In the Day of Adversity

CHAPTER XXX.

"IT IS TRUE."

The windows of the salon giving on to the crushed-shell path of the Hôtel de Louvigny had been open all day to let in the air, and the handsomely apparelled young officer of the Régiment de Grancé, stationed at Rambouillet, was enabled therefore to at once enter the room, leaving his men outside. Yet as he did so he seemed bewildered and astonished at the sight which met his eyes.

Lying fainting, gasping, on her couch was Madame de Louvigny —la belle Louvigny as they called her, and toasted her nightly in the guardroom – standing over her was a man, white to the lips, his hands clinched, his whole form and face expressing horror and contempt.

"Pardie!" the young fellow muttered between his lips, "I have interrupted a little scene, un roman d'amour! Bon Dieu the lover has detected madame in some little infidelity, and – and – has had a moment of vivacity. Yet 'tis not my fault. Devoir avant tout," and as he muttered the motto of the noble house to which he belonged – perhaps as an aid in that devoir– he advanced into the room after bidding his men remain where he had stationed them.

"Madame la baronne will pardon my untimely appearance," he muttered in the most courtly manner, and with a comprehensive bow of much ease and grace which included St. Georges, "but my orders were – what – madame herself knows. Otherwise I should regret even more my presence here."

She, still on the lounge, her face buried in her Valenciennes handkerchief, was as yet unable to utter a word —he, standing before her, never removed his eyes from her. The officer's words had confirmed what he suspected – what he knew.

"But," continued the lieutenant, "madame will excuse. I have my orders to obey. The man she mentioned to the commandant has not yet endeavoured to pass the barrier – is it madame's desire that her house should be searched?"

She raised her head from the couch as he spoke, not daring to cast a glance at him whom she had betrayed to his doom. Then she said, her voice under no control and broken. "No. He is not here. He – has escaped."

"Escaped, madame? Impossible! Rambouillet is too small even for him to be in hiding – he – "

"Has not escaped," St. Georges said, turning suddenly on the officer. "On the contrary, he has been betrayed. I am the man."

"You! Madame's – " and he left his sentence unfinished. "You! Here alone with her, and a galérien!"

"Yes – I."

It was useless, he knew, to do aught than give himself up. Escape was impossible. It was known, must be known in this small town, that he was the only stranger who had entered it lately; nor did he doubt that when the treacherous creature had informed against him she had described him thoroughly. Even though now she lied to save him, it would be of no avail. He could not remain in her house, hide in it as she had suggested, take shelter from her. From her! No! even the galleys – or the gallows – were better than that.

"I regret to hear it," the officer said, "since monsieur appears to be a friend of madame la baronne. Yet, under the circumstances, monsieur will not refuse to accompany me."

"I will accompany you."

Whatever the young fellow may have thought of the man who was now in his custody – and what he did think was that he was some old lover of la belle Louvigny who had either cast her off, or been cast off by her, and had reappeared at an awkward moment, so that she had taken an effectual manner of disposing of him – he at least did not show it. But for her he testified his contempt in a manner that was unmistakable. He motioned to St. Georges to precede him to the open window where his men were, and, putting on his hat before he had quitted the room, he strode after his prisoner without casting a glance at the woman.

But as they neared the window, and were about to step on to the path, St. Georges stopped and, addressing him, said: "Sir, grant me one moment's further grace, I beg of you. Ere I go I have a word to say to madame."

Courteous as he had been all through – to him – the young fellow shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly, raised no objection, and lounged by the open window, while St. Georges returned to where she still crouched upon the lounge. Yet, as she heard his footsteps nearing her, she looked up with terror-stricken eye, and shrunk back even further into its ample depths. The officer had not demanded his sword, it hung still by his side; her craven heart feared that in his last moment allowed to him he might wrench it from its sheath and punish her for her treachery. But, as she learned a moment later, he had a worse punishment in store for her than that.

"You have sent me to my doom," he said, gazing down on her, "yet, ere I go, hear what has been the doom of another – as vile as you yourself – "

In an instant she had sprung to her feet, was standing panting before him, one hand upon her heart, the other by her side in the folds of her dress. "Vile as she herself," he had said. "Vile as she herself!" To whom else but De Roquemaure could such words apply when issuing from that man's lips?

"The doom of another!" she hissed, repeating those words; "the doom of another – of whom?"

And again on her face there was now the look – the canine look – that had been there before – the lip drawn back, the small teeth showing, the threatening glance in the eyes.

"Of whom but one! Who else but your vile partner" – the young officer, of noble race as he was, and steeped in good breeding, could scarce refrain from being startled at those words – "the man you say you love? Well, love him! Only learn this, you have nothing but his memory to love. He is dead! – "

With a scream that rang not only through the salon, but the house also, and penetrated out into the cool garden beyond – a scream that caused the lieutenant to start toward them, and his men to peer into the room – she sprang at him, her right hand raised now, and in it the dagger she had so long concealed.

"Beware!" the officer cried. "Beware, she is dangerous!" And, even as he spoke, she struck full at St. Georges's breast with the knife.

"Bah!" he exclaimed, thrusting aside her upraised arm with the hand in which, all through the interview with her, he had held his hat – thrusting it aside with such force that she almost staggered and fell. "Bah! you mistake, woman. Did you think it was my back again at which you struck?"

The room was full of servants now; her own waiting maid and one or two of the lackeys busy about the house, preparing a little supper madame had intended giving that night to a few admirers, had rushed in at her scream; and now the former stood behind and half supported her while she muttered incoherent sounds amid which the words only could be caught, "You slew him! – at last!"

"Nay," he said, standing still in front of her, calm and sinister; "such satisfaction was not granted me, nor so easy an ending to him. The English who drove Tourville's fleet to its doom at La Hogue did their work effectively. Each ship, each transport, found by them was blown out of the water; in one of those transports, named the Vendôme, he was blown up, too. I was there but a little while before it exploded; I saw its fragments and all within it hurled into space. I think, madame, my doom is scarce worse than his."

With another shriek, as piercing as the first, she threw her arms above her head, then fell an insensible mass into the serving woman's arms. And St. Georges, turning to the young officer, said:

"Sir, I am at your service."

They took him that night to the Château de Rambouillet, he marching with three of the soldiers in front of and three behind him, the young officer by his side. And this scion of nobility, one of the De Mortemarts, testified by his actions that night that the French good breeding of the great monarch's day was no mere outward show. He permitted his prisoner to still retain his sword, and he walked by his side instead of ahead of his men, because he did not desire that those whom in his mind he considered the canaille should make any observations upon that prisoner as they passed through the streets. Moreover, wherever a knot of persons were gathered together in any corner he affected a smiling exterior, so that they should be induced to suppose that St. Georges was an ordinary acquaintance accompanying him.

"Sir," said the latter, observing all this, "you are very good to me. You make what I have to bear as light as possible."

"It is nothing, nothing," the lieutenant replied. "I only wish it had not fallen to my lot to undertake so unpleasant a duty. By the way, I suppose it is true, as she told the commandant! You have, unfortunately known – been – at the galleys?"

"It is true."

"Tiens! A pity. A thousand pities! Above all, that you should have encountered that she-devil. Well, I am glad you had those hard words with her. Ma foi! she is a tigress! I only hope you may escape from – from other things – as you did from her dagger."

The commandant – who was also the colonel of the Régiment de Grancé – was, however, a different style of man from his lieutenant – a man who from long service in the army had become rough and harsh; also, like many men commanding regiments under Louis, he had risen solely by his military qualifications, and owed nothing to birth or influence.

He listened, however, very attentively to all De Mortemart told him of the scene that had taken place, and especially as to how the Baronne de Louvigny – to whom he himself was paying court, as has been told – had evidently had some lover whose existence he had never suspected; and then he sent for St. Georges, who was brought into his presence by De Mortemart himself.

"So," he said, "you are an escaped galérien, monsieur. Well! You know what happens to them when retaken!"

"I know."

"What was your crime?"

"Nothing – except serving the king as a soldier."

"As a soldier!" he and De Mortemart exclaimed together, while the former continued, "In what capacity?"

"As lieutenant in the Chévaux-Légers of Nivernois."

"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the commandant. "A picked regiment, and commanded by De Beauvilliers —n'est-ce pas?"

"He was my colonel."

"Come," said the other, relaxing his stern method of addressing St. Georges, and warming toward him, unknowingly to himself by the fact that this man in such dire distress was a comrade and had served in a corps d'élite– "come, tell us your history. We cannot help you – there is but one thing to do, namely, to send you to Paris for inquiry; but until you go we can at least make your existence here more endurable."

So St. Georges told them his story.

All through it both his listeners testified their sympathy – De Mortemart especially, by many exclamations against De Roquemaure and his sister, and also against la belle Louvigny – while the colonel spoke approvingly of the manner in which St. Georges had almost avenged himself on his foe in the inn. The description, too, of his existence in the galleys moved both young and old soldier alike; it was only when he arrived at the account of the destruction of Tourville's fleet that they ceased to make any remark and sat listening to him in silence.

It was finished, however, now, and when the colonel spoke his voice was more cold and unsympathetic.

"You have ruined yourself by the last month's work," he said. "I am afraid you can never recover from that. Did you not know that his Majesty has made it a rule that none who have served him shall ever take service under a foreign power and dare to venture into France again?"

"I know it," St. Georges said, "and I must abide by my fate. Yet, my child was here. I was forced to come, and there was no other way but this."

One thing only he had not told them, the story of what he believed to be his birth, the belief he held that he was the Duc de Vannes. Nor, he determined then – had, indeed, long since determined – would he ever publish that belief now. Had he kept his freedom until he had once more regained Dorine, it was his intention to have repassed to England and never again to have recalled that supposed birthright, or, as the child grew up, to have let her obtain any knowledge on the subject. He would work for her, slave for her, if necessary become tutor, or soldier, or sailor, as Fate might decree; but it must be as an Englishman, and with all connection with France broken forever.

And now, a prisoner, a man who would ere long be tried as an ex-galérien, as – if De Mortemart and the colonel did not hold their peace – a Frenchman who had joined England and helped her in administering the most crushing blow to France which she had suffered for centuries – he would never see his child again; what need, therefore, to publish his belief?

The hope that had sustained him for years was gone; the prayer he had uttered by night and day, that once more he might hold his little child in his arms and cherish and succour her, was gone, too; they would never meet again. Let him go, therefore, to his doom unknown, and, so going, pass away and be forgotten. And it might be that, with him removed, God would see fit to temper to his child the adversity that had fallen to his own lot.

CHAPTER XXXI.

ST. GEORGES'S DOOM

The cours criminel on the banks of the Seine had been crowded all day, and the judges seated on the bench began to exhibit signs of fatigue at their labours. They had sat from ten o'clock in the morning far into the afternoon, and, now that four o'clock was at hand, it appeared as if their sitting would be still further prolonged; and this in spite of the number of cases they had disposed of.

A variety of malefactors, or so-called malefactors, had on that day received their sentences: some for professing the "reformed religion," as they blasphemously – in the judges' eyes – termed it; some for being bullies and cutthroats; a student aged sixteen had been sentenced to imprisonment in the Bastille for writing on the walls a distich on Louis, stating that he had displaced God in the minds of the French;9 and a marchioness had been condemned to a fine of twenty pistoles and to remain out of Paris for a year for having poisoned her husband; also a spy, a Dutchman, supposed to be in the service of the accursed Stadtholder and English king, had been condemned to death by burning, his entrails to be first cut out and flung in his face; and several petty malefactors – a drunken priest who had read a portion of Rabelais to his flock instead of a sermon; a lampoonist who had written a joke on the De Maintenon; an actor who had struck a gentleman in defence of his own daughter; and a courtesan who had induced a young nobleman to spend too much money on her – were all sentenced to the Bastille, to Vincennes, and Bicêtre for various periods.

For writing it the student remained in prison thirty-one years.

"Now," said Monsieur de Rennie, who presided to-day, when the last of these wretches had been finished off – "now, is the list cleared? We have sat six hours." And the other judges, one on either side of him, repeated his words and murmured, "Six hours!"

"Your lordships have still some other cases," the procureur du roi said, addressing them, "which you will probably be willing to dispose of to-day. There is one of a man who is thought to have abandoned his ship in the recent disaster at La Hogue, and to have escaped to Paris, where he was captured in hiding; and another of three Jansenists who have blasphemed the faith; also there is a man, an escaped galérien, brought hither from Rambouillet by an officer of the Régiment de Grancé for trial."

"Are the facts clear," asked the presiding judge, "against this man? If so, the case will not occupy us long, and we will take it to-night."

"Quite clear," the procureur replied, "so far as I gather."

"Bring him in."

A moment later St. Georges stood in the dock set apart for the criminals, his hands tied in front of him. And in the court many eyes were cast toward him as he took his stand. All knew that, for those who successfully escaped the galleys, there was but one ending if ever caught again.

"Who gives evidence against this prisoner?" De Rennie asked, looking at St. Georges under his bushy white eyebrows. "And what is his name? – Prisoner, what is your name? Answer truly to the court."

"I have no name," St. Georges replied; "I refuse to answer to any."

The judge's eyebrows were lifted into his forehead and down again; then he observed to his brother judge on his right, with a shrug of his shoulders, "Contumacious!" and then, because he was a man who disliked to be thwarted, he exclaimed: "So much the worse for you. Well, M. le procureur, who prosecutes – who is there as witness?"

"The officer who arrested him and afterward brought him to Paris. He can give your lordships the facts."

"Very well. Why does he not do so? Let him stand forward."

The officer stood forward, in so far that he stood up in the well of the crowd – his gold-laced, cockaded hat still upon his head, since as an officer of the king he was entitled to wear it in all other places but church – and briefly he answered the presiding judge's questions. Yes, he was a lieutenant of the Régiment de Grancé, quartered at Rambouillet – in his opinion, a miserable hole. His opinion on Rambouillet, the judge said, frowning, was not required; he would be good enough to give his name. His name was De Mortemart. De Mortemart! Perhaps, said the judge, he might be a relative of the Duc de Mortemart? Yes, the officer replied, he might be; in effect he was a son of that personage. The judge was pleased to hear it; the duke was universally known and respected, and – the acoustic qualities of the court were bad – would M. de Mortemart take a seat on the bench, where he and his brother judges could better hear him? The officer did not mind, though he was not inconvenienced where he was, but, of course, if their lordships desired. And so forth.