Honore de Balzac (12 page)

"It will take a hundred years for the nobility to recover from such
blows," said Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, slowly.

"Is there a pass-word?" asked Michu.

"'France and Charles' for the soldiers, 'Laurence and Louis' for the
Messieurs d'Hauteserre and Simeuse. Good God! to think that I saw them
yesterday for the first time in eleven years, and that now they are in
danger of death—and what a death! Michu," she said, with a melancholy
look, "be as prudent during the next fifteen hours as you have been
grand and devoted during the last twelve years. If disaster were to
overtake my cousins now I should die of it—No," she added, quickly, "I
would live long enough to kill Bonaparte."

"There will be two of us to do that when all is lost," said Michu.

Laurence took his rough hand and wrung it warmly, as the English do.
Michu looked at his watch; it was midnight.

"We must leave here at any cost," he said. "Death to the gendarme who
attempts to stop me! And you, madame la comtesse, without presuming
to dictate, ride back to Cinq-Cygne as fast as you can. The police are
there by this time; fool them! delay them!"

The hole once opened, Michu flung himself down with his ear to the
earth; then he rose precipitately. "The gendarmes are at the edge of the
forest towards Troyes!" he said. "Ha, I'll get the better of them yet!"

He helped the countess to come out, and replaced the stones. When this
was done he heard her soft voice telling him she must see him mounted
before mounting herself. Tears came to the eyes of the stern man as
he exchanged a last look with his young mistress, whose own eyes were
tearless.

"Fool them! yes, he is right!" she said when she heard him no longer.
Then she darted towards Cinq-Cygne at full gallop.

Madame d'Hauteserre, roused by the danger of her sons, and not believing
that the Revolution was over, but still fearing its summary justice,
recovered her senses by the violence of the same distress which made
her lose them. Led by an agonizing curiosity she returned to the salon,
which presented a picture worthy of the brush of a genre painter. The
abbe, still seated at the card-table and mechanically playing with the
counters, was covertly observing Corentin and Peyrade, who were standing
together at a corner of the fireplace and speaking in a low voice.
Several times Corentin's keen eye met the not less keen glance of the
priest; but, like two adversaries who knew themselves equally strong,
and who return to their guard after crossing their weapons, each averted
his eyes the instant they met. The worthy old d'Hauteserre, poised on
his long thin legs like a heron, was standing beside the stout form of
the mayor, in an attitude expressive of utter stupefaction. The mayor,
though dressed as a bourgeois, always looked like a servant. Each gazed
with a bewildered eye at the gendarmes, in whose clutches Gothard was
still sobbing, his hands purple and swollen from the tightness of the
cord that bound them. Catherine maintained her attitude of artless
simplicity, which was quite impenetrable. The corporal, who, according
to Corentin, had committed a great blunder in arresting these smaller
fry, did not know whether to stay where he was or to depart. He stood
pensively in the middle of the salon, his hand on the hilt of his sabre,
his eye on the two Parisians. The Durieus, also stupefied, and the
other servants of the chateau made an admirable group of expressive
uneasiness. If it had not been for Gothard's convulsive snifflings those
present could have heard the flies fly.

When Madame d'Hauteserre, pale and terrified, opened the door and
entered the room, almost carried by Mademoiselle Goujet, whose red eyes
had evidently been weeping, all faces turned to her at once. The two
agents hoped as much as the household feared to see Laurence enter. This
spontaneous movement of both masters and servants seemed produced by
the sort of mechanism which makes a number of wooden figures perform the
same gesture or wink the same eye.

Madame d'Hauteserre advanced by three rapid strides towards Corentin and
said, in a broken voice but violently: "For pity's sake, monsieur,
tell me what my sons are accused of. Do you really think they have been
here?"

The abbe, who seemed to be saying to himself when he saw the old lady,
"She will certainly commit some folly," lowered his eyes.

"My duty and the mission I am engaged in forbid me to tell you,"
answered Corentin, with a gracious but rather mocking air.

This refusal, which the detestable politeness of the vulgar fop seemed
to make all the more emphatic, petrified the poor mother, who fell into
a chair beside the Abbe Goujet, clasped her hands and began to pray.

"Where did you arrest that blubber?" asked Corentin, addressing the
corporal and pointing to Laurence's little henchman.

"On the road that leads to the farm along the park walls; the little
scamp had nearly reached the Closeaux woods," replied the corporal.

"And that girl?"

"She? oh, it was Oliver who caught her."

"Where was she going?"

"Towards Gondreville."

"They were going in opposite directions?" said Corentin.

"Yes," replied the gendarme.

"Is that boy the groom, and the girl the maid of the citizeness
Cinq-Cygne?" said Corentin to the mayor.

"Yes," replied Goulard.

After Corentin had exchanged a few words with Peyrade in a whisper, the
latter left the room, taking the corporal of gendarmes with him.

Just then the corporal of Arcis made his appearance. He went up to
Corentin and spoke to him in a low voice: "I know these premises well,"
he said; "I have searched everywhere; unless those young fellows are
buried, they are not here. We have sounded all the floors and walls with
the butt end of our muskets."

Peyrade, who presently returned, signed to Corentin to come out, and
then took him to the breach in the moat and showed him the sunken way.

"We have guessed the trick," said Peyrade.

"And I'll tell you how it was done," added Corentin. "That little scamp
and the girl decoyed those idiots of gendarmes and thus made time for
the game to escape."

"We can't know the truth till daylight," said Peyrade. "The road is
damp; I have ordered two gendarmes to barricade it top and bottom. We'll
examine it after daylight, and find out by the footsteps who went that
way."

"I see a hoof-mark," said Corentin; "let us go to the stables."

"How many horses do you keep?" said Peyrade, returning to the salon with
Corentin, and addressing Monsieur d'Hauteserre and Goulard.

"Come, monsieur le maire, you know, answer," cried Corentin, seeing that
that functionary hesitated.

"Why, there's the countess's mare, Gothard's horse, and Monsieur
d'Hauteserre's."

"There is only one in the stable," said Peyrade.

"Mademoiselle is out riding," said Durieu.

"Does she often ride about at this time of night?" said the libertine
Peyrade, addressing Monsieur d'Hauteserre.

"Often," said the good man, simply. "Monsieur le maire can tell you
that."

"Everybody knows she has her freaks," remarked Catherine; "she looked at
the sky before she went to bed, and I think the glitter of your bayonets
in the moonlight puzzled her. She told me she wanted to know if there
was going to be another revolution."

"When did she go?" asked Peyrade.

"When she saw your guns."

"Which road did she take?"

"I don't know."

"There's another horse missing," said Corentin.

"The gendarmes—took it—away from me," said Gothard.

"Where were you going?" said one of them.

"I was—following—my mistress to the farm," sobbed the boy.

The gendarme looked towards Corentin as if expecting an order. But
Gothard's speech was evidently so true and yet so false, so perfectly
innocent and so artful that the two Parisians again looked at each other
as if to echo Peyrade's former words: "They are not ninnies."

Monsieur d'Hauteserre seemed incapable of a word; the mayor was
bewildered; the mother, imbecile from maternal fears, was putting
questions to the police agents that were idiotically innocent; the
servants had been roused from their sleep. Judging by these trifling
signs, and these diverse characters, Corentin came to the conclusion
that his only real adversary was Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne. Shrewd
and dexterous as the police may be, they are always under certain
disadvantages. Not only are they forced to discover all that is known
to a conspirator, but they must also suppose and test a great number
of things before they hit upon the right one. The conspirator is always
thinking of his own safety, whereas the police is only on duty at
certain hours. Were it not for treachery and betrayals, nothing would
be easier than to conspire successfully. The conspirator has more mind
concentrated upon himself than the police can bring to bear with all its
vast facilities of action. Finding themselves stopped short morally,
as they might be physically by a door which they expected to find open
being shut in their faces, Corentin and Peyrade saw they were tricked
and misled, without knowing by whom.

"I assert," said the corporal of Arcis, in their ear, "that if the four
young men slept here last night it must have been in the beds of their
father and mother, and Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, or those of the
servants; or they must have spent the night in the park. There is not a
trace of their presence."

"Who could have warned them?" said Corentin, to Peyrade. "No one but the
First Consul, Fouche, the ministers, the prefect of police, and Malin
knew anything about it."

"We must set spies in the neighborhood," whispered Peyrade.

"And watch the spies," said the abbe, who smiled as he overheard the
word and guessed all.

"Good God!" thought Corentin, replying to the abbe's smile with one of
his own; "there is but one intelligent being here,—he's the one to come
to an understanding with; I'll try him."

"Gentlemen—" said the mayor, anxious to give some proof of devotion to
the First Consul and addressing the two agents.

"Say 'citizens'; the Republic still exists," interrupted Corentin,
looking at the priest with a quizzical air.

"Citizens," resumed the mayor, "just as I entered this salon and before
I had opened my mouth Catherine rushed in and took her mistress's hat,
gloves, and whip."

A low murmur of horror came from the breasts of all the household except
Gothard. All eyes but those of the agent and the gendarmes were turned
threateningly on Goulard, the informer, seeming to dart flames at him.

"Very good, citizen mayor," said Peyrade. "We see it all plainly. Some
one" (this with a glance of evident distrust at Corentin) "warned the
citizeness Cinq-Cygne in time."

"Corporal, handcuff that boy," said Corentin, to the gendarme, "and take
him away by himself. And shut up that girl, too," pointing to Catherine.
"As for you, Peyrade, search for papers," adding in his ear, "Ransack
everything, spare nothing.—Monsieur l'abbe," he said, confidentially,
"I have an important communication to make to you"; and he took him into
the garden.

"Listen to me attentively, monsieur," he went on; "you seem to have the
mind of a bishop, and (no one can hear us) you will understand me. I
have no longer any hope except through you of saving these families,
who, with the greatest folly, are letting themselves roll down a
precipice where no one can save them. The Messieurs Simeuse and
d'Hauteserre have been betrayed by one of those infamous spies whom
governments introduce into all conspiracies to learn their objects,
means, and members. Don't confound me, I beg of you, with the wretch who
is with me. He belongs to the police; but I am honorably attached to
the Consular cabinet, I am therefore behind the scenes. The ruin of the
Simeuse brothers is not desired. Though Malin would like to see them
shot, the First Consul, if they are here and have come without evil
intentions, wishes them to be warned out of danger, for he likes
good soldiers. The agent who accompanies me has all the powers, I,
apparently, am nothing. But I see plainly what is hatching. The agent
is pledged to Malin, who has doubtless promised him his influence, an
office, and perhaps money if he finds the Simeuse brothers and delivers
them up. The First Consul, who is a really great man, never favors
selfish schemes—I don't want to know if those young men are here," he
added, quickly, observing the abbe's gesture, "but I wish to tell you
that there is only one way to save them. You know the law of the 6th
Floreal, year X., which amnestied all the
emigres
who were still in
foreign countries on condition that they returned home before the 1st
Vendemiaire of the year XI., that is to say, in September of last year.
But the Messieurs Simeuse having, like the Messieurs d'Hauteserre,
served in the army of Conde, they come into the category of exceptions
to this law. Their presence in France is therefore criminal, and
suffices, under the circumstances in which we are, to make them
suspected of collusion in a horrible plot. The First Consul saw the
error of this exception which has made enemies for his government, and
he wishes the Messieurs Simeuse to know that no steps will be taken
against them, if they will send him a petition saying that they have
re-entered France intending to submit to the laws, and agreeing to take
oath to the Constitution. You can understand that the document ought to
be in my hands before they are arrested, and be dated some days earlier.
I would then be the bearer of it—I do not ask you where those young men
are," he said again, seeing another gesture of denial from the priest.
"We are, unfortunately, sure of finding them; the forest is guarded, the
entrances to Paris and the frontiers are all watched. Pray listen to me;
if these gentlemen are between the forest and Paris they must be taken;
if they are in Paris they will be found; if they retreat to the frontier
they will still be arrested. The First Consul likes the
ci-devants
,
and cannot endure the republicans—simple enough; if he wants a throne
he must needs strangle Liberty. Keep the matter a secret between us.
This is what I will do; I will stay here till to-morrow and
be blind
;
but beware of the agent; that cursed Provencal is the devil's own valet;
he has the ear of Fouche just as I have that of the First Consul."