The Project Gutenberg EBook of The False Chevalier, by William Douw Lighthall

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: The False Chevalier
       or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette

Author: William Douw Lighthall

Release Date: September 27, 2007 [EBook #22779]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FALSE CHEVALIER ***




Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by the
Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions
www.canadiana.org)









THE

FALSE CHEVALIER

OR

The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette

BY

W. D. LIGHTHALL

F. E. GRAFTON & SONS

MONTREAL

1898

_This Edition is intended for circulation only in the Dominion of
Canada._

[Illustration: THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES
_After the contemporary acquarelle by Portail._]

(_All rights reserved_)

To

CYBEL, MY WIFE,

THE SWEET COMPANION AND CRITIC
OF MY LABOURS ON
THIS BOOK




CONTENTS


CHAP.

I. THE FUR-TRADER'S SON

II. GERMAIN IN FRANCE

III. THE INNKEEPER'S LESSON

IV. THE CASTLE OF QUIET WATERS

V. MONSIEUR DE RÉPENTIGNY

VI. EPERGNES AND WAX-LIGHTS

VII. "THE LEAP IS TAKEN"

VIII. THE ABBÉ'S DISASTER

IX. A PHILOSOPHER BEHIND HORSE-PISTOLS

X. THE GALLEY-ON-LAND

XI. THE COURT

XII. GERMAIN GOES TO PARIS

XIII. A JAR IN ST. ELPHÈGE

XIV. THE OLD-IRON SHOP

XV. THE BEGGARS' BALL

XVI. BROKEN ON THE WHEEL

XVII. THE SAVING OF LA TOUR

XVIII. MADAME L'ETIQUETTE

XIX. THE COMMISSION

XX. DESCAMPATIVOS

XXI. THE SHADOW OF THE GOLDEN DOG

XXII. THE SECRET OUT

XXIII. THE EXECUTIONER OF DESTINY

XXIV. A CURIOUS PROFESSION

XXV. FACING THE MUSIC

XXVI. A DUEL

XXVII. JUDE AND THE GALLEY

XXVIII. ANOTHER DUEL

XXIX. THE LETTRE DE CACHET

XXX. THE HEAVENS FALL

XXXI. ONE DEFENDER

XXXII. A STRONG PROOF

XXXIII. THE REGISTER OF ST. GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS

XXXIV. AT QUEBEC

XXXV. AT ST. ELPHÈGE

XXXVI. AT MONTREAL

XXXVII. ONCE MORE THE SWORD

XXXVIII. THE RECORD

XXXIX. THE MARQUIS'S VISITOR

XL. AN UNEXPECTED ALLIANCE

XLI. A POOR ADVOCATE

XLII. A HARD SEASON

XLIII. BACK AT EAUX TRANQUILLES

XLIV. SELF-DEFENCE

XLV. THE NECESSITIES OF CONDITION

XLVI. THE PATRIOTS

XLVII. THE DEFENCE OF THE BODYGUARD

XLVIII. SISTERS DEATH AND TRUTH

XLIX. CIVIC VIRTUE

L. JUDGMENT DAY

LI. LOVE ENDURETH ALL THINGS

LII. THE SUPREME EXACTITUDE

LIII. RETRIBUTION ACCOMPLISHED




PREFATORY NOTE


This story is founded on a packet of worm-eaten letters and documents
found in an old French-Canadian house on the banks of the St. Lawrence.
The romance they rudely outline, its intrigues, its brilliancy of
surroundings, its intensity of feelings, when given the necessary
touches of history and imagination, so fascinated the writer that the
result was the present book. A packet of documents of course is not a
novel, and the reader may be able to guess what is mine and what is
likely to have been the scanty limit of the original hint.

The student of history will recognise my debt to many authorities; among
whom the chief are Paul Lacroix and Taine. I wish it distinctly
understood that the person attacked in the documents in question is not
the hero of this narrative.

W. D. L.




THE FALSE CHEVALIER




CHAPTER I

THE FUR-TRADER'S SON


The son of the merchant Lecour was a handsome youth, and there was great
joy in the family at his coming home to St. Elphège. For he was going to
France on the morrow; it was with that object that his father had sent
to town for him--the little walled town of Montreal.

It was evening, early in May, of the year 1786. According to an old
custom of the French-Canadians, the merchant, surrounded by his family,
was bestowing upon his son the paternal blessing. It was a touching
sight--the patriarchal ceremony of benediction.

The father was a fine type of the peasant. His features might, in the
strong chiaroscuro of the candle-light, have stood as model for some
church fresco of a St. Peter. His dress was of grey country homespun,
cut in a long coat, and girded by a many-coloured arrow-pattern sash,
and on his feet he wore a pair of well-worn beef-skin mocassins.

The son was some twenty years of age, and his mien and dress told of the
better social advantages of the town. Indeed, his costume, though
somewhat worn, had marks of good fashion.

His younger sister (for he had two, of whom one was absent), and his
mother, a lively, black-eyed woman, who dressed and bore herself
ambitiously for her station, gazed on him in fond pride as he knelt.

"My son," the merchant said reverently, his hands outstretched over his
boy, "the Almighty keep and guard thee; may the blessing of thy father
and thy mother follow thee wherever thou goest."

"Amen," the son responded.

He rose and stood before his parent with bent head.

The old man exhorted him gravely on the dangers before him--on the
ruffians and lures of Paris, and the excitements of youth. He warned him
to attend to his religious duties, and to do credit to his family and
their condition in life by respectful and irreproachable conduct. "Never
forget," he concluded, in words which the young man remembered in after
years, "that the Eternal Justice follows us everywhere, and calls us to
exact account, either on earth or in the after life, for all our acts."

But here Lecour's solemn tone ceased, and he continued--"Now, Germain, I
must explain to you more closely the business on which I have sent for
you so suddenly. The North-West Company, who, as you know, command the
fur-trade of Canada, have word that a new fashion just introduced into
Paris has doubled the demand for beaver and tripled the price. They are
hurrying over all their skins by their ship which sails in ten days to
London from Quebec. I have space on a vessel which goes direct to Dieppe
the day after to-morrow, and can therefore forestall them by about two
weeks. I have gathered my winter stock into the boats you will see at
our landing; and your mother, who has always been so eager to send you
to France, has persuaded me to have you as my supercargo. Go, my boy; it
is a great opportunity to see the world."

"Yes, my Germain, at last," wife Lecour exclaimed joyfully, throwing her
arms around his neck, "at last you will set eyes on Versailles, and my
dreams about you will come true!"

The youth himself was in a daze of smiles and tears.

The chamber in which they were was the living-room of the house. Its low
ceiling of heavy beams, its spotlessly sanded floor, carpeted with
striped _catalogne_, its pine table, and home-made chairs of elm, were
common sights in the country. But a tall, brass-faced London clock in
one corner, a cupboard fuller than usual of blue-pattern stone-ware in
another, a large copper-plate of the "Descent from the Cross," and an
ebony and ivory crucifix on the walls, were indications of more than
average prosperity.

So thin was population throughout Canada in those days that to leave the
banks of the St. Lawrence almost anywhere was to leave human habitation.
The hamlet of St. Elphège was part of the half-wild parish of
Répentigny. The cause of its existence was its position some miles up
the Assumption, as a gateway of many smaller rivers tributary to the
latter, which itself was tributary to the River of Jesus; and that in
turn, less than a mile further on, to the vast St Lawrence. It
flourished on the trade of wandering tribes from up the Achigan, the
Lac-Ouareau, the St Esprit, and the Rouge, and on the sale of supplies
to rude settlers above and the farmers below. It flourished by the
energy of one man--this man, its founder, the Merchant Lecour. He had
started life with small prospects; his ideas were of the simplest, and
he was at first even a complete stranger to writing and figures. In his
youth a common soldier in the levies of the Marquis de Montcalm on the
campaigns towards lake Champlain, he had acquired favour with his
colonel by his steadiness, had been given charge of a canteen, and in
dispensing brandy to his comrades had found it possible to sell a few
small articles. The defence of New France against the British collapsed
on the investiture of Montreal by Sir Jeffrey Amherst in 1760. The
French army surrendered, and part of it was shipped back to the
motherland. Lecour remained, and shouldering a pedlar's pack, plodded
about the country selling red handkerchiefs, sashes, and jack-knives to
the peasantry. Being attracted by the convenience of the portage for
dealings with the Indians of the north, he selected a spot in the forest
and built a little log dwelling. Success followed from the first.
Beaver-skins rose into fabulous demand in Europe for cocked hats, and
made the fortunes of all who supplied them. The streams behind Lecour's
post were teeming with beaver-dams. He easily kept his monopoly of the
trade, and several times a year would send a fleet of boats down to
Quebec, which returned with goods imported from Europe. Finally he
extended his dealings throughout the Province into varied branches of
business, and "the Merchant of St. Elphège" became a household name with
the French-Canadians. The home of the Lecours--half dwelling, half
vaulted warehouse--was one of four capacious provincial stone cottage
buildings, standing about a quadrangular yard, each bearing high up on
its peak a date and brief inscription, one of which read "À Dieu la
Gloire!"--"To God the Glory."

Just at the end of the family scene previously described, a noise was
heard without, the latch was lifted, and a troop of Lecour's neighbours
and dependants pushed in, an old fiddler at their head, who, clattering
forward in _sabots_, removed his blue _tuque_ from his head, and
politely bowed to Lecour.

"Father," he said, "these young people ask your permission to give a
dance in honour of Monsieur Germain."

The Lecours appreciated the honour; the room was cleared, music struck
up, and festivity was soon in progress. What a display of neat ankles
and deft feet in mocassins! What a clattering of _sabots_ and shuffling
of "beefs"! The perspiration rolled off the brow of the musician, and
young Lecour was whirling round like a madcap with the daughter of the
ferryman of Répentigny, when the latch was again lifted, and the door
silently opened.

Every woman set up a shriek. The threshold was crowded with Indians in
warpaint!

All the settlers knew that paint and its dangers.

The dancers drew back to one side of the room, and some opened the door
of the warehouse adjoining and took refuge in its vaulted shadows. But
Lecour himself, the former soldier, was no man to tremble. "Come in," he
said, without betraying a trace of any feeling.

Seven chiefs stalked grimly across the floor in single file, carrying
their tomahawks and knives in their hands, their great silver treaty
medals hanging from their necks, and their brightly dyed eagle feathers
quivering above their heads, and six sat down opposite Lecour on the
floor. Their leader, Atotarho, Grand Chief of Oka, stood erect and
silent, an expression of warlike fierceness on his face.

"Atotarho!" exclaimed the merchant.

"It is I," the Grand Chief answered. "Where is the young man?"

"Here," replied Germain, stepping forward with a sangfroid which pleased
his father. He faced the powerful Indian.

Atotarho shook his tomahawk towards the ceiling, uttered a piercing
war-whoop, and commenced to execute the war-dance, chanting this song in
his native Six-Nation tongue--

     "Our forefathers made the rule and said: 'Here they are to kindle a
     fire; here at the edge of the woods.'"

One of the chiefs drummed on a small tom-tom. The chant continued--

     "Show me the man!

     "Hail, my grandsires; now hearken while your grand-children cry
     unto you, you who established the Great League. Come back, ye
     warriors, and help us.

     "Come back, ye warriors, and sit about our Council. Lend us your
     magic tomahawks. Lend us your arrows of flint. Lend us your knives
     of jade. I am the Great Chief, but ye are greater chiefs than I.

     "Of old time the nations wandered and warred.

     "Ye were wonderful who established the Great Peace.

     "Assuredly six generations before the pale-faces appeared, ye
     smoked the redstone pipe together, giving white wampum to show that
     war would cease.

     "Thenceforth ye bound the nations with a Silver Chain; ye built the
     Long House; ye established the Great League.

     "First Hiawatha of the Onondaga nation proposed it; then
     Dekanawidah of the Mohawks joined him; then Atotarho, my mighty
     ancestor.

     "First the Mohawks; then their younger brothers, the Oneidas,
     joined them; then the Cayugas; then the Onondagas, then the
     Senecas; and then the Tuscaroras were added. Victorious were the
     SIX NATIONS!"

With a piercing cry of triumph the chiefs sprang up and brandished their
tomahawks.

     "Then we took the sons of the Wyandots, the Eries, the Algonquins.
     Wherever we found the son of a brave man we adopted him. Wherever
     we found a brave man we made him a chief.

     "Here is the son of a brave man, our friend. Let us adopt him. Be
     ye his grandsires, oh ye chiefs of old!

     "He is a brave man; let us make him a chief. Our forefathers said:
     'Thither shall he be led by the hand, and shall be placed on the
     principal seat.'

     "Smoke the peace-pipe with us, chiefs of old, Hiawatha,
     Dekanawidah, Atotarho, us who bear your names, to-day, being
     descended of your blood through the line of the mother."

     "Brighten the Silver Chain, extend the Long House, smoke the magic
     pipe, sharpen his tomahawk, for he is a son of your League, and
     shall sit with you in the Council for ever, bearing the name of
     Arahseh, 'Our Cousin,' and the totem of the Wolf.

     "Smoke the peace-pipe, Arahseh, 'Our Cousin.'"

The tom-tom beat furiously and the six chiefs leaping up and circling
round Germain, struck the air with their tomahawks and cried together--

    "Continue to listen
    Ye who are braves;
    Ye who established the Great League,
    Continue to listen."

They gave the peace-pipe to Germain, and again seating themselves in
semicircle, gravely passed it from lip to lip.

Gradually the settlers during these rites began to learn by those who
understood Iroquois, the friendly nature of the fierce-looking actions
of the savages and gazed with delight while the merchant's son was made
a chief.

Thus out of a semi-savage corner of the world Germain Lecour was
launched on his voyage to Europe, which commenced at the head of the
boats of his father next morning when the dawn first carmined the sky
through the forests.




CHAPTER II

GERMAIN IN FRANCE


Along the highway through the ancient Forest of Fontainebleau, the coach
of the Chevalier de Bailleul, carven and gilt in elegant forms of the
reign of Louis XVI., and driven with the spirit that belonged to the
service of a grand seigneur, sped forward.

Within, the frank old soldier sat, fresh from the royal hunt at the
Palace; and on his breast coruscated the crimson heart and white rays of
the Great Star of St. Louis, the reward of distinguished service.

Suddenly the horses wheeled round and stopped to drink at a small
stream, which gushed into a natural basin by the roadside. A mounted
young man was about to water his animal at the basin, but noticing the
equipage stopping, he backed out and gave up his place, at the same time
raising his hat.

The Chevalier never ignored a politeness. Laying his hand on the window
frame he saluted the rider, and it was in this glance that his eye
caught sight of the sword-strap of the rapier at the rider's side.
For--strangely out of place in that longitude--this was a piece of
snow-white fawn-skin; embroidered in fantastic colours, woven with
porcupine quills; and adorned with a clan totem, known only in the
region of the River St. Lawrence.

He looked up promptly to the bearer's face. So bright was the expression
of the youth, so fine was his make, so lissome his seat on his chafing
horse, that the old man thought he had never seen a picture more martial
or handsome. A portrait of the rider would have represented a
countenance full of intelligence, a manly bearing, dark eyes, hair jet
black, and the complexion clear. He wore a dark red coat and a black hat
bordered with silver.

De Bailleul spoke.

"May I ask," said he, with the charming manners of the courtier,
"Monsieur's name and country, so that I may link them with the service
just done me?"

"The trifle merits no notice, sir," the youth answered respectfully. "My
name is Germain Lecour, of Répentigny, in Canada."

"Canada!" exclaimed the Chevalier warmly. "This is good fortune, indeed.
It was my lot to have once done service for the king in that country,
since which time every Canadian is my brother. And you live in
Répentigny? That is near Montreal?"

"Eight leagues below, on the River of L'Assomption, Monsieur."

"Nearly thirty years ago I left your land. To hear fresh news of it
would give me the greatest satisfaction of my life. Are you at one of
the inns here at Fontainebleau? Yes? Let me offer you the shelter of my
house, Eaux Tranquilles, which is less that a league forward. My name is
the Chevalier de Bailleul, sir. If you permit it I shall send
immediately for your luggage."

The horseman, blushing, protested that the honour was too great.

"The honour and favour are to me," replied the Chevalier.

Lecour gave in with visible joy and named his inn. The two lifted their
hats and parted with the profoundest bows. The Chevalier, as his
carriage once more sped forward, found himself no less pleased than the
other. The embroidered sword-strap and overshadowing trees conjure up
for him an hour of the past where he, a young lieutenant, is leading a
little column of white-coats through a forest defile in America. The
Indian scouts suddenly come gliding in, the fire of an enemy is heard,
little spots of smoke burst on the mountain side and dissolve again.
Shrill yells resound on every hand, brown arms brandish flashes of
brightness. The young commander rises to the emergency. His white-coats
are rapidly placed in position behind trees, and a battle is
proceeding.




CHAPTER III

THE INNKEEPER'S LESSON


The chief inn of Fontainebleau town was a rambling galleried quadrangle
of semi-deserted buildings situated on the Rue Basse, and bearing the
sign of "The Holy Ghost."

This town, in the heart of the woods, had no other sources of livelihood
than a vegetable market for the Palace, the small wants of the
wooden-shoed foresters and of the workmen employed by the Master of
Woods and Waters in planting new trees, and those of the crowd of
strangers who flocked to the place during five or six weeks in the
autumn of each year, when the king and Court arrived for the pleasures
of the hunt.

The host of the inn--formerly an assistant butler in Madame du Barry's
hotel at Versailles, was a sharp, sour-natured old fellow, truculent and
avaricious. The spine of this man was a sort of social barometer; by its
exact degree of curvature or stiffness in the presence of a guest the
stable-boys and housemaids knew whether his rank was great or small, and
whether, to please their cantankerous master, they were to fly or walk
at his beck, or in the case of a mere bourgeois, to drink his wine on
the way to his room.

Germain, on first arriving a few days previously, found himself in an
atmosphere of Oriental abjectness; for when the Rouen diligence drove
through the inn gateway, and mine host at his pot-room window remarked
his smart belongings, his landlord soul settled him as a person of
quality. But when the innkeeper had thought it out for an hour over his
wine, his attitude became one of doubt.

"No valet, no people," he muttered, "this fish then is no noble, and
yet, by his mien, no bourgeois. Luggage scanty, dress fine. What is he?
Gambler of Paris? Swiss? Italian? No, he speaks French, but without the
Court accent. By that he is none of _our_ people--that is one point
fixed. A prodigal son, then? Parbleu, I must make him pay in advance."

"Sir," said the landlord, knocking at the door of Germain's room, and
then stepping in rather freely, "I regret to tell you that it is the
rule in Fontainebleau for travellers to pay in advance."

"How much?" replied Germain, pulling out a purse full of pistoles.

The rascal was taken aback.

"I was about to say," said he, retreating, "that though such is the
rule, I am making of your honour an exception."

And he disappeared to further correct his speculations upon the visitor.
"Some little spendthrift of the provinces, I wager," was his next
conclusion. He instructed the senior stable-boy to go in and light three
candles, and chalked up the guest for nine. He also began to concoct his
bill. The household thenceforth took small liberties with Lecour's
orders.

Next day the landlord, when Monsieur was about to mount the handsomest
horse which could be hired in the town, again quitted his post of
observation at the pot-room window and advanced. He knew the animal and
its saddlery; his suave smile reappeared, and his back bent a little as
he noticed with the eye of an expert Germain's ease in his seat.

"Monsieur desires to see the Court, no doubt? He knows, perhaps, that it
does not arrive till Thursday?"

"Indeed. Tell me about the doings of the Court. I have never heard about
it."

A triumphant, hard expression came over Boniface's visage. He looked up
at his guest, straightened himself, turned his back, and went into the
house.

"What," he muttered, "I, the entertainer of counts of twenty quarterings
and the neighbour of a king--am I to have a plebeian in my house so
peasant that he ignores the topic of _all_ society? He shall feel that
he does not impose on Fontainebleau."

Germain's apartment, situated in front of the house, consisted of two
rooms fitted up with some elegance, and both looking out upon the
market-place and church. He was now told that these quarters were
engaged by "persons of quality to whom Monsieur would doubtless give
place in the usual manner." He submitted without protest, and accepted
uncomplainingly the inferior chamber assigned to him on the courtyard in
the rear.

The little town shortly began to fill with liveliness and tradesmen. A
fine carriage drove up before the inn, its horses ridden by postillions,
and followed by two mounted grooms. Three young noblemen, brothers, of
an exceedingly handsome type, alighted. The keeper of the "Holy Ghost"
and his two rows of servants grovelled before them in a body and
conducted them to the best suites within, including that taken from
Germain.

It was next morning that the latter met de Bailleul.

His host now placed the final insult upon him. At dinner he motioned him
roughly to sit at the table of the rustics.

Germain refused; he was paying for better.

The landlord angrily resisted. The Canadian, now aroused, for he saw at
last the intention to slight him, stopped, laid his hand significantly
on the hilt of his sword, and looked at the man. That motion in those
days had but one meaning. He was let alone.

Within an hour the coach of the Chevalier drove in for him and his
baggage. The sycophant recognised the arms on the panel and collapsed.
Yet that hour's reflection on the innkeeper's conduct woke Lecour to the
power of rank in old Europe.




CHAPTER IV

THE CASTLE OF QUIET WATERS


Having added to his toilet the special elegance of powdering his hair,
arrayed himself in his finest flowered waistcoat, and critically
disposed his laces, Germain took seat in de Bailleul's coach and was
driven away.

As the horses flew along another new feeling came to him. The
distinction of a familiar visit with a real "great lord" elated him as
_débutantes_ are elated by their first ball. He was no snob, only a very
natural young man entering life. He dreamt that he was transferred from
the ignoble class to the noble, and in the fancy felt himself lifted to
some inconceivable level above the people who passed by. Half a dozen
peasants, bronzed and sweaty and trudging in a group, meeting him, took
off their hats. One of them said in his hearing: "Baptiste, there is one
of the white-wigs."

The carriage rolled through the forest, then out into the open country,
and shortly after turned under a stately gate of gilded ironwork, and
the grounds of Eaux Tranquilles were entered. The château was a mansion
of smooth, light sandstone, having four towers at the corners. A
turreted side-wing, bridging over water, united it with a more ancient
castle which stood, walled in white and capped in black, in the midst of
a small lake. In front were gardens; in rear a terrace, and below it a
lawn bordered on one side by the lake, on the opposite shore of which a
park of poplars, birches, and elms extended, producing, by shading the
water, a serenity which doubtless had given the estate its name.

The last light of afternoon, that most beautiful of all lights, fell
upon the towers, and long shadows swept across the gardens.

Lecour thought it glorious.

In a few moments he and his host were seated at tea. The lofty
window-doors stood open to let in the June zephyrs. With the two wigged
and liveried servants attending, the scene to Lecour seemed the acting
of a beautiful charade, the introduction to an unreal existence.

De Bailleul noted the delicacy of his hand and the tastefulness of his
violet-tinted coat.

"Let us talk of Canada," said he. "I have no friends yet to offer you,
though you shall have some young dogs like yourself very soon. What do
you like?--riding, hunting, a quiet minuet on the terrace, eh? Ah me,
the coquettes of Quebec! I well remember them."

Germain expressed gratitude for the amusements offered.

"I will tell you why I love Canada," continued the Chevalier. "It was
there that I passed my military youth. Have you ever eaten Indian
bean-cake?"

"I have tasted it."

"And that was enough, eh? But I have lived on it for eight weeks in an
Iroquois village. Yes, eight weeks bean-cake was the most horrible of my
experiences, except when I saw the hand of an unfortunate Potawatomie
turn up in an Abenaki broth-pot. Do you remember General Montcalm?"

"I was not born in his time."

"I saw him die, and heard him refuse to let the women of Quebec weep
for him. Montcalm, sir, was the last hero of France. They glorify
Lafayette, but between ourselves Lafayette is more the drum-major than
the general."

"The lost children of France do not forget the defender of Quebec."

"But who now passes from there to here? The _noblesse_ of the colony
sank embracing each other on the luckless ship _Auguste_ in which they
fled to France. Alas, my friends so brave and so lovely! Ah, Varennes
and La Vérandrye, and you my poor Lady de Mezière! Senneville also, my
dearest friend," he murmured, speaking to the spirits. "La Corne alone
escaped. Pardon me, Monsieur. Who is now Seigneur of Berthier?"

"Captain Cuthbert."

"In place of the Courthillaux! And of Répentigny?"

"General Christie."

"In place of Le Gardeurs! And of Longueuil?"

"Captain Grant."

"In the stead of the Le Moynes!"

"He married one of them and calls himself Baron de Longueuil."

"An Englishman Baron of Longueuil! Shades of Le Moyne d'Iberville! And
what of La Corne, who used to put on warpaint and dance around the
council fires waving a tomahawk against the English?"

"Good old Colonel La Corne! He is now a loyal subject of the king of
Great Britain, and very distinguished in the late American war."

"My God, what impossibilities within thirty years!"

Lecour, finding that the Chevalier was eager for a general account of
all Canadian beaux and dames, did his best to respond. De Bailleul's cup
ran over.

"Do you know," he exclaimed, "I have never met any people like the
Canadians. When Montcalm was general, I commanded a certain detachment
towards Lake Champlain. Through how many leagues of forest, over how
many cedar swamps and rocky hills, across how many icy torrents did my
bronzed woodmen not toil! We made beds from boughs of spruce, our walls
were the forest, our roofs were the skies. Many a day we fasted the
twenty-four hours. More than once we ate our mocassins. 'Twas all for
France. Ah, if our young men at Versailles had that to do, they would
have to be different persons. I have no respect for these warriors of
hair-powder and lace, who wear stays and learn to march from the
dancing-master. Give me a people bred in the lap of wild nature and
among whom the paths to reputation are courage and intelligence! Give
me----"

Lecour saw that the Canada of the good man was an idealised picture, but
he admired his affection and asked permission to drink his health. They
touched glasses.

"Tell me about your own people, my young friend. Who is your father?"

"A country merchant, sir."

"A well-to-do one, then, I judge."

"He has prospered so well as to be reputed rich for a colony."

"And you live at St. Elphège? In my time it was only a carrying-place
for canoes, to avoid the rapid."

"My father is the founder of the little place. He is known throughout
our Province as 'The Merchant of St. Elphège.'"

"An honourable title, based on an honourable record no doubt. Would that
we rightly respected trade in France. That is one of the nation's
weaknesses. You have a mother and brothers?"

"A mother and two sisters--one married, the other at a convent in
Quebec. My brother-in-law assists my father. We are very humble people."

"Why have you come to France?"

"Because I have admired it since a child, from my mother's stories at
her knee."

"She came from France, then?"

"No, sir, but she was housekeeper in the house of Governor the Marquis
de Beauharnois."

When he said this the youth blushed.

"How is it your accent is so good? It is quite that of our gentry."

"I learnt it at the Little Seminary, from the priests, who are gentlemen
of Paris. There also the best families send their boys, and we young men
grew up together. I have lived a little in Montreal too."

"Ah, what is Montreal now like? Are the town walls still standing?"

"They surround the city, but the commander-in-chief talks of replacing
them by avenues and a Champ de Mars."

"The British garrison of course occupies the Arsenal, the British flag
flies from the Citadel. Where does the British Governor reside?"

"At the Château de Ramezay."

"But why not at the Château de Vaudreuil, where Governor de Vaudreuil
dwelt? It was larger and its gardens finer."

"That now belongs to Monsieur de Lotbinière."

"De Lotbinière! the new Marquis! Lucky devil; but blue death, what
changes!"

They rose and strayed into the gardens.

"I seem to find in you already," said the warm-hearted old Chevalier,
"one whom I love. There is something frank in your eyes which raises
memories of my dead son. In you I see both my offspring's and my own
youth recalled to me. You are Canadian--in you I can banish the
coldness, hollowness, and degeneracy of Europe. Replace my boy. Let me
call you 'Germain' and 'son.'"

The bar of evening glow was fading in the west and twilight falling on
the walks. A chill breeze seemed to inspire a question, which Germain
began.

"But----?"

"There is some hindrance then?" exclaimed the Chevalier in a
disappointed voice.

"Alas, does your honour, perhaps, forget the differences of birth?"

"Differences of birth, my Germain, are illusions; you have the reality."

"Would that I had the illusion," thought poor Lecour.




CHAPTER V

MONSIEUR DE RÉPENTIGNY


For several days he revelled in exploring Eaux Tranquilles. He became
familiar with the paths of the gardens, the different statues and
fountains. Sweet odours continually seemed to fill his breathing. He sat
dreaming in the trellised vineries, or wandered with his host along the
walks overhung by carefully trimmed shade-trees. Sometimes he would
ramble in the park, which occupied about a mile of hill across the mere;
sometimes he strolled curiously about in the old castle, along devious
passages and from chamber to chamber, wondering at its heavily
tapestried walls, its gloomy dungeons with the water lapping just
beneath, its small windows painted with little coats of arms, and its
walls ten feet thick.

One of his strong recommendations in the eyes of de Bailleul was that he
knew a fine horse and how to ride him. The Chevalier, being lord of a
large extent of country, and a very conscientious man who sympathised
energetically with the broad-minded schemes of the Duke de la
Rochefoucauld for bettering the peasants, they did much visiting of
curés and cottagers.

"Parsangbleu," he exclaimed to Germain. "What is more simple than that
every one of the people is a man like any of the rest of us."

That was then new doctrine to society.

Just when they were starting off one day together, the Chevalier's groom
handed him a note.

While they cantered outward he perused it and commented.

"Our visitors arrive from the Palace this afternoon. One is my very
amiable friend, the Prince de Poix, of the family of the Noailles,
colonel of bodyguards to his Majesty. With him of course comes his
Princess. Make yourself agreeable to her, Germain, which is very easily
done. She is the key of the situation for you. In her charge will be
some ladies. Don't be afraid of the crinoline, my boy. There will also
be some officers of the Prince's command, the Noailles company, namely,
Baron de Grancey, Viscount Aymer d'Estaing, the Count de Bellecour, the
Marquis d'Amoreau, and the Chevalier de Blair. They lead a famous corps,
for every private in the bodyguard is a noble, and has the rank of
captain. They have come to Fontainebleau with the hunt."

The news brought Germain a shock. Since his experiences at the "Holy
Ghost" he had progressively arrived at the conviction that the only
parallel to the distinction of caste between the hereditary gentry and
all other persons as then drawn in France was the distinction between
the heavens above and the earth beneath; the distance between was
considered simply immeasurable and impassable except by the
transmigration of souls. We cannot understand the extent of it in our
day. No aristocrat is now so blind, no plebeian so humble, as to
sincerely believe the doctrine. But in that age France was steeped in
it. High refinement of manners had grown to really differentiate the
Court from the masses, and the members of the governing order were
jealous of the privileges of their circle to a degree which has no
parallel now. To be suspected of being a farmer or a merchant, no
matter how cultivated or wealthy, was to be written "ignoble." The
higher _noblesse_, making up in their own society, by the acquisitions
of descent and leisure, a delightful sphere of all that was most
fascinating in art, music, dress, and blazonry, as well as power and
fame, moved as very gods, flattered with the tenet that other classes
were an inferior species actually made out of a different clay.
Genealogy and heraldry formed a great part of education. The members of
the privileged families all wore territorial titles as their badge. The
most beggarly individual who wore the sword claimed precedence of the
most substantial citizen. Whatever name was plain, to them was base.

Now Germain's name was plain, and he knew his class was held by these
people as base. His Elysian gardens, thought he, were about to be
snatched away.

About two o'clock in the day he saw with beating heart a courier gallop
up to the staircase of the main entrance, dismount, and wait.

The Chevalier's _maître d'hôtel_ hastily caused the doors to be thrown
wide open, and the hall swarmed full of servants. De Bailleul, donning
his Grand Cross of St. Louis, placed Germain at his side, and stood at
the foot of the steps.

The Princess arrived in a sedan-chair at the head of a procession of
carriages, the first of which contained her chief servants and an abbé,
who was her reader; those following held her husband and the other
guests.

Germain blanched when he saw the latter descend. They wore that bearing
which marked their class, and the dress of each seemed to him like the
petals of some rich flower. The Canadian youth looked at them,
fascinated. At his age the soul watches eagerly from its tower (what is
a man but the tower of a soul?); each new turn of the kaleidoscope,
each new figure crossing the landscape, is bathed in the rosy glow of
morning. Yet he thought of them with a sense of imprisonment and
sadness.

"I have not known till now what I desire; alas! I am nothing."

The Chevalier assisted the Princess to alight, and, kissing her hand,
turned and said--

"Permit me, Madame, to present to your Excellency Monsieur Lecour, of
Répentigny, in Canada."

This was the crucial moment in the history of the merchant's son. As he
heard his name uttered the thought rushed into his mind how baldly and
badly it sounded. There was a second of suspense, soon over. The great
lady, arrayed in all the mountainous spread and shimmering magnificence
of the Court costume, glanced at him with formal smile and impassive
face, drew back, and made the _grande révérence_ of the woman of high
society. He noted it breathlessly, and as he returned it, full of
quick-summoned grace and courage, he heard an inner music beginning to
sound, loud, triumphant, and strange. He became seized of a new-found
confidence that he could sustain his part. Every small doing now
appeared of importance. The five Life Guards stood near. De Bailleul
introduced Germain to Baron de Grancey and went away. Grancey, not
having caught the Canadian's name, amiably asked Germain to repeat it.

He stopped, blushed, and faltered--

"Germain--Lecour----"

"De?" the Baron asked, supposing as a matter of course that a
territorial title was to follow.

Lecour, in his confusion taking the requested "de" to mean merely
"from," proceeded to utter four fatal words--

"De Répentigny en Canada."

The Baron turned to his nearest companion, and again the formula of
introduction fell on Germain's ear--

"Chevalier de Blair, I have the honour of presenting you to _Monsieur de
Répentigny_."

"Monsieur, I have the honour of saluting you," said de Blair.

Before Germain could collect his ideas he had bowed to each of the other
Guards under the name "de Répentigny."

It cannot be said that, once he had recovered his self-possession after
his narrow escape from being announced as a plebeian, any great qualms
for the present overtook him. He reasoned that the title just attributed
to him was not the result of his own seeking. Though destined to bring
on all the serious consequences which form the matter of this story and
to change a lighthearted young man into a desperate adventurer, it came
in the aspect of a petty accident, which but facilitated his reception
at the hands of the companions who crowded around him.

"Have I not seen you at Court? Were you not presented six months ago in
the Oeil de Boeuf?" inquired de Blair.

"I am only a provincial," he answered. "I know nothing of the Court."

"When I first came from Dauphiny up to Versailles," laughed the Count de
Bellecour, "I spoke such a _patois_ they thought I was a horse."

"You come from Canada? Tell us about the Revolution in the English
colonies. It is not a new affair, but we army men are always talking
about it."

Germain ventured on an epigram.

"That was simple; it was the coming of age of a continent."

"A war of liberty against oppression?"

"Rather, gentlemen, a war of human nature against human nature. We had
experience of the armies of both sides in our Province."

"Would I had been there with Lafayette!" another Guardsman cried.

"You, d'Estaing!" exclaimed Grancey. "You would cry if an Englishman
spoiled your ruffles!"

"Sir, my second shall visit you this evening!"

"Pray, you twin imitations of Modesty-in-Person, let us have a real
tragediette in steel and blood," put in d'Amoreau, the fifth Life Guard.

D'Estaing and Grancey, drawing swords, lunged at each other. D'Amoreau
and the Count de Bellecour each ran behind one of them and acted as a
second, the Chevalier de Blair standing umpire, when the Abbé, the
Princess's reader, entered. The blades were thrust, mock respectfully,
back into their scabbards, and they all bowed low to the ecclesiastic.

A short, spare man of thirty with a cadaverous face, whose sharp,
lustreless black eyes, thin projecting nose, and mouth like a sardonic
mere line, combined with a jesuitical downwardness of look, made one
feel uneasy--such was the Abbé Jude as he appeared to Germain's brief
first glance.

"Never mind, gentlemen; one less of you would not be missed," he
retorted to their obeisance.

"You would like a death-mass fee, Abbé?"

The Canadian, brought up to other customs, wondered how a priest could
be addressed with such contempt by good Catholics.

"Is he a monk or a curé?" he inquired, when the reader had passed on.

"He is nothing," answered d'Estaing, with clear eye and scornful lip.
"Paris is devastated by fellows calling themselves abbés. They have no
connection with the Church, except a hole in the top of their wigs. This
fellow is Jude, the Princess's parasite."

To Germain the Guardsmen made themselves very agreeable. The manners of
the Canadian attracted men who held that the highest human quality after
rank was to be amiable. The Baron took him violently into his heart. He
was a large, well-made fellow of a certain grand kindliness of bearing,
and wore his natural hair, which was golden. The rich-laced blue silk
tunic of the Bodyguard shone on his shoulders in ample spaces, and he
well set off the deep red facings, the gold stripes, big sleeves, and
elegant sword, the coveted uniform, loved of the loveliest and proudest
of Versailles.




CHAPTER VI

EPERGNES AND WAX-LIGHTS


Dinner took place at four, with the windows darkened. At the right and
left of the host respectively were the Prince and Princess de Poix.
Germain presided at the foot of the table, having on his right a
Canoness and on his left a young lady to be described presently. As his
glances passed down the two rows of guests he thought he could never
have imagined a more perfect scene of its kind. He was dazed and
intoxicated.

A soft but bright radiance was shed by a host of starry wax-lights in
the chandeliers above. An indescribable air of distinction marked every
face. Numerous servants moved about noiselessly, and the musicians of
the château, placed in a recess, played upon violins and a harpsichord.
The table was a fairy sight. Flowers, silver statuettes, and candelabra,
were placed at intervals down the middle. Between and around these a
miniature landscape, representing winter, was extended, with little
snowy-roofed temples, an ice-bound stream, bridges, columns, trees and
shrubbery, all dusted with hoar frost. The company uttered exclamations
of delight at the ingenuity of the idea.

There was particular pleasure in eyes of the lady who sat at Lecour's
left, the Baroness de la Roche Vernay. She was one of those startlingly
beautiful beings whom one meets only once in a lifetime. Less than
eighteen, and fragile-looking at first glance, Nature had given her an
erectness and grace and a slender, unconscious symmetry which,
characterising every feature, seemed to suggest the analogy of the
upward growth of a flower. The purity of innocence and truth lightened
her fair brow, at the same time that enjoyment of society shone from her
sparkling eyes. Her soft light hair was worn, not in the elaborate
manner of the ladies about her, but in the simplest fashion and with
merely a trace of powder. The most unusual and characteristic element in
her appearance was a white, translucent complexion with touches of
colour, and as she was also dressed in white, lightly embroidered with
gold, she seemed to Lecour, in the radiant, unreal wax-light, so
ethereal as to have just come from heaven. So vision-like and wonderful
to him was her beauty that he gasped when she turned to him to speak.

"Your _chef_ is a real Watteau, Monsieur--a marvel at design."

"He doubtless dreamt what stars were to beam over his landscape,
Madame," he answered, for he had at least kept grip of his wits.

"What stars, Monsieur?"

"My lady's eyes, n'est-ce pas?" he answered.

The stars thus eulogised brimmed with smiles and searched his face.

"Monsieur," said the Canoness, who was not quite so young, but very
pretty, "you should have applied that compliment to _all_ of our eyes. I
am in the habit of pleading for the community, as we do in my convent."

"None of these ladies, including yourself, Madame, have any need of
compliments, in my humble opinion."

"You deserve a reward, sir. Our Chapter is giving some Arcadian
receptions, and you shall be one of the shepherds. We have absolute
idylls of white sheep in our garden, though we cannot go to the length,
of course, of wearing those old costumes of the nymphs and
shepherdesses. How entrancing those costumes were," she added with a
careless sigh.

The Canoness was an extraordinary curiosity to him. She was _pétite_ and
fair. Though a _réligieuse_, she wore crinoline and large paniers, and,
was elegantly furbelowed. The colours of her dress were mainly white and
gold, but a long light robe of black crape was thrown over her
shoulders, and the jewelled cross of an order ornamented her breast.

"Did the ancient nymphs know any better?" cried Mademoiselle de
Richeval, who sat a couple of places further on. "Do you not believe
that if they lived to-day they would patronise our fashions?"

"Know any better? Do you think they were unconscious that to carry a
crook is becoming to the arm? No, they were as careful of their crooks
as we of our rouges. What is _your_ judgment, Monsieur de Répentigny?"

"It is a Judgment of Paris you require," he exclaimed, "and I have not
been there yet."

Cyrène de la Roche Vernay touched her lovely hand quickly upon the table
and turned to him with a delighted little laugh.

"As for me, I shall be glad if these tiresome fine clothes are ever to
be banished," she murmured, twisting her wine-glass.

"Baroness, you have been reading the wicked Rousseau and his 'Social
Contract,'" de Blair, who sat next to her, bantered.

"It surely ought to cost something to be noble," pronounced the
Canoness, in whose convent every candidate was required to prove
sixteen quarterings of arms, and received the title of countess.

"Permit me to agree with the Church," laughed Mademoiselle de Richeval;
"we women ought to be as elaborate as possible, so as to frighten away
all those who are not rich enough to marry."

"I believe I could say, Miss," asserted d'Estaing, "that nevertheless
you yourself have brought to Fontainebleau at least twelve short dresses
and five pairs of low-heeled shoes."

"More than that--a straw hat and aprons," Cyrène added mischievously,
casting a smile also at Germain.

"Hold! hold!" de Blair cried. "This is certainly the revolution they say
is to come. We are returning rapidly to the State of Nature."

"Do I hear a phrase of that man Rousseau, ladies?" the Princess called
over, nodding her head-dress. "When I was little he was presented to me
at the Prince de Conti's, and had no breeding. Is that not true, Abbé?"

"You speak with your unvarying correctness, Madame la Princesse."

"You hear the Abbé, ladies," she said languidly, sitting back again.

D'Estaing, to change the subject, took up the name of the Prince de
Conti, and turning to the Canoness and Cyrène, told a story which he had
often heard of him.

"Madame de Bouillon, being with the Prince, hinted that she would like a
miniature of her linnet set in a ring. The Prince offered to have it
made. His offer was accepted on condition that the miniature be set
plain, without jewels. Accordingly the miniature is placed in a simple
rim of gold. But to cover over the painting, a large diamond, cut very
thin, is set above it. Madame returned the diamond. The Prince had it
ground to powder, which he used to dry the ink of the note he wrote to
Madame on the subject."

"There is a Prince!" cried Mademoiselle de Richeval.

"By the way, Montgolfier has sent up a new balloon which has carried
four passengers," went on the volatile d'Estaing.

"Who is this Montgolfier with his balloons?" the Princess asked
languidly. "Is he what the new coiffure is named after?"

D'Estaing looked around a little significantly.

"Precisely, Madame--the coiffure Montgolfier," Germain at once replied,
for he had looked into hat fashions lately.

"Please describe it to me after dinner. All the world is speaking of
it."

"To the devil with coiffures!" Grancey whispered to the Canoness, and
struck up a pæan of praise on the lean hound Aréthuse who led the hunt
the previous day.

"Yes, but I believe that dog is possessed of the devil," asserted
d'Estaing. "Did you notice her eyes flash when she sprang down the
hideous glen where we nearly broke our necks? The foresters once told me
about that place."

"What about it?"

"It is the glen of the Great Hunter. The courtiers of King Henry IV were
hunting in that part of the forest one day, when they heard a tremendous
horn, saw the stag turn, and a strange pack of dogs in full chase fly
after it across their path; and with the hounds they saw a hunter,
riding on a great black horse. They stopped and shouted at the intruder,
and searched about for him, when a gigantic savage of a frightful
countenance sprang above the bushes and said in a voice which froze
their blood: 'DO YOU HEAR ME?' Since then he has been seen many times by
the foresters and others."

"I do not like the subject," shuddered Mademoiselle de Richeval,
crossing herself.

"Pardon me," d'Estaing gravely said, bowing.

"Tell me something about those men ascending into the clouds," spoke the
silvery voice of the young Baroness, addressing Germain.

He gladly told her all he knew of the late ascent, at which he had been
present in Bordeaux; how Montgolfier and his brother made the balloon;
how he stood by their enclosure and saw them fill the balloon with
inflammable gas; how the brave four got into the car and everybody
prophesied their destruction; and of the speechless thrill with which he
saw at last the strange machine dart upwards and carry them swiftly
higher and higher, until it was but a speck drifting across the clouds.

The vividness of his account pleased her, and at the end she was
permitting him to drink her health, when they were interrupted by an
exclamation, and saw de Grancey pointing to the table. A surprise of an
ingenious nature was occurring before their eyes. The artificial hoar
frost which gave such beauty to the miniature landscape was slowly
melting with the heat of the room, and during the process the guests saw
the thawing of the river, the budding of the trees, and the blossoming
of the various flowers take place, as spring succeeded winter. A little
cry of delight leaped involuntarily from the lips of the sweet la Roche
Vernay and she smiled exquisitely on Germain, who, in that moment,
wildly lost his heart.




CHAPTER VII

"THE LEAP IS TAKEN"


"Who is this Monsieur de Répentigny, Chevalier?--tell me," asked the
Princess, who was holding her little evening court in full circle on the
balustraded terrace behind the château. She sat well out where there was
plenty of room for the swell and spread of her vast garland-flounced
skirts,--a woman of something less than forty, the incarnation of inane
condescension. At her feet were her two pages--rosy little boys, dressed
exactly like full-grown gentlemen. The ladies of her circle sat around
her, each likewise skirt-voluminous, all pretending to be negligently
engaged unravelling scraps of gold and silver lace, the great
fashionable occupation of the day. Her reader stood behind her.

The Chevalier, when addressed, had just remounted the steps from the
lawn to the terrace with the Prince. He made a smiling bow.

"Monsieur de Répentigny?" he inquired. "I do not know of whom--ah, it is
of Germain you speak."

Only the little Abbé, crouching, noted the first half of his answer. He
treasured it away in his memory.

"Monsieur Germain then," continued the Princess--"this Canadian
gentleman. Is he one of your relations?"

"One of my dearest, Madame. Why do you ask?"

"Because he is the most adorable of men. He has explained to me the
_coiffure Montgolfier_."

"He is a picture," exclaimed Mademoiselle de Richeval.

"A man, Mademoiselle," returned de Bailleul warmly.

"Has he a fortune then, Chevalier?" she laughed.

"Perhaps he shall have mine," quizzed the old soldier.

"He must come with us to Versailles, Chevalier," said the Princess. "So
agreeable a person will be indispensable to me."

Germain, dallying behind the Chevalier, approached the foot of the
terrace steps.

"Monsieur-Germain," she cried to him, "will you do me the honour of
returning to Versailles with us?"

What could the poor fellow do but thank her with his profoundest bow,
though the situation set his head in a whirl.

"Is it the pleasure of Madame that I should read?" interrupted a harsh
and ruffled voice. The Princess, for reply, took out of her work-bag a
book of devotions and handed it to the Abbé. He received it with a
cringing bow, but as he glanced at it a suggestion of repugnance flitted
across his lips. "Or does she care first to hear the trifle of news
which I brought from Fontainebleau?"

"What, have you dared conceal a scandal so long, Abbé? Let us have it
instantly," cried the Canoness.

"He is certainly an offender," echoed Mademoiselle de Richeval.

"Ladies, listen to the Abbé," said the Princess languidly.

The pseudo-Abbé scanned the faces about him with a cunning look,
especially that of Germain, as one he would read through and through
were it possible.

"In the name of mercy, Abbé, proceed," the Canoness cried.

"It is a trifle, a piece of mere common talk," he said demurely.

"Speak, Abbé," commanded the Princess de Poix.

"Mademoiselle de Merecour----" he began deliberately.

"Hélène?" all exclaimed in astonishment. "Proceed--tell us."

"She is my best friend," the Baroness murmured.

"Mademoiselle de Merecour," he repeated, still delaying. "Have you heard
why she looked so disdainful at the Queen's Game last evening?"

"We never guess your enigmas. Go on."

"She has need to look brave."

"She is about to marry Monsieur de Sillon," said Cyrène. "Perhaps that
explains any unusual expression."

"Ah, Monsieur de Sillon--yes, Mademoiselle, Monsieur de Sillon--but,
ladies, do you know there is no Monsieur de Sillon?"

"No Monsieur de Sillon?"

"Is Monsieur dead?" gasped Cyrène, her hand darting to her breast.

"Monsieur de Sillon will never die, Mademoiselle. It is a maxim of the
philosophy of Aquinas that what never existed never ceases to exist.
What a grand lord was this Monsieur de Sillon! How he bought himself
into that colonelship of Dragoons, invented that band uniform, scattered
those broad pieces at play, kept that stable of English hunters, and
boasted of those interminable ancestries in Burgundy! Well, this
Monsieur de Sillon, who rode in the carriages of the King by right of
his four centuries of _noblesse_, whose coat bore no less than eighteen
fine quarterings, whose crest was an eagle and his betrothed a Merecour,
is the son of a tanner of Tours."

"Incredible!"

"Impossible!"

"You fable exquisitely!"

"The contract of marriage, they said, had actually been signed by the
King----"

"Go on, you are a snail!" snapped the Canoness.

"Only then was it discovered that his father had amassed a fortune in
ox-skins, that the son had picked up some manners, riding, fencing, and
blazonry; none knows how; and that his first introductions were bought
and paid for. He is now, some say, in the Bastille, some in Vincennes
Dungeon, nobody will ever know exactly which. That is all, ladies."

"Let us thank the saints for Mademoiselle's deliverance!" cried the
Princess piously.

Cyrène gasped and said nothing, but tears filled her eyes.

"The horror of but touching one of those creatures--those diners in the
kitchen!" exclaimed the Canoness.

"Of his daring to approach a lady in marriage!" added Mademoiselle de
Richeval.

"Were she one of _my_ blood, he should die," asserted d'Estaing.

An uncanny, silent light passed across the half-shut eyes of Abbé Jude,
and gleamed towards one and another of these haughty exclusives as they
talked together so regardlessly before the face of him they thought the
only plebeian among them. His eye at last met that of Lecour, and he
caught a confusion on the Canadian's countenance which he stored away
carefully with the words of de Bailleul.

The evening fell, and a faint silver moon rose in the sky and grew
brighter and brighter over park and mere. The Princess went in to play
cards, followed by the others. Germain and the Baroness walked up and
down the terrace alone, talking of the stars and the delightful
speculations about them in the book of Fontenelle.

Under the moonlight the girl's fragile beauty wove its fascination
deeper over him. He launched himself upon the strange sea of emotions
which were more and more crowding upon him.

"Oh, my God!" he thought, "am I walking the celestial gardens? Am I a
spirit doomed to banishment? Am I at the same moment both ravished and
damned?"

Once when they came to the end of the terrace they leaned on the
balustrade and looked down at the water. Glossy dark in the shadows of
the old castle which stood in its midst, and in those of the grove on
the further side, it glittered tranquilly where the moonshine fell on
its surface, and the foliage around it wore a soft, glittering veil.
Some mighty witch, some spirit combining Beauty, Power, and the
Centuries, seemed to reign over the lake, holding silent court in the
peaked and clustered white walls and turrets of the ancient stronghold.

"Mademoiselle," he said very quietly, "_I_ have reason to be silent; but
tell me why _you_ are so pensive?"

"I was sad for my friend Hélène. Love must be so sacred."

"Did you know her suitor?"

"Sillon--yes; he had _dared_ to speak to me."

They were silent. It was not he who next spoke. Her clear eyes looked as
if into his soul as she said after a long time--

"Monsieur de Répentigny, what would you do were you Hélène's brother?"

Germain's sword in an instant slid half-drawn from its sheath, and he
gasped, "I would find him."

She drew her slender figure up in the dusk and looked at him with an
approving glance as if to say, "_You_ are of other fibre than the
baseborn."

"Oh, sweet Cyrène!" he exclaimed, then checked himself, appalled at his
presumption, and added, "Alas, what am I saying? Heaven knows I am mad."

"Hush, hush!" she shuddered, glancing back over her shoulder.

Germain turned and caught sight of a shadow advancing. It proved to be
the Abbé.

"Excuse the messenger of Madame," said he. "She asks you, Baroness, to
take a hand at piquet."

She courtesied graciously to Germain and moved away, followed by the
Princess's black parasite. When she passed through the immense glass
door which looked from the card-room upon the terrace, and his eyes
could no longer follow her loveliness, Lecour turned towards the lake
and exclaimed in a low voice--

"There must be some way to win the paradise on earth and this seraph.
Castle of ages past, frown not too hardly upon me. You represent what I
love--the grand, the brave, the historic, the fair."

       *       *       *       *       *

As he paced his chamber after the household had retired, the
recollection of the day became an elixir, exciting and delicious.

The room was in one of the four towers of the château. Sitting down, he
looked out through an open window upon the peace of the night-world.
There were the gardens, quiet, lovely and ghostly, the weird water, the
stately grove beyond it. He sat by the window more than two hours, while
the events just over crowded through his brain.

After a time the moonlight lit an unhappy countenance; next it grew
fixed and studious. He paced the room, he threw himself back into his
chair, rose once more, drew long breaths of cool air at the windows, and
knelt at the _prie-Dieu_ in the inmost corner. A violent tempest had
arisen within. The sails and yards of the soul-ship were strained, and
it was fleeing without a rudder.

At last he undressed quickly and got into bed. He could not sleep, but
tossed from side to side. Finally he sprang up and sat on the side of
the couch lost in swift, fevered thought.

"For her," he whispered in intensest passion--"yes, for her." Then he
hesitated. Suddenly, with fierce decision, he added, "The leap is
taken."

At once the inward storm subsided, sleep overpowered him, and he dropped
back at rest. The moon laid its rays like bars of silver across the bed,
and illuminated his unconscious face and flowing hair with a patch of
brightness. Such is the serene look of heaven upon its wandering
children.




CHAPTER VIII

THE ABBÉ'S DISASTER


The force of circumstances had proved too great. What strength had his
training or his age to resist them? The old master, Love, the compeller
of so many heroisms and so many crimes, from Eve and Helen to Manon
Lescaut, had grasped him with his wizard power. Poor Germain, thitherto
so worthy and so well-intentioned, rose in the morning an adventurer--an
adventurer, it is true, driven by desperation and anguish into his
dangerous part, and grasping the hope of nevertheless yet winning by
some forlorn good deed the forgiveness of her who was otherwise lost to
him.

As Dominique, the Auvergnat valet who had been assigned to him by de
Bailleul--because he had been foster father to the Chevalier's son--tied
his hair, put on his morning coat and sword, buckled the sparkling
buckles on his shoes, and handed him his jewelled snuff-box, each
process seemed to Germain a preparation for some unknown accident that
might happen, and in which he must be ready to conquer. When he stepped
down to meet his companions, it was distinctly and consciously to
henceforth play a _rôle_.

He saw Cyrène sitting on a seat in the garden, putting together, with
the critical fingers of a girl, a large bouquet. There was a statue of
Fame close by, and beside it a laurel. She had plucked some of the
leaves to tie with her blossoms.

He went out to her and proffered a word of greeting. She was about to
reply, but the meeting was interrupted by a voice, and the Abbé appeared
from behind the pedestal.

"What! a laurel twig among your flowers, Baroness?" said he. "Excellent!
for Fame herself is not a goddess more suited to distribute favours. Do
I not in you Madame, see again Daphne, the friend of Apollo, who turned
into that tree?" and, smiling atrociously over his classical sweet
speech, he looked at Lecour.

"The insolence!" thought Germain, who also took it as a good opportunity
to begin his _rôle_. "Well, sir," he exclaimed sharply, "talking of
Apollo, did you ever hear that this god flayed one Marsyas for
presumption?"

Cyrène flashed him a surprised and grateful glance.

"I have heard, sir," replied Jude, "that the Princess de Poix desires me
to find and conduct to her Madame the Baroness de la Roche Vernay."

So saying, he carried off Cyrène again, like some black piratical
cruiser, and she reluctantly accompanied him, looking back regretfully
over her shoulder.

Lecour could not understand the eternal use of the formal orders of the
Princess. He watched the two in a vexed stupor until they disappeared.
Then he recalled the inanity and exacting requests of the great lady,
and guessed how her reader was able to so boldly play his annoying
trick.

Just then Grancey laid his hand on Germain's shoulder. There was so much
friendship in the face of the golden-haired Life Guard that Lecour at
once raised the question uppermost in his mind.

"Baron," said he, "tell me, who is Madame de la Roche Vernay?"

Grancey's eyes twinkled intelligently.

"It is an affair, then? I can keep secrets."

"An affair only on my unfortunate side," Germain admitted gloomily.

"As on that of many another. Your Cyrène is the bearer of a very great
name: she is a Montmorency."

"A Montmorency!"

"Yes; she is a widow, you see."

"Never."

"While an orphan. Her father, the Vicomte Luc de Montmorency, who was a
madman of a spendthrift, ended up in two bankruptcies, and was banished
from Court. Cyrène was brought up in a mouldy old château near St. Ouen.
When only thirteen her hand was sought by an ambitious financier,
Trochu, for his son, Baron la Roche Vernay, who was then with his
regiment in Dominica. Money was necessary to the Vicomte, and, in short,
Mademoiselle was sold for two million livres, and the marriage
celebrated by proxy, as both the fathers were impatient to finish the
bargain. It appeared by the mails that the young man died of fever two
days after.

"She wears no mourning," said Germain.

"Her father forbade it, and he brought her back with her dowry at once
to his own roof, away from the Trochus."

"But why is such a beautiful woman not married again?"

"Do you not know that at the Court nobody except the bald and toothless
marries, except for fortune. There are plenty of lovers, but no
husbands. Because she is poor she is passed about in the family,
sometimes as lady of honour to the Princess, sometimes to the Maréchale
de Noailles, her grand-aunt."

Germain's feelings were trebly disturbed by the history of the
child-widow. He made an effort to speak to her once more by inviting her
to the tennis-court, but the Abbé informed them just then that she was
requested to read correspondence to the Princess.

When he was in his bedchamber having his hunting-boots pulled off after
a badger hunt with the male guests, the valet, Dominique, began to talk.

"That is a queer priest--that Messire Jude, the Abbé."

"Yes, Dominique."

"Yes, Monsieur Germain. He talks very freely with us servants. This
morning he inquired a great deal of me about your affairs. He said you
were a close friend of his. Was _he_ a Canadian?"

"Not at all. What more, Dominique?"

"He asked how long you had been here; and what relationship you bore to
our master; and what were your intentions about staying; and your
fortune and your rank; and how many were your clothes and jewels. Then
he proposed to see into your chamber here."

"Did you let him?"

"I told him it was against my duty, sir; but he told me I must
never dispute the Church, so he walked in and examined
everything--_everything_; he even opened the cupboards."

"The thief! If you allow that man in my apartment again I will spit you
both. Remember!"

Grancey and d'Amoreau came in.

"Curses on that black beetle," exclaimed the latter.

"Amen," profoundly echoed the former. "If it were not for the Princess I
would feed my rapier with him."

"He has no right to such an honour; I would have him whipped by the
lackeys. Répentigny, he has got her to take us back to the Palace
to-morrow morning, and spoilt all our pleasure."

"That seems to be his vocation," Germain answered with warmth. "I would
undertake to punish him myself."

"On a wager of ten to two half-louis?"

"Accepted."

The two officers laughed uproariously at the prospect.

"Répentigny, if you do this," cried Grancey, "we will speak for you to
the King for something good."

After dinner Madame proposed a promenade in the park. Strolling in
procession, they came to some marble steps by the lakeside, where the
host proposed that the young men should take boats and row the ladies
about, and he assigned Germain to Cyrène.

They were entering one of the shallops, when Jude suggested that the
Princess should be taken too. She objected; she detested water.

"Well, I will enjoy it myself," he said, and with the utmost assurance
stepped into the stern; while d'Amoreau and Grancey chuckled and looked
at each other and Germain. The latter smiled and rowed down the lake.

On the other side was a clearing in the grove, where a stone seat was
placed near the bank. Here Lecour drew to shore, and handed out Cyrène.
The two Guardsmen were watching him closely. When Jude rose from the
stem seat he felt a sudden strong turn given to the boat. He clutched
the air, it did not save him; one black silk leg kicked up, and he
disappeared under the water.

The face of Cyrène, who had seated herself on the stone bench, was for a
moment one of alarm.

The depth was not, however, above the Abbé's waist, and when he rose his
look of furious misery was too comical for any pity. The water streamed
in a cataract from his wig over his elongated countenance and ruined
clothes. He had screwed his face into the black slime of the bottom; it
was now besides distorted with his efforts to breathe, and he
unconsciously held up his blackened hands in the attitude of blessing.
The whole party could not contain their laughter. D'Amoreau, Grancey,
and the other Guardsmen sent up continuous roars on roars from their
boats. The Prince smiled; de Bailleul's efforts to control himself were
ineffectual; the ladies all tittered, except Madame, who stood on shore,
and even the considerate Cyrène could restrain herself no longer, but
turned her head from the moving appeal of the unfortunate figure before
her, and gave way to a silvery chime of undiluted enjoyment.

"Hush, cousin," cried the Princess de Poix, stilted as ever; "such a sad
accident."

"Répentigny, by Castor and Pollux," swore d'Amoreau at the first moment
of their meeting in private, "here are not five louis, but twenty. You
were made for a Marshal of France."

"Dominique," Germain called out, "spend this with your fellows" (by
instinct he knew it was part of his _rôle_ to be lavish), "and tell them
to drink to that meddlesome blackleg."

"In cold water," d'Amoreau added.




CHAPTER IX

A PHILOSOPHER BEHIND HORSE-PISTOLS


The procession of carriages containing the guests rolled back to the
Palace through the forest.

The carriage of the Prince came last and in it sat the Prince and
Princess, Cyrène and Jude, while Lecour rode alongside for some miles.
How more and more he dreaded the revelation of his humble birth. He said
his adieux at length and turned back with the keenest misery in his
breast he had ever felt--such misery indeed that after a little he could
not resist retracing his route.

The Prince's coach meanwhile had lagged behind the others at a point
where the road cut through a small gorge. His Excellency was giving the
ladies an account and history of the Chevalier's wounds, when in the
middle of it the horses stopped with a jerk. A commotion without any
words appeared to be going on outside. The Prince put his head out and
found himself looking into the barrels of a horse-pistol, while a masked
man of heavy build summoned him to be quiet. He saw moreover nine or ten
half-naked fellows also disguised in rude masks, posted about, with
muskets and pistols pointed at the grooms and himself. The Princess fell
in a faint. The Abbé threw himself under the seat. Such scenes were
being enacted every day on the highroads in that lumbering old handmade
century.

The head of the man who had charge of the Prince was, as it were,
thatched with a torn hat and his black hair straggled past his mask in
tufts down to his shoulders.

"Purses!" he growled harshly, putting his head in at the window.

"Cut-throat!" cried the Prince. "You shall swing for this as sure as
there is a Lieutenant of Police in Paris."

The big man's answer was a ferocious "Enough!"

And as his black finger twitched threateningly upon the trigger, Cyrène
laid her restraining hand on her cousin's arm. She took out her purse
with her other hand and passed it to the man. She promptly also pulled
out that of the Princess. The Prince handed his own to her and it was
passed over with that of his wife.

"Watches!" was the next order.

With the same coolness she passed these likewise.

He scowled next at the brooch Cyrène wore at her neck.

"Give me that," he commanded. She stopped and said firmly--

"Thou hast sufficient, thou."

"I must have that."

With a momentary impatience she tore it off.

"Consult thy best interests and go," she said in a stern voice.

He did not lack the necessary quickness of judgment, and signed to his
mates who retreated into the woods, keeping the lackeys well covered
with their firearms.

"My ladies and my Lord," said the big man, still holding his pistol
aimed at the Prince. "We levy this tax in _the name of the King_." That
is what you say when you steal from us, the people. "We commend you the
consolation of your formula."

Having made this singular speech, to the infinite fury of the Prince,
who would have drawn his sword and leaped out at him had it not been for
Cyrène, he retired backward into the forest.

Germain came into sight at this juncture. The scene shocked and
astonished him, he drove his spurs into the flanks of his horse, which,
with bounds of pain, flew forward, and leaping off, he peered anxiously
into the carriage. The situation was clear enough to him, for its like
was then only too common, so, placing aside for the time being his rage
at the villains, he lifted and straightened the insensible lady into a
position on the seat-cushions, and sent a groom forward for help.

The gratitude of the Prince was profuse. Cyrène spoke not a word. The
shock to her had been intense, and burying her face in her handkerchief
she burst into tears, which more than ever agitated Lecour.

In a few minutes d'Estaing and de Grancey drove up. They were astonished
at the speed and audacity of the affair.




CHAPTER X

THE GALLEY-ON-LAND


At three o'clock a search party of friends and gendarmes from the
Palace, at which the occurrence had aroused something of a flutter, came
back to the place.

The Guardsmen offered to scour the woods in a body. Lecour soberly
recommended a different plan, which they adopted, and placing his six
friends and several royal gamekeepers in Indian file he started at their
head. They followed him without speaking and watched him closely as,
with an intentness quite un-French, he bent down to see farther through
the trees, examined the branches for newly-broken twigs, the displaced
stones, the crushed mosses, disturbed grass, and soft places of the
ground, and the little indications read and looked for by trappers and
Indians. As he entered the woods the traces of the first rush back of
the robbers gave a mass of easy clues and an initial direction.
Following on they came to a marsh, where they found footmarks, and
readily put together the number of the thieves and the physical
character of each. In an open place the trail would be an unconcealed
track across the grass; in dry woods perhaps it would be lost for many
yards. Its discovery, of course, was not altogether so marvellous a
matter as they thought. But it helped Germain's reputation afterwards.

At last they came into a tangled and difficult region called Âpremont,
where the rocky ridges were broken into intractable ruins--the most
savage portion of the forest. Strange cliffs of shale, eaten by weather
and earthquake into the most picturesque columns and caves, confronted
them. Here the signs became rare and the advance tedious, but the little
column still breathlessly followed the woodsman. They were rewarded by
finding a neighbourhood where the damp mosses showed many tracks
converging, and as Grancey thought he distinguished a distant sound
Germain listened and heard what he judged to be the faint refrain of a
song. He now adopted greater caution, placing his gamekeepers in a body
to remain ready at call, and at different points setting his friends in
easy reach of each other.

Grancey and he crept along, guided by the uncertain sounds of the song,
but found that they grew fainter. On this they retraced their path and
were gratified to hear the sound increase again. They discovered a point
where it would not grow any louder, and here Germain paused. "I have the
secret!" he whispered, and placed his ear to the ground. The Baron
imitated him. True enough the singing was _below_. They caught other
voices now. Lecour pondered a few moments. He followed an irregular rent
in the rock and disappeared to one side. Returning on tiptoe, excited
for the first time, he beckoned Grancey to accompany him and led the way
with the greatest precaution to a long crack in the side of a hill,
scarcely discernible without the closest scrutiny, through which the
accents came quite audibly, and they caught sight of the objects below
in a grey light. They made out a narrow, oblique cavern, formed by the
widening of what geologists call a "fault" in the shaly rock. Eight men,
all in rags with one exception, were sitting and lying about. Stretched
on the ground, drinking alternately from a bottle, were two, one of whom
was singing snatches of a rambling _vaudeville_.

Grancey touched Germain and pointed out that their firearms were in a
heap at the entrance, and that a rope attached there and coiled loosely
showed their means of exit down the face of the cliff.

The man who was not in rags was standing up, the centre of attraction.
He appeared to be a visitor.

"Stay with us the night," said the leader, a big man of ferocious brows
and keen black eyes. "Our friend, his Majesty, has sent us some of his
venison."

"The Big Hog?" said the stranger.

A round of laughter echoed through the cavern. The stoutness of the King
had given rise to this nickname among the people.

"When his head is ours it will be better than his venison," he added.

About this man's face there was something strikingly horrible and
subtle. His countenance was the image of a grinning death's-head. Its
intelligent, stealthy, and sinister sunken eyes, its depressed nose and
heartless fixed grin aroused repulsion. Its bearing of distinct courage
alone somewhat reclaimed it. His cloak was thrown back, showing a gold
lace belt stuck with knives and pistols, while on his head was a green
cap, which Grancey recognised as the cap of the galley felons.

"What news of the Galley-on-land, Admiral?" asked the robber leader.

"All goes well."

"How many at our oars?"

"Two hundred and forty-eight."

"Besides friends?"

"Besides thirty-four friends. We are all in the salt country now except
yourselves and the bench at Paris. We reviewed in the pines of Morlaix
last month. Such brave ragmen! Forty-seven had killed a hog."

The circle's eyes glistened.

"Yes, the hogs fear us, but the Galley is dark as wind."

"You should have seen the hogs to-day," cried the cave leader; "stupid
beasts, too fat to jump."

"Why didn't you stick them?"

"Sacré Dieu! not here; it's too near the Big Hog."

"The Big Hog does not worry us at Morlaix. Since the salt-tax is raised
four _sous_ in the pound we are all in the Brittany marshes, passing
salt into Maine. In Maine a poor man can eat no meat because he can have
no brine. You can guess that where the people squeal so there is room
for our profit. We lie in the marshes; we gather our piles of salt; we
creep out by night through the woods, and--flip--past the salt-guards
into Maine. Guards, guards, guards--blue men, black men, green men--all
over France. Sacré! they are an itch--a leprosy. Do we hate them, we
all?"

"By the oath of the Green Cap," they cried all together.

"Well, we _were_ vagabonds," he continued, "in the Morlaix woods. Our
great fire lit up the pines at midnight and our men of rags crept up on
all sides to the feast. Some brought white bread, some black, some a
pigeon or two from the lord's dovecotes, and every one his bottle of
wine. There we told what we were doing and planned the campaign. You may
swear we were jolly that night. They have sent me to visit your bench of
Fontainebleau, and pray you for the ransom-money of Blogue, who lies in
Bordeaux prison to be hanged. Two of his guards can be settled for
eighty livres. You are rich, they say, and can pay it."

"Yes, we can afford it," cried the cavern-chief boastfully.

"I thought so, handsome ragmen," returned the visitor. He dropped the
point for a moment and suddenly throwing his right hand free from his
cloak rose into a curious strain of eloquence which made manifest the
nature of this strange organisation, or at least the aims which the man
of the death's-head chose to claim for it.

"Let us never forget, comrades, who we are--that our Order is the
avenger of the wrongs of the people. Give me each your sufferings that I
may treasure them in the common treasury. Give me the tears that have
been shed, the deaths, the starvations, the griefs, the insults, the
cruelties, that I may heap them one upon another in a secret place,
whence, on a day which I see rising very bright out of the days of this
generation, we shall thrust them out all bleeding and dreadful to fly
forth together swift as eagles for the hearts of the rich. Hugues de la
Tour, what wrongs have you to tell?"

"Admiral," cried the young man hoarsely, after drinking a gulp from a
bottle, his eyes bloodshot, and swinging his knife, "I have suffered
till my blood runs like a current of fire against all who are in ease. I
hate the King, the Church, the rich, the judges, the strong, the fair.
My father was a noble of the Court, my mother a Huguenot, and wedded to
him by the rite of the Reformed Religion, his own pretended faith. With
this excuse he threw her off. He denied her the name of wife and us of
his children. His servants pushed her from his door. She died in a
garret at Dijon. I took my little sister by the hand, and travelling to
my father's door in Versailles awaited his entry into his carriage. We
caught his skirts and cried, "Our father!" With his own hands he threw
us to the pavement. For years I felt, brothers, what you have
felt--cold, hunger, and disdain--but I hoarded the thought of 'Justice'
as the friend of the wronged.

"I at length petitioned the magistrature. My papers were unheeded. I
appealed to the Minister. The Minister was silent. I found a way of
presenting our griefs and claims to the King himself. For answer, a
sealed warrant empowered the monster of our life to throw us into
prison. There my poor sister died; I escaped. Join me to your
galley-oars. I hate all monarchs, decrees, nobles, priests, courtiers.
Crime is justice, justice is the system of crime!"

"Very good, Hugues la Tour," commended the Admiral, "you shall have your
hands full of true justice."

"I," shouted a violent man of haggard countenance, "was a cultivator of
Auvergne. By incredible hardship I made myself owner of a plot of
ground. My woman and I lived scantily on our daily black bread and
'pepperpot'; we spent nothing; we had no comforts, but from year to
year, as the _sous_ were piled away in our hoard, we kept our eyes on
the neighbouring acre of moorland. One year a drought came. Our _sous_
were diminished by famine. It was then the tax gatherer came upon us,
his claims heavier than in the years before, for one of the village tax
commissioners was jealous of us. The rest of our _sous_ were not
sufficient; we could not borrow. A bailiff, a 'blue man,' was placed in
our cabin at our cost. The suit went through the Court: we were
discomfited. They took my possessions, as at the commencement they had
designed to do. They starved my wife; they killed my children. I, too,
will kill."

"I also," shouted another. "The tithe was my ruin."

"The worse avarice is the cassock's," said the visitor. "A day of blood
approaches, a day of cutting of priests' throats and burning of
churches."

"I--I can say nothing," another grumbled. "I have always been in rags
and a vagabond. Is it my fault? Who taught me to steal, to strike?"

"Brave rowers," exclaimed the visitor, "I thank you, and as Blogue has
to be ransomed, let us see what you have restored to justice."

"Here is for Blogue, and a little more," exclaimed the cavern-chief,
throwing over a packet he had been making up, "when the disciples are
lucky, the apostle must not lack."

He then spread out a large black kerchief, and placed upon it, one by
one, in the sight of all, the watches, jewels and purses taken from the
coach.

There was one part of this which was perhaps the only thing in their
power by which they could have disturbed Lecour's self control just
then. When he saw Cyrène's brooch in these felonious hands his blood
boiled up and he stamped his foot involuntarily on the rock.

Horror! The loose shaly stones gave way with a rush beneath him. Down he
slid into the cavern, saved in his descent only by the slope and ledges
of the "fault." The astonished bandits fled back with a shout. Before
Germain could move, however, the robber captain sprang upon him, and,
locking him in a desperate embrace, they quickly rolled to the doorway
where, in their struggle, the pile of firearms was swept out into the
gorge. The giant lifted him bodily and threw him out down the face of
the cliff. At this terrible moment the Indian quickness of his early
life came to his rescue, for even as he fell he caught the rope, and
slid down to the bottom. There he shouted for the gamekeepers. He could
see the robbers looking over the entrance and seeming to debate.
Immediately after, two bodies shot down upon him from the cavern, and he
found himself face to face with the big man and the Admiral. They
sprang upon him in concert, and while the former held him, the second
sped off up the gorge and was lost to sight. The robber captain detained
him with a grip of immense power, until three more slid down and made
off. Then, hearing the shouts of the gamekeepers close at hand, he
sprang towards the opposite cliff, climbed straight up it from ledge to
ledge with miracles of muscle, and disappeared over the top. Three
wretches who were still in the cave were secured, fighting savagely. One
was la Tour.




CHAPTER XI

THE COURT


A week or so later, Germain sent his mother the following letter:--

"THE PALACE, FONTAINEBLEAU,
_8th September, 1786_.

"MY DEAR MOTHER,--My good fortune is inexpressible. The whole of your
dreams for me are fulfilled: can you believe it, your son has--but I
will not anticipate. I can scarcely trust it myself to be true. I
informed you in mine of three days ago, which goes in the same mail as
this, of our capture of the gentry of the cavern. It left me pretty
scratched.

"The morning following, a courier in a grand livery came riding to the
château to bear me a command to attend the King's hunt. This command, or
invitation, is conveyed by a great card, which I have before me,
engraved in a beautiful writing surrounded by a border exquisitely
representing hounds, deer, and winding-horns with their straps. It
begins: '_From the King_.' Above are the arms of France, the signature
is that of the chamberlain. You may think into what ecstasy it threw me
when my valet handed me these. (You know everybody in society must have
a valet here). My limbs seemed to lose their bruises, and I hastened to
the Chevalier, who was much pleased with this testimony of the credit I
appeared to have brought him, for, with the greatest affection and
generosity, he continues to consider me in the light of a son. He told
me how to act at the ceremonies and the hunt, and to take care not to
ride across the path of the King, for that is a thing which makes his
Majesty very angry. We talked it over perfectly. The only point to which
he took objection was that the card was addressed to "Monsieur de
Répentigny."

"'I hope,' he said, 'there will be no trouble about this. There was a
Répentigny in the army of Canada. We must try to get rid of this name.'

"'If I am at fault with it,' returned I, 'I will make public at once how
it has come to be attached to me without my seeking. Even if an owner of
it should occur, he must as a man of honour accept my explanation.'

"'True,' answered he, 'I am here to witness that. Do not change it for a
day or two. It would be excessively embarrassing for you were it to be
altered on this occasion, for the decrees have of late years been very
strict about birth.'

"'Would these decrees exclude me from this invitation?' I asked him.

"'Unquestionably,' he replied. 'And that would be too cruel; you are as
good a man as any of them.'

"'Very well,' I answered. 'Afterwards I can return to my proper
station.'

"But, dear mother, you cannot think what these words meant to me,
notwithstanding that I ought to have known it to be so. I left him at
once and fled into the park in order to hide my suffering. Oh, it is too
beautiful to lose--this sphere of honour and refinement, this world of
the lovely, the ancestral, this supreme enchantment of the earth. Having
tasted it, how can I return to the common and despised condition of
mankind in general! Mother, you who have taught me that this is my true
world, I leave it to you to answer.

"That afternoon we drove into the town of Fontainebleau, where there was
a very fine haberdasher, just come from Paris, who agreed to make me the
proper suit and to supply all the accessories. Two days after, I put on
the uniform of a _débutant_, which cost me pretty dear but made a fine
figure. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I longed for your spirit
to have been in the glass only to see your son in such an array. The
coat was dove-grey satin; waistcoat of dark red, finely figured, with
silver buttons; small clothes of red, white silk stockings, and jewelled
shoes with the red heels which are worn at Court. I also bought a new
dress sword. It has an openwork silver handle and guard; the blade
sheathed in a white scabbard, which is silver-mounted. I wore large
frills and a small French hat finely laced with gold; and I bought
besides long hunting-boots.

"I drove in our coach to the Palace. As I entered the gates the officer
of the guard espied the livery of the Chevalier, and immediately caused
his company to salute me, observing which all the gentlemen standing
near took off their hats and bowed to me. I drove into the Court of the
White Horse, a great square, one of the five around which this vast
palace is built, and at the entrance door I was met by my dear friend
Baron de Grancey.

"The Baron said to me, 'Did you not tell us you had never been to Court
before?'

"I answered that I had not; and, indeed, my _débutant_ dress and
ignorance were sufficient witness to it.

"'You must, then, have all the honours,' he said. 'He who comes up for
the first time registers his genealogy and has a right to ride in the
King's carriages.'

"'Then it is a great thing to ride in the King's carriages?'

"'My dear friend, it is the right of the noble,' replied he, a little
surprised.

"'Ah, yes, my mother once told me so,' said I. (Dear mother, is it not
true that you said it?)

"'You shall also play cards with the Queen in the evening.'

"'Oh, no,' gasped I.

"'You must,' he returned. 'This honour also is indispensable. After your
_début_ is over you can be as modest as you please.'

"We arrived by that time at the end of a corridor and before a lofty
chamber, the doors of which were emblazoned in colours with the arms and
devices of France. Within we found the royal genealogist sitting in his
robes of office with the heralds of the royal orders. Round about were
large volumes, the registers of the _noblesse_, which they were
consulting respecting the parchment titles produced by young gentlemen
in person or through their secretaries; and I was told that before being
presented one must show certificates of descent in both lines since the
fourteenth century. I was so shocked at my situation that I became
angry, so that, when the King's genealogist stretched out his hand for
my papers, I answered proudly, 'I have none.'

"'What is my lord's name?' he asked most respectfully. Here my tongue
refused to move. But the Baron interfered, replying--

"'Monsieur de Répentigny. He is far from home, and therefore cannot
produce his titles; but I speak for him as a relative of the Chevalier
de Bailleul.'

"'Monsieur,' replied the King's genealogist to me graciously, 'the name
of Répentigny needs no parchments.'

"He ordered one of the secretaries to give me forthwith his brief of
attestation (I still have it). Thus, dear mother, this Baron has won my
gratitude for ever. But attend to what followed, for it is better still.

"It was in the great hall of the Palace, where the walls and the ceiling
are tapestried with pictures of kings riding the chase. Baron de Grancey
brought me to the Prince de Poix, who acceded to his request to present
me to the Monarch. This Prince is, as I have told you, a very amiable
man, and is obliged to me.

"The whole Court was there. There was the Archbishop of Paris; the
King's elder brother, whom they call Monsieur; the Dukes and Peers of
France, with their blue ribbons across their breasts; and a countless
crowd of lords and great ladies dressed in state. Picture to yourself a
garden full of the rarest flowers sparkling in the sun after a shower
and bending gracefully to the wind; for such they resembled. I mentally
named one my lord Violet, another my lady Rose, a third was the
Eglantine, another the White Lily; so I pleased myself with
distinguishing them.

"The trumpets sound, the music sweeps ravishingly into the air. In
passes the King. He is attended by his guards of the sleeve and the
princes of the blood. The Prince de Poix steps forward and speaks my
name. I tremble. Everybody whispers and stares at us. Ah, mother, what a
moment! I know not what passed. His Majesty said, 'You are the hero of
the forest?' smiled, heard my incoherent whisper, and passed on with his
train, smiling to others.

"Mother dear, I have seen the Sun-King! I have heard the voice to which
Europe listens! I have spoken to Saint Louis and Charlemagne!

"I have not reserved enough money from the furs. Send me 3,000 livres
as quickly as possible. I am writing this in my chamber here, for I am
to be ready for the hunt early to-morrow morning. Every sound I hear
tells of the presence of Majesty; every sight I get from the window of
this dwelling of our ancient monarchs recalls a score out of the
thousand legends which everybody has been telling me.

"Convey my deepest affection to my father and Angelique, and to Marie
and Lacroix, and everybody in St. Elphège, and remember always that I am

"Your dear
  "GERMAIN.

"To Madame F. X. Lecour,
    "Répentigny, in Canada.
  "(By way of London.)

"_Post Scriptum._--The Queen's Game took place last night after I wrote
the above to you. Their Majesties sat at a great round green table,
surrounded by all the Court.

"There were some smaller tables, at which several great ladies and lords
sat and played; but everybody's eyes were on the Queen, who is so
marvellously queenly, and on the King with his stars and his blue
ribbon. They two put down their gold (which was in perfectly new pieces)
and dealt the cards a little. I was given a turn with her Majesty, who
smiled and addressed me, at which I almost fainted. And, mother, the
Count de Vaudreuil, whom you used to see as a child, was there. I took
special notice of him for you. He has a very fine figure and is one of
the greatest courtiers.

"After that, we went off with our friends and had supper and played
nearly all night.

"At daybreak everybody went to the hunt. I and the other _débutants_
were driven to the rendezvous in the carriages of the King, drawn by
white horses. There the grooms gave me a magnificent golden mare, who
knew her work so well that she carried me in at the death of the stag
next after his Majesty. (I tremble at what would have happened had I got
there before him.) The Queen came up among the first. She enjoys the
hunt.

"G. L."




CHAPTER XII

GERMAIN GOES TO PARIS


It appears from the foregoing letter that Germain, before his
presentation, had vacillated in his purpose, so far as his using the
name Répentigny was concerned. All such vacillation vanished in the
excitement of his taste of Court life. The fresh fact--of which Grancey
informed him--that Cyrène had been carried off to Versailles by the
Princess (which he interpreted to mean by the Abbé) only enriched with a
pensive strain, and allowed him to lend an undivided attention to, the
fascinating scenes which surrounded him, full of rich life and colour
like the splendid pictorial tapestries adorning the halls of
Fontainebleau.

On his return to Eaux Tranquilles, the Chevalier advanced at the gate,
where he had doubtless been waiting some time, and, drawing a small
newspaper out of his coat, said in grave fashion--

"Germain, there is something in the _Gazette de France_, which, I fear,
means mischief."

Lecour took the paper with a heart-throb and read--

"The Marquis de Gruchy, the Count de Longueville, the Chevaliers des
Trois-Maisons and de Réfsentigny, who had previously the honour of being
presented to the King, had, on the 8th instant, that of entering the
carriages of of his Majesty and following him to the chase."

His face crimsoned. He looked at the Chevalier.

"I have mentioned," said the latter, a troubled look appearing on his
sensitive face, "that the name of Répentigny was that of an officer whom
I knew when our army was in Canada. He was a Canadian of the family of
Le Gardeur, who still lives, bearing the title of Marquis, and is, I
believe, Governor of Pondicherry or Mahé in our Indian possesions.
Should the name reach him through the _Gazette_ as being worn by you, it
might lead to the Bastille. That I would not willingly see befall you,
dear boy."

Germain was touched with the kindness in his friend's voice.

"What should I do?" he asked, faltering.

"Remain at Eaux Tranquilles, resume your own name, and enjoy life
quietly, with all I possess yours."

Tears rose in the young man's eyes. "Your goodness, my second father, is
incredible."

"You remain, then?" asked de Bailleul eagerly. The conflict of the
moonlight night was once more going on in Lecour's breast. The forces on
both sides were strong.

"Give me an hour to think, sir. See, this paragraph does not contain any
risk; the word is printed 'Réfsentigny.'"

The Chevalier scanned it anew.

"True," said he. "But," he continued, "did you not know there is a
shadow over this name? Have you heard the story of the 'Golden Dog'?"

"Of Quebec?"

"Yes."

Germain's eyes opened with interest.

"I have passed a great stone house there with a golden dog and an
inscription above its door. I could not but remember it, the more so
that my father refused to utter a word concerning it, though it was
clear he knew some explanation. It was a curious black-faced house
three stories high, eight windows wide, a stiff row of peaked dormers
along the attic. From the edge of the cliff it looked over the whole
country. There were massive steps of stone before it as if gushing out
of the door and spreading on every side; above the door, which was tall
and narrow, was the stone with the sculpture of the dog. Is that the
golden dog you mean?"

"It is. There happened the most luckless deed in New France. The man who
built that house was the citizen Nicholas Philibert, who had risen to
wealth out of his business of baker, and was respected throughout the
whole town. Bigot, the Intendant of the colony, was bringing the public
finances to appalling ruin by his thefts and extravagances--for we all
knew he was a robber--and was driving the people to madness. The
Bourgeois Philibert was their mouthpiece. If the château of St. Louis
stood out as the castle of the military officialdom and the Intendants
Palace as the castle of the civil officialdom, the house of the
Bourgeois Philibert was the castle of the people, standing against them
perched upon the cliff at the head of the artery of traffic which united
the Upper and Lower towns. It was too marked a challenge. Bigot
determined to harass him. He sent Pierre de Répentigny, then a
lieutenant in the provincials and a young fellow of the rashest temper,
to billet in Philibert's house, though he had no right to do so, as
Philibert, being a King's Munitioner, was exempt from billeting. Bigot
knew there would be a quarrel. It turned out as he had foreseen.
Philibert stood at his door and refused to allow Répentigny to enter.
Répentigny insisted. Philibert loudly claimed his right, and the
protection of the law from the outrage. Répentigny covered him with
sneers, and pushed inward across the threshold. The merchant upbraided
him for his want of respect for grey hairs and the rights of the people.
Répentigny thereupon flew into a rage. He rushed on Philibert, drew his
sword with a curse and thrust him through the body, which fell out of
the door upon the street, and the citizen died in a few minutes."

"How frightful!"

"Philibert's remains were followed into the cathedral by a weeping
multitude. A number of us officers attended as a protest against Bigot.
In the evening Répentigny was burnt in effigy by the masses in the
square of Notre Dame des Victoires in the Lower Town. Philibert's son
swore eternal vengeance, and had inserted the great stone over the door
of the mansion which bore the figure that you have seen, of the golden
dog crouching and gnawing a bone, and underneath it the legend:

    "_I am a dog who gnaws a bone,
    In gnawing it I take my rest;
    A day will come which has not come,
    When I shall bite him who bit me._"

"Subsequently Répentigny was always held in disgrace, and after the loss
of Canada he took refuge on the other side of the world. They say young
Philibert has followed him thither. What do you think of the story?"

Germain shuddered and did not answer.

"Are you willing to wear the name?"

He shuddered again and hesitated. Finally he answered with a white
face--

"I am willing to wear it long enough to see Versailles. But with your
permission only."

"Not so, Germain, I entreat you as a free man."

"It is hard. It is to give up so much for ever."

"This sacrifice is the call of Honour, which stands above every
consideration. Promise to remember that in deciding."

"I promise it," exclaimed Germain, who stood pondering. "Yet, sir, tell
me one thing."

"Willingly."

"That should I decide to go, I am at least not to lose your affection."

"No, no, Germain, you have it for ever. Have no fear of that, whatever
else. The heart of the father changes not towards the son. Nor shall
ever your secret be lost through me. But, alas! I see you already
resolving to do that that my honour, to which I refer every question,
does not commend."

The old man turned away leaving him agitated and unable to answer. The
tide of love swept over his miserable heart and the form of Cyrène rose
in his thoughts. Her eyes turned the balance. How vast to him was their
argument.

"I cannot," he exclaimed desperately.

The more he dwelt upon it the more he found this a settled point. Of us
who think ourselves stronger, how many ever had such a temptation?

In a few hours he had left Eaux Tranquilles for Paris.

Dominique brought him to a house in the Quartier du Temple where there
was an apartment which de Bailleul often occupied: there they installed
themselves.

During the morning Germain would have in some obscure fencing or
deportment master whose instructions he would adapt to suit himself. In
the afternoon he would stroll off among the pleasure seekers who crowded
the ramparts or the arcades of the Palais Royal, or would study the
externals of high life in the Faubourg St Germain. His evenings were
largely spent in the _parterre_ of the opera.

His signature, in place of plain "Germain Lecour" now read: "LeCour de
Répentigny," with the capital "C," or "Répentigny" alone, in a bold
hand, with a paraph. And there appeared on his fob a seal cut with a
coat of arms highly foliaged--azure with silver chevrons and three
leopards' heads gold, which he had discovered to be the Répentigny
device. With it he sealed the wax on his letters. He had bought indeed a
pocket _Armorial_, the preface to which was as follows:--

     "_To the Incomparable French Noblesse._

     "The Author presents to you, valiant and courageous Noblesse, the
     _Diamond Armorial_, which, despite the malice of the Times and the
     Flight of Centuries, will carefully preserve the Lustre of your
     name and the Glory of your Arms emblazoned in their true colours.
     This glorious heraldic material is a Science of State. Though it is
     not absolutely necessary that all gentlemen should know how to
     compose and blazon arms, it is Very Important for them to know
     their Own and not be ignorant of Those of Others. It is the office
     of the Heralds to form, charge, break, crown and add Supporters to,
     the coats of those who by some Brave and Generous action have shown
     their High and Lofty virtues; whereof Kings make use to recompense
     to their gentry this mark of Honour and Dignity; that so they may
     Impel each to goodly conduct on those occasions where Men of Stout
     Hearts acquire Glory for themselves, and Their Posterity...."

In his chamber, on the day when he bought it, he left it on the table
and the open page began--

"The glorious house of _MONTMORENCY_ beareth a shield of gold with a
scarlet cross, cantoned with sixteen azure eagles, four by four."




CHAPTER XIII

A JAR IN ST. ELPHÈGE


At noon, on a day late in October, 1786, the Merchant of St. Elphège sat
at the pine dinner-table in his kitchen, opposite his wife, resting his
wooden soup spoon on its butt on the table. The windows, both front and
rear, were wide open, for one of those rare fragrant golden days of late
autumn still permitted it. He was listening, with some of the stolid
Indian manner, to his wife reading Germain's letter. He vouchsafed only
one remark, and that a mercantile one: "Seven weeks, mon Dieu! the
quickest mail I ever got from France!" From time to time, while he
listened, his eyes glanced out with contentment upon the possessions
with which he was surrounded--upon the rich-coloured stubble of his
clearings stretching as far as eye could see down the Assumption, with
their flocks, herds, and brush fences; upon the hamlet to which his
enterprise had given birth, and where he could see, in one cottage, his
_sabotiers_ bent over their benches adding to their piles of wooden
shoes; in others, women at the spinning wheel or loom, making the cloths
of which he had improved the pattern, or weaving the fine and beautiful
arrow-sashes, those _ceintures fléchées_ of which the art is now lost,
yet still known as snowshoers' rareties by the name of "L'Assomption
sashes"; his makers of carved elm-bottom chairs and beef mocassins; and,
within his courtyard, the large and well stocked granaries, fur-attics
and stores for merchandise contained in his four great buildings. His
wife was dressed in cloth much more after the fashion of the world than
the prunella waist, the skirt shot in colors and the kerchief on the
head, which formed the Norman costume of the women seen through the
cottage doors. Her silk stockings and buckled slippers marked a desire
to be the gentlewoman. Her dark eyes struck one as clever. Her first
husband had been the butler of the Marquis de Beauharnois when that
nobleman was Governor of Canada, and she had never ceased to look back
upon the recollections of high life stored away in those days in her
experience.

"There!" she exclaimed, as she flourished the letter at the end of
Germain's account of the reception--"Presented to the Court! Lecour,
when you said I was my boy's ruin, when you grumbled at his abandoning
the apothecary's shop to go to the Seminary and learn fine manners, did
I not tell you my son was baked of Sèvres and not of clay? At the Court
of France! and presented to his Most Christian Majesty! Among Princes,
Counts, Duchesses and Cardinals! What do you say to _that_, Lecour?"

Her husband's eyes twinkled: "That for the moment you are General
Montcalm, victorious; though I remind you that General Montcalm
afterwards had his Quebec."

"Quebec or no, my son is at the Court of France."

"I do not dispute that."

He began assiduously making away with his smoking pea-soup.

"Let us proceed with the letter," said she, for she had indeed shown her
generalship in stopping where she did.

"Ah," she went on, pretending to scan the next words for the first time,
"Germain needs three thousand livres."

"What!"

"Only three thousand."

"But he kept three thousand out of the beaver-skins; the last draft was
for nine hundred; whither is this leading? Have we not to live and carry
on the business? and you grow more fanciful every day, as if we were
seigneurs and not peasants."

"Certainly we are not peasants--_citizens_, if you please: anybody will
tell you that a merchant is not a peasant. There are citizens who are
_noble_, Lecour. Why should _we_ not make ourselves seigneurs? Who is it
but the merchants who are buying up the seigniories and living in the
manor-houses to-day? That is my plan."

"Three or four jackasses. Let them be jackasses. I remain François
Xavier Lecour, the peasant."

"Well, François Xavier Lecour, the peasant, _my_ son, the noble, must
have these livres."

Her black eyes flashed. "Will you have the poor boy disgraced in the act
of doing you credit? Look at me, unnatural father, and reflect that your
child is to experience from you his earliest wrong."

Lecour quailed. His powers of spoken argument were not great. He said
nothing, but rose, threw off his coat suddenly, and sat down again.

"Yes," she exclaimed, angry tears rolling down her cheeks. "Your wife
will sell her wardrobe and her dowry--little enough it was--for my son
shall not want while he has a mother, and that mother owns a stitch."

It was when it came to meeting clap-trap sentiment that trader's
inferior grain showed, and he faltered.

"I will go as far as a thousand. It is all it is worth."

By that word he exposed the small side of an otherwise worthy nature.
She sprang to the attack.

"_Diable!_ am I linked to a skinflint?"

"A skinflint, forsooth, at a thousand livres!"

"Yes," she cried in a fresh flood of tears. "A wretch, a miser. You are
unworthy, sir, to be linked to a family from whom Germain takes his
gentlemanly qualities. Had he nothing but you in him, he would be a
grovelling clod-hopper to-day instead of a favourite of kings."

Lecour laid down his wooden spoon in his pea-soup-bowl. He
phlegmatically took his clasp knife from its pouch, hung round his neck
by a string, struck his blade into the piece of cold pork upon the table
and cut off a large corner, in defiant silence. But his heart was heavy.
It was no pleasure to wrangle with so able a wife. He had no wish to
quarrel. Only, he knew the value of a livre. Germain was really becoming
a shocking expense. He felt that his wife would in the end persuade him
against his better judgment. In truth he liked to hear of his son's
successes, but it went against his prudence. There was to him something
out of joint in the son of a man of his condition attempting to figure
among the long-lined contemptuous elegants who had commanded him in the
army during his youth. The gulf, he felt, was not passable with security
nor credit.

Just as he was hacking off the piece of pork, a high-spirited black pony
dashed into the courtyard, attached to a calash driven by a very stout,
merry-eyed priest, who pulled up at the doorstep.

Lecour and Madame at once rose and hurried out to welcome him. At the
same time an Indian dwarf in Lecour's service moved up silently and took
the reins out of the Curé's hands. The latter came joyously in and sat
down.

"Oho," he cried, surveying the preparations on the table. "My good
Madame Lecour, I was right when I said an hour ago I knew where to stop
at noon in my parish of Répentigny."

"Father, I have something extra for you this time," she replied
laughing, and crossing to her cupboard, exhibited triumphantly a fine
cold roast duck.

"You shall have absolution without confession," he cried. "Let me
prepare for that with some of the magnificent pea-soup à la Lecour. Oh,
day of days!"

She went to the crane at the fireplace, uncovered the hanging pot, and
ladled out a deep bowl of steaming soup. At the same time she told him
excitedly of Germain's presentation at Court.

"What! what! these are fine proceedings. The Lecours are always going
up, up, up. Our Germain's distinction is a glory for the whole parish.
Lecour here ought to be proud of it."

Flattery from his Curé weighed more with Lecour _père_ than bushels of
argument. The wife saw her accidental advantage and took it.

"He does not like to pay for it," she remarked demurely.

"What! what! my rich friend Lecour. The owner of seventeen good farms,
of three great warehouses, of four hundred cattle, of untold
merchandise, and a credit of 500,000 livres in London, the best payer of
tithes in the country, the father of the most brilliant son in the
province, the husband of the finest wife, a woman fit to adorn the
castle of the governor," cried the ecclesiastic, finishing his soup and
attacking the duck.

Lecour thawed fast. But he reserved a doubt for the consideration of his
confessor.

"Is it honest to pass for a noble when one is not one?"

"I do not see that he has done so. It is not his fault, in the manner
that he has explained it. Let the young man enjoy himself a little and
see a little of life. We are only young once, and you laics must not be
too severely impeccable, otherwise what would become of us granters of
absolution. Furthermore, we must not be too old-fashioned. Our people
here are getting out of the strictness of the old social distinctions.
It may be so too in France. On my advice, dear Lecour, accept every
honour to your family your son may bring, and pay for it in the station
fitted to your great means, that I may be proud of all the Lecour family
when I go to Quebec and boast about my parish at the dinner-table of the
Bishop. Come," exclaimed he, at length, pushing aside his plate with the
ruins of the duck, "bring out that game of draughts, and let us see if
the honours of Germain have not put new skill into the play of a proud
father."

Madame brought out the checkerboard. She brought besides for the Curé a
little glass of imported _eau de vie_, and her husband, taking out his
bladder tobacco pouch, commenced to fill his pipe, and that of his
Reverence, and to smoke himself into a condition of bliss.




CHAPTER XIV

THE OLD-IRON SHOP


An enormous yellow and black coach lumbered and strained along by the
aid of six lean horses, and many elaborate springs, chains and straps,
from Brittany towards Paris. The autumn roads were execrable, for the
rains had been heavy, and the ruts made by the harvest-waggons were
deep. The lateness of the season intensified the deserted look of rural
France. Little else was to be seen along most of the route than rows of
polled trees lining the highway, and here and there an old castle on a
hill, or a _commune_ of a few whitewashed cottages, where the coach
would pull up at the inn and perhaps change horses. The driver and guard
remained the same; but various postillions took charge and then gave up
their charges to others. Travellers of assorted ranks and occupations
got in and out. Of the twelve for whom there were places in the coach
some remained during long distances, some shorter, but only one was
faithful from Brittany to the end. He was a short-statured, country
_bourgeois_, whose woollen stockings and faded hat gave to him a certain
look of non-importance. Moreover, he was always wrapped unsociably in a
brown cloak, of which he kept a fold over his lower face, and in which
he snored in his corner even when all the others jumped up to escape an
upset.

After several days the aspect of the country suddenly changed. Immense
woods and parks rendered it even more solitary, yet strange to say the
increased solitude was evidence that the hugest capital in Europe was
near, for these were the hunting domains of the princes of the blood and
great courtiers, which encircled Paris.

During the night there was another sudden change. The forest solitudes
disappeared, the horses sped forward on fine broad roads; and soon the
coach dashed with a triumphant blast into the lights and stir of
Versailles, crossed its Place d'Armes and turned again into darkness
along the Avenue of Paris.

At length, in the first grey of morning, it rumbled loudly over a
stretch of cobbled pave, and pulled up at an iron railing inside the
City wall. Here the officers of the municipal customs came out. One of
the first passengers visited was the _bourgeois_, and his dingy black
box and sleepy expression received exceptionally contemptuous usage.

"Haste, beast, open it! Dost thou think I have to wait all day? Take
that," and the gendarme struck him a tap on the side with the flat of
his sword.

For a second the _bourgeois_ seemed another man. He drew up with such an
inhuman gleam in his cadaverous eyes that the customs man drew back.

"Quick, then, a little," said the latter in something of an apologetic
tone. The short man as rapidly recovered his self-possession. He leered
in a conciliatory way upon the official and pressed a livre into his
palm. The official passed the box through the gate. The coach proceeded
into the City until it arrived at its heart and stopped at the entrance
of that great and wide bridge, the Pont Neuf, the main artery of Paris,
where most of the passengers alighted. They found themselves engulfed
in a yelling multitude of porters, who scrambled for passengers and
baggage as if they would tear both to pieces, which indeed they had no
great aversion to doing.

The _bourgeois_ singled out a tall man who had mingled in the scrimmage
as if only for his amusement. Cuffing the others aside like puppies with
his long arms, the latter lifted the black box out of the tussle and
started away, followed by its owner. They plunged into that maze of
tall, narrow, medieval streets of older Paris which Méryon loved to
picture before they disappeared in the improvements of Napoleon. They
crossed the Latin Quarter and thence wending eastward, entered finally
the Quarter of St. Marcel, the wretchedest of the city, and came into a
lane named the Street of the Hanged Man; where dilapidated rookeries
leaned across at each other, their upper floors occupied by swarms of
human beings. The _bourgeois_ here stopped alongside his porter and
spoke to him in the tone of an intimate.

"Is it far now, Hache? It is already some distance from the old place."

"Here we are; come in quick," replied Hache. He was a bold-looking,
black-haired man, red-faced, unshaven, and battered with the effects of
brandy-drinking.

They turned into a grimy old-iron shop. A woman sitting in a corner
fixed her eyes upon them like a watch-dog. They stumbled through,
climbed a dark stair, and entered a room where the traveller, without
speaking to a man who lay there on a bench, locked the door, and Hache
dropped the box on the table with a thud, shaking off a cap and bottle
which were on it.

The man on the bench started at the noise, and got up on his elbow, his
eyes opening with an effort.

"Great God, the Admiral!" he exclaimed.

The _bourgeois_ had thrown off his hat, wig, and cloak. He was the
visitor to the cavern of Fontainebleau.

"It is I, Gougeon," he returned, his death's-head face smiling.

Gougeon wore the garb of an old-iron gatherer. His countenance was
unkempt, pale, scowling, with black eyes embedded in it, his hair coarse
and long, his mouth hard and drooping. He pushed back the grey _tuque_
with which his head had been covered, and without readdressing the
Admiral, got up, slowly unwound the cords which bound the black box, and
raised the lid. Hache looked on.

Gougeon first took out a couple of coarse articles of clothing, and
uttered a grunt. His next grasp brought up a brilliant article of
apparel. He raised it to examine it at the window. The garment shone
even in the meagre light. It was a waistcoat of flowered silk, sown with
seed-pearls. The Admiral stood by, smiling.

With the other hand Gougeon pulled out and lifted a magnificent
rose-coloured dress-coat with silver buttons.

Having gazed at them all round and grunted to his own satisfaction and
to that of Hache, he dived again into the box, where he fumbled around a
large lump covered with linen, and at length drew out a shining
article--a golden _soleil_, or sun-shaped stand for displaying the Host
at the mass. Beside it was a finely embossed chalice of silver. His eyes
and those of Hache were lost in wonder.

There came just then a tap at the door.

The articles were whipped back into their box and covered. The woman of
the shop below walked in. All recovered self-possession. She bolted the
door herself.

Gougeon's mate, who thus appeared among them, was a small woman of about
forty, with the sharp grey eyes of a wild animal.

The coat and vessels were displayed to her by her husband.

"Admiral," she said, "where do these come from?"

The chief seemed to recognise in her a personage equal to himself. He
bowed and said--

"Madame, the _soleil_ and chalice were the Abbey of Pontcalec's, and
were politely removed for safe-keeping by seven marines of the
Galley-on-land."

"And this fine waistcoat?" said Madame, smiling.

"Was one of which the owner had no longer need," he said, looking at
her.

"Indeed," she returned nonchalantly.

"It was a troublesome marquis who ventured home one night by a short
cut. He was one of the fellows who does not believe in the necessity of
a poor man living. He saw a fire of ours in the waste, and what does he
do but ride up and over us. Luckily there is no blood on the waistcoat."

Madame's smile expanded. She looked the article over, picked the
seed-pearls and lace with her little skinny hands, turned out the
pockets, and inspected the flower-pattern of the silk.

Gougeon held the glittering _soleil_ fast in his hands. He could not
keep his scowling eyes off it. Hache took up the bottle from the floor,
and poured some wine into the chalice, whence he drank it off. Madame
lifted the dress-coat, and inspected it with the same feminine closeness
as the vest.

"It is a good package," remarked she.

"You have not seen all," vivaciously replied the Admiral, and diving his
hand into the box he drew forth and opened the black kerchief of the
cave of Fontainebleau. Gougeon's hand snatched the watch of the Prince
de Poix. Hache caught up the chalice, and executed a jig round the room
while drinking it empty; and Madame arranged her neck to great
self-satisfaction with Cyrène's necklace, while the Admiral told with no
small exaggeration the story connected with the plunder.

"This brings us," he continued, "to the object of my coming. Bec, Caron,
and la Tour, the three taken in the cave, are now in Paris imprisoned in
the Little Châtelet. What can be done for them?"

"Nothing," answered Gougeon.

"Be still," enjoined his wife, flashing her eyes at him.

"Were it I, I would go to the galleys and get away just as I did
before," exclaimed Hache.

"Hache, you have no head."

"Not so good as yours, wife Gougeon, I admit; but I escaped from the
galleys."

"To force the guards is impossible," said she speculating. "Who are the
witnesses?"

"I fear they are out of the question."

"Who are they?"

"The Prince de Poix."

"He will not appear in the matter. It is not like your provincial
tribunals."

"Several gendarmes."

"They have their price."

"Granted; but another remains, a bad one."

"Who?"

"The aristocrat who fell into the cave. He is near us."

"His name?"

"Répentigny."

"I will do what I can. We shall see what the Galley is good for in
Paris."




CHAPTER XV

THE BEGGARS' BALL


That evening there was a ball on the flat above. It was refreshingly
democratic. The rag-pickers who lodged with Madame Gougeon and laid the
foundation of her iron business, attended. Thither thronged the beggars,
the knife-grinders, the old-bottle collectors of the neighbouring
rookeries. The crookedest men of Paris, the most hideous women, the
squalidest tatters were on hand. They whirled and jumped furiously in
their unwashed feet; they became almost invisible in the clouds of dust;
the odour sickened, the screeching and jumping deafened one. Bad, but
maddening, wine was drunk in torrents. A man would kick his partner and
the combatants tumble over each other in the midst of an applauding
circle.

Who were these libels on women, these alleged men, these howling fiends?
They were a driblet of two hundred thousand such wretches who overran
and menaced the city, a product of the dense illiteracy of the time.

Wife Gougeon entered with the Admiral. They pushed their way to a long
table in the corner where some sots were gambling, and sitting down on
one of the benches around it, she shouted a couple of words to the man
nearest to her, who bolted off into the dust and returned with a
red-nosed beggar.

"Motte," said she, leering, "are you now on the Versailles roads?"

"Always," he said sharply.

"Do your division watch Versailles?"

"Without ceasing."

"This is the Admiral."

"The great Admiral? Of the Galley?"

"Certainly."

"I salute you, Chief," he said, raising a ragged arm.

"Have some brandy, Green Cap," the Admiral returned, rapping loudly for
drink, which was brought.

"We want," said Madame engagingly, "to find a hog called Répentigny at
Versailles."

The man snatched the bottle from the hand of the _garçon_, and pouring a
glass off, greedily drank it before replying.

"I don't know the name. What age is he?"

"About twenty," the chief said.

"Don't you know any more about him?"

The Admiral described him as closely as possible. They took some time in
the conversation. "He ought to be in the company of officers of the
Bodyguard," added he. The beggar by that time was becoming unsteady with
rapid libations. He nodded, dropping his head.

"Do you understand me?" shouted the Admiral.

"Répentigny," the other muttered, correctly enough.

"Can you meet us at the Place d'Armes of Versailles to-morrow?" wheedled
Femme Gougeon.

He looked at her steadily and nodded deliberately.

"Is twelve o'clock too early?"

He shook his head a little.

"He will assuredly do it," she said to her companion.

The next second the beggar fell off the bench, dead drunk.

The following day at Versailles, at the entrance of the Avenue de Paris,
two nuns were seen to stop and give alms to an old bent beggar. A
conversation took place between them, and was interrupted by the
approach of a gendarme.

"I have found him," was the beggar's whisper.

"Where?"

"At the Hôtel de Noailles. Am I to kill him?" he asked excitedly.

"No," said the taller nun.

The gendarme stepped up towards the beggar.

"I arrest you for mendicity," he said, just about to lay his hand on his
shoulder.

The beggar--who bore a red nose--started back with an alacrity
unexpected of so aged a man. He took to his heels, and, with tatters
flying, fled like an arrow from the Avenue.

The gendarme furiously looked after him. When he turned, the pair of
nuns also had moved on. They were slipping round a corner which led into
a by-street of the old town.

Versailles, the City of the Court, was then in the height of its
splendour, gay and triumphant. Everything in it looked towards the
Palace of the King, the long and lordly façade of which, with its three
concent