The Serapion Brethren Volume Ii Part 16

She opened a window, and called down into the street, asking who it was who was making such a tremendous thundering at the door at that time of the night, rousing everybody from their sleep. This she did in a voice which she tried to make as like a man's as she could. By the glimmer of the moon, which was beginning to break through dark clouds, she could make out a tall figure, in a long grey cloak, with a broad hat drawn down over the forehead. Then she cried, in a loud voice, so that this person in the street should hear, "Baptiste! Claude! Pierre! Get up, and see who this rascal is who is trying to get in at this time of night." But a gentle, entreating voice spake from beneath, saying, "Ah, La Martiniere, I know it is you, you kind soul, though you are trying to alter your voice; and I know well enough that Baptiste is away in the country, and that there is n.o.body in the house but your mistress and yourself. Let me in. I _must_ speak with your lady this instant."

"Do you imagine," asked La Martiniere, "that my lady is going to speak to you in the middle of the night? Can't you understand that she has been in bed ever so long, and that it is as much as my place is worth to awaken her out of her first sweet sleep, which is so precious to a person at her time of life?"

"I know," answered the person beneath, "that she has just this moment put away the ma.n.u.script of the novel 'Clelia,' at which she is working so hard, and is writing some verses which she means to read to-morrow at Madame de Maintenon's. I implore you, Madame La Martiniere, be so compa.s.sionate as to open the door. Upon your doing so depends the escape of an unfortunate creature from destruction. Nay, honour, freedom, a human life, depend on this moment in which I _must_ speak with your lady. Remember, her anger will rest upon you for ever when she comes to know that it was you who cruelly drove away from her door the unfortunate wretch who came to beg for her help."

"But why should you come for her help at such an extraordinary time of the night?" asked La Martiniere. "Come back in the morning at a reasonable hour." But the reply came up, "Does destiny, when it strikes like the destroying lightning, consider hours and times? When there is but one moment when rescue is possible, is help to be put off? Open me the door. Have no fear of a wretched being who is without defence, hunted, under the pressure of a terrible fate, and flies to your lady for succour from the most imminent peril."

La Martiniere heard the stranger moaning and groaning as he uttered those words in the deepest sorrow, and the tone of his voice was that of a youth, soft and gentle, and going profoundly to the heart. She was deeply touched, and without much more hesitation she went and fetched the key.

As soon as she opened the door, the form shrouded in the mantle burst violently in, and pa.s.sing La Martiniere, cried in a wild voice, "Take me to your lady!" La Martiniere held up the light which she was carrying, and the glimmer fell on the face of a very young man, distorted and frightfully drawn, and as pale as death. She almost fell down on the landing for terror when he opened his cloak and showed the glittering hilt of a stiletto sticking in his doublet. He flashed his gleaming eyes at her, and cried, more wildly than before, "Take me to your lady, I tell you."

La Martiniere saw that her mistress was in the utmost danger. All her affection for her, who was to her as the kindest of mothers, flamed up and created a courage which she herself would scarcely have thought herself capable of. She quickly closed the door of her room, moved rapidly in front of it, and said, in a brave, firm voice, "Your furious behaviour, now that you have got into the house, is very different to what might have been expected from the way you spoke down in the street. I see now that I had pity on you a little too easily. My lady you shall not see or speak with at this hour. If you have no bad designs, and are not afraid to show yourself in daylight, come and tell her your business to-morrow; but take yourself off out of this house now."

He heaved a hollow sigh, glared at La Martiniere with a terrible expression, and grasped his dagger. She silently commended her soul to G.o.d, but stood firm and looked him straight in the face, pressing herself more firmly against the door through which he would have to pa.s.s in order to reach her mistress.

"Let me get to your lady, I tell you!" he cried once more.

"Do what you will," said La Martiniere, "I shall not move from this spot. Finish the crime which you have begun to commit. A shameful death on the Place de Greve will overtake you, as it has your accursed comrades in wickedness."

"Ha! you are right, La Martiniere," he cried. "I am armed, and I look as if I were an accursed robber and murderer. But my comrades are not executed--are not executed," and he drew his dagger, advancing with poisonous looks towards the terrified woman.

"Jesus!" she cried, expecting her death-wound; but at that moment there came up from the street below the clatter and the ring of arms, and the hoof-tread of horses.

"La Marechaussee! La Marechaussee! Help! help!" she cried.

"Wretched woman, you will be my destruction," he cried. "All is over now--all over! Here, take it; take it. Give this to your lady now, or to-morrow if you like it better." As he said this in a whisper, he took the candelabra from her, blew out the tapers, and placed a casket in her hands. "As you prize your eternal salvation," he cried, "give this to your lady." He dashed out of the door, and was gone.

La Martiniere had sunk to the floor. She raised herself with difficulty, and groped her way back in the darkness to her room, where, wholly overcome and unable to utter a sound, she fell into an arm-chair. Presently she heard the bolts rattle, which she had left unfastened when she closed the house door. The house was therefore now shut up, and soft unsteady steps were approaching her room. Like one under a spell, unable to move, she was preparing for the very worst, when, to her inexpressible joy, the door opened, and by the pale light of the night-lamp she saw it was Baptiste. He was deadly pale, and much upset. "For the love of all the saints," he exclaimed, "tell me what has happened! Oh, what a state I am in! Something--I don't know what it was--told me to come away from the wedding yesterday--forced me to come away. So when I got to this street, I thought, Madame Martiniere isn't a heavy sleeper; she'll hear me if I knock quietly at the door, and let me in. Then up came a strong patrol meeting me, hors.e.m.e.n and foot, armed to the teeth. They stopped me, and wouldn't let me go. Luckily Desgrais was there, the lieutenant of the Marechaussee. He knows me, and as they were holding their lanterns under my nose, he said, 'Ho, Baptiste! How come you here in the streets at this time of the night?

You ought to be at home, taking care of the house. This is not a very safe spot just at this moment. We're expecting to make a fine haul, an important arrest, to-night.' You can't think, Madame La Martiniere, how I felt when he said that. And when I got to the door, lo! and behold! a man in a cloak comes bursting out with a drawn dagger in his hand, runs round me, and makes off. The door was open, the keys in the lock. What, in the name of all that's holy, is the meaning of it all?"

La Martiniere, relieved from her alarm, told him all that had happened, and both she and he went back to the hall, where they found the candelabra on the floor, where the stranger had thrown it on taking his flight. "There can't be the slightest doubt that our mistress was within an ace of being robbed, and murdered too, very likely," Baptiste said. "According to what you say, the scoundrel knew well enough that there was n.o.body in the house but her and you, and even that she was still sitting up at her writing. Of course he was one of those infernal blackguards who pry into folks' houses and spy out everything that can be of use to them in their devilish designs. And the little casket, Madame Martiniere, that, I think, we'll throw into the Seine where it's deepest. Who shall be our warrant that some monster or other isn't lying in wait for our mistress's life? Very likely, if she opens the casket, she may tumble down dead, as the old Marquis de Tournay did when he opened a letter which came to him, he didn't know where from."

After a long consultation, they came to the conclusion that they would, next morning, tell their lady everything that had happened, and even hand her the mysterious casket, which might, perhaps, be opened if proper precautions were taken. On carefully weighing all the circ.u.mstances connected with the apparition of the stranger, they thought that there must be some special secret or mystery involved in the affair, which they were not in a position to unravel, but must leave to be elucidated by their superiors.

There were good grounds for Baptiste's fears. Paris, at the time in question, was the scene of atrocious deeds of violence, and that just at a period when the most diabolical inventions of h.e.l.l provided the most facile means for their execution.

Glaser, a German apothecary, the most learned chemist of his day, occupied himself--as people who cultivate his science often do--with alchemical researches and experiments. He had set himself the task of discovering the philosopher's stone. An Italian of the name of Exili a.s.sociated himself with him; but to him the art of goldmaking formed a mere pretext. What he aimed at mastering was the blending, preparation, and sublimation of the various poisonous substances which Glaser hoped would give him the results he was in search of, and at length Exili discovered how to prepare that delicate poison which has no odour nor taste, and which, killing either slowly or in a moment, leaves not the slightest trace in the human organism, and baffles the utmost skill of the physician, who, not suspecting poison as the means of death, ascribes it to natural causes. But cautiously as Exili went about this, he fell under suspicion of dealing with poisons, and was thrown into the Bastille. In the same cell with him there was presently quartered an officer of the name of G.o.dwin de Sainte-Croix, who had long lived in relations with the Marquise de Brinvilliers which brought shame upon all her family; and at length, as her husband cared nothing about her conduct, her father (Dreux d'Aubray, Civil Lieutenant of Paris) had to part the guilty pair by means of a _lettre de cachet_ against Sainte-Croix. The latter, being a man of pa.s.sionate nature, characterless, affecting sanct.i.ty, but addicted from his youth to every vice, jealous, envious even to fury, nothing could be more welcome to him than Exili's devilish secret, which gave him the power of destroying all his enemies. He became Exili's a.s.siduous pupil, and soon equalled his instructor, so that when he was released from prison he was in a position to carry on operations by himself on his own account.

La Brinvilliers was a depraved woman, and Sainte-Croix made her a monster. She managed, by degrees, to poison, first, her own father (with whom she was living, on the hypocritical pretence of taking care of him in his declining years), next her two brothers, and then her sister; the father out of revenge, and the others for their fortunes.

The histories of more than one poisoner bear terrible evidence that this description of crime a.s.sumes the form of an irresistible pa.s.sion.

Just as a chemist makes experiments for the pleasure and the interest of watching them, poisoners have often, without the smallest ulterior object, killed persons whose living or dying was to them a matter of complete indifference. The sudden deaths of a number of paupers, patients at the Hotel Dieu, a little time after the events just alluded to, led to suspicion that the bread which La Brinvilliers was in the habit of giving them every week (by way of an example of piety and benevolence) was poisoned. And it is certain that she poisoned pigeon pasties which were served up to guests whom she had invited. The Chevalier du Guet, and many more, were the victims of those diabolical entertainments. Sainte-Croix, his accomplice La Chaussee, and La Brinvilliers, managed to hide their crimes for a long while under a veil of impenetrable secrecy. But, however the wicked may brazen matters out, there comes a time when the Eternal Power of Heaven punishes the criminal, even here on earth. The poisons which Sainte-Croix prepared were so marvellously delicate that if the powder (which the Parisians appositely named "_poudre de succession_") was uncovered while being made, a single inhalation of it was sufficient to cause immediate death. Therefore Sainte-Croix always wore a gla.s.s mask when at work. This mask fell off one day just as he was shaking a finished powder into a phial, and, having inhaled some of the powder, he fell dead in an instant. As he had no heirs, the law courts at once placed his property under seal, when the whole diabolical a.r.s.enal of poison-murder which had been at the villain's disposal was discovered, and also the letters of Madame de Brinvilliers, which left no doubt as to her crimes. She fled to a convent at Liege. Desgrais, an officer of the Marechaussee, was sent after her. Disguised as a priest, he got admitted into the convent, and succeeded in involving the terrible woman in a love-affair, and in getting her to grant him a clandestine meeting in a sequestered garden outside the town. When she arrived there she found herself surrounded by Desgrais' myrmidons; and her ecclesiastical gallant speedily transformed himself into the officer of the Marechaussee, and compelled her to get into the carriage which was waiting outside the garden, and drove straight away to Paris, surrounded by an ample guard. La Chaussee had been beheaded previously to this, and La Brinvilliers suffered the same death. Her body was burnt, and its ashes scattered to the winds.

The Parisians breathed freely again when the world was freed from the presence of this monster, who had so long wielded, with impunity, unpunished, the weapon of secret murder against friend and foe. But it soon became bruited abroad that the terrible art of the accursed La Croix had been, somehow, handed down to a successor, who was carrying it on triumphantly. Murder came gliding like an invisible, capricious spectre into the narrowest and most intimate circles of relations.h.i.+p, love, and friends.h.i.+p, pouncing securely and swiftly upon its unhappy victims. Men who, to-day, were seen in robust health, were tottering about on the morrow feeble and sick; and no skill of physicians could restore them. Wealth, a good appointment or office, a nice-looking wife, perhaps a little too young for her husband, were ample reasons for a man's being dogged to death. The most frightful mistrust snapped the most sacred ties. The husband trembled before his wife; the father dreaded the son; the sister the brother. When your friend asked you to dinner, you carefully avoided tasting the dishes and wines which he set before you; and where joy and merriment used to reign, there were now nothing but wild looks watching to detect the secret murderer. Fathers of families were to be seen with anxious looks, buying supplies of food in out-of-the-way places where they were not known, and cooking them themselves in dirty cook-shops, for dread of treason in their own homes. And yet often the most careful and ingenious precautions were unavailing.

For the repression of this ever-increasing disorder the King const.i.tuted a fresh tribunal, to which he entrusted the special investigation and punishment of those secret crimes. This was the Chambre Ardente, which held its sittings near the Bastille. La Regnie was its president. For a considerable time La Regnie's efforts, a.s.siduous as they were, were unsuccessful, and it was the lot of the much overworked Desgrais to discover the most secret lurking-hole of the crime. In the Faubourg Saint-Germain there lived an old woman, named La Voisin, who followed the calling of a teller of fortunes and a summoner of spirits, and, a.s.sisted by her accomplices Le Sage and Le Vigoureux, managed to alarm and astonish people who were by no means to be considered weak or superst.i.tious. But she did more than this. She was a pupil of Exili's, like La Croix, and, like him, prepared the delicate, traceless poison, which helped wicked sons to speedy inheritance and unprincipled wives to other, younger husbands. Desgrais fathomed her secrets; she made full confession; the Chambre Ardente sentenced her to be burned, and the sentence was carried out on the Place de Greve. Amongst her effects was found a list of those who had availed themselves of her services; whence it followed, not only that execution succeeded execution, but that strong suspicion fell on persons of high consideration. Thus it was believed that Cardinal Bonzy had obtained from La Voisin the means of disembarra.s.sing himself of all the persons to whom, in his capacity of Archbishop of Narbonne, he was bound to pay pensions. Similarly, the d.u.c.h.ess de Bouillon and the Countess de Soissons (their names having been found in La Voisin's list) were accused of having had relations with her; and even Francis Henri de Montmorency, Boudebelle, Duke of Luxemburg, Peer and Marshal of the realm, did not escape arraignment before the Chambre Ardente. He surrendered himself to imprisonment in the Bastille, where the hatred of Louvois and La Regnie immured him in a cell only six feet long.

Months elapsed before it was proved that his offences did not deserve so severe a punishment. He had once gone to La Voisin to have his horoscope drawn.

What is certain is that an excess of inconsiderate zeal led President La Regnie into violently illegal and barbarous measures. His Court a.s.sumed the character of the Inquisition. The very slightest suspicion rendered any one liable to severe imprisonment, and the establishment of the innocence of a person tried for his life was often only a matter of the merest chance. Besides, Regnie was repulsive to behold, and of malicious disposition, so that he excited the hatred of those whose avenger or protector he was called upon to be. When he asked the d.u.c.h.ess de Bouillon if she had ever seen the devil, she answered, "I think I see him at this moment."

Whilst now, on the Place de Greve, the blood of the guilty and of the merely suspected was flowing in streams, and secret deaths by poison were, at last, becoming more and more rare, a trouble of another description showed itself, spreading abroad fresh consternation. It seemed that a gang of robbers had made up their minds to possess themselves of all the jewels in the city. Whenever a valuable set of ornaments was bought, it disappeared in an inexplicable manner, however carefully preserved and protected. And everybody who dared to wear precious stones in the evening was certain to be robbed, either in the public streets or in the dark pa.s.sages of houses. Very often they were not only robbed, but murdered. Such of them as escaped with their lives said they had been felled by the blow of a clenched fist on the head, which came on them like a thunderbolt. And when they recovered their senses they found that they had been robbed, and were in a totally different place from that where they had been knocked down. Those who were murdered--and they were found nearly every morning lying in the streets or in houses--had all the selfsame mortal wound--a dagger-thrust, right through the heart, which the surgeons said must have been delivered with such swiftness and certainty that the victim must have fallen dead without the power of uttering a sound. Now who, in all the luxurious Court of Louis Quatorze, was there who was not implicated in some secret love-affair, and, consequently, often gliding about the streets late at night with valuable presents in his pockets?

Just as if this robber-gang were in intercourse with spirits, they always knew perfectly well when anything of this kind was going on.

Often the fortunate lover wouldn't reach the house where his lady was expecting him; often he would fall at her threshold, at her very door, where, to her horror, she would discover his bleeding body lying.

It was in vain that Argenson, the Minister of Police, arrested every individual, in all Paris, who seemed to be touched by the very faintest suspicion; in vain La Regnie raged, striving to compel confession; in vain guards and patrols were reinforced. Not a trace of the perpetrators of those outrages was to be discovered. The only thing which was of a certain degree of use was to go about armed to the teeth, and have a light carried before you; and yet there were cases in which the servant who carried the light had his attention occupied by having stones thrown at him, whilst at that very instant his master was being robbed and murdered.

It was a remarkable feature of this business that, notwithstanding all search and investigation in every quarter where there seemed to be any chance of dealing in jewels going on, not a trace of even the smallest of the plundered precious stones ever came to light. Desgrais foamed in fury that even his ac.u.men and skill were powerless to prevent the escape of those scoundrels. Whatever part of the town he happened to be in for the time was let alone, whilst in some other quarter, robbery and murder were lying in wait for their rich prey.

Desgrais. .h.i.t upon the clever idea of setting several facsimiles of himself on foot--various Desgrais, exactly alike in gait, speech, figure, face, &c.; so that his own men could not tell the one of them from the other, or say which was the real Desgrais. Meanwhile he, at the risk of his life, watched alone in the most secret hiding-places, and followed, at a distance, this or the other person who seemed, by the looks of him, to be likely to have jewels about him. But those whom he was watching were unharmed, so that this artifice of his was as well known, to the culprits as everything else seemed to be. Desgrais was in utter despair.

One morning he came to President La Regnie, pale, distorted, almost out of his mind.

"What is it--what news? Have you come upon the clue?" the President cried to him as he came in.

"Ah, Monsieur!" cried Desgrais, stammering in fury, "last night, near the Louvre, the Marquis de la Fare was set upon under my very nose!"

"Heaven and earth!" cried La Regnie, overjoyed, "we have got them!"

"Wait a moment, listen," said Desgrais, with a bitter smile. "I was standing near the Louvre, watching and waiting, with h.e.l.l itself in my heart, for those devils who have been baffling me for such a length of time. There came a figure close by me--not seeing me--with careful uncertain steps, always looking behind it. By the moonlight I recognised the Marquis de la Fare. I expected that he would be pa.s.sing.

I knew where he was gliding to. Scarcely had he got ten or twelve paces beyond me, when, out of the ground apparently, springs a figure, dashes the Marquis to the ground, falls down upon him. Losing my self-command at this occurrence, which seemed to be likely to deliver the murderer into my hands, I cried out aloud, and meant to spring from my hiding-place with a great jump and seize hold of him. But I tripped up in my cloak and fell down. I saw the fellow flee away as if on the wings of the wind; I picked myself up, and made off after him as fast as I could. As I ran, I sounded my horn. Out of the distance the whistles of my men answered me. Things grew lively--clatter of arms, tramp of horses on all sides. 'Here!--come to me!--Desgrais!' I cried, till the streets re-echoed. All the time I saw the man before me in the bright moonlight, turning off right--left--to get away from me. We came to the Rue Nicaise. There his strength seemed to begin to fail. I gathered mine up. He was not more than fifteen paces ahead of me."

"You got hold of him!--your men came up!" cried La Regnie, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, grasping Desgrais by the arm as if he were the fleeing murderer himself.

"Fifteen paces ahead of me," said Desgrais, in a hollow voice, and drawing his breath hard, "this fellow, before my eyes, dodged to one side, and vanished through the wall."

"Vanished!--through the wall! Are you out of your senses?" La Regnie cried, stepping three steps backwards, and striking his hands together.

"Call me as great a madman as you please, Monsieur," said Desgrais, rubbing his forehead like one tortured by evil thoughts. "Call me a madman, or a silly spirit-seer; but what I have told you is the literal truth. I stood staring at the wall, while several of my men came up out of breath, and with them the Marquis de la Fare (who had picked himself up), with his drawn sword in his hand. We lighted torches, we examined the wall all over. There was not the trace of a door, a window, any opening. It is a strong stone wall of a courtyard, belonging to a house, in which people are living--against whom there is not the slightest suspicion. I have looked into the whole thing again this morning in broad daylight. It must be the very devil himself who is at work befooling us in the matter."

This story got bruited abroad through Paris, where all heads were full of the witch-business, spirit conjuration, devil-covenants of La Voisin, Vigoureux, and the wicked priest Le Sage; and as it does lie in our eternal nature that the bent towards the supernatural and the marvellous overpa.s.ses all reason, people soon believed nothing less than that which Desgrais had only said in his impatience--namely, that the very devil himself must protect those rascals, and that they had sold their souls to him. We can readily understand that Desgrais's story soon received many absurd embellishments. It was printed, and hawked about the town, with a woodcut at the top representing a horrible devil-form sinking into the ground before the terrified Desgrais. Quite enough to frighten the people, and so terrify Desgrais's men that they lost all courage, and went about the streets behung with amulets, and sprinkled with holy water.

Argenson, seeing that the Chambre Ardente was unsuccessful, applied to the King to const.i.tute--with special reference to this novel description of crime--a tribunal armed with greater powers for tracking and punis.h.i.+ng offenders. The King, thinking he had already given powers too ample to the Chambre Ardente, and shocked at the horrors of the numberless executions, carried out by the bloodthirsty La Regnie, refused.

Then another method of influencing His Majesty was devised.

In the apartments of Madame de Maintenon,--where the King was in the habit of spending much of his time in the afternoons,--and also, very often, would be at work with his Ministers till late at night--a poetical pet.i.tion was laid before him, on the part of the "Endangered Lovers," who complained that when "galanterie" rendered it inc.u.mbent on them to be the bearers of some valuable present to the ladies of their hearts, they had always to do it at the risk of their lives. They said, that, of course, it was honour and delight to pour out their blood for the lady of their heart, in knightly encounter, but that the treacherous attack of the a.s.sa.s.sin, against which it was impossible to guard, was quite a different matter. They expressed their hope that Louis, the bright pole-star of love and gallantry, might deign--arising and s.h.i.+ning in fullest splendour--to dispel the darkness of night, and thus reveal the black mysteries hidden thereby; that the G.o.d-like hero, who had hurled his foes to the dust, would now once more wave his flas.h.i.+ng faulchion, and, as did Hercules in the case of the Laernean Hydra, and Theseus in that of the Minotaur, vanquish the threatening monster who was eating up all love-delight, and darkening all joy into deep sorrow and inconsolable mourning.

Serious as the subject was, this poem was not deficient in most wittily-turned phrases, particularly where it described the state of watchful anxiety in which lovers had to glide to their lady-loves, and how this mental strain necessarily destroyed all love-happiness, and nipped all adventures of "galanterie" in the very bud. And, as it wound up with a high-flown panegyric of Louis XIV., the King could not but read it with visible satisfaction. When he perused it, he turned to Madame de Maintenon--without taking his eyes from it--read it again--aloud this time--and then asked, with a pleased smile, what she thought of the pet.i.tion of the 'Endangered Lovers.' Madame de Maintenon, faithful to her serious turn, and ever wearing the garb of a certain piousness, answered that hidden and forbidden ways did not deserve much in the form of protection, but that the criminals probably did require special laws for their punishment. The King, not satisfied with this answer, folded the paper up, and was going back to the Secretary of State, who was at work in the ante-room, when, happening to glance sideways, his eyes rested on Mademoiselle Scuderi, who was present, seated in a little arm-chair. He went straight to her; and the pleased smile which had at first been playing about his mouth and cheeks--but had disappeared--resumed the ascendency again. Standing close before her, with his face unwrinkling itself, he said--

"The Marquise does not know, and has no desire to learn, anything about the 'galanteries' of our enamoured gentlemen, and evades the subject in ways which are nothing less than forbidden. But, Mademoiselle, what do _you_ think of this poetical pet.i.tion?"

Mademoiselle Scuderi rose from her chair; a transient blush, like the purple of the evening sky, pa.s.sed across her pale cheeks, and, gently bending forward, she answered, with downcast eyes--

"Un amant qui craint les voleurs.

N'est point digne d'amour."

The King, surprised, and struck by admiration at the chivalrous spirit of those few words--which completely took the wind out of the sails of the poem, with all its ell-long tirades--cried, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes--