The Conspirators

"Messire d'Argenson," said Dubois, without even leaving the lieutenant-general time to finish his bow, "monseigneur, who has no secrets from me, has sent for you, that you may tell me in what costume he went out last night, in whose house he passed the evening, and what happened to him on leaving it. I should not need to ask these questions if I had not just arrived from London; you understand, that as I traveled post from Calais, I can know nothing of them."

"But," said D'Argenson, who thought these questions concealed some snare, "did anything extraordinary happen last evening? I confess I received no report; I hope no accident happened to monseigneur?"

"Oh, no, none; only monseigneur, who went out at eight o'clock in the evening, as a French guard, to sup with Madame de Sabran, was nearly carried off on leaving her house."

"Carried off!" cried D'Argenson, turning pale, while the regent could not restrain a cry of astonishment, "carried off! and by whom?"

"Ah!" said Dubois, "that is what we do not know, and what you ought to know, Messire d'Argenson, if you had not passed your time at the convent of the Madeleine de Traisnel."

"What, D'Argenson! you, a great magistrate, give such an example!" said the regent, laughing. "Never mind, I will receive you well, if you come, as you have already done in the time of the late king, to bring me, at the end of the year, a journal of my acts."

"Monseigneur," said the lieutenant, stammering, "I hope your highness does not believe a word of what the Abbe Dubois says."

"What! instead of being humiliated by your ignorance, you give me the lie. Monseigneur, I will take you to D'Argenson's seraglio; an abbess of twenty-six, and novices of fifteen; a boudoir in India chintz, and cells hung with tapestry. Oh, Monsieur le Lieutenant de Police knows how to do things well."

The regent held his sides with laughing, seeing D'Argenson's disturbed face.

"But," replied the lieutenant of police, trying to bring back the conversation to the less disagreeable, though more humiliating subject, "there is not much merit, abbe, in your knowing the details of an event, which, doubtless, monseigneur himself told you."

"On my honor," said the regent, "I did not tell him a single word."

"Listen, lieutenant; is it monseigneur also who told me the story of the novice of the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, whom you so nearly carried off over the convent walls? Is it monseigneur who told me of that house which you have had built under a false name, against the wall of the convent of the Madeleine, so that you can enter at all hours by a door hidden in a closet, and which opens on to the sacristy of the chapel of Saint Mark, your patron? No, no, all that, my dear lieutenant, is the infancy of the art, and he who only knew this, would not, I hope, be worthy to hold a candle to you."

"Listen, abbe," replied the lieutenant of police with a grave air, "if all you have told me about monseigneur is true, the thing is serious and I am in the wrong not to know it, if any one does – but there is no time lost. We will find the culprits, and punish them as they deserve."

"But," said the regent, "you must not attach too much importance to this; they were, probably, some drunken officers who wished to amuse their companions."

"It is a conspiracy, monseigneur," replied Dubois, "which emanates from the Spanish embassy, passing through the Arsenal before it arrives at the Palais Royal."

"Again, Dubois?"

"Always, monseigneur."

"And you, D'Argenson, what is your opinion?"

"That your enemies are capable of anything, monseigneur; but that we will mar their plots, whatever they may be, I give you my word."

At this moment the door opened, and the Duc de Maine was announced, who came to attend the council, and whose privilege it was, as prince of the blood, not to be kept waiting. He advanced with that timid and uneasy air which was natural to him, casting a side-glance over the three persons in whose presence he found himself, as though to discover what subject occupied them at his entrance. The regent understood his thought.

"Welcome, my cousin," said he; "these two bad fellows – whom you know – have just been assuring me that you are conspiring against me."

The Duc de Maine turned as pale as death, and was obliged to lean for support on the crutch-shaped stick which he carried.

"And I hope, monseigneur," replied he, in a voice which he vainly endeavored to render firm, "that you did not give ear to such a calumny."

"Oh, mon Dieu! no!" replied the regent negligently; "but they are obstinate, and declare that they will take you one day in the fact. I do not believe it, but at any rate I give you warning; be on your guard against them, for they are clever fellows, I warrant you."

The Duc de Maine opened his mouth to give some contemptible excuse, when the door opened again, and the groom announced successively the Duc de Bourbon, the Prince de Conti, the Duc de St. Simon, the Duc de Guiche, captain of the guards; the Duc Noailles, president of the council of finance; the Duc d'Antin, superintendent of ships; the Marshal d'Uxelles, president of the council of foreign affairs; the Archbishop of Troyes; the Marquis de Lavrilliere; the Marquis d'Efflat; the Duc de Laforce; the Marquis de Torcy; and the Marshals de Villeroy, d'Estrées, de Villars, and de Bezons.

As these grave personages were gathered together to deliberate upon the treaty of the quadruple alliance, brought from London by Dubois, and as the treaty of the quadruple alliance only figures secondarily in this history, our readers will excuse our leaving the sumptuous reception-room in the Palais Royal, to lead them back to the attic in the Rue du Temps-Perdu.

CHAPTER XX.

THE CONSPIRACY

D'Harmental, after having placed his hat and cloak on a chair, after having placed his pistols on his table, and his sword under his pillow, threw himself dressed on to his bed, and, more happy than Damocles, he slept, though, like Damocles, a sword hung over his head by a thread.

When he awoke it was broad daylight, and as the evening before he had forgotten to close his shutters, the first thing he saw was a ray of sunshine playing joyously across his room. D'Harmental thought that he had been dreaming, when he found himself again calm and tranquil in his little room, so neat and clean, while he might have been at that hour in some gloomy and somber prison. For a moment he doubted of its reality, remembering all that had passed the evening before; but all was there – the red ribbon, the hat and cloak on the chair, the pistols on the table, and the sword under the pillow; and, as a last proof, he himself in the costume of the day before, which he had not taken off, for fear of being surprised by some nocturnal visit.

D'Harmental jumped from his bed. His first look was for his neighbor's window: it was already open, and he saw Bathilde passing and repassing in her room; the second was for his glass, which told him that conspiracies suited him – indeed, his face was paler than usual, and therefore more interesting; his eyes were rather feverish, and therefore more expressive: so that it was evident that, when he had smoothed his hair and arranged his collar and cravat, he would be a most interesting person to Bathilde. D'Harmental did not say this, even to himself; but the bad instinct which always impels our poor souls to evil whispered these thoughts to him, so that when he went to his toilet he suited his dress to the expression of his face – that is to say, that he dressed entirely in black, that his hair was arranged with a charming negligence, and that he left his waistcoat more than usually open, to give place to his shirt-frill, which fell with an ease full of coquetry. All this was done in the most preoccupied and careless manner in the world; for D'Harmental, brave as he was, could not help remembering that at any minute he might be arrested; but it was by instinct that, when the chevalier gave the last look in the glass, before leaving his little dressing-room, he smiled at himself with a melancholy which doubled the charm of his countenance. There was no mistake as to the meaning of this smile, for he went directly to the window.

Perhaps Bathilde had also her projects for the moment when her neighbor should reappear, perhaps she had arranged a defense which should consist in not looking toward him, or in closing her window after a simple recognition; but at the noise her neighbor's window made in opening, all was forgotten, and she ran to the window, crying out:

"Ah! there you are. Mon Dieu! monsieur, how anxious you have made me!"

This exclamation was ten times more than D'Harmental had hoped for. If he, on his part, had prepared some well-turned and eloquent phrases, they were all forgotten, and clasping his hands:

"Bathilde! Bathilde!" he cried, "you are, then, as good as you are beautiful!"

"Why good?" asked Bathilde. "Did you not tell me that if I was an orphan, you also were without parents? Did you not say that I was your sister, and you were my brother?"

"Then, Bathilde, you prayed for me?"

"All night," replied the young girl blushing.

"And I thanked chance for having saved me, when I owed all to an angel's prayers!"

"The danger is then past?" cried Bathilde.

"The night was dark and gloomy," replied D'Harmental. "This morning, however, I was awakened by a ray of sunshine which a cloud may again conceal: so it is with the danger I have run; it has passed to give place to a great happiness – that of knowing you have thought of me, yet it may return. But stay," continued he, hearing steps on the staircase, "there it is, perhaps, approaching my door."

As he spoke, some one knocked three times at the chevalier's door.

"Who is there?" asked D'Harmental from the window, in a voice which, in spite of all his firmness, betrayed some emotion.

"A friend," answered a voice.

"Well?" asked Bathilde, with anxiety.

"Thanks to you, God still continues to protect me: it is a friend who knocks. Once again, thanks, Bathilde." And the chevalier closed his window, sending the young girl a last salute which was very like a kiss; then he opened to the Abbe Brigaud, who, beginning to be impatient, had knocked a second time.

"Well," said the abbe, on whose face it was impossible to see the smallest change, "what has happened, then, my dear pupil, that you are shut in thus by bolts and bars? Is it as a foretaste of the Bastille?"

"Holla! abbe," said D'Harmental, in a cheerful voice, "no such jokes, I beg; they might bring misfortune."

"But look! look!" said Brigaud, throwing his eyes round him, "would not any one suppose they were visiting a conspirator? Pistols on the table, a sword on the pillow, and a hat and cloak on the chair. Ah! my dear pupil, you are discomposed, it appears to me! Come, put all this in order, that I may not be able to perceive, when I pay my paternal visit, what passes during my absence."

D'Harmental obeyed, admiring, in this man of the Church, the sang-froid which he himself found it difficult to attain.