"Cannot I take leave of my sprightly bat?" asked D'Harmental; "for I do not forget that it is to her I owe the happiness of having offered my services to your highness."

"De Launay," cried the duchess, conducting the Prince of Cellamare to the door, "De Launay, here is Monsieur le Chevalier d'Harmental, who says you are the greatest sorceress he has ever known."

"Well!" said she who has left us such charming memoirs, under the name of Madame de Stael, "do you believe in my prophecies now, Monsieur le Chevalier?"

"I believe, because I hope," replied the chevalier. "But now that I know the fairy that sent you, it is not your predictions that astonish me the most. How were you so well informed about the past, and, above all, of the present?"

"Well, De Launay, be kind, and do not torment the chevalier any longer, or he will believe us to be two witches, and be afraid of us."

"Was there not one of your friends, chevalier," asked De Launay, "who left you this morning in the Bois de Boulogne to come and say adieu to us."

"Valef! It is Valef!" cried D'Harmental. "I understand now."

"In the place of Oedipus you would have been devoured ten times over by the Sphinx."

"But the mathematics; but the anatomy; but Virgil?" replied D'Harmental.

"Do you not know, chevalier," said Malezieux, mixing in the conversation, "that we never call her anything here but our 'savante?' with the exception of Chaulieu, however, who calls her his flirt, and his coquette; but all as a poetical license. We let her loose the other day on Du Vernay, our doctor, and she beat him at anatomy."

"And," said the Marquis de Pompadour, taking D'Harmental's arm to lead him away, "the good man in his disappointment declared that there was no other girl in France who understood the human frame so well."

"Ah!" said the Abbe Brigaud, folding his papers, "here is the first savant on record who has been known to make a bon-mot. It is true that he did not intend it."

And D'Harmental and Pompadour, having taken leave of the duchess, retired laughing, followed by the Abbe Brigaud, who reckoned on them to drive him home.

"Well," said Madame de Maine, addressing the Cardinal de Polignac, "does your eminence still find it such a terrible thing to conspire?"

"Madame," replied the cardinal, who could not understand that any one could laugh when their head was in danger, "I will ask you the same question when we are all in the Bastille."

And he went away with the good chancellor, deploring the ill-luck which had thrown him into such a rash enterprise.

The duchess looked after him with a contempt which she could not disguise: then, when she was alone with De Launay:

"My dear Sophy," said she, "let us put out our lantern, for I think we have found a man."



CHAPTER VII.

ALBERONI.

When D'Harmental awoke, he wondered if all had been a dream. Events had, during the last thirty-six hours, succeeded each other with such rapidity, that he had been carried away, as by a whirlpool, without knowing where he was going. Now for the first time he had leisure to reflect on the past and the future.

These were times in which every one conspired more or less. We know the natural bent of the mind in such a case. The first feeling we experience, after having made an engagement in a moment of exaltation, is one almost of regret for having been so forward. Little by little we become familiarized with the idea of the dangers we are running. Imagination removes them from our sight, and presents instead the ambitions we may realize. Pride soon becomes mingled with it, as we think that we have become a secret power in the State. We walk along proudly, with head erect, passing contemptuously those who lead an ordinary life; we cradle ourselves in our hopes, and wake one morning conquering or conquered; carried on the shoulders of the people, or broken by the wheels of that machine called the government.

Thus it was with D'Harmental. After a few moments' reflection, he saw things under the same aspect as he had done the day before, and congratulated himself upon having taken the highest place among such people as the Montmorencies and the Polignacs. His family had transmitted to him much of that adventurous chivalry so much in vogue under Louis XIII., and which Richelieu with his scaffolds, and Louis XIV. with his antechambers, had not quite been able to destroy. There was something romantic in enlisting himself, a young man, under the banners of a woman, and that woman a granddaughter of the great Conde.

D'Harmental lost no time in preparing to keep the promises he had made, for he felt that the eyes of all the conspirators were upon him, and that on his courage and prudence depended the destinies of two kingdoms, and the politics of the world. At this moment the regent was the keystone of the arch of the European edifice; and France was beginning to take, if not by arms, at least by diplomacy, that influence which she had unfortunately not always preserved. Placed at the center of the triangle formed by the three great Powers, with eyes fixed on Germany, one arm extended toward England, and the other toward Spain, ready to turn on either of these three States that should not treat her according to her dignity, she had assumed, under the Duc d'Orleans, an attitude of calm strength which she had never had under Louis XIV.

This arose from the division of interests consequent on the usurpation of William of Orange, and the accession of Philip V. to the throne of Spain. Faithful to his old hatred against the stadtholder, who had refused him his daughter, Louis XIV. had constantly advanced the pretensions of James II., and, after his death, of the Chevalier de St. George. Faithful to his compact with Philip V., he had constantly aided his grandson against the emperor, with men and money; and, weakened by this double war, he had been reduced to the shameful treaty of Utrecht; but at the death of the old king all was changed, and the regent had adopted a very different line of conduct. The treaty of Utrecht was only a truce, which had been broken from the moment when England and Holland did not pursue common interests with those of France.

In consequence, the regent had first of all held out his hand to George I., and the treaty of the triple alliance had been signed at La Haye, by Dubois, in the name of France; by General Cadogan, for England; and by the pensioner, Heinsiens, for Holland. This was a great step toward the pacification of Europe, but the interests of Austria and Spain were still in suspense. Charles VI. would not recognize Philip V. as king of Spain; and Philip V., on his part, would not renounce his rights over those provinces of the Spanish empire which the treaty of Utrecht had given to the emperor.

It was in the hopes of bringing these things about that the regent had sent Dubois to London, where he was pursuing the treaty of the quadruple alliance with as much ardor as he had that of La Haye. This treaty would have neutralized the pretensions of the State not approved by the four Powers. This was what was feared by Philip V. (or rather the Cardinal d'Alberoni).

It was not thus with Alberoni; his was one of those extraordinary fortunes which one sees, always with new astonishment, spring up around the throne; one of those caprices of destiny which chance raises and destroys; like a gigantic waterspout, which advances on the ocean, threatening to annihilate everything, but which is dispersed by a stone thrown from the hand of a sailor; or an avalanche, which threatens to swallow towns, and fill up valleys, because a bird in its flight has detached a flake of snow on the summit of the mountain.

Alberoni was born in a gardener's cottage, and as a child he was the bell-ringer. When still a young man he exchanged his smock-frock for a surplice, but was of a merry and jesting disposition. The Duke of Parma heard him laugh one day so gayly, that the poor duke, who did not laugh every day, asked who it was that was so merry, and had him called. Alberoni related to him some grotesque adventure. His highness laughed heartily; and finding that it was pleasant to laugh sometimes, attached him to his person. The duke soon found that he had mind, and fancied that that mind was not incapable of business.

It was at this time that the poor bishop of Parma came back, deeply mortified at his reception by the generalissimo of the French army. The susceptibility of this envoy might compromise the grave interests which his highness had to discuss with France. His highness judged that Alberoni was the man to be humiliated by nothing, and he sent the abbe to finish the negotiation which the bishop had left unfinished. M. de Vendome, who had not put himself out for a bishop, did not do so for an abbe, and received the second ambassador as he had the first; but, instead of following the example of his predecessor, he found in M. de Vendome's own situation so much subject for merry jests and strange praises, that the affair was finished at once, and he came back to the duke with everything arranged to his desire.

This was a reason for the duke to employ him a second time. This time Vendome was just going to sit down to table, and Alberoni, instead of beginning about business, asked if he would taste two dishes of his cooking, went into the kitchen, and came back, a "soupe au fromage" in one hand, and macaroni in the other. De Vendome found the soup so good that he asked Alberoni to take some with him at his own table. At dessert Alberoni introduced his business, and profiting by the good humor of Vendome, he twisted him round his finger.

His highness was astonished. The greatest genius he had met with had never done so much. The next time it was M. de Vendome who asked the duke of Parma if he had nothing else to negotiate with him. Alberoni found means of persuading his sovereign that he would be more useful to him near Vendome than elsewhere, and he persuaded Vendome that he could not exist without "soupe au fromage" and macaroni.

M. de Vendome attached him to his service, allowed him to interfere in his most secret affairs, and made him his chief secretary. At this time Vendome left for Spain. Alberoni put himself in communication with Madame des Ursins; and when Vendome died, she gave him, near her, the same post he had occupied near the deceased.

This was another step. The Princesse des Ursins began to get old, an unpardonable crime in the eyes of Philip V. She resolved to place a young woman near the king, through whom she might continue to reign over him. Alberoni proposed the daughter of his old master, whom he represented as a child, without character, and without will, who would claim nothing of royalty but the name. The princess was taken by this promise. The marriage was decided on, and the young princess left Italy for Spain.

Her first act of authority was to arrest the Princesse des Ursins, who had come to meet her in a court dress, and to send her back, as she was, with her neck uncovered, in a bitter frost, in a carriage of which the guard had broken the window with his elbow, first to Burgos, and then to France, where she arrived, after having been obliged to borrow fifty pistoles from her servants. After his first interview with Elizabeth Farnese, the king announced to Alberoni that he was prime minister. From that day, thanks to the young queen, who owed him everything, the ex-ringer of bells exercised an unlimited empire over Philip V.

Now this is what Alberoni pictured to himself, having always prevented Philip V. from recognizing the peace of Utrecht. If the conspiracy succeeded—if D'Harmental carried off the Duc d'Orleans, and took him to the citadel of Toledo, or the fortress of Saragossa—Alberoni would get Monsieur de Maine recognized as regent, would withdraw France from the quadruple alliance, throw the Chevalier de St. George with the fleet on the English coast, and set Prussia, Sweden, and Russia, with whom he had a treaty of alliance, at variance with Holland. The empire would then profit by their dispute to retake Naples and Sicily; would assure Tuscany to the second son of the king of Spain; would reunite the Catholic Netherlands to France, give Sardinia to the Dukes of Savoy, Commachio to the pope, and Mantua to the Venetians. He would make himself the soul of the great league, of the south against the north; and if Louis XV. died, would crown Philip V. king of half the world.

All these things were now in the hands of a young man of twenty-six years of age; and it was not astonishing that he should be, at first, frightened at the responsibility which weighed upon him.

As he was still in deep thought, the Abbe Brigaud entered. He had already found a lodging for the chevalier, at No. 5, Rue du Temps-Perdu; a small furnished room, suitable to a young man who came to seek his fortune in Paris. He brought him also two thousand pistoles from the Prince of Cellamare.

D'Harmental wished to refuse them, for it seemed as if he would be no longer acting according to conscience and devotion; but Brigaud explained to him that in such an enterprise there are susceptibilities to conquer, and accomplices to pay; and that besides, if the affair succeeded, he would have to set out instantly for Spain, and perhaps make his way by force of gold. Brigaud carried away a complete suit of the chevalier's, as a pattern for a fresh one suitable for a clerk in an office. The Abbe Brigaud was a useful man.

D'Harmental passed the rest of the day in preparing for his pretended journey, and removed, in case of accident, every letter which might compromise a friend; then went toward the Rue St. Honore, where—thanks to La Normande—he hoped to have news of Captain Roquefinette. In fact, from the moment that a lieutenant for his enterprise had been spoken of, he had thought of this man, who had given him, as his second, a proof of his careless courage. He had instantly recognized in him one of those adventurers always ready to sell their blood for a good price, and who, in time of peace, when their swords are useless to the State, place them at the service of individuals.

On becoming a conspirator one always becomes superstitious, and D'Harmental fancied that it was an intervention of Providence which had introduced him to Roquefinette. The chevalier, without being a regular customer, went occasionally to the tavern of La Fillon. It was quite fashionable at that time to go and drink at her house. D'Harmental was to her neither her son, a name which she gave to all her "habitues," nor her gossip, a word which she reserved for the Abbe Dubois, but simply Monsieur le Chevalier; a mark of respect which would have been considered rather a humiliation by most of the young men of fashion. La Fillon was much astonished when D'Harmental asked to see one of her servants, called La Normande.

"Oh, mon Dieu! Monsieur le Chevalier!" said she, "I am really distressed; but La Normande is waiting at a dinner which will last till to-morrow evening."

"Plague! what a dinner!"

"What is to be done?" replied La Fillon. "It is a caprice of an old friend of the house. He will not be waited on by any one but her, and I cannot refuse him that satisfaction."

"When he has money, I suppose?"

"You are mistaken. I give him credit up to a certain sum. It is a weakness, but one cannot help being grateful. He started me in the world, such as you see me, monsieur—I, who have had in my house the best people in Paris, including the regent. I was only the daughter of a poor chair-bearer. Oh! I am not like the greater part of your beautiful duchesses, who deny their origin; nor like two-thirds of your dukes and peers, who fabricate genealogies for themselves. No! what I am, I owe to my own merit, and I am proud of it."

"Then," said the chevalier, who was not particularly interested by La Fillon's history, "you say that La Normande will not have finished with this dinner till to-morrow evening?"

"The jolly old captain never stays less time than that at table, when once he is there."

"But, my dear presidente" (this was a name sometimes given to La Fillon, as a certain quid pro quo for the presidente who had the same name as herself), "do you think, by chance, your captain may be my captain?"

"What is yours called?"

"Captain Roquefinette."

"It is the same."

"He is here?"

"In person."

"Well, he is just the man I want; and I only asked for La Normande to get his address."

"Then all is right," said the presidente.

"Have the kindness to send for him."

"Oh! he would not come down for the regent himself. If you want to see him you must go up."

"Where?"

"At No. 2, where you supped the other evening with the Baron de Valef. Oh! when he has money, nothing is too good for him. Although he is but a captain, he has the heart of a king."

"Better and better," said D'Harmental, mounting the staircase, without being deterred by the recollection of the misadventure which had happened to him in that room; "that is exactly what I want."

If D'Harmental had not known the room in question, the voice of the captain would soon have served him for a guide.

"Now, my little loves," said he, "the third and last verse, and together in the chorus." Then he began singing in a magnificent bass voice, and four or five female voices took up the chorus.

"That is better," said the captain; "now let us have the 'Battle of Malplaquet."

"No, no," said a voice; "I have had enough of your battle."

"What! enough of it—a battle I was at myself?"

"That is nothing to me. I like a romance better than all your wicked battle-songs, full of oaths." And she began to sing "Linval loved Arsene—"

"Silence!" said the captain. "Am I not master here? As long as I have any money I will be served as I like. When I have no more, that will be another thing; then you may sing what you like; I shall have nothing to say to it."

It appeared that the servants of the cabaret thought it beneath the dignity of their sex to subscribe to such a pretension, for there was such a noise that D'Harmental thought it best to announce himself.

"Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up," said the captain.

D'Harmental followed the instruction which was given him in the words of Little Red Riding-hood; and, having entered, saw the captain lying on a couch before the remains of an ample dinner, leaning on a cushion, a woman's shawl over his shoulders, a great pipe in his mouth, and a cloth rolled round his head like a turban. Three or four servants were standing round him with napkins in their hands. On a chair near him was placed his coat, on which was to be seen a new shoulder-knot, his hat with a new lace, and the famous sword which had furnished Ravanne with the facetious comparison to his mother's spit.

"What! is it you?" cried the captain. "You find me like Monsieur de Bonneval—in my seraglio, and surrounded by my slaves. You do not know Monsieur de Bonneval, ladies: he is a pasha of three tails, who, like me, could not bear romances, but who understood how to live. Heaven preserve me from such a fate as his!"

"Yes, it is I, captain," said D'Harmental, unable to prevent laughing at the grotesque group which presented itself. "I see you did not give me a false address, and I congratulate you on your veracity."

"Welcome, chevalier," said the captain. "Ladies, I beg you to serve monsieur with the grace which distinguishes you, and to sing him whatever songs he likes. Sit down, chevalier, and eat and drink as if you were at home, particularly as it is your horse we are eating and drinking. He is already more than half gone, poor animal, but the remains are good."

"Thank you, captain, I have just dined; and I have only one word to say to you, if you will permit it."

"No, pardieu! I do not permit it," said the captain, "unless it is about another engagement—that would come before everything. La Normande, give me my sword."

"No, captain; it is on business," interrupted D'Harmental.

"Oh! if it is on business, I am your humble servant; but I am a greater tyrant than the tyrants of Thebes or Corinth—Archias, Pelopidas, Leonidas, or any other that ends in 'as,' who put off business till to-morrow. I have enough money to last till to-morrow evening; then, after to-morrow, business."

"But at least after to-morrow, captain, I may count upon you?"

"For life or death, chevalier."

"I believe that the adjournment is prudent."

"Prudentissimo!" said the captain. "Athenais, light my pipe. La Normande, pour me out something to drink."

"The day after to-morrow, then, captain?"

"Yes; where shall I find you?"

"Listen," replied D'Harmental, speaking so as to be heard by no one but him. "Walk, from ten to eleven o'clock in the morning, in the Rue du Temps Perdu. Look up; you will be called from somewhere, and you must mount till you meet some one you know. A good breakfast will await you."

"All right, chevalier," replied the captain; "from ten to eleven in the morning. Excuse me if I do not conduct you to the door, but you know it is not the custom with Turks."

The chevalier made a sign with his hand that he dispensed with this formality, and descended the staircase. He was only on the fourth step when he heard the captain begin the famous song of the Dragoons of Malplaquet, which had perhaps caused as much blood to be shed in duels as there had been on the field of battle.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE GARRET.

The next day the Abbe Brigaud came to the chevalier's house at the same hour as before. He was a perfectly punctual man. He brought with him three things particularly useful to the chevalier; clothes, a passport, and the report of the Prince of Cellamare's police respecting what the regent was going to do on the present day, March 24, 1718. The clothes were simple, as became the cadet of a bourgeois family come to seek his fortune in Paris. The chevalier tried them on, and, thanks to his own good looks, found that they became him admirably.

The abbe shook his head. He would have preferred that the chevalier should not have looked quite so well; but this was an irreparable misfortune. The passport was in the name of Signior Diego, steward of the noble house of Oropesa, who had a commission to bring back to Spain a sort of maniac, a bastard of the said house, whose mania was to believe himself regent of France. This was a precaution taken to meet anything that the Duc d'Orleans might call out from the bottom of the carriage; and, as the passport was according to rule, signed by the Prince de Cellamare, and "vised" by Monsieur Voyer d'Argenson, there was no reason why the regent, once in the carriage, should not arrive safely at Pampeluna, when all would be done.

The signature of Monsieur Voyer d'Argenson was imitated with a truth which did honor to the caligraphers of the Prince de Cellamare. As to the report, it was a chef-d'oeuvre of clearness; and we insert it word for word, to give an idea of the regent's life, and of the manner in which the Spanish ambassador's police was conducted. It was dated two o'clock in the morning.

"To-day the regent will rise late. There has been a supper in his private rooms; Madame d'Averne was there for the first time instead of Madame de Parabere. The other women were the Duchesse de Falaris, and Saseri, maid of honor to madame. The men were the Marquis de Broglie, the Count de Noce, the Marquis de Canillac, the Duc de Brancas, and the Chevalier de Simiane. As to the Marquis de Lafare and Monsieur de Fargy, they were detained in bed by an illness, of which the cause is unknown. At noon there will be a council. The regent will communicate to the Ducs de Maine and de Guiche the project of the treaty of the quadruple alliance, which the Abbe Dubois has sent him, announcing his return in three or four days.

"The rest of the day is given entirely to paternity. The day before yesterday the regent married his daughter by La Desmarets, who was brought up by the nuns of St. Denis. She dines with her husband at the Palais Royal, and, after dinner, the regent takes her to the opera, to the box of Madame Charlotte de Baviere. La Desmarets, who has not seen her daughter for six years, is told that, if she wishes to see her, she can come to the theater. The regent, in spite of his caprice for Madame d'Averne, still pays court to Madame de Sabran, who piques herself on her fidelity—not to her husband, but to the Duc de Richelieu. To advance his affairs, the regent has appointed Monsieur de Sabran his maitre-d'hotel."

"I hope that is business well done," said the Abbe Brigaud.

"Yes, my dear abbe," replied D'Harmental; "but if the regent does not give us greater opportunities than that for executing our enterprise, it will not be easy for us to take him to Spain."

"Patience, patience," said Brigaud; "if there had been an opportunity to-day you would not have been able to profit by it."

"No; you are right."

"Then you see that what God does is well done. He has left us this day; let us profit by it to move."

This was neither a long nor difficult business. D'Harmental took his treasure, some books, and the packet which contained his wardrobe, and drove to the abbe's house. Then he sent away his carriage, saying he should go into the country in the evening, and would be away ten or twelve days. Then, having changed his elegant clothes for those that the abbe had brought him, he went to take possession of his new lodging. It was a room, or rather an attic, with a closet, on the fourth story, at No. 5, Rue du Temps Perdu. The proprietor of the house was an acquaintance of the Abbe Brigaud's; therefore, thanks to his recommendation, they had gone to some expense for the young provincial. He found beautifully white curtains, very fine linen, and a well-furnished library; so he saw at once that, if not so well off as in his own apartments, he should be tolerably comfortable.

Madame Denis (this was the name of the abbe's friend) was waiting to do the honors of the room to her future lodger. She boasted to him of its convenience, and promised him that there would be no noise to disturb him from his work. To all which he replied in such a modest manner, that on going down to the first floor, where she lived, Madame Denis particularly recommended him to the care of the porter and his wife. This young man, though in appearance he could certainly compete with the proudest seigneurs of the court, seemed to her far from having the bold and free manners which the young men of the time affected. 'Tis true that the Abbe Brigaud, in the name of his pupil's family, had paid her a quarter in advance.

A minute after, the abbe went down to Madame Denis's room and completed her good opinion of his young protege by telling her that he received absolutely nobody but himself and an old friend of his father's. The latter, in spite of brusk manners, which he had acquired in the field, was a highly respectable gentleman.

D'Harmental used this precaution for fear the apparition of the captain might frighten Madame Denis if she happened to meet him. When he was alone, the chevalier, who had already taken the inventory of his own room, resolved to take that of the neighborhood. He was soon able to convince himself of the truth of what Madame Denis had said about the quietness of the street, for it was not more than ten or twelve feet wide; but this was to him a recommendation, for he calculated that if pursued he might, by means of a plank passed from one window to that opposite, escape to the other side of the street. It was, therefore, important to establish amicable relations with his opposite neighbors.

Unfortunately, they did not seem much disposed to sociability; for not only were the windows hermetically sealed, as the time of year demanded, but the curtains behind them were so closely drawn, that there was not the smallest opening through which he could look. More favored than that of Madame Denis, the house opposite had a fifth story, or rather a terrace. An attic room just above the window so carefully closed, opened on this terrace. It was probably the residence of a gardener, for he had succeeded, by means of patience and labor, in transforming this terrace into a garden, containing, in some twelve feet square, a fountain, a grotto, and an arbor.

It is true that the fountain only played by means of a superior reservoir, which was fed in winter by the rain, and in summer by what he himself poured into it. It is true that the grotto, ornamented with shell work, and surrounded by a wooden fortress, appeared fit only to shelter an individual of the canine race. It is true that the arbor, entirely stripped of its leaves, appeared for the time fit only for an immense poultry cage. As there was nothing to be seen but a monotonous series of roofs and chimneys, D'Harmental closed his window, sat down in an armchair, put his feet on the hobs, took up a volume by the Abbe Chaulieu, and began to read the verses addressed to Mademoiselle de Launay, which had a double interest for him, since he knew the heroine.

The result of this reading was that the chevalier, while smiling at the octogenarian love of the good abbe, discovered that he, less fortunate, had his heart perfectly unoccupied. For a short time he had thought he had loved Madame d'Averne, and had been loved by her; but on her part this deep affection did not withstand the offer of some jewels from the regent, and the vanity of pleasing him.

Before this infidelity had occurred, the chevalier thought that it would have driven him to despair. It had occurred, and he had fought, because at that time men fought about everything which arose, probably from dueling being so strictly forbidden. Then he began to perceive how small a place this love had held in his heart. A real despair would not have allowed him to seek amusement at the bal-masque, in which case the exciting events of the last few days would not have happened.

The result of this was, that the chevalier remained convinced that he was incapable of a deep love, and that he was only destined for those charming wickednesses so much in vogue. He got up, and began to walk up and down his room; while thus employed he perceived that the window opposite was now wide open. He stopped mechanically, drew back his curtain, and began to investigate the room thus exposed.

It was to all appearance occupied by a woman. Near the window, on which a charming little Italian greyhound rested her delicate paws, was an embroidery frame. Opposite the window was an open harpsichord between two music stands, some crayon drawings, framed in black wood with a gold bead, were hung on the walls, which were covered with a Persian paper. Curtains of Indian chintz, of the same pattern as the paper, hung behind the muslin curtains. Through a second window, half open, he could see the curtains of a recess which probably contained a bed. The rest of the furniture was perfectly simple, but almost elegant, which was due evidently, not to the fortune, but to the taste of the modest inhabitant.

An old woman was sweeping, dusting, and arranging the room, profiting by the absence of its mistress to do this household work, for there was no one else to be seen in the room, and yet it was clear it was not she who inhabited it. All at once the head of the greyhound—whose great eyes had been wandering till then, with the aristocratic indifference characteristic of that animal—became animated. She leaned her head over into the street; then, with a miraculous lightness and address, jumped on to the window-sill, pricking up her long-ears, and raising one of her paws. The chevalier understood by these signs that the tenant of the little room was approaching. He opened his window directly; unfortunately it was already too late, the street was solitary.

At the same moment the greyhound leaped from the window into the room and ran to the door. D'Harmental concluded that the young lady was mounting the stairs. In order to see her at his ease, he threw himself back and hid behind the curtain, but the old woman came to the window and closed it. The chevalier did not expect this denouement. There was nothing for him but to close his window also, and to come back and put his feet on the hobs. This was not amusing, and the chevalier began to feel how solitary he should be in this retreat. He remembered that formerly he also used to play and draw, and he thought that if he had the smallest spinet and some chalks, he could bear it with patience.

He rang for the porter, and asked where he could procure these things. The porter replied that every increase of furniture must be at his own expense. That if he wished for a harpsichord he must hire it, and that as to pencils, he could get them at the shop at the corner of the Rue de Clery.

D'Harmental gave a double louis to the porter, telling him that in half an hour he wished to have a spinet and some pencils. The double louis was an argument of which he had before found the advantage; reproaching himself, however, with having used it this time with a carelessness which gave the lie to his apparent position, he recalled the porter, and told him that he expected for his double louis to have, not only paper and pencils, but a month's hire of his instrument.

The porter replied that as he would speak as if it were for himself, the thing was possible; but that he must certainly pay the carriage. D'Harmental consented, and half an hour afterward was in possession of the desired objects. Such a wonderful place is Paris for every enchanter with a golden wand. The porter, when he went down, told his wife that if the new lodger was not more careful of his money, he would ruin his family, and showed her two crowns of six francs, which he had saved out of the double louis. The woman took the two crowns from the hands of her husband, calling him a drunkard, and put them into a little bag, hidden under a heap of old clothes, deploring the misfortune of fathers and mothers who bleed themselves to death for such good-for-nothings. This was the funeral oration of the chevalier's double louis.



CHAPTER IX.

A CITIZEN OF THE RUE DU TEMPS PERDU.

During this time D'Harmental was seated before the spinet, playing his best. The shopkeeper had had a sort of conscience, and had sent him an instrument nearly in tune, so that the chevalier began to perceive that he was doing wonders, and almost believed he was born with a genius for music, which had only required such a circumstance to develop itself. Doubtless there was some truth in this, for in the middle of a brilliant shake he saw, from the other side of the street, five little fingers delicately raising the curtain to see from whence this unaccustomed harmony proceeded. Unfortunately, at the sight of these fingers the chevalier forgot his music, and turned round quickly on the stool, in hopes of seeing a face behind the hand.

This ill-judged maneuver ruined him. The mistress of the little room, surprised in the act of curiosity, let the curtain fall. D'Harmental, wounded by this prudery, closed his window. The evening passed in reading, drawing, and playing. The chevalier could not have believed that there were so many minutes in an hour, or so many hours in a day. At ten o'clock in the evening he rang for the porter, to give orders for the next day; but no one answered; he had been in bed a long time, and D'Harmental learned that there were people who went to bed about the time he ordered his carriage to pay visits.



This set him thinking of the strange manners of that unfortunate class of society who do not know the opera, who do not go to supper-parties, and who sleep all night and are awake all day. He thought you must come to the Rue du Temps Perdu to see such things, and promised himself to amuse his friends with an account of this singularity. He was glad to see also that his neighbor watched like himself. This showed in her a mind superior to that of the vulgar inhabitants of the Rue du Temps Perdu. D'Harmental believed that people only watched because they did not wish to sleep, or because they wanted to be amused. He forgot all those who do so because they are obliged. At midnight the light in the opposite windows was extinguished; D'Harmental also went to his bed. The next day the Abbe Brigaud appeared at eight o'clock. He brought D'Harmental the second report of secret police. It was in these terms:

"Three o'clock, A.M.

"In consequence of the regular life which he led yesterday, the regent has given orders to be called at nine.

"He will receive some appointed persons at that time.

"From ten to twelve there will be a public audience.

"From twelve till one the regent will be engaged with La Vrilliere and Leblanc.

"From one to two he will open letters with Torcy.

"At half-past two there will be a council, and he will pay the king a visit.

"At three o'clock he will go to the tennis court in the Rue du Seine, to sustain, with Brancas and Canillac, a challenge against the Duc de Richelieu, the Marquis de Broglie, and the Comte de Gace.

"At six he will go to supper at the Luxembourg with the Duchesse de Berry, and will pass the evening there.

"From there he will come back, without guards, to the Palais Royal, unless the Duchesse de Berry gives him an escort from hers."

"Without guards, my dear abbe! what do you think of that?" said D'Harmental, beginning to dress; "does it not make your mouth water?"

"Without guards, yes," replied the abbe; "but with footmen, outriders, a coachman—all people who do not fight much, it is true, but who cry very loud. Oh! patience, patience, my young friend. You are in a great hurry to be a grandee of Spain."

"No, my dear abbe, but I am in a hurry to give up living in an attic where I lack everything, and where I am obliged to dress myself alone, as you see. Do you think it is nothing to go to bed at ten o'clock, and dress in the morning without a valet?"

"Yes, but you have music," replied the abbe.

"Ah! indeed!" replied D'Harmental. "Abbe, open my window, I beg, that they may see I receive good company. That will do me honor with my neighbors."

"Ho! ho!" said the abbe, doing what D'Harmental asked; "that is not bad at all."

"How, not bad?" replied D'Harmental; "it is very good, on the contrary. It is from Armida: the devil take me if I expected to find that in the fourth story of a house in the Rue du Temps Perdu."

"Chevalier, I predict," said the abbe, "that if the singer be young and pretty, in a week there will be as much trouble to get you away as there is now to keep you here."

"My dear abbe," said D'Harmental, "if your police were as good as those of the Prince de Cellamare, you would know that I am cured of love for a long time, and here is the proof. Do not think I pass my days in sighing. I beg when you go down you will send me something like a pate, and a dozen bottles of good wine. I trust to you. I know you are a connoisseur; besides, sent by you, it will seem like a guardian's attention. Bought by me, it would seem like a pupil's debauch; and I have my provincial reputation to keep up with Madame Denis."

"That is true. I do not ask you what it is for, but I will send it to you."

"And you are right, my dear abbe. It is all for the good of the cause."

"In an hour the pate and the wine will be here."

"When shall I see you again?"

"To-morrow, probably."

"Adieu, then, till to-morrow."

"You send me away."

"I am expecting somebody."

"All for the good of the cause?"

"I answer you, go, and may God preserve you."

"Stay, and may the devil not get hold of you. Remember that it was a woman who got us turned out of our terrestrial paradise. Defy women."

"Amen," said the chevalier, making a parting sign with his hand to the Abbe Brigaud.

Indeed, as the abbe had observed, D'Harmental was in a hurry to see him go. The great love for music, which the chevalier had discovered only the day before, had progressed so rapidly that he did not wish his attention called away from what he had just heard. The little which that horrible window allowed him to hear, and which was more of the instrument than of the voice, showed that his neighbor was an excellent musician. The playing was skillful, the voice sweet and sustained, and had, in its high notes and deep vibrations, something which awoke an answer in the heart of the listener. At last, after a very difficult and perfectly executed passage, D'Harmental could not help clapping his hands and crying bravo! As bad luck would have it, this triumph, to which she had not been accustomed, instead of encouraging the musician, frightened her so much, that voice and harpsichord stopped at the same instant, and silence immediately succeeded to the melody for which the chevalier had so imprudently manifested his enthusiasm.

In exchange, he saw the door of the room above (which we have said led on to the terrace) open, and a hand was stretched out, evidently to ascertain what kind of weather it was. The answer of the weather seemed reassuring, for the hand was almost directly followed by a head covered by a little chintz cap, tied on the forehead by a violet ribbon; and the head was only a few instants in advance of a neck and shoulders clothed in a kind of dressing-gown of the same stuff as the cap. This was not quite enough to enable the chevalier to decide to which sex the individual, who seemed so cautious about exposing himself to the morning air, belonged. At last, a sort of sunbeam having slipped out between two clouds, the timid inhabitant of the terrace appeared to be encouraged to come out altogether. D'Harmental then saw, by his black velvet knee-breeches, and by his silk stockings, that the personage who had just entered on the scene was of the masculine gender.

It was the gardener of whom we spoke. The bad weather of the preceding days had, without doubt, deprived him of his morning walk, and had prevented him from giving his garden his ordinary attention, for he began to walk round it with a visible fear of finding some accident produced by the wind or rain; but, after a careful inspection of the fountain, the grotto, and the arbor, which were its three principal ornaments, the excellent face of the gardener was lighted by a ray of joy, as the weather was by the ray of sun. He perceived, not only that everything was in its place, but that the reservoir was full to overflowing. He thought he might indulge in playing his fountain, a treat which, ordinarily, following the example of Louis XIV., he only allowed himself on Sundays. He turned the cock, and the jet raised itself majestically to the height of four or five feet. The good man was so delighted that he began to sing the burden of an old pastoral song which D'Harmental had heard when he was a baby, and, while repeating—

"Let me go And let me play Beneath the hazel-tree,"

he ran to the window, and called aloud, "Bathilde! Bathilde!"

The chevalier understood that there was a communication between the rooms on the third and fourth stories, and some relation between the gardener and the musician, and thought that perhaps if he remained at the window she would not come on to the terrace; therefore he closed his window with a careless air, taking care to keep a little opening behind the curtain, through which he could see without being seen. What he had foreseen happened. Very soon the head of a charming young girl appeared on the terrace; but as, without doubt, the ground, on which he had ventured with so much courage, was too damp, she would not go any further. The little dog, not less timid than its mistress, remained near her, resting its white paws on the window, and shaking its head in silent denial to every invitation. A dialogue was established between the good man and the young girl, while D'Harmental had leisure to examine her at ease.

She appeared to have arrived at that delicious time of life when woman, passing from childhood to youth, is in the full bloom of sentiment, grace, and beauty. He saw that she was not less than sixteen nor more than eighteen years of age, and that there existed in her a singular mixture of two races. She had the fair hair, thick complexion, and graceful neck of an English woman, with the black eyes, coral lips, and pearly teeth of a Spaniard.

As she did not use either rouge or white, and as that time powder was scarcely in fashion, and was reserved for aristocratic heads, her complexion remained in its natural freshness, and nothing altered the color of her hair.

The chevalier remained as in an ecstasy—indeed, he had never seen but two classes of women. The fat and coarse peasants of the Nivernais, with their great feet and hands, their short petticoats, and their hunting-horn shaped hats; and the women of the Parisian aristocracy, beautiful without doubt, but of that beauty fagged by watching and pleasure, and by that reversing of life which makes them what flowers would be if they only saw the sun on some rare occasions, and the vivifying air of the morning and the evening only reached them through the windows of a hot-house. He did not know this intermediate type, if one may call it so, between high society and the country people, which had all the elegance of the one, and all the fresh health of the other. Thus, as we have said, he remained fixed in his place, and long after the young girl had re-entered, he kept his eyes fixed on the window where this delicious vision had appeared.

The sound of his door opening called him out of his ecstasy: it was the pate and the wine from Abbe Brigaud making their solemn entry into the chevalier's garret. The sight of these provisions recalled to his mind that he had now something better to do than to abandon himself to contemplation, and that he had given Captain Roquefinette a rendezvous on the most important business. Consequently he looked at his watch, and saw that it was ten o'clock. This was, as the reader will remember, the appointed hour. He sent away the man who had brought the provisions, and said he would lay the cloth himself; then, opening his window once more, he sat down to watch for the appearance of Captain Roquefinette.

He was hardly at his observatory before he perceived the worthy captain coming round the corner from the Rue Gros-Chenet, his head in the air, his hand on his hip, and with the martial and decided air of a man who, like the Greek philosopher, carries everything with him. His hat, that thermometer by which his friends could tell the secret state of its master's finances, and which, on his fortunate days was placed as straight on his head as a pyramid on its base, had recovered that miraculous inclination which had so struck the Baron de Valef, and thanks to which, one of the points almost touched his right shoulder, while the parallel one might forty years later had given Franklin, if Franklin had known the captain, the first idea of his electric kite.

Having come about a third down the street, he raised his head as had been arranged, and saw the chevalier just above him. He who waited, and he who was waited for, exchanged nods, and the captain having calculated the distance at a glance, and recognized the door which ought to belong to the window above, jumped over the threshold of Madame Denis's poor little house with as much familiarity as if it had been a tavern. The chevalier shut the window, and drew the curtains with the greatest care—either in order that his pretty neighbor might not see him with the captain, or that the captain might not see her.

An instant afterward D'Harmental heard the sound of his steps, and the beating of his sword against the banisters. Having arrived at the third story, as the light which came from below was not aided by any light from above, he found himself in a difficulty, not knowing whether to stop where he was, or mount higher. Then, after coughing in the most significant manner, and finding that this call remained unnoticed—

"Morbleu!" said he. "Chevalier, as you did not probably bring me here to break my neck, open your door or call out, so that I may be guided either by the light of heaven, or by the sound of your voice; otherwise I shall be lost, neither more nor less than Theseus in the labyrinth."

And the captain began to sing in a loud voice—

"Fair Ariadne, I beg of you, Help me, by lending me your clew. Toutou, toutou, toutaine, toutou!"

The chevalier ran to his door and opened it.

"My friend," said the captain, "the ladder up to your pigeon-house is infernally dark; still here I am, faithful to the agreement, exact to the time. Ten o'clock was striking as I came over the Pont-Neuf."



CHAPTER X.

THE AGREEMENT.

The chevalier extended his hand to Roquefinette, saying:

"Yes, you are a man of your word, but enter quickly; it is important that my neighbors should not notice you."

"In that case I am as dumb as a log," answered the captain; "besides," added he, pointing to the pate and the bottles which covered the table, "you have found the true way of shutting my mouth."

The chevalier shut the door behind the captain and pushed the bolt.

"Ah! ah! mystery—so much the better, I am fond of mystery. There is almost always something to be gained when people begin by saying 'hush.' In any case you cannot do better than address yourself to your servant," continued the captain, resuming his mythological language. "You see in me the grandson of Hippocrates, the god of silence. So do not be uneasy."

"That is well, captain," answered D'Harmental, "for I confess that what I have to say to you is of sufficient importance for me to claim your discretion beforehand."

"It is granted, chevalier. While I was giving a lesson to little Ravanne, I saw, out of a corner of my eye, that you were a skillful swordsman, and I love brave men. Then, in return for a little service, only worth a fillip, you made me a present of a horse which was worth a hundred louis, and I love generous men. Thus you are twice my man, why should I not be yours once?"

"Well," said the chevalier, "I see that we understand each other."

"Speak, and I will listen," answered the captain, assuming his gravest air.

"You will listen better seated, my dear guest. Let us go to breakfast."

"You preach like St. John with the golden mouth, chevalier," said the captain, taking off his sword and placing that and his hat on the harpsichord; "so that," continued he, sitting down opposite D'Harmental, "one cannot differ from you in opinion. I am here; command the maneuver, and I will execute it."

"Taste that wine while I cut the pate."

"That is right," said the captain, "let us divide our forces, and fight the enemy separately, then let us re-unite to exterminate what remains."

And joining practice to theory, the captain seized the first bottle by the neck, drew the cork, and having filled a bumper, drank it off with such ease that one would have said that nature had gifted him with an especial method of deglutition; but, to do him justice, scarcely had he drunk it than he perceived that the liquor, which he had disposed of so cavalierly, merited a more particular attention than he had given it.

"Oh!" said he, putting down his glass with a respectful slowness, "what have I done, unworthy that I am? I drink nectar as if it were trash, and that at the beginning of the feast! Ah!" continued he, shaking his head, "Roquefinette, my friend, you are getting old. Ten years ago you would have known what it was at the first drop that touched your palate, while now you want many trials to know the worth of things. To your health, chevalier."

And this time the captain, more circumspect, drank the second glass slowly, and set it down three times before he finished it, winking his eyes in sign of satisfaction. Then, when he had finished—

"This is hermitage of 1702, the year of the battle of Friedlingen. If your wine-merchant has much like that, and if he will give credit, let me have his address. I promise him a good customer."

"Captain," answered the chevalier, slipping an enormous slice of pate on to the plate of his guest, "my wine-merchant not only gives credit, but to my friends he gives altogether."

"Oh, the honest man!" cried the captain. Then, after a minute's silence, during which a superficial observer would have thought him absorbed in the appreciation of the pate, as he had been an instant before in that of the wine, he leaned his two elbows on the table, and looking at D'Harmental with a penetrating glance between his knife and fork—

"So, my dear chevalier," said he, "we conspire, it seems, and in order to succeed we have need of poor Captain Roquefinette."

"And who told you that, captain?" broke in the chevalier, trembling in spite of himself.

"Who told me that, pardieu! It is an easy riddle to answer. A man who gives away horses worth a hundred louis, who drinks wine at a pistole the bottle, and who lodges in a garret in the Rue du Temps Perdu, what should he be doing if not conspiring?"

"Well, captain," said D'Harmental, laughing, "I shall never be discreet; you have divined the truth. Does a conspiracy frighten you?" continued he, filling his guest's glass.

"Frighten me! Who says that anything on earth can frighten Captain Roquefinette?"

"Not I, captain; for at the first glance, at the first word, I fixed on you as my second."

"Ah! that is to say, that if you are hung on a scaffold twenty feet high, I shall be hung on one ten feet high, that's all!"

"Peste! captain," said D'Harmental, "if one always began by seeing thing in their worst light, one would never attempt anything."

"Because I have spoken of the gallows?" answered the captain. "That proves nothing. What is the gallows in the eyes of a philosopher? One of the thousand ways of parting from life, and certainly one of the least disagreeable. One can see that you have never looked the thing in the face, since you have such an aversion to it. Besides, on proving our noble descent, we shall have our heads cut off, like Monsieur de Rohan. Did you see Monsieur de Rohan's head cut off?" continued the captain, looking at D'Harmental. "He was a handsome young man, like you, and about your age. He conspired, but the thing failed. What would you have? Everybody may be deceived. They built him a beautiful black scaffold; they allowed him to turn toward the window where his mistress was; they cut the neck of his shirt with scissors, but the executioner was a bungler, accustomed to hang, and not to decapitate, so that he was obliged to strike three or four times to cut the head off, and at last he only managed by the aid of a knife which he drew from his girdle, and with which he chopped so well that he got the neck in half. Bravo! you are brave!" continued the captain, seeing that the chevalier had listened without frowning to all the details of this horrible execution. "That will do—I am your man. Against whom are we conspiring? Let us see. Is it against Monsieur le Duc de Maine? Is it against Monsieur le Duc d'Orleans? Must we break the lame one's other leg? Must we cut out the blind one's other eye? I am ready."

"Nothing of all that, captain; and if it pleases God there will be no blood spilled."

"What is going on then?"

"Have you ever heard of the abduction of the Duke of Mantua's secretary?"

"Of Matthioli?"——"Yes."

"Pardieu! I know the affair better than any one, for I saw them pass as they were conducting him to Pignerol. It was the Chevalier de Saint-Martin and Monsieur de Villebois who did it; and by this token they each had three thousand livres for themselves and their men."

"That was only middling pay," said D'Harmental, with a disdainful air.

"You think so, chevalier? Nevertheless three thousand livres is a nice little sum."

"Then for three thousand livres you would have undertaken it?"

"I would have undertaken it," answered the captain.

"But if instead of carrying off a secretary it had been proposed to you to carry off a duke?"

"That would have been dearer."

"But you would have undertaken it all the same?"

"Why not? I should have asked double—that is all."

"And if, in giving you double, a man like myself had said to you, 'Captain, it is not an obscure danger that I plunge you into; it is a struggle in which I am myself engaged, like you, and in which I venture my name, my future, and my head:' what would you have answered?"

"I would have given him my hand, as I now give it you. Now what is the business?"

The chevalier filled his own glass and that of the captain.

"To the health of the regent," said he, "and may he arrive without accident at the Spanish frontier, as Matthioli arrived at Pignerol."

"Ah! ah!" said the captain, raising his glass. Then, after a pause, "And why not?" continued he, "the regent is but a man after all. Only we shall neither be hanged nor decapitated; we shall be broken on the wheel. To any one else I should say that a regent would be dearer, but to you, chevalier, I have only one price. Give me six thousand livres, and I will find a dozen determined men."

"But those twelve men, do you think that you may trust them?"

"What need for their knowing what they are doing? They shall think they are only carrying out a wager."

"And I," answered D'Harmental, "will show you that I do not haggle with my friends. Here are two thousand crowns in gold, take them on account if we succeed; if we fail we will cry quits."

"Chevalier," answered the captain, taking the bag of money and poising it on his hand with an indescribable air of satisfaction, "I will not do you the injustice of counting after you. When is the affair to be?"

"I do not know yet, captain; but if you find the pate to your taste, and the wine good, and if you will do me the pleasure of breakfasting with me every day as you have done to-day, I will keep you informed of everything."

"That would not do, chevalier," said the captain. "I should not have come to you three mornings before the police of that cursed Argenson would have found us out. Luckily he has found some one as clever as himself, and it will be some time before we are at the bar together. No, no, chevalier, from now till the moment for action, the less we see of one another the better; or rather, we must not see each other at all. Your street is not a long one, and as it opens at one end on the Rue du Gros-Chenet, and at the other on the Rue Montmartre, I shall have no reason for coming through it. Here," continued he, detaching his shoulder-knot, "take this ribbon. The day that you want me, tie it to a nail outside your window. I shall understand it, and I will come to you."

"How, captain!" said D'Harmental, seeing that his companion was fastening on his sword. "Are you going without finishing the bottle? What has the wine, which you appeared to appreciate so much a little while ago, done to you, that you despise it so now?"

"It is just because I appreciate it still that I separate myself from it; and the proof that I do not despise it," said the captain, filling his glass, "is that I am going to take an adieu of it. To your health, chevalier; you may boast of having good wine. Hum! And now, n—o, no, that is all. I shall take to water till I see the ribbon flutter from your window. Try to let it be as soon as possible, for water is a liquid that does not suit my constitution."

"But why do you go so soon?"

"Because I know Captain Roquefinette. He is a good fellow; but when he sits down before a bottle he must drink, and when he has drunk he must talk; and, however well one talks, remember that those who talk much always finish by making some blunder. Adieu, chevalier. Do not forget the crimson ribbon; I go to look after our business."

"Adieu, captain," said D'Harmental, "I am pleased to see that I have no need to preach discretion to you."

The captain made the sign of the cross on his mouth with his right thumb, placed his hat straight on his head, raised his sword for fear of its making a noise or beating against the wall, and went downstairs as silently as if he had feared that every step would echo in the Hotel d'Argenson.



CHAPTER XI.

PROS AND CONS.

The chevalier remained alone; but this time there was, in what had just passed between himself and the captain, sufficient matter for reflection to render it unnecessary for him to have recourse either to the poetry of the Abbe Chaulieu, his harpsichord, or his chalks. Indeed, until now, he had been only half engaged in the hazardous enterprise of which the Duchesse de Maine and the Prince de Cellamare had shown him the happy ending, and of which the captain, in order to try his courage, had so brutally exhibited to him the bloody catastrophe. As yet he had only been the end of a chain, and, on breaking away from one side, he would have been loose. Now he was become an intermediate ring, fastened at both ends, and attached at the same time to people above and below him in society. In a word, from this hour he no longer belonged to himself, and he was like the Alpine traveler, who, having lost his way, stops in the middle of an unknown road, and measures with his eye, for the first time, the mountain which rises above him and the gulf which yawns beneath his feet.

Luckily the chevalier had the calm, cold, and resolute courage of a man in whom fire and determination—those two opposite forces—instead of neutralizing, stimulated each other. He engaged in danger with all the rapidity of a sanguine man; he weighed it with all the consideration of a phlegmatic one. Madame de Maine was right when she said to Madame de Launay that she might put out her lantern, and that she believed she had at last found a man.

But this man was young, twenty-six years of age, with a heart open to all the illusions and all the poetry of that first part of existence. As a child he had laid down his playthings at the feet of his mother. As a young man he had come to exhibit his handsome uniform as colonel to the eyes of his mistress; indeed, in every enterprise of his life some loved image had gone before him, and he threw himself into danger with the certainty that, if he succumbed, there would be some one surviving who would mourn his fate.

But his mother was dead, the last woman by whom he had believed himself loved had betrayed him, and he felt alone in the world—bound solely by interest to men to whom he would become an obstacle as soon as he ceased to be an instrument, and who, if he broke down, far from mourning his loss, would only see in it a cause of satisfaction. But this isolated position, which ought to be the envy of all men in a great danger, is almost always (such is the egotism of our nature) a cause of the most profound discouragement. Such is the horror of nothingness in man, that he believes he still survives in the sentiments which he has inspired, and he in some measure consoles himself for leaving the world by thinking of the regrets which will accompany his memory, and of the pity which will visit his tomb. Thus, at this instant, the chevalier would have given everything to be loved, if it was only by a dog.

He was plunged in the saddest of these reflections when, passing and repassing before his window, he noticed that his neighbor's was open. He stopped suddenly, and shook his head, as if to cast off the most somber of these thoughts; leaning his elbow on the table, and his head on his hand, he tried to give a different direction to his thoughts by looking at exterior objects.

The young girl whom he had seen in the morning was seated near her window, in order to benefit by the last rays of daylight; she was working at some kind of embroidery. Behind her the harpsichord was open, and, on a stool at her feet, her greyhound slept the light sleep of an animal destined by nature to be the guard of man, waking at every noise which arose from the street, raising its ears, and stretching out its elegant head over the window-sill; then it lay down again, placing one of its little paws upon its mistress's knees. All this was deliciously lighted up by the rays of the sinking sun, which penetrated into the room, sparkling on the steel ornaments of the harpsichord and the gold beading of the picture-frames. The rest was in twilight.

Then it seemed to the chevalier (doubtless on account of the disposition of mind he was in when this picture had struck his eye) that this young girl, with the calm and sweet face, entered into his life, like one of those personages who always remain behind a veil, and make their entrance on a piece in the second or third act to take part in the action, and, sometimes, to change the denouement.

Since the age when one sees angels in one's dreams, he had seen no one like her. She was a mixture of beauty, candor, and simplicity, such as Greuze has copied, not from nature, but from the reflections in the mirror of his imagination. Then, forgetting everything, the humble condition in which without doubt she had been born, the street where he had found her, the modest room which she had inhabited, seeing nothing in the woman except the woman herself, he attributed to her a heart corresponding with her face, and thought what would be the happiness of the man who should first cause that heart to beat; who should be looked upon with love by those beautiful eyes, and who, in the words, "I love you!" should gather from those lips, so fresh and so pure, that flower of the soul—a first kiss.

Such are the different aspects which the same objects borrow from the situation of him who looks at them. A week before, in the midst of his gayety, in his life which no danger menaced, between a breakfast at the tavern and a stag-hunt, between a wager at tennis and a supper at La Fillon's, if D'Harmental had met this young girl, he would doubtless have seen in her nothing but a charming grisette, whom he would have had followed by his valet-de-chambre, and to whom, the next day, he would have outrageously offered a present of some twenty-five louis.

But the D'Harmental of a week ago existed no more. In the place of the handsome seigneur—elegant, wild, dissipated, and certain of life—was an insulated young man, walking in the shade, alone, and self-reliant, without a star to guide him, who might suddenly feel the earth open under his feet, and the heavens burst above his head. He had need of a support, so feeble was he; he had need of love, he had need of poetry. It was not then wonderful that, searching for a Madonna to whom to address his prayers, he raised in his imagination this young and beautiful girl from the material and prosaic sphere in which he found her, and that, drawing her into his own, he placed her, not such as she was, doubtless, but such as he wished her to be, on the empty pedestal of his past adorations.

All at once the young girl raised her head, and happened to look in his direction, and saw the pensive figure of the chevalier through the glass. It appeared evident to her that the young man remained there for her, and that it was at her he was looking. Then a bright blush spread over her face. Still she pretended she had seen nothing, and bent her head once more over her embroidery. But a minute afterward she rose, took a few turns round her room; then, without affectation, without false prudery, but nevertheless with a certain embarrassment, she returned and shut the window. D'Harmental remained where he was, and as he was; continuing, in spite of the shutting of the window, to advance into the imaginary country where his thoughts were straying.

Once or twice he thought that he saw the curtain of his neighbor's window raised, as if she wished to know whether he whose indiscretion had driven her from her place was still at his. At last a few masterly chords were heard; a sweet harmony followed; and it was then D'Harmental who opened his window in his turn.

He had not been mistaken, his neighbor was an admirable musician; she executed two or three little pieces, but without blending her voice with the sound of the instrument; and D'Harmental found almost as much pleasure in listening to her as he had found in looking at her. Suddenly she stopped in the midst of a passage. D'Harmental supposed either that she had seen him at his window, and wished to punish him for his curiosity, or that some one had come in and interrupted her. He retired into his room, but so as not to lose sight of the window, and soon discovered that his last supposition was the true one.

A man came to the window, raised the curtain, and pressed his fat, good-natured face against the glass, while with one hand he beat a march against the panes. The chevalier recognized, in spite of a sensible difference which there was in his toilet, the man of the water-jet whom he had seen on the terrace in the morning, and who, with a perfect air of familiarity, had twice pronounced the name of "Bathilde."

This apparition, more than prosaic, produced the effect which might naturally have been expected; that is to say, it brought D'Harmental back from imaginary to real life. He had forgotten this man, who made such a strange and perfect contrast with the young girl, and who must doubtless be either her father, her lover, or her husband. But in either of these cases, what could there be in common between the daughter, the wife, or the mistress of such a man, and the noble and aristocratic chevalier? The wife! It is a misfortune of her dependent situation that she rises and falls according to the grandeur or vulgarity of him on whose arm she leans; and it must be confessed that the gardener was not formed to maintain poor Bathilde at the height to which the chevalier had raised her in his dreams.

Then he began to laugh at his own folly; and the night having arrived, and as he had not been outside the door since the day before, he determined to take a walk through the town, in order to assure himself of the truth of the Prince de Cellamare's reports. He wrapped himself in his cloak, descended the four stories, and bent his steps toward the Luxembourg, where the note which the Abbe Brigaud had brought him in the morning said that the regent was going to supper without guards.

Arrived opposite the palace of the Luxembourg, the chevalier saw none of those signs which should announce that the Duc d'Orleans was at his daughter's house: there was only one sentinel at the door, while from the moment that the regent entered a second was generally placed there. Besides, he saw no carriage waiting in the court, no footmen or outriders; it was evident, then, that he had not come. The chevalier waited to see him pass, for, as the regent never breakfasted, and took nothing but a cup of chocolate at two o'clock in the afternoon, he rarely supped later than six o'clock; but a quarter to six had struck at the St. Surplice at the moment when the chevalier turned the corner of the Rue de Conde, and the Rue de Vaugirard.

The chevalier waited an hour and a half in the Rue de Tournon, going from the Rue du Petit-Lion to the palace, without seeing what he had come to look for. At a quarter to eight he saw some movement in the Luxembourg. A carriage, with outriders armed with torches, came to the foot of the steps. A minute after three women got in; he heard the coachman call to the outriders, "To the Palais Royal;" and the outriders set off at a gallop, the carriage followed, the sentinel presented arms; and, quickly as the elegant equipage with the royal arms of France passed, the chevalier recognized the Duchesse de Berry, Madame de Mouchy, her lady of honor, and Madame de Pons, her tire-woman.

There had been an important error in the report sent to the chevalier; it was the daughter who went to the father, not the father who came to the daughter.

Nevertheless, the chevalier still waited, for some accident might have happened to the regent, which detained him at home. An hour after he saw the carriage repass. The Duchesse de Berry was laughing at a story which Broglie was telling her. There had not then been any serious accident; it was the police of the Prince de Cellamare, then, that were at fault.

The chevalier returned home about ten o'clock without having been met or recognized. He had some trouble to get the door opened, for, according to the patriarchal habits of Madame Denis's house, the porter had gone to bed, and came out grumbling to unfasten the bolts. D'Harmental slipped a crown into his hand, saying to him, once for all, that he should sometimes return late, but that each time that he did so he would give him the same; upon which the porter thanked him, and assured him that he was perfectly welcome to come home at any time he liked, or even not to return at all.

On returning to his room, D'Harmental saw that his neighbor's was lighted up; he placed his candle behind a piece of furniture, and approached the window, so that, as much as the muslin curtains allowed, he could see into her room, while she could not see into his.

She was seated near a table, drawing, probably, on a card which she held on her knees, for he saw her profile standing out black against the light behind her. Shortly another shadow, which the chevalier recognized as that of the good man of the terrace, passed twice between the light and the window. At last the shade approached the young girl, she offered her forehead, the shadow imprinted a kiss on it, and went away, with his candle in his hand. Directly afterward the windows of the fifth story were lighted up. All these little circumstances spoke a language which it was impossible not to understand. The man of the terrace was not the husband of Bathilde, he must be her father.

D'Harmental, without knowing why, felt overjoyed at this discovery; he opened his window as softly as he could, and leaned on the bar, which served him as a support, with his eyes fixed on the shadow. He fell into the same reverie out of which he had been startled that morning by the grotesque apparition of his neighbor. In about an hour the girl rose, put down her card and crayons on the table, advanced toward the alcove, knelt on a chair before the second window, and offered up her prayers. D'Harmental understood that her laborious watch was finished, but remembering the curiosity of his beautiful neighbor, when he had begun to play the first time, he wished to see if he could prolong that watch, and he sat down to his spinet. What he had foreseen happened; at the first notes which reached her, the young girl, not knowing that from the position of the light he could see her shadow through the curtains, approached the window on tiptoe, and thinking herself hidden, she listened to the melodious instrument, which, like the nightingale, awoke to sing in the middle of the night.

The concert would have probably continued thus for some hours, for D'Harmental, encouraged by the result produced, felt an energy and an ease of execution such as he had never known before. Unluckily, the occupier of the third floor was undoubtedly some clown, no lover of music, for D'Harmental heard suddenly, just below his feet, the noise of a stick knocking on the ceiling with such violence that he could not doubt that it was a warning to him to put off his melodious occupation till a more suitable period. Under other circumstances, D'Harmental would have sent the impertinent adviser to the devil, but reflecting that any ill-feeling on the lodger's part would injure his own reputation with Madame Denis, and that he was playing too heavy a game to risk being recognized, and not to submit philosophically to all the inconveniences of the new position which he had adopted, instead of setting himself in opposition to the rules established without doubt between Madame Denis and her lodgers, he obeyed the intimation, forgetting in what manner that intimation had been given him.

On her part, as soon as she heard nothing more, the young girl left the window, and as she let the inner curtains fall behind her, she disappeared from D'Harmental's eyes. For some time longer he could still see a light in her room; then the light was extinguished. As to the window on the fifth floor, for some time that had been in the most perfect darkness. D'Harmental also went to bed, joyous to think that there existed a point of sympathy between himself and his neighbor.

The next day the Abbe Brigaud entered the room with his accustomed punctuality. The chevalier had already been up more than an hour; he had gone twenty times to his window, but without seeing his neighbor, although it was evident that she was up, even before himself; indeed, on waking he had seen the large curtains put up in their bands. Thus he was disposed to let out his ill-humor on any one.

"Ah! pardieu! my dear abbe," said he, as soon as the door was shut; "congratulate the prince for me on his police; it is perfectly arranged, on my honor!"

"What have you got against them?" asked the abbe, with the half-smile which was habitual to him.

"What have I! I have, that, wishing to judge for myself, last evening, of its truth, I went and hid myself in the Rue Tournon. I remained there four hours, and it was not the regent who came to his daughter, but Madame de Berry who went to her father."

"Well, we know that."

"Ah! you know that!" said D'Harmental.

"Yes, and by this token, that she left the Luxembourg at five minutes to eight, with Madame de Mouchy and Madame de Pons, and that she returned at half-past nine, bringing Broglie with her, who came to take the regent's place at table."

"And where was the regent?"

"The regent?"

"Yes."

"That is another story; you shall learn. Listen, and do not lose a word; then we shall see if you will say that the prince's police is badly arranged."

"I attend."

"Our report announced that at three o'clock the duke-regent would go to play tennis in the Rue de Seine."

"Yes."

"He went. In about half an hour he left holding his handkerchief over his eyes. He had hit himself on the brow with the racket, and with such violence that he had torn the skin of his forehead."

"Ah, this then was the accident!"

"Listen. Then the regent, instead of returning to the Palais Royal, was driven to the house of Madame de Sabran. You know where Madame de Sabran lives?"

"She lived in the Rue de Tournon, but since her husband has become maitre d'hotel to the regent, she lives in the Rue des Bons Enfants, near the Palais Royal."

"Exactly; but it seems that Madame de Sabran, who until now was faithful to Richelieu, was touched by the pitiable state in which she saw the prince, and wished to justify the proverb, 'Unlucky at play, lucky at love.' The prince, by a little note, dated half-past seven, from the drawing-room of Madame de Sabran, with whom he supped, announced to Broglie that he should not go to the Luxembourg, and charged him to go in his stead, and make his excuses to the Duchesse de Berry."

"Ah, this then was the story which Broglie was telling, and at which the ladies were laughing."

"It is probable; now do you understand?"

"Yes; I understand that the regent is not possessed of ubiquity, and could not be at the house of Madame de Sabran and at his daughter's at the same time."

"And you only understand that?"

"My dear abbe, you speak like an oracle; explain yourself."

"This evening, at eight o'clock, I will come for you; we will go to the Rue des Bons Enfants together. To me the locality is eloquent."

"Ah! ah!" said D'Harmental, "I see; so near the Palais Royal, he will go on foot. The hotel which Madame de Sabran inhabits has an entrance from the Rue des Bons Enfants; after a certain hour they shut the passage from the Palais Royal, which opens on the Rue des Bons Enfants: and he will be obliged, on his return, to follow either the Cour des Fontaines, or the Rue Neuve des Bons Enfants, and then we shall have him. Mordieu! you are a great man, and if Monsieur de Maine does not make you cardinal, or at least archbishop, there will be no justice done."

"I think, therefore, that now you must hold yourself in readiness."

"I am ready."

"Have you the means of execution prepared?"——"I have."

"Then you can correspond with your men?"

"By a sign."

"And that sign cannot betray you?"

"Impossible."

"Then all goes well, and we may have breakfast; for I was in such haste to tell you the good news that I came out fasting."

"Breakfast, my dear abbe! you speak coolly; I have nothing to offer you, except the remains of the pate and two or three bottles of wine, which, I believe, survived the battle."

"Hum! hum," murmured the abbe; "we will do better than that, my dear chevalier."

"I am at your orders."

"Let us go down and breakfast with our good hostess, Madame Denis."

"And why do you want me to breakfast with her? Do I know her?"

"That concerns me. I shall present you as my pupil."

"But we shall get a detestable breakfast."

"Comfort yourself. I know her table."

"But this breakfast will be tiresome."

"But you will make a friend of a woman much known in the neighborhood for her good conduct, for her devotion to the government—a woman incapable of harboring a conspirator. Do you understand that?"

"If it be for the good of the cause, abbe, I sacrifice myself."

"Moreover, it is a very agreeable house, where there are two young people who play—one on the spinet, and the other on the guitar—and a young man who is an attorney's clerk; a house where you may go down on Sunday evenings to play lots."

"Go to the devil with your Madame Denis. Ah! pardon, abbe, perhaps you are her friend. In that case, imagine that I have said nothing."

"I am her confessor," replied the Abbe Brigaud, with a modest air.

"Then a thousand excuses, my dear abbe; but you are right indeed. Madame Denis is still a beautiful woman, perfectly well preserved, with superb hands and very pretty feet. Peste! I remember that. Go down first; I will follow."

"Why not together?"

"But my toilet, abbe. Would you have me appear before the Demoiselles Denis with my hair in its present state? One must try to look one's best—que diable! Besides, it is better that you should announce me: I have not a confessor's privilege."

"You are right. I will go down and announce you, and in ten minutes you will arrive—will you not?"

"In ten minutes."

"Adieu!"——"Au revoir!"

The chevalier had only told half the truth. He might have remained partly to dress, but also in the hope of seeing his beautiful neighbor, of whom he had dreamed all the night, but in vain. He remained hidden behind the curtains of his window: those of the young girl with the fair hair and the beautiful black eyes remained closed. It is true that, in exchange, he could perceive his neighbor, who, opening his door, passed out, with the same precaution as the day before, first his hand, then his head; but this time his boldness went no further, for there was a slight fog, and fog is essentially contrary to the organization of the Parisian bourgeois. Our friend coughed twice, and then, drawing in his head and his arm, re-entered his room like a tortoise into his shell. D'Harmental saw with pleasure that he might dispense with buying a barometer, and that this neighbor would render him the same service as the butterflies which come out in the sunshine, and remain obstinately shut up in their hermitages on the days when it rains.

The apparition had its ordinary effect, and reacted on poor Bathilde. Every time that D'Harmental perceived the young girl, there was in her such a sweet attraction that he saw nothing but the woman—young, beautiful, and graceful, a musician and painter—that is to say, the most delicious and complete creature he had ever met. But when, in his turn, the man of the terrace presented himself to the chevalier's gaze, with his common face, his insignificant figure—that indelible type of vulgarity which attaches to certain individuals—directly a sort of miraculous transition took place in the chevalier's mind. All the poetry disappeared, as a machinist's whistle causes the disappearance of a fairy palace. Everything was seen by a different light. D'Harmental's native aristocracy regained the ascendency. Bathilde was then nothing but the daughter of this man—that is to say, a grisette: her beauty, her grace, her elegance, even her talents, were but an accident—an error of nature—something like a rose flowering on a cabbage-stalk. The chevalier shrugged his shoulders as he stood before the glass, began to laugh, and to wonder at the impression which he had received. He attributed it to the preoccupation of his mind, to the strange and solitary situation, to everything, in fact, except its true cause—the sovereign and irresistible power of distinction and beauty. D'Harmental went down to his hostess disposed to find the Demoiselles Denis charming.



CHAPTER XII.

THE DENIS FAMILY.

Madame Denis did not think it proper that two young persons as innocent as her daughters should breakfast with a young man who, although he had been only three days in Paris, already came in at eleven o'clock at night, and played on the harpsichord till two in the morning. In vain the Abbe Brigaud affirmed that this double infraction of the rules of her house should in no degree lower her opinion of his pupil, for whom he could answer as for himself. All he could obtain was that the young ladies should appear at the dessert; but the chevalier soon perceived that if their mother had ordered them not to be seen, she had not forbidden them to be heard, for scarcely were they at table, round a veritable devotee's breakfast, composed of a multitude of little dishes, tempting to the eye and delicious to the palate, when the sounds of a spinet were heard, accompanying a voice which was not wanting in compass, but whose frequent errors of intonation showed lamentable inexperience. At the first notes Madame Denis placed her hand on the abbe's arm, then, after an instant's silence, during which she listened with a pleased smile to that music which made the chevalier's flesh creep, "Do you hear?" she said. "It is our Athenais who is playing, and it is Emilie who sings."