The Companions of Jehu by Alexandre Dumas (great novels of all time .TXT) 📖

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 Fréron was. The Fréron 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 “Année Littéraire,” 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. Fréron, repudiated by the Mountain, which abandoned him to the heavy jaws of Moise Bayle; Fréron, disdainfully repulsed by the Girondins, who delivered him over to the imprecations of Isnard; Fréron, as the terrible and picturesque orator of the Var said, “Fréron 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 Fréron, 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 été, 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 Vendée 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 Vendéan, “most willingly.”