The Conspirators Part 66

Buvat thought he should faint, he felt his legs fail him, and leaned against a wall.

"What is the matter, monsieur?" asked his guide.

"Pardon, monsieur," murmured Buvat, "but who is the person to whom I have just had the honor of speaking?"

"Monseigneur the Regent in person."

"Not possible!"

"Not only possible, but true."

"What! it was the regent himself who promised to pay me my arrears?"

"I do not know what he promised you, but I know that the person who gave me the order to accompany you was the regent."

"But he told me he was called Philippe."

"Well, he is--Philippe d'Orleans."

"That is true, monsieur, that is true, Philippe is his Christian name.

The regent is a brave man, and when I remember that there exist scoundrels who conspire against him--against a man who has promised to pay me my arrears--but they deserve to be hanged, all of them, to be broken on the wheel, drawn and quartered, burned alive; do not you think so, monsieur?"

"Monsieur," said Ravanne, laughing, "I have no opinion on matters of such importance. We are at the gate; I should be happy to accompany you further, but monseigneur leaves in half an hour for the Abbey of Ch.e.l.les, and, as he has some orders to give me before his departure, I am--to my great regret--obliged to quit you."

"All the regret is on my side, monsieur," said Buvat, graciously, and answering by a profound bow to the slight nod of the young man, who, when Buvat raised his head, had already disappeared. This departure left Buvat perfectly free in his movements, and he profited thereby to take his way down the Place des Victoires toward the Rue du Temps-Perdu, round the corner of which he turned at the very moment when D'Harmental ran his sword through the body of Roquefinette. It was at this moment that poor Bathilde--who was far from suspecting what was pa.s.sing in her neighbor's room--had seen her guardian, and had rushed to meet him on the stairs, where Buvat and she had met at the third flight.

"Oh, my dear, dear father," cried Bathilde, remounting the staircase in Buvat's arms, and stopping to embrace him at every step, "where have you been? What has happened? How is it that we have not seen you since Monday? What uneasiness you have caused us, mon Dieu! But something extraordinary must have occurred."

"Yes, most extraordinary," answered Buvat.

"Ah, mon Dieu! tell then me, first, where do you come from?"

"From the Palais Royal."

"What! from the Palais Royal; and with whom were you stopping at the Palais Royal?"

"The regent."

"You with the regent! and what about?"

"I was a prisoner."

"A prisoner--you!"

"A State prisoner."

"And why were you a prisoner?"

"Because I have saved France."

"Oh, father! are you mad?" cried Bathilde, terrified.

"No, but there has been enough to make me so if I had not had a pretty strong head."

"Oh, explain, for G.o.d's sake!"

"Fancy that there was a conspiracy against the regent."

"Oh, mon Dieu!"

"And that I belonged to it."

"You?"

"Yes, I, without being--that is to say, you know that Prince de Listhnay?"

"Well!"

"A sham prince, my child, a sham prince!"

"But the copies which you made for him?"

"Manifestoes, proclamations, incendiary papers, a general revolt, Brittany--Normandy--the States-General--king of Spain--I have discovered all this."

"You?" cried Bathilde, horrified.

"Yes, I; and the regent has called me the savior of France--me; and is going to pay me my arrears."

"My father, my father, you talk of conspirators, do you remember the name of any of them?"

"Firstly, Monsieur the Duc de Maine; fancy that miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.d conspiring against a man like Monseigneur the Regent. Then a Count de Laval, a Marquis de Pompadour, a Baron de Valef, the Prince de Cellamare, the Abbe Brigaud, that abominable Abbe Brigaud! Think of my having copied the list."

"My father," said Bathilde, shuddering with fear, "my father, among all those names, did you not see the name--the name--of--Chevalier--Raoul d'Harmental?"

"That I did," cried Buvat, "the Chevalier Raoul d'Harmental--why he is the head of the company: but the regent knows them all, and this very evening they will all be arrested, and to-morrow hanged, drawn, quartered, broken on the wheel."

"Oh, luckless, shameful, that you are!" cried Bathilde, wringing her hands wildly; "you have killed the man whom I love--but, I swear to you, by the memory of my mother, that if he dies, I will die also!"

And thinking that she might still be in time to warn D'Harmental of the danger which threatened him, Bathilde left Buvat confounded, darted to the door, flew down the staircase, cleared the street at two bounds, rushed up the stairs, and, breathless, terrified, dying, hurled herself against the door of D'Harmental's room, which, badly closed by the chevalier, yielded before her, exposing to her view the body of the captain stretched on the floor, and swimming in a sea of blood.

At this sight, so widely different from what she expected, Bathilde, not thinking that she might perhaps be compromising her lover, sprang toward the door, calling for help, but on reaching the threshold, either from weakness, or from the blood, her foot slipped, and she fell backward with a terrible cry.

The neighbors came running in the direction of the cry, and found that Bathilde had fainted, and that her head, in falling against the angle of the door, had been badly wounded.

They carried Bathilde to Madame Denis's room, and the good woman hastened to offer her hospitality.

As to Captain Roquefinette, as he had torn off the address of the letter which he had in his pocket to light his pipe with, and had no other paper to indicate his name or residence, they carried his body to the Morgue, where, three days afterward, it was recognized by La Normande.