The Conspirators

"Well, colonel," said Roquefinette, looking D'Harmental full in the face.

"Well, captain," replied the chevalier; "I have a great mind to ask one thing of you."

"What?" asked Roquefinette.

"To follow me into some cross-road and blow my brains out with your pistol, that this miserable head may be punished and not recognized."

"Why so?"

"Why? Because in such matters, when one fails one is but a fool: What am I to say to Madame de Maine now?"

"What!" cried Roquefinette, "is it about that little hop-o'-my-thumb that you are bothering yourself? Pardieu! you are frantically susceptible, colonel. Why the devil does not her lame husband attend to his own affairs. I should like to have seen your prude with her two cardinals and her three or four marquises, who are bursting with fear at this moment in a corner of the arsenal, while we remain masters of the field of battle. I should like to have seen if they would have climbed walls like lizards. Stay, colonel, listen to an old fox. To be a good conspirator, you must have, first, what you have, courage; but you must also have what you have not, patience. Morbleu! if I had such an affair in my hands, I would answer for it that I would bring it to a good end, and if you like to make it over to me we will talk of that."

"But in my place," asked the colonel, "what would you say to Madame de Maine?"

"Oh! I should say, 'My princess, the regent must have been warned by his police, for he did not leave as we expected, and we saw none but his roué companions.' Then the Prince de Cellamare will say to you, 'My dear D'Harmental, we have no resources but in you.' Madame de Maine will say that all is not lost since the brave D'Harmental remains to us. The Count de Laval will grasp your hand trying to pay you a compliment, which he will not finish, because since his jaw is broken his tongue is not active, particularly for compliments. The Cardinal de Polignac will make the sign of the cross. Alberoni will swear enough to shake the heavens – in this manner you will have conciliated everybody, saved your amour propre, and may return to hide in your attic, which I advise you not to leave for three or four days if you do not wish to be hanged. From time to time I will pay you a visit. You will continue to bestow on me some of the liberalities of Spain, because it is of importance to me to live agreeably, and keep up my spirits; then, at the first opportunity we recall our brave fellows, and take our revenge."

"Yes, certainly," said D'Harmental; "that is what any other would do, but you see I have some foolish ideas – I cannot lie."

"Whoever cannot lie cannot act," replied the captain; "but what do I see there? The bayonets of the watch; amicable institution, I recognize you there; always a quarter of an hour too late. But now adieu, colonel," continued he; "there is your road, we must separate," said the captain, showing the Passage du Palais Royal, "and here is mine," added he, pointing to the Rue Neuve des Petits-Champs; "go quietly, that they may not know that you ought to run as fast as you can, your hand on your hip so, and singing 'La Mere Gaudichon.'" And the captain followed the Rue de Valois at the same pace as the watch, who were a hundred paces behind him, singing carelessly as he went.

As to the chevalier, he re-entered the Rue des Bons Enfants, now as quiet as it had been noisy ten minutes before; and at the corner of the Rue Baillif he found the carriage, which, according to its orders, had not moved, and was waiting with the door open, the servant at the step, and the coachman on his box.

"To the arsenal," said the chevalier.

"It is useless," said a voice which made D'Harmental start; "I know all that has passed, and I will inform those who ought to know. A visit at this hour would be dangerous for all."

"Is it you, abbe?" said D'Harmental, trying to recognize Brigaud in the livery in which he was disguised; "you would render me a real service in taking the news instead of me, for on my honor I do not know what to say."

"Well, I shall say," said Brigaud, "that you are a brave and loyal gentleman, and that if there were ten like you in France, all would soon be finished; but we are not here to pay compliments: get in quickly – where shall I take you?"

"It is useless," said D'Harmental; "I will go on foot."

"Get in. It is safer."

D'Harmental complied, and Brigaud, dressed as he was, came and sat beside him.

"To the corner of the Rue du Gros Chenet and the Rue de Cléry," said the abbe.

The coachman, impatient at having waited so long, obeyed quickly. At the place indicated the carriage stopped; the chevalier got out, and soon disappeared round the corner of the Rue du Temps-Perdu. As to the carriage, it rolled on noiselessly toward the Boulevards, like a fairy car which does not touch the earth.

CHAPTER XV.

JEAN BUVAT

Our readers must now make a better acquaintance with one of the principal personages in the history which we have undertaken to relate, of whom we have scarcely spoken. We would refer to the good bourgeois, whom we have seen quitting the group in the Rue de Valois, and making for the Barrière des Sergents at the moment when the street-singer began his collection, and who, it will be remembered, we have since seen at so inopportune a moment in the Rue des Bons-Enfants.

Heaven preserve us from questioning the intelligence of our readers, so as to doubt for a moment that they had recognized in the poor devil to whom the Chevalier d'Harmental had rendered such timely assistance the good man of the terrace in the Rue du Temps-Perdu. But they cannot know, unless we tell them in detail, what he was physically, morally, and socially. If the reader has not forgotten the little we have already told him, it will be remembered that he was from forty to forty-five years of age. Now as every one knows, after forty years of age the bourgeois of Paris entirely forgets the care of his person, with which he is not generally much occupied, a negligence from which his corporeal graces suffer considerably, particularly when, as in the present instance, his appearance is not to be admired.

Our bourgeois was a little man of five feet four, short and fat, disposed to become obese as he advanced in age; and with one of those placid faces where all – hair, eyebrows, eyes, and skin – seem of the same color; in fact, one of those faces of which, at ten paces, one does not distinguish a feature. The most enthusiastic physiognomist, if he had sought to read on this countenance some high and curious destiny, would have been stopped in his examination as he mounted from his great blue eyes to his depressed forehead, or descended from his half-open mouth to the fold of his double chin. There he would have understood that he had under his eyes one of those heads to which all fermentation is unknown, whose freshness is respected by the passions, good or bad, and who turn nothing in the empty corners of their brain but the burden of some old nursery song. Let us add that Providence, who does nothing by halves, had signed the original, of which we have just offered a copy to our readers, by the characteristic name of Jean Buvat.

It is true that the persons who ought to have appreciated the profound nullity of spirit, and excellent qualities of heart of this good man, suppressed his patronymic, and ordinarily called him Le Bonhomme Buvat.

From his earliest youth the little Buvat, who had a marked repugnance for all other kinds of study, manifested a particular inclination for caligraphy: thus he arrived every morning at the College des Oratoriens, where his mother sent him gratis, with his exercises and translations full of faults, but written with a neatness, a regularity, and a beauty which it was charming to see. The little Buvat was whipped every day for the idleness of his mind, and received the writing prize every year for the skill of his hand. At fifteen years of age he passed from the Epitome Sacræ, which he had recommenced five times, to the Epitome Græcæ; but the professor soon perceived that this was too much for him, and put him back for the sixth time in the Epitome Sacræ. Passive as he appeared, young Buvat was not wanting in a certain pride. He came home in the evening crying to his mother, and complaining of the injustice which had been done him, declaring, in his grief, a thing which till then he had been careful not to confess, namely, that there were in the school children of ten years old more advanced than he was.

Widow Buvat, who saw her son start every morning with his exercises perfectly neat (which led her to believe that there could be no fault to be found with them), went the next day to abuse the good fathers. They replied that her son was a good boy, incapable of an evil thought toward God, or a bad action toward his neighbor; but that, at the same time, he was so awfully stupid that they advised her to develop, by making him a writing-master, the only talent with which nature had blessed him. This counsel was a ray of light for Madame Buvat; she understood that, in this manner, the benefit she should derive from her son would be immediate. She came back to her house, and communicated to her son the new plans she had formed for him. Young Buvat saw in this only a means of escaping the castigation which he received every morning, for which the prize, bound in calf, that he received every year was not a compensation.

He received the propositions of his mother with great joy; promised her that, before six months were over, he would be the first writing-master in the capital; and the same day, after having, from his little savings, bought a knife with four blades, a packet of quills, and two copy-books, set himself to the work. The good Oratoriens were not deceived as to the true vocation of young Buvat. Caligraphy was with him an art which almost became drawing. At the end of six months, like the ape in the Arabian Nights, he wrote six kinds of writing; and imitated men's faces, trees, and animals. At the end of a year he had made such progress that he thought he might now give out his prospectus. He worked at it for three months, day and night; and almost lost his sight over it. At the end of that time he had accomplished a chef-d'œuvre.

It was not a simple writing, but a real picture representing the creation of the world, and divided almost like the Transfiguration of Raphael. In the upper part, consecrated to Eden, was the Eternal Father drawing Eve from the side of the sleeping Adam, and surrounded by those animals which the nobility of their nature brings near to man, such as the lion, the horse, and the dog. At the bottom was the sea, in the depths of which were to be seen swimming the most fantastic fishes, and on the surface a superb three-decked vessel. On the two sides, trees full of birds put the heavens, which they touched with their topmost branches, in communication with the earth, which they grasped with their roots; and in the space left in the middle of all this, in the most perfectly horizontal line, and reproduced in six different writings, was the adverb "pitilessly." This time the artist was not deceived; the picture produced the effect which he expected. A week afterward young Buvat had five male and two female scholars. His reputation increased; and Madame Buvat, after some time passed in greater ease than she had known even in her husband's lifetime, had the satisfaction of dying perfectly secure about her son's future.

As to him, after having sufficiently mourned his mother, he pursued the course of his life, one day exactly like the other. He arrived thus at the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven, having passed the stormy part of existence in the eternal calm of his innocent and virtuous good nature. It was about this time that the good man found an opportunity of doing a sublime action, which he did instinctively and simply, as he did everything; but perhaps a man of mind might have passed it over without seeing it, or turned away from it if he had seen it. There was in the house No. 6, in the Rue des Orties, of which Buvat occupied the attic, a young couple who were the admiration of the whole quarter for the harmony in which they lived. They appeared made for each other. The husband was a man of from thirty-four to thirty-five years of age, of a southern origin, with black eyes, beard and hair, sunburned complexion, and teeth like pearls. He was called Albert du Rocher, and was the son of an ancient Cevenol chief, who had been forced to turn Catholic, with all his family, at the persecutions of Monsieur Baville; and half from opposition, half because youth seeks youth, he had entered the household of M. le Duc de Chartres, which was being reformed just at that time, having suffered much in the campaign preceding the battle of Steinkirk, where the prince had made his debut in arms. Du Rocher had obtained the place of La Neuville, who had been killed in that charge which, conducted by the Duc de Chartres, had decided the victory.

The winter had interrupted the campaign, but in the spring M. de Luxembourg had recalled all those officers who shared their life between war and pleasure. The Duc de Chartres, always eager to draw a sword which the jealousy of Louis XIV. had so often replaced in the scabbard, was one of the first to answer this appeal. Du Rocher followed him with all his military household. The great day of Nerwinden arrived. The Duc de Chartres had, as usual, the command of the guards; as usual he charged at their head, but so furiously that five times he found himself almost alone in the midst of the enemy. At the fifth time he had near him only a young man whom he scarcely knew; but in the rapid glance which he cast on him he recognized one of those spirits on whom one may rely, and instead of yielding, as a brigadier of the enemy's army, who had recognized him, proposed to him, he blew the proposer's brains out with his pistol. At the same instant two shots were fired, one of which took off the prince's hat, and the other turned from the handle of his sword. Scarcely had these two shots been fired when those who had discharged them fell simultaneously, thrown down by the prince's companion – one by a saber-stroke, the other by a bullet. A general attack took place on these two men, who were miraculously saved from any ball. The prince's horse, however, fell under him. The young man who was with him jumped from his, and offered it to him.

The prince hesitated to accept this service, which might cost him who rendered it so dear; but the young man, who was tall and powerful, thinking that this was not a moment to exchange politenesses, took the prince in his arms and forced him into the saddle. At this moment, M. d'Arcy, who had lost his pupil in the melée, and who was seeking for him with a detachment of light horse, came up, just as, in spite of their courage, the prince and his companion were about to be killed or taken. Both were without wound, although the prince had received four bullets in his clothes. The Duc de Chartres held out his hand to his companion, and asked him his name; for, although his face was known to him, he had been so short a time in his service that he did not remember his name. The young man replied that he was called Albert du Rocher, and that he had taken the place of La Neuville, who was killed at Steinkirk.

Then, turning toward those who had just arrived —

"Gentlemen," said the prince, "you have prevented me from being taken, but this gentleman," pointing to Du Rocher, "has saved me from being killed."

At the end of the campaign, the Duc de Chartres named Du Rocher his first equerry, and three years afterward, having retained the grateful affection which he had vowed to him, he married him to a young person whom he loved, and gave her a dowry.

As M. le Duc de Chartres was still but a young man, this dowry was not large, but he promised to take charge of the advancement of his protégée. This young person was of English origin; her mother had accompanied Madame Henriette when she came to France to marry Monsieur; and after that princess had been poisoned by the Chevalier d'Effiat, she had passed, as lady-in-waiting, into the service of the Grand Dauphine; but, in 1690, the Grand Dauphine died, and the Englishwoman, in her insular pride, refused to stay with Mademoiselle Choin, and retired to a little country house which she hired near St. Cloud, where she gave herself up entirely to the education of her little Clarice. It was in the journeys of the Duc de Chartres to St. Cloud that Du Rocher made acquaintance with this young girl, whom, as we have said, he married in 1697. It was, then, these young people who occupied the first floor of the house of which Buvat had the attic. The young couple had first a son, whose caligraphic education was confided to Buvat from the age of four years. The young pupil was making the most satisfactory progress when he was carried off by the measles. The despair of the parents was great; Buvat shared it, the more sincerely that his pupil had shown such aptitude. This sympathy for their grief, on the part of a stranger, attached them to him; and one day, when the young man was complaining of the precarious future of artists, Albert du Rocher proposed to him to use his influence to procure him a place at the government library. Buvat jumped with joy at the idea of becoming a public functionary; and, a month afterward, Buvat received his brevet as employé at the library, in the manuscript department, with a salary of nine hundred livres a year. From this day, Buvat, in the pride natural to his new position, neglected his scholars, and gave himself up entirely to the preparation of forms. Nine hundred livres, secured to the end of his life, was quite a fortune, and the worthy writer, thanks to the royal munificence, began to lead a life of ease and comfort, promising his good neighbors that if they had a second child no one but himself should teach him to write. On their parts, the poor parents wished much to give this increase of occupation to the worthy writer. God heard their desire. Toward the termination of 1702, Clarice was delivered of a daughter.

Great was the joy through the whole house. Buvat did not feel at all at his ease; he ran up and down stairs, beating his thighs with his hands, and singing below his breath the burden of his favorite song, "Then let me go, and let me play," etc. That day, for the first time since he had been appointed, that is to say, during two years, he arrived at his office at a quarter past ten, instead of ten o'clock exactly. A supernumerary, who thought that he must be dead, had asked for his place.

The little Bathilde was not a week old before Buvat wished to begin teaching her her strokes and pot-hooks, saying, that to learn a thing well, it is necessary to commence young. It was with the greatest difficulty that he was made to understand that he must wait till she was two or three years old. He resigned himself; but, in expectation of that time, he set about preparing copies. At the end of three years Clarice kept her word, and Buvat had the satisfaction of solemnly putting her first pen into the hands of Bathilde.

It was the beginning of the year 1707, and the Duc de Chartres had become Duc d'Orleans, by the death of Monsieur, and had at last obtained a command in Spain, where he was to conduct the troops to the Marechal de Berwick. Orders were directly given to all his military household to hold themselves in readiness for the 5th of March. As first equerry, it was necessary that Albert should accompany the prince. This news, which would have formerly given him the highest joy, made him now almost sad, for the health of Clarice began to fill him with the greatest uneasiness; and the doctor had allowed the word consumption to escape him. Whether Clarice felt herself seriously attacked, or whether, more natural still, she feared only for her husband, her burst of grief was so wild that Albert himself could not help crying with her, and little Bathilde and Buvat cried because they saw the others cry.

The 5th of March arrived; it was the day fixed for the departure. In spite of her grief, Clarice had busied herself with her husband's outfit, and had wished that it was worthy of the prince whom he accompanied. Moreover, in the midst of her tears a ray of proud joy lit up her face when she saw Albert in his elegant uniform, and on his noble war-horse. As to Albert, he was full of hope and pride; the poor wife smiled sadly at his dreams for the future; but in order not to dispirit him at this moment, she shut her grief up in her own heart, and silencing her fears which she had for him, and, perhaps, also those which she experienced for herself, she was the first to say to him, "Think not of me, but of your honor."

The Duc d'Orleans and his corps d'armée entered Catalonia in the first days of April, and advanced directly, by forced marches, across Arragon. On arriving at Segorbe, the duke learned that the Marechal de Berwick held himself in readiness for a decisive battle; and in his eagerness to arrive in time to take part in the action he sent Albert on at full speed, charging him to tell the marshal that the Duc d'Orleans was coming to his aid with ten thousand men, and to pray that if it did not interfere with his arrangements, he would wait for him before joining battle.

Albert left, but bewildered in the mountains, and misled by ignorant guides, he was only a day before the army, and he arrived at the marshal's camp at the very moment when the engagement was going to commence. Albert asked where the marshal was; they showed his position, on the left of the army, on a little hill, from which he overlooked the whole plain. The Duc de Berwick was there surrounded by his staff; Albert put his horse to the gallop and made straight toward him.

The messenger introduced himself to the marshal and told him the cause of his coming. The marshal's only answer was to point to the field of battle, and tell him to return to the prince, and inform him what he had seen. But Albert had smelled powder, and was not willing to leave thus. He asked permission to wait till he could at least give him the news of a victory. At that moment a charge of dragoons seemed necessary to the marshal; he told one of his aides-de-camp to carry the order to charge to the colonel. The young man started at a gallop, but he had scarcely gone a third of the distance which separated the hill from the position of the regiment, when his head was carried off by a cannon-ball. Scarcely had he fallen from his stirrups when Albert, seizing this occasion to take part in the battle, set spurs to his horse, transmitted the order to the colonel, and instead of returning to the marshal, drew his sword, and charged at the head of the regiment.

This charge was one of the most brilliant of the day, and penetrated so completely to the heart of the imperial guard that they began to give way. The marshal had involuntarily watched the young officer throughout the melée, recognizing him by his uniform. He saw him arrive at the enemy's standard, engage in a personal contest with him who carried it; then, when the regiment had taken flight, he saw him returning with his conquest in his arms. On reaching the marshal he threw the colors at his feet; opening his mouth to speak, instead of words, it was blood that came to his lips. The marshal saw him totter in his saddle, and advanced to support him, but before he had time to do so Albert had fallen; a ball had pierced his breast. The marshal sprung from his horse, but the brave young man lay dead on the standard he had just taken. The Duc d'Orleans arrived the day after the battle. He regretted Albert as one regrets a gallant gentleman; but, after all, he had died the death of the brave, in the midst of victory, and on the colors he himself had taken. What more could be desired by a Frenchman, a soldier, and a gentleman?

The duke wrote with his own hand to the poor widow. If anything could console a wife for the death of her husband, it would doubtless be such a letter; but poor Clarice thought but of one thing, that she had no longer a husband, and that her child had no longer a father. At four o'clock Buvat came in from the library; they told him that Clarice wanted him, and he went down directly. The poor woman did not cry, she did not complain; she stood tearless and speechless, her eyes fixed and hollow as those of a maniac. When Buvat entered, she did not even turn her head toward him, but merely holding out her hand, she presented him the letter. Buvat looked right and left to endeavor to find out what was the matter, but seeing nothing to direct his conjectures, he looked at the paper and read aloud:

"Madame – Your husband has died for France and for me. Neither France nor I can give you back your husband, but remember that if ever you are in want of anything, we are both your debtors.

    "Your affectionate,
    "Philippe d'Orleans."