CHAPTER XV.
THE MINISTER OF WAR
"You come a little late, Monsieur St. Georges," the harsh, raucous, and underbred voice of Louvois said – "a little late. Too late by far for an officer selected by his Majesty for special service."
He turned his back upon his visitor as he spoke, changing the position he had assumed in front of the great fireplace in the room set apart as his cabinet in the Louvre, and seemed now only intent on watching the logs burning in the grate, and of dismissing – or insulting – the chevau-léger.
"Perhaps when M. de Louvois has heard my explanation of the reason why I am late, have tarried on my road, he may be disposed to overlook my dilitoriness," St. Georges replied, regarding the back of the roturier minister as he spoke; and the well-bred tones in which he uttered the words caused Louvois to turn around and face him again.
They made a strange contrast as they stood there. Both men were more than ordinarily tall, yet both carried their height differently. Louvois's was decreased in appearance by the heaviness of his shoulders, his head being deep set between them. St. Georges was as erect as a dart; while, as he faced the man whom, by some innate perception, he regarded as an enemy – or, at least, not a friend – his head was thrown back, so that his height and uprightness seemed somehow increased. Moreover, the whole appearance of each was in extreme contrast, and that not a contrast in favour of the minister. The stained military jacket of the soldier, the long, brown leather boots, the large cavalry spurs, the great bowl-hilted sword, all gave him an appearance of advantage over the sombre, velvet-clad Louvois; the long, curling hair falling on his shoulders in a thick mass was more becoming than the wig à trois marteaux which Louvois wore outside state functions. And for the rest, the pale yet weather-exposed face of the one, with its long, deep, chestnut mustache, caused the cadaverous and coarse-cut features of the other – the thick, bulbous nose and full, sensual lips – to appear insignificant, if not ignoble.
Louvois had kept him waiting three hours in the anteroom – a thing which, however, he would have done in any case and to any one seeking an interview with him, excepting only some scion of royalty, legitimate or illegitimate, one of the king's marshals, or a relative of one of the king's mistresses – for he understood as well as any vulgar, important parvenu of to-day, or thought he understood, the value of administering such snubs. And, now that the visitor was admitted, his manner was as insulting and as would-be humiliating as he knew how to fashion it. Moreover, with another trait of vulgarity as common in those days as these, he had bidden him to no seat.
His behaviour was the ignoble spite of the man who believed he saw in the other the son of him who had consistently ignored his existence – the late Duc de Vannes.
"The explanation," he said, in answer to St Georges's remark, and speaking in a voice which he endeavoured to render cold and haughty, but which was, in truth, an angry, bitter one, "will have to be very full, very complete, to satisfy his Majesty. You quitted the garrison of Pontarlier on the last night of the last year, riding on special service in the king's name, and you have tarried long on the road in, I imagine, your own service. Beyond bringing one message – that from the Bishop of Lodève – you have failed in your duty, sir; indeed, failed so much that the Marquise de Roquemaure, from whom you were ordered to bring another message, has actually preceded your arrival here. Has passed you on the road and entered Paris before you, though you quitted her manoir before she did; has, indeed, been able to give an interesting account of you and your supposed adventures."
"Supposed!" exclaimed St. Georges quietly – "supposed! Does madame la marquise stigmatize them as 'supposed,' or does monsieur le ministre, Monsieur de Louvois, apply that epithet to them?" and as he spoke, with still his head thrown back and his left hand resting lightly in the cup of his sword hilt, he looked very straight into the eyes of Louvois.
"Madame la marquise is a woman; she believes – and tells – a story as she hears it."
St. Georges bent his head for a moment, then as quietly as he asked the previous question, but equally as clearly and distinctly as he had previously spoken, he said:
"Monsieur Louvois will remember he is speaking to a soldier."
"Et puis?"
"Who permits no one, not even the minister of the army, who is his superior, to question his veracity. What he told madame he told as it happened."
Louvois laughed somewhat sinisterly and wholly insultingly, yet for him quietly, after which he said:
"Monsieur St. Georges is also something else besides a soldier – as, indeed, his present manner proclaims. A little of – if I may say it without fear of being done to death on my own hearth – a bully."
"A bully!"
"I fear so, disguised in the uniform of the king. It was bully's work which you performed in the graveyard of Aignay-le-Duc – work which if done by others than soldiers would lead to the halter; work which, when done by soldiers, leads generally to a file of their brethren – to a platoon."
If St. Georges could have had his way, followed his own bent, it would have been his right hand instead of left which would have grasped his sword, and he would have bidden the minister unsheath his own weapon and answer for his words. Yet, since he was no fool, he saw at once that for some purpose of his own Louvois was endeavouring to anger him, to lead him into an outbreak of irritation, and he refused to be so led, so trapped. Instead, he replied, therefore:
"Monsieur is, I think, the father of children himself. A few words will, therefore, show him, prove to him, my excuse. I bore with me my child; I was set upon by hired ruffians, and in the defence of that child – by the aid of another stalwart arm – I resisted them, slew some, drove some away, disarmed others. Yet, monsieur, this was not the worst, not quite the worst, against which I had to contend."
The piercing eyes of the minister of war were resting fixedly on him as he spoke – almost, it seemed, as though he feared what might come next.
St. Georges proceeded:
"Not quite the worst. This gang of hired ruffians was led by one, a cowardly hound, who feared to show his face! by one who – so accurately had he been notified, forewarned, of my approach – must have received his intelligence from Paris, from some one who knew what my movements would be at the time. Strange, was it not, monsieur le ministre?"
Louvois's face seemed less empurpled than before – to have turned white; then, brusquely, as always, he said:
"You are here, sir, to answer questions, not to ask them. Proceed."
"From Paris alone," St. Georges continued, "could that intelligence have come, since he was there with his ruffians to meet and intercept me – though I should not omit to state that, from the time I left Dijon, there followed ever in my course another knave, who took to this craven assassin the news that I was not alone. Certain it is, he would have been of no avail, nor have been sent, had not the others known well of my intended journey. Monsieur le ministre, are you sure, do you think, that in your bureau here" – the words fell clear and distinct as he spoke – "there is any foul, crawling creature, say, a low-born clerk, say, some ignoble menial – it could have been none with the instincts of a true-born gentleman of France! – who would have set so deep and foul a plot as this to waylay an innocent man?"
He saw – and, seeing, knew where one of his enemies, at least, was – the slight wince which Louvois gave – above all, the minister hated to have it known that his origin had but one or two generations of gentility to it! – and he knew also that he had laid his finger on one knot in the net. Then Louvois spoke:
"It is impossible that such can be the case. And accusations against persons who have no existence will not save you. You have failed in your duty. Is this all the explanation you have to offer me?"
"It is all I have to offer you, monsieur. If it is not sufficient, I must address myself to the head of the army – to the king himself."
"I am afraid you will have little opportunity." Then turning like a tiger toward him, he said: "Your case has been considered during your procrastination; your easily made journey by extremely short and comfortable stages. Monsieur St. Georges, you are no longer in the army. The king has no further need of your valuable services."
"What! Dismissed without appeal – without – "
"Your appeal is heard and disapproved of – by me. Had it been made differently – your explanation couched in more respectful terms, had carried with it more conviction to my mind – this," and he handed him a paper, "would have been destroyed instead of being given to you. As it is, read it, and act on it. Otherwise the results will be unfortunate. Observe also the signatures to it. They are neither those of 'low-born clerks' nor 'ignoble menials';" and he stepped back to the fire and stood regarding his victim.
Certainly one signature came not under the category of the above terms, it being that of Louis himself; the other was that of Louvois, and, perhaps, was open to cavil. But St. Georges was immersed in the document itself: beyond the (to him) fatal signature of the king, the other was of scant importance for the moment.
The paper ran as follows:
"Monsieur St. Georges: Being extremely displeased with you for the manner in which you have tarried on your road from Pontarlier to Paris and have failed in the secret mission on which I employed you – namely, to bring me (without more delay than such which might by force majeure arrive) messages from two of my subjects – I write you this to say, first, you are no longer an officer in my regiment of the Chevaux-Légers of Nivernosi; secondly, you are at once to quit my kingdom of France and the dependencies thereof, wheresoever situated. In which, desiring that you fail not at once to obey my second behest, I pray that God will have you, Monsieur St. Georges, in his holy keeping.
"Written at Paris the 15th January, 1688."Signé Louis.Soussigné Louvois."
Briefly St. Georges said to Louvois:
"And if I fail in this second behest, what then? What if I refuse to quit France?"
"That I leave you to imagine. Sir, our interview is at an end;" and he rang a bell as he spoke, and when it was answered by a gorgeous footman, said:
"Escort this gentleman to the courtyard."
St. Georges, however, made no sign of following the servant, but, instead, advanced a step closer to Louvois, so that when he stood nearer to him than he had hitherto done, the latter gave unmistakable signs of apprehension. Yet, seeing that there was no threatening appearance on the other's face and that his sword hung idle and untouched by his side, he said:
"You do not hear me, sir, it would seem. Our interview is at an end."
"Not yet," replied St. Georges, very calmly. "You have delivered your decision – I refuse to believe it is the king's. And until I receive it from his own lips, I shall neither quit Paris nor France."
"You will not?"
"I will not."
"So," replied Louvois in a harsh tone, "that is your decision." Then changing his tone to one which, perhaps, he thought more effective – a gentler, more subtle tone – he said: "You are, I think, unwise. The king will not see you; and – meanwhile – he can find means to exercise his authority, to have his orders executed."
"The king will see me, I think. Monsieur Louvois, I have a petition to present to his Majesty."
"A petition!"
"Against three of his subjects, all of whom, as I do believe before God, have been engaged in a most foul attempt against me and my child. Monsieur le ministre, shall I mention the names of those subjects of the king?" and his eye glanced at the servant as he spoke.
"No, be silent," replied Louvois; "also I bid you beware what you say, what do. Monsieur St. Georges," he continued, breaking out into one of those heats of rage which were usual with him, while, even as he did so, he roughly motioned the servant at the door to quit the room. – "Monsieur St. Georges, do you know the deadly peril in which you stand? Do you know, I say? If it pleases me I have enough authority to commit you to the Bastille to-night, to Vincennes, to Bicêtre – the power to arrest you here in this room. If I summon that servant again, a file of mousquetaires will be sent for; if I touch this bell" – and he pointed to another than the one which he had already rung – "they will appear. Monsieur St. Georges, will you quit Paris to-night and France directly afterward, or shall I call in the soldiers?"
"Call in the soldiers," the other replied, now thoroughly desperate, "or the servant, or as many of your following as you choose! Only – ere you do so hear me," and he raised his hand in so authoritative a manner that Louvois, who had made a step toward the bell, paused in astonishment. Then St. Georges continued: "I am resolved to obtain an audience of the king to-night, and can do so if not thwarted. My charger is fleeter than the horses of his state carriage; I can reach Marly as soon as he. To-day is Thursday, le jour des audiences iconnues; it is my chance. Now, monsieur, shall I see the king to-night unmolested, unprevented by you, or shall I be dragged before him an assassin to plead my cause? A murderer, but a righteous one?"
"An assassin – a murderer!" exclaimed Louvois, stepping back, while his face blanched. "Explain yourself."
"Then listen – and – abstain from that bell till you have heard me" – seeing that the other's eye roved toward it. "I intend," speaking rapidly, "to see the king to-night or in the morning at latest, and to tell him of the foul plot of which an officer of his chevaux-légers has been the victim; to ask him if, bearing this about me" – and he produced from his breast the letter ordering him to leave Pontarlier and travel to Paris – "he approves of the manner in which I have been spied upon, tracked, nigh done to death, and robbed of my most precious treasure, my child; to sue for permission to seek out those who have done this thing and bring them at last to justice. And, M. de Louvois, I tell you face to face and man to man that, if you approach that bell, summon your soldiers until I am outside this door, they shall find you a dead man when they open it! Once outside I can answer for myself. Now choose!"
And as he spoke his right hand went round to his sword-hilt, while his left raised the scabbard, so that the blade could easily be drawn.
CHAPTER XVI.
PASQUEDIEU!
St. Georges was not, however, destined to arrive at Marly on that night, nor to see Louis and lay his story before him.
On quitting Louvois he made his way swiftly along the corridor leading from the chamber on the ground floor in which he had been received to the courtyard, no interruption being attempted, as was natural enough, considering that he was leaving instead of seeking to enter the building. The soldiers, gendarmerie and the Suisses as well as the Mousquetaires Gris – whose turn it was at the present moment to be in attendance at the Louvre – were lounging about the guard room and the great gateway, and they not only did not offer any opposition to his passage, but, instead, seeing about him the signs of a cavalry officer – the gorget, long cut-and-thrust sword, great boots, and gantlets – saluted him.
Therefore he passed out into the street – since known in the present century as the Rue de Rivoli – and regained his horse from the guet in whose custody he had left it.
That he recognised the danger – the awful danger – in which he had now placed himself, who can doubt? He was a soldier, and he had threatened the assassination of the chief – under the king – of the army. Moreover, he was a soldier who had just been dismissed from that army for failing in his duty, for allowing private affairs – harrowing as they were! – to come between him and that duty. Now he was cooler; he became more clear sighted; he knew that he had done a thing which would destroy any claim that he might make for the king's sympathy with him.
"I am ruined," he murmured, looking up and down the street, not knowing which way to direct his horse's steps; "have ruined myself. Louis will never forgive this when he hears Louvois's story – never see me nor hear me. Fool, fool that I am! I have destroyed everything – above all, my one chance of regaining Dorine!"
What was he to do? That was the question he asked himself. He had, it was true, avoided instant arrest within the precincts of the palace, but how long could he avoid arrest in whatever part of Paris he might endeavour to shelter himself now?
"What have other men done," he pondered, "placed as I am – as I have placed myself? What shall I, a broken, ruined soldier, do? What? what? Turn bully, as he accused me of being, and cutthroat, bravo, or thief – haunter of gambling hells and tripots? No! no! no! I am a gentleman, have always lived like one; so let me continue to the end. Yet, what to do now?"
He threaded his way through the streets, still filled with their crowds of saltimbanques and quacks, though the fashionable world, having seen Le Roi Soleil, had gone or was going home, for the wintry evening was setting in. And as he rode slowly, for his poor beast was now quite spent, he tried to think of what he should do – go to Marly at once, that evening, as he had said to Louvois (although with scarcely the intention of doing so, since he doubted seeing the king without preparation), or find a roof for himself and a stall for his horse for the night.
Then he decided suddenly, promptly, that the former was what he would do. If he could get the king's ear first, before Louvois, he might save himself. Louis was great of heart, in spite of his childish belief in his kingly attributes, of his love of splendour, and his vanity. Who could tell? A word with him – above all, a word breathed as to whom St. Georges believed himself to be – and he was safe. His father had been Louis's companion; he would not slay the son. Safe – even though dismissed the army and stripped of his commission – able to stay in France, to return to Troyes, to seek and find his darling again!
He was resolved; he would go to Marly that night.
Only – how to get there. Marly lay beyond Versailles, four leagues from Paris, and his horse could go no further. The marvel was that it had done so much, and it was only by the most assiduous care and merciful treatment – by sometimes walking mile after mile by its side, and by resting it hourly – that St. Georges had been able to assist it to reach Paris. Now it could do no more.
However, ere long he espied an écurie and found that the owner had horses for hire, while one, a red roan with a shifty eye and bright-blooded nostril, took St. Georges's fancy. He knew a good horse the moment he saw one, and read by this creature's points that it would be troublesome for the first mile, and then carry him swiftly for the remainder of his journey. So, leaving his own horse – though not before he had seen it attended to, fed, and rubbed down, and taken into a comfortable, fresh-littered stall – he set out once more, tired, worn, and travel-sore as he was, for his fresh destination. Yet he knew his object, if he could attain it, would be worth a hundred times the extra fatigue. And when it was attained he could rest. Time enough then.
The red roan behaved exactly as he expected it would: it first of all bounded half across the road when once he was in the saddle, knocking down a scaramouche and a toothdrawer in doing so – the latter, fortunately, having no customer in his hands at the moment; it next proceeded sideways up the street, and then, finding it had a master to deal with, danced along in a canter until the West Gate of Paris was reached, after which, and being now sure that its exuberance was useless, it settled down into a long, easy stride, and bore its rider as smoothly as a carriage might toward his goal.
The moon, which a few nights back had shown beneath its young rays the corpse hanging on the gibbet outside the city of Troyes, lit up now the road along which he passed, disturbing on his way sometimes a deer in a thicket, sometimes a scurrying rabbit – they disturbing, too, the fiery creature he bestrode, and frightening it into a swifter pace. Still, each moment brought him nearer to his destination, to the arbiter in whose hands his destiny was held; and, for the rest, he sat like a rock upon its back. Its gambades could not unseat him.
So the twelve English miles were nearly passed; he was on the new road that branched off to Marly – the strangest route that any man living in those days ever, perhaps, rode along. On either side it was bordered by small forests of enormous trees, mostly covered with dead branches, since these trees had died unnaturally long months ago, when transported from Compiègne to where they now stood. Also he saw beneath the moon's gleams fountains from which no water could be forced to flow – great basins to which water could not be brought, or only brought by depriving Versailles of its natural supply. Louis had thought that he could force Nature – uproot trees from one spot, where they had flourished for a hundred years and cause them to flourish equally well in another; had imagined that even the waters on which his gondolas, brought from Venice, might float, could be forced into existence at his command. It was a monstrous impertinence offered to Nature, and it cost him four million and a half of livres, with but little profit to any but the frogs and toads.
There rose now before his eyes – where the road branched off in different directions, on the right to Versailles, and, a little to the left, to Marly – the white-washed walls of an auberge known as Le Bon Pasteur, a place soon to be pulled down, since Louis had bought out the owner, and was about to build a pavilion upon it. But it stood up to this time untouched, as it had done since the days of Henri III – long, low, thatched, and weather-beaten, three old poplar trees in front of it, a mounting-block also, and, of course, the usual heap of filth by its side where the stables were.
Approaching it, he felt the roan stagger beneath him, halt in its strides, then falter; and, shrewd horseman as he was, knew that it had either cast a shoe, or had got a stone in one. And as he dismounted close by the inn, though still some twoscore yards from the mounting-block, he heard behind him the clatter of other hoofs coming on, and the light laugh of a woman, also the deeper tones of a man.
"Pasquedieu!" he heard the latter say – and started both at the exclamation and the voice – "you may laugh, ma mie, yet I tell you 'tis so. He will marry her, spend her money on other women as I spend mine on you —Morbleu! whom have we here?" and the man riding along the road with his female companion pulled up his own horse, as the woman did hers, on seeing another traveller dismounted by the side of, and examining, his animal.
"Whom?" exclaimed that traveller, looking up – "whom? One perhaps whom you know. One whose name is Georges St. Georges." Then, vaulting back into his saddle – not meaning to be taken at a disadvantage – he bent forward and looked into the newcomer's face. "Did you ever hear that name before, monsieur?" he asked.
The face into which he gazed was that of a young, good-looking man, close shaven and with gray eyes that looked at him, as he thought, with terror. He was well dressed, too, in a riding costume of the period, while the woman who sat her horse, peering at him out of the eyelets of her mask, was also smartly arrayed in a female riding coat of the day, her head covered with a hood.
"Answer, monsieur," said St. Georges.
"Never," the other replied. "How should I know the name of every – person – I meet on the road?"
St. Georges bent forward over his saddle so that his own face was now nearer by a foot to the man with the gray eyes; then he said:
"Monsieur de Roquemaure, you are a liar! And more, a thief, a kidnapper; also, a would-be assassin. I know you and this, your wanton, here. You have to answer to me to-night for all you have done against me and mine in the past two weeks."
"Mon Dieu!" he heard the woman hiss beneath her mask. "Kill him, Raoul, kill him! God! that you should let him live and utter such things!" And as she so hissed she leaned down and struck at his face with her riding whip.
"Hound!" she exclaimed, "you apply that word to me? To me?"
"The woman speaks well," St. Georges said, warding off the blow with his arm while his eye rested on her for a moment; "it is a matter of killing. Either you or I have to be killed. To-night! Do you hear, or are you struck dumb with fear?"
"No," the other replied, at last, with amazement. "Who are you who, under a name I know not, dare to assault me thus with such opprobrious words? Nay," turning to the masked woman, who was again muttering in his ear, "have no fear. I will have his blood for it. If he is a gentleman with whom I can cross swords, we fight ere another hour passes."
"Also," St. Georges broke in, "you are, I perceive, a coward, besides the other things I have charged you with. You know who I am well enough. If not – if your memory is as treacherous as your courage seems poor, let me remind you. I am the man whom you attacked with five others at Aignay-le-Duc; the man whose child you sought to slay; the father of the child whom your woman and your man-servant seized away from one who had it in his possession, and whom they slew also, you not appearing on the scene. You are careful of yourself, Monsieur de Roquemaure! In the first treacherous attack you shielded your head as none other's head was shielded; in the second you employed a woman and a man-servant to do that which, perhaps, you feared to do yourself."
Every word he uttered was studied insult, every word was weighed before it was delivered, substituted for any other which rose to his lips if not deemed by him sufficiently galling. He had sworn to kill this man if ever he encountered him again, and he meant to kill him to-night now he had met him. Therefore, since he was resolved he should have no loophole of escape from crossing swords with him, he so phrased his remarks that he must fight or acknowledge himself the veriest poltroon that breathed.
"But," he continued, "if you still value your hide so much that you dare not meet me, now at once, tell me where you and this woman – if it be the same, as I suppose – have hidden my child; lead me to her, and then you shall go free. Only choose, and choose at once."
He heard the woman mutter to De Roquemaure: "Who is the woman he speaks of, who, Raoul?" while also he saw her eyes glisten again through the mask; then, as he strove to catch her companion's reply, that companion turned on him, and said:
"Monsieur St. Georges, as you term yourself, be very sure I intend to slay you to-night. I do not know you, but your insults to me and to – this – lady, although the utterances of a madman, have to be wiped out at once. As to the child you mention, and its kidnapping by a servant of mine and a woman – bah! – I know not of what you speak."
"Do you deny that you are Monsieur de Roquemaure?"
"I neither deny nor assert. Under that name you have chosen to waylay and insult me. Under that name, since you will have it, I intend to have reparation."
"Do you deny the assault at Aignay-le-Duc?"
"I deny nothing, assert nothing."
"So be it," St. Georges said. "I have made no mistake. You are the man. Your voice, your expression condemn you. Your face, though you have shaved off your beard" – and he saw the other start as he mentioned this – "condemns, convicts you. Deny, therefore, these two things or draw your sword. We have wasted enough time."
"We have," the other answered, and as he spoke he dismounted from his horse, St. Georges doing the same.