaintance--The Sanctuary

 CHAPTER XXXIII.
 The End of Lachaussée

 CHAPTER XXXIV.
 The Game is up--The Trap--Marie Returns with Desgrais to the
 Conciergerie

 CHAPTER XXXV.
 News for Louise Gauthier and Benoit

 CHAPTER XXXVI.
 The Journey--Examination of the Marchioness

 CHAPTER XXXVII.
 The Last Interview

 CHAPTER XXXVIII.
 The Water Question--Exili--The Place de Grêve

 CHAPTER XXXIX.
 Louise Gauthier--The Conclusion

 ENDNOTES.




 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 WORKED FROM THE ORIGINAL ETCHINGS
 By John Leech

1. The Escape of Lachaussée Prevented

2. The Physician and Mountebank

3. The Capture

4. The Students Enlightening Maître Picard

5. Sainte-Croix Upbraiding the Marchioness

6. Louise Claiming Sanctuary

7. Bras D’acier and Lachaussée Outwitted

8. Le Premier Pas

9. The Duel

10. The Good and Evil Angels

11. Sainte-Croix Surprised by Exili

12. The Death of Sainte-Croix

13. The Arrest of Exili

14. ‘Then, Madame, you are mine at last!’

15. The Marchioness going to Execution




 THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS

 CHAPTER I.
 THE MOUNTEBANK OF THE CARREFOUR DU CHÂTELET

One hundred and eighty years ago, on a sunny spring evening in the
year of grace 1665, the space of ground which extended from the front
of the Grand Châtelet in Paris to the rude wooden barrier which then
formed the only safeguard between the public road and the river, at
the northern foot of the Pont au Change, was crowded with a joyous and
attentive mass of people, who had collected from their evening
promenade to this spot, and now surrounded the temporary platform of
an itinerant charlatan, erected in front of the ancient fortress.

Let us rest awhile on the steps of the Pont au Change, to become
acquainted with the localities; for little of its ancient appearance
now remains. The present resident at Paris, however well versed he
might be in the topography of that city, might search in vain for even
the vestiges of any part of the principal building, which rose, at the
date above spoken of, on the banks of the River Seine. The Pont au
Change still exists, but not as it then appeared. The visitor may call
to mind this picturesque structure, with its seven arches crossing to
the Marché aux Fleurs from the corner of the Quai de la Megisserie.
In 1660 it was covered with houses, in common with most of the other
bridges that spanned the Seine, with the exception of the Pont Neuf.
These were now partly in ruins, from the ravages of time, and frequent
conflagrations. Lower down the river might be seen the vestiges of the
Pont Marchand--a wooden bridge, which had been burnt down nearly forty
years before, some of whose charred and blackened timbers still
obstructed the free course of the river. It had stood on the site of
the Pont aux Meuniers--also a wooden bridge--to which six or seven
boat-mills were attached; and these, in consequence of the flooding of
the Seine, dragged the whole structure away in the winter of 1596.

The Grand Châtelet stood at the foot of the Pont au Change; its
ground is now occupied by a square, and an elegant fountain. The
origin of the Châtelet has been lost in antiquity. It had once been a
strong fortress; and its massive round-towers still betokened its
strength. Next it was a prison, where the still increasing city
rendered its position of little value in guarding the gates; and
afterwards it became the Court of Jurisdiction pertaining to the
Provost of Paris. Part of its structure was now in ruins; wild foliage
grew along the summits of its outer walls, and small buildings had
been run up between the buttresses, occupied by retailers of wine and
small merchandise. It was a great place of resort at all times; for a
dark and noisome passage, which ran through it, was the only
thoroughfare from the Pont au Change to the Rue St. Denis, and this
was constantly crowded with foot-passengers.

The afternoon sunlight fell upon the many turrets and spires, and
quivered on the vanes and casements of the fine old buildings that
then surrounded the _carrefour_. Across the river the minarets of the
Palais de Justice rose in sharp outline against the blue sky, glowing
in the ruddy tint; together with the campanile at the corner of the
quay, and the blackened towers of Notre Dame, farther in the Ile de la
Cité, round which flocks of birds were wheeling in the clear spring
air, who had their dwellings amidst the corbels, spouts, and belfries
of the cathedral. There was not an old gray gable or corroded spire
which, steeped in the rays of the setting sun, did not blush into
light and warmth. And the mild season had drawn all the inhabitants of
the houses who were not abroad to their windows, whence they gazed
upon the gay crowd below, through pleasant trellises of climbing
vegetation, which crept along the pieces of twine latticing the
casements. Humble things, indeed, the plants were,--hops, common
beans, wild convolvuli, and the like, spreading from a rude _cruche_
of mould upon the sill; but the beams of the sun came through them
cheerfully; and their shadows danced and trembled on the rude tiled
floor as sportively as on the costly inlaid _parquets_ of the richer
quarters of the city.

The Carrefour du Châtelet was at this period, with the Pont Neuf, the
principal resort of the people of Paris, then, as now, ever addicted
to the promenade and out-of-door lounging. A singularly varied
panorama did the open place present to any one standing at the cross
which was reared in the centre, and gazing around him. He might have
seen a duel taking place between two young gallants on the footpath,
in open contest. Swords were then as quickly drawn forth as tempers;
no appointments were made for the seclusion of the faubourgs beyond
the walls which occupied the site of the present boulevards; and these
quarrels often ended fatally, though merely fought for the possession
of some courtesan who, in common with others, blazed forth in her
sumptuous trappings on the bridges during the afternoon. But the
guards never interfered, and the passengers looked on unconcernedly
until the struggle was, one way or the other, decided.

The beggars were as numerous then as now, perhaps more so; for the
various Cours des Miracles, the ‘Rookeries’ of Paris, if we may be
allowed the expression, which abounded all over the city, offered them
a ready colony and retreat. Here were counterfeiters of every disease
to which humanity is liable, dragging themselves along the rude
footpath; there, beggars of more active habits, who swarmed, cap in
hand, by the side of the splendid carriages which passed along the
quays, to and from the Louvre. The thieves, too, everywhere plied
their vocation; and the absurd custom of carrying the purse suspended
at the girdle, favoured their delinquencies; whence certain of them
acquired the title of _coupe-bourse_, as in England the pick-pockets
were formerly termed cut-purses.

Crowds of soldiers, vendors of street merchandise, and charlatans of
every description filled the _carrefour_. Looking to the tableau
offered by the public resorts of Paris at the present time, the Champs
Elysées for instance (in 1665, consisting only of fields, literally
in cultivation), it is curious to observe how little the principal
features of the assembly have altered from the accounts left us by
accurate and careful delineators of former manners.

But, besides all these, the mere idlers, of both sexes, were numerous
and remarkable; an ever-changing throng of gay habits, glittering
accoutrements, and attractive figures and faces. The license of the
age, unbounded in its extent, permitted appointments of every kind to
be made without notice. Every kind of dissipation was openly
practised, and therefore the world winked at it, as under such
circumstances it always does, even if the place of an illicit
assignation or conference (and in the reign of Louis XIV. they were
seldom otherwise) were a church, as indeed was most frequently the
case. The generally licentious taste extended to the dress and
conversation; hence, from the crowds of gallants who thronged the
_carrefour_, salutations and remarks of strange freedom were
constantly addressed to the handsome women who, in the prodigality of
their display of dazzling busts and shoulders, invited satire or
compliments; nay, to such a pitch was that negligee attire carried,
that some might be seen walking abroad in loose damask robes merely
confined at the waist by a cord of twisted silk.

The platform round which the laughing crowd had assembled was formed
on a light cart that had its wheels covered with some coarse drapery.
There were two occupants of this stage. One of them was a man who
might have numbered some forty years; but his thin furrowed cheeks and
sunken eye would have added another score to his age, in the opinion
of a casual observer. He was dressed entirely in faded black serge,
made after the fashion of the time, with full arms, and trunks
fastened just above the knee. Some bands of vandyked lace were
fastened round his wrists; and he wore a collar of the same material,
whilst his doublet was looped together but a little way down his
waist. A skull-cap of black velvet completed his attire.

Yet few who looked at him took much notice of his dress: the features
of this man absorbed all attention. His face exactly resembled that of
a condor, his cap adding to the likeness by being worn somewhat
forward; from beneath which his long black hair fell perfectly
straight down the back of his neck. His brows were scowling: his eyes
deep-set and jet-black: but they were bloodshot, and surrounded by the
crimson ridges of the lids. His cheeks were pallid as those of a
corpse; and his general figure, naturally tall, was increased in
appearance of height by his attenuated limbs. He took little notice of
the crowd, but remained sitting at a small table on the carriage, upon
which there was a small show of chemical glasses and preparations:
leaving nearly all the business of his commerce to his assistant.

This was a merry fellow, plump, and well-favoured, in the prime of
life. He was habited in a party-fashioned costume of black and white,
his opposite arms and legs being of different colours; and his doublet
quartered in the same style. Round his waist he carried a pointed
girdle, to which small hawk-bells were attached; and he wore the red
hood of the _moyen âge_ period, fitting closely to his neck and head,
and hanging down at the top, to the extremity of which a larger bell
was fastened His face had such a comic expression, that he only had to
wink at the crowd to command their laughter. And when to this he added
his jests, he threw them into paroxysms of merriment.

‘_Ohé! ohé!_ my masters!’ he cried, ‘the first physician of the
universe, and many other places, has come again to confer his
blessings on you. He has philtres for those who have not had enough of
love, and potions for those who have had too much. He can attach to
you a new mistress when she gets coy, or get rid of an old one when
she gets troublesome. And if you have two at once, here is an elixir
that will kill their jealousies.’

‘Send some to Louis!’ cried one of the bystanders.

A roar of laughter followed the speech, and the crowd looked round to
see the speaker. But, although bold enough to utter the
recommendation, he had not the courage to support it. However, the cue
had been given to the crowd, and the applause and laugh of approbation
continued.

‘Give it to La Vallière!’ exclaimed another of the citizens.

‘Or Madame de Montespan,’ cried a third.

‘Or, rather, to her husband!’ was ejaculated in a woman’s voice.

‘Respect his parents,’ exclaimed a bourgeois, with mock solemnity, who
was standing at the foot of the bridge, and pointing to a group of
three figures in bronze relief, which adorned a triangular group of
houses close to where he was stationed. They were those of Louis
XIII., Anne of Austria, and the present King when a child.

‘Simon Guillain, the sculptor, was a false workman!’ shouted the
bystander who had first spoken. ‘Where is the fourth of the family?’

The mountebank, who had been endeavouring to talk through the noise,
found himself completely outclamoured by the uproar that now arose. He
gave up making himself heard, and remained silent whilst the crowd
launched their sallies, or bandied their satirical jibes from one to
the other.

‘Where is the fourth?’ continued the speaker.

‘Ask Dame Perronette, who nursed him!’ was the reply from the other
side of the carrefour.

‘Ask Saint-Mars who locked on his iron mask.’

‘Who will knock and ask at Mazarin’s coffin!’ shouted another, with a
strength of lungs that ensured a hearing. ‘He ought to know best.’

The name of Anne of Austria was on the lips of many; but, with all the
license of the time, they dared not give utterance to it. And,
besides, as the last speaker finished, a yell broke forth that drowned
every other sound; and showed by its force, which partook almost of
ferocity, in what manner the memory of the Cardinal was yet held. The
instant comparative silence was obtained a fellow sung, from a popular
satire upon the late prime minister--


 ‘He trick’d the vengeance of the Fronde,--
 All in the world, and those beyond.
      _A bas! à bas le Cardinal!_
 He trick’d the headsman by his death--
 The devil, by his latest breath,
 Who for his perjured soul did call,
 But found that he had none at all,
      _A bas! à bas le Cardinal!_’


The throng chorused the last words with great emphasis; and then in a
few minutes were once more tranquil. The charged cloud had got rid of
its thunder, and the storm abated.

The physician, who was upon the platform, took little notice of the
clamour. At its commencement, he glared round upon the assembly for a
few seconds, and then once more bent his eyes upon the table before
him. His assistant continued, as soon as he could make himself
audible--

‘_Ohé!_ masters! a philtre for your eyes that will make them work
upon others at a distance. Here is one that will infect the spirit of
the other with sickness at heart; here is a second that will instil
love also by the glance of the eye that is washed with it.’

They were little phials containing a small quantity of coloured fluid.
The price was small, and they were eagerly purchased by the multitude.
But for every one of the second, they purchased a dozen of the first.

‘Art thou sure of its operation?’ asked a looker-on.

‘Glances of love and malice shoot subtly,’ replied the fool; ‘and my
master can draw subtle spirits from simple things that shall work upon
each other at some distance. But your own spirits, with the aid of
this philtre, are more subtle than they.’

‘A proof! a proof!’ cried a young man at the extremity of the
_carrefour_.

‘The philtre is not for such as you,’ cried the mountebank. ‘You have
youth, and a well-favoured aspect; you have a strong arm, a gay coat,
and a trusty rapier. What would man require more?’

The crowd turned to look at the object of the clown’s speech. At the
end of the _carrefour_, two young men were gazing, arm-in-arm, upon
the assemblage. Both were of the same age; their existence might have
reached to some seven or eight-and-twenty years, and they were attired
in the gay military costume of the period; with rich satin
under-sleeves, and bright knots or epaulettes upon the right shoulder.

One of them, to whom the mountebank had more particularly addressed
himself, was of a fair complexion, and wore his own light hair in long
flowing curls upon his shoulders. His face was well formed, and
singularly intelligent and expressive; his forehead high and
expansive, and his eyes deep set beneath the arch of the orbit, ever
bearing the appearance of fixed regard upon whatever object they were
cast. Still to the close observer there was a faint line running from
the edge of the nostril to the outer angle of the lip, which, coupled
with his retreating eye, gave him an expression of satire and
mistrust. But so varied was the general expression of his face, that
it was next to impossible to divine his thoughts for two minutes
together.

The other was dark--his face had less indication of intellect than his
companion’s, although in general contour equally good-looking. Yet did
the features bear a somewhat jaded expression, and the colour on his
cheek was rather fevered than healthy. His eyes too were sunk, but
more from active causes than natural formation; and he gazed on the
objects that surrounded him with the listless air of an idler. His
mind was evidently but little occupied with anything he then saw. His
attire was somewhat richer than his friend’s, betokening a superior
rank in the army.

‘A proof! a proof!’ cried the gayer of the two, repeating his words.

‘Where will you have it then?’ asked the mountebank, looking about the
square. ‘Ha! there is as fair a maiden as ever a king’s officer might
follow, sitting at the cross. Shall she be in love with you?’

Again the attention of the crowd was directed by the glance of the
mountebank towards a rude iron cross that was set up in the
_carrefour_.

At its foot was a young girl, half sitting, half reclining upon the
stone-work which formed its base. She was attired in the costume of
the working order of Paris. Her hair, different from that of the
higher class of females, who wore it in light bunches of ringlets at
the side of the head, was in plain bands, over which a white
handkerchief, edged with lace, was carelessly thrown, falling in
lappets on each side. Her eyes and hair were alike dark as night, but
her beautiful face was deadly pale, until she found the gaze of the
mob had been called towards her. And then the red blood rushed to her
neck and cheeks, as she hastily rose from her seat, and was about to
leave the square.

‘A pretty wench enough,’ cried the cavalier with the black hair, as he
raised himself upon the step of a house to see her. She was still
hidden from his companion.

‘I doubt not,’ answered the other carelessly; ‘but I do not care to
look. No,’ he cried loudly to the mountebank, ‘I have no love to spare
her in return, and that might break her heart.’

The girl started at his voice, and looked towards the spot from whence
it proceeded. But she was unable to see him, for the intervening
people.

‘A beryl!’ cried the fool, showing a small crystal of a reddish tint
to the crowd. ‘A beryl! to tell your fortune then. Who will read the
vision in it? a young maiden, pure and without guile, can alone do it;
are there none in our good city of Paris?’

None stepped forward. The fair-haired cavalier laughed aloud as he
cried out:

‘You seem to have told what is past better than you can predict what
is to come. Ho! sirs, what say you to this slur upon the fair fame of
your daughters and sisters--will none of them venture?’

A murmur was arising from the crowd, when the physician, who had been
glancing angrily at the two young officers, suddenly rose up, and
shouted with a foreign accent--

‘If you will have your destinies unfolded, there needs no beryl to
picture them. Let me look at your hands, and I will tell you all.’

‘A match!’ cried the young soldier. ‘Now, good people, let us pass,
and see what this solemn-visaged doctor knows about us.’

The two officers advanced towards the platform. As they approached it,
the crowd fell back, and then immediately closed after them with eager
curiosity. The friends stood now directly beside the waggon.

‘Your hands!’ said the physician.

They were immediately extended to him.

‘You are in the king’s service,’ continued he.

‘Our dresses would tell you that,’ said the darker of the two.

‘But they would not tell me that you are married,’ answered the
physician. ‘You have two children--a fair wife--and no friend.’

‘’Tis a lie!’ exclaimed the cavalier with the light hair.

 [image: img_02.jpg
 caption: The Physician and Mountebank]

‘It is true,’ replied the necromancer coldly, directing the gaze of
his piercing eye full upon him.

‘But our destiny, our destiny,’ said the dark officer with impatience.

‘You would care but little to know,’ returned the other, ‘if all
should turn out as I here read it. I have said your wife is fair--a
score and a half of years have robbed her of but little of her beauty;
and I have said you have _no friend_. Now read your own fate.’

‘Come away,’ said the fair cavalier, trying to drag his friend by the
arm from the platform. ‘We will hear no more--he is an impostor.’

As the soldier spoke a hectic patch of colour rose on the pale cheek
of the physician, and his eye lighted up with a wild brightness. He
raised his arm in an attitude of denunciation, and cried, with a loud
but hollow voice:

‘You are wrong, young man; and you shall smart for thus bearding one
to whom occult nature is as his alphabet. We have met before--and we
shall meet again.’

‘Pshaw! I know you not,’ replied the other heedlessly.

‘But I know _you_,’ continued the physician. ‘Do you remember an inn
at Milan--do you recollect a small room that opened upon the
grape-covered balcony of the Croce Bianca? Can you call that to mind,
Gaudin de Sainte-Croix?’

As the officer heard his name pronounced, he turned round; and stared
with mingled surprise and alarm at the physician. The latter beckoned
him to return to the platform, and he eagerly obeyed. The crowd
collected round them closer than ever, hustling one another in their
anxiety to push nearer to the platform, for affairs appeared to be
assuming a turn rather more than ordinary. And so intent were they
upon the principal personages of the scene, that they paid no
attention to the girl who had been sitting at the cross, and who, upon
hearing the name, started from her resting-place, and rushed to the
outside of the throng that now closely surrounded the waggon. But the
crowd was too dense for her to penetrate; and she passed along from
one portion to the other, vainly endeavouring to force her way through
it. Some persons roughly thrust her back; others bade her desist from
pressing against them; and not a few launched out into some
questionable hints, as to the object of her anxiety to get closer to
the two officers.

Meanwhile, Sainte-Croix, as we may now call him, had again reached the
edge of the platform. The physician bent down and whispered a word or
two into his ear, which, with all his efforts to retain his
self-possession before the mob, evidently startled him. He looked with
a scrutinising attention, as if his whole perception were concentrated
in that one gaze, at the face of the other, and then with an almost
imperceptible nod of recognition, caught his companion by the arm, and
dragged him forcibly through the crowd.

As the two cavaliers departed, the interest of the bystanders ceased,
and they fell back from the platform, except the girl, who glided
quickly between them, towards where the officers had been standing.
But they were gone; and, after a vain search amidst the crowd in the
_carrefour_, she retired back to where she had been sitting, and
covering her face with her hands, was once more unheeded and alone.




 CHAPTER II.
 THE BOAT-MILL ON THE RIVER

At last the sun went down, and twilight fell upon the towers and
pointed roofs of the old chatelet. The loiterers gradually disappeared
from the place and bridge. The rough _voitures de place_, which
clattered incessantly over a pavement so rude and uneven that it
became a wonder how they were enabled to progress at all, one by one
withdrew from the thoroughfares, carrying a great portion of the
general noise with them, not more proceeding from the hoarse voices of
the drivers than from the ceaseless cracking of their long whips,
which was thus always going on. The cries of those who sold things in
the streets was also hushed, as well as the tolling and chiming of the
innumerable bells in the steeples of the churches, which until dusk
never knew rest, but tried to outclang each other as noisily as the
supporters of the different sects, whose hour of meeting they
announced. One or two lanterns were already glimmering from the
windows of private houses; for by this means only were the streets of
Paris preserved from utter darkness throughout the night: and the full
moon began to rise slowly behind the turrets of Notre Dame.

There was little security, then, in the most public places, and few
cared to be about after dusk, except in the immediate company of the
horse or foot patrol, save those who only stalked abroad with the
night, so that it was not long before the _carrefour_ was nearly
deserted. Two persons alone remained there. One was the assistant to
the physician, who had left him in charge of the platform; and he was
now occupied in harnessing two miserable mules to the waggon, in which
the platform and the apparatus had been stowed away. The other was the
girl whom we have before spoken of, and who had remained at the cross
in almost the same attitude--one of deep sorrow and despondency.

The fool had nearly finished his labours, and was preparing to leave
the square, when the young female quitted her resting-place, and
advanced towards him with a timid and faltering step. Believing her to
be some wretched wanderer of the _carrefour_ proceeding to her home
before the curfew sounded, he took but little notice of her, and was
about to seize the mules by the bridle and lead them onwards, when she
placed her hand upon his arm and implored him to stop.

‘Now, good mistress--your business,’ said the assistant; ‘for I have
little time to spare. A sharp appetite hurries labour more than a
sharp overseer; and my stomach keeps time better than the bell of
Notre Dame.’

‘I wished to purchase something,’ returned the girl.

‘Ah! you are too late--we have nought left but holy pebbles to keep
steeds from the nightmare, and philtres for the court dames to retain
their butterfly lovers. Good-night, _ma belle_. Hir-r-r-r! Jacquot!
hir-r-r-r!’

The last expression was addressed to his mules, as they rattled the
old bells upon their head-pieces, and moved forwards. Again the girl
seized the upraised hand of the mountebank, as he was about to use the
whip, and begged him to desist.

‘I am sure you have what I want,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I will pay you
for it--all that I have left from my wages is yours. Is not your
master the doctor St. Antonio?’

‘Well--and suppose he is?’

‘They talk strangely of his art about Paris, as being able to play
with life and death as he chooses. They say that he can enchant
medicines; and with a little quicksilver so prepared destroy a whole
family--nay, an army.’

‘Were you to believe an hundredth part of the lies they tell daily
about Paris, your credulity would find time for nothing else,’
returned the other. ‘What should one so young and fair as you want
with poison, beyond keeping the rats from your _mansarde_?--for to
that end alone does my master prepare it, and even then in small
quantities.’

‘I wanted it for myself,’ replied the girl. ‘I have nothing left in
this world to care about. I wish to die.’

Her head drooped, and her voice faltered as she spoke these words, so
that they were almost inaudible; more so than the deep and weary sigh
that followed them.

‘Die--sweetheart!’ cried the mountebank cheeringly, as he turned
towards her, and raised her chin with his hand. ‘Die!--St. Benoit, who
rules my fete day, prevent it! You must not die this half-century.
Besides, although the doctors can’t yet find poisons in the stomach,
like witches’ nails and pins, yet the stones can whisper, in Paris,
all they hear. And what should we get--I and my master--for thus
serving you?’

‘All that I possess in the world,’ answered the girl.

‘Ay--that would come first, without doubt; and next, a short shrift, a
long cord, and a dry faggot, on the Place de Grêve. No, no,
sweetheart: if you brought as much gold as my mules could drag home,
we could not do it.’

‘Then you will not let me have it?’

‘Why, you silly pigeon, I have told you so. With that pretty face and
those dark eyes be sure you have much yet in store to live for. Or if
you must die, don’t make any one your murderer. The Seine is wide and
deep enough for all; and, besides, will cost you nothing.’

He spoke these words less in a spirit of levity than the wish to cheer
the poor applicant by his good-humoured tones. But the girl clasped
her hands together, and looked round with a shudder towards the quays.

‘The river!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have gazed upon it often, but my heart
failed me. I shrank from the cold black water as it tore and struggled
through those dark arches: I could not bear to think that its foul
polluted current would be my only winding-sheet. I would sooner die in
my little room; and then in the morning the sun would fall upon me as
it does now, but it would not awaken me to another day of weeping--the
same sun that shines in Languedoc, only there it is brighter.’

‘Are you from Languedoc, then?’ inquired the man.

‘I was born near Béziers,’ she replied sadly.

‘Mass! why that is my own country. What is your name?’

‘Louise Gauthier.’

‘I don’t remember to have heard it. I ought to have known, though,
that you were from the south by your accent. And what brought you to
Paris?’

‘There has been much misery and persecution amongst us,’ answered the
girl; ‘for we are Protestant; almost all our homes have been broken
up, for that reason, and so,’--and she hesitated--‘and so I came up to
seek work.’

‘Was there no other reason?’ asked the man. ‘I think there must have
been.’

‘I went to the Gobelins,’ continued Louise, avoiding the question,
‘and got employment. I heard that others had gained money there.’

‘And rank too,’ said the fool. ‘My master had a customer this
afternoon--an officer in the King’s army, who is better known as the
Marquis of Brinvilliers than by his proper name of Antoine Gobelin.
The water of the Bièvre has rather enriched his blood; he has besides
a fair income, and a fairer wife. And are you there still?’

‘I am not. I was discharged from the atelier this morning for
resisting the importunities of the superintendent Lachaussée, and I
am now alone--alone!’

She hid her face in her hands, and burst into tears.

‘And why not return to Languedoc, my poor girl?’ said the mountebank,
in a kind voice, which associated but oddly with his quaint dress.
‘They would scarcely care to persecute such a gentle thing as
yourself--Protestant though you be.’

‘No, no, I cannot leave Paris. There is another object that keeps me
here; or rather it did--for all hope is gone. There is now nothing
left for me but death. I could have remained unheeded in the country;
but in this great city the solitude is fearful: those who are alone,
alone can tell how terrible it is.’

Although the duty of the charlatan was to impose upon the public in
every fashion that they were likely to bite at most readily, yet there
was a kind heart under his motley attire. He threw his whip over the
backs of the two mules, and taking the weeping girl kindly by the
hands, said to her:

‘Come, come, countrywoman: I shall not leave you to your loneliness
this night at least. If aught were to happen to you, I should feel
that I myself had brought your body on the Grêve. My wife and myself
live in a strange abode, but there is room for you; and you shall go
with me.’

The girl looked at him with an expression of mistrust which his
calling might well have occasioned; and murmured out a few faint words
of refusal.

‘Bah!’ exclaimed the other. ‘You are from Languedoc, like myself, and
therefore we are neighbours. I would wager that we have sat under the
same trees, within a short half-league of Béziers.’

And he commenced humming the refrain of a ballad in the old Provençal
dialect. It was evidently well known to Louise. She shook her head,
and pressed her hand before her eyes as if to shut out some sad image
that her ideas had conjured up.

‘You have heard that before?’ asked the man.

‘Very often--I know it well.’

‘You heard it from a man, then, I will be sworn; and perhaps a
faithless one. He wrote well, long, long ago, who said that those who
were gifted with music and singing loved our Languedocian romances,
and travelled about the earth that they might betray women. My
_marotte_ to an old sword-belt that the tune sang itself in your ears
all the way to Paris. Was it not so?’

The girl returned no answer, but remained silent, with her eyes fixed
upon the ground.

‘Well, well--we will not press for a reply. But you shall come with me
this night, _ma bonne_, for I will not leave you so. Only let me take
you to where our mules’ lodging is situated, and then I will bring you
back to my own.’

He scarcely waited for her acquiescence, but lifting her gently in his
arms, placed her on the waggon. And then he gave his signal to the
mules, and they moved along the _carrefour_, over which the darkness
was now stealing.

They passed along the quays and the Port au Foin, now dimly lighted by
the few uncertain and straggling lanterns before alluded to, until the
mules turned of their own accord into a court of the Rue St. Antoine.
A peasant in wooden shoes clamped forward to receive them, with whom
the charlatan exchanged a few words previously to conducting his
companion back again, nearly along the same route by which they had
arrived at the stables.

‘You may call me Benoit,’ he said, as he perceived that the girl was
sometimes at a loss how to address him. ‘Benoit Mousel. Do not stand
upon adding _maître_ to it. We are compatriots, as I have told you,
and therefore friends. The quays are dark at night, but the river is
darker still. You made a good choice of two evils in keeping out of
it.’

They walked on, barely lighted through the obscurity, until they came
to the foot of the Pont Notre Dame--the most ancient of those still
existing at Paris. It is now, as formerly, on the line of thoroughfare
running from the Rue St. Jacques, in the Quartier Latin, to the Rue
St. Martin. The modern visitor may perhaps recall it to mind by a
square tower built against its western side, flanked by two small
houses raised upon piles, beneath which are some wheels, by whose
working some thirty of the fountains in the streets of Paris are
supplied with water. This mechanism was not constructed until a few
years after the date of our story. Before that, the Pont Notre Dame,
in common with the other bridges we have mentioned, was covered with
houses, which remained in excellent condition, to the number of
sixty-eight or seventy, up to the commencement of the last century.
They were then destroyed; and now the parapets are covered with boxes
of old books ranged in graduated prices; whilst shoe-blacks,
lucifer-merchants, and beautifiers of lap-dogs occupy the kerb of the
pavement.

Benoit descended some rude steps leading from the quay to the river,
guiding Louise carefully by the hand; and dragging a boat towards
them, which was lying there in readiness, embarked with his trembling
companion, as if to cross the river. But he stopped half-way, close to
the pier of the bridge, and then the girl saw that they had touched a
long low range of what appeared to be houses, which looked as if they
floated on the water. And, in effect, they did so; their continuous
vibration and the rushing of the river between certain divisions in
their substructure, showing that they were boat-mills.

‘Where are you taking me?’ asked Louise timidly.

‘To our house,’ replied Benoit. ‘You have nothing to fear. I told you
it was an odd dwelling. Now mind how you place your foot on the
timber. So: gallantly done.’

He assisted her from the boat, which was rocking on the dark stream of
the river as it rushed through the arches, on to a few frail steps of
wood which hung down from one of the buildings to the water. Then
making it fast to one of the piles, he passed with her along a small
gallery of boards, and, pushing a door open, entered the floating
house.

They were in a small apartment, forming one of a long range which had
apparently been built in an enormous lighter; and in one of these the
large shaft of a mill-wheel could be seen turning heavily round, as it
shook the building, whilst the whole mass oscillated with the peculiar
vibration of a floating structure. At a small table in the middle of
this chamber, a buxom-looking female, in a half-rustic, half-city
attire, was busily at work with her needle, at a rude table. There was
little other furniture in this ark. A small stove, some seats, and a
few hanging shelves, on which were placed some bottles of coloured
fluids, retorts, and little earthenware utensils, used in chemical
analysis, completed the list of all that was movable in the room. But
the circumstance that struck Louise most upon entering, was the sharp,
pungent atmosphere which filled the floating apartment--so noxious
that it produced a violent fit of coughing as soon as she inhaled it.
Nor was her conductor much less affected.

‘_Paff!_’ he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak; ‘our master is at
his work again, brewing devil’s drinks and fly-powder. Never mind, _ma
pauvrette_: you will be used to it directly.’

The woman had risen from her seat when they entered, and was now
casting a suspicious glance at Louise and an inquiring one at her
husband alternately.

‘Oh! you have nothing to be jealous of, Bathilde,’ he continued,
addressing his better half. ‘Here is a countrywoman from Béziers,
without a friend, and dying for love, for aught I know to the
contrary. We must give her a lodging for to-night at least.’

‘Do not let me intrude,’ said Louise, turning to the female. ‘I fear
that I am already doing so. Let me be taken on shore again, and I will
not put you to inconvenience.’

‘Not a word of that again, or I shall swear that your are no
Languedocian. A pretty journey you would have, admitting you went to
your lodgings, from here to the Rue Mouffetard--for I suppose you live
near the Gobelins. There are dangerous vagabonds at night in the
Faubourg Saint Marcel; and they say the young clerks of Cluny study
more graceless things in the streets than learned ones at their
college. A woman, young and comely like yourself, was found in the
Bièvre the other morning. I saw them carrying the body to the Val de
Grace myself.’

While Benoit was thus talking his wife had been doing the humble
honours of their floating establishment towards their new guest. She
had placed her own seat near the fire for Louise--for the evening was
chilly, the more so on the river--and next proceeded to lay their
frugal supper on the table, consisting of dried apples, a long log of
bread, and a measure of wine.

‘You will not incommode us, _petite_,’ said Bathilde. ‘You can sleep
with me, and Benoit will make his bed amongst the sacks, where he
dozes when he has to keep up the doctor’s fires all night long.’

Bathilde was not two years older than Louise; yet she felt that, being
married, she had the position of a matron, and so she patronised her.
But it was done with an innocent and good heart.

‘Ay, I could sleep anywhere near the old mill-wheel,’ said Benoit.
‘Its clicking sends me off like a cradle. The only time I never close
my eyes is at the Toussaint; and that is because I’ve stopped it. Look
at it there! plodding on just as if it were a living thing.’

The charlatan’s assistant looked affectionately at the beam which was
working at the end of the chamber; and then wishing to vent the loving
fulness of his heart upon something more sensible of it, he pinched
his wife’s round chin, and kissed her rosy face with a smack that
echoed again.

‘Hush!’ cried Bathilde; ‘you will disturb the doctor.’ And she pointed
to a door leading from the apartment.

‘Is there any one else here, then?’ asked Louise.

‘Only my master,’ replied Benoit. ‘He came to lodge here when he first
arrived in Paris, because he did not want to be disturbed, as he said.
Well, he has his wish. His rent pays ours, and I get a trifle for
playing his fool. Mass! think of this attire in Languedoc!’

They proceeded with their supper. Benoit fell to it as though he had
fasted for a week, but Louise tasted nothing, in spite of all the
persuasions of her honest entertainers. She sipped some wine which
they insisted on her taking; and then remained sad and pale, in the
deepest despondency.

Her gloom appeared to affect the others. The charlatan looked but
sadly for his calling; and every now and then Bathilde turned her
large bright eyes from Benoit to Louise, and then back again to
Benoit, as if more fully to comprehend the unwonted introduction of
her young guest. And sometimes she would assume a little grimace,
meant for jealousy, until her husband reassured her with a
pantomimical kiss blown across the table.

At last Benoit and his helpmate thought it would be kinder to leave
her to her sorrow; and they began, as was their custom, to talk about
the events of the day. The interruption of the two young cavaliers was
of course mentioned, and was exciting the earnest attention of Louise,
when the conversation was broken by the door opening suddenly at the
end of the apartment, and the physician of the Carrefour du Châtelet
passed hastily out and approached the table.

‘Hist! Benoit!’ he exclaimed, in a low and somewhat flurried tone;
‘some one has gained the mills besides ourselves. Who is that girl?’
he said sharply, as his eye fell upon Louise.

‘A poor countrywoman whom I have given a lodging to for the night. She
works at the Gobelins.’

The physician moved towards Louise, and clutching her arm with some
force, glared at her with terrible earnestness, as he continued:

‘You know how this has come about. Who is it?--answer on your sacred
soul.’

The terrified girl, for a minute, could scarcely reply, until the
others repeated his question, when she exclaimed--

‘I do not understand you, monsieur. I have no one in Paris with whom I
can exchange a word--none, but these good people.’

‘I do not see how any one could have got to the mill,’ said Benoit. ‘I
brought over the boat myself from the quay.’

‘And you have not moved from this room?’

‘Never, since I disembarked with this maiden.’

‘It is strange,’ said the physician. ‘I had put out my lamp, the
better to watch the colour of a lambent violet flame that played about
the crucible. The lights from the bridge fell upon the window, and I
distinctly saw the shadow of a human being, if human it were, pass
across the curtain on the outside. Hark! there is a noise above!’

There could be now no doubt; the shuffling of feet was plainly audible
on the roof of the floating house; but of feet evidently moved with
caution.

‘I will go and see,’ cried Benoit, taking down the lamp, which was
suspended from one of the beams. ‘If they are intruders, I can soon
warn them off.’

‘No, no!’ cried the chemist eagerly; ‘do not leave the room; barricade
the door; no one must enter.’

‘We have nothing to barricade it with,’ replied Benoit, getting
frightened himself at the anxiety of his master. ‘Oh dear! oh dear! we
shall be burnt for witches on the Grêve. I see it all.’

‘Pshaw! imbecile,’ cried the other. ‘Here, you have the table, these
chairs. Bring sacks, grain, anything!’

The women had risen from their seats, and retreated into a corner of
the apartment near the stove. The physician seized the table, and,
implicitly followed by Benoit, was moving towards the door, when there
was a violent knocking without, and a command to open it immediately.

‘It is by the king’s order,’ said Benoit: ‘we cannot resist.’

He reached the door, and unfastened it before the physician could pull
him back, although he attempted to do so. It flew open, and a party of
the Guet Royal entered the room, headed by the chief of the marching
watch of Paris.

‘Antonio Exili,’ said the captain, pointing his sword towards the
physician, ‘commonly known as the Doctor St. Antonio, I arrest you in
the king’s name!’

‘_Exili!_’ ejaculated Benoit, gazing half aghast at his master.




 CHAPTER III.
 THE ARREST OF THE PHYSICIAN

The name pronounced was that of an Italian, terrible throughout all
Europe; at the mention of whom even crowned heads quailed, and whose
black deeds, although far more than matters of surmise, had yet been
transacted with such consummate skill and caution as to baffle the
keenest inquiries, both of the police and of the profession. Exili,
who had been obliged to fly from Rome, as one of the fearful secret
poisoners of the epoch, was instructed in his hellish art, it has been
presumed, by a Sicilian woman named Spara. She had been the confidante
and associate of the infamous Tofana, from whom she acquired the
secret at Palermo, where the dreaded preparation which bore her name
was sold, with little disguise, in small glass phials, ornamented with
some holy image.

Six years previous to the commencement of our romance, a number of
suspicious deaths in Rome caused unusual vigilance to be exercised by
the police of that city, little wanting at all times in detective
instinct; and the result was the detection of a secret society (of
which Spara was at the head, ostensibly as a fortune-teller), to whose
members the various deaths were attributed; inasmuch, amongst other
suspicious circumstances, as Spara had frequently, in her capacity of
sybil, predicted their occurrence. Betrayed through the jealousy of
one of the party, all in the society were arrested, and put to the
torture; a few were executed, and others escaped. Amongst these last
Exili eluded the punishment no less due to him than to the rest, and,
flying from Italy, came into France, and finally established himself
at Paris under an assumed name; but his real condition was tolerably
well understood by the police, although his depth and care never gave
them tangible ground for an arrest. He practised as a simple
physician. In this portion of his career little occurred to throw
suspicion on his calling; but, driven at length by poverty to sink his
dignity in a less precarious method of gaining a livelihood, he had
appeared as the mere charlatan, and it was now hinted, that whilst he
sold the simplest drugs to the people, poisons of the most subtle and
violent nature could be obtained through his agency. Where they came
from no one was aware, but their source was attributed, like many
other uncertain ones, to the devil. These suspicions were, however,
principally confined to the police; the mass looked upon him as an
itinerant physician of more than ordinary talents.

Those, indeed, to whom he had administered potions had been known to
die; but his skill in pharmacy enabled him to produce his effects as
mere aggravated symptoms of the disease he was ostensibly endeavouring
to cure. And chemical science, in those days, was so far behind its
modern state, that no delicate tests of the presence of poisons--even
of those offering the strongest precipitates--were known. At the
present time, our poisons have increased to tenfold violence and
numbers: yet in no instance, scarcely, could an atom be now
administered, without its presence, decomposed or entire, being laid
bare on the test-glass of the inquirer.

‘Exili!’ again gasped Benoit, as he drew nearer his wife and Louise;
in an agony of fear, also, that the part he bore in the public
displays of the medicines would involve him in the punishment.

‘I must have your authority, sir, before I can be arrested,’ replied
Exili, as we may now call him, with singular and suddenly assumed
calmness. ‘And you must also prove that I am the man of whom you are
in search.’

‘I can satisfy you on both points,’ cried a voice from amidst the
guard.

The soldiers fell back on either side of the doorway, and Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix, the young officer who had held parley with him on the
Carrefour du Châtelet, entered the room.

‘I know you to be the same Antonio Exili,’ he continued; ‘you
confessed it to me yourself but this afternoon. And here,’ he added,
as he held a paper towards him, ‘is the _lettre de cachet_ for your
arrest.’

The girl, who had started at the first sound of Sainte-Croix’s voice,
now leant anxiously forward as he entered the room; and when she saw
him, a sudden and violent cry of surprise burst from her lips. She
checked herself, however, whilst he was speaking, but as soon as he
had finished, she rushed up to him, and, grasping his arm, cried
‘Gaudin!’

‘Louise!--you here!’ exclaimed Sainte-Croix. ‘I thought you were in
Languedoc,’ he added, dropping his voice, whilst his brow contracted
into an angry frown. He was evidently ill-prepared for the rencontre,
and but little pleased at it.

The Italian took advantage of the temporary diversion afforded by the
interview. With the nerve and muscular strength of a young man, he
vaulted over the table against which he had been standing, and rushed
into his own apartment, closing the door, which was of massy wood,
against his pursuers. But this only caused the delay of an instant.
Finding that their partisans made not the least effect upon the thick
panels, the officer in command ordered them to take a large beam that
was lying on the floor--apparently a portion of some old
mill-machinery, and use it as a battering ram. It was lifted by six or
eight of the guard, and hurled with all their united strength against
the door. For the first two or three blows it resisted their efforts,
but at last gave way with a loud crash, and the laboratory of the
physician lay open before them.

‘_En avant!_’ cried the captain of the watch; ‘and take him, dead or
alive. Follow me.’

The officer entered the room, but had scarcely gone two steps, when he
uttered a loud and spasmodic scream and fell on the floor. A guard,
who was following him, reeled back against his fellows with the same
cry, but fainter; and immediately afterwards a dense and acrid vapour
rolled in heavy coloured fumes into the outer chamber. Its effects
were directly perceptible upon the rest, who fell back seized with
violent and painful contractions of the windpipe; and the man who had
kept close upon their commander, was now also struck down by the
deadly vapour, which a violent draught of cold air spread around them.
But they had time to perceive that a window at the end of the small
laboratory was open, and that Exili had passed through it and escaped
to the river.

‘It is poison! it is poison!’ cried Benoit lustily, apparently most
anxious to give every information in his power respecting his late
tenant, and turning fool’s evidence in his eagerness to clear his own
character. ‘He has broken the bottle it was in. I know it well. He
killed some dogs with it, before the Pâques, as if they had been
shot. Keep back, on your lives!’

During this short and hurried scene, Louise had not once quitted her
hold of Sainte-Croix, but, in extreme agitation, the result of mingled
terror and surprise, still clung to him.

‘Beware! beware!’ continued Benoit; ‘I know it well, I tell you. He
has water that burns like red irons; and he pours it on money, which
leaves it blue. It will kill you! He has broken the bottle that held
it.’

And he continued reiterating these phrases with almost frantic
volubility, until one of the guard, at the risk of his life, pulled to
the shattered door as well as he was able.

‘Gaudin!’ cried Louise as she fell at his feet, still clinging to his
arm and his rich sword-belt. ‘Gaudin, only one word--tell me that you
have not forgotten me--that you still love me.’

‘Yes, yes, Louise; I still love you,’ he replied in a careless and
impatient tone. ‘But this is not the place for scenes like these; you
might, in delicacy, have spared me this annoying persecution.’

‘Persecution, Gaudin! I have given up all for you; I have abandoned
everything, even the hope of salvation for my own soul; I have
wandered day after day through the heartless streets of Paris, or
worked at the Gobelins until my spirits have been crushed to the
earth, and all my strength gone, by the struggle to support myself;
and all in the hope of seeing you again. Tell me--do you still care
for me, or am I a clog upon your life in this gay city?’

‘Not now, Louise; not now,’ returned Sainte-Croix, ‘another time. This
is ill-judged, it is unkind. I tell you that I still love you. There,
now let me go, and do not thus lower me before these people.’

‘And when shall I see you again?’

‘At any time--to-morrow--whenever you please--at any place,’ continued
Sainte-Croix, endeavouring to disembarrass himself from her grasp.
‘There, see! I am wanted by the guard.’

‘Gaudin! only one kind word, spoken as you once used to do, to tell me
where I may see you: to show me that you do not hate me.’

‘Pshaw! Louise, this is childish at such a moment. Let go my arm, if
you would escape an injury. You see I am wanted. You are mad thus to
annoy me.’

‘Heaven knows I have had enough to make me so,’ returned the girl,
struggling with the hands of the other as he tried to free himself
from her grasp. ‘But, Gaudin! I beg it on my knees, one, only one,
kind word. Ah!’

She screamed with pain, as Sainte-Croix, in desperation, seized her
wrists and twisting them fiercely round, forced her to loose her hold.
And then casting her from him, with no light power, she fell senseless
on the floor at the feet of Bathilde, who had remained completely
paralysed since the commencement of the hurried scene.

‘He will escape by the river,’ cried the second in command of the
night watch. ‘We must follow him.’

Pressing onward with the rest, Sainte-Croix passed from the chamber
and stood on the edge of the floating tenements. The boat in which
Benoit had arrived was still lying where it had been left fastened by
a cord. He directly ordered two of the men into it, and entering
himself, divided the cord that held it with his sword, and then put
forth upon the river. The others gained the roof of the mill, and they
were then joined by some members of the Garde Bourgeois, who had
descended, and were still coming down by a rope-ladder, depending from
the window of one of the old gabled houses upon the Pont Notre Dame.
This was evidently the manner in which they had gained access to the
mill, when their feet had first been heard overhead by Exili.

In the meanwhile, the object of their pursuit had escaped by the
window, as has been seen, and dropped into the hollow of one of the
lighters that floated the entire structure, with the intention of
passing underneath the mill-floor to the spot at which another small
boat, used by himself alone, was fastened. But it was here quite dark,
and the passage was one of extreme caution, being amongst the timbers
of the woodwork upholding the mill, between some of which the large
black wheels were turning, as the deep and angry water foamed and
roared below them, lashing the slippery beams or leaping wildly over
the narrow ledges of the lighters.

Supplied with torches by the Garde Bourgeois, the others pervaded
every portion of the mill, and at last came upon the track of their
object, his lace collar having caught some projecting woodwork in his
flight. One or two of them leapt boldly down into the lighters, and
the others clung round the structure above upon frightfully insecure
foot-room. They were now under the apartment, and entirely amidst the
timbers of the works. The light of their torches revealed to them
Exili passing onward, at the peril of his life, to gain the boat; but
close before them.

A cry of recognition broke from two or three of the guard, and the
Italian, as a last chance, caught hold of a beam which overhung the
wheels, contriving, at an imminent risk, to pass himself across the
channel of the current by swinging one hand before the other. Those
who had regarded his general appearance, would scarcely have given him
credit for so much power.

 [image: img_03.jpg
 caption: The Capture]

He gained the other side. One of the guard immediately attempted to
follow him, and seized the beam; but he had not crossed half-way
before his strength failed him, his armour proving too heavy, together
with his body, for his arms to sustain; and he fell upon the wheel as
it turned, entangling his legs in the float-boards. He was borne
beneath the current, and immediately afterwards re-appeared on the
wheel, throwing his arms wildly about for help. Scarcely had a cry
escaped his lips, when he again passed beneath the surface; the water
disentangled him and bore him down the stream for an instant, until he
sank, and was seen no more.

Meanwhile Exili was endeavouring to unfasten his boat, and the Garde
Bourgeois passing round the other side of the mill had arrived close
to where he was stationed, cutting off his retreat in that direction.
There was now no chance but the river; and without a moment’s
hesitation he plunged into the boiling current, trusting to the
darkness for his escape. At the same moment a bourgeois threw off his
upper garments, and letting himself down the outer side of the lighter
into the river, where the stream was somewhat less powerful, called
for a torch, which he contrived to keep above the water in his left
hand, striking out vigorously with his right.

It was a singular chase. Both were evidently practised swimmers, and
more than once Exili eluded his pursuer by diving below the surface
and allowing him to pass beyond the mark. Several times, as they
approached, he made a clutch at the torch, or tried to throw back a
palm-full of water at its light, knowing if he could but reach any of
the houses on the site of the present Quai Desaix, he should be
sheltered in some of the secret refuges of the city. And once, indeed,
he turned at bay in deep water, locking on to the guard in a manner
which would soon have proved fatal to both, when the boat containing
Sainte-Croix shot across the river, and came up to where they were
struggling. His capture was the work of half a minute, and he was
dragged into the boat.

‘So, _mon enfant_,’ said Gaudin, as the dripping object of all this
turmoil was placed, breathless and dripping, in the stern, ‘you
thought we stood in somewhat different positions, I will be bound,
this afternoon.’

Then addressing himself to the men who were rowing, he added--

‘The Port au Foin is the nearest landing-place for the Rue St.
Antoine. And then to the Bastille!’

The stream was violent below the bridge; for the mill-boats obstructed
the free course of the river, and the Seine was still swollen and
turbid from the spring floods. But the rowers plied their oars
manfully, and, directed by one of the guard, who kept at the head of
the boat with the torch, were not long in arriving at the
landing-place indicated by Sainte-Croix, which was exactly on the site
of the present Pont Louis Philippe, conducting from the Place de la
Grêve to the back of Notre Dame.

Exili remained perfectly silent, but was trembling violently--more,
however, from his late immersion than from fear. His countenance was
pale and immovable, as seen by the glare of the torch; and he
compressed his under lip with his teeth until he nearly bit it
through. Neither did Sainte-Croix exchange another word with any of
his party; but, shrouded in his cloak, remained perfectly silent until
the boat touched the rude steps of the Pont au Foin.

A covered vehicle, opening behind, and somewhat like a modern
deer-cart, was waiting on the quay, with some armed attendants. The
arrival of the prisoner was evidently expected. By the direction of
Sainte-Croix he was carefully searched by the guard, and everything
being taken from him, he was placed in the vehicle, whither his captor
also followed him. The doors were then closed, and the men with
torches placing themselves at the sides and in front of the vehicle,
the cortege moved on.

It was a rough journey, then, to make from the Seine to the Bastille;
and it would have been made in perfect darkness but for the lights and
cressets of the watch. For the night was advancing; the lanterns in
the windows had burned out, or been extinguished; and the tall
glooming houses, which rose on either side of the Rue Geoffry Lanier,
by which thoroughfare they left the river side, threw the road into
still deeper obscurity, their only lights being observable in the
windows high up, where some industrious artisan was late at work. A
rude smoky lamp hung from the interior of the vehicle, and by its
gleam Sainte-Croix was watching his prisoner in silence. At length
Exili spoke.

‘You have been playing a deep game; and this time Fortune favours you.
But you took her as the discarded mistress of many others; and she
will in turn jilt you.’

‘Say rather we have both struggled for her, and you lost her by your
own incautious proceedings,’ replied Sainte-Croix. ‘We were both at
the brink of a gulf, on a frail precipice, where the fall of one was
necessary to the safety of the other. You are now my victim; to-morrow
I might have been yours.’

‘And whence comes the _lettre de cachet_?’

‘From those who have the power to give it. Had you been more guarded
in your speech on the _carrefour_ to-day, you might have again
practised on the credulity of the dupes that surrounded you.’

‘For what term is my imprisonment?’

‘During the pleasure of the Minister of Police; and that may depend
upon mine. Our secrets are too terrible for both to be free at once.
You should not have let me know that you thought me in your power.’

‘Has every notion of honour departed from you?’ asked Exili.

‘Honour!’ replied Sainte-Croix, with a short contemptuous laugh;
‘honour! and between such as we have become! How could you expect
honour to influence me, when we have so long despised it--when it is
but a bubble name with the petty gamesters of the world--the watchword
of cowardice fearing detection?’

There was a halt in the progress of the carriage as it now arrived at
the outer gate of the Bastille. Then came the challenge and the
answer; the creaking of the chains that let down the huge drawbridge
upon the edge of the outer court; and the hollow rumbling of the
wheels over its timber. It stopped at the inner portal; and when the
doors were opened, the governor waited at the carriage to receive the
new prisoner.

But few words were exchanged. The signature of the _lettre de cachet_
once recognised was all that was required, and Exili was ordered to
descend. He turned to Sainte-Croix as he was about to enter the gate,
and with a withering expression of revenge and baffled anger,
exclaimed--

‘You have the game in your own hands at present. Before the year is
out my turn will have arrived. Remember!’




 CHAPTER IV.
 THE STUDENTS OF 1665

Night came on, dark, cold, tempestuous. The fleeting beauty of the
spring evening had long departed; the moon became totally invisible
through the thick clouds that had been soaring onwards in gloomy
masses from the south; and the outlines of the houses were no longer
to be traced against the sky. All was merged in one deep impenetrable
obscurity. There were symptoms of a turbulent night. The wind whistled
keenly over the river and the dreary flats adjoining; and big drops of
rain fell audibly upon the paved court and drawbridge of the Bastille.

The heavy gates slowly folded upon each other with a dreary wailing
sound, which spoke the hopeless desolation of all that they enclosed.
And when the strained and creaking chains of the drawbridge had once
more lowered the platform, Sainte-Croix entered the vehicle by which
he had arrived, and, giving some directions to the guard, left the
precincts of the prison.

As the carriage lumbered down the Rue St. Antoine, a smile of triumph
gleamed across the features of its occupant, mingled with the
expression of satire and mistrust which characterised every important
reflection that he gave way to. A dangerous enemy had been, as he
conceived, rendered powerless. There was but one person in the world
of whom he stood in awe; and that one was now, on the dark authority
of a _lettre de cachet_, in the inmost dungeon of the Bastille. The
career of adventures that he had planned to arrive at the pinnacle of
his ambitious hopes--and Gaudin de Sainte-Croix was an adventurer in
every sense of the word--now seemed laid open before him without a
cloud or hindrance. The tempestuous night threw no gloomy forebodings
upon his soul. The tumult of his passions responded wildly to that of
the elements, or appeared to find an echo in the gusts of the angry
wind, as it swept, loud and howling, along the thoroughfares.

The carriage, by his orders, passed the Pont Marie, and, crossing the
Ile St. Louise, stopped before a house, still existing, in the Rue des
Bernardins, where his lodging was situated. The street leads off from
the quay on the left bank of the Seine, opposite the back of Notre
Dame; but, at the date of our story, was nearly on the outskirts of
the city. Here he discharged the equipage with the guard; and,
entering the house for a few minutes, returned enveloped in a large
military cloak, and carrying a lighted cresset on the end of a
halberd.

He pressed hurriedly forward towards the southern extremity of the
city, passing beside the abbey of Sainte Geneviève, where the
Pantheon now stands. Beyond this, on the line of streets which at
present bear the name of the ‘Rues des Fosses,’ the ancient walls of
Paris had, until within a year or two of this period, existed; but the
improvements of Louis XIV., commenced at the opposite extremity of the
city, had razed the fortifications to the ground. Those to the north,
levelled and planted with trees, now form the Boulevards; the southern
line had, as yet, merely been thrown into ruins; and the only egress
from the town was still confined to the point where the gates had
stood, kept tolerably clear for the convenience of travellers, and
more especially those dwelling in the increasing faubourgs. Even these
ways were scarcely practicable. The water, for want of drains,
collected into perfect lakes, and the deep ruts were left unfilled, so
that the thoroughfare, hazardous by day, became doubly so at night; in
fact, it was a matter of some enterprise to leave or enter the city at
its southern outlet.

The rain continued to fall; and the cresset that Gaudin carried,
flickering in the night winds, oftentimes caused him to start and put
himself on his guard, at the fitful shadows it threw on the dismantled
walls and towers that bordered the way. At last a violent gust
completely extinguished it, and he would have been left in a most
unpleasant predicament, being totally unable to proceed or retrace his
steps in the perfect obscurity, had not a party of the marching watch
opportunely arrived. Not caring to be recognised, Sainte-Croix
slouched his hat over his face, and giving the countersign to the
_chevalier du guet_, requested a light for his cresset. The officer
asked him a few questions as to what he had seen; and stated that they
were taking their rounds in consequence of the increasing brigandages
committed by the scholars dwelling in the Quartier Latin, as well as
the inhabitants of the Faubourgs St. Jacques and St. Marcel, between
whom an ancient rivalry in vagabondising and robbery had long existed.
And, indeed, as we shall see, many high in position in Paris were at
this period accustomed to ‘take the road’--some from a reckless spirit
of adventure; others with the desire of making up their income
squandered at the gaming-table, or in the lavish festivals which the
taste of the age called forth.

He passed the counterscarp, and had reached the long straggling street
of the faubourg, when two men rushed from between the pillars which
supported the rude houses, and ordered him to stop. Gaudin was
immediately on his defence. He hastily threw off his cloak, and drew
his sword, parrying the thrust that one of the assailants aimed at
him, but still grasping his cresset in his left hand, which the other
strove to seize. They were both masked; and pressed him somewhat
hardly, as the foremost, in a voice he thought he recognised, demanded
his purse and mantle.

‘_Aux voleurs!_’ shouted Sainte-Croix, not knowing how many of the
party might be in ambush. There was no reply, except the echo to his
own voice. But, as he spoke, his chief assailant told the other, who
had wrested the light away, to desist; and drawing back, pulled off
his mask and revealed the features of the Marquis of Brinvilliers--the
companion of Sainte-Croix that afternoon on the Carrefour du
Châtelet.

‘Gaudin’s voice, a livre to a sou!’ exclaimed the Marquis.

‘Antoine!’ cried his friend as they recognised each other. ‘It is
lucky I cried out, although no help came. It takes a sharper eye and a
quicker arm than mine to parry two blades at once.’

The two officers looked at each other for a minute, and then broke
into a burst of laughter; whilst the third party took off his hat and
humbly sued for forgiveness.

‘And Lachaussée, too!’ continued Sainte-Croix, as he perceived it was
one of his dependants. ‘The chance is singular enough. I was even now
on my way to the Gobelins to find you, rascal.’

‘Then we are not on the same errand?’ asked the Marquis.

‘If you are out as a _coupe-bourse_, certainly not. What devil
prompted you to this venture? A woman?’ asked Sainte-Croix.

‘No devil half so bad,’ replied Brinvilliers; ‘but the fat Abbe de
Cluny. He goes frequently to the Gobelins after dark; it is not to
order tapestry only for his _hôtel_. Since the holy sisterhood of
Port-Royal have moved to the Rue de la Bourbe, he seeks bright eyes
elsewhere.’

‘I see your game,’ answered Gaudin; ‘you are deeper in debt than in
love. But it is no use waiting longer. This is not the night for a man
to rest by choice in the streets; and my cry appears at last to have
had an effect upon the drowsy faubourgs.’

As he spoke, he directed the attention of Brinvilliers to one of the
upper windows of a house whence a sleepy bourgeois had at last
protruded his head, enveloped in an enormous convolution of hosiery.
He projected a lighted candle before him, as he challenged the persons
below; but, ere the question reached them, it was extinguished by the
rain, and all was again dark and silent.

Sainte-Croix directed Lachaussée to pile together the embers in the
cresset, which the brief struggle had somewhat disarranged; and then,
as the night-wind blew them once more into a flame, he took the arm of
the Marquis, and, preceded by the overlooker of the Gobelins, passed
down the Rue Mouffetard.

They stopped at an old and blackened house, supported like the others
upon rough pillars of masonry, which afforded a rude covered walk
under the projecting stories; and signalised from the rest by a
lantern projecting over the doorway. Such fixed lights were then very
rare in Paris; and this was why the present was raised to the dignity
of an especial sign: and the words ‘_A la Lanterne_’ rudely painted on
its transparent side betokened a house of public entertainment. Within
the range of its light the motto ‘_Urbis securitas et nitor_’ was
scrawled along the front of the casement.

‘I shall give up my plan for to-night,’ said Brinvilliers as they
reached the door. ‘The weather has possibly kept the Abbe in the
neighbourhood of the Gobelins. You can shelter here: there are some
_mauvais garçons_ still at table, I will be bound, that even
Bras-d’Acier himself would shrink from grappling with.’

Thus speaking, he knocked sharply at the door with the handle of his
sword, which he had kept unsheathed since his rencontre with
Sainte-Croix. A murmur of voices, which had been audible upon their
arriving, was instantly hushed, and, after a pause of a few seconds, a
challenge was given from within. Brinvilliers answered it: the door
was opened, and Sainte-Croix entered the cabaret, followed by
Lachaussée.

‘You are coming too, Antoine?’ asked Gaudin of his companion, as the
latter remained on the sill.

‘Not this evening,’ replied the Marquis. ‘You wished to see
Lachaussée, and this is the nearest spot where you could find shelter
without scrambling on through the holes and quagmires to the
Gobelins.’

‘But I know nobody here.’

‘Possibly they may know you, and my introduction is sufficient. I have
other affairs which must be seen to this evening, since my first plan
has failed. You will be with us to-morrow?’

‘Without fail,’ replied Gaudin.

Brinvilliers commended his companion to the care of the host, and took
his leave; whilst Sainte-Croix and Lachaussée were conducted into an
inner apartment in the rear of the house.

It was a low room, with the ceiling supported by heavy blackened
beams. The plaster of the walls was, in places, broken down; in others
covered with rude charcoal drawings and mottoes. A long table was
placed in the centre of the apartment; and over this was suspended a
lamp which threw a lurid glare upon the party around it.

This was composed of a dozen young men whom Sainte-Croix directly
recognised to be scholars of the different colleges. They were dressed
in every style of fashion according to their tastes--one would not
have seen appearances more varied in the Paris students of the present
day. Some still kept to the fashions of the preceding reigns--the
closely-clipped hair, pointed beard and ring of moustache surrounding
the mouth. Others had a semi-clerical habit, and others again
assimilated to the dress of the epoch; albeit the majority wore their
own hair. But in one thing they appeared all to agree. Large wine-cups
were placed before each, and flagons passed quickly from one to the
other round the table.

They stared at Sainte-Croix as he entered with his attendant, and were
silent. One of them, however, recognised him, and telling the others
that he was a friend, made a place for him at his side, whilst
Lachaussée took his seat at the chimney corner on a rude settle.

‘Your name, my worthy seigneur?’ exclaimed one of the party at the
head of the table; ‘we have no strangers here. Philippe Glazer, tell
your friend to answer.’

‘My name is Gaudin de Sainte-Croix. I am a captain in his Majesty’s
Normandy regiment. Yours is----?’

The collected manner in which the new-comer answered the question
evidently made an impression on the chairman. He was a good-looking
young man, with long dark hair and black eyes, clad in a torn mantle
evidently put on for the nonce, with an old cap adorned with shells
upon his head, and holding a knotty staff, fashioned like a crutch,
for a sceptre. He made a slight obeisance, and replied--

‘Well--you are frank with me; I will be the same. I have two names,
and answer to both equally. In this society of Gens de la Courte
Épée,[1] I am called “Le Grand Coësre;” at the Hôtel Dieu they
know me better as Camille Theria, of Liége, in the United
Netherlands.’

At a sign from the speaker, one of the party took a bowl from before
him and pushed it along the table towards Sainte-Croix. There were a
few pieces of small money in it, and Gaudin directly perceiving their
drift threw in some more. A sound of acclamation passed round the
table, and he immediately perceived that he had risen to the highest
pitch in their estimation.

‘He is one of us!’ cried Theria. ‘_Allons!_ Glazer--the song--the
song.’

The student addressed directly commenced; the others singing the
chorus, and beating time with their cups.


 Glazer’s Song.

       I.
 Ruby bubbling from the flask,
  Send the grape’s bright blood around;
 Throw off steady life’s cold mask,
  Every earthly care confound.
  Here no rules are known,
         _Buvons!_
  Here no schools we own,
         _Trinquons!_
  Let wild glee and revelry
  Sober thought dethrone.
      _Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!_

       II.
 Would you Beauty’s kindness prove?
  Drink! faint heart ne’er gain’d a prize.
 Hath a mistress duped your love?
  Drink! and fairer forms will rise.
  Clasp’d may be the zone,
         _Buvons!_
  Even to the throne.
         _Trinquons!_
  But full well the students know
  Beauty is their own.
      _Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!_

       III.
 Soaring thoughts our minds entrance,
  Now we seem to spurn the ground.
 See,--the lights begin to dance,
  Whirling madly round and round.
  Still the goblet drain,
         _Buvons!_
  Till each blazing vein
         _Trinquons!_
  Sends fresh blood in sparkling flood
  To the reeling brain.
      _Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!_


‘Your voice ought to make your fortune, Philippe,’ said Sainte-Croix,
who appeared to know the student intimately.

‘_Pardieu!_ it does me little service. Theria, there, who cannot sing
a note, keeps all the _galanteries_ to himself. Ho! Maître Camille!
here I pledge your last conquest.’ And he raised his cup as he added,
‘Marie-Marguerite de Brinvilliers!’

Sainte-Croix started at the name; his eyes, flashing with anger,
passed rapidly from one to the other of the two students.

‘_Chut!_’ cried another of the students, a man of small stature, who
was dressed in the court costume of the period, but shabbily, and with
every point exaggerated. ‘_Chut!_ Monsieur perchance knows la belle
Marquise, and will not bear to hear her name lipped amongst us?’

The student had noticed the rapid change and expression of
Sainte-Croix’s countenance.

‘No, no--you are mistaken,’ said Gaudin. ‘I am slightly acquainted
with the lady. I served with her husband.’

‘Jean Blacquart,’ said Glazer, with much solemnity, to the scholar who
had last spoken, ‘if you interrupt the conversation again, I shall let
out your Gascon blood with the cook’s spit, and then drop you into the
Bièvre. Remember it runs underneath the window.’

The Gascon--for so he was--was immediately silent.

‘The Captain Gaudin cannot know less of La Brinvilliers than I do,’
continued Theria, ‘save by report, as a charitable and spirited lady.
I met her at mass a fortnight since, at the Jacobins in the Rue St.
Honoré, and escorted her from a tumult that rose in the church. I
might have improved on my acquaintance had that senseless Blacquart
permitted me.’

The scholars looked towards Blacquart, and simultaneously broke into
the same kind of noise they would have made in chasing an animal from
the room. The Gascon was evidently the butt of the society.

‘Explain!’ cried several to Theria. ‘What was the tumult owing to?’

‘A woman, of course,’ answered Camille. ‘You know La Duménil?’

‘Proceed, proceed,’ exclaimed the others. The name was apparently well
known amongst the scholars.

‘Well--her lackey stumbled against the chair on which Madame de la
Beaume was kneeling, and got a box on the ears from the latter for his
stupidity, that rang all through the church. La Duménil took part
with her servant, and soundly abused the other, to which La Beaume
replied as heartily, and the service was stopped.’

‘The quarrel must have been amusing,’ observed Glazer.

‘_Ventrebleu!_ the women in the _halles_ and markets would have turned
pale at their salutations. At last La Duménil threw a missal at her
opponent’s head, which well-nigh brought her to the ground. The people
collected about them, and Madame de Brinvilliers was nearly crushed by
the crowd, when I rescued her and led her to the porch.’

‘And what said she, Camille?’ inquired Glazer.

‘She was thanking me earnestly, and might have expressed something
more, when that no-witted Blacquart spoilt everything by calling me
back again. In his Gascon chivalry to defend La Beaume he had drawn
his sword against Duménil.’

‘I think that was somewhat courageous though,’ returned Glazer with
mock approbation. ‘Did you really do this, Jean?’

‘On my faith I did,’ answered the Gascon, brightening up; ‘and would
do it again. I should like to see the woman in Paris that I am afraid
of.’

A roar of applause greeted Blacquart’s heroism, and the attention of
the party was immediately turned towards the Gascon, to the great
relief of Sainte-Croix, who during the anecdote had been ill at ease.
He could have added that he had himself escorted the marchioness from
the Jacobins when Theria was recalled.

‘I propose,’ cried Camille, ‘that, for his bravery, Jean Blacquart be
invested with the ancient Order of Montfauçon.’

‘Agreed,’ cried the others, rising and surrounding the Gascon, whose
countenance betrayed a mixed expression of self-conceit and
apprehension.

‘Ho, messire!’ exclaimed Theria to Lachaussée, who had remained all
the time sitting near the fire; ‘we appoint you Master of the Halter.
Take it, and tie it round that beam.’

He threw a cord to Sainte-Croix’s attendant as he spoke, who fastened
it to the point indicated, with its running noose hanging down.

‘What are you going to do?’ demanded Blacquart, getting somewhat
terrified.

‘To hang you,’ replied Camille: ‘but only for a little time. Glazer
and myself will mind your pulse carefully; and when you are nearly
dead you may depend upon it that we shall cut you down.’

‘But--I say--Theria--Philippe!’ cried Jean in an agony of fright. He
had witnessed so many of their wild pranks that he did not know what
they were about to do.

‘Père Camus,’ cried the master of the Gens de la Courte Épée to one
of the party bearing a costume of the church--a broken-down and
dissipated abbe. ‘Père Camus, chant a mass for the departing courage
of Jean Blacquart.’

‘_Au secours!_’ shrieked the Gascon; ‘_au feu! aux voleurs! au----_’

His further cries for help were cut short by one of the scholars
thrusting a baked apple into his mouth, and immediately tying his
scarf over it. The miserable little Gascon was directly seized and
hoisted on to the table, in spite of his violent struggles; whilst the
abbe commenced a profane chant, intended as a parody upon some
religious service.

Where their frolic might have ended cannot be defined. The
consequences of the orgies in the time of Louis XIV., in every
position of life, were little cared for; and the unhappy Jean might
have been strangled by accident with very little compunction, had not
a violent knocking at the door alarmed the revellers, and caused them
to desist for the minute from their lawless proceedings. A silence
ensued, unbroken except by the efforts of the Gascon to release
himself, in the course of which he kicked the flagons and goblets
about in all directions.

‘Open to the Garde Bourgeois!’ cried a voice outside.

There was no resisting the command. The host unbarred the door, and a
little pursy man, who looked like a perambulating triumphal car of
apoplexy, entered the cabaret.

‘Master Poncelet,’ he said to the host, as he shook his head, until
his face was a deep crimson; ‘this is against the law, and I must look
to it, as answerable for the morality of the faubourgs. We cannot
allow this brawling four hours after curfew--we cannot allow it.’

‘If you had come two minutes later,’ said Blacquart, as he forced
himself from his tormentors, ‘you would have seen me a----’

Under what guise the Garde Bourgeois would have seen Jean Blacquart
was never made known to him. A back-handed blow from Theria overturned
the Gascon into the corner of the room, from whence he did not care to
arise, not knowing what reception might next await him.

‘Maître Picard,’ said the host with respect, addressing the patrol;
‘these are learned clerks--scholars of Mazarin and of Cluny; with some
from the Hôtel Dieu. They seek the faubourgs for quiet and study.’

‘I cannot help it, Master Poncelet,’ replied the bourgeois; ‘the
morality of St. Marcel requires the utmost vigilance of its
superintendents. Messieurs, you must respect my authority, and put out
all the lights directly.’

‘Call in your guard to do it,’ said Philippe Glazer; ‘we are not
lackeys.’

‘My guard is now going round the Rue du Puits qui Parle,’ replied the
bourgeois, ‘wherein is much evil congregated. I am here. Our good king
Louis is The State. I am The Guard.’

‘Thank you--thank you, Maître Picard,’ said Theria. ‘I respect you,
although you made me a cap last year of a villainous fabric, and told
me that it was the best cloth of Louvain; you forgot I breathed my
first gasp of air in Brabant. And you are sure that the guard cannot
put out our lights?’

‘I have told you they are not near us,’ said the bourgeois, offended
at being obliged to repeat the intelligence.

‘Excellent!’ observed Theria. ‘Philippe, close the door, and let
Maître Picard take us all into custody.’

Glazer immediately obeyed the command of their chairman, whilst the
others huddled round the luckless little bourgeois, who began to feel
remarkably uncomfortable.

‘Respite the Gascon and hang Maître Picard in his stead, by his
heels,’ said Theria.

‘I give you all warning!’ cried Picard; ‘I give you all warning! I am
a _quartenier_ and can punish you all. Keep your hands away!’

Sainte-Croix, at the first appearance of the bourgeois, had thrown his
cloak over his shoulders, not wishing to be recognised in his military
dress, and had retreated with Lachaussée into a corner of the room,
whither Maître Picard followed him with an appealing glance, noting
that his appearance was somewhat more respectable than that of the
scholars.

‘I tell you, you do this at your peril,’ screamed Picard. ‘The police
show no mercy to the vagabonds and _mauvais garçons_ who maltreat an
enlightened bourgeois.’

‘We thank you for the hint,’ said Theria. ‘Ho! _mes enfants_; in
consideration of Maître Picard’s enlightenment we incline to mercy
and utility. Let us hang him before the door, and save our host’s
candles. La Reinie never thought of so grand an illumination as an
enlightened bourgeois.’

‘Agreed!’ cried the scholars. ‘_A la lanterne! à la lanterne!_’

 [image: img_04.jpg
 caption: The Students Enlightening Maître Picard]




 CHAPTER V.
 SAINTE-CROIX AND HIS CREATURE

The cry had not the terrible meaning which it carried a century
afterwards, but it was sufficiently mischievous to offer but little
relief to Maître Picard. In an instant he was borne off his legs, and
hoisted on the shoulders of the scholars; whilst Philippe Glazer
thrust a link into the fire, and when it was kindled preceded the
procession to the door. Some of his companions dragged out a table and
a chair, in spite of the rain, into the street; and forming a kind of
scaffold they rapidly took down the lantern and perched Maître
Picard, link in hand, upon its iron support, directly removing every
means of escape from beneath him.

The poor little bourgeois was in a lamentable position. The ironwork
of the lamp was anything but trustworthy; and, albeit a man of small
stature, he was heavily inclined. With one hand he grasped his
unenviable seat and with the other he sustained the link, not daring
to put it out, for fear of some new infliction that his tormentors
might invent.

‘_Salut!_ Maître Picard,’ cried Theria, doffing his bonnet. ‘Who
arrested Jean Sauval, at the Sorbonne, for taking the cloak from
Bussi-Rabuten on the Pont Neuf?’

‘_Filou!_’ cried the bourgeois.

‘Who pointed out to the watch where François de Chanvalon, the
archbishop, went, instead of to Notre Dame? _Salut_, bourgeois!’ cried
Philippe Glazer, with another pretended obeisance.

And then the scholars joined their hands, and performed a wild dance
around him.

‘Stay awhile, stay awhile!’ exclaimed Maître Picard. ‘Now you shall
see what I can do. Here comes the _Guet Royal_. _Aux voleurs! aux
voleurs!!_’

The little man was right. From his elevated position he had seen the
guard with their lights turning round the corner of the Rue
Mouffetard, and he now hailed them with all the force of his lungs,
kicking his legs in nervous anxiety until one of his shoes fell off
upon Glazer’s head, who directly returned it, flinging it at the
little man with a force that almost upset him from his treacherous
position.

The scholars instantly took the alarm (for some of the mounted guard
were riding down the street), and fled in all directions along the
narrow and dark outlets of the Faubourg St. Marcel. Lachaussée, who,
with Sainte-Croix, had been a spectator of the scene, seized the
officer by the arm and drew him into the house.

‘It will not do for you to be found here, monsieur,’ he said; ‘follow
me--we can get off by the Bièvre.’

He closed the door after them, and telling the host not to admit the
guard, but let them break in if they chose, passed through the room
lately occupied by the scholars, and throwing open the window, stepped
out upon the bank of the Bièvre--a small stream running from the
south, which flows into the Seine a little above the present Pont
d’Austerlitz by the Jardin des Plantes. It was now swollen with the
rains, and was rushing angrily by the narrow path, along which
Lachaussée led the way, having once more closed the window.

They crept along, clinging like bats to the walls of the houses that
bordered the stream, at the risk of falling into it every minute,
until Lachaussée stopped at a small gate, to which he applied a
pass-key. It opened, and Sainte-Croix found himself in an outer court
of the Gobelins. This they crossed, and were immediately afterwards in
one of the apartments apportioned to the superintendents.

Lachaussée raked together some embers on the hearth, which he soon
blew into a flame, and then lighted a lamp; whilst Sainte-Croix once
more threw off his cloak and took his place on one of the settles.

‘So,’ he exclaimed, ‘we are once more housed. Your night’s adventure
is so far to be considered fortunate, as I might have looked for you
long enough here, it seems.’

‘The purse of the Marquis wanted replenishing,’ replied Lachaussée in
an easy tone. ‘You did not let me know you were coming, or I might
have stayed at home.’

‘I am chilled and wearied,’ said Sainte-Croix; ‘have you no wine?’

‘Better than ever paid duty in the city,’ said Lachaussée, producing
a bottle from a closet. ‘They watch the town, but forget the river.’

‘That is right good Burgundy,’ observed Sainte-Croix, as he tasted it.

‘The best that the vineyards of Auxerre can produce. One needs it in
such a dismal outskirt, Heaven knows!’

‘Your position might be worse.’

‘It might be much better,’ returned Lachaussée carelessly. ‘I am glad
you have come. I spoke to the Marquis about entering his service, for
I am somewhat weary of the faubourgs; and he referred me to you. You
do not want a character, I presume, or a reference?’

He gave out these words full of meaning, and looked earnestly at
Sainte-Croix as he uttered them.

‘You will remain here during my pleasure,’ replied the other,
refilling his glass.

‘And suppose it wearies me?’

‘I shall tell you a story to amuse you and beguile the time,’ Gaudin
answered. ‘But possibly you know it: it relates to an event that
occurred some three years back at Milan.’

Lachaussée was pouring out some wine for himself. He placed the cup
down on the table, and regarded Sainte-Croix with a look of mingled
fear and mistrust. Gaudin cast his eye round, and perceiving that the
attention of the other was arrested, continued--

‘There were two soldiers staying at the Croce Bianca: one was an
officer in the French service, the other a renegade who turned his
back upon the Fronde with the Prince de Condé; went with him into
Spain to take up arms against his own country; and then, when the
chances turned, deserted again and joined the French army. He must
have been a double knave. What think you?’

Lachaussée gave no answer. He moved his lips in reply, but no sound
escaped them.

‘The resources of these two were nearly exhausted,’ resumed
Sainte-Croix--‘for they led a gallant life, when a French nobleman,
rich and young, arrived at Milan. He was courted, feted, in all
circles; and he became introduced to the officer and his companion.
They marked him for their prey; and one night, at the gaming-table,
carried off a large sum of money, offering the noble his revenge on
the following evening at the Croce Bianca. He embraced the chance, and
came alone; fortune once more patronised him, and he gained back, not
merely what he had lost, but every sou the others possessed in the
world.

‘There was a grand festival that evening given by one of the Borromeo
family, and the officer departed to it, leaving the renegade and the
nobleman still playing. In the middle of the fete, a mask approached
the officer and slipped a letter into his hand, immediately quitting
the assembly.’

Sainte-Croix took a small pouncet-box from his breast, and opened it.
He then unfolded a scrap of paper, and continued--

‘It read as follows: “Exili’s potion has done its work. I have started
with everything to the frontier. Do not return to the Croce Bianca
until after daybreak.” The officer followed the advice; and when he
went back to the inn the noble had been found dead in the room, with
an empty phial of the terrible “Manna of St. Nicholas de Barri”[2]
clutched in his hand. He was presumed to have committed suicide, and
the crime was in twenty-four hours hidden by the grave. The officer
soon afterwards left Milan and joined the other in Paris. His name was
Gaudin de Sainte-Croix; the renegade and real murderer was called
Lachaussée.’

‘What is the use of thus recalling all that has long past?’ said
Lachaussée, who, during Gaudin’s story, had recovered his composure.
‘The same blow that strikes one, must hurl the other as well to
damnation. Exili, who is known to be in Paris, could crush us both.’

‘Exili has been this night conveyed to the Bastille by a _lettre de
cachet_,’ replied Sainte-Croix; ‘and this small piece of writing is
enough to send you to join him. You were grumbling at your position: a
subterranean cell in St. Antoine is less pleasant than this room at
the Gobelins.’

‘I am as much at your disposal as at your mercy,’ returned
Lachaussée, swallowing down a large draught of wine. ‘What next do
you require of me?’

‘No very unpleasant task,’ said Sainte-Croix. ‘It regards a woman,
young, and fair enough, in all conscience. She has been working here,
it seems, until a very short period since. Have you the name of Louise
Gauthier amongst the artists of your ateliers?’

‘Surely,’ replied Lachaussée; ‘a haughty minx enough. She left a day
or two back, displeased with my attention; at least, she said so. I
know not where she is gone.’

A spasm crossed the features of Sainte-Croix during this speech of the
superintendent, as he eyed him with an expression of contempt,
amounting to disgust: but this passed, and he continued--

‘I can tell you: she is staying at the boat-mill below the Pont Notre
Dame. You must go to-morrow and ascertain if she is still there. In
the event of finding her, contrive so that she may be under your
control; place her in some situation where she can never see me, or
follow me, again. Do you understand?’

‘Perfectly,’ returned Lachaussée; ‘though mine would not be the
advice she would the soonest follow.’

And then he added, as he regarded Sainte-Croix with a piercing look--

‘You have sent Exili to the Bastille. He might have aided us.’

‘No more!’ cried Sainte-Croix, as he perceived the meaning of the
other. ‘No more! I must be freed from her annoyance. Other prospects
are opening to me, which her presence would cloud and destroy--but
remember, you will be held answerable for the slightest injury that
may affect her. If you want money, you have only to apply to me for
it; but, by Heaven! if every sou of what you draw is not appropriated
to her sole use, your life shall answer for it. Am I understood?’

‘You may count upon me,’ answered Lachaussée. ‘She shall never
trouble you more. I believe the girl is entirely destitute. Perhaps
she may look upon me with more favour when she finds how utterly
dependent she will be upon my liberality.’

‘I shall not return to the Rue des Bernardins to-night,’ said
Sainte-Croix. ‘You must accommodate me here, and to-morrow we will
leave together on our separate missions.’

There was a small apartment opening from the chamber wherein this
conversation had taken place, to which Lachaussée conducted his
companion. In the corner was a truckle bed, without furniture. Gaudin
threw his cloak upon it; and ordering the other to bring in the embers
from the fire-place, and place them upon the hearth, closed the door
as the task was finished, and prepared to retire to rest. He merely
took off his upper garments, and then lay carelessly down upon the
rude couch, placing his sword and pistols within his grasp upon a
chair by the side. He heard the steps of Lachaussée retiring, and
then all was still as the grave. The cold air of the room rushed up
the chimney and fanned the _braise_ into a light flame, which threw
the mouldings of the room in flitting and grotesque shadows upon the
walls and ceiling. As slumber came upon him, these assumed regular
forms in his fevered imagination. He fancied Exili and Lachaussée
appeared, and were dragging him down into a gulf, when Louise Gauthier
stretched out her arm, and they could not pass her; and then another
female, almost equally young and beautiful, with a countenance that
was ever before him, sleeping and waking, in the rich apparel of a
grand lady, drew him away from the rest, and told him to escape with
her. He attempted to fly, but his feet were riveted to the ground, and
the others were already in pursuit. They came nearer and nearer, and
were about to lay hands on him once more, when in his agony he awoke,
and starting up on the bed glared wildly about the room. By the light
of the declining embers he perceived some one moving in the chamber,
and in the alarmed voice of a person suddenly aroused from a frightful
dream he challenged the intruder.

‘It is I, Lachaussée,’ cried the superintendent, for it was he. ‘I--I
came to see what you wanted. You have been moaning bitterly in your
sleep; I knew not what might happen to you.’

‘It was nothing,’ returned Gaudin. ‘I have drunk deeply this evening,
and my sleep is fevered and troubled. Get you to bed yourself, and do
not enter this room again except I summon you.’

Lachaussée departed without a word; and, as soon as he was gone,
Sainte-Croix moved the bed from the wall and placed its foot against
the door; he then once more lay down, but not for sleep. Every
night-noise caused him to start up and listen anxiously for some
minutes, in the apprehension that the treachery of Lachaussée might
once more bring him to the room.

Daylight came slowly through the window, and the sound of the early
artisans assembling in the court-yards for their work was heard below,
when he at last sank into a deep and unbroken morning slumber.




 CHAPTER VI.
 MAÎTRE GLAZER, THE APOTHECARY, AND HIS MAN, PANURGE, DISCOURSE WITH
 THE PEOPLE ON POISONS--THE VISIT OF THE MARCHIONESS

There was plenty to occupy the gossips the morning after the events
of the preceding chapters, in the good city of Paris. The capture of
Exili, with all the additions and exaggerations that word of mouth
could promulgate, formed the only topic of conversation; nothing else
was canvassed by the little knots of idlers who collected at the
corners of the Pont Neuf and on the quays.

There were few newspapers then to spread their simultaneous
intelligence over the city. The first important journal, established
under the auspices of Colbert, as yet appealed to a very limited
number of the citizens beyond the scientific, and those interested in
manufacturing and commercial improvements. There was a weekly paper,
to be sure, from which the eager populace might have gained some news,
had the occurrences come within the range of its time of publication;
and the subject would have been dilated upon with especial care, for
its originator was a physician. Le Docteur Renaudot had found, as the
medical men of the present day are aware, that a knowledge of the
current events of the time was thought as much of in a physician, by
his patients, as a knowledge of his profession; and so he cultivated
its acquisition to his great profit. But when a healthy season came,
and he had less to do and talk about, it struck him that some
advantage might accrue from distributing his news generally, in a
printed form. He did so; the plan succeeded; and to this circumstance
is the origin of the French press to be traced.

But all news connected with assaults and offences found a loquacious
Mercury in every member of the Garde Bourgeois. Not one who had
assisted, on the antecedent evening, at the capture of Exili omitted
to take all the credit to himself, as he babbled to a crowd of gasping
auditors from his shop-window. Maître Picard, who had arrived,
boiling over with indignation, at the office of the Prévôt in the
Châtelet, found even his complaint against the scholars overlooked,
in the more important excitement. The exposition of the horrible
means, so long suspected, by which the Italian gained his living, and
the strange death of the _chevalier du guet_ by the poisoned
atmosphere of the chamber, absorbed all other attention.

And well indeed it might. The frightful effects of the ‘Acquetta di
Napoli,’ to which rumour had assigned the power of causing death at
any determinate period, after weeks, months, or even years of atrophy
and wasting agony,--this terrible fluid, tasteless, inodorous,
colourless,--so facile in its administration, and so impossible to be
detected, had been for half a century the dread of southern Europe.
Once administered, there was no hope for the sufferer, except in a few
antidotes, the secret of which appeared to rest with the poisoners
alone. A certain indescribable change crept on; a nameless feeling of
indisposition, as the powers of life gradually sank beneath the
influence of its venom, but one that offered no clue whereby the most
perceptive physician could ascertain the seat of evil or the principal
organ affected. Then came anxiety and weariness; the spirits broke
down, hope departed, and a constant gnawing pain, that appeared to run
in liquid torment through all the arteries of the body, passing even
by the capillaries, to bring fresh pain and poisoned vital fluid to
the heart, left the helpless victim without ease or slumber; and as
time advanced, in misery and anguish that evaded every remedy, so did
the poison fasten itself deeper and deadlier on the system, until the
last stage of its effects arrived, and life departed in a manner too
horrible to describe.

Respecting this fearful scourge little technical information that is
left can be relied upon. It appears to have been a preparation of
arsenic; and, if this be true, the ignorance of the age might have
allowed the deadly metal to pass undetected by analysis; but, as we
have before stated, toxicology is now more certain in its researches
after hidden poison, and in this deadly drug especially. The merest
trace of it, in whatever form it may be administered, even when to the
eye of the vulgar affording no more attributes than pure water for
analysis, can be reduced to its mineral state. The grave itself
refuses to conceal the crime; and the poison has the remarkable
property of embalming the body, as it were, and by its antiseptic
virtue giving back the vital organs to the light of day, should
exhumation be required, in such a state as to place all matter of
detecting its presence beyond the slightest doubt, even in the
quantity of the most minute atom.

It was about the shop of Maître Glazer, the apothecary, in the Place
Maubert, at the river boundary of the Quartier Latin, that the
principal collection of gossipers clustered all day long. He had
acquired some renown in Paris for compounding and vending antidotes to
the dreaded poisons: and it was reported that his unhappy assistant,
Panurge, as he was nicknamed by the acquaintances of the
apothecary--albeit his real name was Martin--was the subject of all
his experiments. Panurge was a tall, spare creature, whose skeleton
appeared to be composed of nothing but large joints, and chiefly
resembled his predecessor of the same name in being a wonderful coward
as well as boaster; and herein he closely assimilated in his nature to
the Gascon scholar, Blacquart. And when the latter sometimes
accompanied his master’s son, Philippe Glazer, to the house, these two
would outlie one another in a marvellous manner, until they had
well-nigh quarrelled and fought, but for very cowardice.

On the evening subsequent to the events of the last chapter, Maître
Glazer was holding forth to a crowd of anxious auditors, even until
after dark; whilst his man was busied in distilling some water of rare
merit in all diseases. His shop had never held a larger meeting. It
was known by the sign ‘_Au Basilisk_,’ and had the ‘effigies’ of that
fabulous serpent painted over the door, done from the book of Ambrose
Paré, which formed his entire medical library.

‘Look you, Maître Glazer,’ said a bystander; ‘though Exili be taken,
we are none of us yet sure of our lives. For are there not devil’s
drinks of Italy that will kill at any certain and definite time?’

‘Theophrastus thus answers that question,’ replied Glazer, giving his
authority first, that his statement might have more weight. ‘Of
poisons some more speedily perform their parts, others more slowly;
yet you may find no such as will kill in set limits of time. And when
one hath lingered long, then hath he been fed little by little, and so
tenderly nursed, as it were, into his grave.’

‘I have felt ill long,’ said a portly bourgeois. ‘Pray heaven I am not
fed with poison in such manner! How may I avoid it?’

‘By ceasing to eat, Michel,’ replied Maître Glazer. ‘Yet there are
other methods of killing, which no man may combat but with antidotes
on their effects being known. Pope Clement, the seventh of that name,
and uncle to the mother of one of our kings, was poisoned by the fume
of a medicated torch carried before him, and died thereof; and
Mathiolus tells us that there were two mountebanks in the market-place
of Sienna, the one of which, but smelling to a poisoned gillyflower
given him by the other, presently fell down dead.’

‘And a certain man not long ago,’ said Panurge, ‘when he had put his
nose and smelled a little unto a pomander which was secretly poisoned,
did presently swell so that he almost filled the room, and would have
died, but I gave him an antidote. Then he shrunk rapidly, and went on
his way healed.’

There was an expression of disbelief amongst the crowd, and a young
artisan laughed aloud derisively; at which Panurge inquired bravely
‘Who it was?’

But when the artisan said it was himself, the ire of Panurge relaxed;
and he said, if it had been any one else he should have taken up the
affront warmly. And then, on a reproving sign from Maître Glazer, he
continued his work.

The evening soon warned the last of the talkers home, after Maître
Glazer had held forth for some time longer on his favourite theme.
When the latest idler had departed, Panurge closed the shop, and they
retired into the small apartment behind for supper.

The shop was at the corner of the _porte-cochère_ leading to the
court-yard, and one window looked upon the passage, so that everybody
who passed to the other apartments of the house could be seen. The
meal was soon arranged by the concierge of the establishment--for
Maître Glazer was a widower--and he sat down with his assistant to
enjoy it.

‘Has my boy come back?’ asked the apothecary, as they took their
places.

‘I have not seen him,’ replied Panurge. ‘His neighbour Theria, the
Brabantian, is at home though, for there is a light in his window high
up.’

‘They are great friends of Philippe’s,’ said Maître Glazer; ‘both
Theria and his wife--a modest, well-favoured body.’

‘Mère Jobert says it is not his wife,’ replied the assistant; ‘but
merely a grisette of the city. Oh, the corrupt state of Paris!’

‘She is outwardly well-behaved, and of mild manners,’ returned the
apothecary; ‘and we wish to know no further. There is more vice at
court than in that _mansarde_, which is approved of by the world.’

‘Theria does not like her to see much of me,’ said Panurge,
conceitedly smoothing three or four hairs that straggled about his
chin, where his beard ought to have been.

‘Why not--for fear you should frighten her?’

‘Frighten her! by the mass, it is far otherwise,’ answered the
assistant. ‘There are not many gallants in Paris who have been so
favoured as myself, or can show such a leg.’

He stretched out the bony limb, and was gazing at it in admiration
when the attention of the apothecary was drawn off from some sharp
reply he was about to make to Panurge’s vanity, by a hurried tap at
the door--a side one leading into the court. The rhapsodies of Panurge
were stopped short, and he rose to let in the supposed patient--for
there was small chance of its being any one else at that hour.

As he opened the door, a female entered hurriedly, and threw off a
common cloak--one such as those worn in winter by the sisters of the
hospitals. She was a young and handsome woman, in reality about thirty
years of age, but her countenance bore an expression of girlish
simplicity and freshness which rather belonged to nineteen. Her eyes
were blue and lustrous; her hair, dark chestnut, arranged in curls,
according to the fashion of the period, on each side of her white
expansive forehead; and her parted lips, as she breathed rapidly from
hurry or agitation, disclosed a row of teeth singularly perfect and
beautiful. One might have looked long amidst the fair dames of Paris
to have found features similarly soft and confiding in their aspect;
the nose, which was _retroussé_, alone giving an expression--but a
very slight one--of coquetry. Her figure was under the middle size,
delicate and perfect in its contour; and, but for the mantle which she
had worn over her other handsome apparel, a spectator would have
wondered at seeing one so gentle in the streets of Paris by herself
after dark, and during one of the most licentious epochs of French
history. As Maître Glazer recognised his visitor, he rose and saluted
her respectfully, with a reverence due to her rank; for it was
Marie-Marguerite d’Aubray, Marchioness of Brinvilliers.

‘I am paying you a late visit to-night, Maître Glazer,’ she said
laughingly; ‘it is lucky your assistant is here, or we might furnish
scandal for our good city of Paris.’

‘Your reputation would be safe with so old a man as myself, madame,’
replied the apothecary; ‘even with your most bitter enemy. Is M. the
Marquis well?’

‘Quite well, Maître Glazer, I thank you. As to my enemy, I hope I
cannot reckon even one.’

‘Report is never idle now, madame; but you have little to dread; few
have your enviable name.’

The Marchioness fixed her bright eyes on Glazer as she bowed in reply
to the old man’s speech, allowing a smile of great sweetness to play
over her fair face.

‘Is your son Philippe at home?’ she continued. ‘I wished to inquire
after some of our charges at the Hôtel Dieu.’

‘I was asking but just now. There is a light with his friend Theria.’

‘I will go over to his _étage_ and see,’ replied the lady. ‘We are
old friends, you know; he will not mind my intrusion.’

She gathered the cloak once more around her, and then, with another
silvery laugh, nodded kindly to Glazer and Panurge, and tripped across
the court, leaving the apothecary and his assistant to finish their
meal.

‘An excellent lady,’ said Glazer, as she left; ‘good and charitable.
Would we had many more in Paris like her! And she has hard work, too,
at the hospitals at present, as Philippe tells me; some evil demon
seems to breathe a lingering sickness into her patients’ frames the
minute she takes them under her devoted care.’

Panurge spoke but little, contenting himself with gradually clearing
everything digestible that was upon the table; and at last the heavy
curfew betokened to Maître Glazer that his usual hour of retiring for
the night had arrived. The old man, preceded by his assistant with a
lamp, made a careful survey of his establishment, putting out the
remnant of fire in his laboratory, and Panurge prepared his couch,
which was a species of berth under the counter. From their occupation
they were both startled by a second knocking at the door, hurried and
violent; and, on challenging the new-comer, a voice without inquired,
‘if Philippe had come in?’

‘My son seems in request to-night,’ said Glazer. ‘That should be the
Chevalier de Sainte-Croix’s voice.’

‘You are right, Maître,’ cried Gaudin without, for it was he. ‘Do not
disturb yourself. Shall I find your son in his apartment?’

‘I cannot say, monsieur. Madame de Brinvilliers asked the same
question but a few minutes since.’

‘She is here, then?’ asked Sainte-Croix with an eagerness that
betokened the Marchioness was chiefly concerned in his visit.

‘She crossed the court just now, and has scarcely had time to return.’

‘Enough, Maître Glazer,’ replied Sainte-Croix. ‘I am sorry to have
disturbed you. Good-night!’

Without waiting for a return of the salutation, Gaudin left the door
and hurried along the archway towards the staircase, evidently
impelled by no ordinary excitement. He had called that evening upon
Madame de Brinvilliers, at her hotel in the Rue des Cordeliers, to
seek an interview with her upon the subject of her acquaintance made
with Theria at the Jacobins, which since last evening had been
rankling in his heart. For some of the busy tongues of Paris had long
whispered of a liaison that passed the bounds of friendship, between
Gaudin and the Marchioness; nor were the reports unfounded.
Sainte-Croix was madly, deeply devoted to her; but jealous at the same
time, to a point which rendered every word or look that she bestowed
upon another a source of raging torture to his mind. He found the
Marchioness had left word with her _femme de chambre_ that she had
gone to see Philippe Glazer respecting her hospital patients, whom she
was accustomed to serve as a _sainte fille_; and, knowing that Theria
occupied the same flat with the young student, his suspicions were
immediately aroused. She had, beyond doubt, made an appointment with
him.

With his brain on fire he left the hotel; and rapidly threading the
dark and wretched streets that led to the Place Maubert, rather by
instinct than the slightest attention to the localities, he reached
the _porte-cochère_ by the side of Glazer’s shop. Here he gained the
information just alluded to, and immediately proceeded to the floor on
which the rooms of the scholars were placed, flying up the stairs
three and four at a time, until he came to the landing. There was no
light in Glazer’s chamber; he listened, and all was quiet; he was
evidently not within. But from Theria’s he thought he heard the murmur
of voices proceeding, mingled now and then with light laughter which
he recognised; whose sound made his blood boil again. He seized the
handle of the _sonnette_ and pulled it violently. In less than half a
minute, during which time he was chafing up and down the landing like
an infuriated animal, the summons was answered. A small window in the
wall was opened, and a female face appeared at it--that of a young and
tolerably good-looking woman, apparently belonging to the class of
grisettes.

‘Is Camille within?’ asked Sainte-Croix, with an assumption of
intimacy with Theria.

An answer was given in the negative.

‘The Marchioness of Brinvilliers is here, I believe?’ continued
Gaudin. And, without waiting for a reply, he added, ‘Will you tell her
she is wanted on most pressing business?’

The woman retired and closed the window. Immediately afterwards he
heard footsteps approaching; the outer door opened, and Madame de
Brinvilliers appeared.

A stifled scream of fear and surprise, yet sufficiently intense to
show her emotion at the presence of Gaudin, broke from her lips as she
recognised him. But, directly, she recovered her impassibility of
features--that wonderful calmness and innocent expression which
afterwards was so severely put to the proof without being shaken--and
asked, with apparent unconcern--

‘Well, monsieur, what do you want with me?’

‘Marie!’ exclaimed Gaudin; ‘let me ask your business _here_, at this
hour, unattended, and in the apartment of a scholar of the Hôtel
Dieu?’

‘You are mad, Sainte-Croix,’ said the Marchioness; ‘am I to be
accountable to you for all my actions? M. Theria is not here, and I
came to see his wife on my own affairs.’

‘Liar!’ cried Gaudin, as he quivered with jealous rage, seizing the
arm of the Marchioness with a clutch of iron. ‘Theria is within, and
you came to meet him only. You know that woman is not his wife; though
many there be less constant. You would wean his love from her, and
make him cast her upon the world, that you might be installed as his
paramour. You see, I know all--in another moment she also shall be
acquainted with everything.’

Sainte-Croix had spoken much of this upon mere chance, but it proved
to be correct. In an instant the accustomed firmness of the
Marchioness deserted her, and she fell upon her knees at his feet, on
the cold, damp floor of the landing.

‘In the name of mercy, leave this house, Gaudin!’ she exclaimed
hurriedly. ‘I have been very, very wrong. I confess I ought to have
been more candid. But leave this house--on my bended knees I implore
it. I will explain everything.’

‘I shall not stir, Marie,’ replied Sainte-Croix; and through all his
excitement a sarcastic smile played upon his lip as he saw the
trembling woman at his feet. ‘The tumult of this interview will reach
your new favourite’s ears; possibly the police of to-morrow will
exhibit strange prisoners.’

In an agony of terror the Marchioness clung to Sainte-Croix and again
besought him to depart. But Gaudin saw, as she quailed before his
determined aspect, that he had gained a temporary triumph over her
haughty disposition; and he enjoyed her distress in proportion as it
increased.

‘Gaudin!’ she cried; ‘pray, pray quit this place. I will do

 [image: img_05.jpg
 caption: Sainte-Croix Upbraiding the Marchioness]

all that you may in future wish, so that you will but go away. I will
be your abject slave; you shall spurn me, trample on me, crush me, if
you choose; only leave the house.’

‘I am waiting for an interview with M. Theria,’ Sainte-Croix replied
coldly.

‘You will not depart!’ exclaimed the Marchioness, suddenly altering
her tone, and springing up from her position of supplication. ‘Then
but one resource is left.’

‘Where are you about to go?’ asked Sainte-Croix, as she advanced
towards the top of the flight of stairs.

‘Hinder me not,’ returned Marie. ‘To the river!’

The Seine flowed but a few steps from the corner of the Place Maubert,
and Sainte-Croix doubted not but that, in her desperation of fear and
excitement, she would not hesitate to precipitate herself into it from
the quay--at that time unguarded by wall or barrier of any kind. He
seized her wrist as she was about to descend, and exclaimed
hurriedly--

‘Wherever you go, Marie, I go too; even to perdition!’

They flew down the winding stairs, scarcely knowing how they
progressed, Sainte-Croix still keeping hold of his companion. In an
instant they were at the bottom of the flight, and Gaudin’s hand was
glowing like a live coal from the rapid friction of the balusters as
they descended; but, frenzied and insensible to the pain, he saw or
thought of nothing except the pale and terrified creature in his
grasp. As they reached the end of their headlong and impetuous course,
Marie could no longer bear up against the whirl of tumultuous passions
that agitated her. The struggle had been too intense; her nerves gave
way, and she sank, apparently lifeless, on the ground.

The interview between Sainte-Croix and Madame de Brinvilliers, hurried
as it had been, was too violent for the sound of their altercation not
to reach Theria’s chambers, and the frenzied pair had scarcely reached
the bottom of the stairs, when the student was following them,
accompanied by the terrified grisette, who was bearing a light. He
found Gaudin endeavouring to raise the fainting Marchioness. She had
struck her face, in falling, against a projecting portion of the
staircase, and was bleeding therefrom; a circumstance which, in the
hurry of the instant, Theria attributed to Sainte-Croix. A few hot and
hurried words passed on either side, and the next instant their swords
were drawn and crossed.

Sainte-Croix, it need scarcely be observed, was a practised swordsman.
But he nearly found his match in Camille Theria. The students were at
that time most expert in fencing; and Gaudin was somewhat hardly
driven by the assaults of his antagonist, who, with more enthusiasm
than science, pressed on him, following thrust after thrust so
rapidly, that Sainte-Croix was compelled to act on the defensive alone
for some seconds. At length the cool calculation of the soldier,
unnerved though he had been by the events of the last few minutes,
prevailed over the impetuous assaults of his adversary. He allowed
Theria to spend his energy in a series of heated attacks, which he put
aside with practised skill; until, watching his moment, he made a
lunge and thrust his rapier completely through the fleshy part of the
sword-arm of the student, whose weapon fell to the ground.

‘I have it!’ cried Camille, as he reeled back against the pillar of
the staircase; and stretching out his left hand he caught hold of the
hilt of Gaudin’s sword, preventing him from drawing it back again,
until, with singular nerve, he allowed the bright blade to be
retracted through his quivering muscle.

‘A peace, monsieur; I have it!’ he continued, smiling as he watched
the trickling dark stream that followed its withdrawal. ‘But you have
not crippled me beyond to-night. Glazer will tell you that the veins
will soon close. Had it been a leaping artery, the case would have
been different. Clemence, tie my arm round with your handkerchief.’

The grisette, who had been frightened to death during the contest, was
now supporting the still senseless Marchioness. Gaudin knelt down and
relieved her of her charge, and she immediately bound up Theria’s
wound as he had requested, and then, at his command, went back to the
chambers upstairs; she evidently lived in complete submission to what
he chose to order.

‘So!’ said Camille, ‘that is past. We have met again in an odd
fashion, Captain de Sainte-Croix.’

As he was speaking, Marie opened her eyes and looked around. But, the
instant she saw the two rivals she shuddered convulsively, and again
relapsed into insensibility.

‘She is a clever actress,’ continued Camille, smiling; ‘they will tell
you so at Versailles.’

‘We have each been duped,’ answered Gaudin, somewhat struck at the
cool manner in which Theria appeared to take everything; ‘she has been
playing a deep, double game with us.’

‘She will play one no longer as far as I am concerned. You are welcome
to all her affections, and I shall rank you as one of my best friends
for your visit this evening.’

‘Let me ask one thing,’ said Gaudin. ‘For her sake this rencontre must
be kept between ourselves.’

‘You have my honour that it shall,’ answered Theria, ‘if you think
such an article good security.’

But, whatever might have been their intentions, they were not
permitted to preserve the secrecy. For Glazer’s man, Panurge, hearing
the struggle in the court, had thought it by far the best plan to call
in the guard instead of going himself to see what it was; and opening
the window of the shop, looking on to the street, had bawled so
lustily that a detachment of the Guet Royal was soon summoned, and by
his directions now entered the court-yard, upon the assurance that a
woman was being murdered.

They advanced at once to the foot of the staircase, where Theria,
Gaudin, and Marie were stationed; their bright cressets shedding a
vivid light over every part of the interior. Some young men, who had
come up with the guard, as they were returning from their orgies,
pressed forward with curiosity to ascertain the cause of the tumult.

But from one of them a fearful cry of surprise was heard as he
recognised the persons before him. Sainte-Croix raised his eyes, and
found that he was standing face to face with Antoine, Marquis of
Brinvilliers!




 CHAPTER VII.
 LOUISE GAUTHIER FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF LACHAUSSÉE

Whilst the good gossipers of Paris, on the morning after the arrest
of Exili at the Pont Notre Dame, were everywhere discussing the events
of the preceding evening, the principal actors in the scene were quiet
enough. On board the boat-mill everything was tranquil. The morning
sun was high up, sparkling upon the river, and glistening in the lofty
casements, indenting the tall, sloping roofs of the houses adjoining
the Seine. The quays were again filled with busy crowds; the buzz and
bustle of the foot passengers and the rumbling of ignoble morning
vehicles--for the aristocratic quarters still slumbered--once more
fell on the ear; and the mountebanks and charlatans of the Pont Neuf
and Carrefour du Châtelet were arriving with their stalls and
apparatus to prepare for another day’s speculation upon the credulity
of their customers.

Benoit Mousel was the first of the three inmates of the mill that was
stirring, and he blessed himself as the clock of the Tour d’Horloge
read him a lesson upon his sluggishness. But he had been late in bed.
The Garde Bourgeois had remained some little time after the prisoner
had been taken; and even when they went, taking their dead comrades
with them, the excitement and alarm of the Languedocian and his wife
were too great to allow them to think of retiring to rest. Nor could
Benoit persuade himself, in spite of some comforting assurances from
the guard, that he was altogether exculpated from the suspicion of
being an accomplice of Exili. In the stormy night that followed, even
until morning, there was not a tile or fragment blown down from the
tottering houses on the Pont Notre Dame, upon the roof of the mill,
which did not cause him to start and tremble, with the belief that a
fresh party of the watch were coming to arrest him. Even his usual
narcotic, the clicking of the water-wheel, failed to lull him,
although aided by the gentle sway of the boat as it rocked in the
current, and his couch of empty sacks never before appeared so
uncomfortable.

His wife had shared her bed with her young guest, and was scarcely
less watchful and terrified than her husband; for Bathilde had not
been very long in Paris, and never cared to leave their little
floating tenement but to go to the market, or on Sunday when she
donned her best costume of Languedoc, and accompanied Benoit to some
of the resorts of the holiday-keepers beyond the walls; so that the
wild manners of the time and city were comparatively little known to
her. Louise was the only one of the party who slept throughout the
night. Worn, broken down, crushed in heart and spirits, she had almost
mechanically allowed Bathilde to officiate as her serving-woman; and a
faint smile which passed occasionally over her sad features was the
only token by which the good-tempered _paysanne_ knew that her
assistance was appreciated.

‘_Pardieu!_’ said Benoit, as they assembled to their morning repast;
‘I like the sun a little better than the night; how the clouds growled
at the angry wind! And how the wind chafed the lighters against the
piles of the bridge! Did you ever hear such a devil’s squeaking as
they made? Ugh!’

Benoit shuddered at the mere recollection of the sounds that had
rendered the night so fearful, and then directly afterwards attacked
the large log of bread, and one of a store of small cheeses, in a
manner that showed his mental disquietude had not in any way affected
his appetite.

‘Did you hear the rain, Benoit?’ asked Bathilde.

‘One must have had sorry ears not to have done so,’ he replied. ‘I
only dozed once; and then I dreamt I was tied to a stake in the Place
de Grêve, with a painted paper cap on my head, and the executioner
was lighting the faggots, when down came the rain and washed us all
away. Just then the storm awoke me.’

And he drowned the recalled terror in a horn of wine, poured out from
the rude earthen jug on the table.

‘You have eaten nothing, _petite_,’ said Bathilde, as she took the
hand of Louise in her own and pressed it kindly. ‘I am afraid you do
not like our city food.’

‘Indeed you are mistaken,’ returned Louise: ‘it is most excellent. But
I cannot eat. And yet,’ she added sadly, ‘I have tasted nothing for
two days.’

‘It’s a bad thing, sweetheart, not to eat,’ said Benoit, by way of
commentary on his own proceedings. ‘When I was courting Bathilde, if I
had not eaten and drank a great deal I should have died. Love is a
terrible thing for the appetite.’

‘We have no honey here, nor oil, like we have at Béziers,’ said
Bathilde.

‘Ay! Béziers!’ continued Benoit, with a fond reminiscence. ‘How I
used to eat the mulberries there! You know the mulberries at Béziers,
Ma’amselle Louise? And the old image of Pierre Pepesuc, that we used
to dress up once a year.’

‘And I made ribbons for his hat,’ said Bathilde; ‘because he kept the
town by himself, against the English, in the Rue Françoise.’

‘And the orchards on the bank of the Orb, and the vineyards, and the
farms all along the river,’ continued Benoit, warming up as he called
to mind the principal features of his beautiful Languedoc.

But it produced no corresponding animation in the pale face of Louise.
On the contrary, she bent down her head; and they saw the tears
falling, although she was evidently endeavouring to conceal her
anguish from her hospitable entertainers.

‘I shall never see Languedoc again,’ she said sorrowfully, at length.

‘Oh yes you will, _ma belle_!’ said Benoit cheeringly; ‘and so we
shall all. When autumn arrives, and Jacques Mito will come and mind
the mill, we will all start together. I can get a mule who will go the
whole way, with easy stages.’

‘And we have been promised a _patache_,’ observed Bathilde.

‘Ay--a _patache_. Mass! did you ever travel by a _patache_? They send
you up to the sky every round the wheels make. ’Tis a fine method of
seeing the country.’

Bathilde laughed at her husband’s explanation of the uncomfortable
conveyance. But it was evident that the mention of Languedoc only
brought back tearful recollections to Louise Gauthier. She shuddered,
as the image of some bitter scene was called up by the allusion, and
remained silent.

The day wore on. Several persons--neighbours from the bridge, and
street acquaintances of Benoit--came in the course of the morning to
gossip about the events of which the boat-mill had been the principal
scene of action. Bathilde went to market on the quays, and while she
was gone Louise busied herself in setting to rights the humble
appointments of their ark. The good-hearted Languedocian himself
appeared very little at ease with himself respecting the disposal of
his time, and he was constantly speculating upon the chance of ever
recovering a small sum of money due to him from Exili for lodging and
services. He had discarded his motley habit, which hung in a
woe-begone and half-ludicrous fashion against the wall; and was now
attired in the simple costume of a _banlieue_ peasant.

Twilight was again coming, and the little party were once more
reassembled, whilst Bathilde was telling all sorts of wonderful
stories of the marvels she had seen on the quays and _carrefours_,
when a fresh visitor arrived at the boat-mill. He came alone in a
small boat, similar to the one Sainte-Croix had used the preceding
evening, and without announcing himself, entered the apartment with an
easy, half-impudent air, which proved that he was on excellent terms
with himself. Benoit and his wife received him with great respect,
being somewhat overcome by his appearance; for he was gaily dressed,
and assumed the air of a grand seigneur. Their visitor was in the
little room lately occupied by Exili, which the kind-hearted couple
had begged she would call her own so long as she chose to remain with
them.

‘_Salut!_ good people,’ said the stranger on entering. ‘Do not let me
incommode you. Is this the mill in which the poisoner Exili was
captured last evening?’

‘Y-e-s, monsieur,’ gasped Benoit, in very frightened accents, whilst
he added inwardly, ‘It is all up with me! I shall be broken or burnt
on the Grêve after all!’

There could be no doubt about it in his mind. The visitor was
evidently charged with a commission to arrest him as one of the
Italian’s accomplices. Even Bathilde’s fresh, rosy cheeks paled;
chiefly, however, from beholding her husband’s terror.

‘My husband had nothing in the world to do with him, beyond watching
his fires and selling his love spells,’ said Bathilde eagerly. ‘He had
not, indeed, monsieur. Maître Picard, the _chapelier_ of the Rue St.
Jacques, will give him his good word.’

‘He is one of the Garde Bourgeois of St. Marcel,’ said Benoit.

‘And kept the keys of the Port Bordelle before King Louis knocked it
down,’ added his wife rapidly.

‘And his wife owns half the mulberries at Béziers,’ ejaculated
Benoit. ‘I worked for her father, monsieur: he would come up to speak
for me; but he has been dead ten years.’

‘My honest couple,’ said the visitor; ‘you appear to be giving
yourselves a great deal of unnecessary discomfort. I have very little
business with either of you.’

Benoit drew a good long breath of relief, and now for the first time
hastened to get a seat for the stranger.

‘Have you any one staying in the mill with you,’ inquired the
new-comer.

‘M. Exili was our only lodger,’ said Benoit, not choosing to speak of
the girl.

‘But there is a young woman here, I think,’ continued the other. ‘The
same that was present at the capture last evening.’

‘Merciful Virgin! she is not a poisoner!’ exclaimed Benoit, who began
to misgive everything and everybody.

‘Reassure yourself,’ replied the other; ‘she certainly is not, if the
person be the same. Her name is----’

‘Louise Gauthier?’ replied Benoit, as the stranger hesitated.

‘That is right. Will you tell her some one wishes to see her upon
business of importance.’

Bathilde ran towards the chamber to summon the young girl. She
appeared immediately; but as soon as she saw who it was required her
attendance, she shrank back, with an expression of alarm and dislike,
as she exclaimed--

‘M. Lachaussée here!’

‘Yes, Ma’amselle Louise,’ returned Sainte-Croix’s confidant, as he
rose from his seat. ‘You do not give me a very hearty welcome. Come
here.’

He advanced towards her; but Louise uttered a slight cry, and retired
in the direction of her chamber, appealing to Benoit for protection.
The miller immediately seized a partisan, which had been left behind
in the tumult of the preceding night, and put himself before the door.

‘Look you, monsieur,’ he said; ‘I heard your name from her lips last
night, under no very pleasant circumstances. I think you hold some
situation at the Gobelins.’

‘Well?’ returned Lachaussée coolly. ‘Well, my good fellow?’

‘Well!’ continued Benoit; ‘it is not well, and I am not a good
fellow,--at least, I would rather not be, according to your opinion of
one. Now take this hint, and don’t be too pressing in your
attentions.’

‘Pshaw! you are a fool!’

‘Without doubt,’ said Benoit; ‘or rather I _was_. Yesterday it was
part of my profession; to-day I am a bourgeois, if I please to call
myself so. But fool or not, you shall not annoy that poor girl.’

‘When you have come to the end of your heroics, perhaps you will let
me speak,’ said Lachaussée. ‘Mademoiselle Gauthier,’ he continued,
addressing himself to Louise, ‘you had a hurried interview here last
evening with M. de Sainte-Croix. I am the bearer of a message from
him.’

‘An apology, I hope, for his brutality,’ again interrupted Benoit,
gaining fresh courage every minute. And he was going on with an
invective, when an appealing look from Louise restrained him, and he
contented himself by performing feats of revenge in imagination,
flourishing his halbert about to the great terror of Bathilde, who had
never seen her husband so furious.

‘I know nothing of that to which this person alludes,’ continued
Lachaussée to Louise. ‘M. de Sainte-Croix desires to see you,
mademoiselle.’

‘To see me!’ exclaimed Louise in a tremor of excitement, not unmixed
with joy. ‘Oh, M. Lachaussée! you are not trifling with me? Is this
really true?’

‘You may convince yourself within a quarter of an hour,’ replied the
other. ‘I have a carriage waiting at the foot of the bridge. Possibly
you may conceive the reason of my mission; of that I know nothing.’

‘Do you think that I ought to go?’ asked Louise timidly of her honest
host. ‘And you will not say it is unkind, leaving you at this short
notice? Oh! if you knew how I have prayed to see him but once more--to
speak to him again, if it were but to exchange a single word, and then
bid him farewell for ever.’

‘Unkind, sweetheart?’ said Benoit, laying his rough hand upon her
shoulder. ‘It would be greater unkindness in us to keep you here. Go,
by all means; and recollect this is still your home if you have need
of one. I will not even say good-bye. Shall I go with you?’

‘There is no occasion for that,’ said Lachaussée. ‘There are two
valets with the coach, who will see mademoiselle safely back again,
should she return. And here is something M. de Sainte-Croix desired me
to offer to you for your care of her.’

He placed a purse in Benoit’s hand as he spoke. The Languedocian
looked at it for a few seconds, peeping into its contents like a bird;
and then he shook his head saying--

‘A fiftieth part of this sum would more than repay us for what we have
done. No, no--I would rather you had given me a few sous--though I did
not want anything. Keep it for us, Mademoiselle Louise, until you come
back.’

This was Benoit’s rough method of making over the money to his late
guest. Louise took it, for she did not wish to annoy him by returning
it.

And then--hoping, doubting, trembling--she embraced Bathilde, and
accompanied Lachaussée to the water platform of the mill. Benoit
lighted her into the boat, and then remained waving his torch in
adieu, until they touched the landing-place of the Quai du Châtelet.
And then, with a hasty adieu to his wife, he jumped into his own light
craft, and followed the direction the others had taken.




 CHAPTER VIII.
 THE CATACOMBS OF THE BIÈVRE AND THEIR OCCUPANTS

There was much depravity and reckless disregard of every moral and
social ordinance to be found moving upon the surface of the city of
Paris at this epoch; but there was still more beneath it. The vast
_carrières_ that have undermined the city in so many directions, the
chief of which are now known by the general name of ‘the catacombs,’
still existed; but they were not then, as now, appropriated to the
storing of remnants of mortality collected from the over-charged
cemetery of the Innocents and other places of interment. They had,
however, living occupants--many, perchance, whose bones exhumed and
transported in future times from these burial-grounds now assist in
forming the ghastly decorations of these subterranean charnel-houses.

As early as the commencement of the fourteenth century it was the
custom to dig the white freestone, of which the greater part of the
edifices of ancient Paris were built, from _carrières_ on either side
of the Bièvre, and beneath the Faubourg St. Marcel, in which
neighbourhood much of our scene has passed. These undertakings were
continued for two or three centuries, without method or direction,
unrestrained by any authority, and entirely according to the will of
the excavators, until they had not only hollowed out the ground for an
incredible distance under the faubourgs, but had even undermined the
southern parts of the city, placing in great jeopardy the streets and
buildings over them, as indeed they are said to be at present. The
empty caverns, most of which opened to the air and light by unguarded
pits and archways, at which accidents were constantly occurring, soon
found inhabitants; and whenever the working of one of these
_carrières_ ceased, either from the fear of proceeding further or the
stoppage of the outlet by a tumbling in of the freestone, it was
immediately taken possession of by the graceless wanderers and
outcasts who formed the refuse of every grade and circle of society in
the dissolute city.

A carriage was waiting, as Lachaussée had stated, at the side of the
Seine; and when he had entered with his unsuspecting companion it
moved on towards the southern extremity of the city, in the direction
Sainte-Croix had taken the preceding evening. Scarcely a word was
spoken by either party, until the vehicle stopped beneath the sign of
the ‘_Lanterne_,’ the low tavern in the Rue Mouffetard. The light
revealed its blackened beams, and the rough, crumbling pillars that
supported the upper floor.

‘This is the end of our journey, mademoiselle,’ said Lachaussée; ‘we
must descend now.’

‘But this is not the residence of M. de Sainte-Croix,’ observed
Louise, as she cast a misgiving glance at the worn and ancient
tenement.

‘We shall meet him by appointment,’ replied the other, as he got down;
‘and he is certain not to be much after his time. If he has not
arrived, do not be alarmed; I have received his orders to take the
greatest care of you.’

The manner of Lachaussée towards Louise was so completely changed
since they last met, his usual insolence had turned to so respectful a
bearing, that her suspicions were for a time lulled. ‘He is evidently
trying,’ she thought, ‘to efface my recollection of his
importunities.’

They were admitted by the host, and Lachaussée inquired if Gaudin had
arrived. The man answered in the affirmative, and moreover stated that
he had gone to his laboratory, leaving word that, if any one inquired
for him, especially two who answered to the description of the present
visitors, they were to be admitted to him.

He threw back a heavy door in the corner of the room as he spoke, and
placed himself at the entrance with a light. It opened apparently on
the brink of a dark well; at all events there was no passage leading
from it. In her anxiety to meet Sainte-Croix once more, Louise had
stepped forward before her conductor; but as she saw the deep abyss
that yawned immediately at her feet, she started with a cry of
affright.

‘Do not alarm yourself, mademoiselle,’ said Lachaussée; ‘Monsieur is
a subtle chemist, and pursues his studies below. Let me go first.’

Lachaussée took the light from the host, and grasping the hand of
Louise, almost dragged her towards the door-way, for she hung back
from terror. The light revealed a few rude wooden steps, down which
they passed; and then she found herself, with her guide, in a narrow
excavation, scarcely large enough to contain them both, and hewn in
the solid limestone.

A straightened passage led from this hollow upon a rapid descent. The
walls were roughly fashioned, as well as the roof, from which large
blocks depended, which threatened every instant to tumble down and
crush those below. At the sides the stone was dirty and smoothed, as
if from the frequent contact of passers by; but above it was white,
and scintillated in places from the reflection of the light which
Lachaussée carried. They went rapidly on, still going down, down,
until the arched-way became damp, and in some places small streams of
water trickled through the walls, or mixed with the lime and depended
in stalactites from the projecting pieces. Then other caverns branched
out from the track they were following, and were soon lost in the
obscurity. Shells and marine fossils, so bright that they almost
appeared metallic, were everywhere visible, and occasionally the
petrified traces of monsters of a former world started out from the
rude boundaries of the passage. The air became chill and damp; the
breath of the intruders steamed in the flaring light of the torch; and
their footsteps fell without an echo, clogged by the deadened and
imprisoned atmosphere. Louise spoke not a word; but even clung to
Lachaussée in the fright of their dreary journey.

Before long the way became more lofty and spacious. Other tracks
evidently branched into it from various points; and the paths were
more beaten, but still always descending. Louise fancied she heard
sounds too; now and then the echo of a laugh, as at a distance, or the
roar of hasty altercation. She addressed several questions to
Lachaussée, as to how much further they had to travel, but received
no reply beyond a commonplace evasion. Then the sounds were louder and
nearer; and at last the superintendent of the Gobelins pushed aside a
curtain of coarse sackcloth that hung before a doorway, as if to
deaden the noise within, and led Louise into an apartment about thirty
feet square, roughly cut in the same manner as the archway, but in a
soft, chalky stone--that kind which, burnt and pulverised, is known so
well in the arts.

There were many people of both sexes in this vault, and a glance
sufficed to show that they were collected from the lowest dregs of
those who lived from day to day they cared not how--in Paris. When any
one of their usual haunts--such as the Cours des Miracles, before
alluded to--became too prominent in its iniquities for the police to
suffer it to remain unvisited, they sought a refuge in the
_carrières_ at the southern part of the city, beyond the barriers,
out of the jurisdiction of the Guet Royal. The Garde Bourgeois they
set entirely at defiance. Having once taken possession of their
subterranean domain, approach was at all times dangerous, except to
the initiated. The fruits of all the robberies committed in the
faubourgs were stored in the gypsum vaults of St. Marcel; and these
caverns also served to secrete those hapless people who had been
carried off by force, and were either sent from there to America--to
be sold, as they affirmed, having been kept _en charte privée_--or
else they were disposed of to the officers who were on the look-out
for recruits. Lachaussée’s employments, whilst in the service of
Sainte-Croix, were of this nature, and will in some measure account
for his intimacy with the inhabitants of the _carrières_.

There was a rough table in this room, formed by planks laid upon
blocks of gypsum. Seats of the same fashion were placed about, and
settles were in some places cut from the limestone itself. Lamps were
hung from the roof, burning dimly in the imprisoned air, and smoking
the blackened pointed incrustation that depended around them in
fanciful variety.

We have said that several persons, both male and female, were grouped
about the room. Some were drinking; others quarrelling over and
dividing their spoils; and many were sleeping off the fumes of
intoxication. But there was one man striding about the room, to whom
they all appeared to pay some deference--such respect, at least, as
could be exacted from the party. He was of enormous stature, and clad
in the rudest manner, in garments apparently chosen from half a dozen
different wardrobes. His hair hung matted and dishevelled about his
head, and his arms were bare, of immense power, and scarred in all
directions. One eye was perfectly closed, the result of some violent
attack, and the other glared unnaturally, from the absence of a
portion of the upper eyelid. As Lachaussée lifted up the curtain he
turned sharply round, but, recognising him, dropped immediately into
his usual lounging position. This man was Bras d’Acier, the most
celebrated brigand of the city.

‘M. Lachaussée,’ he said, ‘enter. I thought Colbert had dared some of
his bloodhounds to follow us. Whom have you there?’

‘A friend of M. de Sainte-Croix,’ replied the intendant, with much
significance. ‘He wishes her taken the greatest care of.’

‘She is welcome,’ replied Bras d’Acier. ‘His wishes shall be obeyed.’

Louise uttered a scream as Bras d’Acier advanced towards her, and
would have fled; but Lachaussée held her by the hand, and he pulled
her into the vault. The women at the same time rose from their seats
and collected around, and in an instant had dispossessed her of a few
ornaments of humble jewellery which she carried in her hair.

‘M. Lachaussée,’ cried the terrified girl, ‘you have cruelly deceived
me! Where is M. de Sainte-Croix?’

A loud laugh broke from those about her, as Bras d’Acier took her from
the intendant and pulled her under the lamp.

‘M. de Sainte-Croix will be here directly; especially if he knows such
a pretty face expects him. In the meantime you can bestow your favours
as you please. Give me a kiss.’

He attempted to draw her still closer towards him; but Louise,
shuddering from his advances, freed herself from his hold and crouched
down at his feet.

‘Is there no one to protect me?’ she cried. ‘M. Lachaussée, you shall
pay dearly for this treachery. Help! help! Gaudin! are you near me, or
have I been so cruelly deceived?’

‘Pshaw!’ returned the ruffian, at whose feet she was crouching, as he
liberated her wrists. ‘I never give myself much trouble in these
matters; too many women are too eager to court me. There--get up; you
will know better after you have lived with us a little time.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked the terrified girl. ‘You do not intend to
keep me here?’

‘I am sorry, if it displeases you, to say we cannot let you go,’
answered Lachaussée, entirely altering his tone.

‘What is the meaning of all this? For the love of heaven, tell me for
what you have brought me hither?’

‘To take care of you--that is all,’ said Lachaussée. ‘Paris is a
dangerous place for youth and beauty like yours; besides, you will
find companions to cheer your solitude.’

Louise looked round, and shuddered at the unpromising countenances
about her. Some were laughing, others gazing in stupid curiosity; but
none seemed to sympathise with her. She covered her face with her
hands to shut them from her sight. One of the women, an Amazonian
creature, who was near her, pulled them away, as she said--

‘We have an altar, if you wish to pray; you will find nothing omitted
in our _cour souterrain_. Only do not hide your face, for you will be
married to-morrow; and it is right your future husband should see
something of you.’

Louise was too frightened to reply. She looked wildly about her, and
drew back trembling to Lachaussée; loathing him, yet he appeared the
most human of this fearful company. The woman who had addressed her
pointed to the altar she had spoken of. It was indeed there, at the
end of the room, cut out from the gypsum, and surrounded by a few
rough ornaments of the same material.

‘Why not marry her at once,’ continued the woman; ‘Jerôme Barbier has
no wife. _A la noce! à la noce!_’

‘_A la noce!_’ chorussed all the others.

‘Look here, ma’amselle,’ cried the Amazon, leading a man forward. ‘Is
he not a proper bridegroom? Will you have him? We have the _cruche_
ready to be broken.’

The man advanced, and was about to offer some rude salutation, when
Louise darted from the side of Lachaussée, and hurrying along the
vault threw herself upon the highest step of the altar, clasping the
crucifix that surmounted it with her hands. No one had time to arrest
her progress; the movement had been too sudden.

‘_Asile!_’ she cried. ‘A sanctuary! If you have any respect for this
holy sign, and it is not set up here in mockery, I claim it. I throw
myself on the protection of the cross!’

Superstition, rather than religion, had a powerful hold upon these
lawless people. Even Bras d’Acier was silent, and the remainder
appeared undecided how to act.

But the duration of this silence soon came to an end. Whilst the
ruffians and their associates were yet doubting what course they
should pursue, they were startled by a dull, heavy knocking, repeated
at slow intervals, and sounding in the immediate vicinity of the
cross, to which Louise was clinging. It was first observed by Bras
d’Acier, and he called the attention of Lachaussée to it, as a small
piece of limestone, unsettled by the concussion, fell upon the rough
floor of the vault. Louise, too, heard the noise; and, seeing that it
appeared to alarm her persecutors, redoubled her cries.

‘Silence, woman!’ cried Bras d’Acier, although in a subdued voice, as
the deadened blows still kept on. ‘Silence, I tell you; if you think
your life worth keeping.’

‘Knock her on the head,’ said one of the ruffians.

‘Drag her from the cross,’ exclaimed the woman who had before spoken.
‘I will do it myself, if you are all so terror-stricken.’

‘Hold!’ shouted a third, as he raised his hand in an attitude of
denunciation. It was the broken-down abbe whom Lachaussée

 [image: img_06.jpg
 caption: Louise Claiming Sanctuary]

had before met with the students. ‘Such violation must not be. The
crumbling walls would fall and crush you all beneath their ruins did
you invade the sanctity of that altar. Back--and respect this holy
emblem!’

Degraded as Camus was, there was something in his manner and attitude
that awed the group about him. They had advanced at the instigation of
the woman, but now once more fell back.

The noise still continued, but it came nearer and nearer; and now the
sound of a voice could be heard shouting, but in the distance.

‘It is a fresh scheme of Colbert’s hounds,’ said Bras d’Acier. ‘They
know every vault and underground alley in Paris as well as the rats.
To the Carrière Montrouge with ye all! I will dispose of this
squeaking girl myself, though heaven and hell forbid it.’

His companions immediately took the hint. They hastily collected their
things together, hiding some of them in niches and corners of the
quarry, and then fled through the different archways in the direction
indicated by Bras d’Acier; whilst the robber himself remained in the
_carrière_, together with Lachaussée.




 CHAPTER IX.
 THE REVENGE OF SAINTE-CROIX--THE RENCONTRE IN THE BASTILLE

We left the Marchioness of Brinvilliers at the moment when her
husband, in company with the Guet Royal, entered the court-yard, where
she was lying in real or well-feigned insensibility, Sainte-Croix by
her side, his drawn sword in his hand, and Camille Theria, a silent
observer of the group, leaning with folded arms against one of the
pillars of the doorway.

At the sudden exclamation of the Marquis, Sainte-Croix had started
from his stooping position, and for a moment all was silence and
expectation. Gaudin was a bold and ready-witted man; but the rage,
jealousy, and hate that worked within him almost over-mastered even
his well-practised invention. For an instant he thought of declaring
his guilty passion for Marie, although at the risk of involving
himself in her ruin; for he knew the hasty and vindictive temper of
Brinvilliers. But this passed away, and with one great effort he
turned calmly to Theria.

‘Now, sir,’ said he; ‘you will believe the assurance of this lady’s
husband, that she is not what you took her for.’

The quick glance of intelligence that passed between them showed how
well Theria understood the game Sainte-Croix was playing. Advancing to
the Marquis, with a respectful bow, he tendered, in set phrase, his
humble apology for having, in mistake, insulted ‘Madame la Marquise.’
He had an appointment on the spot, he declared; and the cloak which
the Marchioness wore, together with the darkness of the night, had
prevented his discovering that she was not the person he had expected,
until her cries had brought in Sainte-Croix, who was passing, as he
said himself, to his lodgings in the Rue des Bernardines, hard by the
Place Maubert.

Whether fully satisfied with this explanation or not, the Marquis of
Brinvilliers was too much a _coureur des rues_ himself to scan too
closely the equivocal position in which he had found his wife. She
accounted very naturally for her presence by her connection with
Glazer, the apothecary, who furnished the medicines for her patients
in the Hôtel Dieu. The guard retired on finding that no more
disturbance was to be apprehended; and Panurge having summoned a
_voiture de place_, Antoine took a friendly leave of Sainte-Croix,
thanking him for his interposition, handed in the Marchioness, and
they drove rapidly off in the direction of the Pont Notre Dame.

‘Adieu, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix, or _au revoir_, if you will,’ said
Theria, when they were left once more alone together. ‘The poor
Marquis wears his horns with a grace that belongs exclusively to the
court of our Grand Monarque. It would be a pity to rob him of so
becoming an ornament.’

Gaudin scarcely knew what answer to make. Nor indeed did Theria permit
any, as he continued--

‘For myself I renounce all pretensions, and leave the field to you.
The poor student is no rival for the gallant captain of the Regiment
de Tracy.’

And with a smile that had in it more of mockery than mirth, he rapidly
remounted the stairs, without waiting for a reply.

Sainte-Croix offered none. It was only by his clenched teeth and the
quivering of his brow that his thoughts could have been read, as he
strode with a hasty step along the Rue St. Victor to his own lodgings.
His was one of those natures that take their tone from the accidental
circumstances around them. He might have been a military hero, an
enthusiastic priest, a successful politician. The illegitimacy of his
birth, and the colour of the times, had made him an adventurer, a
gambler, a criminal. His love for Marie de Brinvilliers had been
passionate and intense; as it can be only in natures like his own. Now
that its current had been forced back upon his heart, it seemed
changed to a deep, deadly, withering hate.

‘I will be her bane--her curse!’ he exclaimed, as he paced up and down
the apartment, after flinging his hat and cloak aside. ‘I will be her
bad angel. She shall be mine--yes, body and soul--in life and after
it! And I will triumph over that besotted fool, her husband. Come, my
power--my talisman!’

With a short dry laugh, he stopped before a massive bureau which
stood, surmounted by a narrow mirror, between the windows of the room;
and taking up a small iron-clamped box, he opened it, and brought from
it a small packet carefully sealed, and a phial of clear, colourless
fluid.

‘Come,’ he continued, ‘the fools who envy me--the bastard-captain--my
fortune, have said I had discovered the philosopher’s stone. I have
it--it is here; the source, not of life, but death!’

He held the packet in his hand a moment; and then returning it to its
place in the casket, resumed his hasty walk and broken exclamations of
passion, strangely mixed with triumph.

An hour had passed away when La Prairie, one of his servants, entering
the room, announced Françoise Rousset, _femme de chambre_ to the
Marchioness of Brinvilliers. The girl entered with a look of terror
that contrasted strangely with her lively and good-humoured face, and
handing a note to Sainte-Croix with much the same air which a child
would put on in presenting a cake to an elephant, timidly waited his
answer.

‘Tell Madame la Marquise that I will attend to her,’ said
Sainte-Croix, as he hastily ran over the contents of the note.

The girl curtsied, and left the room with more precipitation than
grace. For Sainte-Croix was said to deal in strange and forbidden
arts; and the same tastes which among the rich had won for him the
reputation of a successful alchemist, had established for him also,
amongst the vulgar, a character for intimacy with Satan and his imps,
which his dark and lowering manner, at the moment Françoise entered,
was well calculated to sustain.

‘So,’ he exclaimed, slowly rereading the letter, and dwelling on parts
of it with a bitter emphasis, ‘you are determined not to outlive the
night, and would have some of the subtle poison of which you have
heard me speak. No, fair lady; we must not part so soon. Now begins
_my_ triumph!’

And with these words he resumed his hat and mantle; and leaving orders
that Lachaussée, should he return, was to await him in the house, he
entered a fiacre, and drove to the Hôtel d’Aubray, the residence of
the Marchioness, in the Rue Neuve St. Paul, not far from the Bastille.

His road lay across the Pont de la Tournelle, which connected the Ile
St. Louis with the Quartier des Bernardins. The fiacre was lumbering
along this route when Gaudin was startled from his moody reflections
by its sudden stoppage. Looking out to ascertain its cause, he saw
that they were in the Rue des Deux Ponts, and his horses entangled
with those belonging to another carriage, escorted by two armed
lackeys, whose altercation with the driver of the fiacre was not so
loud but that, from the interior of the vehicle which they guarded,
Sainte-Croix could hear a mingled sound of oaths, shrieks, and
remonstrances, in a woman’s voice. Gaudin would have heeded this
little, had it not been for the stoppage, which, excited as he was,
chafed him beyond his usual coolness. Springing out of the fiacre, he
found himself, almost before he knew it, crossing swords with the two
lackeys, one of whom he slightly wounded; the other, hotly pressed,
sheltered himself by running behind the carriage, calling loudly for
help.

One of the carriage windows was now suddenly broken from within, and
he could see that its occupants were struggling; the one for escape,
the other to prevent it; whilst the shouts of _au secours!_ grew
louder and louder. Sainte-Croix abandoned his pursuit of the servant,
and was proceeding to open the door of the carriage, when it was
suddenly forced from within, and a woman, young, beautiful, and richly
dressed, half-fell, half-sprang into his arms.

‘Marotte Dupré!’

‘Gaudin de Sainte-Croix!’

The exclamations were uttered at the same instant.

‘Save me, as you are a gentleman!’ cried the girl; at the moment she
was seized by a person masked, who leapt after her into the street.

‘_A moi!_ monsieur,’ cried Sainte-Croix, still holding the girl, and
presenting his drawn sword to her companion.

The male occupant of the carriage burst into a loud laugh, and pulling
off his mask, discovered the features of the Marquis of Brinvilliers!

‘_Ventre St. Bleu_, my friend! we are fated to odd rencontres,’ cried
Brinvilliers. ‘You have begun the night by protecting my wife; you
finish it by robbing me of a mistress.’

‘No, no!’ cried the girl, an actress at the theatre in the Rue du
Temple. ‘I am no mistress of his: it is against my will that I am
here: he carried me off from my mother’s. Save me, Monsieur de
Sainte-Croix!’

‘Pardon, mademoiselle,’ returned Gaudin, sheathing his sword. ‘I
cannot interfere in an affair of gallantry. _Au revoir_, Marquis, and
success attend your wooing.’

So saying he resigned the poor girl, who continued to shriek and
implore his aid in heart-rending entreaties, to the Marquis. Kissing
his hand, he remounted the fiacre, which was by this time disengaged.
And each proceeded on his way; the husband to his _amour_, the gallant
to his wife!

The Hôtel d’Aubray, in which the Marchioness of Brinvilliers resided
with her father, Monsieur Dreux d’Aubray, Lieutenant-civil of the city
of Paris, was a massive building, as we have stated, in the Rue Neuve
St. Paul, lately erected by Lemercier. The fiacre rolled under its
arched gateway, encrusted with the cupids and wreaths which
characterised the ornamental architecture of the period, and stopped
in the court-yard. Except on the entresol, where a light shone from
the window of the Marchioness’s boudoir, the heavy square was dark and
silent. Françoise was on the watch, and admitting Sainte-Croix by an
_escalier dérobé_ led him, with a light step, to a door concealed by
tapestry, where, knocking with three low raps, she left him. The door
opened, and Sainte-Croix, for the second time that night, stood face
to face with the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.

It was a low but spacious room. Heavy curtains of rich, dark damask
almost hid the two windows. The floor was covered with a soft Persian
carpet--a luxury then unusual in Paris--and the air was heavy with the
perfume that wreathed in thin, blue smoke from a silver _cassolette_
on the carved marble mantelshelf, over which hung a full-length
portrait of the Marchioness, painted with all the elaborate finish of
Mignard’s pencil, but scarcely so lovely as the original, on whom
Sainte-Croix was gazing with a passion quite unaffected by the
contempt he felt for her. On a table near the fire were piled rare
fruits, and the reflection of the ruddy flame leapt and sparkled in
the silver wine-flagons and tall-stemmed Venetian glasses.

On a settee beside the table sat Marie, in studied disarray. She might
have been made up after one of Guido’s Magdalens, so beautiful were
her rounded shoulders--so dishevelled her light hair--so little of
real grief in her swimming eye, and so much of voluptuous abandonment
in the attitude of resignation she wore when Sainte-Croix entered the
room.

He comprehended all the artifice in a moment; but there are states of
feeling in which trickery, so far from inspiring disgust, is most
acceptable. All truth and sincerity was at an end between them; and
the only tie that yet held them together--that of passion--has a
craving for such dexterity as the Marchioness had exhibited in the
_mise en scène_ of herself and her boudoir. Without an effort to
resist its influence, and with a voluntary yielding up, for the
moment, of his scorn and bitterness, Sainte-Croix passed on to the
couch, and sinking at his mistress’s feet, felt her hands entwine his
neck, and her long hair mingling with his own, as her rosy mouth,
pressed to his forehead, half-sighed, half-whispered, ‘Forgive!’

Not a word was spoken. A more perfect adept in all the arts of
gallantry than Sainte-Croix never encountered a more passionate and
more calculating woman than Marie de Brinvilliers.

‘Gaudin!’ said the Marchioness, in a low, sweet voice, ‘you love
me--still?’

‘Ever--ever!’ murmured Sainte-Croix. And so far as passion is love, he
spoke truly at that moment.

‘I cannot live without thee, Gaudin,’ continued Marie. ‘Antoine knows
of our love. I saw it in his face to-night as we returned from the
Place Maubert. He will kill thee, Gaudin; and, my father--’ Marie
shuddered with well-feigned terror.

‘Has your husband seen M. d’Aubray to-night?’ inquired Sainte-Croix.

‘They were closeted together after our return,’ replied the
Marchioness.

Quick as thought Sainte-Croix raised his head to the face of the
Marchioness, and, half-muttering to himself, said--

‘You have not played me false again?’ A shower of kisses was the only
answer. Another pause ensued, broken by Sainte-Croix.

‘Marie!’ he said, ‘they must die, or our happiness is impossible.’

‘Who?’ asked the Marchioness eagerly.

‘Your husband and your father.’

With a hasty shriek Marie flung her lover from her, and retreated as
far as the couch would allow her, repeating, as if in a dream, ‘Die!
my husband and my father!’

‘Ay,’ said Gaudin, uttering each word slowly and calmly, as if he
would have had it sink into the heart and memory of her he was
addressing. ‘Ay--die! if we are to give the rein to our attachment. I
cannot brook the slow and secret arts of an intrigue with thee, Marie;
my love must have full scope and open daylight. I repeat, your husband
and father must be removed. Do you understand me?’

The Marchioness returned no answer. Her hands were clasped over her
eyes, and the hot tears trickled through her fingers, strained
convulsively as if to shut out sight--sound--all sense whatever.

‘I have the means,’ continued Gaudin; ‘safe, secure means, that defy
detection. You know the medicines that I have given you from time to
time for your patients at the Hôtel Dieu. How did they work?’

‘Alas! alas!’ screamed the Marchioness, ‘I see it all; they were
poisons! Oh, Gaudin!--lost--lost!’ And she buried her face in the
cushions, writhing like a serpent.

Not an emotion was traceable in the face of Sainte-Croix, as, with a
steady hand, he took a small packet from his cloak, and slowly
breaking the seals, shook a portion of its contents into one of the
glasses near him--a tall goblet with a piece of antique money blown in
its hollow stem--which he filled with wine. He then raised the
Marchioness from her crouching position, and, lifting the glass to his
lips, said to her--

‘Marie; in your letter to me this night, you asked for means of death.
You are not of that clay from which a self-murderess is made. Let our
love end. I will set you an example.’

He made a motion as if to drink, but deliberately enough for the
Marchioness to seize his hand and arrest the progress of the goblet to
his mouth.

‘No! no!’ she ejaculated, ‘I will be your tool, your slave, even until
death!’ Sainte-Croix placed the goblet on the table and clasped Marie
in his arms, when suddenly a different door from that by which he had
entered opened, and a tall, stately old man stood looking on the scene
before him. Absorbed in each other they had not heard the door open,
and it was not until his deep voice uttered the name of Marie that the
Marchioness and Sainte-Croix perceived the intruder. It was Monsieur
d’Aubray.

‘My father!’ shrieked the agonised woman, her eyes staring and her
lips apart. Sainte-Croix spoke not a word, but rose and bowed.

The old man returned the salutation as ceremoniously as if the scene
were passing at the king’s levée at Versailles.

‘To your chamber,’ he said at length, addressing himself to Marie.
Then, turning to Gaudin, he continued, ‘Monsieur de Sainte-Croix, I
will provide you with a lodging where you will run no risk of
compromising the honour of a noble family.’

He drew from the pocket of his coat a folded paper. Sainte-Croix
recognised the regal seal, and bowing, exclaimed--

‘A _lettre de cachet_, I presume. For Vincennes?’

‘Better, Monsieur le Capitaine,’ replied D’Aubray; ‘for the Bastille.’

‘I am too good a soldier to demur to any order of his Majesty, however
disagreeable,’ said Sainte-Croix. ‘As for my appearance here, I will
not attempt to justify it.’

‘_Palsambleu!_ you do well, sir,’ said the old man, his voice
quivering with anger, ‘and I would recommend your example to Madame la
Marquise, there, my daughter, and--your paramour.’

‘Monsieur, _de grace_!’ returned Gaudin deprecatingly. ‘Your
son-in-law will find me ready on my return from confinement to make
him every amende he can ask as a gentleman. But be not unkind to your
daughter; it is I alone who am to blame in this matter.’

A grateful look from Marie rewarded Sainte-Croix for his apparent
magnanimity, and even D’Aubray, much as he was moved, seemed struck
with it; for, in a tone of less bitterness than before, he requested
Sainte-Croix to attend him into the court-yard, where the archers were
in waiting.

‘Willingly,’ answered Gaudin. ‘But, monsieur, before I go, let me
exchange a pledge with you; do not refuse me this one favour:’ and
filling another glass, he offered to D’Aubray the one he had before
poured out.

‘To my speedy reformation,’ said he, as he raised his glass.

D’Aubray was on the point of drinking when, with a shriek, the
Marchioness dashed the goblet from his hand, and it fell shivered on
the floor.

‘What means this?’ said her father passionately. ‘Are you mad,
madame?’

‘Nay,’ interrupted Sainte-Croix. ‘Apparently, Madame la Marquise has
no desire to see me a better or a wiser man. Ah these women!’ he
added, in a half-aside tone to D’Aubray, and shrugging his shoulders.
‘_Allons_, monsieur!’ then, as if suddenly recollecting something, he
continued, ‘The staircase is guarded, I presume. You are too
experienced a magistrate to neglect every precaution.’

Monsieur d’Aubray bowed.

‘Then, will you give me a moment alone with your daughter?’ asked
Sainte-Croix. ‘On my honour, I will not abuse it.’

D’Aubray paused; but after a minute’s thought, replied--

‘You have behaved better than I expected, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix. I
grant your request.’ And so saying he quitted the apartment.

As he left the boudoir the Marchioness gazed wildly and inquiringly at
Gaudin, who, only whispering in her ear--‘Fool! you have thrown away a
chance to-night that may never occur again’--threw open the window of
the entresol, and, after a careful look, continued, in a low tone--‘As
I expected, the court is empty.’

Then with a sign that checked the Marchioness, who was apparently on
the point of flinging her arms about his neck, he quickly stepped from
the window, and, aided by the trellis-work and ornaments of the
intercolumnar architecture of the _hôtel_, descended easily and
safely to the ground. A glance at the _porte-cochère_, which was
open, showed him a fiacre in waiting, with two _exempts_, who guarded
the porch with their halberts. Wrapping his cloak round his left arm,
and drawing his sword, with a spring he was under the shade of the
archway almost before the sentinel’s attention was awakened. Then,
receiving on his cloaked arm the ill-directed blow of the one, he ran
the other through the body, and springing over him was in the street
before the alarm was given.

He sped along, and was turning the corner of the Rue Neuve St. Paul,
when someone suddenly sprang from a doorway upon him, and then, being
borne down by his impetuous rush, still clung round his body and
effectually hampered his progress. With curses he strove to free his
sword-arm, and would soon have rid himself of his assailant had not
the archers, who were in chase, at that moment arrived to take their
prisoner from the clutches of his captor, who was neither more nor
less than Benoit, our friend the mountebank of the Carrefour du
Châtelet, who, at the termination of an adventure to be hereafter
explained, had tracked Sainte-Croix to the Hôtel d’Aubray, and
remained crouched in a doorway of the Rue St. Paul until the arrival
of the archers.

Sullenly Sainte-Croix resigned his sword to the officer in command,
who attended him to the fiacre; and then, mounting beside him, they
set off at a foot pace to the Bastille. During the short journey
Sainte-Croix was silent; and as the fiacre rolled over the drawbridge
of the frowning fortress, which he had traversed under such different
circumstances but the evening before, and along its barbican lined
with low cabarets, wherein soldiers were gaming and drinking, to the
inner gate, it would have been difficult to say which was the official
and which the prisoner. On their arrival at the lodge of the
Under-Governor a parley was held, which ended in that functionary
expressing his regret to Monsieur de Sainte-Croix that he could not
accommodate him with a separate apartment.

‘Do not trouble yourself, monsieur,’ replied Sainte-Croix, with a
forced laugh. ‘Provided my fellow-lodger is silent and cleanly, I had
rather have his company than that of my own thoughts. I have no doubt
we shall be long enough together to become excellent friends.’

‘If you do not object, then,’ answered the courtly deputy, ‘to another
inmate, I have a chamber that will suit you exactly. Galouchet,
conduct Monsieur de Sainte-Croix to Number Eleven in the Tour du Nord.
I wish you a good night, sir.’

With mutual inclinations they separated, and Sainte-Croix followed the
gaoler along the gloomy passages. His guide at length paused at a door
numbered eleven, and, unlocking it, threw it open with a polite ‘_Par
ici_, monsieur.’

Gaudin entered. The room was not a _cachot_. It had a boarded floor
and a tolerably large window, though heavily barred. There was nothing
in its appearance of those terrible underground dungeons, which, in
the notions of the vulgar, formed the only places of confinement in
the Bastille. It contained some rude furniture and two truckle beds,
one of which was occupied.

The gaoler set the light on the table, and, as he turned to depart,
the unwonted glare roused the original tenant of the room. Starting up
on his pallet he disclosed to Sainte-Croix the livid face of the
prisoner of the preceding evening--the physician of the Carrefour du
Châtelet.

It was Exili!




 CHAPTER X.
 WHAT FURTHER BEFEL LOUISE IN THE CATACOMBS OF THE BIÈVRE

As the last of the lawless band departed from the _carrière_
Lachaussée advanced towards the altar, at the foot of which Louise
Gauthier had claimed a sanctuary. In spite of Bras d’Acier’s last
threat, the denunciation of the Abbe Camus had somewhat awed him. But
Lachaussée was less scrupulous. He was as dead to all religious
feeling as the others, and besides this, superstition had no power
over him. Advancing to the cross, he seized the arm of Louise, and
tore her from the altar into the middle of the apartment.

The knocking which had struck such terror into the hearts of the
subterraneous gang still continued, and again Louise raised her voice
for assistance.

‘They will murder me!’ she cried. ‘Help! this instant, or it will be
too late. There are but two, and----’

Lachaussée placed his hand over her mouth and stopped her cries. And
then, assisted by Bras d’Acier, he hurried her into a smaller
_carrière_ leading from the great one by a rude archway, which could
be closed after a manner, like the door, by a large curtain of rude
sackcloth. It was a vault hewn out similarly to the other, with a
rough attempt to form a gothic roof and buttresses from the limestone.
But there were horrid features in the apartment which made Louise
shudder as she looked timidly round. A dull and smoking lamp was here
also suspended from the ceiling, and by its light could be seen
coffins in every direction round the walls; some with their feet
projecting some inches beyond them; others lying sideways, such as we
see bounding the grave of a crowded burying-ground. In many instances
they were open, but no remains were visible. Their cases appeared to
have been appropriated to use as cupboards, in which articles of
various kinds were stored. In one corner were a few skulls and bones
thrown carelessly together; the number was insignificant, and they
were not ranged in the order of the existing catacombs. As we have
stated, the _carrières_ were at that time the mere result of
excavations for building stone; it was not until more than a century
after the date of our story that the health of the city demanded the
removal of the foul and reeking burial-ground attached to the Église
des Innocens, at the corner of the Rue St. Denis and the Rue aux Fers,
near the present market, with whose beautiful fountain every visitor
to Paris is familiar.[3]

In one corner of this ghastly chamber was a large font filled with
water, which distilled drop by drop from the stalactites that overhung
it, and the reflection of the lamp quivered on its dark surface. It
ran over at one corner, and small channels hewn in the floor conveyed
it away to _carrières_ still deeper.

‘Another word,’ said Lachaussée, ‘and we leave you to your own
company in this dreary place.’

‘I ask no more,’ replied Louise, recoiling from him as he relaxed his
hold. ‘Let me be anywhere, so long as I am alone, and away from those
fearful people.’

‘I am sorry you do not like them,’ said Bras d’Acier; ‘the more so as
you will perhaps have to pass a little time amongst us. Only it would
not have answered to have taken you from the sanctuary before them.
They are particular in matters of religion.’

And he accompanied these last words with a horrid laugh.

‘Do not take me among them again, M. Lachaussée,’ said Louise, ‘I
implore you. Let me remain here rather, even in this dismal vault.’

‘Pshaw!’ cried Lachaussée; ‘you know not where you are. Look at those
coffins--they have long since been despoiled of their festering
contents to hold Bras d’Acier’s riches. You are below the cemetery of
St. Medard, hemmed in on all sides by corpses, the accumulation of
centuries. Would you like this for a companion?’

He stooped to pick up a skull, and held it in mockery over the flame
of the lamp, which hideously illuminated it. Then, tossing it back to
the corner of the chamber, he went on--

‘The very air is redolent of mortality. The decay of ages, in some of
the coffins, leaves but the food for that lamp which is now burning
above us. Bras d’Acier is an economist; and many of the quiet
inhabitants of the cemetery become more useful to mankind in death
than they ever were in lifetime. They form his flambeaux.’[4]

‘Is there no one to aid me,’ cried Louise in agony, and shrinking from
the accumulated horrors of Lachaussée’s description.

The dull knocking sound was again audible, but louder. It appeared to
be close at hand, and the girl redoubled her outcry.

‘Be still, I tell you,’ said Bras d’Acier, ‘and come instantly with
us.’

‘With you!’ exclaimed Louise; ‘never; you shall kill me first. Mother
of Mercy! pity me; for to you alone can I now look for assistance.’

She fell on her knees and grasped a small crucifix that was suspended
from her neck. Lachaussée snatched it from her, and threw it amidst
the bones and rubbish in the corner.

‘One moment’s delay,’ he added, ‘and you are lost. Do you see that
wall where the water is trickling and oozing into the font? It is not
thicker than the length of your hand, and that is the only boundary
between us and a branch of the cold Bièvre, which flows over our
heads. We have but to confine you in this room, and let in the river;
the _carrière_ will be filled, and every record of the deed hidden.
Come.’

‘Leave me here--drown me--if you know what mercy means,’ returned
Louise, as she struggled with her persecutor. ‘How have I ever injured
you, that you should persecute me thus terribly?’

‘Your own sense might have warned you not to annoy M. de Sainte-Croix
as you have done. But we have no time for words; you will have plenty
of leisure in the Carrière Montrouge to learn everything. Bras
d’Acier, you have broader shoulders than my own to carry a burden.
Take up the squalling minx, and follow me. I will precede you with the
light.’

The huge ruffian advanced towards Louise Gauthier, who, despite their
threats, shrieked with terror as he approached. He lifted her as he
would have done an infant, whilst Lachaussée took down the lamp from
where it hung and prepared to go before him. But as they were leaving
the vault the noise sounded close at their side; the very walls
appeared to quiver from some unseen blows; a few of the stalactites
fell down with the vibration at their feet, and lastly the gypsum that
formed the doorway was shivered into the chamber in large blocks, and
a bar of iron, sharpened at one end, protruded, as though it came from
the very bowels of the quarry. The concussion and the fall of the
blocks brought down others with them, and one large mass falling from
the top of the archway completely closed the passage.

Bras d’Acier recoiled at the unexpected obstruction, and, throwing
Louise off, raised a long heavy pistol fitted with a _snaphaunce_--a
cheap modification of the wheel-lock, much used by the marauders of
the period--and discharged it at the aperture whence the blocks had
tumbled. The report caused a few more lumps to fall from the ceiling,
and when the smoke cleared off, the upper part of a man’s body
appeared at the opening.

‘If that is one of Colbert’s blood-scenters, I have winged him,’ said
Bras d’Acier.

‘Not yet,’ said the stranger, smashing the wall on either side and
scrambling into the vault; ‘not yet, _mes braves_. Pheugh! I was
obliged to knock a long time before you let me in!’

‘Benoit!’ cried Louise, as she recognised our friend of the boat-mill,
and flew towards him. ‘What good angel brought you here?’

‘No better one than yourself, _ma belle_,’ replied the Languedocian.
‘So,’ he continued, looking around him, and perfectly undismayed by
the threatening looks of Bras d’Acier; ‘this is an odd place for
gallant officers, like M. Gaudin, to give appointments at or receive
visitors!’

‘Where are your fellows?’ asked Lachaussée.

‘Oh, I’m alone,’ replied Benoit. ‘What should I want with fellows?’

‘To bury you if we blow your brains out,’ returned Bras d’Acier.

‘Do it,’ said Benoit, drawing Louise towards him with one arm, whilst
with the other he carelessly dug a bit of gypsum from the wall with
his iron spike, and kicked it towards them. ‘Do it; and to-morrow my
little wife, Bathilde, will go to the Préfet with a note from me,
ordering a search for Louise and M. Lachaussée there, and telling him
where there will be a chance of finding me.’

‘How came you here?’ asked Lachaussée fiercely.

‘Not by your route,’ said Benoit. ‘I know every turn of the quarries
better than yourselves; I ought to do, for I worked in them when the
stone was hewn for the new works at the Gobelins. Do me the pleasure,
ma’amselle, to scramble through this opening.’

The last words were addressed to Louise, who remained close to her new
protector during the hurried parley, but at his bidding prepared to
climb over the debris of the gypsum into a passage beyond. Bras
d’Acier made a movement to intercept her, but was restrained by
Lachaussée.

‘Your turn is yet to come,’ said the robber, grinding his teeth at
Benoit.

‘As you please, _mon maître_; only think twice about it first,’
answered the Languedocian, as he assisted Louise through the archway.

‘You have checked us to-night,’ said Lachaussée; ‘it is the first
time, but it is the last; and when we meet above ground we will let
you know it.’

‘_Sacré bleu!_’ roared Bras d’Acier, rushing forward with a sudden
impulse. ‘I can’t lose our promised wages thus, come what may. Give up
the girl.’

As he flew at the broken archway, Benoit met him with a heavy blow
from his weapon upon his head. To another man it would have caused
instant death. Upon Bras d’Acier it had no other effect than making
him reel back against Lachaussée, who was behind him.

‘Fly, ma’amselle!’ said Benoit; ‘straight before you, towards that
light at the end of the _souterrain_. I warned you,’ he continued,
turning to the others. ‘You will find as strong arms in Languedoc as
in Paris.’

Bras d’Acier was for the minute stunned; he caught Lachaussée by the
arm and leant upon him for support. Benoit took advantage of the
circumstance to put the final _coup_ to his enterprise.

‘When we hunt out vermin,’ he said, ‘it is of no use unless we destroy
their nest. Now, save yourselves as you like; but you shall not come
near me.’

He was already on the other side of the passage, when,

 [image: img_07.jpg
 caption: Bras D’acier and Lachaussée Outwitted]

scrambling forward, he stood once more on the broken masses of the
quarry, brandishing his iron weapon. And then, with Herculean force,
he drove it against the side of the chamber which Lachaussée had
pointed out as adjoining the Bièvre. Another and another blow
succeeded, whilst a foaming stream followed the spike every time he
withdrew it, until, weakened by the ruptures, an immense portion of
the gypsum gave way, and, with the roar of a mighty cataract, an
enormous body of water burst through the wall, carrying everything
before it, as it rushed at once, leaping and chafing, to every part of
the chamber.

As the irruption took place, Benoit leaped back to the aperture he had
himself broken open. Lachaussée and Bras d’Acier, in the alarm of the
moment, prepared to follow him, for the lashing water had already
reached nearly unto their knees. But the force of the torrent drove
them back, and as it rushed to the readiest and lowest outlet--that
leading to the large vault--hurried them along with it, washing down
all the barrier that had been made in the archway by the fallen
blocks. By the lamp which still hung from the ceiling, Benoit saw them
whirled through the narrow passage; and the next instant the water
reached the level of the gallery wherein he stood.

‘Now! now, sweetheart, make use of your legs, if ever you did!’ he
cried to Louise, who had remained close to him. ‘We must travel fast
to outstrip it; but, thank heaven, it is all up-hill. Ah--lash away;
we shall beat you yet.’

He addressed the last words to some waves which dashed over the broken
gypsum at his feet; for, in spite of the vast _carrières_ into which
it had burst, the water was rising rapidly, in consequence of the
inequalities of their levels.

Then, seizing Louise, they fled rapidly, hand in hand, along the
gallery--which was altogether a different one from that by which she
had arrived--towards the end of it, where he had taken the precaution
to leave a light, chased by the furious stream that was hurrying with
a noise like thunder after them, coupled with the crashing and falling
of the blocks of limestone, which continually broke down before its
resistless force.

Fast and faster they sped through the labyrinth of vaults--now
crouching along a rough and narrow passage, and now flying over the
hard floor of a large vault, or scrambling across an eboulement of the
gypsum. And louder came the roar of the water, as it seemed animated
in the pursuit by a spirit of life. With the courage which despair
gives to the weakest, Louise kept up with and sometimes out-stripped
her companion, who cheered her as he best could; and whilst he
threaded the intricate way with a readiness that showed his perfect
familiarity with the _carrières_, promised her a safe asylum when
they left them.

At last they emerged; not, however, into the pure air, but the damp
and dim obscurity of a vault under one of the questionable dwellings
in the Rue d’Enfer. This street was then inhabited almost entirely by
the low and criminal population, which French statists have named
‘_les classes dangereuses_.’

Louise knelt in the vault and prayed. Benoit, after a moment’s pause,
reverently crossed himself and knelt by her.

‘_Eh bien_, ma’amselle!’ said he, when his devotions were finished,
although still out of breath. ‘Here is the worst part of our journey
over. Still----’

And Benoit paused and scratched his head violently.

‘Run into no further danger on my account, good friend,’ said Louise,
guessing at once the cause of his embarrassment. ‘It is enough that I
have escaped the fearful danger of those caverns. Leave me now; I will
find some shelter and employment. A convent----’

‘The _religieuses_ do not look upon young women exactly as godsends,
unless their pockets happen to be better garnished than I take yours
to be, _ma colombe_,’ said Benoit. ‘I would take you back to the
boat-mill, and welcome, but that would be the first place to which
they would come to find you. Now I have a friend--Lord forgive me for
abusing the word!--an acquaintance hereabouts, where you would be safe
enough from M. Lachaussée and his band; if they are not settled by
the Bièvre long before this. _Mais_----’

And Benoit shrugged his shoulders in most eloquent bewilderment.

‘Who and what is your acquaintance?’ said Louise.

‘Why, he calls himself a _professeur_, ma’amselle,’ replied Benoit;
‘but what he is just now is not quite so easily told. I have known him
already in the last half-dozen years as juggler, Bohemian, bravo,
cattle-doctor, rope-dancer, archer--ay, and courtier too. But courage!
It is but a trial.’

Louise paused, and Benoit proceeded towards the outlet of the vault or
cellar in which they stood, looking back to his pale charge when he
reached the stairs. The appeal of his honest open face was
irresistible, and Louise followed him. They ascended and found
themselves in a rude corridor. The filth and damp of years was thick
and clammy on the walls; and the dim light that struggled through the
narrow windows, scattered at random up and down, showed long passages
that branched from the _palier_ where they stood, lined with doors on
either side. Benoit, after looking about him for a moment as if to
recall his memory of the localities, struck down the one which faced
them.

They paused at the third door. Benoit raised his hand to knock, when
the sound of a woman’s voice within arrested it. Louise held her
breath and listened earnestly. Benoit turned and looked at her, as she
motioned with her hand that they should return towards the point from
whence they had come. But her guide shook his head, and, with a sort
of desperate grin, knocked loudly with the iron bar he still held in
his hand. The sounds within ceased, and a heavy step approached the
entrance. Benoit repeated his assault on the door.

‘Who knocks?’ said a shrill voice.

‘_Tsa tshen pal!_’[5] was Benoit’s reply.

The tongue in which he spoke was unintelligible to Louise, but the
words seemed to reassure the occupant of the room, who at once
proceeded to withdraw two heavy bolts, and gave admittance to Benoit
and his companion.

The person who opened the door now stood before them. He was a slender
well-proportioned man, in a close-fitting doublet and _chausses_ of
black serge. The sharp and angular features, the saffron complexion,
and large filmy black eye, showed the real gipsy blood. He looked at
Louise with a strange fixed stare, but it was impossible to read
anything in the gaze, either of astonishment or alarm.

‘Who is she?’ he asked shortly of Benoit, in the gipsy tongue.

‘A sister of mine,’ replied the Languedocian. ‘She needs shelter and
concealment for a while.’

‘She cannot have them here,’ was the answer.

‘By the _morro_[6] and the _lon_[7] she must,’ said Benoit calmly.

The man pointed to an inner door, and said--

‘There is a _ranee_[8] there already confided to my safe keeping.
What does your sister fear, that she comes here for safety?’

‘The pursuit of a grand seigneur of the court, who has taken a fancy
to her, and be hanged to him!’ said Benoit. ‘Come, it will be but for
a day or two--perhaps but for an hour. Remember we are brothers, and
the law of the Rommany binds you to help me.’

‘True,’ said the gipsy. He advanced towards Louise and, addressing her
in French, told her she could remain where she was so long as it
suited her convenience, but on one condition.

‘Name it,’ said Louise.

‘To pay no heed to what does not concern you,’ returned the other. ‘I
will give you a companion, who, if she amuses you as she has
entertained me, will make the time pass pleasantly enough.’

So saying, he opened the door leading to an inner room, and beckoned
her to follow.

From the squalor of the outer apartment Louise Gauthier was little
prepared for the scene which presented itself. The room into which
they passed was small, but furnished with a richness and elegance that
would have fitted a royal boudoir. The walls were painted with
flowers, and cupids sporting amidst them. Rich curtains of damask
almost covered the single window. Piles of cushions, fauteuils of
velvet and ormolu, costly tables, and a marble chimney-piece, with its
gay pendule, almost dazzled poor Louise; and it was not until she had
taken a rapid inventory of all these that she found the room contained
an inmate. A young girl, richly dressed, was half-sitting, half-lying
on a divan, in the darkest corner. It was Marotte Dupré--the actress
who had vainly implored Sainte-Croix, but a short time previously, to
rescue her from the Marquis of Brinvilliers. But she had apparently
become reconciled to her abduction, or feigned to be so, for, starting
gaily to her feet and springing forward, with a merry laugh, she
exclaimed--

‘Welcome, _mon preux gardien_! You have brought me a companion of my
own sex, to keep me company until the Marquis returns from the
Tuileries. Did you think I wanted one whilst you were here?’

And she threw a witching glance from her dark eye upon the gitano,
who, taking her hand, kissed it passionately.

‘She is a young girl, sister to a friend of mine,’ returned the man;
‘who seeks an asylum here for a time.’

‘We welcome her to our court,’ said the actress, with mock dignity,
extending her hand to Louise. ‘Sit by us, and tell us of your wishes,
hopes, sorrows--everything about you, in fact. And you, my cavalier,
dismiss that gentleman with the round face, who is gaping over your
shoulder. We would be alone with our new friend.’

The gipsy, thus addressed, turned to Benoit, and a rapid conversation
in the dialect of his tribe ensued between them. When it was over,
Benoit took Louise aside, and saying, ‘I will find a safer place for
you than this--fear nothing, I will return soon,’ left the room, in
company with the Bohemian.

‘Who is the other lady?’ asked Benoit as they quitted the apartment.

‘I don’t know, nor do I much care,’ replied the man. ‘She was brought
here by the Marquis de Brinvilliers, who was sent for to the Tuileries
almost the instant he arrived.’

‘Is she here against her will, then?’

‘Mass! I don’t know what to make of it. It seems that the Marquis was
nearly being set upon, in mistake, by his friend, Captain de
Sainte-Croix, for carrying her off.’

A hurried exclamation escaped Benoit’s lips.

‘Whereabouts?’ he asked eagerly.

‘Between the Captain’s lodgings and the Hotel d’Aubray, you may be
sure,’ was the reply.

Benoit heard no more; but hurriedly bidding his acquaintance farewell,
left the house. How he succeeded in his enterprise has been already
explained.

As the door of the room closed the manner of Marotte Dupré entirely
changed. Hastily and breathlessly drawing Louise to the window, she
whispered--

‘I am kept here by force and treachery. The gipsy is a creature of the
Marquis of Brinvilliers, who has carried me from the theatre. He is
absent for a while; and I am trying the force of my fascinations upon
my gaoler, the more readily to compass the means of escape. From whom
do you seek asylum here?’

‘I know not,’ said poor Louise, ‘who is my enemy. I do not believe
that Gaudin would ever----’

She was interrupted by Marotte. ‘Gaudin de Sainte-Croix?’

Louise assented.

‘Fear the worst,’ said her companion. ‘If Sainte-Croix is your
_friend_,’ and she laid an ironical expression on the word, ‘you are
indeed deserving of pity.’

Louise was about to speak, when a clamour in the street below
attracted their attention. Marotte uttered a cry of joy, and pointing
down the Rue d’Enfer, of which the window commanded a view, cried--

‘Look! look!--we are saved!--we are saved!’

Louise followed the direction of her finger, and saw a heavy and
magnificently decorated carriage, which, with its attendant lackeys,
had just drawn up at the miserable door of a house exactly opposite to
the one in which they were. A beautiful young woman, in rich costume,
descended from it, and entered the house. Marotte Dupré, with clasped
hands, followed her movements with intense anxiety.

‘There is not a moment to lose. _O mon Dieu!_’ she exclaimed as she
hastily drew some writing-tablets from her bosom, and, tearing out a
leaf, wrote a few lines upon it with marvellous rapidity. ‘Now--now!’
she continued, rolling it up into a ball. ‘Open the window!’

‘Alas!’ returned Louise, as she tried the hasp of the heavy casement;
‘it is secured. I cannot unfasten it.’

‘I have it!’ cried Marotte, whilst a sudden inspiration lighted up her
pale features; ‘my ring will open the glass.’

And drawing a diamond ring from her finger--the rich gift of some
_habitué_ of the Théâtre du Temple--she drew it around the pane,
and then with a gentle pressure forced the glass to yield without. Had
they broken it, the sound would have alarmed the gitano in the outer
room.

Their chamber was on the entresol; the street was narrow, and the
lackey of the carriage was nearly on a level with them. Marotte passed
her white arm carefully through the opening, and threw the writing
towards the lackey, accompanying the action by a low ‘Hist!’ But it
was not heard; and the little note, falling short of its aim, lay in
the mud of the street, yet still perceptible in the gleam of the lamps
on the carriage.

He was on the point of driving away, when a slight call from Marotte
attracted his attention. With some little difficulty he at last
perceived the note on the ground, and got down to seize it. Its
contents seemed to surprise him; for, after reading it, he passed into
the house which the lady had just entered. Marotte followed his
movements with feverish anxiety, and Louise caught the infection.

‘Who is that lady?’ she asked; ‘and what was the import of your note?’

‘It is Madame Scarron,’ returned Marotte; ‘the widow of my best
friend. She is now in high favour at the court. Oh! she is so good--so
kind. I wrote to implore her assistance to deliver us from this house;
and she will do it.’

At this moment the gitano returned. Marotte, with the skill of her
calling, rose to receive him. All trace of anxiety had disappeared
from her face, and she was radiant with smiles. Advancing to the man,
she exclaimed--

‘_Bien_, my gallant protector! You will not leave us to ourselves,
then?’

The gipsy’s dull eye dilated, and the large pupil flashed with a
strange light as he looked at the beautiful woman before him.

‘I cannot stay without and know that you are here,’ he replied. ‘I
love to hear you speak and to look at you.’

Louise shuddered at the tone in which he spoke. Marotte had risen;
and, while she stood half-turned from the window, threw a rapid glance
into the street. The next moment she seized a mandoline that lay on a
console of marble, and burst into a gay and jovial song, keeping time
to the measure with graceful and wild movements. The gipsy listened
with wide open eyes, and lips apart. He had no sight nor ears but for
his bewitching prisoner and her song. Louise comprehended Marotte’s
object. It was to cover the noise of footsteps and voices on the
staircase.

As she expected, a knock sounded at the door of the outer room. The
gipsy, with a half-spoken curse, turned his head in the direction of
the interruption, but did not stir from the spot as Marotte finished
her song.

‘It is Benoit returned,’ said Louise.

‘I hope it may be,’ said the gipsy. ‘I best like mademoiselle here to
be alone.’ And he left the room, without closing the door.

Louise’s remark was made in so natural a tone, that no suspicion
entered his mind. He did not even pause to ask who knocked, but
ushered in the stranger at once.

The tall and beautiful lady whom Louise had seen step from the
carriage entered the apartment, followed by four stout and well-armed
lackeys.

The gipsy, with the quickness of his tribe, saw his error; but it was
too late to repair it. Marotte and Louise, who had watched with
intense eagerness the opening of the door, rushed from the inner room,
and the former, throwing herself at the feet of Madame de Maintenon
(for Madame Scarron had lately received the lands and title of
Maintenon from the King) seized her hands, and kissing them, poured
forth mingled thanks and prayers. With that winning and grave
gentleness which belonged to her, the lady calmed her, and addressing
herself to Louise, said--

‘Marotte’s note tells me you too are in danger, and need a friend and
a refuge. Come with me, both of you.’

The gitano saw that resistance was useless. The lackeys clutched their
long batons in a style that showed it would take but little pressure
to make them use them. With all the suppleness of a true Bohemian, he
was profuse in his apologies to Madame de Maintenon, to Marotte, and
to Louise, and asked their witness to the kindness and civility of his
treatment towards them.

Madame de Maintenon cut short his protestations with a contemptuous
gesture, and bidding her lackeys mark the number of the house, and the
appearance of the gipsy, left the room, accompanied by her two
protegees.

Then mounting her carriage, she placed them opposite to her, and
giving the order to her attendants, ‘_A Vaugirard_’--they drove off
rapidly along the Rue d’Enfer.




 CHAPTER XI.
 MAÎTRE PICARD PROSECUTES A SUCCESSFUL CRUSADE AGAINST THE STUDENTS

There are very few portions of Paris which have retained their
physiognomy of the _moyen âge_ with less change than the Quartier
Latin. The narrow tortuous streets have undergone little alteration
since they were first built; few new thoroughfares have intersected
the dense cluster of tall gloomy houses that bound them; in fact, as
far as the line of the Rue des Fosses, whereon the ramparts were still
partly situated at the time of this romance, everything has remained
nearly in the same state for centuries. The humble nature of the
articles exposed for sale in the different shop windows, and the small
prices attached thereunto, were the same formerly as now. For the
denizens of this learned _pays_ have been, time out of mind, the
members of the different schools; and poverty and clerkship ever
wandered hand-in-hand together about its venerable streets, or
ruminated in its cloistered quietudes.

Yet have not the livelier parts of the city, most known to passing
sojourners, a fiftieth part of the interest which is attached to the
dirty old _quartier_ wherein our scene now passes, although money has
ever been the scarcest article to be found within its limits, since
the days when the ‘Cloistre St. Benoyt’ and ‘Hostel de Clugny’ were
newly erected buildings. We ourselves have lived merrily therein, in
small cabins at the extreme summits of houses, where carnival
irregularities drove us to restrict our expenses, literally to a few
sous a-day--when three hard eggs, some bread, and a cruet of wine
formed a jovial dinner; and a pair of bright eyes could sometimes be
found to laugh in company over such an humble meal as this, and desire
none better. Certainly if such a thing as disinterested affection
exists in the world--which at times we feel inclined to doubt--it is
to be found in the Quartier Latin. And then its associations! It
conjures up no visions of English parvenus, vulgar tourists, and
Meurice’s Table d’Hôte; you would not find a _Galignani’s Messenger_,
or a cake of Windsor soap throughout its entire range. No; all your
thoughts would be of doublets and pointed shoes--of rapiers and
scholars of Cluny; of anything, in fact, the reverse to what would
suggest itself on the other side of the river.

But our hobby is fairly running away with us over a course we have
before traversed; we must return once more to that which has long
past. In 1665 there stood at the corner of the Rue des Mathurins and
Rue de la Harpe, in the very heart of this venerable division of
Paris, the shop of ‘Maître Picard, chapelier.’ It was a modest
edifice, with one large window, in which were displayed hats and caps
of every age and style. For the students then, as now, held prevalent
fashions in great contempt, and dressed according to their whims and
finances, or in whatever they contrived to capture in night skirmishes
from the persons of the bourgeoisie.

To advertise his calling Maître Picard had erected a sign in front of
his house, over and above the intimation just mentioned. It was a huge
hat of red tin, gaily adorned with gilt edges, from which, on certain
festivals, bright ribbons floated in the draughts of wind that whisked
round the corner of the streets, to the great admiration of the
passers-by in general, coupled with wonder that it had remained so
long unmolested in such a precarious locality as the neighbourhood of
the Hôtel Dieu and Sorbonne. But this was because it was a little too
high up for them to clutch it; a few feet lower, and long ago, Maître
Picard would have been horrified some fine morning at perceiving his
sign had vanished: for, as we have seen, the rotund little patrol was
one of the marching watch; and the same _antipathie vouée_ which the
student of the Quartier Latin at the present time exhibits towards the
Sergent de ville, existed quite as forcibly two hundred years ago
between the scholar of Cluny and the Garde Bourgeois.

Since the rude treatment which Maître Picard had received from the
hands of his sworn persecutors at the ‘Lanterne,’ in the Rue
Mouffetard, he had neglected no opportunity of interfering with their
enjoyments, and various had been the schemes which Camille Theria and
Phillipe Glazer had planned for revenge. But they had all failed;
especially every enterprise against the hat, to which their designs
were principally directed. For they knew that the gigantic metal sign
was the pride of Maître Picard’s heart, and the glory of the Rue des
Mathurins--that its abstraction would crush his public spirit; and
that as such, no stone should be left unturned in effecting its
destruction. And indeed, as far as that went, they tried to carry out
their intentions in a very literal spirit, as the broken state of the
rude pavement below, and several large dents in the enormous hat
above, fully testified.

At last, by what appeared to be a fortunate chance for the marauders,
Jean Blacquart, the Gascon, took a lodging on the upper floor of the
house; being principally led to such a step by a feeling of gratitude
for the timely intercession of Maître Picard, when his
fellow-students were about to hang him. The instant this became known,
it was resolved that advantage should be taken of his occupancy to
carry off the hat. Blacquart, at first, plumply refused to assist in
such an irregular proceeding; but after Theria had assured him that in
the event of his non-compliance he would be dropped in the Bièvre, or
slowly roasted before the fire of the cabaret in the Rue Mouffetard,
the Gascon assented. A particular night was fixed upon for the
attempt, and a meeting of the ‘Gens de la Courte Epée’ called at a
tavern in the Rue des Cordeliers--the site of the present Rue de
l’École de Médecine--to effect this object.

That night Maître Picard, not being on guard, resolved upon indulging
in potent drinks and toothsome viands in his little parlour behind the
shop. He had closed his wareroom at an early hour; and having invited
Jean Blacquart to join him--for the Gascon was not of the marauding
party, although he had an indirect part to perform in the outrage--was
discussing hot wine with his lodger a little after curfew, and
listening to his rhodomontades connected with his profession and deeds
and actions generally.

Jean had told a great many narratives about encounters he had won
(which had never taken place) and enemies he had killed (who were
still alive), increasing the marvels of each with each cup of wine,
until the fulness of his heart, coupled with his fear of being mixed
up in the affair, led him to inform Maître Picard of the intended
attempt upon his hat to be made that very evening. The apartment
occupied by the Gascon was at the top of the house; it had formerly
been a granary--such as may still be seen in Paris--and outside a
small but strong wooden crane was fixed, hanging over the doomed sign.
To the rope of this a loop was to be made, and then Camille Theria,
who had taken the danger and the glory of the enterprise to himself,
was to be hauled up until he came within reach of the hat, which he
was to take from its fixings and bear off in triumph.

The first feelings inspired in the breast of Maître Picard, as he
heard this bold scheme unfolded, were those of fright; the next
partook largely of revenge.

‘How many will there be?’ he asked.

‘Oh! a hundred,’ replied Blacquart. It was the ‘Gascon’ for twenty.

‘Bless me!’ said Maître Picard; ‘a great number--an awful number. You
have told me to-night that you once fought a score yourself; but I
don’t think you could face so many.’

‘I don’t think I could,’ said Blacquart. ‘I will try, if you please;
only if my courage led me into any rash attack, I might be fatally
wounded, and then what a scrape you would get into.’

‘True--true,’ said Maître Picard, wiping his face, and taking a long
draught of wine; ‘and it is the same with me. My frame is rather round
than large; but there is a great spirit at work within it, which I
cannot always command. I will call together the Garde Bourgeois.’

‘Will not their assembling alarm the others,’ said Blacquart.

‘Not at all--not at all,’ returned the _chapelier_. ‘We will have them
come by twos and threes, and hide in my shop.’

‘Excellent!’ said the Gascon.

‘Will you summons them, then?’ asked Maître Picard.

‘I think not,’ said Blacquart; ‘although they know me as a daring and
gallant coadjutor. My appearance in the streets might provoke
suspicion with any of the students I might meet.’

To the joy of the Gascon, who thought inside the house the safest
position with such an event about to come off, Maître Picard rose,
with some trouble, from his settle, and, puffing and blowing, started
out to summons his brother-guards. The Gascon remained to finish the
wine; which, having done, he felt so nerved that he sang bold and
warlike songs to himself, and then drawing his sword fought imaginary
duels with nobody, and slaughtered many chimerical adversaries,
concluding from mere want of breath, in high good humour with himself
and his prowess. He was yet panting from his late courageous
exertions, when his landlord returned with a few of his brethren in
the guard, and these were speedily followed by others, who were
stationed in the shop and parlour. Their presence increased the
Gascon’s valour to such a pitch that, when he saw they had all
arrived, he even offered to go and fight the students himself. And had
it not been for one of the guard, who, from sheer wickedness,
recommended Jean to do so, to his extreme terror, there is no knowing
to what lengths he might have gone, or what wonderful actions he might
have committed.

The curfew sounded; the lights disappeared in the Quartier Latin, as
the shops were closed, and the glimmer of the lanterns alone illumined
the thoroughfares. Maître Picard disposed the Garde Bourgeois for a
proper sortie, and then went up to Blacquart’s room, accompanied by
the student, whom he placed to keep a look out at the window.

‘I think I hear them coming,’ said Jean, after he had been a short
time at his post.

‘They are marching in order,’ observed Maître Picard, with breathless
attention; ‘the students have mustered strongly.’

‘No; it is the Guet Royal,’ returned the Gascon, as the night-patrol
came round the corner of the Rue de la Harpe.

‘I think we had better call them in, too,’ said the affrighted little
hatter.

‘No--no,’ answered Jean; ‘the disturbance and the clank of their arms
will alarm the others. Beside, is there not enough to protect you? You
have me.’

‘Very true,’ said Maître Picard. But he said it as if he did not
think it was. However, he was resigned to his fate, and the Guet Royal
passed along the Rue des Mathurins, turning off towards the Sorbonne.

‘They will not be back for half an hour,’ murmured Maître Picard, as
the last cresset disappeared round the corner.

‘Then they will be too late for our gentlemen,’ said the Gascon; ‘for
I hear them now coming in reality.’

In effect he was right. The students had evidently waited until the
patrol had passed, knowing they would thus be for a certain time
uninterrupted, and they now came quietly in front of the house. One of
them, whom Blacquart knew to be Camille Theria, clapped his hands, and
the Gascon replied to the signal.

‘They wanted to hang me the other night,’ said he; ‘but I mean to
succeed better with them than they did with me. And yet,’ he added as
he looked below, ‘there seems to be a great many of them.’

‘What are you waiting for?’ asked the _chapelier_.

‘Me? oh! nothing--nothing,’ said the Gascon. His blood was ebbing down
rapidly every instant. ‘Only I was thinking if you were to make a
speech from the window, and forgive them, how they would esteem you;
and perhaps it would save bloodshed.’

Theria, who was below, repeated the signal.

‘Lower down your rope,’ said Maître Picard, who was peeping over the
parapet.

‘Upon my honour, I don’t much like to do so,’ said Blacquart, as his
last atom of heroism evaporated.

‘If you don’t let the line down immediately, I will give you into
custody below as an accomplice,’ said the bourgeois, in wrathful
accents.

Another impatient signal from Theria was heard; and poor Jean, in a
terrible fright, proceeded to unwind the cord from its winch; whilst
the hatter kept looking just over the parapet to see what was going
on.

‘It is almost close to the ground,’ he said. ‘Now it touches it; and
that rascal Theria has got hold of the end. He puts his foot in it.
Huzza! huzza! now wind away; he is ours.’

And the rotund little man delivered himself up to the performance of
such joyful gymnastics, that at last his hat fell off and tumbled into
the street. A student, who saw it fall, thought it was Theria’s, and
cramming his _casquette_ into his cloak-pocket, put it on, until the
other should come down.

‘Now, stop! for your life!’ said Maître Picard to the Gascon, who
kept winding away in great trepidation, but saying through it all that
he was easily accomplishing the work of six men. ‘Now stop! he is on a
level with the sign; let him remain there.’

Jean implicitly obeyed; the catch fell into the toothed wheel, and he
came to the window, whilst Maître Picard hurried down stairs very
rapidly, by reason of his gravity, and told his fellow police that it
was time to make their charge. They accordingly rushed into the
street, and were face to face with the students.

‘Trapped!’ ejaculated Theria, as he felt his progress stopped, and saw
the tumult below. ‘Oh, Master Blacquart, you shall pay for this.’

A terrible riot ensued. What the students wanted in numbers, they made
up in strength and daring. They wrested the partisans from their
opponents to turn against them, and in all probability would have come
off the conquerors, had not Maître Picard opened one of his upper
windows and discharged a blunderbus therefrom--not to injure his
enemies, but to give the alarm by the report of this novel weapon, not
long imported from Holland.[9] It had the desired effect, and in a
few minutes brought back the Guet Royal.

Some of the students fled at once as they saw the night-patrol
advance, for they were men with whom there was no trifling. Those who
remained, being a small number, were now captured by the bourgeois;
and then Maître Picard emerged from his house, and Theria was let
down and seized.

‘Huzza!’ cried the little _chapelier_, giving way to fresh antics. ‘We
have caught you--eh? Take him away; to the guard-house with such a
brawler. Stop--no--the glory shall be with me. Gentlemen of the Guet
Royal, march on with your other prisoners; the Garde Bourgeois will
take charge of the ringleader. _Mauvais sujet_--ugh!’

Camille took no notice of Maître Picard’s address. He was, however,
chafing with anger inwardly at being thus caught.

‘To the guard-house!’ continued Maître Picard, ‘without loss of time.
I have rid Paris of a brigand--a cut-purse. _En avant!_’

Drawing his sword as well as his short arms and fat little body
permitted, Maître Picard placed himself before the prisoner, and two
of the others followed. In this state they started off, the hatter
leaving Blacquart in charge of his shop, and proceeded towards the
nearest _corps du garde_. But, as they were passing down the Rue de la
Harpe, Camille, who had been watching his opportunity, suddenly
tripped up the _chapelier_, and sent him rolling into the kennel that
rushed down the middle of the street, before he had time to save
himself. He then as rapidly dealt a couple of heavy blows to his
followers, and whilst they were aghast at the unexpected attack,
rushed down the Rue du Foin, in the obscurity of which he was
immediately lost. But we must follow him along it, leaving the two
guards, first to recover themselves and then to pick up Maître
Picard, in as sorry a plight as might well be.

Flying along the narrow thoroughfare, a few minutes brought Camille to
his abode in the Place Maubert. He went directly to the apartment of
Philippe Glazer, who was at home, and briefly told him what had
happened.

‘It will not stop here,’ said Theria. ‘That wretched bourgeois can
make a nasty business of it if he likes, and I must leave Paris at
once.’

‘Immediately?’ asked Glazer.

‘Directly. My studies, such as they have been, are nearly finished,
and Liège will do for me to settle at as well as anywhere else.
Besides, it is my home.’

‘Can I assist you in anything?’ asked Philippe.

‘In one thing only--a little money, for I am quite cleaned out by _mes
camarades_. In return, Philippe, I leave you everything--my books, my
rapier, and my Estelle--poor Estelle! Don’t ever part with my rapier
whatever you do.’

Glazer smiled at his friend’s speech, as he collected what little
money he had by him, and gave to the other.

‘Ten thousand thanks, Philippe,’ said Camille, ‘it shall be repaid
some day; we do not cheat one another.’

‘I will trust you,’ said Glazer; ‘is there anything else I can do for
you?’

‘One thing,’ said Camille, more seriously. ‘I am not one to boast of
favours bestowed, or even hint at them, but you will find a packet of
love-letters in my old _escriban_. Burn them all--they are from Madame
de Brinvilliers.’

Glazer uttered an exclamation of mingled incredulity and surprise.

‘It is true,’ said Camille; ‘she wrote them to me, telling me that I
was the only one she ever loved--that all the other attachments had
been madness--folly. Pshaw! each avowal was stereotyped, and did for
others as well as it will again do for the next. Burn them all. Adieu!
and tell Estelle to console herself.’

And, warmly shaking his friend by the hand, Theria flew down stairs,
leaving Glazer almost bewildered at the rapidity of the interview and
the avowal he had just heard.




 CHAPTER XII.
 EXILI SPREADS THE SNARE FOR SAINTE-CROIX, WHO FALLS INTO IT

The tower of the Bastille, which the Under-Governor had designated
as the Tour du Nord upon Sainte-Croix’s arrival, was generally known
as the Tour de la Liberté, which title, from the mockery of the
appellation, was not in frequent use. The Bastille, it may be known,
consisted at that time of eight towers. Two of these--the Tour du
Trésor, so called because it was chosen as the depot of the wealth
amassed by the sagacious Sully for Henry IV., and the Tour de la
Chapelle, were the most ancient, and had formerly been merely the
towers which flanked the entrance to Paris by the Faubourg St.
Antoine. Subsequently the Tour de la Liberté and the Tour de la
Bertandière were added opposite to those just spoken of--the latter
being the one chosen, some centuries afterwards, as the prison of the
unfortunate ‘Man in the Iron Mask.’ The Tour de la Liberté was at
this early period the most northern elevation--hence its second name;
and the entrance to the city lay between those four towers, on the
spot where the huge cast of the elephant, intended for the fountain,
may be recollected by the visitor on the way to Père la Chaise. To
those four towers Charles VI. added four others; about 1383 chambers
were hewn in the thickness of the wall between them, drawbridges were
erected, a fosse dug around, and the Bastille was completed.

All these towers contained the cells for the prisoners; and as a
portion of our story must now necessarily pass in the Bastille, we
will call the attention of the reader to them; but briefly as
possible. In each tower were five ranges of cells. The lowest of
these, or _cachots_,[10] were the most horrible, receiving what
little light they had from the lower part of the fosse. The floor was
covered with a nauseous slime, perpetually oozing from the low grounds
around, and laden with rank and poisonous exhalations. Here noisome
reptiles--the toad, the lizard, and the rat, had their
homes--sweltering and crawling on the damp floor; from which the only
refuge allowed to the wretched prisoner was a species of bed, formed
by iron bars projecting from the wall, a few inches above the ground.
In many of these sinks, still greater misery was contrived for the
occupant. The lower part was a mere well, cut out in the form of an
inverted sugar-loaf, in which the prisoner was compelled to exist, so
that the feet found no level resting-place, nor could the body repose.

Next in order of the _chambres rigoureuses_, were the iron cages. They
were above the _cachots_, and were formed of small beams of wood
plated with iron, being about six feet square. The next were termed
the _calottes_. These chambers were the highest, being built in the
summit of the towers, and so contrived that the prisoner could only
stand upright exactly in the middle, and there was scarcely space in
them for the length of a bed, although the depth of the loopholes was
ten feet, being the thickness of the wall. These were small, admitting
very little light, which was farther excluded by two ranges of thick
iron bars, within and without. Being close to the roof, the heat of
the sun in summer was insupportable, converting them almost into
ovens; in winter the cold was equally terrible, since there was little
space for a fire. In these rooms the victims were usually confined who
were destined for the _oubliettes_--the wheels armed with cutting
points, which, turning round, drew the sufferer between them and cut
or tore him to pieces.

The intermediate chambers were somewhat more comfortable. They were
fourteen or fifteen feet high; and, although the windows were heavily
barred and counter-barred, were tolerably well lighted; whilst, from
some of them, views could be obtained of the boulevards and various
parts of the city. The rooms were generally numbered, and named after
the towers in which they were situated. The one that Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix now entered was the _Onzième Liberté_--and by the same
title was the occupant known during his sojourn in the prison.

The recognition, both on the part of Gaudin and Exili, was
instantaneous, and an expression of surprise burst from the lips of
the former as he discovered the falcon countenance of the physician.
But he directly recovered his composure, recollecting that the gaoler
was still in the room, and remained silent until Galouchet departed,
closing after him, one upon another, the three massy doors which,
covered with heavy locks, bolts, and iron studs, guarded each of the
chambers.

The first impression of Exili had been that some new punishment was in
store for him, upon seeing his late enemy enter, accompanied by the
functionary. But as the man left, and Gaudin, dashing his hat upon the
ground, threw himself in an old fauteuil at the foot of the pallet
destined for him, he perceived that he also was a prisoner. A savage
gleam of triumph passed across his livid countenance as he bade
Sainte-Croix welcome in a tone of mockery.

‘My prophecy has been speedily fulfilled,’ said Exili; ‘I gave you six
months--little more than thrice six hours have passed, and we meet
again. You may find good reason now to burn me as a sorcerer, when you
wish entirely to get rid of me.’

Gaudin smarted under the taunt; but his face betokened no trace of the
annoyance. He took the empty sheath of his sword, which still hung at
his side, and, smiling carelessly, played with the lace that was fixed
round his boot.

‘It is an odd rencontre,’ he said; ‘but you are no sorcerer, or you
would not have been here. On that score you are safe. We stand a
chance of being together for some time--perhaps we may become better
friends.’

‘Friends!’ replied Exili, with a short, dreary laugh. ‘Never: we are
not made of the stuff that can harbour such a dull sentiment.
Crime--purpose--common interest--might set up some tie between us; but
not friendship.’

‘I care not what you call it,’ said Gaudin; ‘our battle has become a
drawn game, and we must make the best of it. Yesterday I had _my_
revenge--to-night your turn has arrived. On the score of vengeance,
then, we are quits. At least towards each other,’ he added, after a
moment’s pause.

Exili had never taken his eyes from Sainte-Croix since he entered; his
piercing glance appeared to be scanning the thoughts that prompted
every word the other uttered. Gaudin’s last speech appeared to have
awakened fresh attention.

‘And to no one else?’ asked Exili emphatically, still looking fixedly
at him. ‘May I ask through whom you were sent here?’

‘Through the cause of all that can most wring and crush us, either in
this world or that which is to follow, for aught I know.’

‘A woman?’

‘Your divination is again right.’

‘And that woman is the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’

‘I mentioned no name,’ said Sainte-Croix quickly.

‘You did not,’ replied Exili; ‘and yet I knew it. You cannot suppose
that I should remain ignorant of what has been the gossip of the shops
and _carrefours_ of Paris throughout many a fine spring afternoon this
year.’

‘Her husband never knew it,’ said Sainte-Croix, for the minute thrown
off his guard, and admitting the truth of what had been a random
venture on the part of Exili.

‘In such case the husband is always the last,’ returned the physician,
‘to credit his own dishonour. And yet it was not Antoine Gobelin who
sent you here.’

‘You are right once more,’ said Gaudin. ‘It was M. d’Aubray, the
lieutenant-civil, her father. Curses wither him!’

The features of Exili assumed an expression that was perfectly
fiendish, as he gazed upon Sainte-Croix, who was divesting himself of
his garments, and flinging them carelessly about the room here and
there, before lying down upon the truckle-bed. Not wishing to
extinguish the lamp, yet disliking the glare in his eyes, he had
removed it to the chimney-corner, near which was placed a rude table.

‘It is cold!’ he said, as he endeavoured to warm his hands before the
dying embers.

‘So I thought last night,’ said Exili; ‘but I am already inured to it.
It is, however, a different change for you, from the Hôtel d’Aubray.
I am used to strange apartments; and I have no lady-love who may play
me false during my imprisonment.’

A spasmodic tremor passed through Sainte-Croix’s frame; his hands were
clenched and his lip quivered. The convulsion was slight and rapid,
but it was observed by Exili. He went on.

‘It is annoying, too, to dream that others may share her affections
whilst you are imprisoned here. Her years are but few--her blood is
young and vivid. The Marquis, too, neglects her--so goes report in
Paris--and she must have some one to attach herself to.’

‘No more!--no more!’ cried Gaudin, with a sudden and violent outburst
of passion. ‘Fiend! demon! what drives you thus to madden me?’

‘These are harsh terms to christen me by,’ returned Exili, with a
ghastly smile; ‘especially when it is in my power to place in your
possession what you now desire above anything else the world could
bestow.’

‘And what is that?’ asked Gaudin, assuming an indifference through his
anger.

‘Vengeance!’ returned Exili, as he raised himself on the pallet, and
glared upon Sainte-Croix like a basilisk.

A scornful expression of contempt was Gaudin’s only reply.

But Exili saw that his prey was coquetting with the bait. He
continued--

‘There are dull moralists and fools who will tell you that revenge is
an ignoble passion, fitted only to those grovelling spirits who dare
not resent an injury, and yet are too sharply stung to pass it over.
Believe them not; it is a glorious triumph of retribution, although
the success of the cast will alone decide whether it will be called
justice or cowardice by the world. You are indebted for your present
position to Dreux d’Aubray; you burn for vengeance. If you fail the
world will call you pitiful, mean, _lâche_: succeed, and you become a
hero. Suppose I make that success certain!’

‘Pshaw! you are leading me on to some new toil,’ said Gaudin. ‘We are
powerless here; were we otherwise, I should mistrust you. This is no
place for bandying smooth phrases; nor are our relations towards each
other such as require them. You know my sentiments towards you.’ Then,
after a moment’s pause, he added, ‘What plan do you propose?’

‘As I expected,’ thought Exili; ‘his curiosity is aroused.’ ‘It is
full late,’ he continued aloud, as the sound of the bell vibrated
through the building from the Tour de la Chapelle. ‘To-morrow your
excitement will have somewhat abated, and all will be explained.
Doubtless your couch will prove a trifle harder than the one you have
been accustomed to. Good-night; and may _she_ visit you in your
dreams, for you will have little chance here of seeing her otherwise.’

And with this last observation, which had the full effect he intended,
the physician turned on his pallet and was soon asleep, or affected to
be so.

But it was long before Gaudin slumbered. The events of the evening
were in themselves enough to drive anything from his mind, and the
last conversation with Exili had added fresh wrath to the mingled
blaze of anger, jealousy, and impotent desire of revenge that consumed
him. At last the objects in the room imperceptibly faded from his
sight, or merged into the strange forms which his half-slumbering
senses conjured up; and in this state he lay for upwards of an hour,
with a consciousness of existence, but motionless and silent.

Suddenly he awoke--if it could be called awaking from a state that was
scarcely a sleep--and cast his eyes across the room towards the bed of
his companion. Exili was awake as well. He had raised himself in bed,
and, by the light of the lamp which still burned in the
chimney-corner, was staring fixedly at Sainte-Croix, with the same
riveting gaze he had before directed towards him. It was not the look
of human intent--a serpent would have fascinated a bird with the same
expression, until the victim fell into its yawning mouth. Gaudin
quailed before it--he knew not why; but there was something terrible
in the unclosed and glaring eyes of the physician, which almost
precluded him from inquiring what he desired.

‘You need not be alarmed,’ replied Exili, in an unconcerned tone.
‘Whatever my wishes might have been towards you yesternight, at all
events, you are safe _here_. I was attracted by that curious bauble
hanging round your neck. Where did you get it?’

He directed Sainte-Croix’s attention to a small gold heart, about the
size of a walnut, which hung round his neck, and which he had not laid
aside in divesting himself of his clothes for the night.

‘It is an amulet,’ said Gaudin, ‘and contains a charm against an evil
eye. I have heard it will also yield visions of the future. I never
put it on one side.’

As he spoke, he opened the heart in its centre, and took out a crystal
of a reddish colour, set in a circle of silver. Exili gazed at it
still more earnestly than before.

‘It is a beryl!’ he exclaimed.

‘Eyes less piercing than yours might tell that,’ replied Sainte-Croix.
‘Your fool affected to expose one for sale on the Carrefour du
Châtelet but a short time since.’

‘I will tell you more,’ continued Exili, still fixing his scrutinising
gaze upon the amulet. ‘The names of the four angels are graven round
it: they come in order thus--Uriel, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel. I have
seen that stone before. Where did you get it?’

‘It matters little to you,’ replied Gaudin; ‘suffice it to say it is
my own.’

‘And you did not read your arrest on its surface?’

‘I have kept it merely as a charm,’ answered Gaudin.

‘Then you have abused its power,’ continued Exili. ‘Listen! do you
hear the night wind howling round the towers of the Bastille and
rushing down the chimney of our apartment? To common ears it is but
the wind--a viewless thing that comes and goes, hurrying on around the
world until its force is spent and it dies in nothingness. To me it is
far otherwise,’ he continued, as his eyes blazed with unwonted fire,
and he raised his arm on high. ‘Each gust is laden with the wrath of
some damned spirit waiting to be called upon to make that beryl a
mirror of the future, and you neglect the appeal. Give me the stone,
and let me read the fate you care not to know.’

Gaudin gazed at Exili with fixed astonishment. The physician extended
his hand, and the other took the amulet from his neck and gave it to
him.

‘It is the same!’ exclaimed Exili with a smothered exclamation of
surprise, as he again looked intently at Gaudin. Then, fixing his eye
on the stone, he continued--

‘Its surface is dull. I can see forms moving on it, but they are
indistinct, and dance from before my sight like motes, all except your
own, and that remains. You may yet triumph.’

Gaudin was awed by the manner of Exili; at another time he would have
laughed his predictions to scorn, but the circumstances, the hour, and
the place, combined to make him think very seriously of his
companion’s remarks.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘I will reply by putting another question,’ said Exili; ‘where did you
get this mineral?’

‘I have had it many years; let that suffice. Now, I claim to know the
import of your speech.’

‘You may yet triumph,’ repeated the Italian; ‘and by my means alone. I
am not, you see, the enemy you thought me. Again, I say, wait until
to-morrow.’

‘Nay, to-night,’ exclaimed Sainte-Croix. ‘I beseech you tell me what
you mean.’

‘The charm may be broken,’ continued the other; ‘it is not yet time.’

The manner of the physician had worked upon Sainte-Croix’s curiosity
strangely. He again implored to know what the other alluded to.

‘To-night--now--this instant!’ he exclaimed.

‘I will gratify you,’ replied Exili. ‘To-morrow they will bring me my
chemical glasses from the boat-mill, together with such dull elements
as the ground yields--simple and harmless--in order, as they suppose,
that I may practise alchemy. Fools! they little know the change that
paltry lamp can work in innocuous earths.’

‘What do you propose to do?’ asked Sainte-Croix.

‘To put you in possession of all I know myself,’ continued Exili, ‘and
bring Marie de Brinvilliers once more near you, unquestioned,
undisturbed. Seek no further. The life and death of those you love or
hate shall be alike within your grasp. The destroying angel shall
become your slave, and go abroad, obedient to your will alone. Your
bosom should now harbour but one thought--and that must be revenge.’

Exili threw back the amulet to Sainte-Croix, and sank back on his
pillow; whilst Gaudin, finding he returned no reply to his questions,
once more sought to fly from himself, and the black thoughts that
haunted him, in sleep.




 CHAPTER XIII.
 GAUDIN LEARNS STRANGE SECRETS IN THE BASTILLE

It was not until Galouchet, the gaoler, entered the chamber of the
Tour de la Liberté the next morning that Sainte-Croix awoke from his
slumbers--from one of those bright dreams of freedom, triumph, and
happiness, albeit always tempered with some vague mistrust, which
haunt our sleeping existence; the fairer in their visioned prospects,
the more gloomy and hopeless the reality.

Exili had already risen. He was looking over the contents of a small
chest of carved wood, placed on the table before him. The gaoler was
apparently making preparations for breakfast, clattering some metal
plates upon the undraped and rude table; and in the fireplace the
dense smoke was creeping through some hissing pieces of damp wood, as
the sap sputtered and bubbled from their ends. Gaudin stared about him
confusedly. The last impression of his dreams was mingled with his
waking sensations, and he remained silent for a few moments, after
some incoherent words, to collect his senses. Exili muttered some
conventional salute, and then went on with his scrutiny, whilst
Galouchet, having put the table in order, according to his own
notions, offered his assistance towards completing Sainte-Croix’s
toilet.

‘What charge will monsieur choose to defray for his nourishment?’
asked the gaoler, as Gaudin rose from his pallet.

‘What do you expect?’ inquired Sainte-Croix.

‘_Parbleu!_ we have all prices. You may live like a prince for fifty
livres a-day, or starve like a valet for two. This will include your
washing, if you are not over-fond of clean linen, and a candle
a-night. The firewood you must pay for separately.’

Gaudin looked towards the fireplace, and the struggling flame.

‘Ah!’ said Galouchet, divining his thoughts; ‘the wood is rather damp,
to be sure, but that makes it last the longer; and as you and Monsieur
Exili occupy the same room, it will come cheaper.’

‘Is there news in the city this morning, Galouchet?’ asked Exili.

‘But little,’ returned the functionary. ‘Pierre, the scullion, sleeps
out of the fortress, and tells me that an eboulement took place last
night, and the Bièvre burst into some of the _carrières_ of St.
Marcel; and fell so rapidly, in consequence, that all the mills this
side of St. Medard were stopped for three hours.’

‘Was anybody lost?’ inquired the physician.

‘It is believed so. A party of Bras d’Acier’s gang were hunted out of
the vaults between the Cordelières and Montrouge, like rats in our
_cachots_, when the rains come; and one of the superintendents at the
Gobelins was fished up, half-drowned, from a shaft in the Rue
Mouffetard.’

‘Do you know his name?’ asked Sainte-Croix eagerly.

‘I can’t say I do,’ returned Galouchet. ‘What rate will you fix your
_nourriture_ at, monsieur?’ he continued.

‘I care not,’ said Gaudin; ‘only let it be something that I can eat.’

The day passed on, but the hours lagged so tediously that Time himself
appeared to be a prisoner. Little conversation passed between the two
inmates of the cell. Exili was occupied in writing nearly the whole
day; and Gaudin, who could ill bear the confinement, with his restless
and excitable spirit, after the hour’s exercise in the great court
allowed to all the prisoners, obtained permission to walk on the
ramparts in front of the sentinels. This position commanded a view
along the Rue St. Antoine, as well as of the houses in the Rue St.
Paul. Towards this point were Gaudin’s eyes constantly directed. He
beheld people moving in the streets, and over the plains in the
immediate vicinity of the city walls--the _coup d’œil_ was alive with
commerce--and the buzz of their voices plainly reached his ear; but he
envied them not, nor drew one comparison between their freedom and his
state of durance, except when he saw them turn from the great
thoroughfare into the small street wherein the Hôtel d’Aubray was
situated. He fancied he could pick out the pointed roof of the mansion
from amongst the others, and once he imagined that he saw the delicate
figure of the Marchioness emerge from the Rue St. Paul, and pass
towards the city, without so much as throwing back a glance towards
the fortress in which she knew he was confined. And then the hell of
jealousy raged in his veins, and he felt the bitterness of captivity.
He thought of the circumstances under which he had found her with
Theria the preceding evening; then came back the recollection of the
impassioned interview, and her apparent devotion to him, until the
struggle of his conflicting feelings to establish what he hoped for,
over what he dreaded, nearly maddened him.

At length it got dusk, and he could see no more. The murmur of the
peopled city died away; the lights appeared in the embrasures of the
Bastille, and the night-wind chilled him. He descended once more to
his cell, and found his gaoler there.

‘I was coming to seek you, monsieur,’ he said, ‘for the curfew will
soon ring. Mass! your supper is nearly cold. Here is a slice of
_rôti_, a plate of eggs, and a salad; you could not fare better at
home.’

‘Have any of my things come?’ asked Gaudin.

‘They are being overlooked in the _corps du garde_,’ replied the man.
‘By the way, monsieur, my sweetheart, Françoise Roussel, gave me this
note for you, when I met her without the walls this afternoon. She did
not care that it should be read by the governor.’

Gaudin snatched the note, and discerned the handwriting of the
Marchioness. Hastily tearing it open, he read--


 ‘Be true and patient; all may yet be well, and you will be revenged.
 Rely on me to aid you; we have gone too far to retract. In life, and
 after it, yours _only_,

                                                     ‘Marie.’


‘I must put out your light,’ said Galouchet. ‘Last night you were
brought in late, and nothing was said; but neither fire nor lamp can
be allowed between curfew and sunrise.’

‘You can have it, my good fellow,’ said Gaudin, still quivering with
the emotion which the letter had called up. ‘Here--here is some money
for you. I will keep your secret. You may retire.’

The man raked out the embers on the grate, and departed. As soon as
the clanking of the three doors that shut in the cell had ceased,
Exili, who till now had remained quiet, arose from his table, and
approaching Sainte-Croix in the darkness, said rapidly--

‘I will now show you some of the mysteries by which my career has, up
to yesterday, thriven. But, first--precaution!’

He took his cloak, and by the aid of the forks on the table fixed it
so that it covered the window, the position of which could be plainly
ascertained by the faint moonlight from without, and then he returned
towards the table at which he had been sitting.

‘The clods without think that our light and darkness is subservient to
their will alone; but the elements obey not such idiots. The ether
which percolates all things--vitalised and inorganic--setting up a
communion between them, reveals not itself to the uninitiated. With
me, the various elements are as abject slaves, whom I can summons at
my bidding.’

As he spoke, he dashed a small rod he held against the wall, and a
flame, so bright that Gaudin could hardly look upon it, burst from its
extremity. In another moment he had relighted the lamp, and he then
shook the blaze amongst the embers on the hearth, which were presently
rekindled. Sainte-Croix looked upon his companion with the gaze of one
bewildered. Exili read the expression of the other’s features and
continued, perceiving his advantage--

‘Life and death are equally within my grasp. Whom shall I call up?
Will you see the ghastly corpse of the Croce Bianca, at Milan?’

‘No! No!’ cried Gaudin, covering his eyes with his hand, as if he
dreaded to meet the horrid sight.

‘Will that serve to recall its memory as well?’ asked Exili, throwing
a phial upon the table.

A glance sufficed to show its nature to Sainte-Croix. It was a small
bottle of the terrible Aqua Tofana--the ‘Manna of St. Nicholas de
Barri.’

‘That menstruum is powerless, compared to what I am about to show you.
But first, look here.’

He stooped beneath the table, and pulled out a species of cage, in
which several rats were huddled together, fighting, and scrambling
over their fellows.

‘Where did you get those vermin from?’ inquired Gaudin.

‘There are more in the Bastille than are wanted,’ replied Exili. ‘They
have been willingly granted by some poor wretch at the base of our
tower. Galouchet bought them. I told him they were to study anatomy
from.’

He plunged his hand fearlessly amongst them, and drew forth one of the
shrieking animals. Then squeezing its throat, he poured a drop or two
of the fluid down the mouth. The rat gave a few convulsive throes, and
he threw it down, dead, upon the table.

‘You see the effect of the potion,’ he continued. ‘Now, look here.’

Pouring the greater part of the remaining liquid of the phial into a
glass, he coolly drank it off before Gaudin could arrest his hand. But
no effect supervened. Instead of falling lifeless as Sainte-Croix had
anticipated, Exili gazed at him, and, with a short, hollow laugh,
threw the empty bottle amongst the embers.

‘Are you man or demon?’ asked Gaudin, scarcely trusting to his senses.

‘Neither,’ said Exili. ‘I have lost the sympathies of the former; the
latter I may be hereafter. I have studied poisons, as you see; but I
have also studied their antidotes. Have you kept the small phial by
you, which you bought of me at Milan?’

‘It has never been out of my keeping until now,’ said Gaudin.

‘With that you could command twenty lives,’ said Exili; ‘and yet my
remedies could so blunt and weaken its malignity that I would take it
all at one draught. You shall learn more. Attend!’

From his box of carved wood he drew forth a series of test glasses,
and half-filled them with water from the prison _cruche_. He next took
a small flacon, and pinched a few atoms of the powder it contained
into the first glass, varying the addition in each. Then dropping some
colourless fluid into them, one after the other, a precipitate fell
down in all, in clouds of the brightest tints, but each different.

‘See how completely these dull minerals do my bidding,’ he exclaimed.
‘To you the potion offers no trace by which its nature could be told;
to me there is not an atom suspended in it, in its invisible but
imperishable form, which cannot be reproduced before our eyes. Do you
believe in me?’

‘I do--I do,’ returned Gaudin. ‘What price do you put upon the
revelation of these mysteries?’

‘Nothing--beyond your attention and secrecy.’

‘And yet you love revenge,’ said Sainte-Croix, eyeing him with
mistrust.

‘It is my life--my very blood,’ answered Exili. ‘And my revenge--the
deepest I can have--is to teach you all I know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Simply what I have said. You may call it good for evil if you choose,
but still it is my revenge. You have time and leisure before you. Make
the best of both.’

Again Exili gazed at Sainte-Croix with the expression of a vulture
hovering about its prey, as Gaudin advanced to the table, and, with
some curiosity, handled the apparatus which was spread about it. The
physician opened a drawer in the box, which was apparently filled with
sand. This, however, was but on a false top, which he drew away, and
discovered several small bottles, of the size of one’s finger, which
he took out.

‘These small messengers have worked great events in their time,’ he
said. ‘This,’ taking up one, ‘was the terror of Rome, of Verona, and
Milan. I could add much to the records of the Scaliger and Borromeo
families, respecting its efficacy. This,’ he added, pointing to
another, ‘is so potent that a century and a half has not impaired its
power. It is the foam of a dying boar, slain by poison, collected as
you see, and was the scourge with which the Borgias swept away their
enemies.’

‘Why is one of the phials gilt?’ asked Gaudin.

‘Because its contents are the most precious,’ returned Exili. ‘Its
power baffled even the attempts at imitation of Spara and Tofana. It
was discovered by a monk in a convent at Palermo, and the secret has
remained with me alone.’

‘It is clear as water,’ observed Gaudin, holding it against the light.

‘And like water, without taste or odour. It aided many whose hearts
clung to one another,’ he continued, watching Sainte-Croix with his
eagle eyes; ‘by clearing away the obstacles that impeded their union.’

Gaudin stretched out his hand, trembling with emotion, and clutched
the phial, which he regarded intently, his dilated pupil, parted lips,
and short, hurried breathing, showing the conflict of passions that
was going on within him. Exili passed a few more of the phials in
review before him. From one he let fall a few drops upon the hearth;
it hissed and boiled, and the stone remained black where it had been;
into another he dipped a piece of gold, and its yellow and polished
surface was changed to a dull gray by the contact.

Then throwing out several of the allusions which he found had most
deeply stung his companion the night before, he placed himself by the
side of Gaudin, and proceeded to explain to him the rough composition
of the different articles the box contained. And as he saw the intense
attention, the almost gasping eagerness with which Sainte-Croix
followed his instructions, he exclaimed almost unconsciously,

‘Mine--mine for ever!’




 CHAPTER XIV.
 THE CHATEAU IN THE COUNTRY--THE MEETING--LE PREMIER PAS

It was a dreary autumnal evening, sixteen months after the events of
the last chapter, and the twilight was fast coming upon a vast forest
in the province of l’Ile de France, now known as the department of the
Oise. The afternoon had been chill and depressing. The wind moaned
through the high branches of the trees in a dismal and monotonous
wailing, and the constant rustling of the leaves as they fell to the
ground showed that the season was far advanced. There were few of the
wild flowers left. Two or three, here and there, in sheltered nooks,
were all that remained to remind one of the past summer. The delicate
heath-bell trembled in the cold breeze, as it rose amidst the dead
foliage; but there were few beside. The birds were silent; the
tinkling of the cattle-bells on the patches of pasture-land was
hushed, as the animals huddled together, shrinking from the first
approach of cold; and no sound was heard to disturb the general
torpidity into which nature seemed about to fall, except the echoing
noise from the blows of the axe with which the peasants were cutting
down the limbs of the trees for the winter store of firewood.

Yet was the Forêt de l’Aigue a pleasant place in summer, when the
sunlight danced upon the turf of its long avenues, darting through the
quivering foliage, and the ground was powdered with the bright petals
of its flowers, from the primroses spangling its sunny banks, to the
gentle violets clustering about the mossy bolls of the fantastic
trees, adding their odour to the scent-laden air that swept so warmly
through the branches. And during this season alone, it might have been
conceived that the chateaux, which were built widely apart upon the
forest, were inhabited; for the situation was indeed desolate at other
times. But although the autumn was, as we have observed, far advanced,
one of the largest of these country houses that a man could come to in
a long day’s walk, had not yet been forsaken for the winter by its
occupants. This was a large rambling building, with many windows and
turrets, surrounded by a neglected garden, with a few mutilated stone
statues, corroded by the rain of many winters, and enclosed by a rude
flint wall, with a broken coping. The walks were overgrown with weeds;
the ponds were either dry or covered with slime and dead leaves; and
water had long ceased to come from the mouths of the misshapen
dolphins that formed the fountains. It was of a class of rural
buildings which, in France, always appear desolate and uncared for;
but this one was especially so.

In one of the large apartments of this house, a bare, uncarpeted room,
which the blazing pile of firewood upon the iron ‘dogs’ of the large
hearth could not render cheerful, were two persons--an elderly man and
a young female. The former was seated at an escritoire, arranging a
vast mass of papers bearing official seals and signatures that lay
before him. His companion was plunged in a large fauteuil at the side
of the fireplace, with her hands pressed against her face, as if to
shut out all impressions but her own thoughts. She might have been
supposed asleep, but for an occasional rapid shudder which passed
through her frame, induced by the vivid recollection of some bygone
scene of suffering. These two persons were M. d’Aubray, the
lieutenant-civil, and his daughter, the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.

‘The wind is blowing sharply to-night, Marie,’ said the old man, as a
gust of unusual violence howled round the chateau, and shook the
rattling casements. ‘We must think about returning to Paris.’

‘I have no wish to go, _mon père_,’ replied his daughter,--‘to be
pointed at as an object of pity, scorn, or curiosity. I would sooner
remain here with you--for ever.’

She left the fire, and sinking on a low _prie-dieu_ at her father’s
side, took his hand in her own, and looked up in his face with a gaze
of deep attachment.

‘You have nothing to fear in Paris,’ replied M. d’Aubray. ‘The court
has had a thousand objects for its slander since you left; and you
have been at Offemont long enough for the whole affair to be
forgotten. Besides, you will return acknowledged by me, and with my
countenance.’

‘Will the world believe that it is so, Monsieur?’

‘If I maintain it, they will, Marie. The dissolute life your husband
is now leading at Paris--his desperate play--the orgies nightly held
at his _hôtel_, which, if report be true, eclipse all others of the
present reign in debauchery, tend to prove that there was also deep
blame attached to him. The repentance--sincere, as I hope and trust it
is--of more than a year should disarm all future persecution.’

‘Antoine has been very cruel to me,’ continued the daughter. ‘I should
like to see my children; they must be much grown and altered. It has
appeared so long a time since they were taken away.’

Her voice faltered as she spoke. She covered her face with her
handkerchief, and for a few seconds remained silent, as if weeping.
There was not a finer actress on the stage than Marie d’Aubray.

‘Time will effect much, Marie,’ said her father, as he fondly passed
his hand over her white shoulder, and drew her towards him. ‘Your
husband’s anger will be less bitter against you; be satisfied at
present in knowing that your children are well and happy.’

‘And _I_ am forgotten,’ added the Marchioness sadly.

‘I need not say,’ continued M. d’Aubray, ‘that the greatest caution in
your behaviour will be necessary on your return. The cause of all this
misery, M. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix, has been liberated from the
Bastille, and is once more free, at Paris. You must never speak to, or
recognise him again.’

‘You shall be obeyed, Monsieur: too willingly,’ replied Marie.

‘_Bien_--you understand me,’ said M. d’Aubray. ‘I have to rise early
to-morrow, and shall retire. When I ring, let Gervais bring up my
supper to my room. I have still some writings to arrange.’

‘I will see to it, _mon père_,’ replied the Marchioness. ‘I shall
remain up some time longer. I cannot sleep if I go to rest thus early,
and those long watchful nights are so terrible.’

She knelt upon the _prie-dieu_ as her father kissed her fair forehead,
and then retired.

As soon as he had gone, and the sound of his departing footsteps was
no longer audible, Marie took the heavy candelabrum which was on the
table, and drawing aside a curtain of rustling and faded serge, placed
the light in the window. Then, watching the sulky beat of a faded
pendule, rich in shepherds and shepherdesses of blackened gilding that
was on a slab opposite the hearth, she remained lost in thought,
starting, however, at the least noise without, although but the
clatter of a falling leaf against the window.

An hour wore away. And then she became restless, pacing the room with
impatience, and constantly walking towards the window, in the vain
endeavour to penetrate the gloom without, unenlivened by the presence
of even a single star. Yet suspense was not the only feeling expressed
by her countenance. Her eyes sparkled, a breathing glow of warmth and
excitement flushed her face, and a slight tremor pervaded her whole
frame, extending also to her very respiration. Suddenly these emotions
ceased. A footstep was plainly heard without upon the terrace of the
parterre: it came nearer, and then there was a light tap against the
window. She rose slowly, and opened the casement: in another moment
Gaudin de Sainte-Croix entered the apartment.

There was no spring--no eager rush into each other’s arms. Despite the
intense passion which had the instant previous filled her silence and
her thoughts, she now remained fixed, and mute as the grave. Neither
did Gaudin speak a word, as he found himself before his mistress for
the first time since his long and dreary immurement. But the looks on
either side were those which wrapped each other in passion; and by
degrees, yet still in silence and trembling, a hand or foot stole
forward, until the two forms which contained those attached, but
sinful souls, met in one long and clinging embrace.

‘Gaudin! my adored one!’ exclaimed Marie. But the concluding accents
were hushed by the lips of her lover.

At length they broke from their waking dream with the start and
unwelcome sense of reality that follows slumber. And then a sigh rose
to Marie’s lips far different from the acted sorrow and penitence of
the last hour. Passion stamped sincerity and truth upon it.

‘And can you mix grief, Marie, with the rapture of this moment?’ asked
Sainte-Croix in tones of deprecation.

‘Gaudin!’ replied the Marchioness; ‘this must be henceforth the only
manner in which we can meet--this stealthy, miserable game at
hide-and-seek, the only way in which I can show my love, or repay you
for your suffering.’

The habitual distrust of Sainte-Croix’s mind led him to turn one
searching look upon Marie’s face. But all there was real and
confiding. All natures have their minutes of truth, however drilled
they may be into daily lying. He was satisfied.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘Do you remain here for ever?’

‘No, Gaudin,’ answered the Marchioness; ‘but my father requires, as
the price of his protection and countenance, that I should cease to
know you.’

The face of Sainte-Croix contracted so suddenly and fiercely that
Marie started.

‘What is it that frightens you?’ he asked suddenly.

She hesitated a moment, and then she answered slowly and somewhat
sadly--

‘Nothing.’

‘And yet there should--’ retorted Gaudin; but he paused as abruptly as
he had begun the sentence. ‘Have I not,’ he added in a gentler and
more tranquil tone--‘have I not suffered enough yet to buy your
devotion?’

There was ‘Bastille’ in his look. The wily woman was overcome by the
wilier man of the world, as though she had been a girl. She clung to
him, and pillowed her cheek on his bosom.

‘I will leave you, if it be your wish,’ said Sainte-Croix, as he put
her arms away. ‘One word of yours, and I leave you never to return,
until--’ and he paused slowly on the words, and uttered them bitterly
and deliberately--‘until _his_ death!’

Again she started; but Gaudin noticed it not, or was determined not to
notice it.

‘Shall we part?’ he continued, and this time passion gave eloquence to
the few words--‘for ever? And yet, if what you have told me of M.
d’Aubray’s determination be true, it must be so.’

‘Never! never!’ cried Marie sobbing, as her clasp grew closer and
closer round his neck. Had it been possible for Exili’s soul to have
been then and there present, how it would have exulted in the
assurance of its second victim!

‘Nay, this is weak, Marie. Let us bear the yoke which the world
imposes with something like courage,’ exclaimed Sainte-Croix, with a
malignant expression strangely at variance with the silken accents of
his tongue.

‘You may, Gaudin, if you choose,’ said the Marchioness, ‘but I
cannot.’ And the tears were dried in her eyes as she spoke, as if by
the fire that blazed in them. ‘If it tramples upon me, I turn: if it
spurns me, I return loathing for loathing.’

‘And what good will that do you?’ asked Sainte-Croix, as a sneer came
to his lips, but vanished almost in its birth. Step by step he was
leading her on to his purpose. ‘See here,’ he continued, as he took a
packet from his cloak; ‘sixteen months ago I explained to you the
power of this paper’s contents; had you been then guided by me, you
could have averted my long and dreary imprisonment.’

‘Gaudin!’

‘You have deceived me, Marie. I imagined--fool--idiot that I
was!--that I was more to you than aught beside in the world; I now see
how we stand towards each other. Farewell!’ he added, with studied
unconcern; ‘Paris is wide, and its beauties at present require but
little courting. I release you from all ties--our liaison is over.’

He advanced towards the window as he spoke. The Marchioness started
forward, and caught him by the arm, exclaiming--

‘Oh! this is cruel, Sainte-Croix! Stop--but an instant. We have
arrived at the brink of a fearful precipice--a dark gulf is yawning at
our feet, whose depth we may not penetrate. We are doomed to fall into
it, but it shall be together. Give me the packet.’

Sainte-Croix placed it in her fevered hand as she spoke. And then for
some seconds not a word passed between them, and each remained gazing
at the other as if they would have looked through each other’s eyes to
discover what dark passions were rising in their minds.

‘Hark!’ exclaimed the Marchioness, first breaking the silence in a low
hurried voice. ‘The servant is coming. You must leave me, Gaudin.
Leave all to me,--in a few days we shall be once more in Paris.’

There was a hurried but intense embrace, as though their two souls
sought to merge into one form, and Gaudin left the apartment in the
same manner that he had entered it. The Marchioness retired from the
window, pale, and tottering in her step, and had scarcely gained her
seat by the fire when Gervais, her father’s attendant, entered the
apartment.

‘M. d’Aubray has rung for his wine, madame,’ said the man. ‘You have
the tankard in the chiffonier.’

‘I will give it to him myself, Gervais,’ replied the Marchioness, with
an assumption of indifference that was almost spasmodic. ‘You can go
to bed. Nothing more will be wanted.’

‘I have told Michel to watch the _terrain_ to-night, madame,’
continued the man. ‘He noticed some one prowling round the walls just
as it was getting dusk.’

‘There is no occasion for that,’ replied Marie. ‘There is nothing out
of doors worth their stealing, and very little within. Good-night.’

The retainer departed; and the Marchioness took the jug which the man
had brought in, and poured it into an old cup of thin silver, embossed
with figures, which might have been the

 [image: img_08.jpg
 caption: Le Premier Pas]

work of Benvenuto Cellini, that stood on the chiffonier. And then,
with a hurried glance round the room, she broke the seals of the
packet Sainte-Croix had left in her hand, and shook a few grains of
its contents into the beverage. No change was visible; a few bubbles
rose and broke upon the surface, but this was all.

Taking the tankard with her, she left the large room and went to her
father’s chamber. M. d’Aubray had retired to rest, and it was evident
that sleep had just surprised him, as the lamp was still burning at
the side of his bed, and a deed was in his hand that he had been
reading. The Marchioness gazed at it for a few seconds with fixed
regards. The traces of the late conflict with her feelings had
departed, and her face had assumed once more that terrible and
unfathomable expression which has been before alluded to, although a
close observer might have seen the pupils of her eyes dilated, and a
strange light coruscating in them.

She touched her father lightly, and he awoke with the exclamation of
surprise attendant upon being suddenly disturbed from sleep.

‘Is it you, Marie?’ he asked. ‘What brings you here?’

‘I have brought your wine, _mon père_,’ she replied. ‘The servants
were up early this morning at work, and are tired. I have sent them to
rest.’

‘Thanks--thanks, my good girl,’ said the old man, as he raised himself
up in bed, and took the cup from the Marchioness.

‘We want no taster,’ he continued, ‘to bear the attacks of hidden
poison, with such a Hebe as yourself, Marie; and my old blood cannot
spare a drop of this vitalising draught.’

A convulsive exclamation broke from the lips of the Marchioness, but
it was not observed by her father. He drank off the contents of the
cup, and then, once more bestowing a benediction upon his daughter,
turned again to his pillow.




 CHAPTER XV.
 VERSAILLES--THE RIVAL ACTRESSES--THE DISCOVERY

Any one whom business or leisure had taken into the abode of Maître
Picard one fine morning, a short time after his affair with the
students, would have found the little _chapelier_ in a wondrous state
of flurry and importance; whilst his best costume was so covered with
knots of ribbons and floating streamers, fixed to every available
part, that he was a perfect marvel to look at as he paraded about his
shop, and attracted a crowd of _gamins_ to peep at him through the
wares in the window. In fact, for once Maître Picard had completely
eclipsed the glory of the large red tin hat, with the bright pendants
that hung over his door, and had whilom formed the object of the
students’ attack.

But Maître Picard was not the only person in the establishment thus
finely arrayed, for his Gascon lodger, Jean Blacquart, appeared in a
military costume of great effect, albeit it had been evidently made
for one of larger proportions, and the long rapier pertaining to it
somewhat interfered with the free progress of the wearer. But when the
weapon got between his legs, and threatened to trip him up, Jean
kicked it on one side with great disdain, and strode up and down the
shop, with the blade clanking at his heels, as though he had just
thrust it through the bodies of a score of stalwart antagonists, and
was waiting to see who would be bold enough to come forward next.

The gossips of the Rue de la Harpe and Rue des Mathurins were well
aware of the cause of this unwonted excitement. There were
_portières_ in those days as at present; and they were just as
garrulous. The old woman who kept the gate of the Hôtel de Cluny had
heard the news from Maître Picard’s housekeeper; and it was soon
known in the Quartier Latin that the Garde Bourgeois of that division
were to have the honour of waiting upon their monarch at Versailles
that evening, where a fete was to be given upon an unusual scale of
splendour; a large part of the gardens being covered in and richly
decorated, to accommodate the number of guests that it was expected
would not find room in the palace;[11] for the building as it then
stood was comparatively small, being little more than the chateau
built by the preceding monarch as his hunting-lodge, upon the site of
the windmill purchased from Jean de Soissy.

Maître Picard had borrowed a horse from a neighbour--a heavy Flemish
animal, as plump as the bourgeois himself, which went its own pace,
and would be put into no other. He would have hired a _voiture de
place_ to go in state; but in the first place, the hire was somewhat
beyond his means, and secondly, he thought a horse more warlike than
sitting all the way to jolt upon a _haquet_ or _patache_--his ordinary
species of carriage; so he determined to ride: and Blacquart was to be
seated upon the pillion,--rather against his will, but a manner he
still preferred to getting there as he could; for he had adopted his
martial costume on purpose to creep into the palace under the wing of
Maître Picard, and fell readily into whatever plans the bourgeois
proposed.

They mounted amidst the cheers and admiration of the whole
neighbourhood. But scarcely had they settled on their respective
divisions of the horse’s back, when Blacquart, drawing himself up to
look imposing, overbalanced himself, and, together with Maître
Picard, was shot over upon the ground. The girths had evidently been
undone by one of the wicked students of the Sorbonne, who was standing
near.

At length this was set right again, their pride preventing either of
them from owning to be hurt, and they started on their progress,
descending the Rue de la Harpe with great effect, and crossing the
river by the Pont St. Michel. Maître Picard assumed a grave and
steady bearing, becoming his dignity; but Jean Blacquart put on the
airs of a gallant, winking at the windows when any pretty face
appeared, or singing songs of chivalry and love in accordance with his
dress.

It took a long time for Maître Picard and his companion to traverse
the four leagues between Paris and Versailles. The road was filled
with acquaintances journeying in the same direction; and with these
the bourgeois would stop at almost every hostelry for a friendly cup,
and sometimes two, in which the Gascon joined him, so that it was
well-nigh evening when they came to the end of the Avenue de Paris, at
the gates of the semicircular outer court which then formed the
entrance to the chateau. There was great confusion and noise in the
court. Numbers of heavy carriages, of the quaint fashion of the age,
drawn by four, six, and even eight horses, nearly filled the area,
besides soldiers, country people, and lackeys of the different guests.
A richly-ornamented voiture, drawn by four cream-coloured steeds,
preceded them up to the palace door, whither Maître Picard insisted
on proceeding mounted, although Blacquart had descended from his
pillion, thinking such a position somewhat derogatory for a man of
chivalric demeanour.

The people were running at the side of the carriage and peeping into
it. Maître Picard resolved to exert his authority to procure a better
view for himself; so, rolling in some strange fashion from his horse,
which he gave over to the care of a bystander, he put the crowd back,
and cleared a way to the doors. Four females descended. The two first
were elegantly dressed; the third wore a fancy costume, which had
possibly attracted the attention of the mob; and the last was attired
as a superior attendant. But all were handsome enough to draw the
regards of the people towards them. As the first of these dames
passed, Maître Picard made a low bow, and then drew himself up, and
ruffled his plumes like a peacock.

‘Who is that?’ asked Jean Blacquart, who had come up to the Cour de
Marbre, and was blustering his way through the crowd.

‘An excellent lady,’ replied Maître Picard aloud, ‘and my good
friend. It is Madame Scarron, the widow of the author who wrote the
_Écolier de Salamanque_. He was not a handsome man--Mass! lame,
crooked, and paralytic; but he drew all the world to the theatre in
the Rue de la Poterie.’

A brilliantly dressed woman followed her, and the crowd expressed
their admiration as she rustled past them.

‘Stand back, fellow!’ said Maître Picard, bustling. ‘Room for Madame
la Marquise de Brinvilliers! Make way there!’

The Marchioness smiled and passed on; Jean Blacquart thought her
regards were directed to himself, as he cocked his hat, and stretched
forward his leg in an attitude.

‘Poor lady!’ continued Maître Picard aloud, for the crowd to hear
him. ‘I know her well: she is separated from her husband on account of
his debaucheries.--Ah! Mademoiselle Marotte Dupré!--permit me to free
your dress from the step.’

The beautiful actress passed on smiling, but without noticing the
fussy little bourgeois, who perceiving that the next inmate of the
carriage, although equally handsome, was but an attendant, fell back
amongst the crowd.

It was indeed a strange quartette that left the carriage, although no
one of them knew the position in which she stood towards another.
Marie had returned to Paris, in consequence, as it was asserted, of
the sudden and fearful indisposition of M. d’Aubray; who had, however,
insisted on his daughter accepting the invitation to Versailles, were
it only to establish her entree into society. In such a position it
was not desirous that she should go alone; and Madame Scarron, who was
daily finding fresh favour in the eyes of the King, was selected as a
species of chaperone. Marotte Dupré, who was to appear in the mask,
and for whom Scarron had written some of his best roles, was offered
a seat in the voiture. And the fourth was madame’s companion, who had
lived with her for more than the twelvemonth--the gentle Louise
Gauthier.

The carriages and caleches of every kind kept bringing up the company.
Many were masked--many came on foot, but nearly all were accompanied
by torch-bearers; and when the Cour Royale became filled with these
last, the effect was most beautiful. And as dusk came on, thousands of
lights burst forth in every direction. Every window was illuminated as
well as the gallery which connected the wings; and in the gardens long
rows of lamps surrounded the basins and fountains, or quivered, by
reflection, in the water of the canal, then lately finished by Le
Notre. Despite the advanced season, the grounds were thronged with the
guests; temporary pavilions for jousting and dancing had been built up
in the various alleys, and more especially in the Allée du Roi, where
a large theatre had been erected; and in the Bosquet de la Salle de
Bal, over which a vast tarpaulin had been stretched at a great height,
enclosing even the trees--which, from their sheltered position, still
retained a great deal of their autumnal foliage--columns of spouting
water rose like crystal pillars round the amphitheatre, with brilliant
lights so artfully contrived, that they appeared to be burning in the
middle of the fountains; and others, in coloured shades, sparkled
amongst the foliage as if they had been the enchanted fruit of
Aladdin’s garden, or twinkled upon the turf like glow-worms, until
they were lost in the distance of the avenues. The very climate
appeared to be subservient to the will of the luxurious monarch, for,
although without the autumn was fast falling, yet in the park and
gardens traces of the summer still lingered.

Maître Picard was everywhere, elbowing amongst the throng, followed
by Jean Blacquart, who assumed the airs of a person high in command,
and gave orders in a loud tone, whenever he fancied any of the ladies
were looking at him. Of course they were never obeyed; but he
conceived the effect was the same. At length, finding the company
turning towards the theatre, the bourgeois took his post near one of
the entrances, and Jean stationed himself where he thought he might
best attract attention.

The King and his suite had not arrived; and those who had already
assembled were talking loudly, in which conversation Maître Picard
also joined.

‘_L’Impromptu de Versailles_, and _La Princesse d’Elide_. Ah! I know
them well,’ he exclaimed, as some of the audience by him mentioned the
names of the pieces to be represented that evening. ‘But they are
nothing to those which have gone by. Think of _Peleus and Thetis_.’

‘You saw _Peleus and Thetis_?’ asked Jean loudly, in the manner of
people anxious to draw out an acquaintance before company.

‘Did I see _Peleus and Thetis_?’ replied the _chapelier_. ‘Mass! I
supplied the hats. They were shown at the Théâtre du Petit-Bourbon.
Think of the figures being arranged by Bouty--the rhyme by Benserade,
the scenes by Torelli, and the hats by me, Maître Picard, of the Rue
des Mathurins!’

‘It is twelve years back, bourgeois,’ said a bystander. ‘The King was
a mere boy.’

‘And played himself in five dresses,’ replied Maître Picard,
‘representing Apollo, Mars, a fury, a dryade, and a courtier. He wore
my hats thrice in the ballet.’

‘He had more attractions than the applause of the audience to make him
play, so it was said,’ continued the other.

‘He was desperately enamoured of the Cardinal’s niece, Mademoiselle
Mancini,’ said Maître Picard; ‘but she also wore one of my perukes as
the Goddess of Music. The Cardinal brought two from Rome.’

‘Hats, bourgeois!’

‘Mass! no--nieces. There was no need to go to Rome for hats whilst I
was in Paris.’

And Maître Picard evidently felt insulted, and contemplated saying
something sharp; but just at this moment further conversation was
arrested by a sudden buzz of voices, and that undefined movement which
guides a crowd to one point of attraction. ‘The King! the King!’
passed rapidly from mouth to mouth; and the next instant Louis XIV.
advanced through an irregular line of spectators, respectfully
uncovered.

It was a brilliant cortege. In the prime of his age, his noble figure
set off by the gorgeous costume of the day, and his keen, intelligent
features tempered by that look of high command which, seemed native to
him, so well it sat upon his curved lip and lofty brow, Louis passed
along, answering the salutations of the crowd with a slight, but
courteous motion of his richly-plumed beaver, and pausing for an
instant from time to time to address a whispered remark to Madame de
Montespan, whose imperious beauty well entitled her to her place of
honour on the King’s right hand. After them came the less
distinguished suite of courtiers and court functionaries; and the mass
of spectators, closing in behind them, crowded into the temporary
theatre.

The auditory presented a brilliant _coup d’œil_ of bright eyes and
brighter diamonds, alive with brilliant costumes and waving plumes.

The King, with Madame de Montespan at his side, and those whose rank
entitled them to the privilege, occupied the fauteuils in the front of
the parterre, and the rest of the audience filled every inch of
standing room.

Jean Blacquart was in ecstasies. His blood boiled in his veins; and he
felt a noble for the night,--in fact, almost as great a personage as
Louis himself. His next neighbour--a garrulous old abbe,--mistaking
the Gascon, in his curious military garb, for some distinguished
visitor, took apparent pleasure in pointing out to him the notables
present.

‘You see that gay gentleman,’ he said, ‘who is leaning over his
Majesty’s chair, and whispering something to Mademoiselle de
Montpensier?’

‘It has brought the colour into her cheek through her rouge,’ said
Blacquart. ‘I wonder what he was saying: I could perhaps produce a
great effect with it.’

‘That’s the Marquis de Lauzun,’ continued the abbe. ‘He’s in favour
just now. _Ma foi!_ he divides his time between the court and the
Bastille pretty equally. If all tales be true, La Grande Mademoiselle
would not be sorry to grace him with another title than that of
Marquis.’

‘And who is that pretty woman next to her?’ asked Jean. ‘I saw her
arrive, but could not hear her name.’

‘Ah! pretty you may say. There is more wit lying under that calm gray
eye than in De Montespan’s sparkling black one. That is Scarron’s
widow. Madame de Maintenon they call her now. She will make her way.’

‘And talking to her--’

‘De Beringhen--an honest man, they tell me, and a sincere friend of
the King; more’s the miracle! And that’s De Beauvillers, first
gentleman of the King’s bedchamber. How tired he looks!’

‘There are two quietly-dressed men in the fourth row,’ said Jean,
indicating the direction. ‘They are not gay; they look like a couple
of crows in an aviary of bright-winged birds.’

‘They are Racine and Boileau,’ said the abbe; ‘Louis has great taste
in literature. I have a little poem of my own, which I hope to be
allowed to present to his Majesty. Bachelier, his _garçon de
garde-robe_, is a cousin of mine. I wish I could read it to you: I
think you would like it.’

Jean shrunk from the infliction; but luckily the curtain rose at this
moment, and the _Impromptu_ commenced. It was a satire on the
courtiers who had ventured to criticise Molière’s last production,
and on the rival company of actors--the tragedians of the Théâtre de
Bourgogne. The King laughed heartily at the hits; and when the great
author, Molière himself, delivered the ‘tag,’ which contained a
well-turned compliment to the monarch, Louis rose from his chair, and
bowed to the actor: a condescension which displeased Jean’s neighbour
extremely.

‘To think,’ said the abbe, ‘of his paying such a mark of respect to a
comedian--a vagabond whom the church has excommunicated! A bad
example, monsieur--a bad example.’ And the abbe shook his head.

The _comédie-ballet_ of the _Princesse d’Elide_ followed; and Jean
was obliged to vow that it was dull enough for a court performance,
although compressed. He was a little relieved, however, by the
appearance of Estelle des Urlis--the ‘Estelle’ whom Theria had left so
unceremoniously when he fled to Liége, and who had returned to the
profession from which he had taken her. She played _Cynthie_, cousin
of the Princess; and her costume showed off her neat figure and pretty
face to great advantage. Marotte Dupré, who enacted _Aglante_, her
companion and friend, exchanged, as Jean observed, anything but
friendly glances with Estelle, whenever the action of the piece
brought them together.

‘Would you like to visit the _coulisses_!’ asked the abbe, when the
curtain fell at the end of the second act. ‘I have the entree; we
shall escape the crowd of the _salle_, and perhaps I may find time to
read you my poem.’

Jean shuddered at the prospect; but his wish to display himself braved
even this condition, and he replied--

‘With pleasure. I know some of the ladies of the company, and should
be glad to exchange a few words with one of them.’

He winked significantly as he said so; wishing to impress the abbe
with a notion that his acquaintance with the actresses was something
very mysterious and improper.

Making their way with difficulty through the crowd, they left the
auditory, and after some trouble found the _entrée des artistes_, or
stage door.

The abbe procured instant admission; and Jean, who was all impatience
to show off his martial dress to Estelle, took advantage of his
companion’s seizing the button of Chapelle, the friend of Molière,
and noted epicurean, to slip away to the _foyer_, where he found, not
Estelle, as he had expected, for she was on the stage at the moment,
but Marotte Dupré, surrounded by a crowd of admirers, and flinging
bright glances and _bon mots_ amongst them with a prodigality that was
rewarded by a constant accession to her circle.

Jean hovered about, in the vain endeavour to thrust his little body
into the way of a stray compliment, but in vain, until the appearance
of Mademoiselle Molière--as Amande de Béjart was called, though the
wife of the great author-actor--drew away the greater number of
Marotte’s court to the more potent one of the handsomest and most
_spirituelle_ coquette of the stage. Upon this, with true Gascon
assurance, Jean seized the opportunity of commencing a fire of
high-flown compliments to Marotte, who, nothing loath, added fuel to
the fire by her answers. In fact, he quite forgot Estelle, and was
becoming helpless in the toils of her lively rival, when he was
suddenly recalled to his responsibilities by a terrific box on the
ear. He turned, and, to his intense terror, beheld Mademoiselle des
Urlis, who had watched his flirtation until her woman’s jealousy could
bear it no longer. Tiresome as Blacquart’s admiration was to herself,
she could not see it transferred to Marotte, who, from her first
appearance in Molière’s comedy, seemed to have taken a malicious
pleasure in rivalling poor Estelle alike on the stage and the
_coulisses_.

‘_Trou de Diou!_ that you were a man, mademoiselle!’ cried the Gascon,
as red as a turkey-cock, and fumbling at his sword-hilt.

‘Mademoiselle des Urlis is labouring under a misconception,’ said
Marotte, with provoking coolness. ‘She mistakes the green room for the
_Halles_,[12] and monsieur for an old admirer. It is a souvenir she
presents to you, monsieur,’ she added, turning to the indignant Jean.

‘_Fourbe!_’ exclaimed Estelle. ‘Do not imagine I shall submit to your
impertinence as I have done.’

‘Impertinence! Take care, mademoiselle,’ was Marotte’s rejoinder.

‘_Tiens!_’ rapidly retorted Estelle. ‘_Voilà pour toi!_’

And she slapped Marotte’s face, so that the room rang with the blow.
Fortunately the crowd was gathered round La Molière, and did not heed
what was passing at the opposite end of the apartment.

‘A blow!’ cried Marotte, springing forward; ‘this must be accounted
for.’ And whilst Jean gazed open-mouthed and utterly bewildered, she
walked up to Estelle, and in a half whisper said, ‘You can use a
sword: unless you are a coward as well as a coquette meet me, when the
comedy is over, on the Tapis Vert, opposite the fountain of Latona.
Bring a woman for your second.’

‘_Soit_,’ said Estelle; ‘I ask nothing better. This struggle must
finish sooner or later.’

At this moment the ‘call-boy,’ putting his head into the room,
shouted, with the shrill nasal twang peculiar to his class,
‘Ma’amselle Dupré--Ma’amselle des Urlis!’ and the rivals, obeying the
summons, passed on to the stage arm-in-arm, radiant with ready smiles,
and commenced a most friendly dialogue. Jean, who heard the challenge
imperfectly, could hardly believe his ears. He was too averse to
fighting himself to believe in the possibility of women resorting to
this plan of adjusting a quarrel--which, strange as it may appear to
modern minds, was by no means without a parallel in the days of Louis
XIV. However, it is probable he would have taken some step to prevent
such a consummation, had he not been seized upon by the persevering
abbe, who, drawing him into a corner of the room, contrived to wedge
him there with fauteuils whilst he read his new poem. Poor Jean
groaned, and winced, and yawned, and sneezed, but in vain. On went the
flow of the abbe’s rounded verse. He knew the value of a victim; and
in the vernacular of the nineteenth century was determined to take it
out of him. Meanwhile the play had terminated, and the guests who were
admitted to the honour had sought the Bosquet de Bal, where the
orchestra was vigorously giving out the newest minuets and gavottes,
under the experienced leadership of Lulli.

The Tapis Vert--the scene of the actresses’ rendezvous--was a wide
alley of smooth green turf, bordered by statues, fronting the terrace
of the chateau, and the magnificent fountain of Latona. All the guests
of the fete had been attracted towards the _salle de danse_, and the
only sounds that mingled with the distant fanfare of the band were the
sighing of the gusty autumn wind as it swept through the long avenues,
whirling the reddening leaves to the ground, and the plashing of the
numerous fountains.

There were two figures standing near one of the statues, and throwing
their shadows athwart the moonlight: they were Marotte Dupré and
Louise Gauthier, who, at the request of her friend, had accompanied
her, without any knowledge of what was to take place. Marotte was in
her stage dress, over which she wore a roquelaure.

‘But what is the purpose of this rendezvous, Marotte?’ asked Louise,
as her friend uttered a hasty exclamation of impatience, and began
pacing up and down before the statue.

‘You will learn that in a moment, Louise, if Estelle keep her
appointment,’ replied Marotte.

‘Some one comes this way,’ cried Louise. ‘See--they are emerging from
the shadow of the fountain.’

‘They are here at last--_Dieu merci!_’ exclaimed Marotte. And throwing
off her cloak, she disclosed to the astonished eyes of her friend a
pair of swords--not ‘stage’ swords, but good serviceable rapiers.

‘For the Virgin’s sake, Marotte,’ said Louise, ‘tell me what you are
about to do with those weapons.’

‘Only a duel between Estelle and myself. Nay,’ she added, seeing
Louise start, ‘it is not the first time I have handled a hilt.’

And after trying the quality of the blades by bending them until they
almost formed a circle, she went through a series of passes and
stockades that would have done honour to a fencing-master. Louise was
almost too bewildered for speech, but with a woman’s instinct she
threw her arms round Marotte, imploring her to abandon her purpose.

But by this time it was too late. Estelle had come up, accompanied by
a second in the person of Mademoiselle Duparc, an actress in
Molière’s company. The rivals bowed courteously to each other, and
Estelle’s second with perfect gravity saluted Louise, who was going
wildly from one to the other, mingling tears, prayers, threats,
ridicule--but all in vain.

‘Is it _à l’outrance_?’ asked Mademoiselle Duparc.

‘_A l’outrance!_’ exclaimed Marotte and Estelle in a breath.

‘You shall not murder each other, then!’ shrieked Louise. ‘I will
prevent it.’

And before they could hinder her, she was off at the top of her speed.

‘Quick! quick!’ cried Marotte, ‘or she will give the alarm, and we
shall be interrupted.’ At the same moment she threw herself into
position, and Estelle did the same.

The combatants were well matched; but Marotte was the cooler of the
two. Had it been a stage fight, she could not have parried her rival’s
thrusts, and riposted more dexterously. It would have been ludicrous,
but for the serious purpose of the affair, could a male spectator have
seen the two young women in their theatrical costumes, which allowed
free motion to the limbs, advancing and retreating, thrusting and
parrying, with the skill of practised duellists.

‘This for your cutting me out of _Madelon_!’ said Estelle, with a
vigorous _flanconnade_.

‘That for spoiling my last scene in the ballet!’ retorted Marotte,
with a thrust in _tierce_.

‘Be cool, Estelle!’ cried her second.

It was too late. Estelle had laid herself open by a furious lunge over
Marotte’s guard. Unable to recover herself in time, she received her
adversary’s point in the sword-arm, and falling on one knee, lowered
her blade in token of submission.

‘This will teach you better manners another time, Mademoiselle des
Urlis,’ said Marotte as she wiped her sword. ‘Ha! Louise has given the
alarm, as I feared. Save yourself!’

She darted off through the trees which bordered the alley, as Louise,
who had in vain sought Madame de Maintenon, came up, followed by some
of the Garde Royale, and accompanied by the Marchioness of
Brinvilliers, whom she had encountered passing along the terrace, on
her way to the ball. They found poor Estelle faint and bleeding;
whilst Mademoiselle Duparc was in vain trying to staunch the blood,
which darted freely in jets from a wounded artery in her arm. With a
severe reprimand, and a threat of the King’s displeasure, the
Marchioness consigned Estelle to the guards, who raising her up,
quietly turned towards the chateau, accompanied by her second and
Louise.

They had scarcely departed, when, as she was about to turn on her way
to the Bosquet de Bal by one of the cross avenues, a voice that
thrilled her called, in a low tone, ‘Marie!’

A man advanced from the trees, and she directly saw that it was
Sainte-Croix! His face looked ghastly in the moonbeams,

 [image: img_09.jpg
 caption: The Duel]

and his eyes gleamed with a light that conscience made demoniac in the
eyes of the Marchioness.

‘You here!’ she exclaimed.

‘Where should I be but in the place of rejoicing just now?’ replied
Gaudin through his set teeth, and with a sardonic smile. ‘I am this
moment from Paris. We are free!’

‘My father?’ cried the Marchioness, as a terrible expression
overspread her countenance.

‘He is dead,’ returned Sainte-Croix; ‘and--we are free!’

There was a pause, and they looked at each other for nearly a minute.

‘Come,’ at length said the Marchioness;--‘Come. To the ball!’




 CHAPTER XVI.
 THE GROTTO OF THETIS--THE GOOD AND EVIL ANGELS

As the Marchioness and Sainte-Croix entered the covered room in the
Bosquet de la Salle de Bal, it presented a most brilliant spectacle.
The whole of the company had adjourned there from the theatre in the
Allée du Roi, and many were now dancing on the almost polished turf
of the circular parterre. Others were seated on the steps, also of
turf, which surrounded the _salle_ in the manner of an amphitheatre,
except for about an eighth of its circumference, where several
fountains of sparkling water shot up nearly to the roof, falling back
again to tumble with an agreeable murmur over the steps, which here
were of bright pebbles and shells, until they reached the basin
beneath. The roof was of deep blue, strained tightly upon poles, which
were high enough to overtop the tallest trees, and an artificial moon
had been constructed in it with consummate skill; whilst stars of
brilliant pieces of metal hung by short invisible threads from the
ceiling, and as they caught the light on their different facets with
the slightest vibration had the appearance of twinkling.

Jean Blacquart was there, as well as the abbe, who, having found him a
listener to his poem, had never once left him since the victim was
caught in the _foyer_ of the theatre. The Gascon, of course, did not
dance, being only admitted to the _bosquet_ by virtue of his assumed
office of guard, under the auspices of Maître Picard; but he talked
so largely, and indulged in such remarkable rhodomontades as to whom
he knew and what he had done, that the abbe set him down for some
distinguished officer, and was more than ever determined to keep by
his side.

Louis was not dancing. He was seated on a platform slightly elevated
from the ground, at the edge of the fountain; and was dividing his
attentions between Madame de Montespan, who was still at his side, on
his right hand, and another lady on his left, who had now joined the
royal party. She was very lovely, although a close observer might have
perceived that she was slightly marked with the small-pox. Her skin
was delicately fair, and her beautiful flaxen hair clustered in heavy
ringlets, less showery than generally worn according to the fashion of
the time, over her forehead and neck. Her eyes were blue, swimming in
softened light, and her countenance was overspread by a regard so
tender yet so full of modesty, that she gained at the same moment the
love and esteem of all who gazed upon her; and yet, when the
occasional lighting up of her features as the King addressed her, died
away, they became pale and sad. Her smile was followed by a pensive
expression, which accorded but ill with the festivity around her.

‘Ah, times are changing!’ said the abbe, as he gazed at her; ‘and that
fair lady’s reign is nearly over. I question whether La Montespan,
with all her witcheries, will love him half so well though.’

‘Who is it?’ asked Jean.

The abbe appeared slightly astonished at the ignorance of his new
acquaintance, as he replied--

‘Who could it be but Louise de la Vallière? Ah! hers was a curious
destiny. Picked out by Louis to cover his attention to his
sister-in-law Henriette, she has supplanted her. But it does not seem
likely that the liaison will last much longer. Montespan has his
heart.’

As he spoke, Mademoiselle de la Vallière rose from her seat and
crossed over to speak to Madame de Maintenon, who was sitting on the
parapet of the basin that received the water from the fountain. She
limped as she walked along, and Jean saw that she was lame.

‘She seldom dances,’ continued the garrulous abbe, ‘on account of her
defect; and so she does not care always to be present at the balls. I
can conceive the reason of her not being at the play.’

‘How was that?’ inquired the Gascon.

‘Because the King’s sentiments appear to be somewhat changed since our
Molière was commanded to write the _Princesse d’Elide_. He was then
madly in love with La Vallière, although at the time she resisted all
his entreaties. What else could these lines mean?’

And Jean flinched as the abbe again commenced a piece of declamation,
quoting from the piece in question in a monotonous tone of dulness
suited to the subject--


 The homage which is offer’d to a countenance refined
 Is an honest indication of the beauty of the mind;
 And scarcely possible it is, if love be not innate,
 That a young prince should come to be or generous or great:
 And this above all other regal qualities I love,
 This sign alone the tenderness of royal hearts can prove!
 To one like you, a bright and good career we may presage,
 When once the soul is capable of loving, at your age.
 Yes, this immortal passion, the most noble one of all,
 An hundred goodly virtues training after it can call;
 The most illustrious actions are engender’d by its fires,
 And all the greatest heroes have experienced its desires.’[13]


Jean bowed respectfully at the termination of each line, as if he
fully concurred in the sentiments it conveyed, but was very glad when
it was over.

‘Ha! the music has ceased,’ said the abbe; ‘and there will be a
masque, and some fireworks on the Bassin de Neptune, and the _étang_
beyond. That will be also a trial for La Vallière. The last fetes at
night were in her honour, and they are going to use the old machines
newly decorated. It will be a _renaissance_ of the Ile Enchantée.’

The company retired to the banks of turf which surrounded the Salle de
Bal, Louis, and a few immediately attached to him only remained below,
amongst whom were of course La Montespan and La Vallière. When the
floor was cleared, a cavalcade of heralds, pages, and squires, all
richly clad in armour, and dresses embroidered with thread of silver
and of gold, marched into the _bosquet_, the music of Lulli’s band of
twenty-four violins being exchanged for that of martial instruments.
When they had taken their places, a large car, made to imitate the
chariot of the Sun, was slowly moved into the ballroom by concealed
means, conveying the Sun, surrounded by the four Ages of gold, silver,
iron, and brass; the Seasons, the Hours, and other mythological
characters. On arriving opposite the point where Louis was sitting,
the colossal machine halted, and Spring addressed a complimentary
oration to the King, involving also some flattering sentences for
Madame de Montespan and Mademoiselle de la Vallière--but more
especially for the former. When this had finished, the young person
who had played the character of Spring descended from the car, and
having offered some rare bouquets to Louis and his favourites, took
her place amongst the company. She was the only performer in the
masque who did this, being the lovely Françoise de Sévigné--the
daughter of Madame de Sévigné--now about eighteen years of age. She
had been requested, on account of her extreme beauty and propriety of
expression to play the part,--since, in the fetes at Versailles, it
was not usual for the _dames de la cour_ to figure.

This portion of the masque having finished, the various mythological
personages descended as well, but it was only to bring in a number of
long tables, which they placed before the company on the lowest
turf-benches of the amphitheatre. These they spread with cloth of
gold, and thus gave the signal for another large piece of mechanism to
enter, representing a mountain, on which were seated Pan and Diana.
When it stopped, these deities opened various parts of it, and aided
by the others, brought out an exquisite collation, which they placed
upon the tables, the music playing all the time. At the first sight of
the banquet, the abbe bustled off to find a place at the tables; and
Jean Blacquart, not wishing to lose the caste which he imagined he had
acquired, and knowing that he could not join the feasters, turned upon
his heel into the gardens, to see if anywhere he could discover
Maître Picard.

Few who had seen Marie de Brinvilliers, as she mingled in the dances
which had been taking place before the appearance of the pageant,
would have conceived that any other feelings but those of mirth and
excitement amidst the glittering throng by which she was surrounded
were paramount in her bosom. There was the same kind expression--so
terrible in its quietude had her heart at that time been laid
open--the same sweet features, almost girlish in their contour (for
although she was now thirty years of age, she could well have passed
for eighteen), which all admired so much. And when she smiled, the
witchery that played around her rosy mouth, as her parted lips
displayed that most beautiful set of teeth, whose dazzling whiteness
had been the theme of more than one court epigram, captivated by its
spell all who came within its magnetic influence. Of all that lovely
throng of women who graced the court of Louis Quatorze--the bevy of
fair dames, so many of whom swelled the conquests of that heartless,
selfish, roué monarch--the Marchioness of Brinvilliers was the most
fascinating. And this fair creature, who now, in the light of her
peerless beauty, of which she seemed unconscious, moved gracefully in
the dance--this fearful woman--had broken up a home; deserted her
children at an age when a mother’s guidance was all they needed, with
an unnatural indifference towards her offspring that one might have
sought for in vain amidst the lowest animals; and adding parricide as
a _coup_ to her already dark career, was yet but on the verge of the
terrible line she had marked out to be pursued. Woman, in her love and
gentleness, in her ministering care and patient endurance, when all
the holiest attributes of her sex exist in her character, approaches
far nearer to the angel than her companion, man. Alas! it is equally
true, that in the absence of these characteristics she sinks far
deeper in approximating to the demon!

Gaudin de Sainte-Croix had studiously avoided Marie in the Salle de
Bal. The reports which had crept about Paris rendered them both
cautious, for the present, of their deportment, although they were
about to set all restraint at defiance. Whilst she was dancing, he had
walked out into the gardens of the palace, that the night air might
come cold and refreshing upon his brow, fevered with the events of the
last few hours. He had told her as he left where she would find him
when the dance concluded; and he now sauntered towards the rendezvous
in question.

There formerly existed in the gardens of Versailles, at the right
angle of the central body of the palace, where the north wing now
stands, a fountain and cavern of marvellous construction, called the
Grotto of Thetis. The chapel at present occupies its site, built by
Louis in 1699, when, under the influence of Madame de Maintenon, his
pursuits changed from those of the most unbridled licentiousness to
the extreme of devotion. The statues which it contained, with some
fragments of its structure, may be seen at the present day by the
visitor to Versailles, in the _bosquet_ of the Bains d’Apollon. Three
arcades, closed by iron doors of exquisite workmanship, formed the
entrance to this grotto, on one of which a representation of the sun,
gilt and highly polished, was so artfully contrived as to catch the
rays of the real setting sun, and throw an almost magic light into the
interior. All the artists that Louis XIV. had about him were employed
in turn to ornament this delicious retreat. Perrault had designed the
architecture, and Lebrun the figures, with the exception of the
principal group, which was by Girardon, still existing, and
represented Apollo attended by his nymphs, in the midst of the sheets
of water flowing on all sides over rock-work of mother-of-pearl and
coral.[14]

It was in this retreat, lighted by a few illustrated shades, which
cast a subdued warm light upon the groups of statuary and plashing
water, that Gaudin awaited the Marchioness. Nor was he long in
expectation. Little time elapsed before Marie’s step was heard upon
the terrace, and she entered the grotto. Gaudin took her hand and led
her to a seat. There was still no trace of emotion from the late
terrible intelligence: her hand was cool, and her step equal and
unfaltering. On the other hand, Sainte-Croix was pale and agitated: he
might have felt less than the Marchioness, but his outward demeanour
was a clearer index to his feelings.

‘Why do you not speak, Gaudin?’ asked Marie, as her lover had remained
some minutes in silence: ‘and you are pale as this cold marble! What
has occurred?’

‘It is the ghastly light of the lamp,’ said Gaudin. ‘I am well--quite
well--could I be otherwise when all has prospered?’

‘I will tell you what you are thinking of,’ returned the Marchioness,
as she riveted her basilisk eyes upon Sainte-Croix: ‘I should be but a
poor enchantress if I could not read your inmost thoughts. It is the
reaction of your spirit, Gaudin. The cord has been stretched too
tightly, and it has broken; you know that a fearful tie has now bound
us to each other, and for the first time you feel that I am a clog
upon your free actions.’

‘You are mistaken, Marie,’ replied Sainte-Croix with energy, although
every word of the Marchioness thrilled through him. ‘I may call Heaven
to witness--’

‘Heaven!’ exclaimed his companion, interrupting him, and clutching his
arm with nervous force, as a sneer played over her beautiful
lips,--‘do not invoke that power again, Gaudin: what have we to do
with Heaven now? I put as little faith in your protestations made
before it, as you do in its testimony to your truth. We are both
without its pale,’ she added coldly.

‘What can I say, then, that you will trust me? Is there any oath I can
take that will give my asseverations weight with you, Marie? How will
you believe me?’

Gaudin half knelt before her as he spoke, and the large drops of agony
stole over his brow. He saw that the Marchioness was trying her power
over him, now that they had been so fearfully bound to each
other,--that she was playing with his feelings, until they could be
broken, and rendered servilely subservient to her will.

‘What oath will you have me take?’ he continued, as he threw the whole
intensity of his soul into every word. ‘Marie!--answer me, I implore
you,--if not from love, from pity at what I have undergone. If you
will not think of me as I believed you did, look on me as an animal
that was in pain and suffering from an evil you had caused. What means
this fearful revulsion of your feelings?’

He grasped her hands whilst he spoke, until the Marchioness felt them
as though they had been in a vice of hot iron. But she returned no
answer. That fearful aggravation which woman can exert with such
crushing power,--that frigid and apparently insensible demeanour, the
colder in proportion as the heart she has drawn into her toils is
anguished and convulsed, was driving Gaudin to distraction. ‘Marie!’
he again cried, ‘do you not believe in the love which I bear for you?’

‘It is not love, Sainte-Croix,’ at length she replied. ‘A liaison like
ours has little love to nourish its continuance; passion and jealousy
can be its only ties of endurance, and sooner or later it must end in
misery. It is my turn now to say--let us part, for ever.’

‘Part!’ cried Gaudin rapidly--‘never! What fearful change has passed
over your feelings? How can I assure you of my truth, Marie. Think on
what I underwent for your sake in the gloomy cells of the Bastille.
Look at me now--at your feet, so blindly, servilely in your power,
that I could hate myself for such concession, had not my reason taken
flight before your influence over me. Be satisfied with the crime--by
committing which both our souls are lost--as a sufficient safeguard of
our future attachment; if you will take no more human assurance.
Believe in me, if not from truth, from mutual guilt, and reign my
sole, adored one.’

Subdued by his overcharged feelings, his head fell upon the lap of the
Marchioness as he uttered the foregoing words with wild and
impassioned energy, and he burst into tears. It is a strange sight,
that of a man weeping: and when Marie saw a man like Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix thus overcome and at her feet, she was for the moment
affected. But she returned no answer; and would have remained silent
until her companion in guilt and passion again spoke, had not a sudden
interruption diverted her attention. A short hurried moan, which, low
as it was, teemed with anguish, sounding from the group of figures as
though one of the statues had uttered it, caused her to start
affrighted from the coral bank on which she was seated. Sainte-Croix
also heard it even through his excitement, and started to his feet;
whilst the Marchioness rushed immediately behind the statues to
discover the cause. There was another cry of alarm, and she returned
leading forth Louise Gauthier. The girl had sought a retreat from the
glare and tumult of the crowd within the grotto, previous to
Sainte-Croix’s arrival, and on his approach had retired behind the
statues to conceal herself, imagining until he spoke that he was some
lounger who had entered merely from curiosity, and would soon depart.

The calm expression on the features of the Marchioness for once gave
way to a withering look of hate and jealousy. Gaudin started back as
the words, ‘Louise Gauthier here!’ burst almost involuntarily from his
lips; and then, paralysed by the sudden apparition of the trembling
Languedocian, he remained silent.

The Marchioness was the first to speak.

‘So!’ she exclaimed, quivering with emotion, in a voice almost stifled
by her anger; ‘this was the reason that you named the grotto for a
rendezvous, and it appears I came too soon. There--take your latest
conquest--the servant of Madame Scarron. She is yours--we meet no
more.’

With a glance of contempt at Louise, she threw her arm away, and,
impelling her towards Sainte-Croix, was about to leave the grotto,
when Louise caught hold of her robe and tried to draw her back.

‘Stop, madame,’ she cried, ‘you are wrong. I was here by accident,--on
my soul, and by our Lady, this is the truth.’

There was an earnestness of appeal in her voice that caused the
Marchioness to stop. And perhaps her asseveration might have derived
additional force from the manner in which she called that power which
the others dared not look to, to witness her sincerity.

‘But you have met before,’ said Marie, after gazing at Louise for an
instant with the strangest of expressions; ‘you know each other.’

‘It was long ago,’ replied Louise despondingly, as she looked at
Sainte-Croix: ‘I would not have sought him; and yet, after what I have
heard,--for not a syllable of your conversation has escaped
me,--perhaps Providence sent me here to save him--to save you both.’

As she spoke she advanced towards Gaudin, and took his hand. There was
no attempt on the part of the Marchioness to stop her. Her curiosity
was singularly roused as she watched the progress of this strange
interview.

‘Do not speak to me, Louise,’ exclaimed Sainte-Croix, with averted
face, and struggling with his feelings. ‘Leave me, I beseech you.’

‘I am going to leave you, Gaudin,’ she replied; ‘and I shall never
trouble you more. I did not willingly intrude upon you now, for I knew
that all had long since passed away between us--even the recollection
of what once was. I am sorry that we have met.’

‘You have my thanks for this interposition, girl,’ said the
Marchioness; ‘for my eyes have been opened through it. Monsieur de
Sainte-Croix,’ she added coldly to Gaudin, ‘there is little
confidence, it appears, between us. I should be sorry to come in upon
an old attachment. This _lady_ can still be yours.’

‘Heed her not, Marie,’ cried Sainte-Croix, after a powerful effort to
master his feelings. ‘I had no other motive in concealing this from
you than the wish to spare you. Believe in me still. This has been
madness--infatuation--call it what name you will, but you are the only
one I ever loved.’

And he advanced towards the Marchioness; whilst Louise, pale as death,
gasped forth hurriedly--

‘This is indeed cruel; but even now you have yet to learn what woman
can put up with from affection. You know your secrets are in my
possession.’

‘You threaten us!’ said Marie furiously.

‘Far from it,’ replied the other; ‘I would save rather than destroy
you. Gaudin! I am ignorant what fearful influence has spellbound your
better feelings; but I know that such is not your nature. Have I the
slightest power--discarded, heart-broken as I am--that can snatch you
from these fearful toils?’

‘Our absence will be remarked,’ observed the Marchioness coldly to
Sainte-Croix; ‘let us rejoin the court.’

‘Hear me,’ cried Louise, seizing Gaudin’s hand, ‘for the last time
perhaps on earth--hear me, Gaudin. By the recollection of what we once
were to each other, although you scorn me now, and the shadowy
remembrance of old times, before these terrible circumstances,
whatever they may be, had thus turned your heart from me, and from
your God. There is still time to make amends for all that has
occurred. I do not speak for myself, for all those feelings have
passed; but for you alone. Repent, and be happy,--for happy now you
are not.’

 [image: img_10.jpg
 caption: The Good and Evil Angels]

Gaudin made no reply, but his bosom heaved rapidly, betraying his
internal emotion. Once he turned towards Louise Gauthier as if to
speak: the words died on his tongue.

‘This is idle talk,’ said the Marchioness, as she drew Sainte-Croix to
her side. ‘If you would not be taken for our accomplice, girl, you
will keep silent as to what you have heard. Sainte-Croix, you are
stupefied by this person’s raving. Will you not come with me, Gaudin?’

She seized his hand, and rapidly changing the tone of anger she had
adopted to one of softness and affection, gazed tenderly at her lover,
as her fair countenance resumed its tranquillity, and her eyes,
beaming with gentleness and light, looked into Sainte-Croix’s, with an
expression that thrilled his very soul.

‘Marie!’ cried Gaudin faintly, ‘take me where you list. In life or
after it,--on earth or in hell, I am yours--yours only.’

A flush of triumph passed over her face as she led Sainte-Croix from
the grotto, leaving Louise Gauthier clinging to one of the statues for
support--so pale, that she might have been taken for another figure of
the group, but for the violent emotion that agitated her slight and
trembling frame.




 CHAPTER XVII.
 THE GASCON GOES THROUGH FIRE AND WATER TO ATTRACT ATTENTION--THE
 BROTHER AND SISTER

During the stormy interview we have just narrated, the festivities
were proceeding with unflagging splendour. The repast in the Bosquet
de la Salle de Bal had finished, and the company were now thronging
along the Tapis Vert, towards the Bassin de Neptune, whereon some
magnificent fireworks were to be displayed. Beyond this the canal was
illuminated by coloured lights placed round its edge, and quivering in
the water by reflection; and a number of small boats, similarly
decorated, passed to and fro, until they were almost lost in the
distance. A species of vast tent, open towards the water, had been
erected at the extremity of the Tapis Vert for the reception of Louis
and his court; the inferior guests, who were not supposed to be
sensible of any difference of temperature, stood about upon the grass,
wherever the best view of the _feu d’artifice_ was to be
obtained,--for to witness this portion of the fete the people were
admitted to the gardens indiscriminately; the royal guard, however,
forming a sufficiently impregnable barrier to keep them from intruding
too closely upon the presence of the monarch and his favourites.

Amongst the crowd was Jean Blacquart, who had escaped from the abbe,
and having discovered Maître Picard, was pressing forward to obtain a
front place, where his martial dress and gay ribbons could be seen to
the best advantage, even at the risk of being pushed into the basin.
Several of his old acquaintances were near him--_bourgeoisie_ of the
Quartier Latin, and students at the schools. Amongst these latter
Philippe Glazer had mounted on to one of the urns, which stood on
pedestals surrounding the basin, for the double purpose of obtaining a
better view of the exhibition, and addressing, from time to time,
those amongst the crowd whom he knew, and a great many more whom he
did not; and as the court had not yet arrived, his verbal tournaments
with such as he chose to joke with, or at, produced great mirth
amongst the bystanders.

‘Maître Picard,’ cried Philippe, ‘take care of your feather; you are
burning it against the lamp.’

The little bourgeois, who was below, turned hurriedly round, and took
off his hat to look at it. Of course nothing was the matter. The
people began to laugh.

‘Pardon, bourgeois,’ continued Philippe; ‘I mistook your red face for
a flame, as it was reflected in your halberd. I forgot you had been
used for a lamp yourself before now. Do you remember the “Lanterne” in
the Rue Mouffetard? I’m afraid the rain almost put you out.’

‘_Polisson!_’ cried Maître Picard very angrily, as he recalled the
adventure. ‘I shall trounce you and your graceless fellows yet. You
will all come to the gallows.’

‘Of course we shall--the day you are hung,’ replied Glazer. ‘You may
count upon our attendance.’

There was another burst of laughter from the bystanders, and Maître
Picard waxed wrathful exceedingly. He turned the halberd upside down,
and made a blow at Philippe with the long wooden handle of it. But the
student, as he was perched upon the urn, caught up his sword in its
scabbard, and warded off the blow, so that it was turned on one side,
and the pikestaff descended with all its weight upon the head of Jean
Blacquart, who was directly underneath, crushing his fine hat, and
nearly sending him into the water.

‘_Ohé, messieurs!_’ shouted Philippe, without giving the bourgeois
time to recover himself. ‘The King! the King! He is coming to the
pavilion.’

‘The King! the King!’ echoed the people, imagining, from Glazer’s
elevated position, that he could see what was going on. Maître Picard
immediately bustled through the crowd, and the mob pushing after him
effectually prevented him for the time from returning; which, however,
he attempted to do as soon as he found the announcement was a false
alarm.

‘That was a spiteful blow, Blacquart, and, of course, done on
purpose,’ continued Philippe to the Gascon, who was, with a rueful
countenance, rearranging his hat. ‘Maître Picard is jealous of you.’

‘The women certainly do come to the shop very often when I am sitting
in the parlour,’ replied Jean, whose temper was smoothed at once by
what he considered a compliment. ‘Madame Beauchesne, the young widow
of the Rue Hautefeuille, is smitten, I am sure; but, betwixt
ourselves, talks to Maître Picard as a cloak to her true sentiments.
Mass! what a neck and shoulders she used to display!’

‘And why does she not now, Jean?’

‘_Pardieu!_ the _curé_ of Saint Etienne-du-Mont attacked her suddenly
during mass for going to church _gorge découverte_. He told her from
the pulpit that such display was wrong, for priests were mortal after
all. How the congregation shouted again with laughter!’

‘I will swear that you are here to captivate some of the court
ladies,’ continued Theria.

‘Nay, hardly that,’ replied the Gascon conceitedly, as he cocked his
hat and drew himself up as high as he could; ‘although I did fancy De
Montespan eyed me as I stood by the door in the theatre. She has a
goodly presence.’

Glazer was about to make some reply, calculated to draw forth a fresh
outpouring of Jean’s Gascon conceit, when he was interrupted by a
stranger, who advanced hastily towards the spot where Blacquart was
standing, and at once addressed him. His dress was little suited to
the festival. He wore large riding-boots, which were dusty, as though
he had just come from a journey. His dress too was disordered, his
hair carelessly arranged, and his general appearance sufficiently
marked to attract attention amongst the gay crowd about him, even in
the semi-obscurity of the illumination.

‘Are you on guard here, monsieur?’ he said to Blacquart, scarcely
noticing his eccentric accoutrements, which might have prevented him
from asking the question.

Jean was flattered at being evidently taken for a real soldier. He
boldly admitted at once that he was.

‘Can you tell me if the Marchioness of Brinvilliers is at Versailles
this evening?’

‘She is,’ returned Jean. ‘I saw her arrive with Madame Scarron--de
Maintenon, as they now call her. And not ten minutes back she crossed
the Tapis Vert on the arm of M. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix.’

The stranger uttered a subdued oath, as Blacquart pronounced the name.

‘Which way were they going?’ he asked quickly.

‘Towards the pavilion,’ answered Jean. ‘I have no doubt you will find
them there by this time.’

The new-comer returned no answer, but turning hastily away, passed on
to the pavilion, which had been erected at the edge of the basin. It
was hung with lamps, and he could discern the features of all the
company who were assembled in it. His eye ran anxiously along the
lines of plumed and jewelled head-dresses, until at last his glance
fell upon Marie and Sainte-Croix, who were seated in a corner of the
building near one of the entrances. He started slightly as he saw
them; and then hurriedly tracing a few lines upon his tablets, he
pointed the Marchioness out to one of the pages, who were in waiting
at the pavilion, and told him to give the message to her. The boy
immediately obeyed his orders. As the Marchioness read the note her
features underwent a rapid change; but the next instant they recovered
their wonted unfathomable calmness; and whispering a few words to
Sainte-Croix, she rose from her seat and left the pavilion. Gaudin
waited until she had quitted the building, and then, as if moved by a
sudden impulse, followed her.

As she reached the outer entrance she found the stranger waiting to
receive her. It was her brother. She held out her hand to greet him;
but he refused to take it, and retreating a step or two, raised his
hat, as he received her with a cold salute.

‘François!’ exclaimed the Marchioness; ‘what brings you here! Has
anything happened to our father? Tell me!’

‘He is _dead_, Marie!’ replied her brother, with a solemn earnestness,
that would have shivered the feelings of any other human being but the
one he addressed. ‘I have left the body not an hour and a half ago, to
bring you the intelligence in the midst of the heartless glitter of
Versailles.’

‘Dead!’ repeated the Marchioness, feigning the same surprise with
which she had received the self-same words from Sainte-Croix such a
short time previously. ‘Dead! and I was not there!’

‘No, Marie!’ returned François d’Aubray; ‘and I come to find you at
Versailles--in this licentious court, not with females in whom you
might have confided your reputation, after what has already occurred,
but with the man by whose wretched acquaintance with you the last days
of your father’s life were poisoned.’

Marie started at the words: could it be possible that the cause of
death was suspected?

‘Ay, poisoned,’ continued her brother, ‘as fatally as though real
venom had been used, instead of this abandoned heartlessness.’

The Marchioness breathed again.

‘To whom do you refer?’ she asked coldly.

‘To Monsieur de Sainte-Croix,’ replied her brother.

‘Who is here to answer any charge you may have to make against him,
monsieur,’ interrupted Gaudin, who just now joined the party.

‘You shall have the opportunity afforded you, monsieur,’ replied
François d’Aubray; ‘but this is neither the time nor the place.
Marie, you will return with me immediately to Paris.’

‘With you, François?’

‘This instant! I have your father’s dying words yet echoing in my
brain, committing you to _our_ care. Are you ready?’

‘Surely the Marchioness of Brinvilliers is her own mistress?’ observed
Gaudin, scarcely knowing how to act.

‘She will obey me, monsieur,’ replied the other. ‘Come, Marie; you
know me.’

As he spoke he seized his sister’s arm, and bowing to Sainte-Croix,
drew her away.

‘You still live in the Place Maubert, I believe,’ he continued: ‘you
will receive a message from me in the morning. _Viens!_’

He spoke in a tone of authority that Marie felt was only to be
disputed by an instant encounter between François and Sainte-Croix,
where they were then standing. So, throwing an expression full of
intense meaning to Gaudin, she allowed her brother to lead her along
the Tapis Vert, towards the entrance of the palace. Gaudin saw them
depart, and then going to the stables had his horse resaddled, and
rode at a desperate pace back to Paris, passing the _calèche_ in
which the Marchioness had been placed by her brother on the road.

Meanwhile the King and his immediate suite had arrived at the
pavilion, and the fireworks were about to commence. Water-serpents and
floating pieces of fire were already whizzing and spinning about on
the surface of the basin; and one or two men had crossed the water
from the opposite side of the fountain to the well-known group, where
they were arranging the cases for the grand bouquet. Philippe saw this
from his perch upon the urn, and determined to turn the Gascon’s
vanity to some account.

‘Your dress is really very handsome, Jean,’ he observed. ‘It is a pity
that its beauty is lost in the mob.’

‘I think so myself, indeed,’ replied Blacquart; ‘but I have been
allowed no opportunity of showing it off. At court everything goes by
interest; and--hem!--I can excuse a little jealousy on the part of the
Garde Royale.’

‘Now, if they will let you light the _feu d’artifice_,’ said Philippe,
‘you will be seen by everybody.’

‘But how can I get to do it?’ asked Blacquart.

‘Come with me,’ said Glazer.

And tumbling from his post, purposely, on the head of Maître Picard,
who had returned to his position, he shot amongst the crowd, before
the bourgeois could contrive to aim another blow at him, and, followed
by Jean, got to the other side of the fountain. Here he claimed
acquaintance with one of the artificers, who, it appeared, had been
under his care at the Hôtel Dieu with an accident; and by his
interest Jean was furnished with a link, and directed what to do,
being inducted into the group along a slight temporary bridge of
boards.

In the interim before the grand piece was lighted, Jean arranged and
rearranged his cloak and hat a hundred times; and when at last he
applied the light to the quickmatch, and the horses began to blow out
fire from their nostrils, apparently in the centre of the water, and
the points of Neptune’s trident also went off in a brilliant discharge
of sparks, Jean was in ecstasies. The people applauded; all of which
he took to himself, and would even have bowed in return to them, had
not the presence of the King restrained him. But he felt satisfied
that, in the glare of the fire, he was plainly visible to all, and
this for the time consoled him.

But his evil genius was about to triumph. A number of changes had
taken place in the bouquet, when suddenly, and simultaneously from
every point of the statues, a column of fire shot up high in the air,
and fell again in a shower of flame upon the group, threatening to
exterminate the Gascon in its descent. His first impulse was to
retreat to the planks and get to the edge of the basin, but a
formidable blazing wheel, forming the back-work of the entire piece,
cut off his flight, so that he was driven back again. Thicker and
thicker fell the flakes, as the tawdry dabs of lace which hung about
his dress caught fire; and his thin, half-starved feather, which
gained in height what it lost in substance, also took light. Philippe
Glazer, who had foreseen all this, set up a loud huzza, in which those
near him joined; the remainder fancied that the figure of the Gascon,
as he danced amidst the glowing shower, was a part of the exhibition,
and intended to represent one of the allegorical personages who always
figured in the masques and tableaux of the period. But at last he
could bear it no longer. His cloak was just bursting into a flame
when, in the agony of his despair, he threw himself into the basin,
amidst the renewed hilarity of the spectators, including Louis
himself, who, with La Montespan, and even the pale pensive La
Vallière, was more amused than if everything had gone on in its
proper way.

The reservoir was not very deep, but the Gascon had lost all
self-possession, and he floundered about like a water-god, to the
great detriment of so much of his finery as yet remained, until he got
near enough to the edge of the basin for Maître Picard to hook him
out with his halberd, and drag him half-drowned and half-roasted to
dry ground.




 CHAPTER XVIII.
 THE RUE DE L’HIRONDELLE

On the southern bank of the Seine, touching the water-boundary of
the Quartier Latin, and running parallel with the river from the Place
du Pont St. Michel, which is situated at the foot of the bridge from
which it takes its name, there is a dark and noisome street, bordered
by tall gloomy houses, and so narrow in its thoroughfare that the
inhabitants on either side of the way can all but shake hands with
each other across the footway--for carriages could not pass. It is
called--for it exists in all its pristine squalor and wretchedness at
the present day--the Rue de l’Hirondelle. The pure air can scarcely
penetrate to its reeking precincts, the way is choked up with offal
and things flung from the houses to decay in the streets. The houses
are tenanted by the lowest orders, and the dirt of ages has been
suffered to accumulate on the walls and passages: in fact, it bears
some resemblance to the miserable portion of the ‘Rookery’ still left
in London, with the exception, that this Rue de l’Hirondelle is
narrower and darker. Gloomy at all times, at night the thinly
scattered lamps scarcely illuminate its entrance; and he would be a
bold man indeed who chose to pass along it alone. And in the
seventeenth century, before the introduction of street-lights, when
the poverty of its inhabitants would not allow them to place lanterns
before their doors, it was always in total darkness, even when bright
moonlight fell upon the quays and open places.

It was the evening of the funeral of M. d’Aubray, the father. The
night was stormy, and the wind howled over the city as if bearing on
its wings spirits wailing for the dead and crying for retribution. Few
cared to be abroad: the few lamps had been extinguished after
struggling against the blast and were not relighted: and one window
only in the Rue de l’Hirondelle gave token that the houses were
inhabited.

In a miserable room of one of the worst-conditioned houses--so ruinous
in its appearance that large black beams crossed the street from its
front to the opposite side of the narrow street, to prop it up from
falling and crushing those who might be below--there were two persons
seated at a small fire. In one of them any person who had once seen
him could have recognised the Italian Exili, although his imprisonment
had left traces of its privations upon his face. His features were
more wan, his hair was grizzled, and his eyes had sunk yet deeper,
glaring from the bottom of the orbits with riveting intensity. His
companion was dressed in a fantastic costume of old black velvet, with
a capuchin cowl which, when worn over his head, nearly concealed his
face, and his head was now buried in it,--less, however, for privacy
than to shield himself from the cold draughts of air that poured in
through the broken, ill-fitted windows. On a rough table before him
were pieces of money, of all degrees of value: and these he was
counting, as he put them away in a box heavily clasped with iron.

‘Sorcery is still thriving,’ said the latter personage, ‘and we have
had a good day. Here are twelve pistoles from the Demoiselle La
Varenne, who came to-day suspicious of her new patron, M. Chanralon,
the Archbishop of Paris. He has taken up with the Marchioness of
Gourville.’

‘The sister of the _maréchal_?’ asked Exili.

‘The same. Ho! ho! ours is a brave court!’ continued the other with a
derisive laugh. ‘Better be magician than superintendent at the
Gobelins. Here is a piece of gold from the same clique. Pierre-Pont,
the lieutenant of the Gardes-du-corps, is crazy with jealousy for La
Varenne. He came to-day for a philtre: he will come for poison next.’

‘Hush!’ exclaimed Exili; ‘the very echoes linger about these walls to
repeat themselves to the next comers. I find liberty too sweet to run
the chance of another sojourn in the Bastille, where Sainte-Croix
would too gladly see me--curses wither him!’

‘He will be here to-night,’ replied Lachaussée--for such was Exili’s
companion--‘to have his wound dressed. M. François d’Aubray is an
expert swordsman, and the Captain found his match on the _terrain_
last night.’

The ex-superintendent alluded to a duel which had been fought on the
preceding night on a lonely piece of waste-ground behind Notre Dame,
frequently chosen for such engagements from the facility of escape
which the river on all sides afforded. Gaudin had met the brother of
the Marchioness--the result of the rencontre at Versailles--and had
been wounded. He had taken Lachaussée with him as an attendant; for
that person, since the affair in the catacombs of the Bièvre, had
been leading but a sorry life during Gaudin’s imprisonment, and was
now assisting Exili in professing the art and mystery of a sorcerer.
The cause of the Italian’s release from the Bastille was never
publicly stated, though many knew it. Threatened revelations, which
would deeply have affected those high in position in Paris, procured
his discharge within a few days of Sainte-Croix’s liberation; and once
more thrown upon the world of the great city, he had, under his old
cloak of an alchemist, set up for a magician. He had encountered
Lachaussée ready to assist him, or to avail himself, in fact, of any
chance of livelihood that might turn up; and linked together as they,
in a measure, were, by the affair of the Croce Bianca at Milan, they
had become trusty partners; for the bondages of crime, despite the
evil natures of the allies, are firmer than those of honour and
friendship. Exili, with the deeply-vindictive and unforgiving
disposition of his countrymen, desired only to be revenged upon Gaudin
for his arrest and confinement; and Lachaussée, knowing that he was
in the power of Sainte-Croix as long as the letter announcing the
crime at Milan was in his possession, was equally anxious for his
downfall. More than once he had counselled Exili to instil some poison
into the wound as he dressed it, that might have induced an agonising
death. But the Italian patiently awaited his time to pounce, as an
eagle would have done, upon his prey. He wished to play with his
victim, secretly sure that he would eventually fall miserably, through
his agency--and not alone.

‘Twenty crowns more,’ said Lachaussée, as he swept the remaining
pieces of coin into the chest, ‘and that from the armourer’s wife of
the Place Dauphin to show her the devil! It is lucky her courage did
not fail her until after she had paid her money. We should else have
been terribly put to our wits to exhibit his highness.’

‘Unless our interest with M. de Sainte-Croix could have produced
Madame de Brinvilliers,’ answered Exili, as a ghastly smile flitted
over his sallow countenance--a dull and transient sunbeam playing upon
the face of a corpse.

‘And we shall have more money still,’ said Lachaussée, taking no
notice of Exili’s speech. ‘I know two customers who will come after
curfew this evening. Witchcraft is flourishing.’

‘The infernal powers grant that it may not turn round upon us,’ said
Exili. ‘Recollect, within four days of each other, that César and
Ruggieri were both strangled by the devil--at least, so goes the
story.’

‘The solution is easy,’ returned Lachaussée. ‘They boasted of favours
granted by the great ladies of the court: ’tis a dangerous game to
play.’

‘At all events the fall of Urban Grandier was mortal. I have no wish
to be roasted alive like him. Hist! I hear some one coming up to our
room.’

A mastiff who had been reposing silently at Exili’s feet, having a
strange contrivance fastened on to its head, in the manner of a mask,
and representing a demon’s face, in order that the vulgar might take
it for his familiar spirit, uttered a low growl; and the sound of
approaching footsteps, stumbling up the rugged staircase of the house,
was plainly audible. The next moment Gaudin de Sainte-Croix knocked at
the door, and was admitted to the apartment.

‘Your unguent has marvellous powers of healing,’ he said to Exili,
after the first salutations. ‘I am already cured, although the wound
had an ugly look.’

‘I could have put the hurt beyond any leech’s skill to cure, by
anointing the blade with some pomander of my own make,’ said Exili.
‘It would send such venom through the veins, as soon as it pierced
them, that human aid would be of little avail. Your wasp stung you
smartly as it was; but you see I cured you.’

‘Unlike the wasp,’ said Sainte-Croix, ‘he still retains his sting
about him.’

‘Then render it powerless,’ replied Exili, fixing his eyes steadfastly
on him. ‘You can do it: more obnoxious insects than François d’Aubray
have fallen by our means. The earth has this day enfolded one in its
cold dark shroud--the deed and the victim are hidden together.’

‘A second would excite suspicion,’ replied Gaudin, perceiving the
drift of his words.

‘A second and a third and a twentieth might pass away with equal
secrecy,’ returned Exili. ‘Look you, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix, when
men have played with life and death as we have done, even to the
perdition, the utter, hopeless ruin of their souls, in whatever state
may follow this short fever of worldly existence,--when the triumph of
the hour that passes is all our passions crave, and the purity of that
which has gone, the misery of the time which is to come, are alike
spurned from consideration and forgotten in the wild and heedless
recklessness of the present,--in this position they should have no
secrets: all should be in common between them.’

‘I have kept nothing from you,’ said Gaudin.

‘I do not say you have,’ continued Exili; ‘it is to the effusion of my
own most hidden knowledge I allude. All that this great city holds of
rank, beauty, and power are my slaves. I give the succession to the
thirsting profligate, or remove the bar that keeps the panting lover
from his idol. These fools and butterflies come to seek me as they
would a mere drug-vendor, and little think of what I may have in store
for them. There is not one particle of the venom in their crystal
drinks which I cannot call back to its tangible state; and when I die
I shall leave the process of the tests behind me, to confound the
latest poisoners. But until then, as chemical art at present stands,
the traces are inscrutable. Your way is open before you.’

As Exili finished speaking, he turned on one side as if to overlook
the contents of a small retort that was bubbling over a spirit-lamp at
his side: but his gaze was still directed towards Sainte-Croix.

‘You would have me send this François d’Aubray to join his father?’
said Gaudin, after a minute’s pause.

‘He is coming here this evening,’ observed Lachaussée, ‘and ought to
have been here before this.’

‘You have not given him any of the Aqua Tofana?’ asked Gaudin, with a
look of alarm.

‘Calm yourself, _mon capitaine_,’ replied Exili with a sneer. ‘He will
not come for poison, but a philtre; and that not for love, but against
it. He does not fear the glance of an evil eye; he wishes to turn
aside the magic of a fond one.’

Those high in position in Paris at this epoch, no less than the
humblest and least instructed inhabitants of the city, were accustomed
to place the blindest confidence in the predictions and potions of the
various fortune-tellers and empirics with whom Paris swarmed, under
the names of alchemists, magicians, and Bohemians. The court set the
example of belief; and the common people, ever ready to imitate its
follies, readily fell into the same superstition. Links in the chain
of the wonderful system of espionage which ran through the entire
population,--the universal corruption of all classes, especially
valets, mistresses, and confessors, which Richelieu had effected,--the
astrologers gleaned important information respecting the inhabitants,
which they were ever ready to place at the disposal of the best
paymaster. The higher orders sought them eagerly, paying them as long
as they served a purpose; but, when this was over, a _lettre de
cachet_ consigned them to the Bastille, and they were generally found
strangled in their cells, the murder being attributed invariably to
the devil.

‘Hark!’ said Lachaussée, whose ear had been on the alert to catch the
slightest sound; ‘I can hear some one approaching.’

‘It should be Monsieur d’Aubray,’ replied Exili. ‘He must not see you
here, however,’ he continued, addressing Sainte-Croix. ‘Step within
this cabinet, and you will doubtless find out the feelings of his
family towards you.’

Gaudin caught up his hat and sword, and had scarcely concealed himself
when the brother of the Marchioness of Brinvilliers entered the
apartment.




 CHAPTER XIX.
 THE MISCHIEF STILL THICKENS ON ALL SIDES

Hurriedly as François d’Aubray ascended the staircase, yet the
others found time to receive him with due effect. Gaudin retreated
within the lumbering piece of furniture that took up half one side of
the room; Exili resumed his attitude of attention to the chemical
preparations going on; and Lachaussée, burying his features still
deeper in his capuchin cowl, hastily lighted a rude lamp standing on a
tripod near the table, which, trimmed with some medicated spirit,
burned with a ghastly flame that threw a cadaverous and almost
unearthly light upon the countenances of those who turned their faces
towards it.

‘I am before my time,’ said François, as he entered the room; ‘it yet
wants a good half-hour to curfew.’

‘We are at your service,’ replied Exili; ‘my assistant told me we
might expect you, Monsieur d’Aubray.’

‘You know me, then!’ exclaimed the other with surprise.

‘No more than I am acquainted with every one else who comes to seek my
aid,’ answered the physician calmly. ‘I should lay small claim to my
title of astrologer if I could not divine the position or desires of
my clients.’

‘Then you know my business here this evening?’

‘Part has been told me,’ said Exili--‘part, and the most important, I
can read here.’

From a small china cup he took some noisome black unguent, with which
he smeared his hands, and held them in the light of the coloured
flame. Then tracing (or pretending to do so) certain things delineated
on the compound, he continued--

‘I see Notre Dame by night, and a duel being fought on the _terrain_,
between yourself and one they call Gaudin de Sainte-Croix. You wound
him--he leaves with his _témoin_ in a boat, and you return to the
Hôtel d’Aubray.’

‘Well?’ asked François eagerly, gazing at Exili with breathless
attention.

‘Well,’ echoed the physician, ‘your sister, Madame de Brinvilliers, is
awaiting your return. You have words together, and she is determined
not to give up her lover, your late antagonist.’

‘Is that known also?’ asked François in a tone of mortification.

‘More by common report than by my magic,’ said Exili. ‘Walk on the
quays and carrefours and listen to what the people say if you doubt
me.’

‘Go on--go on,’ exclaimed the other.

‘I see no more,’ replied the physician; ‘all else has been told me by
mortal lips. You wish to stop this liaison, without totally crushing
your sister together with it. Is it not so?’

‘You are correct. I do not wish Madame de Brinvilliers to fall so
utterly; but Sainte-Croix’s influence with her must be put an end to.’

‘The means are simple,’ replied Exili.

‘I know what you would say,’ interrupted D’Aubray; ‘you would have me
exercise the most cursed power you have at your command--that of
poison. No, physician--I am no murderer. If I met Sainte-Croix again
in fair fight, I might deal less gently with him; but if he fell, it
should be in equal combat.’

‘You spoke too hurriedly,’ continued Exili. ‘I would suggest the
glance of an evil eye, or some philtre that might draw his affections
away, and disgust his present mistress. Here is such a one, unless you
would have him blighted by my glance.’

He fixed his eyes upon D’Aubray with such a terrible expression that
François firmly believed the power rested in them which he vaunted.
He returned no answer, but stretched out his hand for the small phial
that Exili held towards him.

‘Now seek the fairest _dame galante_ that you can find, who would have
an officer of the Normandy cavalry for her lover, and bid her drink
it--fearlessly, for it is harmless. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix will be in
her toils from that instant. The whirlpool of passion will drag him
round faster and faster in its eddies, until he is lost; for in
perdition alone can an attachment formed on passion end.’

‘Is there any one above another to whom I should give the draught?’
asked D’Aubray.

‘’Tis immaterial,’ replied Exili; ‘there is no lack of such beauties
at present in our gay city. Seek, if to-morrow be fine, and you will
find a score upon the Pont Neuf to serve your turn. If not, Marotte
Dupré, La Duménil, La Varenne--pshaw! even Montespan herself, in all
the plumage of her last triumph, if you choose to fly at such high
game.’

D’Aubray placed some pieces of gold on the table, and rose to depart,
taking the potion with him. Exili also got up from the seat at the
same time, as he said--

‘Stay--let me light you down. The stairs are old and crumbling, and
the passage obscure.’

He took the lamp from the table, and, preceding his guest, led the way
down the staircase. As they reached the street door he said hurriedly
to D’Aubray--

‘Your hatred of Sainte-Croix cannot be deadlier, fiercer than my own.
Be satisfied with knowing that, should the philtre fail, his days are
numbered.’

He watched the retreating form of François d’Aubray until it was lost
in the obscurity of the Rue de l’Hirondelle, and then returned back to
his apartment.

Sainte-Croix had emerged from his place of concealment, and was now
conversing with Lachaussée. Their talk ceased suddenly as Exili
entered; but there was an air of excitement about both, as though they
had been engaged in a warm, though brief argument. Gaudin’s face was
flushed, his brow knit, and his breathing forcible and hurried; whilst
Lachaussée was compressing his under-lip forcibly against his teeth,
as he caressed the mastiff with his foot--merely, however, with the
pretence of doing something, for his eye was fixed on Sainte-Croix
with no very bland expression.

The quick glance of Exili detected that they had been interrupted in
some earnest conversation. He, however, took no notice of it.
Sainte-Croix took his departure as soon as he imagined François
d’Aubray was out of the way; and Exili extinguished the fire in his
small furnace, and also prepared to leave the room.

‘I shall go to rest,’ he said to his assistant. ‘The only other
visitor we expect to-night will be content with your augury. See that
he pays, however; and, after you have got all you can by agreement,
see what else can be wrung from him by fear.’

He gathered a few articles together and left the chamber, proceeding
to the one immediately over it, where his slow and measured tread
could soon be heard pacing the old and ill-secured floor ere he
retired to bed.

Lachaussée remained for a few minutes after he left in deep
reflection, from which he was aroused by the sound of the curfew, as
the adjacent bell of Notre Dame, on the other side the left branch of
the Seine, swung its booming echoes over the dreary precincts of the
Rue de l’Hirondelle. It had not ceased when the restless manner of the
mastiff betokened the arrival of another stranger. A growl was
followed by a deep hoarse bark, and the beast rose from his crouching
position at the feet of Lachaussée, and shambled round the room with
the gait of some huge wild animal; his strange head-gear giving him
the appearance in the obscurity of a superhuman monster. At a word
from Lachaussée the mastiff returned and resumed his place; and,
after a blundering noise up the staircase, mingled with a few oaths
from the new-comer, the door opened, and no less a personage entered
the room than honest Benoit, the master of the mill-boat at the Pont
Notre Dame.

Lachaussée pulled his cowl closer over his head than ever as the
visitor advanced, apparently in great awe, and making numberless
obeisances as he approached.

‘You made an appointment here this evening,’ said Lachaussée in a
feigned voice, ‘touching some theft committed at your mill.’

‘I did, most infernal seigneur,’ replied Benoit, searching for some
term of appropriate respect. ‘That is--my wife,
Monsieur--Monseigneur--Bathilde would have me come, and never let me
have any rest until I did, though she is not often so fidgety.’

‘And what does she want to know?’

‘Mass! she told me to ask more things than I can recollect, when she
found I had made up my mind to come. Woman’s curiosity,
monsieur--nothing more. She would have known who the young gallant is
that spends all his time talking to the pretty wife of Pierre Huchet
when he is on guard as a good bourgeois; and why the Veuve Boidart
always goes to mass at St. Jacques la Boucherie, living, as she does,
in the Rue de la Harpe; and if it was the students or the Bohemians,
or both together, who stole the gilded weathercock from our mill-boat,
which was given to me by Monsieur le Rouge, and belonged to the
_tourelle_ of the Grand Châtelet that tumbled down the other day.’

‘You had better look for it amongst the scholars of Mazarin and Cluny
than in the Cours des Miracles,’ replied Lachaussée. ‘But this is not
all?’

‘She--in fact, I may say _we_,’ continued Benoit, ‘were most anxious
to know what has become of a fellow-countrywoman, one Louise Gauthier,
who has, we fear, fallen into bad hands. She was living with Madame
Scarron, but has not been heard of since the fete at Versailles.’

‘What fee can you pay to learn?’ asked Lachaussée. ‘At this season
the rulers of the planets require to be propitiated, and the
sacrifices are expensive.’

‘There are two good livres,’ said Benoit, laying the pieces down on
the table. ‘You should have more if I had earned them; but times are
bad for us poor workpeople.’

‘You have no more than this?’ inquired Lachaussée.

‘Not a sou; and Bathilde will have to go without her lace cap against
her fete day as it is. If I had more I would give it to you, so long
as you tell me of Louise Gauthier.’

Lachaussée perceived the Languedocian spoke honestly. Convinced that
he saw the extent of his wealth before him, he made some preparations
for his pretended incantation; and taking a bottle of spirit from
Exili’s table, he poured it on the expiring flame in the tripod, which
was leaping up in intermittent flashes, as if about to go out
altogether.

But as he bent over the lamp, in the carelessness of the moment he
used more of the medicated alcohol than was needed. It fired up, and
catching the vapour from the bottle, communicated with the contents,
causing the flask to explode violently. Lachaussée started back, as a
cloud of flame rose almost in his face. As it was, it laid hold of his
cowl, which was immediately on fire. Heedless of being on his guard,
in the fright and danger of the moment he threw it off, and his well
known features met the astonished gaze of Benoit, who was in no less a
state of alarm than the pretended sorcerer. But as he recognised the
ex-superintendent of the Gobelins, his common sense came back in great
strength, to the discomfiture of his belief in the supernatural. The
alarm finished with the explosion; but Benoit immediately exclaimed--

‘I think we have met before--in the catacombs of the Bièvre!’

Lachaussée had been so taken by surprise that for a few seconds he
made no reply; whilst Benoit’s fingers were working as though he
clutched an imaginary stick, and intended to use it. All his respect
for the magician had vanished in his desire to chastise Lachaussée.

‘Concealment is no longer needful,’ at length he observed.

‘Not at all,’ said Benoit, as he swept the pieces of money from the
table and put them in his pocket again. ‘I know now how it was you
were not drowned in the Bièvre; we shall see you on the gibbet yet.
’Tis a pity your horoscopes did not foretell this bad chance. I wish
you good-bye.’

‘Hold!’ cried Lachaussée, as Benoit advanced to the door: ‘you go not
so easily--we must understand each other first.’

‘It will not take long to do that,’ replied the Languedocian. ‘My arms
can speak pretty plainly when they are needed.’

‘And so can this,’ exclaimed the other, as he took down a cumbrous old
pistol fitted with a _snaphaunce_ and presented it at the
Languedocian. ‘Now--you are unarmed, and the odds are against you. We
must have a compact before you leave.’

Benoit retreated before the fire-arm, as though intimidated until he
reached the window; this he dashed open with his fist, and then
commenced calling for the watch with all his might. In an instant
Lachaussée raised the pistol and discharged its contents. But the
_snaphaunce_ was comparatively a clumsy contrivance; it hung a second
upon being released; and Benoit, perceiving the object of the other,
suddenly stooped, so that the charge, whatever it was, passed over his
head and through the window, shattering the casement on the other side
of the street.

‘A miss again!’ cried Benoit, jumping upright. ‘Bras d’Acier himself
took no better aim in the catacombs. _Au secours! aux voleurs!_ Now,
then, Monsieur Lachaussée, look out for yourself. Here comes the Guet
Royal, or I am mistaken.’

And indeed, as he spoke, the lanterns of the watch were discernible
coming round the street, attracted by the lusty lungs of Benoit.
Lachaussée muttered an imprecation as he advanced to the window, and
observed them coming closer to the door. Not caring to be given into
custody, and perceiving that he could not escape by the street, he
hurriedly left the room, closing the door after him, and Benoit heard
him going upstairs. The mastiff would, in all probability, have
fastened upon the Languedocian, as he kept growling in a crouching
position as though preparing to spring, but the contrivance fastened
about his head so effectually muzzled him that Benoit was under no
apprehensions.

‘_Ohé! messieurs!_’ he shouted; ‘come on, or the bird will have
flown. Look out for the roof as well as the door. He is an active
fellow, but no sorcerer. You see his familiars will not release him.’

As he spoke, a cry from the guard below called Benoit’s attention to
the direction in which they were gazing. We have stated that the Rue
de l’Hirondelle was crossed by several large black beams, from the
houses on one side of the way to those on the other, that the ruinous
buildings might not fall upon the heads of the passers-by. As Benoit
looked up, he perceived that Lachaussée had emerged from one of the
windows of the floor above, and at his imminent peril was clinging to
the beam, and traversing it as he best might, to reach the house
opposite. But, narrow as the thoroughfare was, before he had half
crossed it, Benoit had crept out of the window from which he had
called the watch, on to another of the supports below the one chosen
by Lachaussée, and telling the guard to withhold their fire, was in
pursuit of his old acquaintance. The soldiers paused to watch the
strange chase, and gave a cry of admiration as Benoit, clutching the
timber above him, by a violent effort swung himself up to the beam by
which the other was endeavouring to escape.

It was a moment of keen anxiety. They were both afraid of letting go
their hold, which was so treacherous that the least change in their
position would have caused them to overbalance themselves and tumble
down into the street; and so they remained for some minutes, watching
each other like two fencers, to be in readiness for any attack the
other was about to make. At length Lachaussée made a creeping
movement in advance, when Benoit, whose mountebank engagements had
given him a certain kind of gymnastic superiority, trusting to his
knees to keep him from falling, caught hold of Lachaussée by the
legs. But he lost his equilibrium in so doing, and after wavering for
an instant as if in uncertainty, he fell on one side of the
beam--still, however, keeping hold of the other, who was now driven to
support both himself and Benoit by his arms, half-hanging from,
half-leaning over, the timber.

‘Look out, _mes braves_,’ gasped the Languedocian, ‘and catch us. Our
friend won’t hold long. No, no,’ he continued, as Lachaussée,
struggling, tried to free himself from the grip, ‘you don’t shake me
off. I will stick to you as the hangman will some day. Come under and
hold your scarves.’

The guards were quick in taking the hint. Not a quarter of a minute
had passed before they had pulled off their scarves, and some ten or a
dozen standing in a circle laid hold of the different ends, pulling
them tight, so as to form a sort of network, as they stood in a ring
directly beneath Benoit.

In vain Lachaussée tried to get away. Every struggle expended what
strength he had remaining, until, unable any longer to cling to the
beam, he fell, and Benoit with him. They came heavily down, pulling
one or two of the watch to the ground; but the scarves broke their
fall of some twelve feet, and the next moment Benoit was on his legs,
whilst Lachaussée found himself in the custody of the guard, at the
head of which he perceived Sainte-Croix. Gaudin had fallen in with the
patrol soon after leaving the house of Exili, and knowing the
Chevalier du Guet for the night, had sauntered on in conversation with
him at the head of the watch, until they had been attracted to the Rue
de l’Hirondelle by Benoit’s cries for assistance.

‘To the lock-up with such a gallows-bird!’ cried Benoit. ‘I can tell
you as much about him as will last until to-morrow morning. Guard him
well, or the devil will strangle him in the night, as he did the other
sorcerers.’

The officer directed his party to move on, guarding Lachaussée
between them, whilst Benoit brought up the rear. As they started from
the Rue de l’Hirondelle he looked up to the house they had just
quitted, and saw Exili’s vulture face peering from one of the windows
at the tumult; but of this he took no notice.

On the way to the guard-house Gaudin approached Lachaussée, at a
signal from the latter.

‘You can free me if you choose,’ said the superintendent shortly.

‘I shall not interfere in the matter,’ replied Sainte-Croix. ‘Only be
satisfied that you are not a prisoner by _my_ agency.’

‘If you refuse to liberate me,’ returned the other, ‘the earth may
tell some strange secrets that you would not care should be known.’

‘What do you mean, cur?’ said Gaudin contemptuously.

‘Civil words, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix,’ answered Lachaussée. ‘We
have chemical compounds that, in the event of M. Dreux d’Aubray’s body
being exhumed, would bring every atom of his last beverage to its
simple elements. Do you understand? There cannot be so much difficulty
as you imagine in procuring my liberation.’

‘Silence!’ returned Gaudin in a low quick voice; ‘silence--or we shall
be overheard.’

‘But my freedom!’ continued Lachaussée in a loud tone.

‘Wait until we get to the guard-house,’ said Sainte-Croix, as he
passed on, and was once more at the side of the Chevalier du Guet.

They passed on through some of the narrow tortuous streets that lie
towards the water boundary of the Quartier Latin, and at last arrived
at a guard-house in the vicinity of the Hôtel Dieu. Gaudin spoke a
few words to the captain of the watch aside, which the other appeared
to agree with: they were evidently companions as well as
acquaintances.

‘There is some mistake here,’ said Sainte-Croix. ‘I see now the
prisoner you have captured is my valet. He has been lunatic enough to
go and consult some predicting varlet, and met this other simple
fellow. They have had a brawl between them; and whoever first called
the guard would have given the other into custody.’

‘_Pardieu!_’ said Benoit, ‘you great seigneurs have different notions
of a brawl to us artisans. I suppose, if his _snaphaunce_ had put me
beyond Master Glazer’s skill, who can cure anything, you would have
thought lightly of it.’

‘Silence! common person!’ said the captain.

‘I _will_ speak,’ said Benoit, who began to be very angry at this
unexpected turn that things were taking; ‘and I am not a common
person. Ask Monsieur Sainte-Croix if he found me so when we met one
night at the corner of the Rue Neuve St. Paul. I believe that all the
Bohemians and the great folks in Paris are so leagued together that
they are afraid of one another, and the people receive all the buffets
of their disagreeings. The man Lachaussée there is an inhabitant of
all the Cours des Miracles in Paris. I know him, I tell you.’

‘You are at liberty, fellow; you can depart,’ said the officer.

‘Liberty, forsooth!’ continued Benoit with increased excitement. ‘Why,
I have never been arrested. I am the accuser; and M. de Sainte-Croix
knows that Lachaussée is no more----’

At a motion from the captain of the watch, two of the guard seized
Benoit whilst he was thus pouring out his anger, and, without allowing
him to finish his speech, very unceremoniously turned him out of the
guard-house, and half-drove, half-walked him to the end of the street,
where they left him to go home to the boat-mill, vowing that he would
still be even with all of them.




 CHAPTER XX.
 TWO GREAT VILLAINS

Meanwhile, things being thus arranged, Sainte-Croix and Lachaussée
left the guard, and proceeded to the Rue des Bernardines, where Gaudin
still resided. On arriving at his chamber, whither they passed
unnoticed, Gaudin complained of cold; and, in effect, the evening was
damp and chilly. At his wish, the other fanned the embers of the
fireplace into a flame with his hat, and his so-called master then
produced a flask of wine, which he placed on the table with some
glasses.

‘There is some of the best hock,’ said he, ‘that the Rhine ever
produced. Drink--you need some wine after your late adventure. Fear
not a long draught--a cask of it would not hurt you.’

‘You will drink with me?’ asked Lachaussée, as Sainte-Croix filled a
glass for his companion, and then replaced the bottle on the table.

‘Not now,’ replied Gaudin. ‘I have to play to-night, and must keep my
head cool. A little water will quench my thirst.’

‘Here’s to our renewed acquaintanceship, then, _mon capitaine_,’ said
Lachaussée, as he raised the glass. But before touching its contents
with his lips, as if struck by some sudden thought, he held the glass
between his eyes and the lamp, and then, replacing it on the table,
took a small set of tablets from his pocket and pulled from them a
leaf of white paper.

‘What are you going to do?’ inquired Sainte-Croix.

‘Nothing,’ replied Lachaussée, ‘beyond using a common precaution in
these treacherous times. I do not mistrust you; but you know not who
is about you.’

As he was speaking, he dipped the slip of paper into the wine. The
effect was instantaneous--the white was changed to a bright scarlet.
Sainte-Croix uttered a feigned exclamation of surprise.

‘Poison!’ he cried, as he saw the change.

‘Ay--poison,’ repeated Lachaussée calmly. ‘Did I not well before I
drank? It was doubtless intended for you, Monsieur Gaudin. Your cups
are evidently not of Venice glass, or they would have shivered at its
contact.’

‘This shall be looked into,’ said Gaudin, as he threw the remainder
into the fireplace--‘and closely. But, at present, to business.’

‘Ay, to business,’ answered the other, as a most sinister smile passed
across his ill-favoured countenance--the result of what had just
occurred.

‘I have something to propose to you,’ said Gaudin, ‘if you feel
inclined to join me in the venture. We have worked together before,
and you know me.’

‘I do,’ answered Lachaussée, with meaning emphasis, as he glanced at
the drinking-glass. ‘We can both be trusted to the same extent, for we
are in each other’s hands.’

‘You allude to Milan,’ observed Sainte-Croix.

‘No,’ replied the other coldly; ‘to the château of M. d’Aubray at
Offemont.’

‘A truce to this recrimination,’ said Gaudin. ‘Hear what I have to
say. M. d’Aubray is dead--how, it matters not--and buried. One hundred
and fifty thousand livres were to have been the legacy to his
daughter, Madame de Brinvilliers, and, what was perhaps more, her
absolute freedom to act as she pleased. The money has passed to her
brothers, in trust for her, and she is entirely under their
surveillance. This must be altered.’

‘And you would have me assist you?’

‘On consideration of paying you one-fifth of whatever possessions
might fall to the Marchioness thereupon. Do you agree to this?’

‘Go on,’ was Lachaussée’s reply, ‘and tell me the means.’

‘Ay--the means--there lies the difficulty,’ said Sainte-Croix. ‘What
think you of----?’

There was a minute of silence, as they regarded each other with fixed
intensity, waiting for the suggestion. Plunged as they were in the
dregs of crime, they hesitated to unfold their plan, although they
knew there was but one scheme intended. Lachaussée was the first who
spoke.

‘Diseases are hereditary,’ said he. ‘The present lieutenant-civil, and
his brother the councillor, might follow their father to the cemetery,
which keeps the secrets of its occupants even better than the
Bastille.’

‘We are agreed,’ observed Gaudin; ‘but some care and patience will be
necessary. Of course there is a barrier between the brothers of Madame
de Brinvilliers and myself that must for ever prevent our meeting. I
will provide the means, and you their application.’

‘I care not if I do,’ answered Lachaussée. ‘But what assurance have I
that you will fulfil your part of our intent? Our words are breaths of
air--our souls are no longer our own to deal with.’

‘You shall have a fair and written compact on your own part,’ said
Gaudin; ‘on mine, I have still your letter after the affair at Milan.’

He rose to depart as he uttered these words; and, when he had quitted
the room, Gaudin threw himself into a fauteuil and was for a time
wrapt in silence. Then divesting himself of his upper garments, he put
on a dingy working-dress, corroded into holes, and black with the
smoke and dirt of a laboratory, and passing into an adjoining chamber,
fitted up with a chemical apparatus as if for the study of
alchemy--the outward pretext which most of the disciples of Tofana
adopted to veil their proceedings--he applied himself to work with the
most intense application. Certain as the action was of the poisons he
had hitherto used, defying all attempts to trace their existence,
except of those who had created them, yet they appeared too slow for
the projects he was conceiving; and he was now commencing a series of
experiments upon the properties of the deadly elements in his
possession, before the results of which the achievements of Spara and
Tofana fell into insignificance.




 CHAPTER XXI.
 THE DEAD-HOUSE OF THE HÔTEL DIEU, AND THE ORGY AT THE HÔTEL DE CLUNY

The autumn passed away, and winter came on in all its severity. The
trees in the gardens of the Tuileries and the Palais d’Orleans, where
the parterres and avenues of the Luxembourg are now situated, rose
naked and dreary towards the dull sky; and the snow lay deep upon the
Butte St. Roche, uncarted and uncared for, threatening to inundate the
lower streets in the vicinity when the thaw came. The public places,
too, lost their air of life and business. The mountebanks, showmen,
and dentists ceased to pitch their platforms on the Pont Neuf and
Carrefour du Châtelet; for although they were individuals inured to
cold, yet they found the promenaders were more sensitive, and would
not stop to listen to their harangues. The women were less attractive
to the passing glance of the cavaliers in the streets, or the still
mundane fathers in the churches. No more white shoulders, covered only
by the rippling curls of the period, flashed in the afternoon
sunlight--no more dazzling throats captured the hearts and the purses
of the susceptible young gallants of the patrician _quartiers_, or
whatever qualities supplied the perfect absence of either in the
scholars of Cluny, Mazarin, and the Hôtel Dieu, attached to the Pays
Latin. Sometimes an hour or two of warm sunlight brought the gossipers
out in the middle of the day to their old haunts; elsewise they
preferred assembling in the shops of the most approved retailers of
passing scandal, and there canvassing the advantages or demerits of
the different characters, or the probable results of the various
politics, then mostly talked of in the good city of Paris.

The shop of Maître Glazer, the apothecary of the Place Maubert, was
the most favoured resort of the idle bourgeois. They loved it in the
summer, when the pure air came through the open front of the window to
dilute the atmosphere of cunning remedies that filled it, and it
appeared to have the same charm in the winter, although closely shut;
perhaps from the idea, with some, that the inhalation of the air laden
with such marvellous odours of chemicals and galenicals would have all
the effect of swallowing the things themselves, and on a cheaper and
less noxious plan.

But, in truth, the shop of Maître Glazer possessed various advantages
over others as a lounge for the gossipers. In his quality of
apothecary he was admitted to the councils, arrangements, and disputes
of all the families in the neighbourhood; and not wishing to favour
one more than another, he very properly retailed them in a circle from
one to the other, which made his society much sought after; indeed, he
was suspected of being sent for sometimes when the indisposition was a
mere pretext for conversing a quarter of an hour with the apothecary,
at such times as the supposed invalid was dying--not in the common
acceptance of the word, but to be satisfied with regard to any point
deeply affecting some neighbour; and as the cure in these cases was
always very rapid, Maître Glazer got fresh honour thereby.

But just at present matters of deeper moment attracted the idlers to
his shop than the discussion of mere domestic affairs. We have said
that his reputation stood well in Paris as a talented compounder of
antidotes to poisons; and the still increasing number of mysterious
deaths in the city and faubourgs, which so entirely baffled all
medical or surgical art, either to arrest the progress of the disease
or discover its source--although they were all attributed to the
working of poison--provided subjects for conversation in the mouths of
everybody. The terrible episode which formed so fearful a
characteristic of the moral state of the reign of Louis XIV., was now
talked of publicly and generally, until the topic increasing led, but
a very few years after the period of our story, to the establishment
of the Chambre des Poisons, ordained by order of the King to inquire
into the deeds of the poisoners and magicians then practising in
Paris, and punish them if the accusations were brought home.

Maître Glazer was in his shop, and so was his son Philippe, together
with Maître Picard, Jean Blacquart the Gascon, and one or two of the
bourgeois neighbours, talking over the events of the day. Panurge was
compounding medicines at his usual post, and endeavouring to outlie
the Gascon, according to custom; and sometimes their controversies ran
so high that they were only quieted when Philippe threatened to thrash
them both at once, or beat every atom of flesh from Panurge’s bones,
which, looking to his miserable condition, was certainly not a process
of any very great labour.

‘I do not believe in all these stories,’ said Philippe; ‘they frighten
the city, but not our profession. I admit that there is a grievous
epidemic about, but the same symptoms attack those who die in and out
of our hospital.’

‘Are the symptoms the same?’ asked a neighbour.

‘Precisely,’ replied Philippe: ‘there is the same wasting away of body
and spirits; the same fluttering pulse and fevered system; the same
low, crushing weariness of mind, until all is over. One would imagine,
if all were true, that the poisoners were in the very heart of the
Hôtel Dieu.’

‘I must have taken some myself,’ said Maître Picard. ‘My spirits
sink, and I have a constant thirst; my pulse flutters too,
wonderfully, albeit my body does not waste.’

‘May not Spara’s disciples have got to the hospital?’ asked the
bourgeois who had before spoken.

‘Pshaw!’ said Philippe; ‘the sisters of charity are the only persons
who tend our sick, and we can trust them. The Marchioness of
Brinvilliers is amongst them. Whatever her faults, her kind words and
gentle smile go far to soothe many pain-wearied frames; and yet she
loses more of her patients than all the others.’

‘I have tested all the water used in the city,’ said Glazer, ‘but
found it pure and wholesome. And I have made Panurge drink bucketfuls
of it, but it never affected him.’

‘And yet to any one who cared to drug our fountains,’ said Philippe,
‘it would not be difficult, at nightfall, to row along the river and
climb up the pillars of the Samaritaine.[15] A potion in its
reservoir would carry death tolerably well over the city by the next
noontide.’

‘It might be done with advantage,’ said a bourgeois. ‘The greater part
of its water goes to the basins and fountains of the Tuileries, and
the people who pay for it die of drought. The King cares more for his
swans and orange trees than for his subjects.’

‘Neighbour Viot,’ said Maître Picard, ‘I am a public officer, and
cannot allow such rebel talk.’

‘Beware of secret hurt rather than open authority,’ said Glazer.
‘Those words, so publicly expressed, may bring the Aqua Tofana into
your goblet this very night.’

The face of bourgeois Viot fell at the mere hint of impending danger.

‘You surely do not think so?’ he said.

‘I do not say what I do not think,’ replied the apothecary. ‘If you
have fear, after promulgating these rash sentiments, take some of my
antidote with you: it is of rare virtue.’

‘It cured me,’ said Panurge, ‘after I had swallowed, at my master’s
orders, a quantity of the St. Nicholas manna enough to kill a horse.’

‘But an ass is a different animal, Panurge,’ said Philippe, as he took
up his hat and left the shop.

The humble assistant did not dare to retort, but seeing the Gascon
laughing at him, when Philippe had gone, he aimed a blow at him with a
bleeding-staff, which would have hurt Blacquart sorely had he not
dived down and avoided it. As it was, the staff descended on the
counter and broke a bottle, for which he was severely chidden by his
master.

In the meantime Philippe Glazer, leaving his father’s, crossed the
river by the Petit Pont and took his way towards Notre Dame. The doors
of the cathedral were still open, and he entered the southern aisle,
now dimly lighted by a few votive tapers, which were flaring and
guttering upon their rude iron stands in the currents of air that
swept through the interior. A man, who was evidently waiting to meet
him, emerged from the shadow of one of the pillars as he advanced.

‘M. de Sainte-Croix!’

‘Philippe Glazer!’

‘We are truly met,’ said the student. ‘I received your note this
evening, and you can come to the hospital with me.’

‘You are obliging me,’ said Gaudin; ‘I am anxious respecting the
health of an old servant of mine, now an inmate.’

‘Pshaw! Captain Gaudin,’ replied Philippe, ‘between the Gens de la
Courte Epée there should be no secrets. It is a matter of gallantry,
or I am mistaken; we are freemasons, you know, of a certain sort, and
may trust each other.’

Gaudin laughed and made an evasive reply, as he took Philippe’s arm;
and the two, crossing the square before Notre Dame, entered the Hôtel
Dieu. As they passed the lodge, the porter, recognising Philippe, gave
him a note which had been left for the gentleman who was expected to
accompany him. Gaudin knew the writing, and hastily opened it. Its
contents were as follows:--


 ‘Do not notice me in the hospital, or suspicion will be aroused, and I
 shall not come again. In the Morgue we shall be free from
 interruption, and only there. Glazer will conduct you.

                                                         ‘Marie.’


‘Mass!’ exclaimed Philippe, as Sainte-Croix mentioned the
appointment--‘a strange rendezvous! The lady has a bold mind within
that delicate frame.’

‘Hush!’ said Gaudin, pressing his arm; ‘do not speak so loud. Show me
where the place is and leave me.’

‘Most willingly, if you have courage. One might select a livelier
place, however, than the dead-house of an hospital for a
trysting-place.’

He took his companion by the hand, and they advanced along one of the
arched passages, which the dim lamps barely illuminated, to the top of
a flight of stairs. These they descended, and, passing along another
vaulted way, paused at a door at the extreme end. It was not fastened.
Philippe threw it open, and they entered the Morgue of the
hospital--the receptacle for such as died within the precincts of the
Hôtel Dieu.

It was a dreary room, with bare white walls and a cold stone floor,
lighted by one ghastly lamp that hung against the wall. The frightful
mortality for which the hospital was then remarkable kept it well
filled with its silent inmates. Some of these were placed upon the
ground, enveloped in rough canvas wrappers--the only coffins allowed
them--in the same state as they may now be seen brought to the Clamart
and other dissecting-schools of Paris; others lay ranged side by side
upon large oval marble slabs, capable of accommodating from eight to
ten bodies each, and these had merely coarse sheets, or palls, thrown
over them. Over the stone floor a wooden trellis was placed, an inch
or two in thickness; for the floor was below the level of the turgid
Seine, which flowed immediately on the other side of the wall, and the
reflection of the lamp glimmering through the interstices showed the
water already in the Salle des Cadavres.

As soon as Philippe Glazer had introduced Sainte-Croix to this dreary
place he took his departure, and Gaudin was left alone. The light
waved in the draught of air caused by opening and closing the door;
and as it played over the features of some of the corpses they
appeared to move, from the different shadows, and then to resume their
wonted calm. In the fever of his mind Gaudin would almost have changed
places with them. He had no nervous terror at being alone in such a
dismal locality; his only feeling was one that approached to envy of
their repose. A minute, however, had scarcely elapsed before the door
again opened, and a female, enveloped in a mantle similar to those
worn by the sisters of charity, entered. It was the Marchioness of
Brinvilliers, who now came to commune with her guilty ally.

They met with perhaps less eagerness than heretofore, albeit they had
not seen each other for several days; but although their passion had
apparently decreased, yet ties more fearful and more enduring now
bound their souls together in the common interest of mutual guilt. The
whole world was contracted to the sphere in which they both moved;
they knew of, cared for nothing beyond it, except those objects coming
within the circle of their dark intent.

After the first greetings had passed, Marie looked cautiously from the
door along the vaulted passage. Satisfied that no one was within
hearing, she closed it, and going to the marble table, partially threw
back the covering from one of the bodies; then grasping Sainte-Croix’s
arm, she drew him towards her, saying in a low voice, but clear, and
to him distinctly audible--

‘It has done its work nobly, and baffled every physician of the Hôtel
Dieu. This one swallowed it in wine, which my own maid, Françoise
Roussel, brought to the hospital. The girl would taste it as she went,
upon the sly, and it well-nigh cost the fool her life. This one shows
what the confiture could do. He lingered long though, and became a
skeleton, as you perceive, before his death.’

Sainte-Croix was aghast at these revelations, although they had been
anticipated. But the demoniac mind of his beautiful companion drew him
still closer towards her; her nature rose grander and grander in the
opinion of his dark soul, from the very fiendishness of its
attributes.

‘I am _sure_ of its work,’ she continued. ‘Unlimited wealth,
unquestioned freedom is in our grasp, so you but second my intentions.
My brothers think they are ruling me as they would a wayward girl: how
terrible will be my retribution!’

‘I have much to tell you, Marie, of my own plans,’ said Gaudin; ‘but
it cannot be here. If those whom you have alluded to fall, others must
go with them. We cannot pause in our career.’

‘There is one that I have marked as the earliest,’ returned the
Marchioness. ‘I know not how it will affect your own feelings; in this
instance I care not.’

Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she spoke, and her rapidity of
utterance became mingled with her hurried but irregular respiration.
An expression passed across her face of mingled triumph and
satisfaction, whilst the fingers of her hand were quickly working one
over the other.

‘And who is that, Marie?’ asked Gaudin, his curiosity aroused by the
manner of the Marchioness.

‘The pale-faced girl, whose acquaintance with yourself I became so
unluckily acquainted with in the Grotto of Thetis--your Languedocian
leman--Louise Gauthier.’

‘She must not be injured!’ exclaimed Sainte-Croix hurriedly.

‘She must die!’ replied the Marchioness, with cold but determined
meaning. ‘She loves you, and you may still care for her. You must be
mine, and mine alone, Gaudin; your affections may not be participated
in by another.’

‘All has finished between us, Marie! You are wrong--utterly wrong in
your suspicions. You surely will not harm a poor girl like Louise?’

‘Gaudin!’ exclaimed his companion, fixing her glance on him with that
intense expression, against the influence of which Sainte-Croix’s
determination could not prevail, ‘when we have fallen--step by step,
hour by hour--and each time irrevocably, to all appearance, until a
fresh abyss, yawning beneath our presence, disclosed a still lower
hell open to receive us--when the sympathies of the world have turned
away from us to cling to fresh objects, in their parasitical
attachment to the freshest and most plausible support, and our hopes
and fears are merged into one blank feeling of careless determination
by utter despair--when all is given up here and hereafter--in such
positions it is not likely that we should pause in the career marked
out to be pursued for any sentiment of justice or consideration. I am
determined.’

There was the silence of some minutes after she had spoken, broken
only by the laboured breathing of either party, or the drip of water,
as, stealing through the walls from the river, it fell upon the
noisome floor. Each, was waiting for the other to speak. Sainte-Croix
was the first to break the pause. He knew that further allusion to
Louise Gauthier would induce fresh recrimination--that Marie would
believe no protestation on his part that the attachment was over--and
that by boldly bearding her, in her present access of jealousy, the
utter destruction of the poor girl would be hastened. He therefore
endeavoured to turn the subject of their conversation into another
channel.

‘Where is your brother?’ he asked. ‘You can act as you please towards
the other person, as you appear to be beyond conviction from anything
I can urge. François is at present the most important object for our
vigilance. Is he in Paris?’

‘He is not,’ replied the Marchioness. ‘Both my brothers are at
Offemont, arranging the distribution of the effects about the estate.
They will remain there for some days, and then depart to Villequoy.
Fortunately François has discharged one of his servants, and is
compelled to look after many of his affairs himself, the
superintendence of which would otherwise fall to his valet.’

‘Is he anxious to supply the place of the domestic?’ inquired Gaudin
eagerly.

‘He is now looking out for some one. But why are you thus curious?’

‘Because I have a creature in my employ--one who dares scarcely call
his life his own, unless by my permission, who might fill the post
with advantage.’

‘I do not see what we could gain by that,’ observed the Marchioness.

‘He might wait upon his master at table,’ said Gaudin, ‘and pour out
his drink.’

He regarded his companion with fixed intensity as he threw out the
dark hint contained in his last words.

‘But would there be no suspicion?’ asked Marie.

‘None,’ replied her lover. ‘For his own sake, he would keep the secret
close as the grave. He has a ready wit too, and an unabashed presence,
that would carry him through any dilemma. I ought to know it.’

‘Hist!’ cried Marie; ‘there is a noise in the passage. We are
overheard.’

‘It is nothing,’ said Sainte-Croix. ‘The night-wind rushing along the
passages has blown-to some of the doors.’

The Marchioness had gone to the entrance of the _salle_, and looked
along the vaulted way that led to it. A door at the upper end was
distinctly heard to close.

‘I heard retreating footsteps!’ she exclaimed rapidly, as she
returned. ‘There have been some eavesdroppers, I tell you.’

‘Pshaw!’ replied Gaudin; ‘who would come down here? It might be
Philippe Glazer, who brought me into the hospital, and is anxious to
know how much longer our interview is to last.’

‘He does not know me?’ inquired the Marchioness, in a tone that led up
to the answer she desired.

‘He knows nothing, beyond that I have some idle affair with a
_religieuse_. _Pardieu!_ if every similar gallantry was taken notice
of in Paris, the newsmongers would have enough to do.’

‘However,’ said Marie, ‘it is time that we departed. I must go back to
my dreary home.’

And she uttered the last words in a tone of well-acted despondency, as
she prepared to depart.

‘Stay, Marie!’ cried Gaudin. ‘You have said that your brothers are at
Offemont; who else have you to dread? There is a _réunion_ of all the
best that Paris contains of life and revelry in the Rue des Mathurins
this evening. You will go with me?’

‘It would be madness, Gaudin. The city would ring with the scandal
to-morrow morning.’

‘You can mask,’ returned Sainte-Croix, ‘and so will I. I shall be
known to all I care about, and those I can rely on. Marie! you will
come?’

He drew a visor from his cloak as he spoke, and held it towards the
Marchioness. The necessity for sudden concealment in the affairs of
gallantry of the time made such an article part of the appointments of
both sexes.

Marie appeared to waver for an instant; but Gaudin seized her hands
and whispered a few low, but intense and impassioned words closely in
her ear, as though he now mistrusted the very air that, damp and
thickened, clung around them. She pulled the white hood over her face,
and taking his arm, they quitted the dismal chamber in which this
strange interview had taken place.

No notice was taken of them as they left the hospital. The porter was
half-asleep in his huge covered settle, still holding the cord of the
door in his hand, and he pulled it open mechanically as they passed.
On reaching the open space of the Parvis Notre Dame, Sainte-Croix
hailed a _voiture de remise_--a clumsy, ill-fashioned thing, but still
answering the purpose of those who patronised it, more especially as
there was but a small window on either side, and that of such inferior
glass that the parties within were doubly private.

They crossed the river by the Petit Pont, and proceeded first to the
Rue des Bernardins, where Sainte-Croix’s apartments were situated.
Here the Marchioness left the dress of the sisterhood, in which she
had visited the hospital, and appeared in her own rich garments; the
other having been merely a species of domino with which she had veiled
her usual attire. The coach then went on by the Rue des Noyers towards
the _hôtel_ indicated by Gaudin.

‘This is a wild mad action, Gaudin,’ said the Marchioness. ‘If it
should be discovered, I shall be indeed lost.’

‘There is no chance of recognition,’ replied Sainte-Croix, as he
assisted his companion to fasten on her mask. ‘No one has tracked us.’

‘I am not so certain of that,’ said Marie. ‘My eyes have deceived me,
or else I have seen, each time we passed a lamp, a figure following
the coach, and crouching against the walls and houses. See! there it
is again!’

As she spoke, she wiped away the condensed breath upon the windows
with her mantle, and called Gaudin’s attention to the street.

‘There!’ she cried; ‘I still see the same figure--tall and
dark--moving after us. I cannot discern the features.’

‘It is but some late passenger,’ said Gaudin, ‘who is keeping near our
carriage for the safety of an escort. You must recollect we are in the
centre of the cut-purse students.’

The coach turned round the corner of the Rue des Mathurins as he
spoke, crossing the Rue St. Jacques, and halfway along the street
stopped at a _porte-cochère_, which was lighted up with unusual
brightness. The door was opened, and as Gaudin assisted the
Marchioness to alight, both cast a searching glance along the narrow
street in either direction; but excepting a lackey attached to the
Hôtel de Cluny, where they now got down, not a person was visible.




 CHAPTER XXII.
 THE ORGY AT THE HÔTEL DE CLUNY

The Hôtel de Cluny, into the court-yard of which Gaudin led the
Marchioness on alighting from the carriage, is not only a building of
great interest at the present day, but was equally celebrated in the
Middle Ages, and so intimately connected with ancient Paris, even in
the time of the Romans, that a very brief description of it may not be
altogether out of place.

Any one who cares to visit it may arrive at its gates by proceeding up
the Rue de la Harpe from the river, at the Pont St. Michel, and
turning to the left in the Rue des Mathurins. But just before this
point the Palais des Thermes will be passed--the remains of a vast
Roman edifice which once occupied a large area of ground in the
Quartier Latin. Of this building the hall is still in tolerable
preservation; and two stages of subterraneous passages may be traced
to the length of about one hundred feet, where they are choked up with
ruins. There is, however, existing proof that they formed a perfect
communication between the Palais des Thermes and the Convent des
Mathurins, at the other extremity of the street.

Upon the foundations of the Roman building, towards the close of the
fifteenth century, Jacques d’Amboise, one of the nine brothers of
Louis XII.’s minister who bore that name, built the present edifice.
The ground had been purchased more than a century previous by Pierre
de Chaslus, an abbe of the celebrated order of Cluny, a portion of the
Roman palace then being sufficiently perfect to reside in; and that
became the residence of the abbes of Cluny when their affairs called
them to Paris.

The new building was raised upon this site, and with the materials of
the ancient structure, so that at many parts of the _hôtel_ the
graceful architecture of the _moyen âge_ may be seen rising from the
foundation-walls of Roman masonry. This is not, however, the only part
to interest the artist or the antiquary. The entire edifice, built at
an epoch of architectural revolution, is a mixture of the last
inspirations of the Gothic style with the first dawn of the
_renaissance_.

At the commencement of the sixteenth century, the Hôtel de Cluny was
for some time the abode of Mary, the Queen of Louis XII. and sister of
our own Henry VIII. She had been married only three months when she
was left a widow, being then little more than sixteen.[16] Afterwards
it was inhabited by a troop of comedians, although by what means the
players were enabled to establish themselves in a house avowedly the
dwelling of the abbes of Cluny, and of which, whoever lived in it,
they never ceased to be the landlords, is not explained. Subsequently
it was made a species of temporary convent for the reception of Maire
Angélique Arnaud, the abbess of Port-Royal, and a large number of her
nuns, whilst a religious establishment was built for them in the Rue
de la Bourbe, which at the present day forms the Hospice de
l’Accouchement of the same name.

It is now some six or seven years since we went over the Hôtel de
Cluny. The then proprietor, M. du Sommerard, has since died, and we
know not how his decease has affected the admission of strangers.
Certainly it was at that time the most interesting object of curiosity
that Paris afforded. You turned from the narrow, busy Rue de la Harpe
into its quiet court, and modern Paris was for the moment forgotten in
the contemplation of the old and graceful building, with its
picturesque _tourelle_--its beautifully-ornamented attic windows, each
surrounded by a different pattern of florid Gothic sculpture--its
antique spouts, and chiseled gallery running in front of the eaves,
still showing its exquisite workmanship, in spite of the clumsy manner
in which its trellised length had been patched up with mortar, and in
many places totally concealed--its vanes and gables. Within, it was
rich, indeed, in venerable associations; there were collected all
those articles of rare worth and _vertu_ that made the _hôtel_ so
famous; but these were not to us the principal attractions, for much
was the result of comparatively modern labour. An atmosphere of
antiquity pervaded the interior; you were sensible at once of that
peculiar odour which clings to relics of former times--that mixture of
cathedral interiors, old burly red-edged books, worm-eaten
wainscoting, and damp closets, which is almost grateful, despite its
elements. The sunbeam came through the patched coloured glass of the
old windows, and fell in subdued and varied tints upon the relics
which the rooms enshrined--relics of everyday life in days long passed
away, which it would not mock with the garish light of present noon,
except in the open gallery, and there the motes appeared to wake into
existence in its rays, and dance about, until with its decline they
fell back once more upon the old carvings and mouldings of the
woodwork. In the disposition of the rooms, with their numberless
articles of simple domestic use and homely furniture, the past was
once more recalled; the visitor lived, for the time, in the bosom of a
family long since forgotten, even to its very name; the solitude was
dispelled, and the antique chambers were once more peopled with their
former occupants, gliding noiselessly about the polished floors,
circling round the table, still laid out for their meal, or kneeling
at the chapel altar, as the quivering light fell on them, piercing the
leaves that clustered from the trees of the adjoining garden about the
windows. The day-dream was impressive and all-absorbing. The feeling,
upon once more turning into the busy hum of the city, was that of
dissatisfaction and confusion, like the first waking from a morning
slumber, in which we have been again communing with those whom we once
loved.

Sainte-Croix and Marie entered the principal door of the _corps de
logis_ of the _hôtel_, and passed up the staircase. He was recognised
and saluted respectfully by the domestics, as one on terms of great
intimacy with the master. The interior of the _hôtel_ was brilliantly
illuminated; and every now and then sounds of the wildest revelry
burst along the corridors, as the heavy rustling curtains that hung
over the doors were thrust on one side. As they neared the principal
room, a man stepped out and met them. His symmetrical figure was well
set off by a magnificent dress; his physiognomy was _spirituelle_,
without being handsome; his presence was commanding and prepossessing.

‘My dear Sainte-Croix,’ he exclaimed as he saw Gaudin, ‘you are
welcome. The hours were flying by so rapidly, that I began to think we
should not see you.’

‘Time generally runs away with bright grains, Marquis, whenever you
direct his flight. He must fill his glass from the sands of Pactolus
when he measures your enjoyments.’

‘Will you present me to your fair companion?’ said the host, as he
glanced towards the Marchioness.

‘Henriette,’ said Gaudin, giving a false name to his partner, ‘this is
the Marquis de Lauzun. His mere name conveys with it all those good
qualities which, in one less known, we should mention distinctly.’

The Marquis bowed, and Marie inclined in return to his salute,
trembling at the same time; for she knew him well, and was fearful of
being discovered. And indeed Lauzun perceived in an instant, by her
deportment, that her manners had more of the court than the
_coulisses_ about them.

‘You have a charming residence, Marquis,’ she observed, endeavouring
to disguise her voice.

‘Say, rather, the abbes of Cluny have,’ replied De Lauzun; ‘for I am
here only as an intruder. But they are too liberal to me. In return
for some poor advantages I persuaded his Majesty to bestow upon their
order, they give up their house to me whenever I require it. Let us
join the company who honour me this evening.’

He threw aside the heavy tapestry as he spoke, and ushered
Sainte-Croix and Marie into the salon. The scene that presented itself
was most exciting--almost bewildering from its gorgeous revelry. The
whole suite of rooms had been thrown open, and was one blaze of light;
the innumerable wax candles, shedding their brilliancy upon the throng
from every available position, clustered in galaxies of bright
twinkling stars round the elaborately-framed and quaintly-shaped
looking-glasses that characterised the domestic architecture of the
time, even in our own days always associated with splendid elegance
and refinement, or diminished in long perspectives of light along the
corridors, and through the other apartments branching off from the
principal room, the comparatively low ceiling giving them a look of
much greater extent than they in reality possessed.

A joyous crowd had assembled together; all that Paris then knew of
reckless enjoyment and debauchery had collected that evening in the
Hôtel de Cluny. The cavaliers and dames were in equal numbers; some
of the latter were as closely masked as Marie, as were a few--very
few--of the gentleman. Others of the fair visitors displayed their
charms, both of face and bust, to the full, in the same loose fashion
that they would have patronised in the warm season upon the Pont Neuf
and _carrefours_. And the attractions of these beauties were of no
ordinary character. Handsome beyond expression the majority indeed
were, under the most ordinary circumstances; but now their full
swimming eyes were sparkling with excitement--a glow of warmth and
vivid life flushed their damask cheeks--the long clusters of perfumed
and glossy hair showered tremblingly upon their rounded
shoulders--and, as the light badinage or wicked repartee fell from
their rosy lips, followed by the joyous peals of their silvery
laughter, their mouths displayed pearly rows of teeth, which fairly
dazzled by their brilliancy, and alone outshone the whiteness of their
skin.

The various alcoves, containing beds, fitted up with magnificent
hangings and curtains of rich brocade, shot with gold or embroidered
with the most elaborate devices, were all thrown open, according to
custom, separated only from the rooms by light gilt railings; and
within these various young seigneurs were lounging, playing at dice or
tables, surrounded by a crowd of lookers-on; and the profusion of
broad pieces scattered carelessly about showed that the play was high
and reckless. The extremity of the gallery was veiled by some fine
fabric, and behind this, concealed from the view, a band of musicians,
of a number then seldom collected, was performing the latest
compositions of the court. In the centre a table glittering with plate
and glass was loaded with the choicest refreshments, and the most
ingenious devices in confectionery, surrounding a fountain of
marvellous workmanship, modelled, after the Bassin de Neptune at
Versailles, in dead silver and crystal, playing various kinds of wine,
which fell into separate compartments, whence it was drawn by the
guests into chased silver flagons and goblets of variegated Bohemian
glass. The air was heavy with costly perfumes, whose vapours wreathed
out from antique tripods; and every flower that art could force into
bloom, for the time of year, assisted to form the rich bouquets that
were placed about in all directions.

‘Place, messieurs,’ cried Lauzun gaily, affecting the manners of a
chamberlain, ‘for the Captain Gaudin de Sainte-Croix, who will throw
down his dice as a gage to any adversary who chooses to meet him!’

A number of young men welcomed Gaudin as the others spoke. He was
evidently popular amongst them, possessing in a high degree that fatal
versatility of pleasing which can mask the most heartless and
unprincipled disposition with a semblance of the most ingenuous gaiety
and _franchise_.

‘I pledge you, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix,’ cried a cavalier, whose
dress was a strange mixture of extreme elegance and the roughest
texture, ‘and will place a hundred louis d’ors against your own.’

‘A match!’ cried Gaudin, throwing his purse on the bed, round which
the party gathered, including Marie, who still kept close to his side.

‘There are my pieces,’ replied the other; ‘they need no counting.’

And he placed a rude leathern bag by Sainte-Croix’s sparkling purse.

‘I shall beat you, Chavagnac,’ said Gaudin.

‘You will be clever to do it,’ observed a bystander. ‘The Count de
Chavagnac has ruined us this night.’

‘A new gown of ruby velvet _à longues manches_, at the next Foire
Sainte Germain, for me, if you win, Chavagnac,’ said one of the
handsomest of the women.

‘You shall have it, Marotte,’ replied the Count.

‘What do you promise me, M. de Sainte-Croix, for old friendship?’
continued Marotte Dupré--for it was she--turning to Gaudin. ‘Let it
be a kiss, if it be nothing else.’

Gaudin looked towards her, and pressed her arm, as he contracted his
forehead, and made a sign of silence. He felt a sudden shudder pass
over the frame of the Marchioness; and when he turned round, her eyes
glared like a fury’s through her mask. She withdrew her arm and coldly
fell back as she whispered--

‘My eyes are being opened anew. Beware!’

Gaudin was for the instant annoyed and returned no answer. Marotte
Dupré had not taken the hint, and continued--

‘You owe me something on the score of your conduct when Antoine
Brinvilliers carried me to the Rue d’Enfer against my will. By the
way, where is his wife, Dubois? You know the secrets of every woman in
our good city.’

This was addressed to the Abbe Dubois, whose name as a gallant, either
on his own part or that of the King, was pretty well established.

‘Where she should be--quietly at home,’ replied the abbe.
‘Brinvilliers is on his travels. He is another man since she left him,
or he left her, or they left one another. How is it, M. de
Sainte-Croix?--you ought to know.’

‘By the mass!’ cried Gaudin angrily, ‘my sword can answer the
curiosity of any one better than my tongue.’

‘It is the more innocent weapon of the two in Paris just at present,’
said Marotte. ‘O my reputation!’

Gaudin looked towards Marie. By the quivering of a jewelled aigrette
that formed a portion of her head-dress, he could see that she was
trembling, and her hand tightly clutched part of the rich curtain that
hung beside her.

‘_Chut!_’ cried Lauzun, observing Sainte-Croix’s kindling temper; ‘to
your play.’

‘Nine!’ said Guadin, throwing his dice, as he caught at the
opportunity of turning the subject.

‘Nine also,’ observed Chavagnac, throwing.

‘Ten!’ exclaimed Guadin. ‘Will you pay me half, or run the chance?’

‘I will play,’ replied Chavagnac, gently shaking the dice-box.
‘Twelve.’

‘_Peste!_’ cried Gaudin, ‘you have gained them. I thought my dice knew
better than that.’

‘You forgot whose they were to play against,’ said Chavagnac with a
grim smile, taking up the money. ‘Come, I shall be in funds again.
Lauzun’s hospitality has kept me from the high-road. The twelve
hundred pistoles I appropriated from the good people of the Garonne
were nearly gone.’

‘You can still give me the kiss, Gaudin, without being entirely
ruined,’ said Marotte Dupré, as she pouted her red lips towards him.

Sainte-Croix inclined his head towards her. As he did so, Marie darted
forward, and violently drew him back. The action was seen by all the
bystanders. They said nothing, but shrugged their shoulders; whilst
Marotte Dupré looked as if she felt perfectly ready for another duel
with her new and unknown rival.

‘Messieurs,’ cried Lauzun, ‘I have a novelty in store for you. I have
picked up a fellow on the Pont Neuf who will sing you couplets about
yourselves by the mile. He is there every afternoon that it is warm
enough for folks to stand and listen.’

‘Let us see him,’ said Dubois, anxious with the rest to turn the
attention of the company. ‘_A diable les femmes!_ There is not a
misery in the world but is connected with them, if you search its
source.’

‘Nor a pleasure,’ replied Lauzun. ‘You ought to know, abbe, if
experience teaches anything.’

‘And monsieur does know,’ said a person who entered just at the
moment. A glance sufficed to show Sainte-Croix that it was Benoit, who
appeared to have reassumed, in part, his ancient mountebank costume.

‘This is the fellow,’ said Lauzun. ‘Come, friend,’ he continued,
addressing the other, ‘do you see any one here you can sing about?’

‘That do I,’ said Benoit, looking over the crowd; ‘there is the Abbe
Dubois.’

‘Respect the church,’ cried Lauzun laughing. ‘The abbe is beyond your
couplets.’

‘Not at all,’ said Benoit. ‘Mère Ledru left the Quartier
Saint-Honoré but yesterday, entirely to save her daughter from his
addresses. Oh! the abbe is a _bon diable_, but sly in his pursuits.
Hem!’

And clearing his voice he sang these lines, the others repeating the
last lines in chorus--


 ‘Monsieur l’Abbé, ou allez-vous?
 Vous allez vous casser le cou,
  Vous allez sans chandelles,
    Eh bien!
 Pour voir les demoiselles!
  Vous m’entendez bien!
    _C’est bien!_
 _Pour voir les demoiselles!_’


‘Silence, rascal!’ cried Dubois, hurling some pieces at Benoit’s head,
who picked them up, put them in his pocket, and was quieted
directly--sooner, indeed, than the laugh against the gallant abbe
which he had raised.

‘Let M. de Sainte-Croix have his turn,’ said Chavagnac. ‘Do you know
him, fool?’

Benoit glanced expressively at Gaudin as he commenced--


 ‘Monsieur Gaudin de Sainte-Croix,
 Whence do you your treasures draw?
 Not from dice, nor cards alone,
 Nor philosophy’s rare stone,
     _Biribi!_
 Why affect such scenes as these,
 And neglect your _belle Marquise_?
     Where is she?
 Left lamenting, like Louise.
     _Sacristie!_’


Gaudin’s cheek flamed with anger. The company observed that he was
stung deeper than mere badinage could have done; and this time the
laugh was less general than the one which had been raised against the
abbe. He drew Marie’s arm closer within his own, and with a look of
vengeance at Benoit, left the circle; whilst the other proceeded to
launch a couplet against Chavagnac, filled with no very complimentary
allusions to his wild spirit of appropriation.




 CHAPTER XXIII.
 SAINTE-CROIX AND MARIE ENCOUNTER AN UNINVITED GUEST

They were each in ill-humour with one another. The apparent intimacy
of Marotte Dupré had aroused all Marie’s jealousy, so terrible in its
very calm; and Gaudin had been annoyed by Benoit’s allusions. They
passed along the room without speaking, nor was it until they gained
an apartment at the end of the suite that a word was spoken.

It was a small room they entered, with two deeply-stained windows, and
lighted by lamps placed on the outer side of the glass, producing
almost the same effect as though it had been day.

‘I think you must repent having brought me here,’ said the Marchioness
coldly. ‘It was badly contrived on your part not to forewarn your
other favourites, that they might have been more cautious.’

‘Your suspicions are so utterly without foundation,’ replied
Sainte-Croix, ‘that I shall not take the pains to refute them. At
present there are other matters of deeper import that demand my
attention. I expect, when you learn all, you will give yourself little
care about the continuance of our liaison. We may then know some
respite from the fevered restlessness and uncertainty of our
connection. We have experienced but little peace since we have been
acquainted.’

There was a bitterness of tone in his manner of pronouncing the last
sentences that attracted the attention of the Marchioness.

‘What are you alluding to?’ she asked.

‘In a word, Marie, I am ruined. The sum of money I brought here with
me to-night, in the hope of doubling it, is gone. I am deeply
involved: my creditors are pressing me on every side, and I know not
which way to turn to extricate myself.’

‘You judge me too harshly, Sainte-Croix,’ replied the Marchioness. ‘My
sweetest revenge would be to assist you when you were utterly
destitute. What must be done? The money left me by my father is in my
brothers’ keeping. Not a sol is spent but I must render them an
account.’

‘But one step is left to be taken,’ said Gaudin. ‘The time has
arrived; they must be removed.’

Marie remained for a time silent, as if waiting for Sainte-Croix more
fully to develop his meaning. At length she spoke--

‘I know not how we can proceed. I cannot tell whether it be my own
fancy or there is in reality ground for suspicion, but my brothers
appear to watch me in every action--every step. I see so little of
them too. They are seldom in the Rue Saint Paul.’

‘We must set other agencies to work,’ said Gaudin. ‘An apparent
stranger would never be suspected.’

‘It is dangerous,’ replied the Marchioness.

‘It is necessary,’ added Sainte-Croix. And after a moment’s pause he
continued: ‘The man Lachaussée, whom you have seen with me, is mine,
body and soul. I can in an instant cause to fall the sword which hangs
over his head. Your brothers’ occupation of Offemont will require an
increase of their establishment: can we not get Lachaussée into their
service? They will then be comparatively in our hands.’

‘Is he to be trusted?’

‘He is wily as an adder, and as fatal in his attack, to those who have
not charmed him. I will put this scheme in train to-morrow. He only
awaits my word to proceed.’

‘It must be done,’ replied the Marchioness.

And then she uttered a long deep sigh, the relief to her overcharged
heart being accompanied by a low moan of intense mental pain--not from
remorse, but utter despondency, in the reaction of her spirits, and
the apparent blackness of the prospect before her. The next moment, as
if ashamed of the demonstration of her feelings, she started up from
the couch on which they had been sitting, and prepared to return to
the principal room. As she advanced towards the door, she took a
brilliant jewelled chain from her neck, and placed it in Gaudin’s
hands.

‘Whilst we have an opportunity,’ she said, ‘let me give you this
carcanet. It is of some value, and by selling it at the Quai des
Orfevres you can provide for your present superficial expenses.’

Gaudin did not hesitate to take the costly ornament. He knew the
necessities of his position; besides, all finer feelings of delicacy
had long been merged in the gulf of his darker passions. He placed the
chain in the pocket of his cloak, and went towards the corridor. But
as they were about to pass out, a portion of a large book-case,
masking a door with imitations of the backs of volumes, was thrown
open, and Exili stood before them.

Marie uttered a slight cry of alarm, as she started at the sudden
apparition. Sainte-Croix seized the handle of his sword, and partly
drew it from its scabbard; but the moment he recognised the physician
he returned it.

‘Exili!’ he exclaimed.

‘You may well be surprised,’ replied the intruder. ‘I can excuse your
alarm, especially when you had such interesting schemes to settle.’

‘He has heard everything!’ said the Marchioness to Sainte-Croix.

She spoke in a low, hurried tone, scarcely above a whisper; but the
quick ears of Exili caught the import.

‘Ay, everything,’ he replied, with emphasis upon the last word; ‘both
here, and when you thought there were no others near you but the
silent inmates of the _salle des cadavres_ at the Hôtel Dieu.’

Marie instantly recollected the alarm which the noise of footsteps had
caused at the hospital, and the figure which she said had followed
them in the Rue des Mathurins.

‘Every day--every hour,’ continued Exili, as his eyes blazed upon them
like those of a famished animal in sight of food, ‘brings you closer
and closer to my toils.’

‘I presume I may be spared from this threatened revenge,’ said Marie,
‘whatever it be. There has been nothing in common between us. I know
you not.’

‘But I know _you_, Marchioness of Brinvilliers,’ returned Exili. ‘I
ought to. The mention of your name, one fine spring evening, on the
Carrefour du Châtelet, caused me to be hunted like a beast from my
habitation, and confined for many lingering months in the noisome
cells of the Bastille. You caused the punishment: you shall assist in
its reparation, or, failing therein, be ruined with your paramour.’

‘Miscreant!’ cried Sainte-Croix, as he seized an antique axe from a
stand of ancient arms that surmounted the mantelpiece; ‘silence!
unless you would have your miserable life ended at this instant.’

‘Strike, monsieur,’ replied Exili calmly. ‘Kill me here, if you
please; and to-morrow morning you will be summoned by the Procureur du
Roi to attend the exhumation of the body of M.

 [image: img_11.jpg
 caption: Sainte-Croix Surprised by Exili]

Dreux d’Aubray, and witness the result of certain chemical tests which
I have written down, and which will be delivered to the police by a
trusty acquaintance when he hears of my death.’

Sainte-Croix’s arm fell, with the weapon by his side. He gazed at
Exili, with his brows knit in corrugations of painful intensity.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, in a thick, quivering voice.

‘The trade of sorcerer is failing,’ continued Exili; ‘we are compelled
to burrow like animals underground, and dare not face the day. That of
poisoner is in a yet worse position, thanks to the lieutenant of
police, M. de la Reynie. I must have money to enable me to retire, and
die elsewhere than on the Grêve.’

‘I am ruined,’ replied Gaudin. ‘This evening’s play has robbed me of
the last sum I possessed.’

‘But you expect more,’ he replied, ‘when madame’s brothers are
removed. M. d’Aubray was rich, and, in fault of other children, she
will be sole heiress, beyond a trifling annuity to her sister, who has
for some years retired from the world. You know this, and have
calculated on it.’

They returned no reply. Exili took a small roll of parchment from his
vest--the portion of some old deed--and continued--

‘What is easier than for you to give me your promise that I shall
share this wealth with you? I have drawn up the conditions.’

He read them over to Gaudin slowly and distinctly; and, as he
concluded, laid them upon a marble table close at hand.

‘We have here neither pen nor ink,’ said Gaudin.

‘Pshaw! this evasion is contemptible,’ replied Exili, as he threw up
his loose black sleeve. ‘See here--the yellow shrivelled skin will
barely cover these blue veins. They are full of blood, and easily
opened.’

He took a lancet from his pouch and pierced one of the vessels; then,
as the blood sluggishly trickled forth, he twisted a slip of parchment
to a point spirally, and loading it with the red fluid, gave it to
Gaudin.

‘You might write fairer characters with a better pen,’ he said; ‘but
this will answer every purpose. I use it from necessity, not to make
the document more impressive; for blood is to me no more than ink.’

Sainte-Croix hastily signed the paper; and then Exili took it up, and,
having looked to see that all was fairly done, replaced it in his
vest.

‘You can continue your enjoyments,’ he said; ‘but do not seek to
follow me. Hereafter I will receive you. I make no mystery to you of
the way by which I came here. The passage below this door has a
communication with the Palais des Thermes, and I occupy the vault for
my laboratory. You will find me there, if you enter from the Rue de la
Harpe, and show the man at the gate this talisman. The place is, to
all appearance, a cooper’s workshop.’

He placed a small triangular piece of parchment, covered with
fantastic figures, which might have been an amulet for any dupe that
had consulted him, in Gaudin’s hand. He then entered a species of
closet, the back panel of which revolved on a pivot, allowing him to
pass out, after he had reclosed the masked door of the book-case.




 CHAPTER XXIV.
 LOUISE GAUTHIER FALLS INTO DANGEROUS HANDS

The same company filled the apartments as Gaudin and Marie returned.
But the mirth was wilder, and the laugh louder; the equivocal jest was
hazarded with greater freedom and the repartee was bolder. Several of
the company still preserved their masks; but many of the females had
discarded theirs, who hitherto had kept their faces closely veiled,
and now demonstrated the singular grades of female society, from the
highest to the very lowest, that had collected together. A branch-room
had been fitted up as a temporary stage, and on this a number of
dancers from Versailles were performing a ballet lately produced at
court, _La Naissance de Venus_, in such costumes as were especially
appropriate to the subject. It concluded as the Marchioness arrived in
the salon.

‘Lauzun seems inclined to make a reputation,’ said Sainte-Croix to
Dubois. ‘Fouquet himself would have felt his eyes blink at such
magnificence.’

‘I question whether he enjoys it, though,’ was the reply. ‘But it
suits his policy. What piece of diplomacy is he bringing to bear with
those two actresses?’

‘Let us assist him,’ said Gaudin, advancing towards a recess in which
the host was talking with great volubility to two of his fair guests,
one of whom was Marotte Dupré. The other Sainte-Croix directly
recognised as her rival, Estelle des Urlis.

‘I am suffocating with thirst,’ said the Marchioness, drawing Gaudin
in another direction. ‘Give me some wine.’

They turned towards the fountain, when her companion filled one of the
glass cups and gave it to her. Marie drank off the contents with
fevered eagerness, and then again took Sainte-Croix’s arm.

‘There,’ cried Lauzun, ‘I have brought together two most bitter
enemies, and I now engage that they shall be as warm friends. Come--we
will pledge this reconciliation generally. Dubois, Chavagnac,
Gaudin,--you must join us.’

‘Marotte, will you be our Hebe?’ asked Chavagnac.

‘She shall not be mine,’ exclaimed Estelle. ‘Though we are now friends
I would prefer filling for myself. I shall then be sure of what I
drink.’

‘Are _you_ afraid of the poisoners, Estelle?’ said Marotte. ‘I should
have thought you had been too well acquainted with them.’

‘A truce to this,’ said Lauzun, who perceived the tempers of the fair
ones were again rising. ‘The poisoners have all passed away.’

‘I know M. de la Reynie, the magistrate,’ said Marotte, ‘and he tells
a different story. He says he has a clue to some of them, and will
have them before long. Then there will be bonfires on the Grêve, and
I shall go and see them.’

She clapped her hands with delight at the anticipated spectacle.

‘You went with me to see the last, M. de Sainte-Croix,’ continued
Marotte; ‘you are too proud now.’

And she eyed the Marchioness as she spoke with no very kind
expression.

‘It was the Veuve Maupas who was burned,’ she went on. ‘She petitioned
to wear a mask at her execution, and they allowed her. Catherine
Deshayes--La Voisin, as they call her--is suspected; but at present
they can only prove that she showed M. de Beauvais the devil. She
wears a mask. _I_ would never wear one, for fear I should be taken for
an _empoisonneuse_.’

The Marchioness almost fainted at these words of Marotte, intended to
be nothing more than spiteful. She clutched closer hold to
Sainte-Croix’s arm to keep from falling.

‘Pshaw! let this pass,’ said Lauzun. ‘Ha! Desgrais! Will you join this
party?’

‘Hush!’ replied the person addressed; ‘not a syllable of my name,
Marquis, or you will defeat my plans.’

He was a handsome man, in the dress of an abbe, and was not above
thirty years old. His stature was above the middle height, and his
frame muscular and well-proportioned, whilst in his eyes there was a
peculiar expression of energy and sagacity. It was Desgrais, the most
active exempt of the Marechaussée, in one of the disguises he was
accustomed to assume with such success.

‘Have you been on any track to-night?’ asked Lauzun in a low voice.

‘No, monsieur,’ replied the exempt; ‘but I am upon one now. Who is
that with Sainte-Croix?’

‘I do not know. She has been closely masked all the evening. Is she
suspected of anything?’

‘No,’ replied Desgrais, with apparent unconcern, ‘no--nothing. I have
something to say to her companion, though.’

As he spoke, he went to the side of Sainte-Croix and whispered--

‘Can you spare me a minute or two, monsieur, in private? I have some
business concerning you which requires immediate adjustment.’

Sainte-Croix trembled for the instant as he recognised Desgrais; but
his presence of mind immediately returned, and he said gaily to
Lauzun--

‘Marquis, I may leave this lady in your charge for two minutes. Be
courteous to her as you are a gentleman and a friend of mine.’

Marie started back as Gaudin withdrew his arm, and vainly endeavoured
to make him seek some other cavalier; for she feared a recognition.
But, anxious to know what was the motive of the exempt’s appointment,
he took no notice of her, and handing her over to Lauzun, followed him
to the landing at the top of the grand staircase, where they were
alone.

‘You will excuse this interruption,’ said Desgrais. ‘I have been
looking after you all day; for I thought a meeting might save you much
unpleasantness. I believe you know M. François d’Aubray?’

‘What of him?’ asked Sainte-Croix quickly. ‘Is he not at Offemont?’

‘He was until this morning,’ replied Desgrais; ‘but has returned
somewhat unexpectedly, with some provincial neighbours.’

Gaudin started as he thought of Marie.

‘We must be candid with one another, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix,’
continued the exempt. ‘I need scarcely tell you that, in my position
with the police, there are few in Paris whose circumstances and
connections are not well known to me--amongst them I may count your
own debts and your affair with the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’

‘Well, monsieur?’

‘Well, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix. Her brother has tried in every way to
crush you, and has in every way failed, until he has now bought over
the greater part of the debts owing by you in Paris. The task was not
difficult; for your creditors--excuse me--had better faith in his
ready gold than in your promises. In his name, and collectively for
those accounts, I now arrest you.’

‘Monsieur!’ cried Gaudin, ‘it is impossible for me to go with you
to-night. The arrest I care nothing for, for it can soon be settled;
but there is a lady here whom I cannot leave. You must postpone this
affair until to-morrow, when you will find me at home.’

‘It is as much as my position is worth,’ replied Desgrais. ‘Everything
will give place to a lady but a court of justice. You must come with
me.’

He spoke with such a tone of calm firmness, that Gaudin perceived at
once he must comply.

‘You will let me speak to her?’ he asked.

‘I would not have you go back to the room; a scene would but be
painful to all of us. Write what you like and send it to her. We will
then go down to some of the money-lenders on the Quai des Orfevres. If
you can raise a sop for this Cerberus of a lieutenant-civil, believe
me I shall be too happy. It is far from my wish to put to
inconvenience so gallant a gentleman as Captain de Sainte-Croix.’

The well-intended politeness with which this speech was made, somewhat
reassured Gaudin. He was not without hope of raising sufficient money,
at all events, to quiet his persecutor for a time. He therefore wrote
a few hasty lines to Marie, and bidding a servant who passed give them
to the masked lady with the Marquis of Lauzun, told Desgrais he was
ready to accompany him and knock up some of the usurers in question.

‘I have a carriage waiting in the Rue de la Harpe,’ said Desgrais,
‘and we will proceed to the river immediately. Stop!--some one is
coming up these stairs. Let us take the other flight.’

In effect a tumult was audible in the court, which neither had a
desire to face. They therefore passed further along the gallery, and
gained the _porte-cochère_ by another and less distinguished
staircase.

Whilst this hurried interview had been going on without, the same wild
mirth and laughter resounded through the apartments. Lauzun had been
vainly endeavouring to discover the name of the lady entrusted by
Sainte-Croix to his protection; but Marie contrived to disguise her
voice in such a manner that he had not the slightest suspicion. And to
this end her mask somewhat contributed, which, made after the fashion
of the time, had a small plate of silver arranged so as to go into the
mouth and quite alter the tones of those speaking with it.

As Gaudin left, the valet brought the few lines he had hastily
scribbled to the Marchioness, and then spoke in a low tone to Lauzun.
She read with utter dismay the following hurried message:--


 ‘I am arrested by Desgrais. Your brother has returned from Offemont.
 Leave as speedily as you can, and get home unobserved. I may be
 detained all night.

                                                 ‘Gaudin.’


She was on the point of withdrawing from Lauzun when he cried out--

‘Fair ladies and gallant gentlemen, my fellows have captured a queen
for our _Fête de Fortune_, and she shall adjudge the prizes.
Barnard!--Laurent!--bring in your prize.’

As he spoke, the curtains at the door were parted, and two of Lauzun’s
valets half-dragged half-carried a young female into the room, who
appeared to be making violent resistance. Her eyes were bandaged, not
with a common handkerchief, but a sparkling fillet, evidently intended
for the purpose, and to be worn in the part she was about to play
against her will in one of the diversions of the evening. The company
directly thronged round her, entirely stopping up the doorway, so that
the egress of the Marchioness was rendered impossible, at least for
the present.

The task about to be imposed upon the stranger was that of
distributing various toys, trinkets, and bonbons, of comparatively
small value, to the guests as they were led up to her, her eyes being
blindfolded; and the game derived its excitement from the incongruity
or appropriateness of the objects offered. A stranger was always
selected for this office; and it was the custom, at orgies of this
kind, to scour the streets in the vicinity and lay hands upon the
first young and personable female that could be met with, the victim
being generally of the class of grisettes. Enough could be seen of the
features of the new-comer to prove that she was very handsome; but she
was very thinly clad, her extreme undress being covered by a large
cloak, which, as well as she was able, she kept tightly round her.

‘How did you catch this pretty bird?’ asked Lauzun of one of the
valets.

‘Monsieur,’ replied the fellow, ‘we had scoured all the streets in the
_quartier_ without meeting one eligible grisette--for it is now late,
when Laurent saw a light in a window of the Rue des Cordeliers. I
climbed up----’

‘No--it was I that first climbed, monsieur,’ interrupted his fellow.

‘Silence! you knaves,’ cried Lauzun, ‘or we will prevent each of you
from speaking, by splitting your tongues now and here. Go on,
Laurent.’

‘I climbed up, and saw through the casement our captive retiring to
bed--at least she was partly undressed; and I said to Barnard, “This
is our prey.”’

‘And you nearly lost her, because you would keep looking,’ said his
fellow.

‘Will you be quiet, sir?’ asked Lauzun with a threatening look. ‘Well,
what did you do next?’

‘We set fire to the outer wood-work of the house, and then raised the
cry _Au feu!_ In half a minute our beauty rushed into the street, as
you now see her. We heard the Garde Bourgeois approaching; we hurried
her off to the _chaise à porteurs_ we had at the corner--brought her
to the _porte-derobée_--and here we are.’[17]

‘You may remove the bandage just at present,’ said Lauzun. ‘We should
like to see what sort of eyes it veils.’

The valets took the fillet away from her face, and in a second the
Marchioness recognised the features of Louise Gauthier, whom she had
not seen since the evening of the stormy interview in the Grotto of
Thetis during the fetes at Versailles. She did not, of course, make
herself known; but at that instant, in the midst of all her anxiety to
reach the Hôtel d’Aubray without the knowledge of her brother, a
second thought for the time detained her. An opportunity appeared
likely to occur of accomplishing the determination she had formed--of
getting Louise Gauthier in her power and destroying her. She drew
herself away from Lauzun’s side, and, retreating to one of the
couches, awaited the proper time to carry her project into execution.

‘I beseech you, gentlemen, let me depart,’ exclaimed Louise, as the
scene around presented itself to her bewildered eyes. ‘There is some
mistake in this cruelty; you cannot want me here.’

‘Indeed, but we could not select a better goddess throughout Paris,’
said Lauzun. ‘It is not usual for the grisettes of our _quartier_ to
wish to leave the Hôtel de Cluny when they once find themselves
within its walls. Let me salute you as a stranger.’

Lauzun, with an assumption of idle gallantry, rather than the wish to
insult the poor girl, advanced towards her, and was about to proffer
his welcome, when he was somewhat rudely interrupted by the approach
of Benoit, who had been amusing the guests at another part of the room
with specimens of his new vocation.

‘_Tiens!_’ he exclaimed with surprise; ‘why, it is our little Louise,
whom we have not seen for so long!’

The girl heard Benoit’s voice, and sprang towards him for protection.

‘Get back, fellow!’ said Lauzun, not relishing the interruption.

‘Excuse me, Marquis,’ replied the other; ‘but I consider myself
responsible for our Louise’s welfare. It has been my lot to assist her
before to-night.’

‘Put this man on one side,’ said Lauzun to his valets.

‘Keep off!’ said Benoit as they approached, ‘or I will send you on a
flight without wings through the window.’

‘Turn him out of the house,’ said Lauzun; ‘or rather put him in the
cellar: he won’t alarm any one there. Away with him, I say!’

The foremost of the servants advanced; but Benoit met him with a blow
from his own sturdy arm, which sent him reeling against the wall of
the apartment. The other servants immediately threw themselves upon
him, and the honest Languedocian, whose good angel always appeared to
desert him when his services were most required, was in an instant
borne away, kicking and struggling, to one of the underground chambers
of the _hôtel_.

Meantime the company disposed themselves for the games. Lauzun went up
to Louise, and assuring her that no evil was intended if she complied
with their regulations, fastened the bandage once more across her
eyes; whilst Marotte Dupré, who had some recollection of having seen
her with Madame Scarron at Versailles, took off a rich cloak of green
satin, with large full sleeves, which she had been wearing, and made
the poor stranger don it, in lieu of the mantle which at present
scarcely enveloped her dishabille, at the same time telling her that
no evil was really intended to herself. The greater part of the
company then formed into a large circle, holding hands, and moving
round to measure, the band being apparently well aware of what was
going on, although, as we have stated, concealed from the sight.
Louise was placed on an elevated seat; a large basket, containing the
awards, was placed at her side, and the game commenced.

A variety of intricate figures were first danced, in which the
partners were frequently changed, somewhat in the style of our
cotillons at the present day. In this the actresses showed themselves
most apt, and they were now joined by the girls who had figured in the
ballet. To avoid being particularised, Marie stood up with the rest,
and the exceeding grace with which she threaded the mazes of the
figure, attracted general attention. Lauzun saw that she evidently
belonged to a phase of society superior to the majority; but he was
unable to gain the slightest clue to her real name.

At last, at a given signal, they all stopped with the partners they
happened to have at that instant, and then advanced in pairs before
Louise, who tremblingly distributed the different articles to them;
and the gentleman and lady were expected in turn to make some speech
appropriate to the gifts presented. In this the principal address was
shown; for whilst some could but mumble out a few clumsy phrases or
compliments, others convulsed the assembly with laughter at a smart
repartee or jest. Truth to tell, the greater portion of them were all
tolerably well up to their business; for habitude had rendered them
tolerably _au fait_ at uttering a jest on the spur of the moment; and,
as a pretty wide license was allowed, when a laugh could not be raised
by wit it was done by _entendre_.

Lauzun had a small trinket-key given to him, and Estelle recommended
him to keep it against he got into the Bastille, which would be sure
to occur, in the common course of things, before three weeks. Marotte
Dupré had a heart of sweetmeat, and her partner an imitation-piece of
money of the same material, about which appropriate distributions
Dubois made great mirth, having a ready tact for impromptus. When the
signal for the cessation of the dance was made (which the leader of it
generally took care to do when he found himself with an agreeable
partner), Chavagnac was next to the Marchioness of Brinvilliers. He
led her forward, and the rest of the company looked on with more than
usual interest to see what the incognita would gain. By an error of
Louise, who was throughout the ceremony so flurried that she scarcely
knew what she was doing, she presented the first gift to Chavagnac--a
small flacon of scent, than which nothing could be more absurd, rough
soldier, almost marauder, as he was. But to Marie, and to her alone,
her own present had a terrible meaning. It was a small headsman’s axe,
in sugar and silver foil!

She sickened as she gazed at the terrible omen,--so perfectly
unimportant to the rest of the company,--and turned away from the
circle, heedless of some unmeaning words that Chavagnac addressed to
her. In a few minutes the ring broke up, and then she approached
Louise Gauthier and said hurriedly through her mask--

‘You cannot tell to what lengths of debauchery this reckless party may
proceed. If you value your happiness, follow me directly, without a
word or sign to anybody.’

Louise fancied she recognised the voice; but the circumstance of one
like the Marchioness being in such a company appeared utterly
improbable. She was also too anxious to escape from the _hôtel_; and
as Marie seized her arm, she implicitly followed her to the door.

‘Stop, _mes belles_!’ cried Lauzun; ‘we cannot part yet: you may not
be spared so early.’

‘I am faint with the heat,’ replied the Marchioness, ‘and only wish to
go into the cool air for a minute; it will revive me.’

They passed out upon the top of the staircase, and then as soon as the
curtain had fallen back over the doorway, Marie told Louise to keep
close to her, as she descended rapidly into the court-yard. They
passed out at the _porte-cochère_ unnoticed; and, finding a carriage
at the corner of the Rue St. Jacques, the Marchioness made Louise
enter, and, following herself, gave the word to the coachman to drive
to her house in the Rue St. Paul.




 CHAPTER XXV.
 MARIE HAS LOUISE IN HER POWER--THE LAST CAROUSAL

Not a word was exchanged between Marie and Louise Gauthier during
their journey from the Hôtel de Cluny to the Rue St. Paul. Once only
was the silence broken, when the Marchioness desired the driver, with
some impatience, to urge his horses onward with something more of
speed than the leisure progression which then, as now, was the chief
attribute of the _voitures de remise_ of the good city of Paris.
During this period she never removed the mask from her face, and
Louise was not particularly anxious to know the station of her new
acquaintance. It was sufficient cause for congratulating herself to
find that she was away from the trysting-place of Lauzun’s debauched
companions, and once more breathing the pure air of the streets,
instead of the tainted atmosphere of the _hôtel_.

The Pont de la Tournelle was at that period the highest up the river,
with respect to the stream, for crossing to the other side; now, the
bridges of Austerlitz, Constantine, and Bercy span the Seine beyond
this, which still exists. The carriage lumbered across the Ile St.
Louis, and, traversing the other arm of the river by the Pont Marie,
passed along the quay, until it stopped at the Hôtel d’Aubray in the
Rue St. Paul.

As they stopped at the _porte-cochère_, the Marchioness looked out,
and perceived to her dismay that it was open, and that the windows
which opened into the court were lighted up, whilst forms could be
seen passing and repassing, showing that there was a large company
assembled within.

The vehicle had scarcely arrived at the foot of the staircase when
Marie’s own maid, Françoise Roussel, appeared at the entrance. The
light of the carriage-lamp fell upon her face, which was ghastly pale,
and, to all appearance, distorted with pain. She was breathing in
agony, and could not speak for some seconds after she had opened the
door.

‘Heaven be praised that you are returned, madame!’ at length she said.
‘Your brothers have come back from Offemont this evening, with a party
of gentlemen living near the chateau. Monsieur François inquired
after you; but I told him you had retired.’

‘Something ails you, Françoise,’ observed the Marchioness. ‘Are you
ill?’

‘I have been in agony, madame, the whole afternoon, as if I had
swallowed some pins that were red-hot.’

‘You have taken something that has done you harm,’ continued Marie, as
she descended from the carriage. ‘What have you eaten to-day?’

‘Nothing, madame,’ replied her domestic, ‘but the confiture you gave
me for breakfast; and that could not have hurt me.’

‘Oh no,’ answered Marie, as if she thought the subject too
insignificant for further notice. But, after a moment or two, she
added, ‘Besides, I partook of that myself, you know.’

As she spoke, she turned a gaze of the most intense scrutiny upon
Françoise’s face; but no trace of any emotion would have been visible
upon her own features had she been unmasked. Then bidding Louise, who
was reassured by the apparent respectability of the house, to follow
her, they went upstairs, preceded by the panting girl, who could
scarcely hold the light lamp she carried before them.

As she reached her chamber--the one in which her interview with
Sainte-Croix took place, after the scene at Theria’s apartments, that
in its sequel led to so much of crime and misery--she took a small
cabinet down from the top of a bureau, and opening it, discovered a
row of little bottles. From one of these she let fall a few drops of
some colourless fluid into a glass of water, and told Françoise to
drink it, when she would, without doubt, experience immediate relief.
The girl took the draught and swallowed it--in the course of a minute
or two declaring herself to be comparatively free from pain, as she
poured forth expressions of gratitude to her mistress for this prompt
remedy. She was then told that she might retire to bed, without any
fear of a recurrence of her malady; and she accordingly withdrew.

No sooner had the door closed upon her than Marie took the mask from
her face, and advancing towards Louise, who was standing close to the
mantelpiece, where she had kept during the short conversation between
Françoise and her mistress, seized her arm, and, looking full at her,
exclaimed--

‘Do you recollect me? We met before at Versailles.’

‘You are the Marchioness of Brinvilliers,’ replied the Languedocian,
after a momentary start of surprise, in a tone the calmness of which
astonished Marie. And she endeavoured to withdraw her arm.

‘Stop,’ replied the Marchioness; ‘we do not part yet.’ And she dragged
her companion after her towards the door, turning the heavy lock and
withdrawing the key. ‘There!’ she continued, ‘see how useless it is
for you to attempt to leave me--how completely you are in my power.
Now, listen to me, and attend as you would to the exhortations of a
priest upon your dying bed.’

She threw the arm of Louise from her grasp, and regarded her for a few
seconds with a look of the deadliest hate. The beauty of her features
had disappeared in the contortions produced by the passions that were
working within her; the terrible impassibility of her countenance gave
way, and she gazed at Louise with an expression that was almost
fiendish.

‘I have you, then, at last,’ she continued, in a low, deep voice,
which, in spite of all her efforts, betrayed her emotion by its
quivering. ‘The only amulet that could charm away Sainte-Croix’s
affections is in my grasp. I can destroy it--with as little care as I
would the paltry charm of a mountebank; and when it is once disposed
of I can reign--alone--and queen of all his love. Do you understand
me?’

‘How have I interfered with you?’ returned the Languedocian. ‘I never
knew you until we met at Versailles, when I first learned by whom
Gaudin’s love--or rather the feeling which I took for love--had been
estranged from me. I did not wish to cross your path again. Heaven
knows it was not my own doing that I met you this evening.’

She spoke these words in a tone that the Marchioness had hardly looked
for. But Louise, gentle and retiring as was her nature, felt in whose
presence she now stood, and her spirit rose with the circumstances,
until her eye kindled and her cheek flushed with the emotion of the
interview. She was no longer the pale and trembling girl; she felt
that Marie had crushed her, by weaning away Gaudin’s affections, and
she replied accordingly.

Marie was astonished at the manner in which she spoke. She went on--

‘You appear to forget in whose presence you now are, or you would not
so address me.’

‘It is from feeling too keenly whom I thus address that I do so,’
replied Louise. ‘What would you have me say?’

‘I would have you recollect the wide difference that exists between
our positions,’ answered Marie. ‘I am the Marchioness of
Brinvilliers.’

‘We ought to know no difference of rank,’ returned Louise; ‘a hapless
attachment has placed us all on the same level. Whatever Gaudin’s
station is, or may have been, his love raised me to his own
position--one which the Marchioness of Brinvilliers did not think
beneath her. I thought she would have been above so petty a cause for
quarrel.’

‘And from these set speeches,’ rejoined Marie, ‘which, doubtless, have
been conned over until you got them by heart, to make an effect when
they might be called for, you have lowered yourself. Sainte-Croix has
long since forgotten you. Have you no spirit, thus to pursue a bygone
lover who has discarded you?’

‘Alas, madame! I have loved,’ said Louise, with a tone so tearful, so
hopeless, but so firm, that the Marchioness paused, baffled in her
plan of attack, but not knowing what new ground to take up. Louise
continued, after a short silence--‘And if love with a great lady be
what it is to me, a poor country girl, you would not ask me why,
despite Gaudin’s neglect, I still hang upon the memory, not of him,
but of the love he first taught me to feel.’

As she spoke she sunk her face in her hands, and her tears flowed fast
and freely.

The Marchioness paced impatiently up and down the room. At length,
stopping before the seat on which Louise had fallen, she said
abruptly--

‘Will you root out this passion?’

‘I cannot,’ replied the Languedocian through her tears.

‘Then life and it must end together,’ said the Marchioness half
interrogatively.

‘It may be so,’ said Louise. But immediately, as if suddenly awakened
to a new import in the words, shaking her long hair from her face, she
exclaimed--

‘You would not kill me!’

A strange slow smile crept over Marie’s face, which had by this time
recovered its usual stony impassiveness, as she said--

‘We are rivals!’

But as Louise’s eyes were fixed on her with a look of wonderment, at
that moment a sudden burst of laughter from the room on the opposite
side of the landing, in which François and Henri d’Aubray, with their
companions, were carousing, arrested the attention of the Marchioness.
She walked to the door, unclosed it, and listened. A voice was heard
proposing the toast, ‘Success to your debut as a creditor, and a long
incarceration to Sainte-Croix!’ Then followed the clink of glasses,
and the _vivas_ of the guests as they honoured the pledge.

The Marchioness turned pale, and clenched the handle of the door she
held until the blood forsook her fingers; she appeared to forget the
presence of Louise, and reclosing the door, when the noise had
subsided, she walked to the bureau, and opening the box which we have
before described, began, half-mechanically, to arrange the small
phials with which it was filled. All was now silence in the chamber,
broken only by the measured ticking of the pendule on the
chimney-piece. It might have lasted some five minutes, when Françoise
Roussel entering the room cautiously by the _porte-derobée_,
whispered to her mistress, who flushed at the tidings and hastily
closed the box. Then, opening the door which led to a small room
contiguous to the apartment, she said to Louise--

‘In here: not a word--not a motion as you value life.’ Louise obeyed
mechanically, and as the door closed upon her, Gaudin de Sainte-Croix
entered.

Marie threw herself into his arms; all her jealousy for the moment
vanished on finding herself once more at his side.

‘You are free then?’ she asked, after this passionate greeting.

‘For the time, Marie,’ replied Gaudin. ‘I have appeased Desgrais with
part of the money I raised on your carcanet. I did not find the exempt
so relentless as my new creditor, your brother François.’

‘François!’ exclaimed the Marchioness. ‘He is here--in the next
room!’

‘I knew it,’ said Sainte-Croix, ‘or I should not have employed four
thousand francs to grease the palm of the exempt. I came to speak with
him--to tell him to his teeth that he had disgraced the name of
gentleman by that attempt to crush me.’

As he spoke he stepped towards the door communicating with the
landing-place, as if to carry his threat into execution. Marie laid
her hand upon his arm.

‘Do not go in, Gaudin,’ she said; ‘there will be bloodshed. He is
surrounded by his friends and neighbours. You will be murdered!’

‘I care not,’ exclaimed Sainte-Croix, ‘I shall not fall alone,’ and he
pressed on towards the door.

‘There is another way,’ said Marie, as she pointed to the casket which
still stood on her table. ‘This.’

Sainte-Croix gazed at her with a gloomy and meaning smile. ‘This
time,’ he said, ‘the suggestion is yours. Be it so: there will be no
blood spilled, at all events; and we may rid ourselves of one who,
whilst he lives, must ever be a serpent in our path. Is Henri with
him?’

‘He is,’ answered Marie.

‘There is enough for two,’ muttered Sainte-Croix, who had taken a
phial from its compartment, and was holding it up to the light of the
candle.

‘Must Henri die too?’ said the Marchioness. ‘He is so young--so
gay--has been so kind to me. We were almost playmates.’

And a trace of emotion passed over her brow.

‘Both or neither,’ replied Sainte-Croix; ‘decide at once. I shall
await your determination.’

And he seated himself at the table, coolly humming the burden of a
_chanson à boire_.

There was a fearful struggle in Marie’s mind. But the fiend triumphed,
and no agitation was perceptible in her voice when, after a moment’s
reflection, she replied, ‘Both.’

‘Now for an agent in the work. You cannot trust any of your own
domestics. I foresaw something like this, and have brought my
instrument,’ said Gaudin. He rose, and drawing aside the curtain
beckoned from the window. The signal was answered by a cough from
below, and followed by the appearance of Lachaussée, who had
evidently expected the summons. He clumsily greeted the Marchioness,
and dropping his hat awaited Gaudin’s orders.

‘Let Françoise find a livery of your brothers’ people, and give it to
this honest fellow, Marie,’ said Sainte-Croix.

Marie went to give the order, and Gaudin developed his plan briefly,
but clearly, to Lachaussée. It was, to mix with the attendants at the
carouse, furnished with the phial, which Sainte-Croix took from the
box and gave him; then, watching his opportunity, he was to mix a few
drops of its contents with the wine of the brothers. Assuming the
dress which Françoise soon brought, Lachaussée left the apartment,
leaving Sainte-Croix and the Marchioness to await the result.

The room in which François and Henri d’Aubray with their country
friends were assembled was large and handsome. Lights sparkled upon
the table, and played brilliantly among the flasks, cups, and salvers
which covered it, in all the rich profusion of one of those luxurious
suppers, which, although not carried to perfection until the
subsequent reign, were already admirably organised, and most popular
among the gay youth of the Parisian noblesse.

François d’Aubray was seated at the head of a long table; his stern
and somewhat sullen features contrasting strongly with the boyish and
regular face of his younger brother Henri, who sat on his right. The
company consisted almost entirely of provincial aristocracy--those
whose estates joined that of D’Aubray at Offemont, in Compiègne.
There was more of splendour than taste in their costumes; the wit was
coarser, too, and the laughter louder than Parisian good-breeding
would have sanctioned.

‘And so you have run down your game at last,’ said the Marquis of
Villeaume, one of the guests, to François.

‘Yes--thanks to Desgrais,’ was the reply. ‘Sainte-Croix is at this
moment in the hands of the lieutenant-civil, and, if I know aught of
his affairs, he will not soon reappear to trouble the peace of our
family.’

‘_Mon dieu!_ François, you are too severe,’ gaily interrupted Henri.
‘Gaudin de Sainte-Croix is a _bon garçon_, after all; and I am half
inclined to quarrel with you for tracking him down as if he were a
paltry bourgeois.’

‘Henri,’ said François, turning sharply towards him; ‘no more of
this. Our sisters honour must not be lightly dealt with. Sainte-Croix
is a villain, and deserves a villain’s doom.’

‘A truce to family grievances!’ roared a red-faced Baron, heavily
booted and spurred; one of those Nimrods who were quite as ridiculous,
and much more numerous in the France of Louis Quatorze, than their
imitators of the ‘Jockey Club’ of the present day. ‘Debtor-hunting is
a bourgeois sport compared to stag-hunting, after all; the only
amusement for young gentlemen.’

‘Where is Antoine Brinvilliers?’ asked another guest of François. ‘He
ought to be very grateful to you, for your care of Madame la
Marquise’s reputation.’

‘Once for all, messieurs,’ said François, who turned crimson at the
implied taunt: ‘no more words of our sister, or our family concerns,
or harm may come of it.’

‘A toast!’ cried Henri, rising. ‘_Aux Amours!_’

‘In Burgundy!’ roared a chorus of voices. ‘And _les hanapes_.’

The large cups so called--heirlooms in the family of D’Aubray, were
brought forward by the attendants. Lachaussée had entered the room
whilst the conversation we have narrated was in progress; and, taking
his place at the buffet, had silently and sedulously officiated
amongst the other attendants, without exciting notice. Almost every
guest had his servants there, and such was the confusion of liveries
that the presence of a strange valet, wearing the Brinvilliers’
colours, was not likely to call forth remark. He it was who, taking a
bottle of Burgundy, now stationed himself behind the chair of
François, who, mechanically lifting his cup, did not observe that the
hand which filled it held a phial, and that some drops of the contents
mingled with the wine.

The number of _hanapes_ was four, and they were passed from hand to
hand. François, after drinking, handed his to Henri, who honoured his
own toast like a hardy drinker. As he passed it to De Villeaume,
Lachaussée, pretending to reach over him for something, contrived to
knock the goblet from his hand and spill its contents. A storm of
abuse for his awkwardness was the result, under which he managed to
leave the room with as little notice as he had caused by entering it.

Chafed by the wine they had drunk, the mirth of the party waxed wilder
and louder. Songs were sung; games at tennis and ombre arranged; bets
settled; _parties de chasses_ organised. The revelry was at its
highest pitch, when a series of loud and sudden shrieks was heard from
the staircase. It was a woman’s voice that uttered them, and a rush
was directly made by the guests in the direction of the sound.

They found Louise Gauthier struggling in the hands of some of the
valets on the landing-place. The room into which she had been hurried
by the Marchioness had another exit, which was unlocked. This she had
soon discovered on regaining her presence of mind, and in attempting
to leave the _hôtel_ by it, she had been seen and rudely seized by
the servants, who were amused by her terror. To D’Aubray’s guests,
flushed as they were with wine, the sight of a woman was a new
incentive, and poor Louise would have fared worse at the hands of the
masters than of the servants had it not been for the interposition of
François d’Aubray, who, pressing through the crowd that surrounded
the frightened and fainting girl, bade all stand back in a tone that
enforced obedience.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, ‘and what business brings you here?’

‘I am a poor girl; brought here for what reason I know not, by Madame
la Marquise, not an hour since,’ replied Louise, reassured by the
calmness of his manner, which contrasted strangely with the wildness
and recklessness of all around.

‘_Mort de ma vie!_ by Madame la Marquise!’ cried Henri. ‘She is here,
then?’

‘We entered together,’ said Louise.

‘Ha!’ exclaimed François, with a savage ferocity, that made him
fearful to look upon, ‘she is playing fast and loose with us. On your
life, girl, is this the truth?’

‘It is the truth,’ replied Louise.

‘And where is the Marchioness?’ he asked thickly, and in a voice
almost inarticulate from passion.

‘In her apartment, when I left her,’ said the Languedocian.

‘Alone?’ asked François.

‘Some one entered the room as I quitted it,’ was the answer.

Francois d’Aubray hardly awaited her reply. Springing like a tiger
across the landing-place to the door of Marie’s boudoir he cried--

‘Stand by me, gentlemen, for the honour of Compiègne! De Villeaume!
down into the court-yard, and see that no one leaves the _hôtel_ by
that way. You, messieurs, guard the issues here. Henri! come you with
me.’

And he attempted to pass into his sister’s apartment.

‘Open!’ he roared, rather than shouted,--‘open! harlot!
adultress!--open!’

There was no reply. He shook the door, but it was locked within, and
resisted his frantic efforts to break it open.

‘By the ante-chamber!’ said Henri, pointing to the open door by which
Louise had arrived. François comprehended the direction, although
rage had almost mastered his senses. Rapidly the brothers entered,
and, passing through the apartment of Louise’s captivity, found the
entrance communicating with Marie’s boudoir unfastened. Flinging it
open, they rushed into the room.

Marie de Brinvilliers was standing by the fireplace; pale, but calm.
By the secret door, which he held open, listening to the steps and
voices in the court, stood Sainte-Croix, his sword drawn, his teeth
set--a desperate man at bay.

François d’Aubray strode across the room, and with his open hand
struck his sister on the face, hissing through his clenched teeth,
‘Fiend!’

Marie uttered no cry, made no motion, though Gaudin, with a terrible
oath, sprang forward, and would have run François through the body
had not a sign from the Marchioness restrained him.

‘You--you--Sainte-Croix!’ cried Henri, crossing swords immediately
with the other, as his brother, stopping short in his progress towards
him, reeled, and stumbled against the chimney-piece.

‘Look to your brother,’ said Sainte-Croix, as he put by the furious
thrusts of Henri--‘and to yourself,’ he muttered, as with a sudden
expert wrench he disarmed him.

Marie crossed to Sainte-Croix. ‘It works!’ she whispered.

‘Henri!’ gasped François, as the froth gathered round his leaden
lips, and the cold sweat rose in thick beads upon his forehead, ‘what
is this?--Give me some water.’

He made a spring at a glass vase that stood on a bracket near him
filled with water; but, as if blinded at the instant, missed his mark,
and fell heavily on the floor. His brother raised his arm, and on
letting it go sank passively by his side.

‘He is dead!’ exclaimed Henri, as a pallor, far beyond that which
horror would have produced, overspread his own features.

‘It is apoplexy!’ said one of the bystanders. ‘In his passion he has
ruptured a vessel of the brain.’

The guests crowded round the body. Sainte-Croix and Marie looked at
one another as they awaited the pangs of the other victim.




 CHAPTER XXVI.
 SAINTE-CROIX DISCOVERS THE GREAT SECRET SOONER THAN HE EXPECTED

A few weeks passed, and the terrible events of the last chapter were
almost forgotten by the volatile people of Paris, and even by the
provincials who had been present at the double tragedy--for Henri
d’Aubray had followed his brother, although, from his robust health
and strong constitution, he had battled more vigorously against the
effects of the poison, his sufferings being prolonged in consequence.
It is unnecessary to follow the horrid details of the effect of the
Aqua Tofana, or to describe the last agonies, when ‘il se plaignait
d’avoir un foyer brûlant dans la poitrine, et la flamme intérieure
qui le devorait semblait sortir par les yeux, seule partie de son
corps qui demeurât vivante encore, quand le reste n’était déjà
plus qu’un cadavre.’ It will suffice to say that no suspicion, as yet,
rested upon the murderers. The bodies were examined, in the presence
of the first surgeons of Paris, as well as the usual medical
attendants of the D’Aubray family; and although everywhere in the
system traces of violent organic lesion were apparent, yet none could
say whether these things had been produced by other than mere
accidental morbid causes. Tests would, as in the present day, have
soon detected the presence of the poisons--the more readily as they
were mostly mineral that were used--but the secret of these reagents
remained almost in the sole possession of those who made them; and the
subtlety of some of their toxicological preparations proves that the
disciples of Spara were chemists of no mean order.[18] People
wondered for a little while at the coincidence of the several deaths
occurring in one family, and in a manner so similar, and then thought
no more of the matter. The cemetery received the bodies of the
victims; and the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, now her own mistress,
and the sole possessor of a magnificent income, shared it openly with
Sainte-Croix; and the _hôtel_ in the Rue St. Paul vied with the most
celebrated of Paris in the gorgeous luxury of its festivities. But the
day of reckoning and heavy retribution was fast approaching.

We have before alluded to the Palais des Thermes--the remains of which
ancient edifice may still be seen from the footway of the Rue de la
Harpe, between the Rue du Foin and the Rue des Mathurins--as being the
most important ruins marking the occupation of Paris by the Romans.
The researches of various individuals from time to time have shown
that this palace was once of enormous size, extending as far as the
small stream of the Seine which flows beneath the Hôtel Dieu; and,
indeed, in the cellars of many of the houses, between the present site
of the large _salle_ and the river, pillars and vaulted ways,
precisely similar to those in the Rue de la Harpe, have been
frequently discovered; added to which, before the demolition of the
Petit-Châtelet, a small fortress at the bottom of the Rue St.
Jacques, the remains of some ancient walls were visible running
towards the Palais from the banks of the Seine.

There were _souterrains_ stretching out in many other directions; the
whole of the buildings adjoining were undermined by them, the entrance
to the largest having been discovered, by accident, in the court-yard
of the Convent des Mathurins, within a few months of the date of our
romance. And these must not be confounded with the rough catacombs to
which we have been already introduced, hewn in the gypsum as chance
directed, but were regularly arched ways from ten to sixteen feet
below the surface of the ground, communicating with one another by
doors and supported by walls four feet thick.

The ruins of the Palais des Thermes and the adjoining vaults, although
not open to the street as they are at present, had long been the
resort of that class of wanderers about Paris now classified as
_Bohemiens_, until an edict drove them to the catacombs of the Biévre
and the Cours des Miracles to establish their colonies. The shelter of
the Palais, ‘favorisent les fréquentes défaites d’une pudeur
chancelante,’ was ordered to be abolished, and the entire place was,
in a measure, enclosed and let, at some humble rate, as a storehouse
or cellar for the tradesmen in the Rue de la Harpe.

The winter’s evening was closing in, cold and dismal, as Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix was traversing the streets between the Place Maubert and
the Rue de la Harpe, a short time after the events we have described.
The front of the Palais des Thermes was at this period concealed from
the street by an old dwelling-house, but the _porte-cochére_ was
always open, and he passed across the court, unchallenged, to the
entrance of the large hall that still exists. Here he rang a rusty
bell, which had the effect of bringing a man to the wicket, who wore
the dress of a mechanic. He appeared to know Sainte-Croix, as he
admitted him directly, without anything more than a humble
recognition; and then giving him a small end of lighted candle in a
split lath, similar to those used in cellars, he left him to go on at
his own will.

Gaudin crossed the large _salle_, the sides of which were covered by
wine-casks piled one on the other, and entered a small archway at the
extremity, which was at the top of a dozen steps. Descending, he went
along a vaulted passage, and at last reached a species of cellar,
which was fitted up as a laboratory. By the light of the fire alone,
which was burning in the furnace, he discovered Exili.

‘You have brought my money,’ said the physician, half interrogatively,
as he turned his ghastly features towards Sainte-Croix. ‘Five thousand
crowns is light payment for the services I have rendered you. It
should have been here before.’

‘I regret that I have not yet got it,’ answered Gaudin. ‘The greater
part of the possessions which have fallen to Madame de Brinvilliers
cannot yet be made available. I went this morning to the Jew who
before aided me, on the Quai des Orfèvres, to get some money, but he
was from home.’

It is true that Sainte-Croix had been in that direction during the
day, but it was with a far different object. To elude the payment of
Exili’s bond he had determined upon destroying him, running the risk
of whatever might happen subsequently through the physician’s
knowledge of the murders. And he had therefore ordered a body of the
Garde Royal to attend at the Palais des Thermes that evening, when
they would receive sufficient proof of the trade Exili was driving in
his capacity of alchemist.

‘It must be paid, however,’ said Exili, ‘and by daybreak to-morrow
morning. Look you, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix, I am not to be put off
like your grovelling creditors have been, with your dull, ordinary
debts. To-morrow I start for England, and I will have the money with
me.’

‘I tell you I cannot procure it by that time,’ said Gaudin. ‘A day can
be of no consequence to you.’

‘No more than it may be a matter of life or death--a simple affair, I
grant you, with either of us, but still worth caring for. Ha! what is
this?’

He had purposely brushed his hand against Sainte-Croix’s cloak, and in
the pocket of it he felt some weighty substance. The chink assured him
it was gold.

‘You cannot have that,’ said Gaudin confusedly; ‘it is going with me
to the gaming-table this evening. Chavagnac has promised me my revenge
at De Lauzun’s.’

‘You have rich jewels, too, about you,’ continued Exili, peering at
him with a fearful expression. ‘The carcanet, I see, has been
redeemed, and becomes you well. That diamond clasp is a fortune in
itself.’

The gaze of the physician grew every moment more peculiar, as he gazed
at Gaudin’s rich attire.

‘Beware!’ cried Sainte-Croix; ‘if you touch one, I will hew you down
as I would a dog. Not one of them is mine. They belong to the
Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’

‘Nay,’ replied Exili, changing his tone, ‘I did but admire them. Come,
then, a truce to this. Will you promise me the sum named in the bond
to-morrow?’

‘To-morrow you shall have it,’ said Sainte-Croix.

‘I am satisfied,’ said the physician. ‘I was annoyed at the moment,
but it has passed.’

And he turned round to the furnace to superintend the progress of some
preparation that was evaporating over the fire.

‘What have you there?’ asked Gaudin, who appeared anxious to prolong
the interview, and carry on the time as he best might.

‘A venom more deadly than any we have yet known--that will kill like
lightning and leave no trace of its presence to the most subtle tests.
I have been weeks preparing it, and it approaches perfection.’

‘You will give me the secret?’ asked Gaudin.

‘As soon as it is finished, and the time is coming on apace. You have
arrived opportunely to assist me.’

He took a mask with glass eyes from a shelf, and tied it round his
face.

‘Its very sublimation, now commencing, is deadly,’ continued Exili;
‘but there is a medicated veil in the nostrils of this mask to
decompose its particles. If you would see the preparation completed
you must wear one as well.’

Another visor was at his side. Under pretence of rearranging the
string he broke it from the mask, and then fixed it back with some
resinous compound that he used to cover the stoppers of his bottles,
and render them air-tight. All this was so rapidly done that
Sainte-Croix took no notice of it.

‘Now, let me fix this on,’ said Exili, ‘and you need not dread the
vapour. Besides, you can assist me. I have left some drugs with the
porter which I must fetch,’ he continued, as he cautiously fixed the
visor to Sainte-Croix’s face.

‘I will mind the furnace whilst you go,’ said Gaudin, as he heard an
adjacent bell sound the hour at which he had appointed the guard to
arrive. ‘There is no danger in this mask, you say?’

‘None,’ said Exili. ‘You must watch the compound narrowly as soon as
you see particles of its sublimation deposited in that glass bell
which overhangs it. Then, when it turns colour, remove it from the
furnace.’

Anxious to become acquainted with the new poison, and in the hope
that, as soon as he acquired the secret of its manufacture, the guard
would arrive, Gaudin promised compliance gladly. Exili, on some
trifling excuse, left the apartment; but, as soon as his footfall was
beyond Sainte-Croix’s hearing, he returned, treading as stealthily as
a tiger, and took up his place at the door to watch his prey. Gaudin
was still at the furnace, fanning the embers with the cover of a book,
as he watched the deadly compound in the evaporating dish. At last,
the small particles began to deposit themselves on the bell glass
above, as Exili had foretold, and Gaudin bent his head close to the
preparation to watch for the change of colour. But in so doing, the
heat of the furnace melted the resin with which the string had been
fastened. It gave way, and the mask fell on the floor, whilst the
vapour of the poison rose full in his face, almost before, in his
eager attention, he was aware of the accident.

One terrible scream--a cry which once heard could never be
forgotten--not that of agony, or terror, or surprise, but a shrill and
violent indrawing of the breath, resembling rather the screech of some
huge, hoarse bird of prey, irritated to madness, than the sound of a
human voice, was all that broke from Gaudin’s lips. Every muscle of
his face was at the instant contorted into the most frightful form; he
remained for a second, and no more, wavering at the side of the
furnace, and then fell heavily on the floor. He was dead!

Exili had expected this. His eagerness would hardly restrain him from
rushing upon Sainte-Croix as he fell; and scarcely was

 [image: img_12.jpg
 caption: The Death of Sainte-Croix]

he on the ground when the physician, dashing the rest of the poison
from the furnace, darted on him like a beast of prey, and immediately
drew forth the bag of money from his cloak and transferred it to his
own pouch. He next tore away every ornament of any value that adorned
Gaudin’s costly dress; finally taking the small gold heart which hung
round his neck, enclosing the morsel of pink crystal which had
attracted Exili’s attention the first night of his sojourn in the
Bastille. As he opened it to look at the beryl, he observed a thin
slip of vellum folded under it within the case, on which were traced
some faint characters. By the light which Sainte-Croix had brought
with him, and which was burning faintly in the subterraneous
atmosphere, he read the following words with difficulty:--


 ‘Beatrice Spara to her child, on the eve of her execution. Rome, A.D.
 1642. An amulet against an evil eye and poisons.’


A stifled exclamation of horror, yet intense to the most painful
degree of mental anguish, escaped him as the meaning came upon him.
For a few seconds his eyes were riveted on the crystal, as if they
would start from his head; his lips were parted, and his breath
suspended. Then another and another gasping cry followed; again he
read the lines, as though he would have altered their import; but the
simple words remained the same, and fearful was their
revelation--until, covering his face with his hands, he fell on his
knees beside the body. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix--the unknown
adventurer--the soldier of fortune, whom nobody had ever dared to
question respecting his parentage, was his own son!--the fruit of his
intimacy with the Sicilian woman, from whom at Palermo he had learned
the secrets of his hellish trade, in the first instance to remove
those who were inimical to the liaison. The child was not above two
years old when he himself had been compelled to fly from Italy, and he
had imagined that, after the execution of Beatrice, the infant had
perished unknown and uncared for in the streets of Rome.

For some minutes he remained completely stupefied, but was aroused at
last by a violent knocking at the door of the vault; and immediately
afterwards the man who owned the house in the Rue de la Harpe rushed
in, and announced the presence of the guard, who, not finding
Sainte-Croix to meet them as they expected, had made the cooper
conduct them to Exili’s laboratory. He had scarcely uttered the words
when their bristling halberds, mingling with torches, appeared behind
him.

‘Back!’ screamed Exili as he saw the guard, ‘keep off! or I can slay
you with myself, so that not one shall live to tell the tale.’

The officer in command told the men to enter; but one or two
remembered the fate of those in the boat-mill whom the vapour had
killed, and they hung back.

‘Your lives are in my hands,’ continued the physician, ‘and if you
move one step they are forfeited. I am not yet captured.’

He darted through a doorway at the end of the room as he spoke, and
disappeared. The guard directly pressed onward; but as Exili passed
out at the arch, a mass of timber descended like a portcullis and
opposed their further progress. A loud and fiendish laugh sounded in
the _souterrain_, which grew fainter and fainter until they heard it
no more.




 CHAPTER XXVII.
 MATTERS BECOME VERY SERIOUS FOR ALL PARTIES--THE DISCOVERY AND THE
 FLIGHT

‘Ah!’ said Maître Picard, with a long expression of comfortable
fatigue, and the same shudder of extreme enjoyment which he would have
indulged in had he just crept into a bed artificially warmed, ‘Ah! it
is a great thing to enjoy yourself, having done your duty as a man and
a Garde Bourgeois!’

And he sank into an easy chair in which he would have been hidden but
for his rotundity, and propping up his little legs with another seat,
lighted a mighty pipe, the bowl whereof was fashioned like a dragon’s
head, which vomited forth smoke from its nostrils in a manner terrible
to behold.

It was a cold night. There were large logs of wood blazing and
crackling up the chimney from the iron dogs, and amongst the glowing
embers that surrounded them various culinary utensils were embedded,
some of which sent forth fragrant odours of strong drinks or savoury
extracts, whilst on a spit, formed of an old rapier, was impaled a
pheasant, which the Gascon, Jean Blacquart, was industriously turning
round as he sat upon the floor with his back against the
chimney-projection, humming a student’s song, to which he made the
bird revolve, in proper measure.

Everything looked very comfortable. The cloth was laid for supper, and
bright pewter vessels and horn mugs with silver rims caught the light
from the fire, which likewise threw its warm glow upon the ceiling and
made the shadows dance and flicker on the walls. It was not so
pleasant without. The frost was hard; the snow fell heavily; and the
cold wind came roaring up the narrow streets, chasing all the
cut-purses and evil company before it, much faster than all the guards
of the night could have done even at the points of their halberds.

‘I think you might change your love-song for a sprightly dance, Jean,’
said Maître Picard. ‘Your tender pauses, during which the spit stops,
do but scorch the breast of the bird, whilst the back profits not.’

‘It is an emblem of love, in general,’ replied the Gascon; ‘seeing
that our breast is doubly warmed thereby, whilst our back comes off
but badly, especially if our sweetheart is expensive, and requires of
one the price of three doublets to make one robe.’

‘I was in love once,’ said Maître Picard, ‘but it is a long time ago.
It wastes the substance of a portly man. Had I not eaten twice my
ordinary allowance I should have fallen under the attack. The
presents, too, which I offered to my lady were of great value, and
none were ever returned.’

‘I never give presents,’ observed the Gascon, ‘for I have found in
many hundred cases that my affection is considered above all price,
and received as such.’

‘But suppose a rival of more pretensions comes to oppose you?’ said
Maître Picard.

‘I never had a rival,’ said Blacquart grandly; ‘and I never shall.
Admitting one was to presume and cross my path, he would find no
ordinary antagonist. With this stalwart arm and a trusty blade I would
mince him before he knew where he was.’ And in his enthusiasm he
caught hold of the handle of the rapier, which formed the spit, and
brandished it about, perfectly forgetting the presence of the
pheasant, and firmly convinced that his chivalric energies were really
in action. He took no heed of the remonstrance of Maître Picard,
until a sudden and violent knocking at the street door so frightened
him in the midst of his imaginary bravery that he let the rapier fall,
and bird, spit, and all tumbled on the floor.

‘_Cap de dis!_ it made me jump,’ observed the Gascon. ‘What can it be,
at this time of night?’

‘You can find out if you go and see,’ replied Maître Picard from
behind his pipe.

‘Suppose it should be some wickedly-disposed students come again to
vex us?’ suggested Blacquart, ‘and they were to bind me hand and foot.
What would become of you without my protection?--Ugh!’

The last exclamation was provoked by a repetition of the knocking more
violent than ever.

‘Go and open the door!’ roared Maître Picard, until he looked quite
apoplectic. ‘No one is out to-night for their own amusement, depend
upon it.’

With a great disinclination to stir away from the fireplace, the
Gascon advanced towards the door. But, before he opened it, he
inquired with much assumption of courage--

‘Who’s there?’

‘It is I, Philippe Glazer,’ said a well-known voice. ‘Are you dead or
deaf, not to let me in? Open the door; quick!--quick!’

Reassured by the announcement, Blacquart soon unbarred the door, and
Glazer hastened into the apartment. He was scarcely dressed, having
evidently hurried from home in great precipitancy.

‘Maître Picard!’ he exclaimed, ‘you must come over with me directly
to the Place Maubert. A terrible event has come about. M. Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix----’

‘Well, what of him?’ asked the bourgeois, aroused from his
half-lethargy of comfort and tobacco by Glazer’s haggard and anxious
appearance.

‘He is dead!’ replied Philippe. ‘He lodged with us, or rather had a
room to carry on his chemical experiments, and we have just heard that
his body has been found lifeless in the vaults of the Palais des
Thermes.’

‘Murdered?’ asked both the Gascon and Maître Picard at once.

‘I know not,’ answered Glazer; ‘a hundred stories are already about,
but we are too bewildered to attend to any. However, he has left
nearly all his possessions in our keeping, and we must immediately
seal them up until the pleasure of the authorities be known.’

‘It is the office of the Commissary of Police of the _quartier_,’ said
Maître Picard.

‘I know it,’ answered Glazer impatiently. ‘But M. Artus is ill in bed,
and he has deputed you to witness the process, as a man of good report
in his jurisdiction. His clerk, Pierre Frater, has started to our
house. I pray you come, without more loss of time.’

It was a sad trial for Maître Picard to leave his intended banquet,
especially to the mercies of the Gascon, whose appetite, in common
with that pertaining to all weakened intellects, was enormous. But the
urgency of the case, and Philippe Glazer’s _empressement_, left him no
chance of getting off the duty; and hastily gathering together his
cloak, arms, and other marks of his authority, he turned out, not
without much grumbling, to accompany Glazer to his father’s house in
the Place Maubert, which was not above ten minutes’ walk from the Rue
des Mathurins.

Late as it was, the news of Sainte-Croix’s death had travelled over
that part of Paris contiguous to the scene of the event, and when
Philippe and the bourgeois arrived the court was filled with people
who had collected, in spite of the inclemency of the weather, to gain
some authentic intelligence connected with the catastrophe. The fact
that Exili was, in some way or another, connected with the accident,
had already given rise to the most marvellous stories, the principal
one being that the devil had been seen perched on the northern tower
of Notre Dame with the wretched physician in his grasp, preparatory to
carrying him off to some fearful place of torment, the mention of
which provoked more crossings and holy words than all the masses which
the gossipers had attended for the last week.

Elbowing his way through the throng, Maître Picard assumed all his
wonted importance, whilst he ordered Philippe to admit no one but the
members of his household; and then, accompanied by Pierre Frater, the
Commissary’s clerk, he ascended to the room which Gaudin had occupied.

It teemed with that fearful interest which sudden death throws around
the most unimportant objects connected with the existence of the
victim. The pen lay upon the half-finished letters; a list of things
to be attended to on the morrow was pinned to the wall; and the watch
was ticking on its stand, although the hand that had put it in action
was still and cold. On the table were some dice, at which their owner
had evidently been working, to render their cast a certainty at the
next game of hazard he engaged in. A flagon of wine, half-emptied, a
book marked for reference, a cloak drying before the expiring embers
of the fireplace, each inanimate article spoke with terrible meaning.

‘You have the seals, Maître Frater,’ said the bourgeois; ‘we will
secure everything until we have further orders.’

The clerk of the Commissary produced the official seal, together with
some long strips of parchment to bind them together, and assisted by
Philippe they proceeded to attach them to everything of importance in
the room. But whilst they were thus engaged, a confused murmur was
heard in the court below, and Maître Picard, looking from the window,
saw a carriage drive through the _porte-cochère_ as hastily as the
snow would permit. A man sprang from it, closed the door after him,
and the next minute came up the staircase hurriedly, and almost forced
his way into the room.

‘There is no admittance, monsieur,’ said the little bourgeois,
presenting his halberd.

But the intruder was already in the centre of the chamber.

‘I am the valet of M. de Sainte-Croix, and my name is Lachaussée,’ he
said. ‘I oppose this proceeding of sealing up his effects.’

‘On what grounds?’ asked the clerk, Frater.

‘Because there is much that is my own property,’ replied Lachaussée.
‘You will find one hundred pistoles, and the same number of silver
crowns in a canvas bag, in that bureau. My master gave them to me, and
promised still further to transfer three hundred livres to me. You
will, without doubt, find that he has done so; if he has not, you may
depend upon my word that everything is right which I have
stated.’[19]

‘We do not doubt your word, monsieur,’ said the clerk; ‘but we cannot,
at present, give up to you so much as a pin from this room. When the
seals are broken by the authorities, whose servants we merely are, and
under whose orders we now act, you may rest assured that the interests
of no one will be overlooked.’

‘But this is such a trifle; you surely will not put me to such great
inconvenience, for such it will be,’ answered Lachaussée, changing
his tone.

‘We regret it,’ answered Maître Picard with much grandeur--now he had
heard from Pierre Frater what he was to say; ‘we regret it; but, at
present, the law is peremptory.’

‘If I have no influence with you,’ said Lachaussée, ‘I will bring
hither one who, possibly, may have some.’

Before they had time to reply he left the room, and in the course of a
minute returned, bringing back with him, to the astonishment of every
one present, the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.

Marie was pale as marble. Her beautiful hair, usually arranged with
such careful taste, was hanging about her neck and shoulders in wild
confusion; her eyes glistened, and her lips were blanched and
quivering. She had evidently left home hurriedly, wrapping about her
the first garments that came to hand, which she drew closely round her
figure from the inclemency of the weather. And yet, looking as she
then did the picture of agony and consternation, from time to time she
made visible efforts to master her excitement and, with that habitual
duplicity which had long become her nature, to deceive those with whom
she was confronted, respecting the real state of her feelings.

She looked wildly at the assembled party as she entered, and at last
her eye fell upon young Glazer, whom she was well acquainted with, as
we have already seen. Glad to meet with any one who knew her, under
such circumstances, she directly went towards him, and caught his arm
for support, exclaiming in a hollow and trembling voice--

‘O Philippe!--you know all--this is indeed terrible!’

Glazer addressed a few commonplace words of consolation to her; but
ere she had finished, an access of violent hysterics placed the
terrified woman beyond the comprehension of his words. He supported
her to a chair, and Frater, Picard, and their attendants gathered
round her in silence, as they watched her convulsed form with feelings
of real pity; for the attachment existing between Gaudin and herself
was now no secret. The only one perfectly unmoved was Lachaussée, and
he regarded her with an expression of unconcern, showing that he
doubted the reality of the attack.

In a few minutes she recovered; and starting up from her seat,
addressed herself to Pierre Frater, who, from his clerkly look, her
perception enabled her to tell was the chief person in authority.

‘Monsieur,’ she said, ‘I know not what Lachaussée has sought to
obtain; but there is a small box here belonging to me alone, which I
presume there will be no objection to my carrying away with me.
Philippe Glazer may divine the nature of the papers it contains. He
will explain it to you.’

‘Madam,’ replied the clerk, ‘it pains me to repeat the same answer to
you which I gave to the valet of M. de Sainte-Croix; but nothing can
be moved except with the consent of the Commissary, my master.’

‘Nothing of M. de Sainte-Croix’s property, I am aware,’ replied the
Marchioness: ‘but this is mine--my own--do you understand? See! there
it is!--you must give it to me--indeed, indeed you must.’

As she spoke she pointed to the small inlaid cabinet which has been
before alluded to, and which was visible behind the glass-front of a
secretary between the windows. She repeated her request with renewed
energy. And well, indeed, she might; for it was that box which had
furnished the most terrible poisons to her victims.

‘Indeed, madam,’ answered Frater, firmly but respectfully, ‘you cannot
have it at this moment.’

‘You must give it to me!’ she exclaimed, seizing the clerk by the
hand. ‘It contains a matter of life and death, and you cannot tell
whom it may affect. Give me the box; my position and influence will
free you from any responsibility for so doing. You see, the seals have
not yet been put on the bureau; it can be of no consequence to you in
the discharge of your duty. Let me have it.’

She let go his hand and went towards the bureau. But Frater stepped
before her, as he exclaimed--

‘Pardon me, madam; and do not oblige me to forget my gallantry, or
that politeness which is due to a lady of your station, by forgetting
your own proper sense. The cabinet can only be delivered up to you
upon the authority of M. Artus.’

‘And where is he?’ she inquired hurriedly.

‘He is ill--at his house in the Rue des Noyers,’ answered the clerk,
‘To-morrow he will, without doubt, give you every assistance.’

‘To-morrow will be too late!’ exclaimed Marie. ‘I must see him
now--this instant. _Au revoir_, messieurs; I shall hope in a few
minutes to bring you his order that you may deliver me my cabinet.’

And without any further salute she turned and left the room,
requesting Lachaussée to await her return.

Her exceeding anxiety was placed to the score of her attachment to
Sainte-Croix; and as she quitted the apartment the others went on with
their duties in silence. Lachaussée seated himself in a recess of the
chamber and watched their proceedings; and Philippe collected a few
things together which belonged to his father, and consisted
principally of some chemical glasses and evaporating dishes, placing
them in a box by themselves to be moved away as soon as it was
permitted.

But scarcely five minutes had elapsed ere another carriage drove into
the court, and Desgrais, the active exempt of the Maréchaussée, came
upstairs to the apartment, followed by one or two agents of the
police. As he entered the room, he cast his eye over the different
pieces of furniture, and perceiving that the judicial seal was already
upon many of them, nodded his head in token of approval. Then turning
to Philippe he said--

‘Monsieur Glazer, there will be no occasion to inconvenience you by
detaining your own goods. Whatever you will describe as yours, shall
be at once made over to you on your signature.’

‘You are very good,’ replied Philippe; ‘but everything belonging to
us, in the care of this poor gentleman, was of little consequence.
There is, however, that little cabinet, which may be returned to its
owner, who is most anxious to have it. It has been earnestly claimed
by the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’

‘The Marchioness of Brinvilliers!’ exclaimed Desgrais with some
emphasis. ‘And you say she was anxious to carry it away?’

‘Just as I have told you; in fact her solicitude was remarkable.’

Desgrais was silent for a minute.

‘Stop!’ at length he said; ‘we will examine this cabinet that appears
so precious. I have reasons for it.’

By his directions Pierre Frater took down the inlaid box from its
shelf, Maître Picard being too short, and placed it on the table. The
others collected eagerly round, especially Lachaussée, who at the
first mention of it had left his seat. Sainte-Croix’s keys were
discovered in one of the drawers of the table, and Desgrais, selecting
one of curiously-wrought steel, applied it to the lock. The lid
instantly flew open.

‘Here is a false top,’ said Desgrais, ‘with a written paper lying open
upon it. Let us see what it says.’

And taking the document, he read as follows:--


 ‘“I humbly ask of those into whose hands this cabinet may fall,
 whoever they may be, to deliver it to the Marchioness of Brinvilliers,
 at present living in the Rue Neuve St. Paul; since its contents are of
 importance to her alone, and her welfare apart, cannot be of the
 slightest interest to any one in the world. Should she have died
 before me, let the cabinet be burnt, exactly as it is, without opening
 it or disturbing its contents.”


‘The paper concludes,’ continued Desgrais, ‘with an appeal to God
respecting the sincerity of this request, and a half-implied
malediction upon those who may refuse to grant it.’

‘I presume, monsieur, now that your curiosity is satisfied thus far, I
may take the box with me to Madame de Brinvilliers,’ said Lachaussée.

‘Stop!’ replied the exempt, as the other stretched forth his hand,
‘here is another paper. It is a receipt for a sum of money delivered
on account of work performed, and signed “Lachaussée.”’

As his name was pronounced, Lachaussée fell back from the table, and,
muttering a few indistinct words, approached the door; but Desgrais
cried out--

‘You appear interested in this affair, monsieur, and cannot yet leave
us. Guards, place yourselves at the doorway, and let no one pass but
with my orders.’

Two of the patrol who had entered with the exempt took up their
station at the door, crossing their halberds before it. A dead silence
reigned, and the curiosity of all was raised to the most painful
intensity. Lachaussée leant back against the bureau, and folding his
arms gazed steadily at the proceedings, but no visible token betrayed
his emotion.

‘This affair requires some little extra investigation,’ said Desgrais.
‘This false lid must open with a spring, as there is neither lock nor
handle to it.’ He held the cabinet up, and turning it round,
discovered one of the studs that ornamented it of a darker colour than
the rest, as if from constant handling. His experienced eye told him
that this should be the one; he pressed it accordingly, and the
partition turned up with a jerk against the side. A single and hurried
expiration escaped his lips. He inverted the cabinet, and turned its
contents on the table; they consisted of a number of little packets,
boxes, and phials, mostly sealed up, and distinguished by various
inscriptions.

‘“Sublimate!” “Vitrol!” “Opium!”’ exclaimed Desgrais, as he read each
aloud. ‘_Mort bleu!_ messieurs, we are about to make some strange
discoveries!’

‘Will you allow me to pass,’ said Philippe Glazer to Desgrais, ‘I
think there is no one below, and I fancied I heard the bell sound?’

‘Of course,’ replied the exempt; ‘but return as soon as you
conveniently may. We shall, perhaps, hereafter need you as a witness
to these revelations.’

Philippe hastily promised compliance, and then quitting the apartment,
hastily flew downstairs to his father’s shop. The old man had retired
to rest early, but his man Panurge was fast asleep upon one of the
tables--so soundly that it required no very gentle treatment from
Philippe to waken him.

‘Ho! Panurge!’ cried his young master, in a sharp but low voice,
‘awake, man, unless you wish every wretched bone in your miserable
carcase broken. Do you hear me?’

‘Hippocrates sayeth that erysipelas upon the baring of a bone is
evil,’ muttered Panurge, who mixed up his sleeping studies with his
waking faculties.

‘Pshaw!’ cried Philippe, ‘I will give you cause for it, all over you,
if you do not attend. Rouse up, I tell you.’

And he gave Panurge such a mighty shake as would have aroused him had
he been in a trance. As it was, it immediately restored the assistant
to the full exhibition of what faculties he possessed, and he awaited
Glazer’s further orders.

‘You know the house of Monsieur Artus, the Commissary of Police, in
the Rue des Noyers?’

‘I do,’ replied Panurge; ‘he hath been ill of a choleric gout, for
which we gave him the juice of danewort----’

‘The pest on what you gave him!’ said Philippe, ‘so long as you know
where he is to be found. Now look you; go off there directly, and if
you lose no time on the way you will probably find the Marchioness of
Brinvilliers at his house. Give this note to her, and only to her, as
you value your useless life.’

He hastily wrote on a scrap of paper:--


 ‘The police have found some articles in a cabinet belonging to M. de
 Sainte-Croix, which may cause you much embarrassment from the
 publicity it will give to your acquaintance. Be careful how you
 proceed.

                                                       ‘P. G.’


‘Now, off!’ said Philippe, hastily folding the note; ‘and return here
as soon as you leave this in her own hands. Poor lady!’ he continued,
half speaking to himself; ‘it would be sorrow indeed if mere gallantry
should link her with the deeds of which her cavalier appears to have
been the perpetrator.’

Without another syllable Panurge set off, and Glazer was returning to
the room when he met Desgrais descending the stairs, carrying the
cabinet and followed by two of the police, who had Lachaussée in
custody between them. He addressed him--

‘We shall require the services of your father and yourself to-morrow,
M. Glazer, to analyse these different articles. I have put a seal upon
them, and must hold you answerable for their safe keeping.’

‘I denounce my being kept a prisoner,’ exclaimed Lachaussée, ‘as
informal and unjust. You have no right to detain me upon the mere
circumstance of my name appearing on that piece of paper.’

‘I will make ample reparation for any wrong I may do you,’ answered
Desgrais, coolly. Then, turning to the guards, he added--

‘You will conduct this person to the Châtelet. And now, M. Frater,
you can accompany me, with Maître Picard, to the Rue des Noyers
without loss of time. We shall probably there light upon the
Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’

Philippe’s heart was in his throat as he heard the name pronounced. He
immediately endeavoured to contrive some delay in Desgrais’s
departure, offering him refreshment, begging him to stop whilst the
cressets of the watch were retrimmed, and pressing articles of outer
wear upon him, by reason of the cold, which he pretended he could not
find. A few minutes were gained in this manner, and then the guard
departed across the Place Maubert, Philippe’s only hope being that
Panurge had already got there.

Whilst this scene of fearful interest was being enacted at Glazer’s,
Marie had reached the house of the Commissary of Police. Some of the
domestics were sitting up for further orders from Desgrais, and by
them she was informed that M. Artus could not be disturbed. By dint,
however, of heavy bribes, giving them all the money she had about her,
which was no inconsiderable sum, she was ushered into the apartment of
the Commissary, and to him, in a few hurried words, she made known the
object of her visit. But her earnestness was so strange that M. Artus
requested she would wait until the next day, when he should have
received the report of the proceedings from his agents. Had she shown
less anxiety, he would doubtless have granted what she so urgently
desired.

Finding there was no chance of assistance from this quarter, she left
the room in an agony of terror, and, scarcely knowing what course to
pursue, was about to return to the Place Maubert, when Panurge arrived
with Glazer’s note. She hastily read it, and the contents struck her
like a thunderbolt. ‘Then all is over!’ she exclaimed; and without
exchanging another word with the assistant, or any of the officials,
she flew through the streets, half clad as she was, with the snow deep
on the ground, and the thoroughfares wrapped in the obscurity of a
winter night, in the direction of her _hôtel_ in the Rue St. Paul.




 CHAPTER XXVIII.
 THE FLIGHT OF MARIE TO LIÉGE--PARIS--THE GIBBET OF MONTFAUCON

Midnight was sounded upon the heavy bell of the Bastille by the
sentinel on guard but a few minutes before the Marchioness of
Brinvilliers--terrified, breathless, and, in spite of her hurry,
shivering in her light dress beneath the intense cold--arrived at the
Hôtel d’Aubray. There were no signs of life in that quarter of Paris,
for the inhabitants had long retired to rest; a faint light, gleaming
from the front windows of Marie’s residence upon the snow that covered
the thoroughfare, alone served to guide her to the door. The drowsy
concierge admitted her, and she hurried across the inner court and
upstairs to her own apartment.

Françoise Roussel, her servant, was waiting up for her. Her mistress
had left in such an extreme of anxiety, and half-undressed, that
Françoise saw at once an affair of great moment had disturbed her;
and now, as Marie returned, the girl was frightened by her almost
ghastly look. As she entered the room she fell panting on one of the
_causeuses_, and then her servant perceived that she had lost one of
her shoes, and had been walking, perhaps nearly the whole distance
from the Place Maubert, with her small naked foot upon the snow,
without discovering it. In her hurried toilet, she had merely arisen
from her bed and drawn her shoes on, without anything else, and
throwing a heavy loose robe about her had thus hurried with
Lachaussée to Glazer’s house; for from Gaudin’s accomplice she had
learned the first tidings of his death and the dangerous position in
which she stood. And now, scarcely knowing in the terror and agony of
the moment what course to adopt, she remained for some minutes
pressing her hands to her forehead, as if to seize and render
available some of the confused and distracting thoughts which were
hurrying through her almost bewildered brain. A few offers of
assistance on the part of her domestic were met with short and angry
refusals; and Françoise, almost as frightened as the Marchioness
herself, remained gazing at her, not knowing what measures she ought
next to adopt.

Meanwhile, Desgrais, with the important casket, and accompanied by the
clerk Frater and Maître Picard, had reached the house of M. Artus,
the Commissary of Police, in the Rue des Noyers, arriving there not
two minutes after Marie had quitted it to regain her own abode.
Philippe Glazer had accompanied them, partly from being in a measure
an implicated party in the affair, but chiefly out of anxiety for the
position of the Marchioness, in whose guilt he had not the slightest
belief. He was aware of her connection with Sainte-Croix; but this was
a matter of simple gallantry, and in the time of Louis Quatorze much
more likely to enlist the sympathies of the many on the side of the
erring party than to excite their indignation.

‘I suppose you have no further occasion for me?’ observed Maître
Picard, as he stood at the foot of M. Artus’s bed, after having
awaited the conclusion of Desgrais’s account of the discovery;
‘because, if you have not, I would fain go home.’

The little bourgeois was thinking of the roast pheasant which he had
abandoned to the voracity of the Gascon. He had a wild hope that it
might be yet untouched.

‘Stop, _mon brave_,’ said Desgrais. ‘You cannot leave me until we have
found Madame de Brinvilliers. I have only missed her by a few seconds.
You must come on with me to her house, where she most likely is by
this time.’

‘I suppose there is no necessity for me to remain here longer,’ said
Philippe Glazer.

‘None whatever, monsieur,’ replied the exempt. ‘You will take care of
M. de Sainte-Croix’s property; and we may call upon you to-morrow to
analyse the contents of this casket.’

Philippe bowed, and left the room. The moment he was clear of the
house, having borrowed a lighted lantern from one of the guard, who
was at the door, he set off as fast as his legs would carry him
towards the Rue St. Paul, having heard enough to convince him that the
Marchioness was in danger of being arrested. Upon reaching the Hôtel
d’Aubray he clamoured loudly for admission. At the sound of the first
knock he perceived a form, which he directly recognised to be that of
Marie, peep from behind the edge of the curtain and immediately
disappear. Some little delay took place before his summons was
answered, and then the concierge, peering through the half-opening of
the door, told him that Madame de Brinvilliers was not within. Pushing
the menial on one side, with a hurried expression of disbelief,
Philippe forced his way into the court, and perceived, as he entered,
the figure of the Marchioness hurrying upstairs. He bounded after her,
and stood by her side upon the landing.

‘Philippe!’ exclaimed Marie, as she recognised his features. ‘I was
afraid it was Desgrais, and I had gone down to give orders that no one
might be admitted.’

‘You have not an instant to lose,’ replied young Glazer hurriedly,
‘and must leave the house in reality. I have just now left them with
M. Artus, about to come on and arrest you. You must fly--instantly.’

‘Fly! by what means?’ asked Marie; ‘my horses are at Offemont, except
the one at--at _his_ house in the Rue des Bernardins. O Philippe!’ she
continued, ‘tell me what to do in this fearful extremity. I know not
how to act--I am nearly dead.’

All her self-possession, all her duplicity, gave way beneath the
crushing agony of the moment. She burst into tears, and would have
fallen to the ground had not Philippe caught her in his arms.

‘Is there nothing in the stables that we can depart with?’ asked he of
Françoise, who had been watching this short scene with trembling
attention. ‘It will not do to hire a carriage, as that would give a
certain clue to our route.’

‘A man brought a tumbrel here this afternoon, with some things from
the country. He has left it, with the horse, in the stables, and
sleeps himself at the Croix d’Or, in the Rue St. Antoine.’

‘Bring this light with you, and show me the way,’ said Philippe, as he
placed the Marchioness in a fauteuil, and hurried downstairs, followed
by the _femme de chambre_.

As soon as the girl had indicated the spot, Glazer told her to return
to her mistress and bid her prepare as quickly as she could to leave
Paris, taking with her only such few things as were immediately
necessary. Next, pulling the drowsy horse from his stall, he proceeded
to harness him, as well as his acquaintance with such matters allowed
him to do, to the rude country vehicle which Françoise had spoken
about. All this was not the work of five minutes; and he then returned
to Marie’s apartment.

But, brief as the interval had been, Marie had in the time recovered
her wonted firmness, and aided by her servant had rapidly made her
toilet, wrapping herself in her warmest garments for protection
against the inclemency of the weather. When Philippe entered, he found
Françoise occupied in making up a small parcel, half unconscious,
however, of what she was doing, from flurry at the evident emergency
of the circumstances; and Marie was standing before the fire, watching
the destruction of a large packet of letters and other papers, which
were blazing on the hearth.

‘I am ready, madame,’ said Philippe; ‘do not delay your departure an
instant longer, or you cannot tell into what perplexities you may
fall. Every moment is of untold value.’

‘Where do you propose to take me?’ asked the Marchioness earnestly.

‘I see no better refuge for the instant than your château at
Offemont.’

‘Offemont!’ exclaimed Marie; ‘it is twenty leagues from Paris; and in
this dreadful weather we should perish on the route.’

‘It must be attempted,’ said Philippe; ‘you say your horses are there;
and if we can once reach them, your means of getting to the frontier
will be comparatively easy. We must brave everything. Your enemies I
know to be numerous in Paris, and you cannot tell what charges they
might bring against you when in their power, which it would be next to
impossible to refute. Come, come!’

He took her by the hand and led her to the door, the servant following
them closely, and receiving from the Marchioness a number of hurried
directions and commissions, which it was next to impossible she could
remember. As he quitted the room, with some forethought Philippe blew
out the candles and collected the pieces; for the night would be long
and dark; there were seven or eight hours of obscurity yet before
them. When they got to the court where the horse and tumbrel were, the
former evidently in no hurry to depart, young Glazer fastened the
lantern he had borrowed from the guard to the side of the vehicle, and
then assisted the Marchioness to mount and take her seat upon some
straw.

‘It is a rude carriage, madame,’ he said; ‘but the journey would be
less pleasant if it was going to the Place de Grêve.’

Marie shuddered as he spoke; but it was unobserved in the obscurity.
As soon as she was seated, Philippe drew a coarse awning over some
bent sticks which spanned the interior, and making this tight all
round, prepared to start.

‘Stop!’ he exclaimed, as if struck by a sudden thought; ‘it will be as
well to see all clear before us.’

And he advanced to the _porte-cochère_ that opened into the street,
when to his dismay he perceived the lighted cressets of the Guet Royal
coming down the Rue Neuve St. Paul. In an instant he closed the door
and barred it; and turning to Françoise, exclaimed--

‘Go up to the window of your mistress’s room, which looks into the
road, and when the guard comes, say she is from home.’

‘There is a court which leads from the stables to the Rue St.
Antoine,’ said the Marchioness from the vehicle. ‘You can get out that
way.’

‘It is lucky,’ said Philippe, ‘or we should otherwise have been
trapped. Françoise! up--up, and detain them every instant that you
can. I will prevent the concierge from replying.’

He took his handkerchief and hurriedly tied it round the clapper of
the bell, which hung within his reach over the porter’s lodge. Then,
turning round the cart, he led the horse through the inner court and
stabling to the passage indicated by the Marchioness. Fortunately the
snow was on the ground, and there was little noise made beyond the
creaking of the vehicle, which in half a minute emerged into the Rue
St. Antoine, and Philippe closed the gate behind him.

The thoroughfare was dark and silent; but the snow was falling
heavily, as its twinkling by the side of the lantern proved. This was
so far lucky, because it would cover the traces of their route almost
as soon as they were made. The fugitives could plainly hear the sound
of voices and the clatter of arms in the Rue Neuve St. Paul; and aware
that the delay could only last for a few minutes, Philippe urged on
the animal as well as he could, and turned up a small street which ran
in a northerly direction from the Rue St. Antoine.

‘You are passing the gate,’ said Marie, who all along had been looking
anxiously from the vehicle, as she pointed towards the Bastille, where
one or two lights could be seen, apparently suspended in the air, from
the windows of the officials and the guard-room.

‘I know it, madame,’ replied Philippe. ‘It would not be safe for us to
leave the city by that barrier. It is the nearest to your house; and
if they suspect or discover that you have left Paris, they will
directly conclude it is by the Porte St. Antoine there, and follow
you. Besides, we might be challenged by the sentinels.’

‘You are right,’ said the Marchioness; ‘the Porte du Temple will be
better.’

And shrouding herself in her cloak, she withdrew under the rough
shelter of the tilt; whilst Philippe kept on, still leading the horse,
through a labyrinth of small narrow streets, which would have been cut
by a line drawn from the Bastille to the Temple. At last he emerged
upon the new road formed by the destruction of the fortifications,
which we now know as the boulevards, and reached the gate in question,
which he passed through unquestioned by the _gardien_, who merely
regarded the little party as belonging to one of the markets. Had he
been entering the city instead, he would have been challenged; but, as
the authorities did not care what any one took out of it, he was
allowed to go on his way amidst a few houses immediately beyond the
barrier, forming the commencement of the faubourg, until he came into
the more open country. Here the reflected light from the white ground
in some measure diminished the obscurity. The snow, too, had drifted
into the hollows, leaving the road pretty clear; and Philippe
clambered on to the front of the tumbrel, taking the reins in his
hand, and drove on as he best might towards the _grande route_. Not a
word was exchanged between these two solitary travellers. Marie kept
in a corner of the vehicle, closely enveloped in her mantle; and her
companion had enough to do to watch the line they were taking, and
keep his hearing on the stretch to discover the first sounds of
pursuit.

‘_Peste!_’ exclaimed Philippe at length, as one of the wheels jolted
into a deep rut, and the lantern was jerked off and its light
extinguished; ‘this is unlucky. We did not see too well with it, and I
don’t know how we shall fare now.’

He jumped down as he spoke, and tried to rekindle the light with his
breath; but it was of no use; he entirely extinguished the only spark
remaining. In this dilemma he looked around him, to see if there was a
chance of assistance. Marie also was aroused from her silence by the
accident, and gazed earnestly from the cart with the same purpose. At
last, almost at the same instant, they perceived a thin line of light,
as though it shone through an ill-closed shutter, but a little way
ahead of them; and the stars, which had been slowly coming out, now
faintly showed the outline of a high and broken ground upon their
right. At the top of this some masonry and broken pillars were just
observable, supporting cross-beams, from which, at certain distances,
depended dark, irregularly-shaped objects. It was a gloomy locality,
and Philippe knew it well, as he made out the crumbling remains of the
gibbet at Montfaucon.

‘I should have taken this as a bad omen,’ said he, half joking, ‘if
the _fourche_ had been still in use. It would have looked as though
the beam was meant for our destination.’

As they approached the small cabin from which the light came, Philippe
shouted to awaken the attention of those within; but no answer being
returned, he jumped down, and knocked furiously at the door. He heard
some whispers for a minute or two, and then a woman’s voice demanded,
‘Who is there?’

‘A traveller, who wants a light,’ cried Philippe, ‘to guide him safely
to Bourget. For pity, madame, don’t keep me here much longer, or I
must be ungallant, and kick in the door.’

There was evidently another conference within, and then the door was
cautiously opened. Philippe entered, and his eyes directly fell upon
Exili, whilst the female proved to be a woman who was practising
fortune-telling in Paris--it was supposed as a cloak for darker
matters--and was known to some of the people, and to the whole of the
police, as La Voisin. The physician and the student recognised each
other immediately, for they had often met on the carrefours, and each
uttered a hurried exclamation of surprise at the rencontre.

‘Monsieur Glazer,’ said Exili, as Philippe took a light from the fire,
‘you have seen me here, and possibly are acquainted with what has
taken place in the Quartier Latin this evening.’

‘I know everything,’ replied Glazer.

‘Then I must ask you, on your faith, to keep my secret,’ said Exili.
‘You have discovered me in coming here to serve yourself; but this
refuge is to me an affair of life and death. You will not betray me?’

‘You may trust me,’ said Philippe carelessly; ‘and in return, madame,’
he continued, turning to La Voisin, ‘if any others should come up, let
your story be that you have seen no one this night. Mine also is a
case of emergency, and a lady--high-born, rich, and beautiful--is
concerned in it.’

The woman assured Philippe he might depend upon her secrecy; and he
was about to depart with his lantern, when Exili stopped him.

‘Stay!’ he exclaimed earnestly. ‘Who is it you have with you?’ And as
he spoke the strange fire kindled in his falcon eyes that always
bespoke the working of some terrible passion within.

‘It cannot concern you,’ replied Philippe. ‘I have got my light, and
our interview is concluded.’

‘Not yet,’ answered Exili quickly. ‘A woman--rich, high-born, and
beautiful. It is the Marchioness of Brinvilliers!’

And before Philippe could stop him, he rushed forward and threw open
the covering of the cart, discovering Marie still crouching in the
corner of the vehicle.

‘I have you, then, at last,’ he cried, in a voice choking with rage,
as he recognised her. ‘Descend!--fiend! demon! murderess of my son!
Descend! for you are mine--mine!’

He was about to climb up the vehicle, when Marie, to whom part of the
speech was entirely incomprehensible, shrank to the other side of the
tumbrel, and called upon Philippe to defend her. But this was not
needed. The young student had clutched the physician by the neck, and
pulled him back on to the ground.

‘What do you mean by this outrage, monsieur?’ he asked.

‘She is a murderess, I tell you!’ he continued hoarsely. ‘Her damned
arts drove my son--him they called Sainte-Croix--to death! She killed
him, body and soul, and she belongs to me. I will denounce her to the
Chambre Ardente.’

‘Keep back!’ cried Philippe; ‘you are mad! What has the Marchioness of
Brinvilliers in common with yourself?’

‘You shall see,’ answered Exili. ‘Look there--in the faubourg--the
guard is coming. They have tracked you.’

And indeed the lights were visible from the cressets carried by the
Guet Royal at the extreme end of the route. Philippe sprung upon the
tumbrel as Exili spoke, and tried to proceed; but the other seized the
horse’s head and endeavoured to arrest his progress.

‘Stand away!’ exclaimed young Glazer, ‘or you are a dead man!’

‘I shall not move,’ was Exili’s reply. ‘I shall be doomed myself, but
I will drag her with me to the scaffold. See! they are coming--she is
mine!’

His further speech was cut short by Philippe, who, raising his heavy
country whip, struck the physician with all his force with the
butt-end upon the temple. Exili staggered back, and then the student,
lashing his horse furiously, drove from the hovel with tolerable
speed, placing the lantern under the covering, that it might not be
seen; whilst Marie, without speaking a word, gazed anxiously behind
upon the advancing patrol. In a minute, however, a turn of the road
shut them from her sight, and the travellers found themselves
approaching the faubourg of La Villette, upon the high-road, without
the Porte St. Martin.

It was, as Exili had said, a party of the guard who were in pursuit,
mounted, and headed by Desgrais. The active exempt had gone to the
Hôtel d’Aubray, as we have seen, and being at last admitted by
Françoise, had seen some traces of a departure on the snow, which had
drifted into the sheltered parts of the court. But in the street the
fall had covered up the wheel-tracks; and, as the fugitives had
conceived, he went directly to the Porte St. Antoine. The sentinel,
however, told him that no one had passed the barrier; and he then rode
briskly along the boulevards to the next gate, near the Temple. Here
he learned a tumbrel had gone out of the city but a few minutes before
his arrival; upon which he divided his troop into two parties, sending
one along the road to La Courtille, whilst with the other he took the
same line that Philippe had chosen, these being the only two
practicable routes for vehicles without the barrier, and accompanied
by the latter escort he soon arrived at the foot of Montfaucon.

Exili had been stunned for a few seconds by the heavy blow which
Philippe Glazer had dealt to him; but, recovering himself before the
guard came up, he darted back into the hovel, and seizing a piece of
lighted wood from the hearth, told La Voisin to save herself as she
best might, and then scrambled with singular agility up the steep
mound at the back of the house, until he reached the stone-work of the
gibbet. This was crumbling, and afforded many foot-places by which he
could ascend, until he stood between two of the pillars that still
supported the crosspieces, above the hollow way along which Desgrais
and his troop were progressing.

The exempt knew the physician directly, as his gaunt form appeared in
the lurid light of the cressets, and the rude torch that he himself
carried; and he would have ordered the guard immediately to capture
him, had not Exili arrested the command by speaking.

‘You seek the Marchioness of Brinvilliers,’ he cried. ‘She was here
not an instant back; and you will find her, if you care to hurry, on
the _grande route_.’

‘I call upon you to surrender yourself my prisoner,’ said Desgrais,
speaking from below; ‘you may then guide us on the track.’

‘If I had meant to give myself up,’ said Exili, ‘I should have
remained below. I have put you on the scent, and that was all I
wanted. Farewell!’

He waved his hand to the officers, and disappeared behind the
foundation of the masonry. On seeing this, Desgrais sprang

 [image: img_13.jpg
 caption: The Arrest of Exili]

from his horse, and, seizing a cresset from the guard, told one or two
of the others to follow him, as he rapidly ascended the mound. He was
active, his limbs were well-knit, and a few seconds sufficed to bring
him to the spot from whence Exili had spoken; but as he looked over
the area of masonry, not a trace of the physician was visible, except
the smouldering brand which he had flung down upon the ground.

The others had arrived at the platform, and by the additional light
from their cressets Desgrais perceived an opening in the stone-work,
conducting below by ragged jutting angles of masonry, and down this he
boldly proceeded to venture. It conducted to a terrible spot--the
cemetery of those unfortunates who had perished on the gibbet, into
which the bodies were thrown in former times, to make room for fresh
victims on the _fourche_. But now the dry bones were all that
remained, crushing and rattling beneath the feet of the exempt as he
proceeded; for nearly a century had elapsed since the last
execution--that of the wise and just Coligni, during the fiendish
massacre of St. Bartholomew. But the place had been undisturbed, time
alone having altered its features; the only intruders upon its dreary
loneliness being the dogs, and the sorcerers, who came thither for
materials to give a horrid interest to their calling and frighten the
vulgar who came to consult them.

By the flaring light of the cressets Desgrais beheld Exili cowering at
the end of the vault. His object had evidently been to betray the
Marchioness, whilst he eluded capture himself; but he had under-rated
the keen vigilance of the exempt. He had been taken in a trap; and as
one or two of the Guet Royal followed Desgrais, he saw that further
resistance was useless. He held up his hand to prevent the threatened
attack which the others seemed inclined to make; and then, advancing
to the exempt, muttered--

‘I am your prisoner; take me where you please. The game is up at
last.’

The party retraced their steps, and descended once more to the byway
of the faubourgs. Bidding two of the patrol watch Exili, Desgrais next
went into the hovel, and ordered the woman to come forth. She
immediately obeyed, and made a haughty reverence to the authorities.

‘Madame Catherine Deshayes,’ said Desgrais, ‘by your name of La Voisin
you are already under the surveillance of the police. You will please
to accompany them at present, until your connection with the Signor
Exili can be explained.’

Some of the patrol directly took their places on either side of the
woman, and then Desgrais turned to Exili.

‘You will stay for to-night,’ he said, ‘in the Châtelet; to-morrow
other arrangements will be made for your sojourn until the opening of
the next chamber at the Arsenal. Two of you,’ he continued, addressing
the guard, ‘will take charge of the prisoner to Paris.’

‘Then you will not want me to follow Madame de Brinvilliers?’ said
Exili.

‘We do not now require your aid,’ was the reply. ‘Messieurs,--_en
route_!’

The guard prepared to mount, when one of them rode, apparently in a
great feeling of insecurity, through the little knot of patrol, and
approached Desgrais. The lights revealed the form and features of
Maître Picard.

‘Monsieur,’ said the little bourgeois, ‘I fear my horse is tired. I
will therefore form one of the escort to take the prisoner to the
Châtelet.’

‘I fear we cannot spare you just yet, _mon brave_,’ said Desgrais.
‘You are the only member of the Garde Bourgeois with us, and we may
need your authority after mine. You must come on at present.’

Maître Picard groaned as he turned his horse’s bridle back again. He
was evidently ill at ease in the saddle. He could just touch the
stirrups--the leathers of which were much too long for him--with the
tips of his toes; and as he had not crossed a horse since his grand
progress to Versailles, he complained that the action of the present
steed was somewhat too vigorous for him. But he was obliged to obey
the orders of the exempt, and fell into the rear accordingly.

‘A country cart, drawn by one horse, and covered with a tilt, is the
object of our chase,’ said Desgrais. ‘It cannot be ten minutes before
us. Forward!’

The majority of the guard set off at a smart trot along the hollow
way, whilst those who remained placed their prisoners between them,
and prepared to return by the Porte du Temple to Paris.




 CHAPTER XXIX.
 PHILIPPE AVAILS HIMSELF OF MAÎTRE PICARD’S HORSE FOR THE MARCHIONESS

Philippe Glazer made the best use of the time taken up in the
enactment of this hurried scene. Urging the horse on, he had already
left the scattered houses of La Villette behind them, and was now in
the open country, hastening as fast as the snow would permit towards
Le Bourget, at which village he had an acquaintance who would give him
and his companion temporary shelter, and lend him a fresh horse, if
requisite. The road was long and straight, and any light could be seen
at a great distance. As they proceeded, still in silence, Marie kept
watching from the back of the tumbrel, to give the student the first
alarm of any indications of pursuit.

‘Philippe,’ at length she exclaimed in a low voice, as though she
thought it would be heard in the extreme distance, ‘they are coming! I
can see the lights at La Villette moving. Exili has betrayed us; what
must be done?’

Her conductor jumped down to the ground as she spoke, and looked
towards the hamlet, where the cressets were indeed visible. Every
moment of advance was now most precious. He applied the lash with
renewed activity to the flanks and legs of the horse, but with little
effect. The animal was tired when he started; and the snow was now
clogging round the wheels, rendering any material progress beyond his
strength. At last, on coming to a deep drift, after a few attempts to
drag the tumbrel through, he stopped altogether.

‘Malediction!’ muttered Philippe through his teeth; ‘everything is
against us.’

‘They appear to be coming on at a fast trot,’ exclaimed Marie, as she
hastily descended from the vehicle and stood at the side of the
student. ‘We cannot possibly escape them.’

‘I am not foiled yet,’ replied Philippe. ‘We cannot outrun them, so we
must try stratagem.’

Fortunately there was a small by-road running into a species of copse
at the wayside, upon which was stored large stacks of firewood. Giving
the Marchioness his whip, he directed her to flog the horse, whilst he
himself with all his power turned one of the wheels. Marie
complied--it was no time to hesitate; and by their united efforts they
urged the animal forward, turning him off the road towards the copse,
behind one of whose wood piles the vehicle was soon concealed.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘if they do not see us, we are safe.’

A few minutes of terrible anxiety supervened as the patrol came on at
a rapid pace, their arms clanking and shining in the light of the
cressets which one or two of them still carried, blazing brightly as
the quick passage through the air fanned up their flames. Sure of the
object of their pursuit, as they imagined, they did not pause to
examine any of the tracks upon the ground, but were pushing hastily
forward towards Le Bourget, where they either expected to come up with
the fugitive, or receive information that would speedily place her in
their hands. They came on, and were close to the spot where the others
had turned off the road. Marie held her breath, and clasped Philippe’s
arm convulsively; but neither uttered a syllable as they heard them
pass, and could distinctly recognise Desgrais’s voice.

‘They have gone on!’ exclaimed the Marchioness as the sounds
diminished.

‘Stop!’ said Philippe drawing her back, for she had advanced beyond
their concealment to look after the patrol; ‘do not move; there are
more to come.’

As he spoke a horseman came slowly up, who appeared to be lagging
behind the rest as a sentinel. The starlight was sufficient to show
Philippe that he was alone; and in the stillness the student could
hear the rider muttering words of displeasure, and abusing the horse,
as he rolled uneasily about on his saddle. He stopped exactly opposite
the copse, and for a moment Philippe imagined they were discovered.
But he was soon undeceived. The patrol, after vainly endeavouring to
tighten his saddle-girths as he sat on the horse, attempted to
dismount; but being short and round in figure, he could not well reach
the ground from the stirrup, and the consequence was, he rolled down,
and over and over in the snow like a ball.

‘_Mort bleu!_’ he exclaimed, as under the weight of his accoutrements
he with difficulty scrambled on to his legs. ‘_Pouf!_ every bone in my
body is broken. _Sacristie!_--miserable beast! how shall I get on you
again?’

And he very angrily, but in great fear withal, proceeded to lift up
the horse’s hoofs, and pick the snow out of them with his halberd, one
after another; having accomplished which, he tried to tighten the
girths.

‘I know the voice,’ said Philippe; ‘it is Maître Picard. I shall take
his horse.’

Pulling his student’s cap over his eyes, and disguising his voice,
Philippe left the hiding-place and advanced towards the hapless little
bourgeois--for it was the _chapelier_ of the Rue de la Harpe. Maître
Picard had laid his halberd on the snow; and Philippe, seizing it
before the other was aware of his approach, demanded his money, in the
usual tone of a road-marauder.

The bourgeois’ first exclamation was one of surprise at the unexpected
apparition; but immediately after he began to shout--

‘_Aux voleurs!_--help!--murder!--guard!’

‘Speak another word, and you shall swallow this halberd,’ said
Philippe. ‘Give me your arms.’

With wonderful celerity Maître Picard proceeded to dispossess himself
of all his accoutrements, begging earnestly that his life might be
spared, for the sake of his wife and family.

‘You are a miserable liar,’ said Philippe gruffly, ‘and I have a mind
to pin you to a tree.’ And collecting the arms, he added, ‘Now stay
here an instant. Move at your peril until I return.’

He ran back to the cart, and bringing out the lantern, put it in
Maître Picard’s hand.

‘There! take this, and return to Paris. I shall watch you along the
road, to see that you are not loitering to watch me. Be off!’

‘But the honour of a Garde Bourgeois----’ commenced Maître Picard,
somewhat vaguely.

‘Ha!’ shouted Philippe, raising the halberd as though to strike.
Maître Picard made no other attempt to remonstrate. He turned away,
and was directly progressing towards Paris as fast as his little legs
and rotund body would allow him.

As soon as Philippe saw he was beyond eye-shot, he gathered up the
arms and then returned to Marie.

‘We have a fresh and powerful horse, madame,’ he said, ‘some good
arms, and a clear way at present. We will abandon this tumbrel and use
our new prize.’

The Marchioness acceded to everything; in fact, since they had started
she had appeared completely passive, trusting entirely to the student.
Philippe took the small bundle from the cart and slung it to the
holster. He then placed Marie upon the croup of the horse, having
turned back part of the sheepskin trappings to form a seat, and got up
before her. The whole affair from Maître Picard’s first coming up did
not occupy four minutes.

‘Now, grasp me tightly,’ he said. ‘Are you ready? then _en route_!’

He struck the horse as he spoke, and the animal sprang forward,
apparently insensible of the double load he was carrying. Philippe’s
object was at all hazard to press on as far as was possible towards
Compiègne, knowing that at Offemont carriages and horses, with
everything the Marchioness needed for her flight, were at her
disposal; but the high-road between Paris and Senlis was one long
straight line, with few byways branching off from it but those which
went completely out of the way; and even along these the journey would
have been hazardous, as the snow lay over the open country in one
unbroken sheet, alike covering up the ground and the dykes to the same
level.

Desgrais and his party had evidently pushed on with speed; for
although Philippe was now riding at the rate of ten miles an hour,
they saw no signs of them ahead. The church-clock of Le Bourget[20]
struck two as they entered the village; the snow had ceased to fall,
and the stars shone somewhat more brightly; but beyond this everything
was wrapped in obscurity, except at the end of the village, where a
faint light was gleaming from one of the houses. The place consisted
of one long street, and it was necessary to pass along this. Philippe
reined up the horse, and proceeded, at a slow noiseless walk, in the
direction of the light.

‘The snow comes aptly enough,’ he said; ‘or the ring of this beast’s
shoes upon the clear frozen ground would soon have betrayed us. We
must use a little caution now. I expect they have halted at the
post-house.’

‘What do you mean to do?’ said Marie; ‘there will be danger in passing
them.’

‘It must be tried, however. If they arrive before us at Senlis the
game is up. You have courage to make the attempt, madame?’

‘I will dare anything,’ replied the Marchioness; ‘so that my bodily
energy will but keep up to my determination.’

‘Then we will try it,’ said Philippe. ‘Now, keep a tight hold, a sure
seat, and a good heart; and leave the rest to me.’

He continued walking the horse along the street until he was close
upon the post-house--a wretched cabaret enough--about which the troop
had collected, having dismounted, and knocked up the master for
refreshment and what tidings they could collect. Knowing that, in all
probability, the horse they rode would be called upon to exert all his
power, Philippe paused for a few minutes to allow the animal to draw
his breath; and then creeping in the obscurity as near the _poste_ as
he could safely, he struck the sharp and heavy stirrups into the sides
of the horse, in lieu of spurs, and dashed hurriedly by.

The alarm was instantaneous. One of the guard perceived them, and
called the others from the interior of the _auberge_. Headed by
Desgrais, they rushed out and prepared to mount. The arrangement of
their trappings took a minute or two, and then they started after the
fugitives.

Meantime the horse which bore the student and the Marchioness flew on
like the wind, with almost quivering rapidity. Philippe knew, however,
that this velocity could not be sustained for any very long time, more
especially under the extra burden; and he therefore again taxed his
invention to produce some fresh scheme by which to deceive the others.
He was aware that, somewhat further on, the road divided into two
routes, one running through Mortefontaine, and the other by La
Chapelle, and this decided him what plan to adopt. Still keeping his
horse at his full speed, which the party of Desgrais had not yet been
able to come up with, he pressed onward, and in another quarter of an
hour had arrived at the bifurcation of the route in question. Taking
the right-hand road without allowing his horse to relax his speed,
before long they entered the beginning of the street of Mortefontaine.

Philippe pulled up the horse for a few seconds, finding that
Desgrais’s party were not yet upon them; and then briefly explained to
Marie his intentions. It chanced that an old professor of medicine at
the Hôtel Dieu--one Docteur Chapelet, who had in no small degree
annoyed Philippe by his exercise of authority over the students
generally during his pupilage, had come to settle as apothecary at
Mortefontaine. Young Glazer knew the house, which was situated within
a court and _porte-cochère_ in the middle of the village, and towards
this he now rode, choosing those parts of the uneven road where the
snow was deepest, to leave the most vivid marks behind him. Coming
close to the _porte-cochère_, he immediately backed the horse into a
small watercourse running at the side of the road, and then followed
its direction until he came to a part of the road where the wind had
blown the snow, as it fell, into the hollows. By this means not a
trace of his progress was visible, after the gateway; and crossing the
road at this point, he once more put the horse into a gallop across
the bare open country, until he regained the _grande route_ which led
direct to Senlis.




 CHAPTER XXX.
 THE STRATAGEM AT MORTEFONTAINE--SENLIS--THE ACCIDENT

The alarm which had been so hurriedly given by the sentinel as the
Marchioness passed the post-house at Le Bourget, called the guard
together immediately; and after the short delay alluded to, they
replenished their lights, and pricked on at a smart pace along the
high-road, leaving directions with the _aubergiste_ to inform Maître
Picard of their route should he come up. Arriving at the fork, they
halted awhile until they saw the traces of the fugitives, which they
at once followed; for the surface of the snow on the left-hand road
was perfectly undisturbed; and these marks, keenly picked out by the
quick eye of Desgrais, brought the whole party up to the
_porte-cochère_ of the Docteur Chapelet, but a very short time after
Marie and Philippe had quitted it. Here the impressions of the horse’s
shoes suddenly ceased, and here of course they decided that the
fugitives had taken shelter.

The exempt rode up to the bell-handle and gave a mighty pull,
sufficient to have alarmed the whole village, had it not been so
profoundly wrapped in sleep. As it was, it awoke the doctor
immediately, for his ears were ever sensitive to the slightest tingle
of a summons; and he forthwith struck a light, and projected his head,
enveloped in a marvellous mass of wrappings, on account of the cold,
from the window of the room which overlooked the road at the end of
one of the wings.

‘_Dieu de Dieux!_’ exclaimed the doctor, as he saw the cavalcade below
his window. ‘What is the matter? Who is hurt? Who are you?’

‘Admit me directly,’ said Desgrais, without deigning to answer the
doctor’s questions; and in such a tone of authority that the
professor, imagining nothing less than that he had been sent for by
Louis Quatorze himself, or at the least Madame de Montespan, hurried
on his clothes, and tumbled downstairs into the court-yard, to which
the exempt and his force were soon admitted.

‘_Eh bien_, monsieur!’ said Desgrais; ‘you will now have the kindness
to give up the Marchioness of Brinvilliers and an accomplice, whom you
have sheltered in your house.’

The professor regarded the exempt with an air of a man who is asked a
question before he is thoroughly awake.

‘Every instant of delay compromises your own security,’ continued
Desgrais. ‘Where are they?’

‘On my word of honour, as a member of my learned profession, I know
not what you mean, monsieur,’ at length gasped out the doctor. ‘There
is no one within but Madame Chapelet and the servant.’

‘Sir,’ cried Desgrais in a voice of thunder, ‘if you do not
immediately produce the fugitives, we will give you the question of
the cord from the top of your own gateway.’

‘Will anybody tell me what I am expected to do?’ cried the professor
in an agony of bewilderment. ‘Sir, captain----’

‘I am no captain, monsieur,’ interrupted Desgrais; ‘but an exempt of
the Maréchaussée. We have traced the fugitives to your door, and now
demand them of you. Gentlemen,’ he continued, to the guard, ‘dismount,
and proceed to tie up the doctor and search his house.’

‘I tell you there is no one here,’ screamed the unfortunate professor,
as some of the guard proceeded to lay hands on him; ‘or if there is,
it is without my knowledge. You can search my house from top to
bottom. I will conduct you everywhere.’

This was said with such frantic anxiety that Desgrais placed the
confusion of the doctor rather to the score of undisguised fright than
unbelieved truth. He directly stationed sentinels round the house,
and, accompanied by Chapelet and the rest of his men, commenced a
searching investigation, scaring the servant--a rosy, drowsy
Normande--from her tranquillity, and even breaking the slumbers of
Madame Chapelet, whose appearance, in her provincial night-gear,
attracted less the attention of the Guet Royal. Not a corner of the
abode was left unvisited. Desgrais sounded the panels, and even broke
in the side of one of the fireplaces, which he thought was a masked
recess. He crept up into the lofts and down into the cellars, but, of
course, without success; until, having visited the stable and found
but one horse therein--a sorry animal, whose appearance betrayed not
the least token of recent exercise--he confessed himself fairly at a
loss to know what to do next.

‘She is a deep one, that Marchioness!’ he said, ‘and has fairly
tricked us. We are sorry, monsieur,’ he added, addressing the
professor, ‘to have annoyed you in such an untimely manner; but you
have our best wishes that the remainder of your night’s rest will be
undisturbed.’

The professor made a grimace, and an attempt at a bow.

Desgrais continued--

‘Gentleman, we must be again on our way. One thing is certain--the
fugitives will not return to Paris, but, without doubt, are still on
the road, although this ruse--for such it is--is inexplicable. We must
go on to Senlis.’

The guard did not obey this order with their usual alacrity. They were
put out of heart by the escape of their intended prisoners when they
thought them in their grasp. Their horses, too, were fatigued; and
between Mortefontaine and Senlis there were still eight or nine good
miles of ground to be got over. But Desgrais’s orders were peremptory;
and although grumbling quietly to one another, they remounted, and
were again on their pursuit.

But the delay thus brought about had answered Philippe’s purpose, who
still kept bravely on with his companion, until at last they came to
the faubourgs of Senlis, and the horse’s hoofs clattered over the
pavement of the narrow streets, with the topography of which the
student was very well acquainted. The pace had, however, materially
diminished, and Philippe was not sorry when they at last stopped at
the _poste_--the Hôtel du Grand-Cerf. Luckily the inn was open, and
the people were up; for a public conveyance running from Valenciennes
to Paris was expected within an hour, either sooner or later--its
arrival being a matter of great uncertainty, depending alike on the
roads, the weather, and the thieves.

Philippe was on the ground the instant they reached the door; and,
assisting Marie to dismount, supported her into the inn, whilst one of
the _écuyers_ took the horse. As the student reached the _salle à
manger_, where a bright fire was burning, Marie could bear up no
longer. She strove to utter a few words, and then, her voice failing,
went into a violent fit of hysterics that appeared tearing her to
pieces.

Philippe was a clever fellow in his profession, and could have
prescribed fitly for a patient; but he scarcely knew how to act upon
the present occasion. His natural readiness, however, never deserted
him; so he sent for the mistress of the hotel, and, commencing by
ordering a chaise and four to be immediately in waiting, that he might
command more attention, said to the hostess--

‘We must make a confidante of you, madam. As a woman, you will assist
us. In a word, I am in love with this lady, and we have eloped
together to avoid a forced marriage on her part. Will you attend to
her kindly, whilst I hurry the stable-people?’

And without waiting for a reply Philippe left the convulsed form of
the Marchioness to the care of the landlady, whilst he went into the
inn-yard to urge on the putting-to of the horses. The hostess did not
disbelieve his story. We have before spoken of the singularly youthful
appearance of Marie’s features; and as Philippe Glazer was a handsome
young man, about the same age, she took it all for granted, and
directly entered into the trouble of ‘the poor young couple,’ as she
imagined them to be. The prospect of good payment might, at the same
time, have increased her sympathy.

When the carriage was ready Philippe returned, and then Marie was
slightly recovered, and was sipping some warm wine, poured from one of
a number of bright little pewter vessels which were ranged amongst the
glowing embers of the fireplace. She was, however, pale and anxious,
and earnestly inquired of Philippe if he was ready to start.

‘The horses are waiting,’ he replied, as Marie, turning to the
landlady, inquired, ‘How many others have you in the stable at
present?’

‘There are six,’ replied the hostess; ‘four of which are going on with
the Valenciennes express.’

‘Are the roads safe?’ asked the Marchioness.

‘But tolerably so, ma’amselle. They usually travel armed who go by
night, or with an escort.’

‘I will have two of your people,’ she added, ‘to ride by our side. Let
them mount immediately.’

‘There is little to apprehend from the robbers,’ said Philippe, as the
landlady hurried out of the room.

‘But a great deal from Desgrais, if he gets fresh horses,’ replied
Marie. ‘I would take them all on if I could.’

Philippe immediately saw her object. The mistress returned in two
minutes, and informed them that all was ready; when, hurriedly paying
the account, they entered the lumbering but comfortable vehicle that
stood at the door, guarded by two rough-looking _écuyers_, who, in
some old postilion’s trappings, had been suddenly raised to the
dignity of an escort.

‘And now to Offemont, by Compiègne,’ cried Philippe to the riders. ‘A
treble _pour boire_ if you get there under three hours, and without a
change! _Allons!_’

‘_Allume! hi donc! hue! hue! ir-r-r-r!_’ The traces, long enough for
eight horses, tightened; the postilions shouted and cracked their
whips; the animals left off whinnying and fighting, and then started
swiftly off; their feet clattering and the bridle-bells jingling
through the empty streets of Senlis. They did not, however, put out
their full speed until they left the town; but then, urged on by
Philippe every minute, they dashed on like lightning. But a short way
from the gates they met the Valenciennes express, with the lamp over
the driver’s head gleaming upon the white road along which they were
toiling; and after this the way was clear. On, on they went, as the
bare and spectral trees that bordered the route appeared to be flying
past them; their very speed counteracting, by its excitement, the
depression and fear caused by the journey. Villeneuve-sur-Verberie!
they had passed over three leagues. There was a short halt at the
_poste_ to change the riders of the horses, and thus divide the work,
and they were again on the road, which now passed through forests and
along straight avenues of trees, with snow-laden branches overhanging
the way. Then came more villages, in which no signs of life were
visible; again they were hurrying over the open country, or traversing
the wood. But still the same rattling pace was kept up, until they
again stopped, for as long a rest and as good a bait as the impatience
of Marie and Philippe would allow, at La Croix-Saint Ouen; at the
post-house of which village they left their escort, fully satisfied
that their horses could be of no further service to any one, for that
night at least.

Desgrais had lost too much time at Mortefontaine to get to the inn at
Senlis until half an hour after the Marchioness had left. It did not
take him long, however, when he got there, to undeceive the landlady
as to the real position of affairs. Here fresh annoyances awaited him.
The horses, as we have seen, had all been bespoken; those of his own
troop were too tired to proceed, and the exempt therefore determined
to use those waiting for the Valenciennes express, which arrived a
minute or two after he reached the Grand-Cerf. This of course led to a
violent uproar between the passengers and the guards; but the former
could not well help themselves. Desgrais asserted his royal authority
for so doing, against which there was no appeal; and the travellers
accordingly were obliged to remain at the hotel, whilst the exempt,
and three picked followers, took the horses, and were again on their
journey, leaving the scared hostess to recount to her customers,
against her will, the deception which had been practised on her.

Nothing befell the party as they rode on to Villeneuve-sur-Verberie,
where a relay of fresh horses was obtained at the _poste_, with fresh
intelligence of their intended prisoner. At La Croix-Saint-Ouen they
fell in with the two stable fellows left behind by Philippe, and from
them Desgrais learned that it was the intention of the fugitives to go
to Offemont. Knowing that the establishment of the Marchioness at this
place was large, and that several horses were at her disposal, the
active exempt foresaw there was yet necessity for the utmost speed;
but his companions were completely knocked up; they had ridden in
heavy accoutrements from Paris, and although they did not dare to
refuse, Desgrais perceived the pursuit would be a sorry business; he
therefore determined to go on alone, and mounting a fresh horse, slung
a flask of brandy over his shoulders, and started by himself for
Compiègne. He was a man of unflinching purpose and iron nerve, and he
resolved not to return to Paris until Marie was in his power.

It was between five and six in the morning when he entered a little
village adjoining Compiègne, and still dark; but the exempt found the
hamlet in some commotion: lights were flitting about the street, and
people talking simultaneously, at the top of their voices, in the
manner of their countrymen at the present day, as they gathered round
some object in the middle of the road. Desgrais pushed forward, and
asked the cause of the tumult at such an unwonted hour.

‘The wheels of a post-carriage have taken fire, monsieur,’ replied a
bystander, ‘and one is quite destroyed.’

‘And the travellers?’ eagerly demanded the exempt.

‘Have gone on to Compiègne in a market-cart, not ten minutes ago.’

Desgrais put spurs to his horse, and galloped off without saying
another word.




 CHAPTER XXXI.
 PHILIPPE GLAZER THROWS DESGRAIS OFF THE SCENT

With all his energy to overtake the fugitives, the exempt was again
too late, although fate appeared almost to have thrown them into his
hands. There were a train of market-carts coming into Compiègne on
all sides from the suburbs; and Desgrais, after stopping one or two in
authoritative tones, to the temporary astonishment of the owners,
became so confused with their numbers by the time he reached the
Place, where they were all collecting, that he gave up any further
search, and resolved, after a little rest, to proceed to Offemont;
for, as may be imagined after his harassing journey, he was well-nigh
exhausted. The brandy he carried with him gave him a temporary power
of endurance, and he now stood in need of more substantial
nourishment; and feeling sure that the Marchioness would go at once to
her château, not giving him credit for pursuing her so closely, he
still reckoned upon seizing her before noon, and then, with the
assistance of the municipal authorities of the town, taking her back
to Paris.

In the meantime the humble conveyance which had taken up Marie and
Philippe stopped with them at one of the principal inns, at the very
time that the active agent of the Maréchaussée was endeavouring to
discover them in the streets. At Compiègne the Marchioness was well
known. The firing of the wheels of the post-carriage accounted
sufficiently for her arrival in the market-cart; and her worn, jaded
appearance, was attributed to fright at the occurrence. Her character
stood well, no less at Compiègne and the neighbourhood than at Paris,
as an amiable and much-wronged lady; the wild career her husband had
followed since their separation--the embarrassment of her affairs--his
unbridled licentiousness--all offered sufficient excuses for her
attachment to Sainte-Croix; more especially in an age when gallantry
was almost a virtue--at all events, a most venial transgression; and
therefore it is not to be wondered at that the entire household of the
hotel were anxious to do all they could to assist her at present, even
to the point of becoming officious. A fresh carriage and horses to
Offemont was all, however, that the Marchioness required, and these
were immediately got ready.

‘And now, Philippe,’ said Marie, as they awaited the time to start in
one of the rooms of the hotel, ‘I shall no longer require your help.
You had better return to Paris as soon as you well may, and leave the
rest of my destiny in my own hands. Here I am comparatively at home,
and all are ready to assist me.’

‘I would see you as far as your house at Offemont,’ said the student.

‘There is no necessity for your so doing,’ returned Marie. ‘On the
contrary, it may involve you in some little trouble, more especially
if I am overtaken before I am able to clear myself to the satisfaction
of everybody.’

‘But it is only now a few miles to the château,’ said Philippe.

‘And therefore is there the less occasion for you to accompany me,
whichever way the venture turns. If I get there unobserved, your
presence would be entirely superfluous; if I am overtaken, it would
but involve another in this persecution. I have already been the cause
of too much misery.’

The deep-drawn, almost wailing, sigh of utter exhaustion and misery
which followed these words carried with it such an expression of
desolation, that many who had far less faith in her sincerity than
Philippe would have been affected by it. And yet the depth and
calculation of this extraordinary woman prompted everything. She knew
that if Philippe Glazer was found with her, a fresh link would be
added to the chain of circumstances that connected her with
Sainte-Croix’s affairs, and the revelations of the casket; and she was
anxious that this should be annulled. Hitherto she had owed everything
to his escort and invention; but, now that she was amongst her own
people, and enabled to go on by herself, she foresaw that, in the
event of their being overtaken, his presence would be considered
anything but favourable to her position. And yet, through all this,
she was not at the moment entirely devoid of feeling. We have said
that the most schooled and lying natures have their gleams of candour
and sincerity, and in an access of this kind she continued to the
student--

‘You have been very kind to me, Philippe; risking everything to save
me when, I doubt not, before long the whole world will have turned its
back upon me. How can I return this devotion?’

‘No more, madame, I beseech you,’ replied her companion. ‘It would be
a crime indeed not to have assisted you in this extremity, knowing all
as I do.’

‘All!’ half exclaimed the Marchioness, as she bent her eye upon
Philippe’s countenance; but nothing there indicated a meaning of any
import. She continued--

‘Let this cloud but blow over, and you shall not complain of my want
of gratitude. But at present, take this clasp, and keep it as a
souvenir of our journey. And promise me,’ she went on, as she
unclasped a jewel from her dress and placed it in Philippe’s
hand--‘and promise me that, come what may, you will see me again,
under whatever circumstances it may be practicable to do so.’

‘I swear it,’ replied Philippe, as he put the gift in his pocket,
‘even if you were watching my journey to the scaffold!’

Again Marie regarded the student with an intensity, as though she
would have probed his most hidden thoughts. It was not the first time
that he had alluded to the Place de Grêve upon their journey. Still
there was an absence of any apparent intention in the speech; but the
words caused a shiver to run through her frame, and she turned even
paler than before, a slight quivering of her lip, in addition,
betraying her emotion. At this moment the carriage which was to bear
her to Offemont was announced; and pressing Philippe’s hand warmly,
she averted her face, and without another word hurriedly entered the
vehicle. The word was then given to start, the windows were drawn up
to shut out the freezing morning air, and in another minute she was on
the road to Offemont.

Philippe watched the carriage until it turned the street, and then
returned to the _salle à manger_ of the hotel. The intense
excitement, and the hazards he had undergone, now left a reaction of
extreme depression. The beauty of Marie de Brinvilliers, and her
singular fascinations--her rank and acknowledged acquirements--no less
than the romance which her very gallantries had given to her
character, had half-turned the student’s head, and he began to
question himself, as he had done a dozen times before during the
night, when he felt her clinging to him on the horse, whether his
chivalry was not turning into love; and lighting his pipe, he sat over
the hearth ruminating upon her present situation, and the events of
the last few hours, and what a great thing it was for a student to be
in love with a Marchioness; and lastly he determined, in the event of
her being taken, literally to go through fire and water to assist her,
if such were requisite. And then he remembered that when Camille
Theria had left Paris for Liége, he had spoken of some letters he had
received from the Marchioness, which brought about a new train of
thought, until his ideas became altogether confused, and he fell into
a doze at the warm fireside.

He was aroused by the entrance of an individual in the costume of the
Guet Royal, who marched clanking into the room with an important air,
shouting loudly for the hostess. But the landlady was engaged at that
minute; and having restlessly walked up to the window and curled his
mustachios, he returned to the fireplace, and gave a loud, gruff
‘hem!’ which startled Philippe from his reverie.

‘Have you been here long, _mon brave_?’ he asked with a patronising
air, having attracted his attention.

‘About half an hour,’ said Philippe. ‘I came in early to the market.’

‘Then perhaps you can tell me whether any travellers have arrived or
departed within that period.’

Philippe’s first impulse was to answer in the negative; but a sudden
idea struck him that he might turn the reply to good account.

‘A lady left here in a carriage about ten minutes ago,’ he said.

‘_Peste!_’ exclaimed the guard. ‘M. Desgrais, the exempt of the
Maréchaussée, has just arrived at the prefecture, with an order to
arrest a Parisian lady, whom he has followed since last evening and
this must be her. He has sent messengers to every hotel in the town to
stop her. Do you know which road she took?’

‘The end of her journey was Beauvais,’ said Philippe, throwing the
guard completely off the scent; ‘the horses were to go to Bois de
Lihus.’

‘That is sufficient,’ said the other. ‘I am obliged to you.’

And having apparently got all the information he wanted, he returned
to the prefecture, without seeing the landlady, who came to obey his
summons within two minutes after he had left.

‘So,’ thought Philippe, ‘they are got rid of for three leagues and a
half at least. The seven, there and back, will give madame plenty of
time to steal a march upon them, which they will not readily make up.
And now I had better look to myself.’

There was nothing to settle at the inn, so Philippe lounged idly out
of the _salle à manger_ into the street, where the full bustle and
activity of the day’s business was beginning to get into play. On
arriving at the Place, he found many of the market-carts about to
return into the country. Several were going back towards Senlis; but
not caring to travel the same route by which he had arrived at
Compiègne, for many obvious reasons, he made a bargain with the owner
of one of them to carry him to Joulzy, from whence he could easily get
to Soissons, and return to Paris by an entirely different route.




 CHAPTER XXXII.
 OFFEMONT TO LIÉGE--AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE--THE SANCTUARY

Within an hour of leaving the _poste_ at Compiègne the Marchioness
had traversed a portion of the Forêt de l’Aigue and arrived at
Offemont, at her château. Here no longer any difficulty existed in
procuring the means of proceeding onward. The horses in the stable
were fresh, and prepared for hard work; the servants were attached to
her, from her having resided so much with them, up to the death of M.
d’Aubray; and a change of dress, from her hurried costume to more
suitable habiliments for the journey, somewhat refreshed her.

Still she was aware no time was to be lost; and knowing well--better
than even Desgrais himself--the imminent peril she would be in if
taken, she directly ordered her own carriage to be got ready, her
determination being to reach the frontier of the Netherlands at the
nearest point. Her anxiety created some little astonishment amongst
the people; but they had only to obey, and a very little time elapsed
before the carriage was in the court, and all prepared for the fresh
start.

It was a fine winter’s morning. The sun was sparkling on the frozen
snow, and the nostrils of the horses steamed in the sharp, bracing
air, which called a flush on Marie’s cheek and rendered her appearance
less haggard, by the temporary glow, than the terrible adventures of
the night had made it. And now that she was entirely dependent upon
her own energy for safety, her firmness rose with the danger. The
first shock passed, all her wondrous determination came back to her
assistance. In her utter, fearful heartlessness, she was almost
beginning to look already upon the death of Gaudin as an accident by
which some clog had been removed, and she had been left free and
unfettered to follow her own will, as soon as her safety from her
pursuers was secured.

A large package, apparently of clothes, was put in the carriage with
her, and then the word was given to proceed at once to Laon--a large
town some four and twenty miles off--with such speed as the horses
could make in the snow. Here she arrived towards the afternoon, and
then with fresh horses went on towards Vervins, changing at the little
village of Marle, and taking some slight refreshment. It will be
unnecessary for us to follow the Marchioness with minuteness
throughout her route; for nothing beyond the ordinary adventures of
the road occurred until she reached the frontier. Paying well at every
_poste_, the horses were urged, in spite of all disadvantages, far
beyond the common rate of travelling, and her hopes increased with
every hour that Desgrais had been put off the scent. Reaching Vervins
in the night, she went on to Rocroi, through Maubert, arriving at the
former place some twenty hours after her departure from Offemont. Here
she rested some little time, having need of refreshment beyond the few
things she had, with some forethought, brought with her. At Fumay
another delay was occasioned by the lack of horses; but this temporary
hindrance was less annoying; for, since the previous evening, the
frost had set in with such unparalleled severity that, with every
contrivance, the cold had become intense, even causing her to suffer
acute pain. But at night she was enabled again to be on the road, and
reached Givet, the frontier town on the French side of the river
Meuse, early in the evening.

Although not above five o’clock, the streets of this picturesque place
were almost deserted in consequence of the cold, and the people at the
inn were astonished to see a solitary female alight from the carriage,
which now bore evidences of having come a long journey. But they
carried the few effects that Marie had with her into the common room
of the inn, and then heaped up the fire and bustled about to serve
her, impressed with some respect by the liberality with which she paid
the _postes_, and the report carried on from one town to another that
such had been the case throughout the journey. Here all danger she
imagined was over. The Meuse only separated her from another country,
and to cross this was the work of half a minute. Hence she determined
upon remaining at Givet for the night; for, with all her energy, her
animal powers were now well-nigh exhausted by reason of want of rest.

She was alone in the large and cheerless public room of the ‘Ane
Doré’--the hotel to which the postilions had brought her whilst the
servants got another chamber warmed and ready to receive her. The
hurry and confusion of the last two days and nights had left her but
little time for reflection; but, now that the great risk was
comparatively lessened, reaction took place, and a bitter depression
stole over her feelings--crushing and desolate. All the terrible
circumstances which had so lately occurred came back to her mind with
fearful distinctness; the very shadows that danced upon the walls and
ceiling appeared endowed with ghastly forms, that flickered and
gibbered about her with an air of triumph. She could not close her
eyes and shut them out; for the mere notion that they were then still
mocking her was more insupportable than absolutely fixing her open
eyes upon them. Anon the warmth of the fire, coming after the biting
cold of the open air, induced drowsiness, and in a half-sleeping,
half-waking state, these fitful shadows changed from the indistinct
shapes into which her imagination had transformed them to palpable and
horrid objects. A crowd of pale and sheeted spectres, with wasted
limbs and distorted faces, as though they had died after
long-protracted agony, swept slowly before her, bearing the semblances
of those who, by her hellish agency, had filled the Salle des Cadavres
of the Hôtel Dieu. Her father, too, was there--vivid and lifelike, as
he had seemed to her on that fatal evening at Offemont, when the first
step of her diabolical career had been taken. Her brothers rose up as
well, and denounced her as they moved their blackened lips, and
lastly, she saw the form of Gaudin de Sainte-Croix advancing through
the immaterial and hideous groups that surrounded him. He came towards
her, and, although the stamp of death was on his features, she felt
his breath hot and stifling on her cheek as he advanced. She tried to
move away, but some hideous sensation riveted her to the spot. He came
still nearer, and stretched forth his hand to seize her, when with a
cry of terror she awoke, and found herself still alone in the chamber;
whilst a violent ringing of the bell in the court-yard recalled her at
once to her senses.

She directly rushed to the window, her imagination picturing nothing
less than the arrival of Desgrais. But to her relief she saw nothing
beyond a small country vehicle, drawn by one horse, from which a man,
apparently young, leapt down, and directed the fellow in attendance to
take charge of it. He then entered the court, and immediately
afterwards Marie heard him coming towards the room in which she was.
She had barely time to throw a scarf over her head, and draw it
together, so as in a measure to conceal her features, when the
new-comer entered.

He started back for a moment as he perceived the room was occupied,
and then, with some commonplace salutation, to which Marie only
replied with a bow, advanced towards the fireplace. The Marchioness
perceived that he was scrutinising her with sidelong glances, and
again became somewhat alarmed; when the stranger divested himself of a
travelling-cloak, and threw it on the table, previously to kicking the
embers on the hearth carelessly together with his foot. As he did this
the fire burnt up, and Marie caught a glimpse of his face. A subdued
cry of surprise burst from her lips as she thought she recognised him,
and she then exclaimed, half interrogating, half addressing him--

‘Camille Theria!’

‘The same,’ returned Theria, for it was he. ‘The same; and at your
service, madame, mademoiselle, or _ma belle_--whichever title you
choose to appropriate to yourself.’

‘Have you forgotten me?’ she asked, as she threw back the scarf and
showed her face.

‘Marie!’ exclaimed Camille, as he started at the revelation. And he
added almost directly, but in an altered tone, as though he would have
been better pleased had his companion been any one else, ‘_Mon Dieu!_
how came you here, for us to meet thus?’

‘You are annoyed, then, at meeting me,’ replied Marie; for her keen
perception detected the difference of his expression. And, as she
assumed a tearful and appealing look, she added, ‘I am used to this,
Camille, and ought to have expected it. The time was when I should
have been too proud to have even replied to you; but persecution and
misery have crushed my spirit. My heart is quite--quite broken.’

She bowed down her head, and covered her face with her hands. She
meant Camille to believe that she was weeping. He did so, and was
touched at her distress. Taking one of her hands in his own, he said
in kinder accents--

‘I was surprised at this sudden rencontre, Marie. I know not why, but
I did not expect that we should ever meet again. It certainly was not
my wish, although you will not give me credit for the cause.’

‘And what is that?’

‘I will tell you. You know I left Paris for Liége, my native place,
some time ago. I have since then followed my profession there, and am
about to be married. My intended lives at Mezières, whence I am now
returning from a visit.’

‘And you ought to forget me,’ replied Marie: ‘it is right to do so.’
Then she added, ‘Do you remember the last evening we met, Camille?’

‘It would be difficult to forget it. I have the scar here on my arm
from Monsieur de Sainte-Croix’s sword. Where is he--at Paris still?’

‘I know not,’ answered the Marchioness, with a violent effort to
conceal her emotion; ‘it is long since we have met.’

‘He may be alive or dead, for aught I could say to the contrary,’ said
Theria. ‘I never hear from Paris now.’

‘He knows nothing then,’ thought the Marchioness.

‘But how is it I find you here?’ continued Theria; ‘so far from home,
and alone?’

‘Alas! Camille, it is a sad story, and some day you shall know
everything. I have been compelled to fly from Paris--from my
creditors--to avoid a prison. The separation from my husband and
children drove me to seek any excitement that would drown my
wretchedness. I played deeply, and I am ruined.’

‘Are you pursued?’

‘I believe the authorities are close upon my track. I only left Paris
the evening before last. Your old friend Philippe Glazer came with me
to Offemont, and from that place I have travelled alone.’

‘I think you might have chosen a better resting-place,’ said Theria.
‘This is the principal hotel, and the first to which the police would
come. I shall wait here until my horse is rested, and then push on
to-night, if possible, to Dinant; for I must be at Liége to-morrow.
Will you accompany me?’

‘Again upon the road!’ murmured his companion in accents of despair.
‘My strength has nearly deserted me!’

‘It will be safer for you, if things are as you state,’ replied
Camille. ‘You will have passed the frontier, and be three leagues
nearer the termination of your journey. We will sup together if you
please, Marie, and talk it over; I shall not start for an hour yet.
Mass! how the wind is shrieking along the market-place!’

‘I will go with you,’ said Marie, after a little deliberation. ‘I
could not bear to be left here now, wretched and utterly deserted as I
am. The sight of you has recalled so many old feelings, that----’

‘Understand me, Marie,’ interrupted Camille, ‘the past must be never
again alluded to between us. I have told you my position, and if we
meet, it can only be as friends.’

‘It shall be as you wish, Camille,’ replied the Marchioness with a
sigh. ‘I will not give you cause for the lightest rebuke.’

Some of the people of the inn appeared at that moment, and at
Camille’s orders laid out a table for supper. When they left the room
he said--

‘Have you no other dress? In my quiet vehicle your rich costume would
at least excite curiosity; and the more unobserved we are the safer.’

‘I have provided against any suspicion,’ said Marie; and taking up the
bundle she had brought with her, she left the room, returning within
five minutes attired as a _paysanne_ of the Forêt de l’Aigue. Her
hair, which she usually wore in showering ringlets about her neck and
shoulders, was knotted and disordered by her journey, and she stood
before a large mirror in the room, to put it up beneath a small
country cap, first letting fall its entire flowing length, with a
coquetry that was intended to produce its effect upon Theria. But
Camille’s affections were fixed at present rather on a _brioche_ that
adorned the table, and the effect was lost.

Whilst thus occupied, an unusual stir was heard in the street below
the inn. Marie, alive to every sound, again rushed to the window, and
to her dismay perceived that her worst fears were realised. A mounted
escort of guards had surrounded a carriage, in which, by the lights
they carried, she could plainly recognise Desgrais, and two other
exempts. He had closely followed her, making up for the time lost in
the wild-goose chase towards Beauvais by double speed as soon as he
found himself on the right track; and, as Camille had imagined, came
first to the principal hotel.

‘I am lost!’ she exclaimed, as she retreated from the window. ‘They
have traced me!’

‘Not yet,’ said Camille, jumping up. ‘But you must be off directly.
Where is your passport?’

A cry of terror broke from Marie’s lips at the question. She had left
home without one, forgetting that it would be demanded at the
frontier.

‘Never mind,’ cried Theria; ‘this way. We can get into the court
before they enter by this staircase, and thence to some of the back
streets. You must run every risk, if you wish to escape; though I
should imagine, for a matter of debt, they would not be very hard upon
you. Come--come!’

Little persuasion was needed to induce Marie to accompany her new
guide. They flew down the small flight of stairs indicated by Theria,
and were quickly in the street in the rear of the hotel, whence a few
turns conducted them to the river side, where the Meuse was chafing
amidst the huge blocks of ice which had floated down its stream, and
were gathering into one solid mass.

‘If you could but cross the river,’ he said, ‘we should be safe. But a
boat could not make its way amidst the ice. We will try it, however,
if you choose.’

‘I am ready,’ said Marie. ‘The chance is a desperate one either way.’

‘We must not be particular about what craft we take,’ said Theria, ‘so
long as it remains undiscovered. Here is one I think will do.’

A small boat had been hauled on to the bank, which Theria directly
launched through the brittle ice close to the shore; and then,
assisting Marie to enter it, he got in himself, and pushed off with
one of the stretchers. So rapidly had everything taken place, that
before the Marchioness well understood what they were about, she found
herself with Theria half across the river.

It was not very dark. One or two lights were gleaming and struggling
with the wind along the edge of the river; and the frosty brightness
of the stars was sufficient to enable them to discern surrounding
objects. The huge blocks of ice kept floating about them, at times
turning their boat completely round, and at last a conglomeration of
these masses hemmed them in, threatening entirely to arrest their
farther progress. Theria made a few strenuous efforts to set the boat
free, but in vain. Another and another block joined the body, until
the entire mass, wedging itself in with some fixed groups that
extended a third of the way across the river, became altogether
immovable.

‘_Pheuh!_’ said Theria, as, after a few laborious attempts to get the
boat out, he threw down his piece of board, and saw the futility of
his work. ‘What can we do now? We are fairly trapped.’

‘It is all over!’ exclaimed Marie, as she gazed at the gloomy masses,
about which the cold feathery spray of the river was dashing, terrible
to look at in the obscurity. ‘We shall be kept here until daylight,
and then be captured.’

‘If we are, I shall be mistaken,’ said Theria. ‘The ice ought to make
a bridge, although a slippery one.’

He tried to gain a footing upon one or two of the blocks; but they
turned round as he touched them. At last he found one larger and
firmer than the rest--a conglomerate of several pieces, forming a
perfect iceberg--and this was frozen to some others that had been
arrested in their progress by one or two piles just under water. It
was extremely hazardous; but their only chance was to endeavour to
reach the bank by this treacherous passage. Theria stepped carefully
from the boat on to the block, which, somewhat depressed in the
middle, offered a safer platform to stand upon than those of a more
irregular shape. Then, assured of its stability, he gave his hand to
the Marchioness, and bidding her to trust herself entirely to his
guidance, assisted her on to the ice, moving with extreme caution, and
sideways towards the bank. The least slip of the foot or overbalance
of weight would at once have been fatal to both; but, fortunately, the
severity of the frost had so bound the masses to each other, that in
little more than a minute their perilous journey was accomplished, and
they stood on the firm land on the other side of the river. The cold
had kept all within doors, so that they were not observed by any
passers by, and the darkness hid them from the view of the sentinels
on the adjacent fortifications.

Camille directly led Marie to a small cabaret on the quay, and told
her to await his return, whilst he went back to the hotel by the
bridge--having his passport _en règle_, and being, moreover, slightly
known to the authorities. His absence had scarcely been noticed at the
‘Ane Doré’ in the confusion, although they were eagerly seeking the
Marchioness; so he ordered out his horse and little conveyance, and
drove over the bridge to the spot where he had left Marie. Here she
joined him, and they then set off together to Dinant, the first town
in Belgium on crossing the frontier, where they arrived in two hours.
Now Marie determined at all hazards to stop. She had meant to do so at
Givet, had it been practicable, for her strength would hold out no
longer; indeed, for the last ten miles of her journey, she had been in
a complete state of stupefaction from want of rest, after the trials
she had undergone. Theria went to another house to avoid any
suspicion, recommending her to post onward in the morning, so as to
reach Liége before Desgrais could get any order for her ‘extradition’
from the Conseil des Soixante in that city. The chances were in favour
of her security; for no one had seen her leave Givet, nor would the
passport books afford any information as to her route.

Meantime Desgrais had learned sufficient at the ‘Ane Doré’ to
convince him that the Marchioness had been there; and the discovery of
the garments she had left at the hotel at once decided him. But she
had again slipped through his hands, and this time without leaving a
trace of her journey behind her. He immediately sent his archers round
to the commissaries of police and the barriers; but no passport had
been seen that night, nor were the guards aware that any one had
crossed the bridge since dark, except Theria, whom they mentioned. But
he knew that the Marchioness had the passage of the frontier for her
object, and that Liége, as the nearest place of importance, would in
all probability be the end of her journey; and consequently, leaving a
portion of his men at Givet, with orders to make the strictest
investigation at all the hotels and small inns in the neighbourhood,
he went on the same night to Dinant, actually sleeping in that town
within two hundred yards of his object.

Marie was up as soon as there was daylight enough to proceed on her
journey. Twenty leagues were now all that remained between her and
Liége, and these she meant to traverse before night. The rest of some
hours had refreshed her, bodily and mentally, and she was once more
ready to encounter any difficulties her further progress might bring
forth. The exempt never heard of the departure (which he immediately
knew to be that of the Marchioness), until three or four hours after
she had left Dinant; and then, still at a loss to account for the
manner in which she had contrived to elude the police authorities at
Givet, he ordered out a carriage and horses, and started after her
with all the speed his money and authority could command, leaving his
archers behind--with the exception of two who accompanied him--with
orders to follow him as hastily as their means would permit.

Empanne, Havelange, Nandrin--all were passed without any circumstance
occurring to obstruct Marie’s flight; and the gloom of the winter’s
night was closing fast about her as the carriage came within the last
mile of Liége. It was here, as she looked behind her through the
small window at the back of the vehicle, to see if there were any
signs of pursuit on the road--which had been her sole occupation
during the day--that she first perceived two gleaming lights in the
distance, evidently following her. She urged on the postilions, and a
turn of the road hid them from her view. Then they were again visible,
and apparently nearer; directly the brow of the hill, as she descended
once more, shut them out, and the next minute she saw them gaining
upon her during every interval of perfect darkness. Swiftly as she was
flying along the road, it was evident that the other party was more
than a match for her _attelage_ in speed; and perceiving from this
that every effort was being made to come up with her, she concluded
that it was Desgrais.

Lashed and goaded to madness, her horses flew on like the wind, as
from the front of the carriage she promised an additional reward every
instant to their riders if they brought her to Liége before the other
traveller. But Desgrais--for it was he--was equally on the alert. On
the first intimation that a carriage was in sight on the road before
them, he had left the interior, and, clinging to the front of the
_voiture_, was urging his own people on as earnestly as the
Marchioness, until the uproar of cries and cracking whips was plainly
audible to the terrified inmate of the first vehicle. Tearing uphill,
until the breathless horses almost fell from being overtasked--anon
racing down, with a precipitancy that threatened annihilation every
instant--and then flying along the level road, so close together, that
the steam from the animals in the carriage of the Marchioness was
still visible in the gleam of the lamps belonging to Desgrais--did the
chase continue.

At last they entered Liége, and the pursuit now became doubly
exciting from the cries of the postilions as they traversed the
glooming streets at a fearful pace, cracking their whips as they
whirled them above their heads, and shouting in an unearthly manner to
warn the passengers of their advent. A _charette_ in the road offered
a temporary check to Marie’s carriage, and Desgrais the next instant
was close up to her. But nearer he could not come; for the width of
the thoroughfare would not allow the two vehicles to go abreast. They
were, however, coming to a broader street, and then Marie knew he
would pass her. To avoid this, and gain a minute of time--for every
second now was worth the price of her life--she collected some straw
from the interior of her coach, and tied it into a bundle with her
handkerchief; then lighting it at the lamp of the carriage, she leaned
out of the window, and threw it, blazing, directly in front of the
leaders of the other _voiture_. The horse on which the postilion was
riding reared up in fright, and directly threw him; his fellow backed
as well, and the wheelers coming over them, they were all thrown
together in a terrible confusion before the carriage, which by its own
impetus came partly on them. In an instant Desgrais leaped upon his
feet--for the shock had also thrown him upon the ground--and clearing
the rider from the stirrups, he cut the traces with his poniard, and
getting the horse upon his legs, vaulted into the saddle, leaving the
rest of his equipage to the care of the archers who were inside. The
carriage of the Marchioness was not fifty yards ahead, as it turned
towards the convent she had indicated to the drivers. Once more
everything depended on a few seconds, and Desgrais goaded the poor
animal with the point of his weapon to spur it onwards, as the horses
of his intended prisoner, equally urged, kept tearing on towards the
goal. At last they stopped at the door of the convent, and as its
heavy bell sounded with a loud and violent peal, the exempt came up to
the carriage.

He sprang from his horse, and tore down, rather than opened, the door
nearest the road, and seized the Marchioness by her mantle. At that
instant the gate of the convent opened, as she jumped from the
carriage and entered the lodge, leaving the garment in the hand of the
exempt. Desgrais rushed through the vehicle, and was about to follow
her, when she seized a cross from the porch, and held it towards him
with a smile of triumph, that threw an expression of demonaic beauty
over her features.

‘You dare not touch me!’ she cried; ‘or you are lost, body and soul!’

With an oath, Desgrais fell back before the sacred emblem. Marie had
thrown herself upon the Church, and claimed a sanctuary. An impassable
barrier was between them, and the whole of his toil to arrest her had
gone for nothing. The chance had been lost, in a pursuit of nearly one
hundred leagues, by half a minute.




 CHAPTER XXXIII.
 THE END OF LACHAUSSÉE

Whilst all this turmoil had been going on, Paris was no less a scene
of excitement; indeed, it was greater, inasmuch as it affected a
larger number of persons. The awful death of Sainte-Croix, and the
discoveries which had arisen from the unexpected revelation of the
casket, furnished sufficient matter for conversation to all the
gossips of the good city. Maître Glazer’s shop was more than ever
besieged by the curious _bourgeoisie_, as he was supposed to be better
acquainted than any one else, not even excepting the commissary of
police, with the circumstances of the event. But it was remarked that
Philippe preserved a perfect silence respecting the share which the
Marchioness of Brinvilliers was known to have had in the transactions
of the newly-discovered poisoners. He always avoided the most distant
allusion to the catastrophe, and even when Maître Picard wished to
push his questions very closely--half in his capacity of public
functionary, half as a private gossip--the young student generally cut
all his queries so very short, that Picard almost imagined he must
have been one of the parties implicated.

‘For, look you, messieurs,’ the little _chapelier_ would say, when he
got out of Philippe’s ear-shot, and was traversing the Place Maubert,
‘Madame de Brinvilliers had as many accomplices as our good King
Louis--whom Montespan preserve!--has sweethearts. Else, whence came
the powerful armed force which unhorsed me on the road to Le Bourget?’

‘She had dealings with the sorcerers,’ observed a neighbour.

‘I believe it,’ replied M. Picard. ‘I heard of her with Exili, who is
about to suffer at the gibbet of Montfaucon, the night M. de
Sainte-Croix died. And the exempt’s guards, who returned to Paris,
have affirmed that she flew past them on a whirlwind whilst they
halted at Le Bourget. She will never be taken--no: the devil would
save her from the centre of the Chambre Ardente itself, even if M. La
Reynie had the care of her. _Allons! buvons!_ it is a wicked world!’

And then the little bourgeois and his neighbours turned into the
nearest tavern, and, whatever might be the time of day at their
entrance, never appeared until after curfew had sounded, when Maître
Picard was usually conducted home to the Rue de la Harpe by the
Gascon, Jean Blacquart, whose unwillingness to engage in personal
encounter was scarcely sufficient to keep the _chapelier_ from
pot-valiantly embroiling himself with everybody unarmed that he
chanced to meet. Our business is not, however, so much with these
personages just at present; but with those of whom we have not heard
for some little time.

Night was closing round the gloomy precincts of the Cimetière des
Innocents--mysterious, cold, cheerless. The snow lay upon the
burial-ground, and clung to the decaying wreaths and garlands that
rotted on the iron crosses which started up from the earth. The solemn
and dreary place was doubly desolate in the wintry trance of nature.
In the centre of the cemetery a tall obelisk arose, and on the summit
of this, some fifteen feet from the ground, was a large lantern, from
which a pale light gleamed over the abodes of the dead, throwing its
rays sufficiently far to reveal a ghastly procession of corpses, of
all ages and professions, painted on the walls and covered charnels in
which the wealthier classes were interred who chose to carry their
exclusiveness into the very grave. This _danse macabre_, or dance of
death, was then rapidly becoming invisible at different stages of its
march. At various parts of the enclosure small lamps struggled with
the wind, as they hung before images of the Virgin placed in niches of
the walls and tombs, and lights were visible in the higher windows of
the crowded, and not unpicturesque, buildings that enclosed the
cemetery; but elsewhere everything was dark, and the place was
untenanted but by the dead.

One figure, however, might have been seen kneeling at a fresh grave
for some time, in spite of the inclemency of the weather. And about
this the snow had been cleared away; the chaplets on the small cross
were fresh, and a few dark evergreens were planted at the head and
foot. A scroll in the ironwork bore the inscription, ‘_Cy giste Gaudin
de Sainte-Croix, qui trépassa, la vingt-neuvième année de son
âge_.’ It was the tomb of the guilty lover of the Marchioness of
Brinvilliers, and the solitary mourner was Louise Gauthier.

Of all with whom Sainte-Croix had been on terms of intimacy, not one
had cared to make inquiry after him, when the report of his death was
first promulgated, but the Languedocian. But Louise, assisted by
Benoit (with whom she had returned to live, since the evening at the
Hôtel de Cluny, when she again fell in with him), had seen the body
taken from the dismal vault below the Palais des Thermes to his old
abode in the Rue des Bernardins. She had been the solitary mourner
when his body was rudely consigned to that part of the ground allotted
to those for whom no consecrated rites were offered; and her own hands
afterwards had adorned the grave--the only one thus distinguished in
this division of the cemetery--with the humble tributes that were
about it. All this she had done without one tear or expression of the
wretchedness that was breaking her heart; but when it was
accomplished, she gave full vent to her pent-up feelings, and was
accustomed to seek the cemetery every evening, weeping and praying in
the terrible solitude of the burial-place, over the grave whose narrow
limits comprised her world.

It was past the time of curfew; but the city of Paris had not the air
of quietude which it usually bore at this period of the night. The
murmur of a distant multitude could be heard mingling with the
occasional solemn tolling of some hoarse and deep-mouthed bell, and
now and then the roll of drums calling troops together. Louise had
been some hours in the cemetery, when she was surprised by the
appearance of Benoit and his wife, who had come to seek her, alarmed
at her unusual stay from home, although they were aware of the
locality in which she was most likely to be found. The honest couple
had started off together to bring her back; and now, assisting her to
rise, had persuaded her to return with them.

As they got into the Rue des Lombards, on their way towards the river,
a sudden rush of people in great numbers separated them from one
another, and they were obliged to fall in with the stream, which,
increasing at every corner of a fresh thoroughfare, almost carried
them off their legs. Louise addressed a few questions to some that she
came in contact with, but no answer was returned; all appeared too
anxious to hurry onward. Soon the crowd became more dense in the
narrow streets, and the confusion and jostling was increased by the
mounted guard who pressed on through the people, almost riding them
down, amidst the screams of the women and curses of the men, who only
received a few blows in return. She was now entirely borne onward by
the multitude, and in the dense mass of people could scarcely look up
to see in what direction she was being impelled, until she found
herself close to the Grand Châtelet.

The whole of the _carrefour_ was lined with troops carrying cressets,
so that it was light as day; and in the centre a scaffold was erected,
on which one or two figures were standing. One of these was a priest,
the others were masked, and held what appeared in the distance to be
long staves in their hands. Louise’s heart sickened as she foresaw
that she was about to be present at an execution, and one of the most
terrible kind. There was no headsman’s block on the platform; but some
apparatus could be seen upon the floor, but a few inches in height. A
wretch was about to be broken on the wheel.

Suddenly the murmurs of the people ceased; lights moved in slow
procession from the Châtelet, and the voices of monks could be heard
chaunting a requiem. They advanced between lines of troops towards the
scaffold, and then the criminal could be distinctly seen. He was not
walking, however, between them, nor was he dragged on a sledge, but
borne on a species of bier, raised on the shoulders of some of the
soldiery; from which the spectators knew that the question had been
undergone, and the rack had left its victim crippled, with dislocated
limbs. By the men in masks he was lifted on to the platform, and then
a yell from the vast multitude assembled broke the silence that had
just reigned. It was a terrible cry of ferocity and denunciation.

Louise could scarcely speak; but she asked a female who was close to
her the name of the criminal.

‘One of the poisoners,’ replied the woman; ‘his name is Lachaussée.
He will make up for Sainte-Croix’s cheating us out of his execution.
And the Marchioness of Brinvilliers will follow, when she is caught.
Oh! these are brave times! I should like to have seen Sainte-Croix
broken. They say he was handsome; and that he would have held out to
the last. Hist!’

The noise of the multitude ceased as the priest advanced to the edge
of the scaffold and addressed them. His words could only be heard by
the few around him; but they were carried from one to the other, and
were to the effect that the criminal had refused to confess, after
having undergone the question both ordinary and extraordinary; that
his own guilt had been sufficiently proved; but that none of his
accomplices had been named, except his master and instructor, Monsieur
Gaudin de Sainte-Croix, upon whom a just retribution had fallen. The
last judgment of the law would now be carried into effect, but the
_coup de grace_ would be withheld until the criminal had confessed all
that he was known to be acquainted with respecting his presumed
accomplice, the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, now in sanctuary, as it
was supposed, at a convent beyond the frontier.

There was an awful silence. The wretched man was seized by the other
figures on the scaffold and placed upon the wheel, and the next minute
the staff in the hands of one of the executioners was raised. It
descended with a dull, heavy sound, distinctly audible at every part
of the square, as was the sharp cry of agony that burst from the lips
of the culprit. The priest stooped down, and appeared to commune with
him; but in a few seconds he rose again, and the blow was repeated,
followed by the same scream, but less piercing than before. Another
and another followed, and then a conversation of greater length took
place between the criminal and his confessor. The monk advanced again
to the front of the scaffold, and waving his hand, stopped the murmur
that was rising from the crowd as they commented on the proceedings.

‘The criminal Lachaussée has confessed,’ he said. ‘He acknowledges
his guilt, and also that of Madame Marie-Marguerite d’Aubray,
Marchioness of Brinvilliers, hitherto suspected, from whom he owns to
have received the poisons with which her two brothers were murdered.
The _coup de grace_ may now be given.’

He held up a crucifix in sight of the writhing object of his speech,
and directed the chief executioner to despatch his victim. The man
again raised the bar, and it descended upon the breast of Lachaussée,
crushing all before it. No cry followed the blow this time: the death
of the wretched man was instantaneous.

The multitude remained silent for a few seconds, as if they were
listening for another cry. But voices were at length heard, first one
and then another, gradually spreading, until the murmur broke forth
into one savage roar of exultation, when they knew that the criminal
had ceased to exist. A clue had been found to the mystery in which the
deaths by poison had long been involved; and now that one of the
participators in the horrible deeds, that had so long baffled the
keenest vigilance of the authorities, had expiated his offence before
their eyes, their satisfaction knew no bounds. And when they had thus
vented their approval of the sight they had just witnessed, they
turned away from the _carrefour_, and began to leave the spot by the
different outlets.

Louise, who had been scarcely able to sustain herself through the
ghastly scene, was hurried on by the breaking up of the crowd, until
she contrived to get within a _porte-cochère_, meaning to let them
pass. But she had not been there an instant before she was recognised
by a man in the throng, who had been a servant of François d’Aubray.

‘Ho!’ cried the fellow, as he saw her by the light of a cresset, ‘here
is another of them. I saw her with Madame de Brinvilliers the night
that her brothers were murdered. She is an _empoisonneuse_. To prison
with the witch!’

He advanced towards the poor girl as he spoke, whilst the crowd
stopped in their passage. But as he approached her he was seized by a
powerful arm, and, having been twisted round, was flung with some
violence upon the ground.




 CHAPTER XXXIV.
 THE GAME IS UP--THE TRAP--MARIE RETURNS WITH DESGRAIS TO THE
 CONCIERGERIE

Any other officer than Desgrais would have given up further attempts
to arrest the Marchioness, now that she was in the sanctuary of a
convent--in a town, too, where any invasion of the privileges
belonging to a religious house would have been avenged with the most
unrelenting severity. But the exempt felt bitterly the manner in which
he had been more than once duped upon the road, at times when his prey
was completely within his grasp. He was exceedingly sensitive as
regarded his position, and reputation as the most vigilant officer of
the Maréchaussée, and he determined not to enter Paris again until
he could do so accompanied by the Marchioness.

To effect this, he took a lodging in a retired quarter of Liége, and
remained there for a few weeks, dismissing his archers and guards,
with orders to return to Givet, and be in readiness to join him at
Liége upon the shortest notice. To the Marchioness he was personally
unknown. She had not met him above once or twice, and then without
particularly regarding him; and this decided him as to the course he
would pursue. He was young and active; the very business in which he
was constantly engaged had given him admission into all ranks of
society; and he had tact and ready perception to profit by his
observations, and adopt the manners of any particular class which he
found it necessary to assume. He arranged his plans and, when he
imagined sufficient time had elapsed, proceeded to put them into
execution.

To effect the capture he disguised himself in the dress of an abbe,
and presented himself one evening at the gates of the convent in which
Marie had sought shelter, requesting to see her. The porter, after a
slight hesitation, admitted him to the parlour, and in a few minutes
the object of his venture appeared.

The Marchioness had entirely recovered from the fatigues of her
journey. Those who had known her intimately would have remarked a few
lines on her face, resulting from the agitation caused by recent
events; but to others there was still the same girlish, confiding
face--still the same blue lustrous eyes and smooth expansive forehead,
and the rosy lips still half-revealed the same beautiful teeth that
had so dazzled the sight of the gallants, and raised the envy of the
dames of the court at Versailles. She bowed gracefully to Desgrais as
she entered the room, and then in her softest tones inquired ‘to what
chance she was indebted for the honour of a visit from Monsieur
l’Abbé?’

‘I am a poor servant of the Church, madame,’ he replied, ‘and am
returning from a pilgrimage to Rome with relics to be deposited at the
Jacobins, in the Rue St. Honoré. Being detained at Liége upon
matters of ecclesiastical interest, I heard that you were here, and
came to offer my respects.’

‘I have done little to deserve this attention, my holy father,’ said
Marie.

‘You have suffered much undeserved misery, madame,’ answered Desgrais.
‘You were a supporter of our Church--a good and charitable lady, as
all Paris can vouch; and I should have taken blame unto myself had I
not paid this tribute to your goodness.’

‘Alas! _mon père!_’ cried Marie; ‘would that the world could think of
me as well as you do. Of what avail has been my past life? You will
find, on your return to Paris, the blackest stories current against
me. A woman, once fallen, has no hope; but every one--those who would
have cringed to her the lowest when she was in her position being the
foremost--will hurry to crush her more utterly, to beat her lower
down. I am lost--for ever!’

‘Yet you should hope that the consciousness of your own innocence will
one day prevail,’ returned the exempt.

‘I have no hope, monsieur. I am alone in this dreary place--alone,
even in the midst of its inmates, as though I were shut out entirely
from the world.’

Desgrais paused for an instant. ‘She has not mentioned her comrades,’
he said to himself, ‘and she was certainly accompanied on the road.
All accounts agree in this.’

‘You are mistaken, madame,’ he continued aloud. ‘Think. Is there no
one on whom you think you might rely?’

‘What mean you?’ inquired Marie eagerly.

For a few seconds they continued gazing at one another, each waiting
for the other to speak. Desgrais was waiting for some cue, from which
his tact might enable him to proceed, and the Marchioness was fearful
of committing herself by revealing more than the other knew. Two deep
and artful natures were pitted against each other.

Desgrais was the first to speak. With an assumed expression of
countenance, calculated to impress his companion with the idea that he
understood everything then passing in her mind, and in a voice of deep
meaning, he said--

‘Is there no one, think you, who feels an interest in you? You can
trust me. What communication have you held with the world since you
have been in this retreat?’

‘None, father--on my soul, none.’

‘And have you expected to hear from no one?’ continued Desgrais in the
same tone.

‘Camille!’ exclaimed the Marchioness eagerly. And then, as if aware
she had been indiscreet, she closed her lips forcibly together, and
remained silent.

‘Yes--Camille,’ replied Desgrais, quickly catching at the name. ‘Did
you think he had deserted you?’

And he looked cautiously round the parlour, and then placed his finger
on his mouth, as though he was fearful of being overheard.

‘I did not know in what quarter of the town he lived,’ she answered.

‘So,’ thought Desgrais, ‘he is in Liége, then.’

‘And besides,’ she went on, ‘circumstances are changed. He cares no
more for me.’

‘Would you see him?’ asked Desgrais.

The vanity of the woman triumphed over her caution. Camille Theria, it
was evident to Marie, had found his old attachment revive as they had
met again. He had forgotten his fiancée, and was anxious again to see
her.

‘Am I to believe you?’ she asked.

‘You may believe your eyes,’ replied the exempt. ‘He will be at the
tavern of the “Trois Rois” at curfew time to-night.’

‘Why will he not come here?’

‘Would it be advisable? You need fear nothing. I will escort you from
the convent and return with you.’

‘It will compromise your position,’ said Marie.

‘That will be my own affair, madame,’ replied Desgrais. ‘The weather
is unfavourable enough to drive the passengers from the streets, and
the night is dark. No harm can arrive.’

‘What can he want with me?’ said Marie, half speaking to herself, as
she appeared undecided how to act.

‘You will learn all,’ said Desgrais, not trusting himself to speak
further on a subject of which he was so utterly ignorant. ‘But time
presses, and the bells will soon ring out. Come, madame, come.’

Without any other covering than a cloak wrapped about her, and
concealing as much as possible her head and face, Marie yielded to the
persuasions of Desgrais, and, taking his arm, left the convent
unobserved, in the direction of the tavern he had mentioned. The
perfect quietude she had enjoyed since her arrival at the convent had
led her to believe that the French police had entirely given up their
intentions of arresting her. Sainte-Croix, in her fearful
heartlessness, had been already forgotten, and the prospect of a new
conquest--a new victim to her treacherous passions--drew her on with
irresistible attraction.

They traversed the steep and uneven streets of Liége until they came
to the door of the tavern, from whose windows the red firelights were
streaming across the thoroughfare. Desgrais muttered a few words of
excuse for the humble appearance of the place, and then conducted
Marie into the public room.

‘One instant,’ he said. ‘I will ask if he is here.’

He left the room, closing the door behind him, and Marie was a few
moments alone in the apartment. With some slight mistrust, she
listened for his return, and imagined she heard, for a few seconds,
the clank of arms. But this subsided almost immediately, and Desgrais
came back again.

‘Is he not yet here?’ she asked.

‘He is not, madame,’ said Desgrais in an altered tone; ‘nor is it
likely that he will come.’

‘What do you imply?’ exclaimed Marie, somewhat alarmed, and advancing
towards the door.

‘Pardon me, madame,’ said Desgrais, ‘but you cannot pass.’

‘Insolent!’ cried the Marchioness. ‘What does this outrage mean?’

‘That you are my prisoner, madame.’

‘Prisoner! And by whose orders?’

‘By order of his Majesty Louis XIV., King of France,’ cried Desgrais
loudly, as he threw aside his abbe’s robes, and appeared in his
under-clothing as exempt of the guard. ‘Madame, you are mine at last!’

The words had been the signal to those without, whom he had left the
room to put upon their guard. As he pronounced

 [image: img_14.jpg
 caption: ‘Then, Madame, you are mine at last!’]

them, they rushed into the room, and the Marchioness found herself
surrounded by the archers of the royal guard.

In an instant Marie perceived the trap that had been laid for her.

‘Miscreant!’ she cried, as she rushed at Desgrais in her rage. ‘You
have not yet got your prey within your fangs. I am in a country in
which your authority goes for nought. You cannot arrest me.’

‘Once more, you must pardon me, Madame la Marquise,’ replied Desgrais,
as he drew a paper from his belt. ‘The council of this town has
authorised your extradition, upon a letter from the King. You are as
much our prisoner as though we had arrested you in your own _hôtel_
in Paris.’

As quick as lightning, upon comprehending the meaning of the words,
Marie drew a poniard from its sheath at the side of one of the guards,
and endeavoured to plunge it into her breast. But her hand was
arrested by another of the party, and the weapon wrested from her.
Baffled in this intention, and in an agony of powerless rage, she
endeavoured to speak, but her mouth refused utterance to the words,
and with a terrible cry she fell senseless upon the ground.

Confiding her to the care of one of his men, and ordering the others
to keep guard without, Desgrais now returned to the convent in search
of further evidence, furnished with proper authority to bring away
whatever he could find. But Marie had little with her. A small case of
letters and papers was, however, discovered under her pillow, and of
this Desgrais immediately took possession. It contained most important
evidence against her--no less than a confession of the past actions of
her life.

In the meantime Marie gradually recovered; but it was some time before
she came completely to herself, from a succession of fainting-fits
supervening one upon another as the least degree of consciousness
returned, and the dreadful reality of her position broke in upon her.
The rough soldier with whom she had been left, unused to guard such
prisoners, and somewhat struck with her beauty and evidently superior
position in life, had been in great confusion of ideas as to what he
ought to do, and had at last called one of the females attached to the
establishment to the aid of the Marchioness. By some of those trifling
remedies which women only appear to have at command for their own sex,
in the like emergencies, Marie was gradually brought round, and then
the female departed, and she was left alone with her guard--pale and
trembling, resembling a corpse, but for the still bright eye, and the
convulsive quivering of every nerve in her delicate frame. She uttered
not a syllable, but remained in a corner of the room, on a rude settle
to which she had been carried by the soldiers; and the sentinel’s
heavy tread, as he paced backwards and forwards before the door of the
apartment, was the only sound that broke the dreary stillness.

In less than an hour Desgrais returned. He came accompanied by a
_voiture de poste_, having directly after the capture of his prisoner
ordered it to be in waiting, as well as despatched a courier with
commands to have everything in readiness along the road for fresh
relays. He now entered the room, and requested Marie to accompany him
into the carriage.

‘You have played a sorry part, monsieur, in this drama,’ she said to
him, ‘and you have triumphed: do not think I am stooping to you if I
make one request: could you see how deeply I feel myself to be
degraded in asking this favour, you--even you--might pity me and grant
it. You have played with the name of a person this evening, and won
your stake off it. Will you allow me to write to him?’

‘Provided I see the letter, and you can write it in ten minutes,’
replied Desgrais. ‘We must reach Dinant to supper, where also you will
rest the night.’

‘Half that time will be sufficient,’ said Marie. ‘Give me the means,
and for a few minutes leave me to myself.’

Desgrais produced his tablets, and tearing a few blank leaves from
them gave them to the Marchioness, as well as a style he carried; then
placing the sentinel again before the door, he withdrew.

As soon as he was gone Marie traced a few words upon the paper, and
then spoke to the guard.

‘What is your name?’ she asked in a low, hurried tone.

‘Antoine Barbier,’ replied the man gruffly, ‘archer in his Majesty’s
service.’

And he continued his march. In less than a minute she again addressed
him.

‘See!’ she exclaimed, taking a massive jewelled ornament from her
hair. ‘The sale of this will provide you with good cheer for many a
long day, and I will give it to you if you will forward this letter
for me to its address. There is nothing in this against your orders.
See,’ she continued, adding the address. ‘“M. Camille Theria, à
Liége;” he is an apothecary in the town. Will you do this for me?’

‘Give it to me,’ said the man. ‘I will find some one when I am
relieved who will pay attention to it.’

‘Take the wages, then, at the same time,’ added Marie.

‘No,’ replied the archer, as he put the proffered gift on one side. ‘I
do not want payment for this.’

In a minute or two Desgrais came back to know if the letter was
concluded, as the carriage was ready to start. Marie shrunk from him
when he entered as though he had been a serpent--her horror of the
exempt was not feigned.

‘I cannot write, monsieur,’ she said. ‘I am at your service.
_Allons!_’

She put away the arm of the officer as he held it forward for her to
take, and passed into the passage, which was lined with the archers.
As she passed the sentinel who had kept guard over her in the inn, she
whispered to him ‘Remember,’ and then entered the carriage without
another word, throwing herself into a corner and muffling her face in
her cloak.

Desgrais was about to follow, when Barbier slipped the note into his
hand. He read--


 ‘My dear Theria--I have been taken by Desgrais, and am on my road to
 Paris: save me at all hazards.

                                                         ‘Marie.’


‘Lose not an instant,’ cried the exempt, as he entered the carriage.
‘On--on with your horses as fast as whip and spur can urge them!’




 CHAPTER XXXV.
 NEWS FOR LOUISE GAUTHIER AND BENOIT

The outcry raised against Louise Gauthier as she left the ghastly
scene in the Carrefour du Châtelet had for the moment well-nigh
deprived her of her senses. She saw the man who had accused her of
being an _empoisonneuse_ and an accomplice of Madame de Brinvilliers,
thrown down by one of the crowd, and fearful that a desperate riot was
about to commence, she seized the opportunity which the confusion
afforded, and broke through the ring of the infuriated people who had
surrounded her, whilst their attention was diverted. But the person
who had come to her assistance followed her; and when a turn in the
street gave them an opportunity of escaping from the resistless
current of the mob, she discovered that it was a well-looking young
man to whom she had been indebted for her safety.

‘Pardon me, mademoiselle,’ exclaimed the student--for such by his
dress he appeared to be--raising his cap, ‘for introducing myself to
you thus hurriedly. Is your name Louise Gauthier?’

‘It is, monsieur,’ replied the Languedocian timidly.

‘And mine is Philippe Glazer,’ said the other. ‘Now we know one
another. I was sent to look after you by Benoit Mousel, who is at home
by this time. They lost you in the Rue des Lombards.’

‘How can I thank you for your interference?’ said Louise.

‘Thank our Lady rather, for the lucky chance that brought me to you at
such a moment. I despaired of seeing you in such a vast mob, although
Benoit has described you pretty closely. But come, we will find our
way to the quay.’

‘You know Benoit Mousel, then?’ said Louise, as they moved on
together.

‘Passably well, mademoiselle. I had him under my care for a while,
after he had been somewhat unceremoniously pitched out of a window at
the Hôtel de Cluny, during one of the merrymakings that M. de Lauzun
is accustomed to hold there whenever he is not in the Bastille.’

Louise Gauthier recollected the evening too well, and shuddered as she
recalled to mind its events. She did not speak again, but keeping
close to Philippe’s side, as if she feared a fresh attack from the
people about, kept on her way in silence towards the water-side.

They descended to one of the landing-places at the foot of the Pont
Notre Dame, and found the boat lying there, into which the student
assisted his companion, and then, with a few strokes of his powerful
arm, reached the boat-mill. There was a light in the chamber, and the
instant they touched the lighter Benoit and his wife appeared with a
flambeau, and broke forth into exclamations of joy at the return of
Louise.

In two minutes more the party were assembled in the room, to which the
reader has been already introduced. Bathilde bustled about, with her
usual good-tempered activity, to place the repast on the table; and
when all this was settled, she opened the door of the stove, to let
its warm light stream out over the room; and they then took their
places.

‘I need not make a secret of my mission, mademoiselle,’ said Philippe,
when they were seated; ‘for I presume there is nothing you would wish
to conceal from our friends.’

‘Because if there is, you know, Louise,’ said Benoit in continuation,
‘Bathilde and I will----’

‘Pray stop, _mon ami_,’ interrupted Louise; ‘what can I wish to keep
from you--you, who know everything, and have been so kind to me? Well,
monsieur?’ she added, looking anxiously at Philippe.

‘You know this writing,’ observed Philippe, as he handed her a small
packet sealed, and bearing an address.

Louise tremblingly took the parcel and looked at the superscription.
As she recognised it, she uttered a low cry of astonishment.

‘It is indeed _his_,’ she exclaimed, as she bowed her head down, and
allowed the parcel to drop in her lap. The next minute her tears were
falling quickly after one another upon it.

Bathilde took her hand kindly and pressed it as they watched her grief
in silence, which Philippe Glazer was the first to break.

‘I found that in Monsieur de Sainte-Croix’s escritoire,’ he said; ‘one
of the few things that Desgrais did not seize upon. I told him it was
mine, for I saw what they had discovered made mischief enough, and I
did not care to have it extended. It was only to-night I discovered by
chance that you were with Benoit and his wife.’

Tearfully, and with hesitating hands, Louise opened the packet, and
produced from its folds a document drawn up evidently in legal style,
and a small note, which she handed to Philippe.

‘Read it, monsieur,’ she said; ‘I cannot. How long it is since I have
seen that writing! I used to wait day after day for some message from
him, to show that I was not forgotten--if it had been but one
line--until my heart was sick with the vain expectation. And now it
has come; and--he is dead.’

The student took the note, and hastily ran his eye over it, before he
communicated its contents to the little party. Bathilde and Benoit
watched his face anxiously, as they saw it brighten whilst he scanned
the writings; it evidently contained no bad news. ‘Joy!’ he exclaimed,
as he finished it; ‘joy to all. I think I shall give up medicine and
take to farming.’

‘Go on, monsieur!’ exclaimed Benoit and his wife in a breath. ‘What is
it?’

‘The conveyance of a _terrain_ on the Orbe, in Languedoc,’ continued
Philippe, reading, ‘with a plantation of olives and mulberries to
Louise Gauthier, to be held by her in common with whomever may have
befriended her in Paris, and of which the necessary papers are in the
hands of M. Macé, notary, Rue de Provence, Beziers!’

‘I knew it!’ said Benoit, as he slapped the table with a vehemence
that sent some things jumping off it, after a few seconds of
astonishment. ‘I knew some day fortune would turn. Continue,
monsieur.’

Philippe Glazer proceeded to read the note, whilst Louise gazed at
him, almost bewildered.


 ‘“When you receive this,”’ he went on, ‘“I shall have expiated every
 crime. I feel convinced that my death, come when it may, will be
 violent and sudden: and whatever may have been my faults, I shall have
 been punished for them. All I had to dispose of I have left you: in
 possessing it, do not forget any that have assisted you. It has been
 kept through every embarrassment to this end; but circumstances
 prevented my giving it to you in my lifetime. Beware of the
 Marchioness of Brinvilliers; forgive me for the misery I caused you,
 which has been repaid one hundredfold, and forget, if possible,


                                      ‘“Gaudin de Sainte-Croix.

 ‘“To be delivered into the hands of Louise Gauthier, or, failing to
 find her, of Benoit Mousel, at the mill-boat below the Pont Notre
 Dame, in trust for her.”’


‘There,’ said Philippe, as he concluded, and put the papers on the
table; ‘my task is accomplished.’

‘I cannot accept it,’ said Louise after a short pause.

‘Cannot! mademoiselle,’ said the student; ‘you must. Better you take
it than it fall into M. Macé’s hands for want of a claimant; and from
him to a stranger, or the king, or any of his favourites.’

‘It would only be on one condition,’ continued the Languedocian. ‘That
Benoit and his wife shared it with me.’

‘_Pardieu!_ Louise; the terms are not hard,’ said Benoit: ‘and our
hard work will lighten the feeling of dependence. _Sacristie!_ a
chance of seeing Languedoc again, eh, Bathilde!’

‘And a farm,’ said his wife; ‘and olives, and mulberries--perhaps
chestnuts.’

‘And no more living by my wits,’ continued Benoit, ‘which are wearing
away from constant use, when the mill is out of work. No more
mountebanking nor singing songs, nor being pitched out of windows for
so doing, instead of being paid. Oh--you will go, Louise; we will all
go.’

‘And in a _patache_,’ said Bathilde, ‘with Jacquot to draw us: six
leagues a day at least! What shall be our first stage?’

‘There is plenty of time before you to settle that point,’ said
Philippe, smiling at the eager desire of Bathilde to leave Paris. Then
turning to Louise, he added, ‘You can have no scruples, now,
mademoiselle, about this bequest, were it only for the sake of these
good people. Think that it may not be so much to benefit yourself as
to render them happy. You consent?’

‘I do,’ replied Louise, after pausing a few seconds. ‘I cannot look
for happiness myself--at least, on earth--but through me they may
attain it. I care not how soon we quit this heartless, terrible
city--never to return.’

‘We will talk of that to-morrow,’ said Benoit. ‘I think enough has
taken place for this day. _Ventrebleu!_ what a whirl my head is in:
the river may rock the boat like a cradle, and the mill click all
night, before it sends me to sleep. You two women get to bed, and
Monsieur Glazer and myself will make ourselves comfortable here. I
would not recommend him to go along the quays so late, for the city is
in a troubled state to-night, and the execution has drawn all the
gallows-birds abroad.’

And as Louise and Bathilde retired, the two others drew to the fire,
and lighted mighty pipes, whose capacious bowls indicated a lengthy
sitting.




 CHAPTER XXXVI.
 THE JOURNEY--EXAMINATION OF THE MARCHIONESS

Hurried on by the orders of the exempt, and escorted by a body of
archers, who kept at full gallop round the carriage, the postilions
spurred and lashed their horses, bringing Desgrais and his prisoner to
Dinant sooner even than they expected. But, beyond the advantage of
losing as little time as possible upon the road, there was no absolute
necessity for this speed. Theria had not received the letter, as we
have seen; and if he had, he could have rendered but little assistance
to the Marchioness. Still Desgrais knew his prisoner; and uncertain as
to what trouble she might cause him by her wonderful art and powers of
inventing stratagems, he determined not to relax his vigilance until
Marie was safe and secure within the walls of the Conciergerie.

No great deal occurred upon the road worthy of chronicling. The
Marchioness threw herself in the corner of the carriage, and covering
her face with a veil, remained so throughout the journey. From the
attempt she had made at self-destruction, Desgrais kept his eye upon
her; and upon their arrival at Dinant he ordered all the knives to be
removed from the supper table, leaving her under the guard of Antoine
Barbier, the archer who had watched her at Liége, whilst he went to
arrange with a courier to start directly for Rocroy, and inform the
magistrates of that place that the Marchioness would be there on the
morrow; in order that they might interrogate her, unexpectedly, before
she had sufficient time to plan her answers.

As soon as Marie saw that she was left with the same man to whom she
had given the note intended for Camille Theria, she uttered an
exclamation of surprise.

‘I thought you were to remain at Liége,’ she said. ‘You have come
with us, and the letter has not been delivered!’

The man was taken rather suddenly aback by the Marchioness’s
affirmation. He became confused, and turned away without replying.

‘You have deceived me!’ she continued with violence, ‘and I am utterly
lost. Now I see why you would not take a reward from me. Where is the
letter?’

‘I have not got it,’ replied the archer. ‘I can answer no more
questions, or I shall be punished.’ And he continued his march.

She would, in spite of this, have spoken to him again, but a servant
of the inn entered the room bearing a tray, on which was some
refreshment. Marie refused it, as the man placed it on the table; but
directly afterwards, correcting herself, told him to leave it and
retire. The archer glanced at the service to see that there was
nothing with which the Marchioness could commit suicide, and then
dismissed the attendant, as he continued his monotonous patrol before
the door. Suddenly Marie seized one of the drinking-glasses and dashed
it upon the ground, breaking it into several pieces. The noise alarmed
the sentinel, and as the Marchioness sprang forward to seize one of
the bits, with the intention of swallowing it, he also rushed from his
post and seized it from her.

‘Again foiled!’ she muttered through her teeth, as she retreated to
the table. ‘Why have you done this?’

‘My orders are to watch you closely,’ said the man, ‘and at present I
have nothing to do but obey the directions of Monsieur Desgrais.’

The Marchioness again was silent for some time. She pushed the cover
laid for supper away from her, and remained gazing intently at the
fire. At last she spoke.

‘My friend,’ she said to the archer, ‘I believe you have done well.
The moment of insanity has passed, and I am grateful to you; you shall
see that I will not forget you, in consequence.’

The man roughly inclined his head, and continued his promenade.

‘Does your condition of life please you?’ asked Marie.

‘Mass!’ replied the archer, as he stopped and leant upon his pike.
‘There might be better and there might be worse. I like it well
enough: there is no choice if I did not.’

‘You can leave it, if you choose,’ said the Marchioness. ‘Listen. I
have gold enough at Offemont to buy land in Italy that would support
you and yours for life. Is there no one you would care to share it
with?’

The man did not answer. He looked at Marie, and vainly endeavoured to
fathom her meaning.

‘You are my only sentinel,’ she went on. ‘What is to prevent our
flying together. Once at my château, I will load you with wealth, and
you can pass the frontier before our flight has been discovered. I can
also put myself beyond the reach of----’

‘No more, madame!’ replied the archer sternly. ‘You have mistaken your
man. Has not one lesson been enough?’

The conversation was broken by the entrance of the servant of the
hotel--a powerful coarse Flemish woman, with a repulsive manner and
countenance, under whose charge Marie was to be placed for the night,
a change of guard being posted outside her chamber. She shuddered at
this ill-favoured creature, as she followed her to the sleeping
apartment, wherein six hours of repose were to be allowed to her
before they again started on their journey.

On arriving at Rocroy the next day she was taken before M. de Palluan,
as they had previously arranged, and subjected to a severe
examination. But unexpectedly as the interview was brought about, the
magistrate could elicit nothing from her; even in the face of a
confession in her own hand-writing, which a courier had brought after
her from Liége, having found it amongst some more of her effects in
her chamber at the convent. She met every question with a firm denial
or an evasive answer, given with a readiness and self-possession that
astonished her interrogators, who, finding that nothing had been
gained by this course, which they imagined would have decided any
question of her innocence, however slight, that existed, broke up
their court, and made arrangements for proceeding with her at once to
the Conciergerie--the chief prison in Paris.[21]




 CHAPTER XXXVII.
 THE LAST INTERVIEW.

A long and dismal interval followed the arrest of the Marchioness
before she was brought to trial. The chain of circumstances, connected
with the charges every day increasing against her, was so intricate
that it required the utmost attention and indefatigable research to
connect and arrange its links; and the first legal authorities were
engaged, both for the prosecution and the defence. Meanwhile public
excitement was raised to the highest pitch. The mysterious
circumstances connected with the deaths of M. d’Aubray and his two
sons; the station of society in which Marie moved; her reputation for
beauty and gallantry, and, more than all, the revelations expected
from the _proces_ upon a subject of so dark a nature--treating of a
crime from the action of which no one felt secure, and about which
such terror prevailed, as the mortality by poison hitherto attributed
to unknown pathological causes increased, forming so fearful an
episode in the reign of Louis Quatorze; all these things together
invested the proceedings with a general interest never equalled. The
Provost of Paris, the Procureur du Roi, the Lieutenant-Criminal of the
Châtelet, and other dignitaries arranged a terrible array of facts,
fixing the guilt upon the Marchioness beyond all doubt; whilst the
officials of a lower grade built up fresh accusations every day, by
their ingenious connection of circumstances that they arrived at by
the strangest methods possible to conceive.

But of all the pleadings connected with this interesting affair the
defence set up by M. Nivelle, the advocate of the Marchioness, was
most remarkable. Marie had contented herself with simply denying every
fact that was brought forward against her; but Nivelle took up the
charges in order, one after the other, and endeavoured with the most
consummate skill to refute the whole of them, even down to the
apparently most unimportant. The liaison between Marie and
Sainte-Croix he allowed,--indeed it was generally received; and, in
fact, avowed as the subject had been, it would have been ridiculous to
have attempted to deny it. But upon Gaudin he threw all the blame. He
endeavoured to show that, being a gambler, Marie’s lover had not only
thrown away his own property, but a large portion of hers; and being
subsequently thrown into the Bastille by M. d’Aubray, had been
influenced as much by avarice as by revenge, and had made the
unfortunate Marchioness of Brinvilliers his dupe and instrument. He
proved that Marie, with her husband, enjoyed a fortune of more than
eight hundred thousand livres; that every advantage of position,
wealth, and connections had fallen to her lot; and that it was folly
to think, for one instant, she would have thus far placed herself in
the fearful position which she was assumed to have taken when there
was nothing to gain, but everything, both in this world and beyond it,
to lose. ‘And, moreover,’ he added, ‘the Marchioness of Brinvilliers
is persuaded that the too common but fatal mistake of trusting to
popular prejudication can never have any effect upon the minds of
judges so eminent for impartiality, nor give rise to any suspicions of
the candour of their decision. She knows that they would never condemn
upon appearances alone, nor upon common rumour. On the contrary, the
more atrocious the crimes were said to be by the popular tongue,
judging from the mere form of the accusation, the more care would be
required to examine closely all the evidence brought forward, and only
to allow those allegations to be received which were consistent with
the common course of justice. She hopes, also,’ he went on, ‘that the
sacred laws of religion are held in too much veneration by her judges
to allow them to give their countenance to any violation of a
confession--one of the most important mysteries of our religion: and
that since the present accusation brings forward an array of
charges--the most frightful and infamous--against a woman of birth and
quality, she trusts her judges will not place the least reliance upon
the imperfect attestations brought forward, when the clearest and most
convincing are necessary to enable them to form a just opinion. She
has been deceived by the arts of Sainte-Croix--the only author of all
the crimes laid to her charge--and, for the unfortunate connection
which placed her in the position to be thus deceived, she has already
been sufficiently punished by the misery she has since undergone, and
a series of wretched inflictions and trials, which are in themselves
sufficient to excite the compassion, not only of those who still think
well of her, but of her bitterest enemies.’

The original impression of the document is now lying before us; and it
is impossible to avoid being struck with the wondrous ingenuity with
which the whole paper is drawn up.

But cleverly as M. Nivelle advocated her cause, the collection of
facts was too strong to allow her defence to make the favourable
impression he desired. The prosecutors, aware of the importance with
which the trial was invested by the entire population of Paris,
comprising both those who were for and those who were against her,
were as keen in their search for condemnatory testimony as Nivelle had
been for any that might exculpate her. Amongst the evidence brought
forward was that of her servant Françoise Roussel, who deposed to
having been made sick, almost to death, by substances which the
Marchioness had administered to her in cakes and confections. The
archer, Antoine Barbier, related all that had passed upon the road
from Liége; Desgrais himself spoke of the papers found in her chamber
after she had been carried from that town; and even Glazer’s
assistant, the miserable Panurge, proved that whilst Sainte-Croix
occupied the rooms in his master’s house the Marchioness was in the
habit of coming there and preparing compounds with him, which were
afterwards ascertained to be deadly poisons. There could not be the
slightest doubt of her guilt.

The behaviour of Marie during this trying ordeal excited the strangest
feelings amongst the official dignitaries. Although the most acute and
experienced legal men in Paris were engaged upon the side of the
Crown, they found it impossible to elicit from her anything that
tended to prove, from her own actions, that she was guilty, as long as
the trial continued; but when it was brought to a close, and the
decision of the Chambers was finally given against her, her
stubbornness appeared to give way, and the Court, with some respect
for her rank, then requested the Doctor Pirot, of the Sorbonne, to
attend constantly upon her. There were always two priests regularly
attached to the Conciergerie; but constant communion with the lowest
of criminals had made them--so the opinion of the Court went--unfit to
administer to the Marchioness; and the good father, who was esteemed
highly in Paris for his gentle piety, was accordingly chosen as her
last religious adviser.

He attended at the prison every day, and every day he made an
impression upon his charge. He has described her as a woman naturally
intrepid, and rising above all difficulties, expressing herself in but
few words, yet always to the purpose, and finding, with the most
astounding readiness, expedients to free herself from any charges that
might be brought against her. She appeared in any position of
difficulty at once to decide upon what line of argument or conduct she
meant to pursue, even when she was in the most embarrassing
situations. Her physiognomy and conversation offered no grounds for
supposing that she was any other than a persecuted, gentle, and
confiding woman; and her beauty, which had become a proverb, was of
that class which appears inseparable from an equally perfect morale.
True it was, that the harassing trials she had lately undergone had
marked her face with a few lines, but ‘_les yeux bleus, doux et
parfaitment beaux, et la peau extraordinairement blanche_,’[22] still
remained; and these attributes, with her other singularly fascinating
qualities, were more than enough to enlist many sympathies in her
favour.

Day after day did Pirot seek the Conciergerie with the earliest dawn,
never leaving his charge but at night; and gradually he found, to his
gratification, that her proud spirit was yielding to his unremitting
and earnest attention. To him the task was allotted of breaking to her
the verdict of the assembled Chambers; and to his gentleness was she
indebted for the state of mind that enabled her to receive the
terrible tidings with comparative serenity. And so things went on
until the eve of the fearful day named by the Court for the expiation
of her crimes, Marie never feeling at rest but when he was with her;
and Pirot taking so deep an interest in his charge that, although his
meek disposition and retiring habits almost disqualified him for the
task imposed upon him by the Chambers, he resolved never to leave her
until the final parting should take place in the Place de Grêve; and
as that time drew nigh, the closer did Marie cling to him for
consolation and support. She watched the time of his arrival, and
regretted his departure, as earnestly as she would once have done with
less holy motives, when others were concerned, until the period above
alluded to drew nigh.

It was, then, the night before the execution. Pirot had business which
had taken him from the Conciergerie during the day, but at nightfall
he was once more at the prison, for the Marchioness had promised to
make a full confession of all the events of her life. In the morning,
during a brief interview of an hour, he had been gratified to find
that his unaffected simplicity, his piety, and gentle manners, had in
part elicited from Marie a circumstantial avowal of many of the deeds
with the commission of which she was charged; and thus far he had
accomplished more than her judges had done, or the fear of the torture
had led her to confess. As he entered the cell in which she was
confined, she rose to receive him with an earnestness that showed how
welcome his presence was to her; but started back upon perceiving that
the good old man was pale, and evidently shaken.

‘You are ill, _mon père_,’ she said; ‘you are so good--so charitable
thus to bestow your time on me, that I fear your health is suffering.’

‘It is not that, madame,’ he said as he advanced; ‘but they have been
telling me news in the porter’s lodge that has thus affected me. You
have heard the sentence?’

‘The greffier has told it to me, but not formally,’ she said. ‘I am
prepared for everything. See--take my hand; is it trembling?’

Pirot seized the small hand presented to him: Marie had power over
every muscle to keep it immovable; but her skin was hot and fevered.

‘You have heard that they were going to cut this hand off,’ she said.

‘So they have told me,’ replied Pirot, in a low tone, almost choked
with emotion.

‘It is,’ she said, ‘but an idle story of the people about the prison.
On that point you can be calm. And, see,--they are bringing in my
supper. You must take some with me; it is the last, you know.’

Pirot gazed at her, as he listened to the calm manner in which she
spoke, with unfeigned astonishment; and ere he could reply, some of
the attendants had brought in a tray and placed it on the table;
whilst Marie almost led the doctor to one of the rude settles, and
placed herself opposite to him.

There was something terrible in her unconcern. Her face preserved its
usual unfathomable expression, and at times she smiled; but an
unwonted brightness sparkled in her eyes, and she spoke in loud and
rapid tones, somewhat resembling a person under the first influence of
opium. As she took her place at the table, she did the honours of the
homely repast as though she had been at the head of a party in her own
house; she even partook of some of the dishes; but Pirot was too much
overcome to swallow a morsel.

‘You will let me drink to your health,’ she said; ‘it is a compliment
you need not return.’ And with her own hands she filled Pirot’s glass,
continuing, as he bowed to her, ‘To-morrow is a fast-day. I will keep
it so--at least, as much of it as I shall enjoy. And yet I have much
to undergo.’ Then altering her voice, she added, ‘I would pay you more
attention, my father, and serve you myself; but you see they have left
me neither knife nor fork.’

And in this singular manner did she continue to talk until the meal
was over, when she appeared anxious that Pirot should take her
confession. He had writing things with him, and at her request
produced them, as she said--

‘Alas! I have committed so many sins that I cannot trust to the
accuracy of a verbal catalogue. But you shall know all.’

This document, for obvious reasons, remained a secret; nor has it
since been found. It occupied more than two hours in being drawn up;
and just as it was finished the jailor announced that a female wished
to see the Marchioness. It was the first request of the kind that had
been made since her imprisonment; but she gave orders that the
stranger should be admitted; whilst Pirot, remaining at her own
request, retired into a corner of the chamber and occupied himself at
prayer. The man of the prison ushered in a woman, with her face
carefully concealed. Marie advanced to receive her; when the other
threw back her veil and discovered the features of Louise Gauthier.

The Marchioness recoiled a step or two as she recognised the stranger,
and her face underwent a rapid and fearful change.

‘You have done well,’ she said in irony, ‘to let me see you enjoy this
last triumph. A sight of me to-morrow, in the streets, was not enough;
you must come to gloat upon me here.’

‘By your hopes of heaven, speak not thus!’ cried Louise earnestly, as
she advanced towards her. ‘You are mistaken. I have come in all good
feeling--if you will but receive me.’

‘What would you do?’ asked Marie; ‘am I to believe you?’

‘By all that one who is not utterly lost can call to strengthen her
asseverations, you may,’ replied the Languedocian. ‘By the memory of
him whom we both loved--in the name of Gaudin de Sainte-Croix, do not
believe my nature to be so base.’

The Marchioness gazed at the girl for a minute with a glance of most
intense scrutiny. Then she said coldly, once more gaining a command
over her temper--

‘Well, mademoiselle, you can continue.’

‘At this terrible moment,’ said Louise, in a low impressive accent,
‘when your life is reckoned in the past, and the future is as nothing
on this side of the grave, you will perhaps listen to me, and believe
that I have come to you in charity and peace. I forget all that has
been; I have thought only that Gaudin loved you--and though--heaven
knows--you crushed my heart for ever in encouraging his attachment, I
have come at this fearful hour to seek you, and let you know that
there is one of your own sex who, for his sake, will undertake any
mission or pilgrimage that will serve you.’

Marie made no answer: her pride was struggling with her will, and she
could not speak.

‘You have seen no friend during your dismal imprisonment,’ said
Louise; ‘let me therefore be your confidant, if there is aught you
will stoop to trust me with. Remember that we shall meet no more. O
madame! for your own sake! as you valued Gaudin’s love! do not go
forth to-morrow in enmity against one who, if she wronged you, did it
innocently. What can I do to serve you?’

She uttered the last words with such truthful earnestness that Marie’s
pride relaxed, and Pirot at the same instant rose from his _prie-dieu_
and came towards them. As Louise extended her hand the Marchioness
took it, and he saw, for the first time since he had been with her,
that she was weeping. He led them to one of the prison seats, and in a
few minutes Marie was confiding a message to Louise, at his request,
for her children.

The interview lasted half an hour; and when it finished the
Marchioness was perfectly exhausted. She had scarcely strength
sufficient to tell Pirot that she wished him with her at daylight,
when she fell back, unable to keep up any longer, against the damp
wall of the prison. The good doctor summoned the females who had
attended upon her since her capture, and then, when he saw she was
recovering, he took his leave, accompanied by Louise, who left him in
the Rue de Calandre to return to her friends at the boat-mill.




 CHAPTER XXXVIII.
 THE WATER QUESTION--EXILI--THE PLACE DE GRÊVE

The early morning of the terrible day arrived. With its first dawn
the good Pirot, according to his promise, was at the gates of the
Conciergerie; and being immediately conducted to the cell in which
Marie was confined, discovered that she had not been to bed that
night, but since the departure of Louise Gauthier had been occupied in
writing to various branches of her family.

She rose to receive him as he entered; and at a sign the person who
had been in attendance took her departure. Pirot observed that her
eyelids were red with watching, not from tears: but a fire was burning
in her eyes with almost unearthly brilliancy. Her cheek was flushed
with hectic patches, and her whole frame was trembling with nervous
excitement. As the doctor saluted her with the conventional words of
greeting she smiled and replied--

‘You forget, monsieur, that I shall scarcely witness the noon of
to-day. A few hours--only a few hours more! I have often tried to
imagine the feelings of those who were condemned; and now that I am
almost upon the scaffold it appears like some troubled dream.’

‘We will not waste this brief interval in speculations,’ replied
Pirot. ‘The officers of the prison will soon interrupt us. Have you
nothing to confide to me before they arrive?’

‘They will take charge of these letters I have written, and will read
them before they send them forth,’ replied Marie. ‘But here is one,’
she continued, as her voice hesitated and fell, ‘that I could wish you
yourself would deliver. It is to M. de Brinvilliers, my husband; it
relates only to him, and--my children!’

Pirot looked at her as she spoke, and her face betrayed the violent
emotion that the mention of her children had given rise to. She
struggled with her pride for a few seconds, and then broke down into a
natural and violent burst of tears. Her sympathies had been scarcely
touched whilst merely thinking of her two little daughters; but the
instant she named them to another her wonderful self-possession gave
way. She leant upon the rude table, and covering her face with her
mantle wept aloud.

Pirot took the letter from her hand, and read as follows--thinking it
best to allow the violence of Marie’s grief to have full play, rather
than to attempt to check it by any reasoning of his own:--


 ‘For the last time, Antoine, and on the point of delivering up my soul
 to God, I write to you, wishing to assure you of my friendship, which
 will continue until the latest moment of my life. I am about to suffer
 the degrading punishment my enemies have condemned me to. Forgive
 them, I beseech you, as I have done: and forgive me also, for the
 shame which, through my actions, will fall upon your name. Remember
 that we are but on earth for a short period; and that, before long,
 you yourself may have to render a just account to God of all your
 actions, even the most insignificant, as I shall have to do in a few
 hours. Instruct and watch over our poor children: Madame Marillac and
 Madame Cousté will inform you of all they will require. Let your
 prayers be continually offered up for my repose, and believe that I
 die thinking of you only.

                                                         ‘Marie.’


He had scarcely concluded the epistle when the Marchioness recovered
from the access of emotion, and raised her face towards him, as she
hurriedly wiped her eyes.

‘This is childish,’ she exclaimed. ‘What must you think of me,
monsieur? And yet I would sooner you should have witnessed this weak
ebullition than others in the prison. Come, sir, we will pray for the
forgiveness of those under whose directions and hands I am about to
suffer, and for the salvation of my own soul.’

She threw open the leaves of a religious book that was lying on the
bench, and prayed long and earnestly. Pirot joined her: and thus they
continued for more than an hour, until their devotions were
interrupted by the arrival of the concierge and one or two officers,
who came to announce to her that the chief greffier was waiting in the
lower room to read the sentence of the Court to her. Upon this she
arose, without betokening any fresh emotion, and wrapping a cloak
about her, accompanied by Pirot, preceded and followed by the people
of the prison, she quitted her cell.

They descended some steps, and led her into a low arched room, but
dimly lighted by a few glimmering lamps suspended in iron frames from
the ceiling. The walls were damp and rugged; and an old and
half-obscure painting of a holy family was suspended at the end of the
room. Under this was a common wooden _prie-dieu_, such as we now see
in the foreign churches, and near it some rude chairs and a table, on
which were materials for writing; and around it three or four of the
judicial functionaries were sitting, being now joined by Pirot.
Opposite to this, against the wall, was a low pile of what was
apparently furniture, covered entirely with a black tarpaulin, and on
the ground, near that, some brass and earthen vessels full of water.
The things here enumerated comprised all that was movable in the
dungeon.

As Marie entered one of the magistrates made a sign to the concierge,
who placed a seat for her near the table; and when she had taken it
the examination commenced. It was conducted by the officials in turn,
many questions being suggested by Pirot, and to all of them the
Marchioness replied with the most extraordinary coolness and
self-possession, although with a caution which astounded her
interrogators--avowing the fact of having administered certain drugs
to her father and others, but denying all knowledge of their
composition or antidotes--and also vehemently declaring that she had
no accomplices in the crimes with which she was charged. But beyond
this they could extract nothing from her; and although the combined
ingenuity of her examiners, deeply versed as they were in every kind
of method by which any confession might be educed, was exerted against
her during a protracted sitting, she met every question with an
exculpatory reply, and nothing more could be obtained from her.[23]

Seeing this, the examination was at length brought to a conclusion,
and one of the interrogators gave orders that the chief greffier
should read the arrest. The functionary hereon rose from his seat with
the paper in his hand, and commenced reading it in a hurried voice, as
if it were a task he was anxious to bring to a speedy conclusion. The
arrest was to the effect that the Court of the Chambers assembled
having found Marie-Marguerite d’Aubray, the wife of the Marquis of
Brinvilliers, guilty of the crimes attributed to her, condemned her to
do penance before the principal door of Notre Dame, with a lighted
torch in her hand weighing two pounds; and there, whilst on her knees,
to confess that she had wilfully poisoned her father and brothers, and
to demand pardon of God. And having been brought hither on a tumbrel,
with her feet naked, and a cord about her neck, she should be carried
on to the Place de Grêve, to have her head cut off upon a scaffold
erected for that purpose; after which her body should be burned, and
the ashes scattered to the wind: the question--both ordinary and
extraordinary--first being applied. The document went on to speak of
the confiscation of her property, which was to go partly to the king,
partly to defray the expenses of the prosecutions connected with the
affair, including that of Lachaussée; and the residue for masses to
be said in the chapel of the Conciergerie, for the repose of the souls
of her victims.

During the reading of this paper Marie continued to preserve the same
self-possession, even interrogating the greffier with a calm, unshaken
voice, upon certain points connected with it. As the functionary
concluded the magistrates rose, and another man advanced, of whose
presence Marie had not been before aware. He was tall and pale, and he
wore a tight fitting dress of unrelieved black. Marie perceived by the
cords in his hands that he was the executioner; and to him alone she
now belonged.

As the magistrates quitted the chamber he drew away the black cloth
that covered the apparatus of torture, and revealed the ghastly
paraphernalia. Pirot whispered a few words of encouragement in her
ear, and then followed the others, leaving Marie alone with the
executioner and the greffier, who remained at the table to take down
the answers of the prisoner. Marie glanced at the vessels of water
which stood upon the ground. She knew the nature of the terrible
ordeal she was about to undergo, but her courage failed her not.

‘You surely do not mean me to swallow all that water, monsieur?’ she
said to the greffier; ‘small as I am, there is more than enough to
drown me.’

The officer returned no answer, but looked significantly at the
executioner. The man approached the Marchioness, and began to unfasten
her attire, removing one of her clothes after another, until nothing
was left her but an under-garment, in which she now stood before the
greffier, her limbs as white as the linen that scarcely shrouded them,
but exhibiting not the slightest signs of tremor. Again the
interrogator questioned her respecting her accomplices; and again
Marie firmly denied the existence of any. All his efforts were vain,
as had been those of the magistrates. The sentence was ordered to be
carried out.

The ‘water question,’ as it was termed, was one of the most revolting
punishments which the barbarous usages of the period allowed in its
criminal proceedings; the Marchioness of Brinvilliers was one of
almost its last victims, as it was then practised in all its
unmitigated severity. The sufferer was compelled to swallow a large
quantity of water, forced into the mouth by a horn; the body being at
the same time secured to a bench, in a most painful position, whilst
the hands and feet were attached to rings of iron in the wall and
floor of the chamber. For the ‘ordinary question,’ as it was termed,
the bench was two feet high, and the quantity of water to be swallowed
nearly twelve pints; for the ‘extraordinary’ ordeal a trestle three
feet high was substituted for the other, the hands and feet still
remaining fixed to the rings, and an additional quantity of water,
equal to the first, was forced down the sufferer’s throat. In the
event of the prisoner’s obstinacy, and a refusal to open the mouth,
the executioner closed the nostrils with his thumb and finger, until
the unfortunate person was obliged to part his lips to breathe, when
advantage was immediately taken of this to force the end of the horn
down his throat. The consequence of this barbarous practice was, the
distension of the chest by the introduction of the water, causing such
agonising pain that very few were able to resist it.

The executioner approached Marie again, and leading her to the bench
rudely tied her feet to the rings in the floor. Then forcing her back
with brutal violence, he fastened her wrists to the links in the wall,
pulling the cords as tightly as they would come. Finally, he fastened
the edge of her garment round her knees with one of the bands of her
dress, and then announced that all was in readiness for the torture.

The greffier gave the word, and the terrible operation commenced in
silence, broken only by an occasional ejaculation of Marie, as measure
after measure of the fluid disappeared. But beyond this she spoke not
a word: a low wail was her only reply to the questions of the
examiner, whilst she shook her head, as much as the hold of her
tormentor permitted her to do, in answer to all his energetic and
impressive requests that she would disclose all she knew. And in these
he was influenced as much by compassion as by the wish that the ends
of justice should be answered.

The limits of the ordinary torture had been reached without any
admission on her part, and the executioner stopped until he received
fresh directions from the greffier to proceed to the second stage of
the question. The bench upon which Marie was tied down was removed,
and one more than a foot higher was substituted for it--wedged under
her by the power of the torturer, without releasing her hands and
feet, now so tightly wrung by the cords that the blood started from
the parts where they cut into the flesh. Still no cry escaped her
lips; with superhuman endurance she went through the continuation of
the dreadful ordeal, betraying scarcely any signs of life except the
quivering of her limbs and an occasional violent contraction of the
muscles as she turned herself round upon the trestle as far as the
cords would allow of her doing. At last she cried out, with a violence
that for the instant startled the officials in attendance, ‘_Mon Dieu!
mon Dieu!_ they have killed me!’ And this was followed by a piercing
cry of agony; after which all was still.

The greffier rose from his seat, and once more asked her respecting
her accomplices. But she returned no answer, nor indeed gave the least
sign of consciousness: upon which, fearing that the punishment had
been carried too far, he gave orders that she should be unbound. The
executioner obeyed; and then, calling in his fellows to his
assistance, they untied the cords from the rings and staples and bore
the unhappy woman into an adjoining chamber, placing her on a mattress
before a large fire that was burning in the huge open chimney-place.

It was some time before her senses returned. When she came to herself
she found the good Pirot supporting her head, whilst the greffier was
communing with the magistrates respecting the proceedings of the
ordeal. They quitted the chamber soon after she recovered, and then
she was left alone with the doctor, who had thrown his cloak around
her thinly clad and shivering form, and was now only waiting until she
should be sufficiently brought round to join him in assisting at the
last offices of religion.

At last he half-led, half-carried her to a _prie-dieu_, and there
prayed with her until the cold and dismal light of morning, overcoming
the red glare of the fire, stole cheerlessly through the small and
heavy-barred loopholes of the chamber. And with it came something of
terrible import--the low murmur of the vast crowd already assembled
without the gates, and in the Cour des Miracles[24]--the audible
passing and repassing of the Royal Guard, as bodies of them paraded
the streets in the immediate line from the Palais de Justice to Notre
Dame, and thence to the Place de Grêve--and an unwonted stir in the
Conciergerie, as those friends of the officers and other functionaries
who had procured the entree to the prison arrived. Not a sound escaped
Marie’s ear, although Pirot strove in some measure to drown the
distant hum by his voice. Every nerve appeared intensely sensitive,
and the reaction of a terrible excitement had brought the blood back
to the surface of her flesh. Her eyes were again blazing with fevered
brilliancy; her cheek was flushed, and a rapid shuddering movement
kept every muscle in convulsive action.

Her prayers were only interrupted by the arrival of the same
magistrates who had before left her, followed by the executioner and
his assistants; and the Marchioness directly knew that the terrible
hour had arrived. Without a word she held out her wrists, now
discoloured and swollen by the question, to the headsman; and not an
expression of pain escaped her lips as he roughly bound them together.
The cloak which Pirot had lent her was then thrown on one side; when,
as she found her bosom exposed, she requested the man to fasten the
lappets of her garment together with a pin. He, however, threw a large
scarf over her shoulders, and part of this formed a cowl, which she
pulled down over her face as well as her imprisoned hands enabled her
to do. And when this had been arranged she left the chapel, preceded
and followed by the officers of the prison.

Beyond the wicket some people had assembled in the court. As she
emerged from the building a man pressed rudely forward from the little
knot of gazers, and came close to her side, as he thrust a small note
almost in her face. Pirot took it from him, at Marie’s request, and
inquired what it was.

‘An account of money due to me,’ said the man, ‘for a tumbrel and a
horse, both ruined on the road from La Villette to Le Bourget.’

‘I know not what he means,’ said Marie.

‘You do--you do, madame,’ answered the intruder. ‘It was taken from
your _hôtel_ in the Rue St. Paul for your flight to Liége.’

‘Another time will do to settle this,’ observed Pirot.

‘Another time will not do,’ answered the man. ‘Where will be my chance
of payment five minutes after madame reaches the Grêve?’

As he spoke the man was pulled forcibly away, and thrust on one side,
by one of the bystanders. Marie looked up to see who had thus
interfered, and her eyes met those of Philippe Glazer. Clasping his
hands together he gazed at her with a look of intense agony. Even in
the horror of the moment Marie perceived that he had placed in his hat
the clasp she gave him at Compiègne. She bowed her head in
recognition, and then passed on. Philippe never saw her again.

They moved forward through the courts of the Conciergerie, Pirot never
ceasing his religious consolations until they came to the lodge of the
prison. Here the cortege halted, and then the executioner approached
her with a long white garment hanging over his arm. The ghastly
toilette of the scaffold was to be made at this place. She was about
to surrender herself to the operation when a door at the other side of
the lodge was opened, and a large concourse of people--so many that
they nearly filled the apartment--entered eagerly. They were chiefly
females--women holding high rank in Paris, who had met the Marchioness
frequently in society. Amongst them were the Countess of Soissons and
Mademoiselle de Scudery.

The shock given to Marie by this unexpected sight was too great, and
she would have fallen but for the support of Pirot. He sustained her
whilst the executioner once more released her hands, and drew the long
white dress over that she was wearing, tying it up closely round her
neck, and knotting a large cord round her waist in lieu of a girdle.

‘She has a neat foot,’ whispered the Countess of Soissons to M. de
Roquelaure, as she looked at Marie’s small naked foot, not covered by
the garment, planted upon the chill pavement of the lodge.

‘You told me she squeezed it into a shoe always too small when we saw
her at Versailles,’ replied the other. ‘O the jealousy of women!’

‘You have smarted yourself, monsieur, when she has refused you for a
dance,’ returned the Countess; ‘she did not think you equal to the gay
Sainte-Croix.’

‘And yet he dazzled and went out like a firework,’ said Roquelaure; ‘I
hope such will not be my fate.’

He smiled affectedly as he spoke. Marie heard the import of their
heartless conversation, and gazed at them with an expression of
withering contempt. They fell back abashed, and retreated amidst the
crowd.

‘In God’s name, monsieur,’ she said, ‘offer me some consolation. Is
there not something terrible and unnatural in such barbarous curiosity
on the part of these people?’

‘Madame,’ replied Pirot, in whose eyes the tears were standing, from
pity for the ordeal she was then undergoing, and that which he knew
was to come, ‘regard this curiosity rather as an additional misery
imposed upon you as a further expiation than as a wish on the part of
these ill-judging people to cause you further pain. Lean on me if you
need support. I will aid you as far as is in my power, and the law
permits.’

As he spoke the executioner approached, carrying a heavy lighted
torch, which he placed in her hands, according to the sentence of the
arrest; but her strained and swollen wrists refused to sustain it, and
it would have fallen to the ground had not Pirot held it up with his
hand, as Marie was leaning heavily upon his arm. The greffier then
read the paper a second time, and the dreary procession moved on to
the point that required all the nerve of Pirot, no less than of the
Marchioness, to encounter--the gate of the lodge that opened into the
thoroughfare before the Palais de Justice, which was now nearly
blocked up, as far as the eye could reach, in every direction, by a
vast and expectant crowd.

As the officers of the prison, with their wands, came forth on the top
of the flight of steps, the mass of people became suddenly agitated,
and their noise increased; but the moment Marie appeared, prominent
amidst them all by reason of her white dress and the torch which she
was carrying, a loud and savage roar--a wild continuous cry of
ferocious triumph and execration--burst as by one impulse from the
entire crowd, and this was caught up by those who were not even
visible from the Palais, and echoed along the quays and places
adjoining, until the whole of Paris appeared to be speaking with one
voice, and rejoicing at the ghastly ceremony about to take place.
Marie fell back, as though the uproar had been endowed with material
power to strike her; but the expression of her features was not that
which Pirot had expected. She was not terrified; on the contrary, the
demon appeared to be again reigning in her soul; every line in her
face gave indication of the most intense rage; her forehead
contracted; her eyes appeared actually scintillating with passion; her
under lip was compressed until her teeth almost bit through it, and
she clenched Pirot’s arm with a grasp of iron.

‘Speak not to me at present, my friend,’ she said to him, as noticing
her emotion, he addressed to her a few words of intended consolation.
‘This is terrible!’

She remained for some minutes as if fixed to the ground gazing at the
sea of heads before her, and apparently without the power of moving.
Every eye was fixed upon her, for her now fiendish beauty fascinated
all who were near her, and no one more than the great painter Lebrun,
who was on the steps of the Palais. To the impression made upon him at
this fearful moment, and which haunted him long afterwards, we owe the
fine painting in the Louvre.

A few minutes elapsed, and then Pirot, obeying the orders of the
officers, drew Marie towards the steps, the executioner assisting on
the other side. The archers in the street cleared a space with some
difficulty, almost riding the people down, who crowded about the
entrance to the court; and then they saw more plainly, in the middle
of the semicircle thus opened, a small tumbrel, with a horse attached
to it--a wretched animal, in as bad condition as the rude dirty
vehicle he dragged after him. There was no awning, nor were there any
seats; some straw was all for them to travel on. The back-board of the
cart taken out, with one end laid on the steps and the other on the
cart now backed against them, made a rude platform, along which Marie
hurriedly stepped, and then crouched down in the corner, averting her
face from the greater part of the crowd. Pirot next entered, and took
his place at her side; and then the executioner followed them,
replacing the board, upon the edge of which he seated himself; one of
his assistants climbed up in front, and the other walked at the head
of the horse, to guide the animal along the narrow opening made by the
crowd, which the archers with difficulty forced.

Trifling as was the distance, a long space of time was taken up in
passing from the Palais de Justice to the Parvis Notre Dame. The Rue
de Calandre was blocked up with people, and it was only by forcing the
crowd to part right and left into the Rue aux Fèves that sufficient
room could be gained for the tumbrel to pass; and when it halted, as
it did every minute, the more ruffianly of the population, who nested
in this vile quarter of the city,[25] came close up to the vehicle,
slipping between the horses of the troops who surrounded it, and
launched some brutal remark at Marie, with terrible distinctness and
meaning; but she never gave the least mark of having heard them, only
keeping her eyes intently fixed upon the crucifix which Pirot held up
before her, until the tumbrel crossed the square, and at length
stopped before the door of Notre Dame.

 [image: img_15.jpg
 caption: The Marchioness going to Execution]

Here she was ordered to descend; and as she appeared upon the steps a
fresh cry broke from the multitude, more appalling than any she had
before heard, for the area was large, and every available position,
even to the very housetops, was occupied. So also were the towers and
porticos of the church, as well as the interior, for all the doors
were open, and the sanctity of the place was so far forgotten that
those who were in the body of the cathedral joined alike in the
ringing maledictions of thousands of voices. But the most overwhelming
yell of execration came from the Hôtel Dieu, where the students had,
one and all, assembled to insult the unhappy criminal. Their hate was
the deeper, for they had known her at the hospital, and had all been
deceived by her wondrous hypocrisy; whilst the late revelations at the
trial had shown up the destroying hand that, under the guise of
charity, administered the poisons to the inmates and filled the
dead-house with hapless and unoffending victims.

The amende was the work of a few minutes. The paper, which contained a
simple avowal of her crimes, was handed to her by the executioner; and
the Marchioness read it, firmly and with strange emphasis--albeit the
uproar of the people prevented anybody from hearing it, except in
close approximation. As soon as it was concluded, the torch which she
carried was extinguished; the executioners, with Pirot and Marie,
remounted the tumbrel, and the cortege once more moved on towards the
fearful Place de Grêve, the crowd making an awful rush after it, as
they pushed on in their anxiety to witness the last scene of the
tragedy.

They were approaching the foot of the Pont Notre Dame, when Pirot
observed a sudden change in Marie’s countenance. Her features, which,
notwithstanding all the insults and maledictions of the crowd, had put
on an expression almost of resignation, became violently convulsed,
and the whole of her attention was in an instant abstracted from the
urgent exhortations of her faithful companion. He saw that a violent
revulsion of feeling had taken place, and he directly conjured her to
tell him the cause of her excitement.

‘Do you see that man?’ she asked him, in hurried and almost breathless
words, pointing along the bridge. ‘I was in hopes this last trial
would have been spared me.’

Pirot looked in the direction indicated. A mounted exempt was coming
across the bridge, meeting them, as it were, at the head of a body of
archers, closely surrounding a small party who were walking. The two
escorts with difficulty came nearer to each other, until they met at
the foot of the Pont Notre Dame.

‘It is a party proceeding from the Hôtel de Ville to the Conciergerie
with a prisoner,’ said Pirot. ‘Heed them not, madame. Remember that a
few minutes only are now left to you for prayer in this world.’

‘I cannot pray,’ she answered wildly; ‘it is to that man I owe all
this misery. He hunted me to Liége, and by a mean deception gave me
up into the hands of the officers. It is Desgrais!’

‘Turn your eyes from him, madame,’ said Pirot; ‘and do not at such a
moment give way to this feeling. He acted under authority; and is a
trustworthy officer.’

‘He trapped me like a reptile,’ replied Marie with bitterness; ‘and my
dying curses----’

‘Madame! madame!’ cried Pirot, as Marie raised herself in the tumbrel
and looked towards the exempt, ‘do not peril your soul by this
ill-timed passion. As you value a chance of salvation, listen to me.’

He drew her towards him, and earnestly commenced a prayer, as he
endeavoured to turn her attention from the exempt. But she was no
longer mistress of her feelings. The sight of Desgrais appeared to
have lighted up a fire in her mind; and she continued gazing at him,
though without speaking another word, as if impotent rage had deprived
her of the power of utterance.

But there was soon a diversion to the feelings of Marie and her
companion, as well as to the uproar of the crowd. The escort which
Desgrais was conducting had arrived at the side of the tumbrel; and,
what with the pressure of the multitude, and the narrow thoroughfare,
the vehicle containing the Marchioness stopped to allow the others to
pass, who were, as Pirot had observed, conducting a prisoner to the
Palais de Justice. Marie had kept her eyes riveted upon the exempt
since she first caught sight of him; but suddenly a voice called her
by her name in an accent of thrilling familiarity. She looked
hurriedly round, and perceived Exili at the side of the tumbrel,
surrounded by a party of the Guet Royal.

‘Marchioness of Brinvilliers!’ he cried, ‘we have met again; and the
rencontre is one of triumph for me. Murderess of Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix--of my son--soul and body--you shall quit this world with
my anathema ringing in your ears. _Soyez maudite!_’

‘Forward!’ cried Desgrais, as he rode by the side of Exili, between
him and the cart, touching the Marchioness as he passed, who shrunk
from him shuddering with disgust.

The crowd had thronged round the escort so densely that now neither
party could move. The delay to Marie was fearful, and the terror of
the moment was wrought to its extreme pitch by the curses and horrible
salutations of the people, some of whom were close to the tumbrel.

‘Ho! ho! the capital meeting!’ cried a fellow on the bridge,
applauding with his hands for joy. ‘Two poisoners at a time; Madame de
Brinvilliers and the Physician Exili. What a pity they are not going
to keep company out of the world.’

‘Down with the Italian!’ shouted another man, who was leaning from one
of the windows.

The entire mass of people swayed towards the point where Exili was
standing at the last speaker’s words, forcing the guards against the
houses.

‘Down with the Italian!’ said the fellow who had first cried out.

‘Hang him to Maître Cluet’s sign!’ said another. ‘Who knows but he
and La Voison together may bewitch M. de la Reynie, and get clear from
the Chambre Ardente.’

‘Throw him into the river!’ shouted a third; ‘tied neck to neck with
Madame la Marquise there.’

There was a movement towards the tumbrel. Marie started, and clung to
Pirot as well as her pinioned arms allowed; whilst Desgrais, forcing
himself in front of her, presented a heavy _snaphaunce_ at the ruffian
who had just spoken.

‘Down with the exempt!’ cried several voices. ‘He would murder the
people.’

‘Let him be!’ exclaimed the man at the window. ‘He is only keeping her
to make better sport on the Place de Grêve. Settle the Italian, if
you please.’

There was a fresh rush, against which the guards could make no
opposition, fixed as their arms were to their sides by the pressure of
the mob; and this was increased by the plunging of some of the horses
on which the archers were mounted, causing additional confusion and
crushing. Determined to say a few words to the rabble, Exili contrived
to get upon a round block of stone at the base of one of the houses,
placed, in common with many others, to afford a protection to
foot-passengers from the wheels of vehicles. But he had scarcely
mounted, even before his guards were aware of his intention, when one
of the mob hurled a wooden sabot with great force at his head. It
struck him in the face, and he was in an instant covered with blood.
Stunned by the blow, he fell forwards, and the multitude, excited like
brutes at the sight of gore, rushed on through the ring which the Guet
Royal in vain endeavoured to form, and seized him. A furious contest
now commenced between the people and the archers; but the disparity of
numbers was too great for them. They were borne down by the mere
pressure of the mass, the ringleaders of whom hurried Exili, almost
insensible--his limbs torn and bleeding from their rough handling, in
addition to the blow he had received--towards the parapet of the
bridge.

‘Into the river! into the river!’ cried a hundred voices. ‘Away with
the poisoner! Death to the sorcerer!’

‘He can swim like a fish,’ said the fellow at the window. ‘I recollect
him long ago, when they took him at the boat-mill.’

‘This shall stop him from doing so again!’ shouted a ruffian. ‘I will
take the law out of M. de la Reynie’s hands. My brother in the Guet
Royal was poisoned that night. Now see if he will swim.’

As he spoke he raised a butcher’s bill above the crowd, and it
descended upon the head of the miserable Italian, crushing his skull
before it. An awful yell of triumph broke from the crowd as the body
was raised high above them by a dozen swart arms, and hurled with
savage force over the bridge into the chafing river below. Thus
terribly died the physician.

During this bloody and rapid scene Desgrais took advantage of the rush
made by the mob in another direction to ride before the tumbrel,
clearing the way as he best could for the cortege of the Marchioness
to proceed, expecting that she would next fall a victim to the fury of
the populace. Directly they got from the bridge to the quay adjoining
the Port au Foin, he found the way cleared by the troops, who lined
the footway on either side, and had been on duty since the early
morning. But the crowd was still very great outside the line; and
their cries never ceased, albeit Marie paid no attention to them now
that the danger which had a minute before threatened her was averted;
but never moved her eyes from the crucifix, which Pirot had held
before her throughout the scene, until the procession turned from the
Port to the Place de Grêve.

The sight here presented was sufficient at once to draw Marie’s
attention from the exhortations of her companion. The entire Place was
filled with spectators, the troops keeping but a little space clear
immediately around the scaffold, which rose in the centre some ten
feet from the ground. Far along the quay and the streets leading from
the Grêve did the sea of heads extend. All the housetops were crowded
with gazers, swarming like bees upon the parapets and chimneys, and on
the ledges over the shops; and every window-place in the Hôtel de
Ville had its dozen occupants.

Pirot had expected a terrible outburst of malediction when the cortege
arrived here, and feared also that the courage of the Marchioness
would entirely fail her upon getting the first sight of the scaffold.
But on both points he was mistaken. As the tumbrel advanced, after the
first murmur of recognition a dead silence reigned; amidst this vast
mass of many thousands not a sound was audible but the bell of the
Tour d’Horloge, which kept tolling hoarsely at protracted intervals.
Marie herself betrayed but little emotion. A rapid shiver passed over
her frame as she first saw the preparations for her execution; and
then she bent her eyes upon Pirot, and so kept them steadfastly until
the assistant headsman guided the horse to the foot of the scaffold.

At this fearful moment M. Drouet approached the tumbrel, and taking
off his hat, with a show of courtesy, that appeared a mockery at such
a moment, said--

‘Madame, I have orders to inform you that if you have any further
declarations to make, the magistrates are ready to receive them at the
Hotel de Ville.’

‘Monsieur,’ replied the Marchioness, ‘how much oftener am I to tell
you that you know all? For pity’s sake do not further persecute me. I
have confessed everything.’

Drouet turned his horse away, and rode up to the scaffold to exchange
a few words with some of the officials who were standing near it. At
the same moment the executioner descended from the cart, and with his
man went up the steps of the scaffold.

‘Do you leave me?’ gasped Marie hurriedly, as she seized Pirot’s hand.
‘Be with me on the scaffold, even when---- He is coming. It will soon
be over.’

‘I will not leave you,’ said Pirot, rising, ‘until you are no more.’

‘Stop!’ cried Marie. ‘One word more. I may not speak to you again. Let
me tell you how deeply I feel your patient kindness throughout this
fearful trial. They are ready--keep by my side; and when we are on the
scaffold, at the moment of my death, say a _De Profundis_. You promise
this.’

Pirot bent his head, and squeezed her hand in token of compliance. He
tried to speak, but his voice failed him. His whole frame appeared
convulsed, and he offered a strong contrast to the strange calm of his
companion.

The executioner came down from the scaffold, and assisted the
Marchioness to descend; whilst Pirot also got out, and she went with
him up the ladder--hurriedly, as though she was anxious to bring the
scene to a conclusion. As she reached the platform, her beauty
evidently made an impression on the crowd. They turned one to the
other, and murmured; but this soon died away into the same deep, awful
silence--so perfect, that the voices of the executioner and Pirot
could be plainly heard. Throwing herself upon her knees, Marie
submitted to the second dreary toilet she had been obliged to undergo.
The assistant cut off the whole of her beautiful hair, throwing the
long ringlets carelessly about on the scaffold; and next, tearing down
the collar of her dress, rudely turned it back, so as to leave bare
her neck and shoulders. Then bandaging her eyes with a small scarf, he
retired.

The sun was shining brightly; and at this moment its rays fell upon
the glittering blade of a long sword which the headsman had hitherto
kept concealed under his garment. Pirot saw it, and his heart sank
within him--so much so, that his utterance was choked, and Marie, by
whose side he was kneeling, demanded why he had thus finished his
prayer. And then, as if aware of the cause, she exclaimed rapidly--

‘Holy Virgin, pray for me, and forgive me! I abandon my body, which is
but dust, to the earth. Do thou receive my soul!’

The executioner drew near, and the good Pirot closed his eyes, as with
the greatest difficulty, in broken and quivering words, he commenced
the _De Profundis_. But in a few seconds his voice was again checked
by the noise of a dull heavy blow at his side, and a strange and
sudden sound from the crowd--not a cry of alarm, or triumph, but a
rapid expiration of the breath, almost like a hiccough, terribly
audible. The next instant a hand was laid on his shoulder. He started,
and looking round with an effort, perceived the headsman standing over
him.

‘It was well done, monsieur,’ said the man; ‘and I hope madame has
left me a trifle, for I deserve it.’

Almost mechanically, following the direction of the man’s finger as he
pointed to the platform, Pirot’s eyes fell upon a ghastly head lying
in a pool of blood. He saw no more; but fell insensible on the
scaffold.

This was scarcely noticed in the terrible excitement of the minute.
The executioner calmly took a bottle from his pocket, and refreshed
himself with its contents; and at the same time a cloud of smoke rose
from the back of the scaffold, which was the part farthest from the
river. He raised the head, and, pulling the gory scarf away, showed it
to the people; then taking up the body as he would have done a sack,
he threw them both down upon the pile of faggots which his assistant
had just lighted. The wood was dry, and the flames were further fed by
resinous matter sprinkled amongst them; and in twenty minutes some
charred ashes alone remained, which the crowd nearest the scaffold
struggled violently to collect, as the Garde kicked and dispersed them
as well as they were able about the Place de Grêve.

And in this manner terminated the dark career of the Marchioness of
Brinvilliers.




 CHAPTER XXXIX.
 LOUISE GAUTHIER--THE CONCLUSION

It frequently occurs that after a day of stormy darkness--when the
elements appear to have combined the whole of their power against the
earth, splitting the tossed and dismantled branches of the trees from
their parent trunk, beating down the produce of the fields, and
deluging the valleys with a sudden and rapid inundation, whilst the
fire-laden clouds obscure the sun, lighting up the heavens in his
stead by lurid flashes--the wind subsides, the clouds disperse, and
the calm sunset beams over the now tranquil landscape.

True it is, the vestiges of the mischief wrought remain; but their
importance is diminished by the general quietude that reigns around.
The foliage is fresh and green; the cleared air is breathed
gratefully, and imparts its lightness to the spirits; feeding hope,
and kindness, and all good aspirations. The odours of the flowers are
more fragrant, and the colours of their petals brighter; and the
torrent which rushed darkly in its overcharged course, reflecting only
the glooming heavens above, now once more murmurs over its bed of
bright pebbles, sparkling in the warm rays of eventide.

Our scene changes, and now for the last time, from the fearful Place
de Grêve to the most charming district of the teeming and sunny
Languedoc. It is noon; and the stillness of a summer mid-day reigns
around. But everything is not hushed. Birds are singing, and the hum
of bees blends pleasantly with their minstrelsy, coming in soft
murmurs from the floating aviaries lying upon the surface of a glassy
river, which would seem at perfect rest but for the quivering of the
buds and lilies that struggle with its gentle stream, or the hanging
flowers that droop from the bank to kiss the clear water. The sky is
deep blue, and cloudless, and the summer foliage of the trees waves in
pleasant relief against its light, causing the dancing shadows to
quiver on the spangled turf below, as though even the sunbeams were
sporting for very gladness.

And now and then sounds of laughter, and snatches of old Provençal
melodies are heard near a cottage which forms part of a small
homestead on the banks of the river. On a table at the door, and
beneath the shadow of a huge chestnut-tree--of which many more are
visible on the land--is spread a repast of honey, bread, cheese, and
wine; and seated at this table we have little difficulty in
recognising Benoit, Bathilde, and Louise Gauthier. The two first are
plump and merry as ever--perhaps more so, and Louise appears to have
lost some of her sadness. Her cheek is scarcely so pale as it was in
Paris when Benoit first knew her, and now and then a faint smile may
be detected on her lips, which it appears to be Benoit’s ceaseless
endeavour to call up.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed the honest ex-keeper of the boat-mill, with the
expression of one whose stomach is comfortably filled; ‘this is better
than the great cities after all. To think after staying in Paris so
long we should come back with less than we went!’

‘You forget Louise,’ replies Bathilde, as she takes their friend
kindly by the hand.

‘Not at all,’ continues Benoit, as he rises and kisses the
Languedocian with a smack that quite echoes again. ‘There _ma femme_,
you may be jealous of that if you like, and I don’t care; nor more
does Louise, as I would wager my life. Eh! Louise?’

‘You would find it a difficult task to offend me,’ replies Louise,
‘for I owe you too much kindness--even if you kiss me before
Bathilde.’

‘You owe us nothing. I think the debt is on our side. Whose are these
things? Whose is this bit of ground?--yours, all yours! and you shall
turn us out when you like.’

‘I do not think I shall do that,’ is Louise’s answer; ‘now, we must
never part again. I know I am at times but a sad companion for such
kind hearts as yours; but if you will bear with me, although I cannot
forget the past, yet your goodness shall do more than aught else in
the world to alleviate the memory of what has been.’

 THE END.




 ENDNOTES

[1] _society of Gens de la Courte Épée_] ‘Ces grades se composent
ordinairement d’écoliers. On les nommait “gens de la courte épée” à
cause des ciseaux qu’ils portaient pour couper les bourses.’--_Dulaure_.

[2] _Manna of St. Nicholas de Barri_] ‘The Manna of St. Nicholas de
Barri’ was the name under which the _Aqua Tofana_ was vended almost
publicly.

[3] _foul and reeking burial-ground attached to the Église des
Innocens_] The ill effects which the overcharged Cimetière des Innocens
had upon the salubrity of Paris, situated as it was in its most crowded
quarter, had been matter of complaint for _four hundred years_. Yet
such was the opposition of the ecclesiastical authorities, and the
blind and superstitious obstinacy of the people generally, although the
tainted air they breathed was thick with putrefaction and disease, that
it was not until 1785 that the Council of State ordered its demolition.
It was supposed, up to that time, that there had been one million two
hundred thousand bodies forced into its comparatively narrow limits!

[4] _they form his flambeaux_] _Adipocere_ is the substance alluded to.
Its name conveys its properties, and it was first made the subject of
an interesting analysis by M. Thouret in 1784, upon the occasion of
removing the burial-ground of the Innocents. It has always been found
most abundant where the bodies have had the chance of being exposed to
inundations of fresh water; its formation being the result of some
peculiar decomposition of the human frame hitherto unsatisfactorily
accounted for. A piece is in the possession of the author.

[5] _Tsa tshen pal!_] ‘How are you, brother?’ This is true Gitano, or
Gipsy language. Wherever it is used, the reader may be assured of its
authenticity.

[6] _morro_] Bread.

[7] _lon_] Salt.

[8] _ranee_] A lady.

[9] _blunderbus_] Blunderbus is derived from the Dutch _donderbus_--a
thunder-gun.

[10] _cachots_] ‘The hapless Prince d’Armagnac and his brother were
confined in these _cachots_ by Louis XI. They were taken out twice a
week to be scourged, in the presence of Phillipe O’Huillier, the
governor, and had some teeth drawn every three months. The eldest lost
his reason; but the youngest, delivered at the death of Louis,
published these facts, which would otherwise have been considered too
terrible for belief.’--_Hist. de l’Ancien Gouvern. par le compte de
Boulainvilliers_, tom. iii. Lettre 14.

[11] It is supposed that the fetes of Versailles at the present epoch
entirely owed their origin to a desire on the part of Louis XIV. to
eclipse the splendour of his _surintendant_ Fouquet. At one of the
magnificent entertainments given by this individual every guest invited
was presented with a heavy purse of gold.

[12] _Halles_] Or, in English, ‘Billingsgate.’

[13]

 ‘Le tribut qu’on rend aux traits d’un beau visage,
 De la beauté d’une âme est un vrai témoignage;
 Et qu’il est malaisé que, sans être amoureux,
 Un jeune prince soit et grand et généreux.
 C’est une qualité que j’aime en un monarque,
 La tendresse du cœur est une grande marque;
 Que d’un prince, à votre âge, on peut tout présumer,
 Dès qu’on voit que son âme est capable d’aimer.
 Oui, cette passion, de toutes la plus belle,
 Traîne dans son esprit cent vertus après elle,
 Aux nobles actions elle pousse les cœurs,
 Et tous les grands héros ont senti ses ardeurs.’
                                Molière.


[14] A Siamese prince, rejoicing in the name of
_Tan-oc-cun-srivi-saravacha_, who formed part of the Siamese embassy
in 1684, thus speaks of this group, in a ‘letter to a friend:’--‘Tu
sais quel est le mortel que ce dieu représente: quant aux nymphes, si
tu connaissais comme moi l’histoire secrète de la cour, tu comprendrais
sans peine à la place de qui on les a mises là. Je ne trouvais pas
d’abord que cela fut déraisonnable, parceque je pensais que la
polygamie régnait en France comme à Siam.’

[15] _Samaritaine_] The Samaritaine was a large hydraulic machine just
below the Pont Neuf, where the floating Bains de Louvre are moored at
present. It was a house erected upon piles, in form somewhat like a
church, with a clock at one end. Having fallen to decay, it was
entirely demolished in 1813.

[16] _the Hôtel de Cluny was… the abode of Mary_] The circumstances
connected with the residence of Mary of England at the Hôtel de Cluny
are somewhat too curious to be passed over at this place, although the
freedom of Brantôme and Dulaure, in describing them, may be softened
down with advantage. Louis was upwards of fifty when he married; his
bride, as we have stated, about sixteen. On his death the crown fell,
for want of a direct heir, to the Duke of Valois, afterwards Francis
I.; but the young widow, in the hopes of being proclaimed _regénte_,
feigned to be in that condition popularly asserted to be coveted by
ladies who are attached to their lawful partners. And indeed the
attentions of the gallant Duke of Valois were sufficiently pointed to
lead the retailers of court scandal to hint that the fiction might
possibly become a fact--so much so, that the ministers remonstrated
with him. They told him that he must have the greatest interest in
seeing that the Queen lived in honour, instead of attempting to pay
his court to her; that if she had a son, nothing could keep that son
from ultimately coming to the throne, and that he, Francis, must
retire contentedly to Brittany; in fact, that everything, altogether,
would be as unpleasant for him as could possibly be. These admonishings
appear to have had an effect upon the royal gallant, and somewhat
quenched the fire of his passion, which was altogether put out by
learning that an intrigue was all this while being carried on between
the young Mary and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the most
accomplished cavalier of his time, and to whom the Princess had shown
some partiality before her marriage with Louis. Francis made this
discovery under rather awkward circumstances--no matter how--at the
Hôtel de Cluny; and by his commands Mary and Suffolk were married
immediately in the chapel of the edifice. The happy pair left Paris
for London the same afternoon. Thus ended the adventure, by which
Francis lost a mistress, but insured to himself the crown of France.

[17] An outrage of this kind was by no means uncommon in the reckless
times of Louis Quatorze, nor did its commission excite much attention,
if we may credit the memoirs of the Abbe Dubois.

[18] Much has been written upon the Aqua Tofana, especially with
respect to its alleged power of killing at any interval of time after
it had been administered. No drug is now known that would thus exert
any species of action. The only example that can be brought forward to
support the possible truth of this statement is the poison from the
bite of a mad dog, which will remain dormant in the system, it is well
known, for several months.

[19] This, and many of the incidents about to follow, the author has
taken from some decayed and mouse-eaten pamphlets in his possession,
bearing the date of the trial, which he was fortunate enough to find,
some time back, at a bookshop in the neighbourhood of the Rue de
l’École de Médecine, Paris. By the similarity of the pages and
references, they appear to be the same from time to time referred to
by M. Alexandre Dumas, in the _Crimes Célèbres_; and two bear imprint,
‘A Paris. Chez Pierre Aubouin, Cour du Palais, et, chez Jacques
Villery, Rue Vieille Bouclerie.’ One is a memoir of this extraordinary
‘_procez_;’ the second is a copy of the sentence, much dilapidated;
and the third is the defence of M. Nivelle,--‘De l’imprimerie de Thomas
Le Gentil,’--in excellent preservation. They were all published before
the denouement of the terrible drama. The following extract from the
end of the ‘Mémoire’ is not without interest:--‘Le public en attend la
décision avec la mesme impatience que chacun a pour ce qui doit
contribuer à sa sûreté et à son repos. Il espére que Messievrs qui
ont travaillé avec tant de précaution à pénétrer les circonstances
d’une affaire aussi importante, en punissant la coupable par leur
arrest, préviendront de pareils crimes, d’autant plus dangereux qu’ils
sont secrets et inévitables.’

[20] _Le Bourget_] At this little village of Le Bourget, on the 20th
of June 1815, Napoleon, returning from Waterloo, stopped for two hours,
that he might not enter Paris until nightfall, and thus diminish in
some measure the sensation which his flight from Belgium would produce.

[21] Those who may be inclined to pursue this portion of Marie’s career
still further, especially as regards the confession, will find much
relating to it in the letters of Madame de Sevigné, particularly Nos.
269 and 270.

[22] Pirot.

[23] The author has endeavoured as much as possible in the course of
this romance to render it something more than a mere extension of the
facts already known respecting the career of the Marchioness of
Brinvilliers; and more especially with regard to the admirable
narrative of Dumas, in the _Crimes Célèbres_. But, since it would be
utterly futile to attempt any description of her last hours more
graphic or interesting than the manuscript narrative of M. Pirot, he
has, in portions of these chapters, availed himself largely of the
circumstances therein stated. Besides this, he has taken the sentence
from the original parliamentary document in his own possession, before
alluded to, merely divesting it of long technicalities, and the
repetitions of the names of the principal parties concerned in the
affair. The authority for matters respecting the ‘Question’ will be
found in a note to the _Tableau Moral_ of the reign of Louis Quatorze,
in Dulaure’s _History of Paris_.

[24] _Cour des Miracles_] This Cour des Miracles--the principal of
those so called--may be recollected by the visitor to Paris at the
present day. It adjoins the bureau of the Prefecture, to which he goes
to have his passport _viséed_ previous to leaving the city. The
nuisance of tramping backwards and forwards from the English Embassy
to this point is too well known.

[25] _Rue aux Fèves_] The Rue aux Fèves, still in existence, has gained
some notoriety from having been the street in which M. Eugene Sue has
placed the _tapis franc_ of the White Rabbit.




 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

The Richard Bentley edition (London, 1846) was consulted for most
of the changes listed below.

Minor spelling variances (_e.g._ befel/befell, Liège/Liége,
fireplace/fire-place, etc.), along with the inconsistent italicization
of some foreign words, have been preserved.

Plain text edition only: note markers are given in [square] brackets.

Alterations to the text:

Add title and author to cover image.

Convert the footnotes to endnotes.

Omit the head- and tailpieces.

Punctuation: fix some quotation mark pairings/nestings and missing
periods.

[Chapter II]

Change “poisons in the stomach, like _witches_ nails and pins” to
_witches’_.

[Chapter VI]

“it was Marie-Marguerite _d’Aubrai_, Marchioness of Brinvilliers” to
_d’Aubray_.

[Chapter VII]

“were too great to allow them to _thing_ of retiring to rest” to
_think_.

[Chapter IX]

“better or a wiser man. Ah these women’ he added” add exclamation
mark after _women_.

[Chapter XII]

“The _Bastile_, it may be known, consisted at that time of eight
towers” to _Bastille_.

[Chapter XV]

“from her first appearance in _Moliére’s_ comedy” to _Molière’s_.

“better manners another time, Mademoiselle des _Ulris_,’ said” to
_Urlis_.

[Chapter XVIII]

“the astrologers gleaned important _imformation_ respecting” to
_information_.

[Chapter XIX]

“and, after _your_ have got all you can by agreement, see what else”
to _you_.

“whose _mounteback_ engagements had given him a certain kind” to
_mountebank_.

[Chapter XXI]

“and halfway along the street stopped at _a porte-cochère_”
de-italicize the _a_.

[Chapter XXII]

“laugh against the the gallant abbe which he had raised” delete one
_the_.

[Chapter XXVIII]

“There were no signs of _lie_ in that quarter of Paris” to _life_.

[Chapter XXXI]

“‘There is no _neccessity_ for your so doing,’ returned Marie” to
_necessity_.

[Chapter XXXIV]

“He had forgotten his _fiance_, and was anxious again to see her” to
_fiancée_.

[Chapter XXXVI]

“even in the face of a _confesssion_ in her own hand-writing” to
_confession_.

[Chapter XXXVIII]

“The _arrrest_ was to the effect that the Court of the Chambers” to
_arrest_.

 [End of text]






*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73516 ***