The Chouans by Honoré de Balzac (best classic romance novels txt) 📖

fail in tact with imperturbable coolness, talk folly wittily, distrust good with extreme shrewdness, and take incredible pains to fall into traps.

When, by a play of his knife and fork which proclaimed him a good feeder, he had made up for lost time, he began to look round on the company. His astonishment was great when he observed the two Republican officers, and he questioned Madame du Gua with a look, while she, for all answer, showed him Mademoiselle de Verneuil in the same way. When he saw the siren whose demeanor had silenced the suspicions Madame du Gua had excited among the guests, the face of the stout stranger broke into one of those insolent, ironical smiles which contain a whole history of scandal. He leaned to his next neighbor and whispered a few words, which went from ear to ear and lip to lip, passing Marie and the two officers, until they reached the heart of one whom they struck to death. The leaders of the Vendeans and the Chouans assembled round that table looked at the Marquis de Montauran with cruel curiosity. The eyes of Madame du Gua, flashing with joy, turned from the marquis to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who was speechless with surprise. The Republican officers, uneasy in mind, questioned each other’s thoughts as they awaited the result of this extraordinary scene. In a moment the forks remained inactive in every hand, silence reigned, and every eye was turned to the Gars. A frightful anger showed upon his face, which turned waxen in tone. He leaned towards the guest from whom the rocket had started and said, in a voice that seemed muffled in crape, “Death of my soul! count, is that true?”

“On my honor,” said the count, bowing gravely.

The marquis lowered his eyes for a moment, then he raised them and looked fixedly at Marie, who, watchful of his struggle, knew that look to be her death-warrant.

“I would give my life,” he said in a low voice, “for revenge on the spot.”

Madame du Gua understood the words from the mere movement of the young man’s lips, and she smiled upon him as we smile at a friend whose regrets are about to cease. The scorn felt for Mademoiselle de Verneuil and shown on every face, brought to its height the growing indignation of the two Republicans, who now rose hastily:—

“Do you want anything, citizens?” asked Madame du Gua.

“Our swords, citoyenne,” said Gerard, sarcastically.

“You do not need them at table,” said the marquis, coldly.

“No, but we are going to play at a game you know very well,” replied Gerard. “This is La Pelerine over again.”

The whole party seemed dumfounded. Just then a volley, fired with terrible regularity, echoed through the courtyard. The two officers sprang to the portico; there they beheld a hundred or so of Chouans aiming at the few soldiers who were not shot down at the first discharge; these they fired upon as upon so many hares. The Bretons swarmed from the bank, where Marche-a-Terre had posted them at the peril of their lives; for after the last volley, and mingling with the cries of the dying, several Chouans were heard to fall into the lake, where they were lost like stones in a gulf. Pille-Miche took aim at Gerard; Marche-a-Terre held Merle at his mercy.

“Captain,” said the marquis to Merle, repeating to the Republican his own words, “you see that men are like medlars, they ripen on the straw.” He pointed with a wave of his hand to the entire escort of the Blues lying on the bloody litter where the Chouans were despatching those who still breathed, and rifling the dead bodies with incredible rapidity. “I was right when I told you that your soldiers will not get as far as La Pelerine. I think, moreover, that your head will fill with lead before mine. What say you?”

Montauran felt a horrible necessity to vent his rage. His bitter sarcasm, the ferocity, even the treachery of this military execution, done without his orders, but which he now accepted, satisfied in some degree the craving of his heart. In his fury he would fain have annihilated France. The dead Blues, the living officers, all innocent of the crime for which he demanded vengeance, were to him the cards by which a gambler cheats his despair.

“I would rather perish than conquer as you are conquering,” said Gerard. Then, seeing the naked and bloody corpses of his men, he cried out, “Murdered basely, in cold blood!”

“That was how you murdered Louis XVI., monsieur,” said the marquis.

“Monsieur,” replied Gerard, haughtily, “there are mysteries in a king’s trial which you could never comprehend.”

“Do you dare to accuse the king?” exclaimed the marquis.

“Do you dare to fight your country?” retorted Gerard.

“Folly!” said the marquis.

“Parricide!” exclaimed the Republican.

“Well, well,” cried Merle, gaily, “a pretty time to quarrel at the moment of your death.”

“True,” said Gerard, coldly, turning to the marquis. “Monsieur, if it is your intention to put us to death, at least have the goodness to shoot us at once.”

“Ah! that’s like you, Gerard,” said Merle, “always in a hurry to finish things. But if one has to travel far and can’t breakfast on the morrow, at least we might sup.”

Gerard sprang forward without a word towards the wall. Pille-Miche covered him, glancing as he did so at the motionless marquis, whose silence he took for an order, and the adjutant-major fell like a tree. Marche-a-Terre ran to share the fresh booty with Pille-Miche; like two hungry crows they disputed and clamored over the still warm body.

“If you really wish to finish your supper, captain, you can come with me,” said the marquis to Merle.

The captain followed him mechanically, saying in a low voice: “It is that devil of a strumpet that caused all this. What will Hulot say?”

“Strumpet!” cried the marquis in a strangled voice, “then she is one?”

The captain seemed to have given Montauran a death-blow, for he re-entered the house with a staggering step, pale, haggard, and undone.

Another scene had meanwhile taken place in the dining-room, which assumed, in the marquis’s absence, such a threatening character that Marie, alone without her protector, might well fancy she read her death-warrant in the eyes of her rival. At the noise of the volley the guests all sprang to their feet, but Madame du Gua remained seated.

“It is nothing,” she said; “our men are despatching the Blues.” Then, seeing the marquis outside on the portico, she rose. “Mademoiselle whom you here see,” she continued, with the calmness of concentrated fury, “came here to betray the Gars! She meant to deliver him up to the Republic.”

“I could have done so twenty times to-day and yet I saved his life,” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil.

Madame du Gua sprang upon her rival like lightning; in her blind excitement she tore apart the fastenings of the young girl’s spencer, the stuff, the embroidery, the corset, the chemise, and plunged her savage hand into the bosom where,