The Conspirators Part 4

"He has the migraine."

"And Fargy?"

"He has sprained himself." And Ravanne disappeared in the crowd, after bowing in the most friendly manner to his adversary of the morning.

"Well, and the story?" asked Canillac.

"We are coming to it. Imagine that some time ago, when I left the Bastille, where my duel with Gace had sent me, three or four days after my reappearance Rafe gave me a charming little note from Madame de Parabere, inviting me to pa.s.s that evening with her. You understand, chevalier, that it is not at the moment of leaving the Bastille that one would despise a rendezvous, given by the mistress of him who holds the keys. No need to inquire if I was punctual; guess who I found seated on the sofa by her side. I give you a hundred guesses."

"Her husband," said Canillac.

"On the contrary, it was his royal highness himself. I was so much the more astonished, as I had been admitted with some mystery; nevertheless, as you will understand, I would not allow myself to appear astonished. I a.s.sumed a composed and modest air, like yours, Canillac, and saluted the marquise with such profound respect, that the regent laughed. I did not expect this explosion, and was a little disconcerted. I took a chair, but the regent signed to me to take my place on the sofa. I obeyed.

"'My dear duke,' he said, 'we have written to you on a serious affair.

Here is this poor marchioness, who, after being separated from her husband for two years, is threatened with an action by this clown, under pretext that she has a lover.' The marchioness tried to blush, but finding she could not, covered her face with her fan. 'At the first word she told me of her position,' continued the regent, 'I sent for D'Argenson, and asked him who this lover could be.'

"'Oh, monsieur, spare me!' said the marchioness.--'Nonsense, my little duck; a little patience.'--'Do you know what the lieutenant of police answered me, my dear duke?'--'No,' said I, much embarra.s.sed.--'He said it was either you or me.'--'It is an atrocious calumny,' I cried.--'Don't be excited, the marchioness has confessed all.'

"'Then,' I replied, 'if the marchioness has confessed all, I do not see what remains for me to tell.'--'Oh!' continued the regent, 'I do not ask you for details. It only remains for us, as accomplices, to get one another out of the sc.r.a.pe.'--'And what have you to fear, monseigneur?' I asked. 'I know that, protected by your highness's name, I might brave all. What have we to fear?'--'The outcry of Parabere, who wants me to make him a duke.'

"'Well, suppose we reconcile them,' replied I.--'Exactly,' said his highness, laughing; 'and you have had the same idea as the marchioness.'--'Pardieu, madame, that is an honor for me. There must be a kind of apparent reconciliation between this tender couple, which would prevent the marquis from incommoding us with the scandal of an action.'--'But the difficulty,' objected Madame de Parabere, 'is, that it is two years since he has been here; and, as he piques himself on his jealousy and severity, what can we say? He has made a vow, that if any one sets foot here during his absence, the law should avenge him.'

"'You see, Richelieu, this becomes rather uncomfortable,' added the regent.--'Peste! It does indeed.'--'I have some means of coercion in my hands, but they do not go so far as to force a husband to be reconciled to his wife, and to receive her at his house.'--'Well,' replied I, 'suppose we bring him here.'--'There is the difficulty.'--'Wait a moment. May I ask if Monsieur de Parabere still has a weakness for champagne and burgundy?'--'I fear so,' said the marchioness.--'Then, monseigneur, we are saved. I invite the marquis to supper, with a dozen of mauvais sujets and charming women. You send Dubois.'--'What! Dubois?'

asked the regent.

"'Certainly; one of us must remain sober. As Dubois cannot drink, he must undertake to make the marquis drink; and when everybody is under the table, he can take him away from us and do what he likes with him.

The rest depends on the coachman.'--'Did I not tell you, marchioness,'

said the regent, 'that Richelieu would give us good advice? Stop, duke,'

continued he; 'you must leave off wandering round certain palaces; leave the old lady to die quietly at St. Cyr, the lame man to rhyme at Sceaux, and join yourself with us. I will give you, in my cabinet, the place of that old fool D'Axelles; and affairs will not perhaps be injured by it.'--'I dare say,' answered I. 'The thing is impossible; I have other plans.'--'Obstinate fellow!' murmured the regent."

"And Monsieur de Parabere?" asked the Chevalier d'Harmental, curious to know the end of the story.--"Oh! everything pa.s.sed as we arranged it. He went to sleep at my house, and awoke at his wife's. He made a great noise, but there was no longer any possibility of crying scandal. His carriage had stopped at his wife's hotel, and all the servants saw him enter. He was reconciled in spite of himself. If he dares again to complain of his beautiful wife, we will prove to him, as clearly as possible, that he adores her without knowing it; and that she is the most innocent of women--also without his knowing it."

"Chevalier!" at this moment a sweet and flute-like voice whispered in D'Harmental's ear, while a little hand rested on his arm.

"You see that I am wanted."

"I will let you go on one condition."

"What is it?"

"That you will tell my story to this charming bat, charging her to tell it to all the night-birds of her acquaintance."

"I fear," said D'Harmental, "I shall not have time."

"Oh! so much the better for you," replied the duke, freeing the chevalier, whom till then he had held by the coat; "for then you must have something better to say."

And he turned on his heel, to take the arm of a domino, who, in pa.s.sing, complimented him on his adventure. D'Harmental threw a rapid glance on the mask who accosted him, in order to make sure that it was the one with whom he had a rendezvous, and was satisfied on seeing a violet ribbon on the left shoulder. He hastened to a distance from Canillac and Richelieu, in order not to be interrupted in a conversation which he expected to be highly interesting.

The unknown, whose voice betrayed her s.e.x, was of middle height, and young, as far as one could judge from the elasticity of her movements.

As M. de Richelieu had already remarked, she had adopted the costume best calculated to hide either graces or defects. She was dressed as a bat--a costume much in vogue, and very convenient, from its perfect simplicity, being composed only of two black skirts. The manner of employing them was at the command of everybody. One was fastened, as usual, round the waist; the masked head was pa.s.sed through the placket-hole of the other. The front was pulled down to make wings; the back raised to make horns. You were almost certain thus to puzzle an interlocutor, who could only recognize you by the closest scrutiny.

The chevalier made all these observations in less time than it has taken to describe them; but having no knowledge of the person with whom he had to deal, and believing it to be some love intrigue, he hesitated to speak; when, turning toward him:

"Chevalier," said the mask, without disguising her voice, a.s.suming that her voice was unknown to him, "do you know that I am doubly grateful to you for having come, particularly in the state of mind in which you are?

It is unfortunate that I cannot attribute this exact.i.tude to anything but curiosity."

"Beautiful mask!" answered D'Harmental, "did you not tell me in your letter that you were a good genius? Now, if really you partake of a superior nature, the past, the present and the future must be known to you. You knew, then, that I should come; and, since you knew it, my coming ought not to astonish you."

"Alas!" replied the unknown, "it is easy to see that you are a weak mortal, and that you are happy enough never to have raised yourself above your sphere, otherwise you would know that if we, as you say, know the past, the present and the future, this science is silent as to what regards ourselves, and that the things we most desire remain to us plunged in the most dense obscurity."

"Diable! Monsieur le Genie," answered D'Harmental, "do you know that you will make me very vain if you continue in that tone; for, take care, you have told me, or nearly so, that you had a great desire that I should come to your rendezvous."

"I did not think I was telling you anything new, chevalier. It appeared to me that my letter would leave you no doubt as to the desire I felt of seeing you."

"This desire, which I only admit because you confess it, and I am too gallant to contradict you--had it not made you promise in your letter more than is in your power to keep?"

"Make a trial of my science; that will give you a test of my power."

"Oh, mon Dieu! I will confine myself to the simplest thing. You say you are acquainted with the past, the present and the future. Tell me my fortune."

"Nothing easier; give me your hand."

D'Harmental did what was asked of him.

"Sir," said the stranger, after a moment's examination, "I see very legibly written by the direction of the 'adducta,' and by the arrangement of the longitudinal lines of the palm, five words, in which are included the history of your life. These words are, courage, ambition, disappointment, love, and treason."

"Peste!" interrupted the chevalier, "I did not know that the genii studied anatomy so deeply, and were obliged to take their degrees like a Bachelor of Salamanca!"

"Genii know all that men know, and many other things besides, chevalier."

"Well, then, what mean these words, at once so sonorous and so opposite?

and what do they teach you of me in the past, my very learned genius?"

"They teach me that it is by your courage alone that you gained the rank of colonel, which you occupied in the army in Flanders; that this rank awakened your ambition; that this ambition has been followed by a disappointment; that you hoped to console yourself for this disappointment by love; but that love, like fortune, is subject to treachery, and that you have been betrayed."

"Not bad," said the chevalier; "and the Sybil of c.u.ma could not have got out of it better. A little vague, as in all horoscopes, but a great fund of truth, nevertheless. Let us come to the present, beautiful mask."

"The present, chevalier? Let us speak softly of it, for it smells terribly of the Bastille."

The chevalier started in spite of himself, for he believed that no one except the actors who had played a part in it could know his adventure of the morning.

"There are at this hour," continued the stranger, "two brave gentlemen lying sadly in their beds, while we chat gayly at the ball; and that because a certain Chevalier d'Harmental, a great listener at doors, did not remember a hemistich of Virgil."

"And what is this hemistich?" asked the chevalier, more and more astonished.

"'Facilis descensus Averni,'" said the mask, laughing.

"My dear genius," cried the chevalier, trying to peep through the openings in the stranger's mask, "that, allow me to inform you, is a quotation rather masculine."