Robert Tournay Part 4

"The disturbance of to-day will become great enough to shake France to its centre," said the chevalier.

"One would think that you possessed the gift of second sight," laughed de Lacheville.

"I do," replied the old man impressively.

"Give us an example of it, then," demanded d'Arlincourt. "What part am I to take in the new revolution?"

"I see behind you, my dear d'Arlincourt," replied the chevalier, leaning back in his chair and looking in the count's direction through half-closed eyelids, "the shadow of a scaffold."

Unwittingly the count turned with a start, to see Blaise standing behind him in the act of filling his gla.s.s with wine. There was a general laugh.

"Madame de Remur will bare her white shoulders to the rude grasp of the executioner. De Lacheville will escape. No, he will not. He will die by his own hand to cheat the scaffold."

"And I," interrupted the Countess d'Arlincourt, "shall I share their fate?"

The chevalier looked at her with a peculiar expression in his eyes. "My sight fails here," he said. "I cannot foretell your fate. Yet you may live; your beauty should save you. People do not kill those who please them; those who bore them are less fortunate." And he turned his snapping brown eyes in the direction of the gentle poet and the venerable philosopher.

"St. Hilaire's sudden and great interest in the people's welfare may prove of service to him," remarked d'Arlincourt significantly.

"It will not save him," replied the chevalier. "He will finally come to the same end. The shadow of the scaffold is behind him also."

St. Hilaire laughed as he cracked an almond. "Though I may sympathize somewhat with a people who have been oppressed and robbed, I should feel unhappy indeed to be left out in the cold when so many of the ill.u.s.trious had gone before. But you have overlooked yourself. That is like you, chevalier, unselfish to the last."

"Oh, I am too old to be of importance; I shall die of gout," said the old n.o.bleman.

"You have disposed of us effectually," said the poet, "and I shall be greatly honored at being permitted to leave this world in such good company. But may I ask, are we to be the sole victims of your revolution?"

"Far from it," answered the old chevalier, closing his eyes and speaking in an abstracted manner, as if talking to himself, while his friends listened in rapt attention, half inclined to smile at the affair as at a joke, and yet so serious was he that they could not escape the influence of his seriousness.

"I can see," he continued, "a long line of the most ill.u.s.trious in France. They are pa.s.sing onward to the block. They are princes of the blood; aye, even the king's head shall fall."

"Enough!" cried out the voice of d'Arlincourt, above the general exclamations of horror that the chevalier's pretended vision called forth. "You overstep the line, Chevalier de Creux. I do not object to a pleasantry, but when you go so far as to predict the execution of the king you carry a jest too far. It is time to call a halt."

"But was it a jest?" asked the chevalier dryly.

"A very poor one," said de Lacheville.

"My dear friend," said the chevalier in his blandest tone, "I am not predicting what I should like to have take place. Not what ought to be, but what will be."

The count scowled and de Lacheville turned away with a shrug and began a conversation with Madame de Remur.

"We all know that the chevalier is a merry gentleman, yet no jester,"

said St. Hilaire. "What will be, will be. I, for one, am willing to drink a toast to the chevalier's revolution. Blaise, bring out some of that wine I received from the Count de Beaujeu. I lost fifty thousand livres to him the night he made me a present of this wine; it will be like drinking liquid gold."

Blaise filled the gla.s.ses amid general silence.

St. Hilaire rose to his feet, holding his wine-gla.s.s above his head.

"What, my friends, you are not afraid?" he exclaimed in a tone of surprise, looking about the table where only the chevalier and the philosopher had followed his example. "Is it possible you have taken the chevalier's visions so much to heart?"

They all rose from their places, ashamed to have it thought that they had taken in too serious a vein the little comedy played by the chevalier.

"Any excuse to drink such wine as this," said de Lacheville, with a forced laugh.

"We drink to the revolution!" cried St. Hilaire in his reckless manner--and he touched gla.s.ses with Madame de Remur and then with the Countess d'Arlincourt. As the gla.s.ses clinked about the table, a heavy booming sound fell upon the ears of the revelers.

"What noise is that?" cried the countess nervously. They stopped to listen, holding their gla.s.ses aloft. The booming ceased, then followed a roar like that of the angry surf beating upon a rockbound sh.o.r.e.

"It is the chevalier's revolution," exclaimed Madame de Remur.

"Are we to be frightened from drinking our toast by a little noise?"

cried St. Hilaire. "What if it be the revolution? Let us drink to it.

Come!" and they drained their gla.s.ses to the accompaniment of what sounded like a volley of musketry.

The ladies looked pale and were glad to quit the table for the salon, where they were joined by the poet and the philosopher, leaving the others still at their wine.

The Marquis de Lacheville took another gla.s.s, and then a third.

"You had best be careful how you heat your blood with this rich wine, de Lacheville, while that wound in your side is scarcely healed," remarked d'Arlincourt.

"Confound the wound, and curse the young villain who gave it me,"

growled de Lacheville. "I have been forced to lead the life of an anchorite for the past fortnight; but such nectar as this cannot inflame, it only soothes," and he reached out his hand toward the decanter. As he did so, the sound of guns reverberated again through the room, making the windows rattle and jarring the dishes on the table. The ladies in the adjoining room cried out in alarm, and d'Arlincourt rose and went to rea.s.sure them.

"I will go with you," said the chevalier, and he joined the count.

De Lacheville threw his napkin down upon the spot of wine that had splashed from his upraised gla.s.s upon the damask cloth.

"The devil take them!" he cried petulantly; then filling his gla.s.s again with an air of bravado, "will they not permit a man to breakfast in peace?"

"Your nerves must be badly shaken, de Lacheville, if you permit such a slight thing to disturb you," laughed St. Hilaire, filling a gla.s.s to the brim.

D'Arlincourt entered from the next room hurriedly. "I am going to see what all this firing means," he said. "Will you accompany me, gentlemen?"

"I make it a point never to seek for news or excitement, but rather allow them to come to me," said St. Hilaire leisurely. "You would better sit down and let me send a servant to ascertain the cause of this turmoil."

"Why leave the house in search of truth when we have with us an oracle in the shape of the chevalier?" interposed the Marquis de Lacheville.

"I shall be able to bring a more accurate account," replied d'Arlincourt with an impatient shrug.

"As you will," said St. Hilaire. "Blaise, give the Count d'Arlincourt his hat and sword. Are you quite sure you do not want some of my lackeys to accompany you?" he asked.

D'Arlincourt declined the offer and hastily left the room.

The two marquises were left in possession of the dining-room and the wine. They both continued to drink, each after his own fas.h.i.+on. With each successive gla.s.s, de Lacheville became louder in voice and more boastful, while as St. Hilaire sipped his wine, he became quieter and more indifferent.

Within ten minutes d'Arlincourt returned to them, his face betraying great excitement.

"A mob has attacked and captured the Bastille. The mult.i.tude is surging through the streets. They will pa.s.s before this very door."