An Historical Mystery (The Gondreville Mystery)
“What does the horse look like?”
“He’s brown, turning rather to black; white stockings above the hoofs, thin, all nerves like an Arab.”
“Did you ever see an Arab?”
“In Egypt – last year. I’ve ridden the horses of the mamelukes. We have to serve twelve years in the cavalry, and I was on the Rhine under General Steingel, after that in Italy, and then I followed the First Consul to Egypt. I’ll be a corporal soon.”
“When I get to Michu’s house go to the stable; if you have served twelve years in the cavalry you know when a horse is blown. Let me know the condition of Michu’s beast.”
“See! that’s where our corporal was thrown,” said the man, pointing to a spot where the road they were following entered the rond-point.
“Tell the captain to come and pick me up at Michu’s, and I’ll go with him to Troyes.”
So saying Corentin got down, and stood about for a few minutes examining the ground. He looked at the two elms which faced each other, – one against the park wall, the other on the bank of the rond-point; then he saw (what no one had yet noticed) the button of a uniform lying in the dust, and he picked it up. Entering the lodge he saw Violette and Michu sitting at the table in the kitchen and talking eagerly. Violette rose, bowed to Corentin, and offered him some wine.
“Thank you, no; I came to see the corporal,” said the young man, who saw with half a glance that Violette had been drunk all night.
“My wife is nursing him upstairs,” said Michu.
“Well, corporal, how are you?” said Corentin who had run up the stairs and found the gendarme with his head bandaged, and lying on Madame Michu’s bed; his hat, sabre, and shoulder-belt on a chair.
Marthe, faithful in her womanly instincts, and knowing nothing of her son’s prowess, was giving all her care to the corporal, assisted by her mother.
“We expect Monsieur Varlet the doctor from Arcis,” she said to Corentin; “our servant-lad has gone to fetch him.”
“Leave us alone for a moment,” said Corentin, a good deal surprised at the scene, which amply proved the innocence of the two women. “Where were you struck?” he asked the man, examining his uniform.
“On the breast,” replied the corporal.
“Let’s see your belt,” said Corentin.
On the yellow band with a white edge, which a recent regulation had made part of the equipment of the guard now called National, was a metal plate a good deal like that of the foresters, on which the law required the inscription of these remarkable words: “Respect to persons and to properties.” Francois’s rope had struck the belt and defaced it. Corentin took up the coat and found the place where the button he had picked up upon the road belonged.
“What time did they find you?” asked Corentin.
“About daybreak.”
“Did they bring you up here at once?” said Corentin, noticing that the bed had not been slept in.
“Yes.”
“Who brought you up?”
“The women and little Michu, who found me unconscious.”
“So!” thought Corentin: “evidently they didn’t go to bed. The corporal was not shot at, nor struck by any weapon, for an assailant must have been at his own height to strike a blow. Something, some obstacle, was in his way and that unhorsed him. A piece of wood? not possible! an iron chain? that would have left marks. What did you feel?” he said aloud.
“I was knocked over so suddenly – ”
“The skin is rubbed off under your chin,” said Corentin quickly.
“I think,” said the corporal, “that a rope did go over my face.”
“I have it!” cried Corentin; “somebody tied a rope from tree to tree to bar the way.”
“Like enough,” replied the corporal.
Corentin went downstairs to the kitchen.
“Come, you old rascal,” Michu was saying to Violette, “let’s make an end of this. One hundred thousand francs for the place, and you are master of my whole property. I shall retire on my income.”
“I tell you, as there’s a God in heaven, I haven’t more than sixty thousand.”
“But don’t I offer you time to pay the rest? You’ve kept me here since yesterday, arguing it. The land is in prime order.”
“Yes, the soil is good,” said Violette.
“Wife, some more wine,” cried Michu.
“Haven’t you drunk enough?” called down Marthe’s mother. “This is the fourteenth bottle since nine o’clock yesterday.”
“You have been here since nine o’clock this morning, haven’t you?” said Corentin to Violette.
“No, beg your pardon, since last night I haven’t left the place, and I’ve gained nothing after all; the more he makes me drink the more he puts up the price.”
“In all markets he who raises his elbow raises a price,” said Corentin.
A dozen empty bottles ranged along the table proved the truth of the old woman’s words. Just then the gendarme who had driven him made a sign to Corentin, who went to the door to speak to him.
“There is no horse in the stable,” said the man.
“You sent your boy on horseback to the chateau, didn’t you?” said Corentin, returning to the kitchen. “Will he be back soon?”
“No, monsieur,” said Michu, “he went on foot.”
“What have you done with your horse, then?”
“I have lent him,” said Michu, curtly.
“Come out here, my good fellow,” said Corentin; “I’ve a word for your ear.”
Corentin and Michu left the house.
“The gun which you were loading yesterday at four o’clock you meant to use in murdering the Councillor of State; but we can’t take you up for that – plenty of intention, but no witnesses. You managed, I don’t know how, to stupefy Violette, and you and your wife and that young rascal of yours spent the night out of doors to warn Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne and save her cousins, whom you are hiding here, – though I don’t as yet know where. Your son or your wife threw the corporal off his horse cleverly enough. Well, you’ve got the better of us just now; you’re a devil of a fellow. But the end is not yet, and you won’t have the last word. Hadn’t you better compromise? your masters would be the better for it.”
“Come this way, where we can talk without being overheard,” said Michu, leading the way through the park to the pond.
When Corentin saw the water he looked fixedly at Michu, who was no doubt reckoning on his physical strength to fling the spy into seven feet of mud below three feet of water. Michu replied with a look that was not less fixed. The scene was absolutely as if a cold and flabby boa constrictor had defied one of those tawny, fierce leopards of Brazil.
“I am not thirsty,” said Corentin, stopping short at the edge of the field and putting his hand into his pocket to feel for his dagger.
“We shall never come to terms,” said Michu, coldly.
“Mind what you’re about, my good fellow; the law has its eye upon you.”
“If the law can’t see any clearer than you, there’s danger to every one,” said the bailiff.
“Do you refuse?” said Corentin, in a significant tone.
“I’d rather have my head cut off a thousand times, if that could be done, than come to an agreement with such a villain as you.”
Corentin got into his vehicle hastily, after one more comprehensive look at Michu, the lodge, and Couraut, who barked at him. He gave certain orders in passing through Troyes, and then returned to Paris. All the brigades of gendarmerie in the neighborhood received secret instructions and special orders.
During the months of December, January, and February the search was active and incessant, even in remote villages. Spies were in all the taverns. Corentin learned some important facts: a horse like that of Michu had been found dead in the neighborhood of Lagny; the five horses burned in the forest of Nodesme had been sold, for five hundred francs each, by farmers and millers to a man who answered to the description of Michu. When the decree against the accomplices and harborers of Georges was put in force Corentin confined his search to the forest of Nodesme. After Moreau, the royalists, and Pichegru were arrested no strangers were ever seen about the place.
Michu lost his situation at that time; the notary of Arcis brought him a letter in which Malin, now made senator, requested Grevin to settle all accounts with the bailiff and dismiss him. Michu asked and obtained a formal discharge and became a free man. To the great astonishment of the neighborhood he went to live at Cinq-Cygne, where Laurence made him the farmer of all the reserved land about the chateau. The day of his installation as farmer coincided with the fatal day of the death of the Duc d’Enghien, when nearly the whole of France heard at the same time of the arrest, trial, condemnation, and death of the prince, – terrible reprisals, which preceded the trial of Polignac, Riviere, and Moreau.
PART II
CHAPTER X. ONE AND THE SAME, YET A TWO-FOLD LOVE
While the new farm-house was being built Michu the Judas, so-called, and his family occupied the rooms over the stables at Cinq-Cygne on the side of the chateau next to the famous breach. He bought two horses, one for himself and one for Francois, and they both joined Gothard in accompanying Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne in her many rides, which had for their object, as may well be imagined, the feeding of the four gentlemen and perpetual watching that they were still in safety. Francois and Gothard, assisted by Couraut and the countess’s dogs, went in front and beat the woods all around the hiding-place to make sure that there was no one within sight. Laurence and Michu carried the provisions which Marthe, her mother, and Catherine prepared, unknown to the other servants of the household so as to restrict the secret to themselves, for all were sure that there were spies in the village. These expeditions were never made oftener than twice a week and on different days and at different hours, sometimes by day, sometimes by night.
These precautions lasted until the trial of Riviere, Polignac, and Moreau ended. When the senatus-consultum, which called the dynasty of Bonaparte to the throne and nominated Napoleon as Emperor of the French, was submitted to the French people for acceptance Monsieur d’Hauteserre signed the paper Goulard brought him. When it was made known that the Pope would come to France to crown the Emperor, Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne no longer opposed the general desire that her cousins and the young d’Hauteserres should petition to have their names struck off the list of emigres, and be themselves reinstated in their rights as citizens. On this, old d’Hauteserre went to Paris and consulted the ci-devant Marquis de Chargeboeuf who knew Talleyrand. That minister, then in favor, conveyed the petition to Josephine, and Josephine gave it to her husband, who was addressed as Emperor, Majesty, Sire, before the result of the popular vote was known. Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, Monsieur d’Hauteserre, and the Abbe Goujet, who also went to Paris, obtained an interview with Talleyrand, who promised them his support. Napoleon had already pardoned several of the principal actors in the great royalist conspiracy; and yet, though the four gentlemen were merely suspected of complicity, the Emperor, after a meeting of the Council of State, called the senator Malin, Fouche, Talleyrand, Cambaceres, Lebrun, and Dubois, prefect of police, into his cabinet.
“Gentlemen,” said the future Emperor, who still wore the dress of the First Consul, “we have received from the Sieurs de Simeuse and d’Hauteserre, officers in the army of the Prince de Conde, a request to be allowed to re-enter France.”
“They are here now,” said Fouche.
“Like many others whom I meet in Paris,” remarked Talleyrand.
“I think you have not met these gentlemen,” said Malin, “for they are hidden in the forest of Nodesme, where they consider themselves at home.”
He was careful not to tell the First Consul and Fouche how he himself had given them warning, by talking with Grevin within hearing of Michu, but he made the most of Corentin’s reports and convinced Napoleon that the four gentlemen were sharers in the plot of Riviere and Polignac, with Michu for an accomplice. The prefect of police confirmed these assertions.
“But how could that bailiff know that the conspiracy was discovered?” said the prefect, “for the Emperor and the council and I were the only persons in the secret.”
No one paid attention to this remark.
“If they have been hidden in that forest for the last seven months and you have not been able to find them,” said the Emperor to Fouche, “they have expiated their misdeeds.”
“Since they are my enemies as well,” said Malin, frightened by the Emperor’s clear-sightedness, “I desire to follow the magnanimous example of your Majesty; I therefore make myself their advocate and ask that their names be stricken from the list of emigres.”
“They will be less dangerous to you here than if they are exiled; for they will now have to swear allegiance to the Empire and the laws,” said Fouche, looking at Malin fixedly.
“In what way are they dangerous to the senator?” asked Napoleon.
Talleyrand spoke to the Emperor for some minutes in a low voice. The reinstatement of the Messieurs de Simeuse and d’Hauteserre appeared to be granted.
“Sire,” said Fouche, “rely upon it, you will hear of those men again.”
Talleyrand, who had been urged by the Duc de Grandlieu, gave the Emperor pledges in the name of the young men on their honor as gentlemen (a term which had great fascination for Napoleon), to abstain from all attacks upon his Majesty and to submit themselves to his government in good faith.
“Messieurs d’Hauteserre and de Simeuse are not willing to bear arms against France, now that events have taken their present course,” he said, aloud; “they have little sympathy, it is true, with the Imperial government, but they are just the men that your Majesty ought to conciliate. They will be satisfied to live on French soil and obey the laws.”
Then he laid before the Emperor a letter he had received from the brothers in which these sentiments were expressed.
“Anything so frank is likely to be sincere,” said the Emperor, returning the letter and looking at Lebrun and Cambaceres. “Have you any further suggestions?” he asked of Fouche.
“In your Majesty’s interests,” replied the future minister of police, “I ask to be allowed to inform these gentlemen of their reinstatement – when it is really granted,” he added, in a louder tone.
“Very well,” said Napoleon, noticing an anxious look on Fouche’s face.
The matter did not seem positively decided when the Council rose; but it had the effect of putting into Napoleon’s mind a vague distrust of the four young men. Monsieur d’Hauteserre, believing that all was gained, wrote a letter announcing the good news. The family at Cinq-Cygne were therefore not surprised when, a few days later, Goulard came to inform the countess and Madame d’Hauteserre that they were to send the four gentlemen to Troyes, where the prefect would show them the decree reinstating them in their rights and administer to them the oath of allegiance to the Empire and the laws. Laurence replied that she would send the notification to her cousins and the Messieurs d’Hauteserre.
“Then they are not here?” said Goulard.
Madame d’Hauteserre looked anxiously after Laurence, who left the room to consult Michu. Michu saw no reason why the young men should not be released at once from their hiding-place. Laurence, Michu, his son, and Gothard therefore started as soon as possible for the forest, taking an extra horse, for the countess resolved to accompany her cousins to Troyes and return with them. The whole household, made aware of the good news, gathered on the lawn to witness the departure of the happy cavalcade. The four young men issued from their long confinement, mounted their horses, and took the road to Troyes, accompanied by Mademoiselle Cinq-Cygne. Michu, with the help of his son and Gothard, closed the entrance to the cellar, and started to return home on foot. On the way he recollected that he had left the forks and spoons and a silver cup, which the young men had been using, in the cave, and he went back for them alone. When he reached the edge of the pond he heard voices, and went straight to the entrance of the cave through the brushwood.
“Have you come for your silver?” said Peyrade, showing his big red nose through the branches.
Without knowing why, for at any rate his young masters were safe, Michu felt a sharp agony in all his joints, so keen was the sense of vague, indefinable coming evil which took possession of him; but he went forward at once, and found Corentin on the stairs with a taper in his hand.
“We are not very harsh,” he said to Michu; “we might have seized your ci-devants any day for the last week; but we knew they were reinstated – You’re a tough fellow to deal with, and you gave us too much trouble not to make us anxious to satisfy our curiosity about this hiding-place of yours.”
“I’d give something,” cried Michu, “to know how and by whom we have been sold.”
“If that puzzles you, old fellow,” said Peyrade, laughing, “look at your horses’ shoes, and you’ll see that you betrayed yourselves.”
“Well, there need be no rancor!” said Corentin, whistling for the captain of gendarmerie and their horses.
“So that rascally Parisian blacksmith who shoed the horses in the English fashion and left Cinq-Cygne only the other day was their spy!” thought Michu. “They must have followed our tracks when the ground was damp. Well, we’re quits now!”
Michu consoled himself by thinking that the discovery was of no consequence, as the young men were now safe, Frenchmen once more, and at liberty. Yet his first presentiment was a true one. The police, like the Jesuits, have the one virtue of never abandoning their friends or their enemies.
Old d’Hauteserre returned from Paris and was more than surprised not to be the first to bring the news. Durieu prepared a succulent dinner, the servants donned their best clothes, and the household impatiently awaited the exiles, who arrived about four o’clock, happy, – and yet humiliated, for they found they were to be under police surveillance for two years, obliged to present themselves at the prefecture every month and ordered to remain in the commune of Cinq-Cygne during the said two years. “I’ll send you the papers for signature,” the prefect said to them. “Then, in the course of a few months, you can ask to be relieved of these conditions, which are imposed on all of Pichegru’s accomplices. I will back your request.”
These restrictions, fairly deserved, rather dispirited the young men, but Laurence laughed at them.
“The Emperor of the French,” she said, “was badly brought up; he has not yet acquired the habit of bestowing favors graciously.”
The party found all the inhabitants of the chateau at the gates, and a goodly proportion of the people of the village waiting on the road to see the young men, whose adventures had made them famous throughout the department. Madame d’Hauteserre held her sons to her breast for a long time, her face covered with tears; she was unable to speak and remained silent, though happy, through a part of the evening. No sooner had the Simeuse twins dismounted than a cry of surprise arose on all sides, caused by their amazing resemblance, – the same look, the same voice, the same actions. They both had the same movement in rising from their saddles, in throwing their leg over the crupper of their horses when dismounting, in flinging the reins upon the animal’s neck. Their dress, precisely the same, contributed to this likeness. They wore boots a la Suwaroff, made to fit the instep, tight trousers of white leather, green hunting-jackets with metal buttons, black cravats, and buckskin gloves. The two young men, just thirty-one years of age, were – to use a term in vogue in those days – charming cavaliers, of medium height but well set up, brilliant eyes with long lashes, floating in liquid like those of children, black hair, noble brows, and olive skin. Their speech, gentle as that of a woman, fell graciously from their fresh red lips; their manners, more elegant and polished than those of the provincial gentlemen, showed that knowledge of men and things had given them that supplementary education which makes its possessor a man of the world.
Not lacking money, thanks to Michu, during their emigration, they had been able to travel and be received at foreign courts. Old d’Hauteserre and the abbe thought them rather haughty; but in their present position this may have been the sign of nobility of character. They possessed all the eminent little marks of a careful education, to which they added a wonderful dexterity in bodily exercises. Their only dissimilarity was in the region of ideas. The youngest charmed others by his gaiety, the eldest by his melancholy; but the contrast, which was purely spiritual, was not at first observable.
“Ah, wife,” whispered Michu in Marthe’s ear, “how could one help devoting one’s self to those young fellows?”
Marthe, who admired them as a wife and mother, nodded her head prettily and pressed her husband’s hand. The servants were allowed to kiss their new masters.
During their seven months’ seclusion in the forest (which the young men had brought upon themselves) they had several times committed the imprudence of taking walks about their hiding-place, carefully guarded by Michu, his son, and Gothard. During these walks, taken usually on starlit nights, Laurence, reuniting the thread of their past and present lives, felt the utter impossibility of choosing between the brothers. A pure and equal love for each divided her heart. She fancied indeed that she had two hearts. On their side, the brothers dared not speak to themselves of their impending rivalry. Perhaps all three were trusting to time and accident. The condition of her mind on this subject acted no doubt upon Laurence as they entered the house, for she hesitated a moment, and then took an arm of each as she entered the salon followed by Monsieur and Madame d’Hauteserre, who were occupied with their sons. Just then a cheer burst from the servants, “Long live the Cinq-Cygne and the Simeuse families!” Laurence turned round, still between the brothers, and made a charming gesture of acknowledgement.
When these nine persons came to actually observe each other, – for in all meetings, even in the bosom of families, there comes a moment when friends observe those from whom they have been long parted, – the first glance which Adrien d’Hauteserre cast upon Laurence seemed to his mother and to the abbe to betray love. Adrien, the youngest of the d’Hauteserres, had a sweet and tender soul; his heart had remained adolescent in spite of the catastrophes which had nerved the man. Like many young heroes, kept virgin in spirit by perpetual peril, he was daunted by the timidities of youth. In this he was very different from his brother, a man of rough manners, a great hunter, an intrepid soldier, full of resolution, but coarse in fibre and without activity of mind or delicacy in matters of the heart. One was all soul, the other all action; and yet they both possessed in the same degree that sense of honor which is the vital essence of a gentleman. Dark, short, slim and wiry, Adrien d’Hauteserre gave an impression of strength; whereas Robert, who was tall, pale and fair, seemed weakly. Adrien, nervous in temperament, was stronger in soul; while his brother though lymphatic, was fonder of bodily exercise. Families often present these singularities of contrast, the causes of which it might be interesting to examine; but they are mentioned here merely to explain how it was that Adrien was not likely to find a rival in his brother. Robert’s affection for Laurence was that of a relation, the respect of a noble for a girl of his own caste. In matters of sentiment the elder d’Hauteserre belonged to the class of men who consider woman as an appendage to man, limiting her sphere to the physical duties of maternity; demanding perfection in that respect, but regarding her mentally as of no account. To such men the admittance of woman as an actual sharer in society, in the body politic, in the family, meant the subversion of the social system. In these days we are so far removed from this theory of primitive people that almost all women, even those who do not desire the fatal emancipation offered by the new sects, will be shocked in merely hearing of it; but it must be owned that Robert d’Hauteserre had the misfortune to think in that way. Robert was a man of the middle-ages, Adrien a man of to-day. These differences instead of hindering their affection had drawn its bonds the closer. On the first evening after the return of the young men these shades of character were caught and understood by the abbe, Mademoiselle Goujet, and Madame d’Hauteserre, who, while playing their boston, were secretly foreseeing the difficulties of the future.
