The Maid of Honour: A Tale of the Dark Days of France. Volume 2 of 3

DOMESTIC SURGERY

These were exciting times-no doubt of it-even to humdrum provincials, remote from the madding crowd. The web on the muse's loom grew so rapidly that the eye could not follow the shuttle. Were the dogs of war to be unloosed upon the land? Was fair France to be invaded and torn by the enemy from without as well as by one within? On the 6th of July the Emperor of Austria appealed to the sovereigns to unite for the delivery of Louis. On the 11th a formal demand was made in the Constituant Assembly for his dethronement. His majesty's brothers, after having solemnly sworn that they would not leave their native soil, were gone; and the stream of emigration increased in volume daily. The Minister of War announced that no less than nineteen hundred officers had abandoned their regiments and fled. It was decreed that the property of emigrants should be confiscated for the public good. Meanwhile, the upheaval of the peasantry continued to be intermittent. Sometimes they merely growled; sometimes they rushed about like madmen, leaving, as locusts do, a trail of destruction in their wake.

Then the question of money, or rather of no money, became a burning one. In October there was a famine and a deadlock. Farmers refused to take paper in payment for corn, and somehow there was naught else to pay them with. The occupants of Lorge watched vigilantly, awaiting a crisis which they could not but feel was imminent; and the two conspirators considered their broken plans with the palpitating woe of ants when somebody treads upon their hill. The abbé and the governess consulted frequently, each assuming the ingenuousness of infancy, whilst reconnoitring with wary eye the position of the other. Though they made believe to sit in one boat and caulk it, the attention of either was directed to a private craft (cunningly concealed from sight) in which the other was to find no seat, and which must be rendered taut and trim to face the coming storm.

A conviction that leaks were numerous, and that there was no time for elaborate operations, oppressed them both; a prophetic instinct whispered that such materials as were at hand must serve, or, when the wind rose presently, their frail coracles would founder and go to the bottom.

The Marquise de Gange was the pivot upon which the schemes of both plotters turned-the listless lady who took no further interest in the world's doings; who, excluded alike from family councils and domestic interests, gave herself up to devotions and to almsgiving.

Time being just now so precious an article, it seemed to both schemers that the victim had been brought into as auspicious a state for operation as was likely to be attained without long waiting. It would, in all probability, become necessary ere long to follow the stream of emigration, and abandon France till the Saturnalia which convulsed the motherland should have passed away. Now it was clear to Pharamond that prudent persons are bound to prepare themselves for any fate. If Gabrielle accepted his terms, as reflection would doubtless lead her to do, it was obvious that he and she would, some of these days, quietly elope, leaving the husband and his affinity to discover, too late, with teeth-gnashing, that the golden goose was gone. An adroit display of sympathy combined, perhaps, with a gentle and artistic touch of coercion, would bring this about. When the moment for departure came she would follow him, and from a safe point of vantage overtures could be made to the maréchal with regard to the question of finance. Of course, after what she had suffered there, she would be only too glad to turn her back upon the dismal chateau, which must be as odious to her as to him. What happened to the besotted Clovis and the impudent Aglaé would concern neither any more.