MORGAN, Chief of the Companions of Jehu.

Roland read the letter twice, thought it over for a few moments, then rose suddenly, and, entering the First Consul's study, handed it to him silently. The latter read it without betraying the slightest emotion, or even surprise; then, with a laconism that was wholly Lacedaemonian, he said: "Place the light."

Then he gave the letter back to Roland.

The next evening, at seven o'clock, the light shone in the window, and at five minutes past the hour, Roland in person was waiting at the little door of the garden. He had scarcely been there a moment when three blows were struck on the door after the manner of the free-masons; first two strokes and then one.

The door was opened immediately. A man wrapped in a cloak was sharply defined against the grayish atmosphere of the wintry night. As for Roland, he was completely hidden in shadow. Seeing no one, the man in the cloak remained motionless for a second.

"Come in," said Roland.

"Ah! it is you, colonel!"

"How do you know it is I?" asked Roland.

"I recognize your voice."

"My voice! But during those few moments we were together in the dining-room at Avignon I did not say a word."

"Then I must have heard it elsewhere."

Roland wondered where the Chief of the Companions of Jehu could have heard his voice, but the other said gayly: "Is the fact that I know your voice any reason why we should stand at the door?"

"No, indeed," replied Roland; "take the lapel of my coat and follow me. I purposely forbade any lights being placed in the stairs and hall which lead to my room."

"I am much obliged for the intention. But on your word I would cross the palace from one end to the other, though it were lighted a giorno, as the Italians say."

"You have my word," replied Roland, "so follow me without fear."

Morgan needed no encouragement; he followed his guide fearlessly. At the head of the stairs Roland turned down a corridor equally dark, went twenty steps, opened a door, and entered his own room. Morgan followed him. The room was lighted by two wax candles only. Once there, Morgan took off his cloak and laid his pistols on the table.

"What are you doing?" asked Roland.

"Faith! with your permission," replied Morgan, gayly, "I am making myself comfortable."

"But those pistols you have just laid aside—"

"Ah! did you think I brought them for you?"

"For whom then?"

"Why, that damned police! You can readily imagine that I am not disposed to let citizen Fouche lay bold of me, without burning the mustache of the first of his minions who lays hands on me."

"But once here you feel you have nothing to fear?"

"The deuce!" exclaimed the young man; "I have your word."

"Then why don't you unmask?"

"Because my face only half belongs to me; the other half belongs to my companions. Who knows if one of us being recognized might not drag the others to the guillotine? For of course you know, colonel, we don't hide from ourselves that that is the price of our game!"

"Then why risk it?"

"Ah! what a question. Why do you venture on the field of battle, where a bullet may plow through your breast or a cannon-ball lop off your head?"

"Permit me to say that that is different. On the battlefield I risk an honorable death."

"Ah! do you suppose that on the day I get my head cut off by the revolutionary triangle I shall think myself dishonored? Not the least in the world. I am a soldier like you, only we can't all serve our cause in the same way. Every religion has its heroes and its martyrs; happy the heroes in this world, and happy the martyrs in the next."

The young man uttered these words with a conviction which moved, or rather astonished, Roland.

"But," continued Morgan, abandoning his enthusiasm to revert to the gayety which seemed the distinctive trait of his character, "I did not come here to talk political philosophy. I came to ask you to let me speak to the First Consul."

"What! speak to the First Consul?" exclaimed Roland.

"Of course. Read my letter over; did I not tell you that I had a request to make?"

"Yes."

"Well, that request is to let me speak to General Bonaparte."

"But permit me to say that as I did not expect that request—"

"It surprises you; makes you uneasy even. My dear colonel, if you don't believe my word, you can search me from head to foot, and you will find that those pistols are my only weapons. And I haven't even got them, since there they are on your table. Better still, take one in each hand, post yourself between the First Consul and me, and blowout my brains at the first suspicious move I make. Will that suit you?"

"But will you assure me, if I disturb the First Consul and ask him to see you, that your communication is worth the trouble?"

"Oh! I'll answer for that," said Morgan. Then, in his joyous tones, he added: "I am for the moment the ambassador of a crowned, or rather discrowned, head, which makes it no less reverenced by noble hearts. Moreover, Monsieur Roland, I shall take up very little of your general's time; the moment the conversation seems too long, he can dismiss me. And I assure you he will not have to say the word twice."

Roland was silent and thoughtful for a moment.

"And it is to the First Consul only that you can make this communication?"

"To the First Consul only, as he alone can answer me."

"Very well. Wait until I take his orders."

Roland made a step toward the general's room; then he paused and cast an uneasy look at a mass of papers piled on his table. Morgan intercepted this look.

"What!" he said, "you are afraid I shall read those papers in your absence? If you only knew how I detest reading! If my death-warrant lay on that table, I wouldn't take the trouble to read it. I should consider that the clerk's business. And every one to his own task. Monsieur Roland, my feet are cold, and I will sit here in your easy-chair and warm them. I shall not stir till you return."

"Very good, monsieur," said Roland, and he went to the First Consul.

Bonaparte was talking with General Hedouville, commanding the troops of the Vendee. Hearing the door open, he turned impatiently.

"I told Bourrienne I would not see any one."

"So he told me as I came in, but I told him that I was not any one."

"True. What do you want? Be quick."

"He is in my room."

"Who?"

"The man of Avignon."

"Ah, ha! And what does he want?"

"To see you."

"To see me?"

"Yes, you, general. Does that surprise you?"

"No. But what can he want to say to me?"

"He refused obstinately to tell me. But I dare answer for it that he is neither importunate nor a fool."

"No, but he may be an assassin."

Roland shook his head.

"Of course, since you introduce him—"

"Moreover, he is willing that I should be present at the conference and stand between you and him."

Bonaparte reflected an instant.

"Bring him in," he said.

"You know, general, that except me—"

"Yes, General Hedouville will be so kind as to wait a second. Our conversation is of a nature that is not exhausted in one interview. Go, Roland."

Roland left the room, crossed Bourrienne's office, reentered his own room, and found Morgan, as he had said, warming his feet.

"Come, the First Consul is waiting for you," said the young man.

Morgan rose and followed Roland. When they entered Bonaparte's study the latter was alone. He cast a rapid glance on the chief of the Companions of Jehu, and felt no doubt that he was the same man he had seen at Avignon.

Morgan had paused a few steps from the door, and was looking curiously at Bonaparte, convincing himself that he was the man he had seen at the table d'hote the day he attempted the perilous restoration of the two hundred louis stolen by an oversight from Jean Picot.

"Come nearer," said the First Consul.

Morgan bowed and made three steps forward. Bonaparte partly returned the bow with a slight motion of the head.

"You told my aide-de-camp, Colonel Roland, that you had a communication to make me."

"Yes, citizen First Consul."

"Does that communication require a private interview?"

"No, citizen First Consul, although it is of such importance—"

"You would prefer to be alone."

"Beyond doubt. But prudence—"

"The most prudent thing in France, citizen Morgan, is courage."

"My presence here, general, proves that I agree with you perfectly."

Bonaparte turned to the young colonel.

"Leave us alone, Roland," said he.

"But, general—" objected Roland.

Bonaparte went up to him and said in a low voice: "I see what it is. You are curious to know what this mysterious cavalier of the highroad has to say to me. Don't worry; you shall know."

"That's not it. But suppose, as you said just now, he is an assassin."

"Didn't you declare he was not. Come, don't be a baby; leave us."

Roland went out.

"Now that we are alone, sir," said the First Consul, "speak!"

Morgan, without answering, drew a letter from his pocket and gave it to the general. Bonaparte examined it. It was addressed to him, and the seal bore the three fleurs-de-lis of France.

"Oh!" he said, "what is this, sir?"

"Read it, citizen First Consul."

Bonaparte opened the letter and looked at the signature: "Louis," he said.

"Louis," repeated Morgan.

"What Louis?"

"Louis de Bourbon, I presume."

"Monsieur le Comte de Provence, brother of Louis XVI."

"Consequently Louis XVIII., since his nephew, the Dauphin, is dead."

Bonaparte looked at the stranger again. It was evident that Morgan was a pseudonym, assumed to hide his real name. Then, turning his eyes on the letter, he read:

January 3, 1800.

Whatever may be their apparent conduct, monsieur, men like you never inspire distrust. You have accepted an exalted post, and I thank you for so doing. You know, better than others, that force and power are needed to make the happiness of a great nation. Save France from her own madness, and you will fulfil the desire of my heart; restore her king, and future generations will bless your memory. If you doubt my gratitude, choose your own place, determine the future of your friends. As for my principles, I am a Frenchman, clement by nature, still more so by judgment. No! the conqueror of Lodi, Castiglione and Arcola, the conqueror of Italy and Egypt, cannot prefer an empty celebrity to fame. Lose no more precious time. We can secure the glory of France. I say we, because I have need of Bonaparte for that which he cannot achieve without me. General, the eyes of Europe are upon you, glory awaits you, and I am eager to restore my people to happiness.

LOUIS.

Bonaparte turned to the young man, who stood erect, motionless and silent as a statue.

"Do you know the contents of this letter?" he asked.

The young man bowed. "Yes, citizen First Consul."

"It was sealed, however."

"It was sent unsealed under cover to the person who intrusted it to me. And before doing so he made me read it, that I might know its full importance."

"Can I know the name of the person who intrusted it to you?"

"Georges Cadoudal."

Bonaparte started slightly.

"Do you know Georges Cadoudal?" he asked.

"He is my friend."

"Why did he intrust it to you rather than to another?"

"Because he knew that in telling me to deliver the letter to you with my own hand it would be done."

"You have certainly kept your promise, sir."

"Not altogether yet, citizen First Consul."

"How do you mean? Haven't you delivered it to me?"

"Yes, but I promised to bring back an answer."

"But if I tell you I will not give one."

"You will have answered; not precisely as I could have wished, but it will be an answer."

Bonaparte reflected for a few moments. Then shaking his shoulders to rid himself of his thoughts, he said: "They are fools."

"Who, citizen?" asked Morgan.

"Those who write me such letters—fools, arch fools. Do they take me for a man who patterns his conduct by the past? Play Monk! What good would it do? Bring back another Charles II.? No, faith, it is not worth while. When a man has Toulon, the 13th Vendemiaire, Lodi, Castiglione, Arcola, Rivoli and the Pyramids behind him, he's no Monk. He has the right to aspire to more than a duchy of Albemarle, and the command by land and sea of the forces of his Majesty King Louis XVIII."

"For that reason you are asked to make your own conditions, citizen First Consul."

Bonaparte started at the sound of that voice as if he had forgotten that any one was present.

"Not counting," he went on, "that it is a ruined family, a dead branch of a rotten trunk. The Bourbons have so intermarried with one another that the race is depraved; Louis XIV. exhausted all its sap, all its vigor.—You know history, sir?" asked Bonaparte, turning to the young man.

"Yes, general," he replied; "at least as well as a ci-devant can know it."

"Well, you must have observed in history, especially in that of France, that each race has its point of departure, its culmination, and its decadence. Look at the direct line of the Capets; starting from Hugues Capet, they attained their highest grandeur in Philippe Auguste and Louis XI., and fell with Philippe V. and Charles IV. Take the Valois; starting with Philippe VI., they culminated in Francois I. and fell with Charles IX. and Henry III. See the Bourbons; starting with Henry IV., they have their culminating point in Louis XIV. and fall with Louis XV. and Louis XVI.—only they fall lower than the others; lower in debauchery with Louis XV., lower in misfortune with Louis XVI. You talk to me of the Stuarts, and show me the example of Monk. Will you tell me who succeeded Charles II.? James II. And who to James II.? William of Orange, a usurper. Would it not have been better, I ask you, if Monk had put the crown on his own head? Well, if I was fool enough to restore Louis XVIII. to the throne, like Charles II. he would have no children, and, like James II., his brother Charles X. would succeed him, and like him would be driven out by some William of Orange. No, no! God has not put the destiny of this great and glorious country we call France into my hands that I should cast it back to those who have gambled with it and lost it."

"Permit me, general, to remark that I did not ask you for all this."

"But I, I ask you—"

"I think you are doing me the honor to take me for posterity."

Bonaparte started, turned round, saw to whom he was speaking, and was silent.

"I only want," said Morgan, with a dignity which surprised the man whom he addressed, "a yes or a no."

"And why do you want that?"

"To know whether we must continue to war against you as an enemy, or fall at your feet as a savior."

"War," said Bonaparte, "war! Madmen, they who war with me! Do they not see that I am the elect of God?"

"Attila said the same thing."

"Yes; but he was the elect of destruction; I, of the new era. The grass withered where he stepped; the harvest will ripen where I pass the plow. War? Tell me what has become of those who have made it against me? They lie upon the plains of Piedmont, of Lombardy and Cairo!"

"You forget the Vendee; the Vendee is still afoot."

"Afoot, yes! but her leaders? Cathelineau, Lescure, La Rochejaquelin, d'Elbee, Bonchamps, Stoffiet, Charette?"

"You are speaking of men only; the men have been mown down, it is true; but the principle is still afoot, and for it are fighting Autichamp, Suzannet, Grignon, Frotte, Chatillon, Cadoudal. The younger may not be worth the elder, but if they die as their elders died, what more can you ask?"

"Let them beware! If I determine upon a campaign against the Vendee I shall send neither Santerre nor Rossignol!"

"The Convention sent Kleber, and the Directory, Hoche!"

"I shall not send; I shall go myself."

"Nothing worse can happen to them than to be killed like Lescure, or shot like Charette."

"It may happen that I pardon them."

"Cato taught us how to escape the pardon of Caesar."

"Take care; you are quoting a Republican!"

"Cato was one of those men whose example can be followed, no matter to what party they belong."

"And suppose I were to tell you that I hold the Vendee in the hollow of my hand?"

"You!"

"And that within three months, she will lay down her arms if I choose?"

The young man shook his head.

"You don't believe me?"

"I hesitate to believe you."

"If I affirm to you that what I say is true; if I prove it by telling you the means, or rather the men, by whom I shall bring this about?"

"If a man like General Bonaparte affirms a thing, I shall believe it; and if that thing is the pacification of the Vendee, I shall say in my turn: 'Beware! Better the Vendee fighting than the Vendee conspiring. The Vendee fighting means the sword, the Vendee conspiring means the dagger.'"

"Oh! I know your dagger," said Bonaparte. "Here it is."

And he drew from a drawer the dagger he had taken from Roland and laid it on the table within reach of Morgan's hand.

"But," he added, "there is some distance between Bonaparte's breast and an assassin's dagger. Try."

And he advanced to the young man with a flaming eye.

"I did not come here to assassinate you," said the young man, coldly. "Later, if I consider your death indispensable to the cause, I shall do all in my power, and if I fail it will not be because you are Marius and I the Cimbrian. Have you anything else to say to me, citizen First Consul?" concluded the young man, bowing.

"Yes. Tell Cadoudal that when he is ready to fight the enemy, instead of Frenchmen, I have a colonel's commission ready signed in my desk for him."

"Cadoudal commands, not a regiment, but an army. You were unwilling to retrograde from Bonaparte to Monk; why should you expect him to descend from general to colonel? Have you nothing else to say to me, citizen First Consul?"

"Yes. Have you any way of transmitting my reply to the Comte de Provence?"

"You mean King Louis XVIII.?"

"Don't let us quibble over words. To him who wrote to me."

"His envoy is now at the camp at Aubiers."

"Well, I have changed my mind; I shall send him an answer. These Bourbons are so blind that this one would misinterpret my silence."

And Bonaparte, sitting down at his desk, wrote the following letter with a care that showed he wished to make it legible:

I have received your letter, monsieur. I thank you for the good opinion you express in it of me. You must not wish for your return to France; it could only be over a hundred thousand dead bodies. Sacrifice your own interests to the repose and welfare of France. History will applaud you. I am not insensible to the misfortunes of your family, and I shall hear with pleasure that you are surrounded with all that could contribute to the tranquillity of your retreat. BONAPARTE.

Then, folding and sealing the letter, he directed it to "Monsieur le Comte de Provence," and handed it to Morgan. Then he called Roland, as if he knew the latter were not far off.

"General?" said the young officer, appearing instantly.

"Conduct this gentleman to the street," said Bonaparte. "Until then you are responsible for him."

Roland bowed in sign of obedience, let the young man, who said not a word, pass before him, and then followed. But before leaving, Morgan cast a last glance at Bonaparte.

The latter was still standing, motionless and silent, with folded arms, his eyes fixed upon the dagger, which occupied his thoughts far more than he was willing to admit even to himself.

As they crossed Roland's room, the Chief of the Companions of Jehu gathered up his cloak and pistols. While he was putting them in his belt, Roland remarked: "The citizen First Consul seems to have shown you a dagger which I gave him."

"Yes, monsieur," replied Morgan.

"Did you recognize it?"

"Not that one in particular; all our daggers are alike."

"Well," said Roland, "I will tell you whence it came."

"Ah! where was that?"

"From the breast of a friend of mine, where your Companions, possibly you yourself, thrust it."

"Possibly," replied the young man carelessly. "But your friend must have exposed himself to punishment."

"My friend wished to see what was happening at night in the Chartreuse."

"He did wrong."

"But I did the same wrong the night before, and nothing happened to me."

"Probably because some talisman protects you."

"Monsieur, let me tell you something. I am a straight-forward man who walks by daylight. I have a horror of all that is mysterious."

"Happy those who can walk the highroads by daylight, Monsieur de Montrevel!"

"That is why I am going to tell you the oath I made, Monsieur Morgan. As I drew the dagger you saw from my friend's breast, as carefully as possible, that I might not draw his soul with it, I swore that henceforward it should be war to the death between his assassins and myself. It was largely to tell you that that I gave you a pledge of safety."

"That is an oath I hope to see you forget, Monsieur de Montrevel."

"It is an oath I shall keep under all circumstances, Monsieur Morgan; and you would be most kind if you would furnish me with an opportunity as soon as possible."

"In what way, sir?"

"Well, for example, by accepting a meeting with me, either in the Bois de Boulogne or at Vincennes. We don't need to say that we are fighting because you or one of your friends stabbed Lord Tanlay. No; we can say anything you please." (Roland reflected a moment.) "We can say the duel is on account of the eclipse that takes place on the 12th of next month. Does the pretext suit you?"

"The pretext would suit me," replied Morgan, in a tone of sadness of which he seemed incapable, "if the duel itself could take place. You have taken an oath, and you mean to keep it, you say. Well, every initiate who enters the Company of Jehu swears that he will not expose in any personal quarrel a life that belongs to the cause and not to himself."

"Oh! So that you assassinate, but will not fight."

"You are mistaken. We sometimes fight."

"Have the goodness to point out an occasion when I may study that phenomenon."

"Easily enough. If you and five or six men, as resolute as yourself, will take your places in some diligence carrying government money, and will defend it against our attack, the occasion you seek will come. But, believe me, do better than that; do not come in our way."

"Is that a threat, sir?" asked the young man, raising his head.

"No," replied Morgan, in a gentle, almost supplicating voice, "it is an entreaty."

"Is it addressed to me in particular, or would you include others?"

"I make it to you in particular;" and the chief of the Companions of Jehu dwelt upon the last word.

"Ah!" exclaimed the young man, "then I am so fortunate as to interest you?"

"As a brother," replied Morgan, in the same soft, caressing tone.

"Well, well," said Roland, "this is decidedly a wager."

Bourrienne entered at that moment.

"Roland," he said, "the First Consul wants you."

"Give me time to conduct this gentleman to the street, and I'll be with him."

"Hurry up; you know he doesn't like to wait."

"Will you follow me, sir?" Roland said to his mysterious companion.

"I am at your orders, sir."

"Come, then," And Roland, taking the same path by which he had brought Morgan, took him back, not to the door opening on the garden (the garden was closed), but to that on the street. Once there, he stopped and said: "Sir, I gave you my word, and I have kept it faithfully, But that there may be no misunderstanding between us, have the goodness to tell me that you understand it to have been for this one time and for to-day only."

"That was how I understood it, sir."

"You give me back my word then?"

"I should like to keep it, sir; but I recognize that you are free to take it back."

"That is all I wish to know. Au revoir! Monsieur Morgan."

"Permit me not to offer you the same wish, Monsieur de Montrevel."

The two young men bowed with perfect courtesy, Roland re-entered the Luxembourg, and Morgan, following the line of shadow projected by the walls, took one of the little streets to the Place Saint-Sulpice.

It is he whom we are now to follow.



CHAPTER XXVI. THE BALL OF THE VICTIMS

After taking about a hundred steps Morgan removed his mask. He ran more risk of being noticed in the streets of Paris as a masked man than with uncovered face.

When he reached the Rue Taranne he knocked at the door of a small furnished lodging-house at the corner of that street and the Rue du Dragon, took a candlestick from a table, a key numbered 12 from a nail, and climbed the stairs without exciting other attention than a well-known lodger would returning home. The clock was striking ten as he closed the door of his room. He listened attentively to the strokes, the light of his candle not reaching as far as the chimney-piece. He counted ten.

"Good!" he said to himself; "I shall not be too late."

In spite of this probability, Morgan seemed determined to lose no time. He passed a bit of tinder-paper under the heater on the hearth, which caught fire instantly. He lighted four wax-candles, all there were in the room, placed two on the mantel-shelf and two on a bureau opposite, and spread upon the bed a complete dress of the Incroyable of the very latest fashion. It consisted of a short coat, cut square across the front and long behind, of a soft shade between a pale-green and a pearl-gray; a waistcoat of buff plush, with eighteen mother-of-pearl buttons; an immense white cravat of the finest cambric; light trousers of white cashmere, decorated with a knot of ribbon where they buttoned above the calves, and pearl-gray silk stockings, striped transversely with the same green as the coat, and delicate pumps with diamond buckles. The inevitable eye-glass was not forgotten. As for the hat, it was precisely the same in which Carle Vernet painted his dandy of the Directory.

When these things were ready, Morgan waited with seeming impatience. At the end of five minutes he rang the bell. A waiter appeared.

"Hasn't the wig-maker come?" asked Morgan.

In those days wig-makers were not yet called hair-dressers.

"Yes, citizen," replied the waiter, "he came, but you had not yet returned, so he left word that he'd come back. Some one knocked just as you rang; it's probably—"

"Here, here," cried a voice on the stairs.

"Ah! bravo," exclaimed Morgan. "Come in, Master Cadenette; you must make a sort of Adonis of me."

"That won't be difficult, Monsieur le Baron," replied the wig-maker.

"Look here, look here; do you mean to compromise me, citizen Cadenette?"

"Monsieur le Baron, I entreat you, call me Cadenette; you'll honor me by that proof of familiarity; but don't call me citizen. Fie; that's a revolutionary denomination! Even in the worst of the Terror I always called my wife Madame Cadenette. Now, excuse me for not waiting for you; but there's a great ball in the Rue du Bac this evening, the ball of the Victims (the wig-maker emphasized this word). I should have thought that M. le Baron would be there."

"Why," cried Morgan, laughing; "so you are still a royalist, Cadenette?"

The wig-maker laid his hand tragically on his heart.

"Monsieur le Baron," said he, "it is not only a matter of conscience, but a matter of state."

"Conscience, I can understand that, Master Cadenette, but state! What the devil has the honorable guild of wigmakers to do with politics?"

"What, Monsieur le Baron?" said Cadenette, all the while getting ready to dress his client's hair; "you ask me that? You, an aristocrat!"

"Hush, Cadenette!"

"Monsieur le Baron, we ci-devants can say that to each other."

"So you are a ci-devant?"

"To the core! In what style shall I dress M. le Baron's hair?"

"Dog's ears, and tied up behind."

"With a dash of powder?"

"Two, if you like, Cadenette."

"Ah! monsieur, when one thinks that for five years I was the only man who had an atom of powder 'a la marechale.' Why, Monsieur le Baron, a man was guillotined for owning a box of powder!"

"I've known people who were guillotined for less than that, Cadenette. But explain how you happen to be a ci-devant. I like to understand everything."

"It's very simple, Monsieur le Baron. You admit, don't you, that among the guilds there were some that were more or less aristocratic."

"Beyond doubt; accordingly as they were nearer to the higher classes of society."

"That's it, Monsieur le Baron. Well, we had the higher classes by the hair of their head. I, such as you see me, I have dressed Madame de Polignac's hair; my father dressed Madame du Barry's; my grandfather, Madame de Pompadour's. We had our privileges, Monsieur; we carried swords. It is true, to avoid the accidents that were liable to crop up among hotheads like ourselves, our swords were usually of wood; but at any rate, if they were not the actual thing, they were very good imitations. Yes, Monsieur le Baron," continued Cadenette with a sigh, "those days were the good days, not only for the wig-makers, but for all France. We were in all the secrets, all the intrigues; nothing was hidden from us. And there is no known instance, Monsieur le Baron, of a wig-maker betraying a secret. Just look at our poor queen; to whom did she trust her diamonds? To the great, the illustrious Leonard, the prince of wig-makers. Well, Monsieur le Baron, two men alone overthrew the scaffolding of a power that rested on the wigs of Louis XIV., the puffs of the Regency, the frizettes of Louis-XV., and the cushions of Marie Antoinette."

"And those two men, those levellers, those two revolutionaries, who were they, Cadenette? that I may doom them, so far as it lies in my power, to public execration."

"M. Rousseau and citizen Talma: Monsieur Rousseau who said that absurdity, 'We must return to Nature,' and citizen Talma, who invented the Titus head-dress."

"That's true, Cadenette; that's true."

"When the Directory came in there was a moment's hope. M. Barras never gave up powder, and citizen Moulins stuck to his queue. But, you see, the 18th Brumaire has knocked it all down; how could any one friz Bonaparte's hair! Ah! there," continued Cadenette, puffing out the dog's ears of his client—"there's aristocratic hair for you, soft and fine as silk, and takes the tongs so well one would think you wore a wig. See, Monsieur le Baron, you wanted to be as handsome as Adonis! Ah! if Venus had seen you, it's not of Adonis that Mars would have been jealous!"

And Cadenette, now at the end of his labors and satisfied with the result, presented a hand-mirror to Morgan, who examined himself complacently.

"Come, come!" he said to the wig-maker, "you are certainly an artist, my dear fellow! Remember this style, for if ever they cut off my head I shall choose to have it dressed like that, for there will probably be women at my execution."

"And M. le Baron wants them to regret him," said the wig-maker gravely.

"Yes, and in the meantime, my dear Cadenette, here is a crown to reward your labors. Have the goodness to tell them below to call a carriage for me."

Cadenette sighed.

"Monsieur le Baron," said he, "time was when I should have answered: 'Show yourself at court with your hair dressed like that, and I shall be paid.' But there is no court now, Monsieur le Baron, and one must live. You shall have your carriage."

With which Cadenette sighed again, slipped Morgan's crown in his pocket, made the reverential bow of wig-makers and dancing-masters, and left the young man to complete his toilet.

The head being now dressed, the rest was soon done; the cravat alone took time, owing to the many failures that occurred; but Morgan concluded the difficult task with an experienced hand, and as eleven o'clock was striking he was ready to start. Cadenette had not forgotten his errand; a hackney-coach was at the door. Morgan jumped into it, calling out: "Rue du Bac, No. 60."

The coach turned into the Rue de Grenelle, went up the Rue du Bac, and stopped at No. 60.

"Here's a double fare, friend," said Morgan, "on condition that you don't stand before the door."

The driver took the three francs and disappeared around the corner of the Rue de Varennes. Morgan glanced up the front of the house; it seemed as though he must be mistaken, so dark and silent was it. But he did not hesitate; he rapped in a peculiar fashion.

The door opened. At the further end of the courtyard was a building, brilliantly lighted. The young man went toward it, and, as he approached, the sound of instruments met his ear. He ascended a flight of stairs and entered the dressing-room. There he gave his cloak to the usher whose business it was to attend to the wraps.

"Here is your number," said the usher. "As for your weapons, you are to place them in the gallery where you can find them easily."

Morgan put the number in his trousers pocket, and entered the great gallery transformed into an arsenal. It contained a complete collection of arms of all kinds, pistols, muskets, carbines, swords, and daggers. As the ball might at any moment be invaded by the police, it was necessary that every dancer be prepared to turn defender at an instant's notice. Laying his weapons aside, Morgan entered the ballroom.

We doubt if any pen could give the reader an adequate idea of the scene of that ball. Generally, as the name "Ball of the Victims" indicated, no one was admitted except by the strange right of having relatives who had either been sent to the scaffold by the Convention or the Commune of Paris, blown to pieces by Collot d'Herbois, or drowned by Carrier. As, however, the victims guillotined during the three years of the Terror far outnumbered the others, the dresses of the majority of those who were present were the clothes of the victims of the scaffold. Thus, most of the young girls, whose mothers and older sisters had fallen by the hands of the executioner, wore the same costume their mothers and sisters had worn for that last lugubrious ceremony; that is to say, a white gown and red shawl, with their hair cut short at the nape of the neck. Some added to this costume, already so characteristic, a detail that was even more significant; they knotted around their necks a thread of scarlet silk, fine as the blade of a razor, which, as in Faust's Marguerite, at the Witches' Sabbath, indicated the cut of the knife between the throat and the collar bone.

As for the men who were in the same case, they wore the collars of their coats turned down behind, those of their shirt wide open, their necks bare, and their hair, cut short.

But many had other rights of entrance to this ball besides that of having Victims in their families; some had made victims themselves. These latter were increasing. There were present men of forty or forty-five years of age, who had been trained in the boudoirs of the beautiful courtesans of the seventeenth century—who had known Madame du Barry in the attics of Versailles, Sophie Arnoult with M. de Lauraguais, La Duthe with the Comte d'Artois—who had borrowed from the courtesies of vice the polish with which they covered their ferocity. They were still young and handsome; they entered a salon, tossing their perfumed locks and their scented handkerchiefs; nor was it a useless precaution, for if the odor of musk or verbena had not masked it they would have smelled of blood.

There were men there twenty-five or thirty years old, dressed with extreme elegance, members of the association of Avengers, who seemed possessed with the mania of assassination, the lust of slaughter, the frenzy of blood, which no blood could quench—men who, when the order came to kill, killed all, friends or enemies; men who carried their business methods into the business of murder, giving their bloody checks for the heads of such or such Jacobins, and paying on sight.

There were younger men, eighteen and twenty, almost children, but children fed, like Achilles, on the marrow of wild beasts, like Pyrrhus, on the flesh of bears; here were the pupil-bandits of Schiller, the apprentice-judges of the Sainte-Vehme—that strange generation that follows great political convulsions, like the Titans after chaos, the hydras after the Deluge; as the vultures and crows follow the carnage.

Here was the spectre of iron impassible, implacable, inflexible, which men call Retaliation; and this spectre mingled with the guests. It entered the gilded salons; it signalled with a look, a gesture, a nod, and men followed where it led. It was, as says the author from whom we have borrowed these hitherto unknown but authentic details, "a merry lust for extermination."

The Terror had affected great cynicism in clothes, a Spartan austerity in its food, the profound contempt of a barbarous people for arts and enjoyments. The Thermidorian reaction was, on the contrary, elegant, opulent, adorned; it exhausted all luxuries, all voluptuous pleasures, as in the days of Louis XV.; with one addition, the luxury of vengeance, the lust of blood.

Freron's name was given to the youth of the day, which was called the jeunesse Freron, or the jeunesse doree (gilded youth). Why Freron? Why should he rather than others receive that strange and fatal honor?

I cannot tell you—my researches (those who know me will do me the justice to admit that when I have an end in view, I do not count them)—my researches have not discovered an answer. It was a whim of Fashion, and Fashion is the one goddess more capricious than Fortune.

Our readers will hardly know to-day who Freron was. The Freron who was Voltaire's assailant was better known than he who was the patron of these elegant assassins; one was the son of the other. Louis Stanislas was son of Elie-Catherine. The father died of rage when Miromesnil, Keeper of the Seals, suppressed his journal. The other, irritated by the injustices of which his father had been the victim, had at first ardently embraced the revolutionary doctrines. Instead of the "Annee Litteraire," strangled to death in 1775, he created the "Orateur du Peuple," in 1789. He was sent to the Midi on a special mission, and Marseilles and Toulon retain to this day the memory of his cruelty. But all was forgotten when, on the 9th Thermidor, he proclaimed himself against Robespierre, and assisted in casting from the altar the Supreme Being, the colossus who, being an apostle, had made himself a god. Freron, repudiated by the Mountain, which abandoned him to the heavy jaws of Moise Bayle; Freron, disdainfully repulsed by the Girondins, who delivered him over to the imprecations of Isnard; Freron, as the terrible and picturesque orator of the Var said, "Freron naked and covered with the leprosy of crime," was accepted, caressed and petted by the Thermidorians. From them he passed into the camp of the royalists, and without any reason whatever for obtaining that fatal honor, found himself suddenly at the head of a powerful party of youth, energy and vengeance, standing between the passions of the day, which led to all, and the impotence of the law, which permitted all.

It was to the midst of this jeunesse Freron, mouthing its words, slurring its r's, giving its "word of honor" about everything, that Morgan now made his way.

It must be admitted that this jeunesse, in spite of the clothes it wore, in spite of the memories these clothes evoked, was wildly gay. This seems incomprehensible, but it is true. Explain if you can that Dance of Death at the beginning of the fifteenth century, which, with all the fury of a modern galop, led by Musard, whirled its chain through the very Cemetery of the Innocents, and left amid its tombs fifty thousand of its votaries.

Morgan was evidently seeking some one.

A young dandy, who was dipping into the silver-gilt comfit-box of a charming victim, with an ensanguined finger, the only part of his delicate hand that had escaped the almond paste, tried to stop him, to relate the particulars of the expedition from which he had brought back this bloody trophy. But Morgan smiled, pressed his other hand which was gloved, and contented himself with replying: "I am looking for some one."

"Important?"

"Company of Jehu."

The young man with the bloody finger let him pass. An adorable Fury, as Corneille would have called her, whose hair was held up by a dagger with a blade as sharp as a needle, barred his way, saying: "Morgan, you are the handsomest, the bravest, the most deserving of love of all the men present. What have you to say to the woman who tells you that?"

"I answer that I love," replied Morgan, "and that my heart is too narrow to hold one hatred and two loves." And he continued on his search.

Two young men who were arguing, one saying, "He was English," the other, "He was German," stopped him.

"The deuce," cried one; "here is the man who can settle it for us."

"No," replied Morgan, trying to push past them; "I'm in a hurry."

"There's only a word to say," said the other. "We have made a bet, Saint-Amand and I, that the man who was tried and executed at the Chartreuse du Seillon, was, according to him, a German, and, according to me, an Englishman."

"I don't know," replied Morgan; "I wasn't there. Ask Hector; he presided that night."

"Tell us where Hector is?"

"Tell me rather where Tiffauges is; I am looking for him."

"Over there, at the end of the room," said the young man, pointing to a part of the room where the dance was more than usually gay and animated. "You will recognize him by his waistcoat; and his trousers are not to be despised. I shall have a pair like them made with the skin of the very first hound I meet."

Morgan did not take time to ask in what way Tiffauges' waistcoat was remarkable, or by what queer cut or precious material his trousers had won the approbation of a man as expert in such matters as he who had spoken to him. He went straight to the point indicated by the young man, saw the person he was seeking dancing an ete, which seemed, by the intricacy of its weaving, if I may be pardoned for this technical term, to have issued from the salons of Vestris himself.

Morgan made a sign to the dancer. Tiffauges stopped instantly, bowed to his partner, led her to her seat, excused himself on the plea of the urgency of the matter which called him away, and returned to take Morgan's arm.

"Did you see him," Tiffauges asked Morgan.

"I have just left him," replied the latter.

"Did you deliver the King's letter?"

"To himself."

"Did he read it?"

"At once."

"Has he sent an answer?"

"Two; one verbal, one written; the second dispenses with the first."

"You have it?"

"Here it is."

"Do you know the contents?"

"A refusal."

"Positive?"

"Nothing could be more positive."

"Does he know that from the moment he takes all hope away from us we shall treat him as an enemy?"

"I told him so."

"What did he answer?"

"He didn't answer; he shrugged his shoulders."

"What do you think his intentions are?"

"It's not difficult to guess."

"Does he mean to keep the power himself?"

"It looks like it."

"The power, but not the throne?"

"Why not the throne?"

"He would never dare to make himself king."

"Oh! I can't say he means to be absolutely king, but I'll answer for it that he means to be something."

"But he is nothing but a soldier of fortune!"

"My dear fellow, better in these days to be the son of his deeds, than the grandson of a king."

The young man thought a moment.

"I shall report it all to Cadoudal," he said.

"And add that the First Consul said these very words: 'I hold the Vendee in the hollow of my hand, and if I choose in three months not another shot will be fired.'"

"It's a good thing to know."

"You know it; let Cadoudal know it, and take measures."

Just then the music ceased; the hum of the dancers died away; complete silence prevailed; and, in the midst of this silence, four names were pronounced in a sonorous and emphatic voice.

These four names were Morgan, Montbar, Adler and d'Assas.

"Pardon me," Morgan said to Tiffauges, "they are probably arranging some expedition in which I am to take part. I am forced, therefore, to my great regret, to bid you farewell. Only before I leave you let me look closer at your waistcoat and trousers, of which I have heard—curiosity of an amateur; I trust you will excuse it."

"Surely!" exclaimed the young Vendean, "most willingly."



CHAPTER XXVII. THE BEAR'S SKIN

With a rapidity and good nature that did honor to his courtesy, he went close to the candelabra, which were burning on the chimney-piece. The waistcoat and trousers seemed to be of the same stuff; but what was that stuff? The most experienced connoisseur would have been puzzled.

The trousers were tight-fitting as usual, of a light tint between buff and flesh color; the only remarkable thing about them was the absence of the seam, and the closeness with which they clung to the leg. The waistcoat, on the other hand, had two characteristic signs which attracted attention; it had been pierced by three balls, which had the holes gaping, and these were stained a carmine, so like blood, that it might easily have been mistaken for it. On the left side was painted a bloody heart, the distinguishing sign of the Vendeans. Morgan examined the two articles with the closest attention, but without result.

"If I were not in such a hurry," said he, "I should like to look into the matter for myself. But you heard for yourself; in all probability, some news has reached the committee; government money probably. You can announce it to Cadoudal; only we shall have to take it first. Ordinarily, I command these expeditions; if I delay, some one may take my place. So tell me what your waistcoat and trousers are made of."

"My dear Morgan," replied the Vendean, "perhaps you have heard that my brother was captured near Bressure, and shot by the Blues?"

"Yes, I know that."

"The Blues were retreating; they left the body at the corner of the hedge. We were pursuing them so closely that we arrived just after them. I found the body of my brother still warm. In one of his wounds a sprig was stuck with these words: 'Shot as a brigand by me, Claude Flageolet, corporal of the Third Battalion of Paris.' I took my brother's body, and had the skin removed from his breast. I vowed that this skin, pierced with three holes, should eternally cry vengeance before my eyes. I made it my battle waistcoat."

"Ah!" exclaimed Morgan, with a certain astonishment, in which, for the first time, was mingled something akin to terror—"Ah! then that waistcoat is made of your brother's skin? And the trousers?"

"Oh!" replied the Vendean, "the trousers, that's another matter. They are made of the skin of Claude Flageolet, corporal of the Third Battalion of Paris."

At that moment the voice again called out, in the same order, the names of Morgan, Montbar, Adler and d'Assas.

Morgan rushed out of the study, crossed the dancing-hall from end to end, and made his way to a little salon on the other side of the dressing-room. His three companions, Montbar, Adler and d'Assas, were there already. With them was a young man in the government livery of a bearer of despatches, namely a green and gold coat. His boots were dusty, and he wore a visored cap and carried the despatch-box, the essential accoutrements of a cabinet courier.

One of Cassini's maps, on which could be followed the whole lay of the land, was spread on the table.

Before saying why this courier was there, and with what object the map was unfolded, let us cast a glance at the three new personages whose names had echoed through the ballroom, and who are destined to play an important part in the rest of this history.

The reader already knows Morgan, the Achilles and the Paris of this strange association; Morgan, with his blue eyes, his black hair, his tall, well-built figure, graceful, easy, active bearing; his eye, which was never without animation; his mouth, with its fresh lips and white teeth, that was never without a smile; his remarkable countenance, composed of mingling elements that seemed so foreign to each other—strength and tenderness, gentleness and energy; and, through it all, that bewildering expression of gayety that was at times alarming when one remembered that this man was perpetually rubbing shoulders with death, and the most terrifying of all deaths—that of the scaffold.

As for d'Assas, he was a man from thirty-five to thirty-eight years of age, with bushy hair that was turning gray, and mustaches as black as ebony. His eyes were of that wonderful shade of Indian eyes, verging on maroon. He was formerly a captain of dragoons, admirably built for struggle, whether physical or moral, his muscles indicating strength, and his face, obstinacy. For the rest, a noble bearing, great elegance of manners, scented like a dandy, carrying, either from caprice or luxury, a bottle of English smelling-salts, or a silver-gilt vinaigrette containing the most subtle perfumes.

Montbar and Adler, whose real names were unknown, like those of d'Assas and Morgan, were commonly called by the Company "the inseparables." Imagine Damon and Pythias, Euryalus and Nisus, Orestes and Pylades at twenty-two—one joyous, loquacious, noisy, the other melancholy, silent, dreamy; sharing all things, dangers, money, mistresses; one the complement of the other; each rushing to all extremes, but forgetting self when in peril to watch over the other, like the Spartan youths on the sacred legions—and you will form an idea of Montbar and Adler.

It is needless to say that all three were Companions of Jehu. They had been convoked, as Morgan suspected, on business of the Company.

On entering the room, Morgan went straight to the pretended bearer of despatches and shook hands with him.

"Ah! the dear friend," said the latter, with a stiff movement, showing that the best rider cannot do a hundred and fifty miles on post-hacks with impunity. "You are taking it easy, you Parisians. Hannibal at Capua slept on rushes and thorns compared to you. I only glanced at the ballroom in passing, as becomes a poor cabinet courier bearing despatches from General Massena to the citizen First Consul; but it seemed to me you were a fine lot of victims! Only, my poor friends, you will have to bid farewell to all that for the present; disagreeable, unlucky, exasperating, no doubt, but the House of Jehu before all."

"My dear Hastier—" began Morgan.

"Stop!" cried Hastier. "No proper names, if you please, gentlemen. The Hastiers are an honest family in Lyons, doing business, it is said, on the Place des Terreaux, from father to son, and would be much humiliated to learn that their heir had become a cabinet courier, and rode the highways with the national pack on his back. Lecoq as much as you please, but not Hastier. I don't know Hastier; and you, gentlemen," continued the young man, addressing Montbar, Adler and d'Assas, "do you know him?"

"No," replied the three young men, "and we ask pardon for Morgan, who did wrong."

"My dear Lecoq," exclaimed Morgan.

"That's right," interrupted Hastier. "I answer to that name! Well, what did you want to tell me?"

"I wanted to say that if you are not the antipodes of the god Harpocrates, whom the Egyptians represent with a finger on his lips, you will, instead of indulging in a lot of declamations, more or less flowery, tell us why this costume, and why that map?"

"The deuce!" retorted the young man. "If you don't know already, it's your fault and not mine. If I hadn't been obliged to call you twice, caught as you doubtless were in the toils of some beautiful Eumenides imploring vengeance of a fine young man for the death of her old parents, you'd know as much as these gentlemen, and I wouldn't have to sing an encore. Well, here's what it is: simply of the remaining treasure of the Berne bears, which General Lecourbe is sending to the citizen First Consul by order of General Massena. A trifle, only a hundred thousand francs, that they don't dare send over the Jura on account of M. Teysonnet's partisans, who, they pretend, are likely to seize it; so it will be sent by Geneva, Bourg, Macon, Dijon, and Troyes; a much safer way, as they will find when they try it."

"Very good!"

"We were informed of this by Renard, who started from Gex at full speed, and transmitted the news to l'Hirondelle, who is at present stationed at Chalon-sur-Saone. He transmitted it to me, Lecoq, at Auxerre, and I have done a hundred and fifty miles to transmit it in turn to you. As for the secondary details, here they are. The treasure left Berne last octodi, 28th Nivose, year VIII. of the Republic triple and indivisible. It should reach Genoa to-day, duodi, and leave to-morrow, tridi, by the diligence from Geneva to Bourg; so that, by leaving this very night, by the day after to-morrow, quintide, you can, my dear sons of Israel, meet the treasure of messires the bears between Dijon and Troyes, near Bar-sur-Seine or Chatillon. What say you?"

"By heavens!" cried Morgan, "we say that there seems to be no room for argument left; we say we should never have permitted ourselves to touch the money of their Highnesses the bears of Berne so long as it remained in their coffers; but as it has changed hands once, I see no objection to its doing so a second time. Only how are we to start?"

"Haven't you a post-chaise?"

"Yes, it's here in the coach-house."

"Haven't you horses to get you to the next stage?"

"They are in the stable."

"Haven't you each your passports."

"We have each four."

"Well, then?"

"Well, we can't stop the diligence in a post-chaise. We don't put ourselves to too much inconvenience, but we don't take our ease in that way."

"Well, and why not?" asked Montbar; "it would be original. I can't see why, if sailors board from one vessel to another, we couldn't board a diligence from a post-chaise. We want novelty; shall we try it, Adler?"

"I ask nothing better," replied the latter, "but what will we do with the postilion?"

"That's true," replied Montbar.

"The difficulty is foreseen, my children," said the courier; "a messenger has been sent to Troyes. You will leave your post-chaise at Delbauce; there you will find four horses all saddled and stuffed with oats. You will then calculate your time, and the day after to-morrow, or rather to-morrow, for it is past midnight, between seven and eight in the morning, the money of Messires Bruin will pass an anxious quarter of an hour."

"Shall we change our clothes?" inquired d'Assas.

"What for?" replied Morgan. "I think we are very presentable as we are. No diligence could be relieved of unnecessary weight by better dressed fellows. Let us take a last glance at the map, transfer a pate, a cold chicken, and a dozen of champagne from the supper-room to the pockets of the coach, arm to the teeth in the arsenal, wrap ourselves in warm cloaks, and—clack! postilion!"

"Yes!" cried Montbar, "that's the idea."

"I should think so," added Morgan. "We'll kill the horses if necessary, and be back at seven in the evening, in time to show ourselves at the opera."

"That will establish an alibi," observed d'Assas.

"Precisely," said Morgan, with his imperturbable gayety. "How could men who applaud Mademoiselle Clotilde and M. Vestris at eight o'clock in the evening have been at Bar and Chatillon in the morning settling accounts with the conductor of a diligence? Come, my sons, a last look at the map to choose our spot."

The four young men bent over Cassini's map.

"If I may give you a bit of topographical advice," said the courier, "it would be to put yourselves in ambush just beyond Massu; there's a ford opposite to the Riceys—see, there!"

And the young man pointed out the exact spot on the map.

"I should return to Chacource, there; from Chacource you have a department road, straight as an arrow, which will take you to Troyes; at Troyes you take carriage again, and follow the road to Sens instead of that to Coulommiers. The donkeys—there are plenty in the provinces—who saw you in the morning won't wonder at seeing you again in the evening; you'll get to the opera at ten instead of eight—a more fashionable hour—neither seen nor recognized, I'll warrant you."

"Adopted, so far as I am concerned," said Morgan.

"Adopted!" cried the other three in chorus.

Morgan pulled out one of the two watches whose chains were dangling from his belt; it was a masterpiece of Petitot's enamel, and on the outer case which protected the painting was a diamond monogram. The pedigree of this beautiful trinket was as well established as that of an Arab horse; it had been made for Marie-Antoinette, who had given it to the Duchesse de Polastron, who had given it to Morgan's mother.

"One o'clock," said Morgan; "come, gentlemen, we must relay at Lagny at three."

From that moment the expedition had begun, and Morgan became its leader; he no longer consulted, he commanded.

D'Assas, who in Morgan's absence commanded, was the first to obey on his return.

Half an hour later a closed carriage containing four young men wrapped in their cloaks was stopped at the Fontainebleau barrier by the post-guard, who demanded their passports.

"Oh, what a joke!" exclaimed one of them, putting his head out of the window and affecting the pronunciation of the day. "Passpawts to dwive to Gwobois to call on citizen Ba-as? 'Word of fluted honor!' you're cwazy, fwend! Go on, dwiver!"

The coachman whipped up his horses and the carriage passed without further opposition.



CHAPTER XXVIII. FAMILY MATTERS

Let us leave our four hunters on their way to Lagny—where, thanks to the passports they owed to the obligingness of certain clerks in citizen Fouche's employ, they exchanged their own horses for post-horses and their coachman for a postilion—and see why the First Consul had sent for Roland.

After leaving Morgan, Roland had hastened to obey the general's orders. He found the latter standing in deep thought before the fireplace. At the sound of his entrance General Bonaparte raised his head.

"What were you two saying to each other?" asked Bonaparte, without preamble, trusting to Roland's habit of answering his thought.

"Why," said Roland, "we paid each other all sorts of compliments, and parted the best friends in the world."

"How does he impress you?"

"As a perfectly well-bred man."

"How old do you take him to be?"

"About my age, at the outside."

"So I think; his voice is youthful. What now, Roland, can I be mistaken? Is there a new royalist generation growing up?"

"No, general," replied Roland, shrugging his shoulders; "it's the remains of the old one."

"Well, Roland, we must build up another, devoted to my son—if ever I have one."

Roland made a gesture which might be translated into the words, "I don't object." Bonaparte understood the gesture perfectly.

"You must do more than not object," said he; "you must contribute to it."

A nervous shudder passed over Roland's body.

"In what way, general?" he asked.

"By marrying."

Roland burst out laughing.

"Good! With my aneurism?" he asked.

Bonaparte looked at him, and said: "My dear Roland, your aneurism looks to me very much like a pretext for remaining single."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes; and as I am a moral man I insist upon marriage."

"Does that mean that I am immoral," retorted Roland, "or that I cause any scandal with my mistresses?"

"Augustus," answered Bonaparte, "created laws against celibates, depriving them of their rights as Roman citizens."

"Augustus—"

"Well?"

"I'll wait until you are Augustus; as yet, you are only Caesar."

Bonaparte came closer to the young man, and, laying his hands on his shoulders, said: "Roland, there are some names I do not wish to see extinct, and among them is that of Montrevel."

"Well, general, in my default, supposing that through caprice or obstinacy I refuse to perpetuate it, there is my little brother."

"What! Your brother? Then you have a brother?"

"Why, yes; I have a brother! Why shouldn't I have brother?"

"How old is he?"

"Eleven or twelve."

"Why did you never tell me about him?"

"Because I thought the sayings and doings of a youngster of that age could not interest you."

"You are mistaken, Roland; I am interested in all that concerns my friends. You ought to have asked me for something for your brother."

"Asked what, general?"

"His admission into some college in Paris."

"Pooh! You have enough beggars around you without my swelling their number."

"You hear; he is to come to Paris and enter college. When he is old enough, I will send him to the Ecole Militare, or some other school which I shall have founded before then."

"Faith, general," said Roland, "just as if I had guessed your good intentions, he is this very day on the point of, starting for Paris."

"What for?"

"I wrote to my mother three days ago to bring the boy to Paris. I intended to put him in college without mentioning it, and when he was old enough to tell you about him—always supposing that my aneurism had not carried me off in the meantime. But in that case—"

"In that case?"

"Oh! in that case I have left a bit of a will addressed to you, and recommending to your kindness my mother, and the boy and the girl—in short, the whole raft."

"The girl! Who is she?"

"My sister."

"So you have a sister also?"

"Yes."

"How old is she?"

"Seventeen."

"Pretty?"

"Charming."

"I'll take charge of her establishment."

Roland began to laugh.

"What's the matter?" demanded the First Consul.

"General, I'm going to put a placard over the grand entrance to the Luxembourg."

"What will you put on the placard?"

"'Marriages made here.'"

"Why not? Is it any reason because you don't wish to marry for your sister to remain an old maid? I don't like old maids any better than I do old bachelors."

"I did not say, general, that my sister should remain an old maid; it's quite enough for one member of the Montrevel family to have incurred your displeasure."

"Then what do you mean?"

"Only that, as the matter concerns my sister, she must, if you will allow it, be consulted."

"Ah, ha! Some provincial love-affair, is there?"

"I can't say. I left poor Amelie gay and happy, and I find her pale and sad. I shall get the truth out of her; and if you wish me to speak to you again about the matter, I will do so."

"Yes, do so—when you get back from the Vendee."

"Ah! So I am going to the Vendee?"

"Why, is that, like marriage, repugnant, to you?"

"Not in the least."

"Then you are going to the Vendee."

"When?"

"Oh, you need not hurry, providing you start to-morrow."

"Excellent; sooner if you wish. Tell me what I am to do there."

"Something of the utmost importance, Roland."

"The devil! It isn't a diplomatic mission, I presume?"

"Yes; it is a diplomatic mission for which I need a man who is not a diplomatist."

"Then I'm your man, general! Only, you understand, the less a diplomatist I am, the more precise my instructions must be."

"I am going to give them to you. Do you see that map?"

And he showed the young man a large map of Piedmont stretched out on the floor, under a lamp suspended from the ceiling.

"Yes, I see it," replied Roland, accustomed to follow the general along the unexpected dashes of his genius; "but it is a map of Piedmont."

"Yes, it's a map of Piedmont."

"So there is still a question of Italy?"

"There is always a question of Italy."

"I thought you spoke of the Vendee?"

"Secondarily."

"Why, general, you are not going to send me to the Vendee and go yourself to Italy, are you?"

"No; don't be alarmed."

"All right; but I warn you, if you did, I should desert and join you."

"I give you permission to do so; but now let us go back to Melas."

"Excuse me, general; this is the first time you have mentioned him."

"Yes; but I have been thinking of him for a long time. Do you know where I shall defeat him?"

"The deuce! I do."

"Where?"

"Wherever you meet him."

Bonaparte laughed.

"Ninny!" he said, with loving familiarity. Then, stooping over the map, he said to Roland, "Come here."

Roland stooped beside him. "There," resumed Bonaparte; "that is where I shall fight him."

"Near Alessandria?"

"Within eight or nine miles of it. He has all his supplies, hospitals, artillery and reserves in Alessandria; and he will not leave the neighborhood. I shall have to strike a great blow; that's the only condition on which I can get peace. I shall cross the Alps"—he pointed to the great Saint-Bernard—"I shall fall upon Melas when he least expects me, and rout him utterly."

"Oh! trust you for that!"

"Yes; but you understand, Roland, that in order to quit France with an easy mind, I can't leave it with an inflammation of the bowels—I can't leave war in the Vendee."

"Ah! now I see what you are after. No Vendee! And you are sending me to the Vendee to suppress it."

"That young man told me some serious things about the Vendee. They are brave soldiers, those Vendeans, led by a man of brains, Georges Cadoudal. I have sent him the offer of a regiment, but he won't accept."

"Jove! He's particular."

"But there's one thing he little knows."

"Who, Cadoudal?"

"Yes, Cadoudal. That is that the Abbe Bernier has made me overtures."

"The Abbe Bernier?"

"Yes."

"Who is the Abbe Bernier?"

"The son of a peasant from Anjou, who may be now about thirty-three or four years of age. Before the insurrection he was curate of Saint-Laud at Angers. He refused to take the oath and sought refuge among the Vendeans. Two or three times the Vendee was pacificated; twice she was thought dead. A mistake! the Vendee was pacificated, but the Abbe Bernier had not signed the peace; the Vendee was dead, but the Abbe Bernier was still alive. One day the Vendee was ungrateful to him. He wished to be appointed general agent to the royalist armies of the interior; Stofflet influenced the decision and got his old master, Comte Colbert de Maulevrier, appointed in Bernier's stead. When, at two o'clock in the morning, the council broke up, the Abbe Bernier had disappeared. What he did that night, God and he alone can tell; but at four o'clock in the morning a Republican detachment surrounded the farmhouse where Stofflet was sleeping, disarmed and defenceless. At half-past four Stofflet was captured; eight days later he was executed at Angers. The next day Autichamp took command, and, to avoid making the same blunder as Stofflet, he appointed the Abbe Bernier general agent. Now, do you understand?"

"Perfectly."

"Well, the Abbe Bernier, general agent of the belligerent forces, and furnished with plenary powers by the Comte d'Artois—the Abbe Bernier has made overtures to me."

"To you, to Bonaparte, to the First Consul he deigns to—? Why, that's very kind of the Abbe Bernier? Have you accepted them?"

"Yes, Roland; if the Vendee will give me peace, I will open her churches and give her back her priests."

"And suppose they chant the Domine, salvum fac regem?"

"That would be better than not singing at all. God is omnipotent, and he will decide. Does the mission suit you, now that I have explained it?"

"Yes, thoroughly."

"Then, here is a letter for General Hedouville. He is to treat with the Abbe Bernier as the general-in-chief of the Army of the West. But you are to be present at all these conferences; he is only my mouthpiece, you are to be my thought. Now, start as soon as possible; the sooner you get back, the sooner Melas will be defeated."

"General, give me time to write to my mother, that's all."

"Where will she stop?"

"At the Hotel des Ambassadeurs."

"When do you think she will arrive?"

"This is the night of the 21st of January; she will be here the evening of the 23d, or the morning of the 24th."

"And she stops at the Hotel des Ambassadeurs?"

"Yes, general."

"I take it all on myself."

"Take it all on yourself, general?"

"Certainly; your mother can't stay at a hotel."

"Where should she stay?"

"With a friend."

"She knows no one in Paris."

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur Roland; she knows citizen Bonaparte, First Consul, and his wife."

"You are not going to lodge my mother at the Luxembourg. I warn you that that would embarrass her very much."

"No; but I shall lodge her in the Rue de la Victoire."

"Oh, general!"

"Come, come; that's settled. Go, now, and get back as soon as possible."

Roland took the First Consul's hand, meaning to kiss it; but Bonaparte drew him quickly to him.

"Embrace me, my dear Roland," he said, "and good luck to you."

Two hours later Roland was rolling along in a post-chaise on the road to Orleans. The next day, at nine in the morning, he entered Nantes, after a journey of thirty-three hours.



CHAPTER XXIX. THE GENEVA DILIGENCE

About the hour when Roland was entering Nantes, a diligence, heavily loaded, stopped at the inn of the Croix-d'Or, in the middle of the main street of Chatillon-sur-Seine.

In those days the diligences had but two compartments, the coupe and the interior; the rotunda is an adjunct of modern times.

The diligence had hardly stopped before the postilion jumped down and opened the doors. The travellers dismounted. There were seven in all, of both sexes. In the interior, three men, two women, and a child at the breast; in the coupe, a mother and her son.

The three men in the interior were, one a doctor from Troyes, the second a watchmaker from Geneva, the third an architect from Bourg. The two women were a lady's maid travelling to Paris to rejoin her mistress, and the other a wet-nurse; the child was the latter's nursling, which she was taking back to its parents.

The mother and son in the coupe were people of position; the former, about forty years of age, still preserving traces of great beauty, the latter a boy between eleven and twelve. The third place in the coupe was occupied by the conductor.

Breakfast was waiting, as usual, in the dining-room; one of those breakfasts which conductors, no doubt in collusion with the landlords, never give travellers the time to eat. The woman and the nurse got out of the coach and went to a baker's shop nearby, where each bought a hot roll and a sausage, with which they went back to the coach, settling themselves quietly to breakfast, thus saving the cost, probably too great for their means, of a meal at the hotel.

The doctor, the watchmaker, the architect and the mother and son entered the inn, and, after warming themselves hastily at the large kitchen-fire, entered the dining-room and took seats at the table.

The mother contented herself with a cup of coffee with cream, and some fruit. The boy, delighted to prove himself a man by his appetite at least, boldly attacked the viands. The first few moments were, as usual, employed in satisfying hunger. The watchmaker from Geneva was the first to speak.

"Faith, citizen," said he (the word citizen was still used in public places), "I tell you frankly I was not at all sorry to see daylight this morning."

"Cannot monsieur sleep in a coach?" asked the doctor.

"Oh, yes, sir," replied the compatriot of Jean-Jacques; "on the contrary, I usually sleep straight through the night. But anxiety was stronger than fatigue this time."

"Were you afraid of upsetting?" asked the architect.

"No. I'm very lucky in that respect; it seems enough for me to be in a coach to make it unupsettable. No, that wasn't it."

"What was it, then?" questioned the doctor.

"They say in Geneva that the roads in France are not safe."

"That's according to circumstances," said the architect.

"Ah! how's that?" inquired the watchmaker.

"Oh!" replied the architect; "if, for example, we were carrying government money, we would surely be stopped, or rather we would have been already."

"Do you think so?" queried the watchmaker.

"That has never failed. I don't know how those devils of Companions of Jehu manage to keep so well posted; but they never miss an opportunity."

The doctor nodded affirmatively.

"Ah!" exclaimed the watchmaker, addressing the doctor; "do you think so, too?"

"I do."

"And if you knew there was government money in the coach, would you be so imprudent as to take passage in it?"

"I must admit," replied the doctor, "that I should think twice about it."

"And you, sir?" said the questioner to the architect.

"Oh, I," replied the latter—"as I am on important business, I should have started anyway."

"I am tempted," said the watchmaker "to take off my valise and my oases, and wait for to-morrow's diligence, because my boxes are filled with watches worth something like twenty thousand francs. We've been lucky so far, but there's no use tempting Providence."

"Did you not hear these gentlemen say," remarked the lady, joining in the conversation for the first time, "that we run the risk of being stopped only when the coach carries government money?"

"That's exactly it," replied the watchmaker, looking anxiously around. "We are carrying it."

The mother blanched visibly and looked at her son. Before fearing for herself every mother fears for her child.

"What! we are carrying it?" asked the doctor and the architect in varying tones of excitement. "Are you sure of what you are saying?"

"Perfectly sure, gentlemen."

"Then you should either have told us before, or have told us in a whisper now."

"But perhaps," said the doctor, "the gentleman is not quite sure of what he says."

"Or perhaps he is joking," added the architect.

"Heaven forbid!"

"The Genevese are very fond of a laugh," persisted the doctor.

"Sir," replied the Genevese, much hurt that any one should think he liked to laugh, "I saw it put on the coach myself."

"What?"

"The money."

"Was there much?"

"A good many bags."

"But where does the money come from?"

"The treasury of the bears of Berne. You know, of course, that the bears of Berne received an income of fifty or even sixty thousand francs."

The doctor burst out laughing.

"Decidedly, sir, you are trying to frighten us," said he.

"Gentlemen," said the watchmaker, "I give you my word of honor—"

"Take your places gentlemen," shouted the conductor, opening the door. "Take your places! We are three-quarters of an hour late."

"One moment, conductor, one moment," Said the architect; "we are consulting."

"About what?"

"Close the door, conductor, and come over here."

"Drink a glass of wine with us, conductor."

"With pleasure, gentlemen; a glass of wine is never to be refused."

The conductor held out his glass, and the three travellers touched it; but just as he was lifting it to his lips the doctor stopped his arm.

"Come, conductor, frankly, is it true?"

"What?"

"What this gentleman says?" And he pointed to the Genevese.

"Monsieur Feraud?"

"I don't know if that is his name."

"Yes, sir, that is my name—Feraud & Company, No. 6 Rue du Rempart, Geneva, at your service," replied the watchmaker, bowing.

"Gentlemen," repeated the conductor, "take your places!"

"But you haven't answered."

"What the devil shall I answer? You haven't asked me anything."

"Yes, we asked you if it is true that you are carrying a large sum of money belonging to the French Government?"

"Blabber!" said the conductor to watchmaker, "did you tell that?"

"Confound it, my worthy fellow—"

"Come, gentlemen, your places."

"But before getting in we want to know—"

"What? Whether I have government money? Yes I have. Now, if we are stopped, say nothing and all will be well."

"Are you sure?"

"Leave me to arrange matters with these gentry."

"What will you do if we are stopped?" the doctor asked the architect.

"Faith! I shall follow the conductor's advice."

"That's the best thing to do," observed the latter.

"Well, I shall keep quiet," repeated the architect.

"And so shall I," added the watchmaker.

"Come, gentlemen, take your seats, and let us make haste."

The boy had listened to this conversation with frowning brow and clinched teeth.

"Well," he said to his mother, "if we are stopped, I know what I'll do."

"What will you do?" she asked.

"You'll see."

"What does this little boy say?" asked the watchmaker.

"I say you are all cowards," replied the child unhesitatingly.

"Edouard!" exclaimed his mother, "what do you mean?"

"I wish they'd stop the diligence, that I do!" cried the boy, his eye sparkling with determination.

"Come, come, gentlemen, in Heaven's name, take your places," called the conductor once more.

"Conductor," said the doctor, "I presume you have no weapons!"

"Yes, I have my pistols."

"Unfortunate!"

The conductor stooped to the doctor's ear and whispered: "Don't be alarmed, doctor; they're only loaded with powder."

"Good!"

"Forward, postilion, forward!" shouted the conductor, closing the door of the interior. Then, while the postilion snapped his whip and started the heavy vehicle, he also closed that of the coupe.

"Are you not coming with us, conductor?" asked the lady.

"Thank you, no, Madame de Montrevel," replied the conductor; "I have something to do on the imperial." Then, looking into the window, he added: "Take care the Monsieur Edouard does not touch the pistols in the pocket of the carriage; he might hurt himself."

"Pooh!" retorted the boy, "as if I didn't know how to handle a pistol. I have handsomer ones than yours, that my friend Sir John had sent me from England; haven't I, mamma?"

"Never mind, Edouard," replied Madame de Montrevel, "I entreat you not to touch them."

"Don't worry, little mother." Then he added softly, "All the same, if the Companions of Jehu stop us, I know what I shall do."

The diligence was again rolling heavily on its way to Paris.

It was one of those fine winter days which makes those who think that nature is dead at that season admit that nature never dies but only sleeps. The man who lives to be seventy or eighty years of age has his nights of ten or twelve hours, and often complains that the length of his nights adds to the shortness of his days. Nature, which has an everlasting existence; trees, which live a thousand years; have sleeping periods of four or five months, which are winters for us but only nights for them. The poets, in their envious verse, sing the immortality of nature, which dies each autumn and revives each spring. The poets are mistaken; nature does not die each autumn, she only falls asleep; she is not resuscitated, she awakens. The day when our globe really dies, it will be dead indeed. Then it will roll into space or fall into the abysses of chaos, inert, mute, solitary, without trees, without flowers, without verdure, without poets.

But on this beautiful day of the 23d of February, 1800, sleeping nature dreamed of spring; a brilliant, almost joyous sun made the grass in the ditches on either side of the road sparkle with those deceptive pearls of the hoarfrost which vanish at a touch, and rejoice the heart of a tiller of the earth when he sees them glittering at the points of his wheat as it pushes bravely up through the soil. All the windows of the diligence were lowered, to give entrance to this earliest smile of the Divine, as though all hearts were saying: "Welcome back, traveller long lost in the clouds of the West, or beneath the heaving billows of Ocean!"

Suddenly, about an hour after leaving Chatillon, the diligence stopped at a bend of the river without any apparent cause. Four horsemen quietly approached, walking their horses, and one of them, a little in advance of the others, made a sign with his hand to the postilion, ordering him to draw up. The postilion obeyed.

"Oh, mamma!" cried Edouard, standing up and leaning out of the window in spite of Madame de Montrevel's protestations; "oh, mamma, what fine horses! But why do these gentlemen wear masks? This isn't carnival."

Madame de Montrevel was dreaming. A woman always dreams a little; young, of the future; old, of the past. She started from her revery, put her head out of the window, and gave a little cry.

Edouard turned around hastily.

"What ails you, mother?" he asked.

Madame de Montrevel turned pale and took him in her arms without a word. Cries of terror were heard in the interior.

"But what is the matter?" demanded little Edouard, struggling to escape from his mother's encircling arms.

"Nothing, my little man," said one of the masked men in a gentle voice, putting his head through the window of the coupe; "nothing but an account we have to settle with the conductor, which does not in the least concern you travellers. Tell your mother to accept our respectful homage, and to pay no more heed to us than if we were not here." Then passing to the door of the interior, he added: "Gentlemen, your servant. Fear nothing for your money or jewels, and reassure that nurse—we have not come here to turn her milk." Then to the conductor: "Now, then, Pere Jerome, we have a hundred thousand francs on the imperial and in the boxes, haven't we?"

"Gentlemen, I assure you—"

"That the money belongs to the government. It did belong to the bears of Berne; seventy thousand francs in gold, the rest in silver. The silver is on the top of the coach, the gold in the bottom of the coupe. Isn't that so? You see how well informed we are."

At the words "bottom of the coupe" Madame de Montrevel gave another cry of terror; she was about to come in contact with men who, in spite of their politeness, inspired her with the most profound terror.

"But what is the matter, mother, what is the matter?" demanded the boy impatiently.

"Be quiet, Edouard; be quiet!"

"Why must I be quiet?"

"Don't you understand?"

"No."

"The coach has been stopped."

"Why? Tell me why? Ah, mother, I understand."

"No, no," said Madame de Montrevel, "you don't understand."

"Those gentlemen are robbers."

"Take care you don't say so."

"What, you mean they are not robbers? Why, see they are taking the conductor's money."

Sure enough, one of the four was fastening to the saddle of his horse the bags of silver which the conductor threw down from the imperial.

"No," repeated Madame de Montrevel, "no, they are not robbers." Then lowering her voice, she added: "They are Companions of Jehu."

"Ah!" cried the boy, "they are the ones who assassinated my friend, Sir John."

And the child turned very pale, and his breath came hissing through his clinched teeth.

At that moment one of the masked men opened the door of the coupe, and said with exquisite politeness: "Madame la Comtesse, to our great regret we are obliged to disturb you; but we want, or rather the conductor wants, a package from the bottom of the coupe. Will you be so kind as to get out for a moment? Jerome will get what he wants as quickly as possible." Then, with that note of gayety which was never entirely absent from that laughing voice, he added, "Won't you, Jerome?"