The Conspirators by Alexandre Dumas père (spicy books to read .txt) 📖

what day is our next meeting fixed?" asked Cellamare.

"All depends on circumstances, prince," replied the duchess. "At any rate, if I have not time to give you notice, I will send the same carriage and coachman to fetch you who took you to the Arsenal the first time you came there." Then, turning toward Richelieu, "You give us the rest of the evening, duke?"

"I ask your pardon," replied Richelieu, "but it is absolutely impossible; I am expected in the Rue des Bons Enfants."

"What! have you made it up with Madame de Sabran?"

"We never quarreled, madame."

"Take care, duke; that looks like constancy."

"No, madame, it is calculation."

"Ah! I see that you are on the road toward becoming devoted."

"I never do things by halves, madame."

"Well, we will follow your example, Monsieur le Duc. And now we have been an hour and a half away, and should, I think, return to the gardens, that our absence may not be too much noticed; besides, I think the Goddess of Night is on the shore, waiting to thank us for the preference we have given her over the sun."

"With your permission, however, madame," said Laval, "I must keep you an instant longer, to tell you the trouble I am in."

"Speak, count," replied the duchess; "what is the matter?"

"It is about our requests and our protestations. It was agreed, if you remember, that they should be printed by workmen who cannot read."

"Well."

"I bought a press, and established it in the cellar of a house behind the Val-de-Grace. I enlisted the necessary workmen, and, up to the present time, have had the most satisfactory results; but the noise of our machine has given rise to the suspicion that we were coining false money, and yesterday the police made a descent on the house; fortunately, there was time to stop the work and roll a bed over the trap, so that they discovered nothing. But as the visit might be renewed, and with a less fortunate result, as soon as they were gone I dismissed the workmen, buried the press, and had all the proofs taken to my own house."

"And you did well, count," cried the Cardinal de Polignac.

"But what are we to do now?" asked Madame de Maine.

"Have the press taken to my house," said Pompadour.

"Or mine," said Valef.

"No, no," said Malezieux; "a press is too dangerous a means. One of the police may easily slip in among the workmen, and all will be lost. Besides, there cannot be much left to print."

"The greater part is done," said Laval.

"Well," continued Malezieux, "my advice is, as before, to employ some intelligent copyist, whose silence we can buy."

"Yes, this will be much safer," said Polignac.

"But where can we find such a man?" said the prince. "It is not a thing for which we can take the first comer."

"If I dared," said the Abbe Brigaud.

"Dare, abbe! dare!" said the duchess.

"I should say that I know the man you want."

"Did I not tell you," said Pompadour, "that the abbe was a precious man?"

"But is he really what we want?" said Polignac.

"Oh, if your eminence had him made on purpose he could not do better," said Brigaud. "A true machine, who will write everything and see nothing."

"But as a still greater precaution," said the prince, "we might put the most important papers into Spanish."

"Then, prince," said Brigaud, "I will send him to you."

"No, no," said Cellamare; "he must not set his foot within the Spanish embassy. It must be done through some third party."

"Yes, yes, we will arrange all that," said the duchess. "The man is found--that is the principal thing. You answer for him, Brigaud?"

"I do, madame."

"That is all we require. And now there is nothing to keep us any longer," continued the duchess. "Monsieur d'Harmental, give me your arm, I beg."

The chevalier hastened to obey Madame de Maine, who seized this opportunity to express her gratitude for the courage he had shown in the Rue des Bons Enfants, and his skill in Brittany. At the door of the pavilion, the Greenland envoys--now dressed simply as guests--found a little galley waiting to take them to the shore. Madame de Maine entered first, seated D'Harmental by her, leaving Malezieux to do the honors to Cellamare and Richelieu. As the duchess had said, the Goddess of Night, dressed in black gauze spangled with golden stars, was waiting on the other side of the lake, accompanied by the twelve Hours; and, as the duchess approached, they began to sing a cantata appropriate to the subject. At the first notes of the solo D'Harmental started, for the voice of the singer had so strong a resemblance to another voice, well known to him and dear to his recollection, that he rose involuntarily to look for the person whose accents had so singularly moved him; unfortunately, in spite of the torches which the Hours, her subjects, held, he could not distinguish the goddess's features, which were covered with a long veil, similar to her dress. He could only hear that pure, flexible, sonorous voice, and that easy and skillful execution, which he had so much admired when he heard it for the first time in the Rue du Temps-Perdu; and each accent of that voice, becoming more distinct as he approached the shore, made him tremble from head to foot. At length the solo ceased, and the chorus recommenced; but D'Harmental, insensible to all other thoughts, continued to follow the vanished notes.

"Well, Monsieur d'Harmental," said the duchess, "are you so accessible to the charms of music that you forget that you are my cavalier?"

"Oh, pardon, madame," said D'Harmental, leaping to the shore, and holding out his hand to the duchess, "but I thought I recognized that voice, and I confess it brought back such memories!"

"That proves that you are an habitue of the opera, my dear chevalier, and that you appreciate, as it deserves, Mademoiselle Berry's talent."

"What, is that voice Mademoiselle Berry's?" asked D'Harmental, with astonishment.

"It is, monsieur; and if you do not believe me," replied the duchess, "permit me to take Laval's arm, that you may go and assure yourself of it."

"Oh, madame," said D'Harmental, respectfully retaining the hand she was about to withdraw, "pray excuse me. We are in the gardens of Armida, and a moment of error may be permitted among so many enchantments;" and, presenting his arm again to the duchess, he conducted her toward the chateau. At this instant a feeble cry was heard, and feeble as it was, it reached D'Harmental's heart, and he turned involuntarily.

"What is it?" asked the duchess, with an uneasiness mixed with impatience.

"Nothing, nothing," said Richelieu; "it is little Berry, who has the vapors. Make yourself easy, madame. I know the disease; it is not dangerous. If you particularly wish it, I would even go to-morrow to learn how she is."

Two hours after this little accident--which was not sufficient to disturb the fete in any way--D'Harmental was brought back to Paris by the Abbe Brigaud, and re-entered his little attic in the Rue du Temps-Perdu, from which he had been absent six weeks.


CHAPTER XXIV.

JEALOUSY.

The first sensation D'Harmental experienced on returning was one of inexpressible satisfaction at finding himself again in that little room so filled with recollections. Though he had been absent six weeks, one might have supposed that he had only quitted it the day before, as, thanks to the almost maternal care of Madame Denis, everything was in its accustomed place. D'Harmental remained an instant, his candle in his hand, looking around him with a look almost of ecstasy. All the other impressions of his life were effaced by those which he had experienced in this little corner of the world. Then he ran to the window, opened it, and threw an indescribable look of love over the darkened windows of his neighbor. Doubtless Bathilde slept the sleep of an angel, unconscious that D'Harmental was there, trembling with love and hope.

He remained thus for more than half an hour, breathing the night air, which had never seemed to him so pure and fresh, and began to feel that Bathilde had become one of the necessities of his life; but as he could not pass the whole night at his window, he then closed it, and came into his room, although only to follow up the recollections with which it was filled. He opened his piano, and passed his fingers over the keys, at the risk of re-exacting the anger of the lodger on the third floor. From the piano he passed to the unfinished portrait of Bathilde. At length he slept, listening again in his mind to the air sung by Mademoiselle Berry, whom he finished by believing to be one and the same person as Bathilde. When he awoke, D'Harmental jumped from his bed and ran to the window. The day appeared already advanced; the sun was shining brilliantly; yet Bathilde's window remain hermetically closed.

The chevalier looked at his watch; it was ten o'clock, and he began to dress. We have already confessed that he was not free from a certain almost feminine coquetry; but this was the fault of the time, when everything was mannered--even passion. At this time it was not a melancholy expression on which he reckoned. The joy of return had given to his face a charming expression of happiness, and it was evident that a glance from Bathilde would crown him king of the creation. This glance he came to the window to seek, but Bathilde's remained closed. D'Harmental opened his, hoping that the noise would attract her attention; nothing stirred. He remained there an hour: during this hour there was not even a breath of wind to stir the curtains: the young girl's room must be abandoned. He coughed, opened and closed the window, detached little pieces of plaster from the wall, and threw them against the window--all in vain.

To surprise succeeded uneasiness; this window, so obstinately closed, must indicate absence, if not misfortune. Bathilde absent!--where could she be? What had happened to disturb her calm, regular life? Who could he ask? No one but Madame Denis could know. It was quite natural that D'Harmental should pay a visit to his landlady on his return, and he accordingly went down. Madame Denis had not seen him since the day of the breakfast. She had not forgotten his attention when she fainted. She received him like the prodigal son. Fortunately for D'Harmental, the young ladies were occupied with a drawing lesson, and Boniface was at his office, so that he saw no one but his hostess. The conversation fell naturally on the order and neatness of his room during his absence; from this the transition was easy to the question if the opposite lodging had changed tenants. Madame Denis replied that she had seen Bathilde at the window the morning before; and that in the evening her son had met Buvat returning from his office, but had noticed in him a singular air of pride and hauteur. This was all D'Harmental wished to know. Bathilde was in Paris, and at home; chance had not yet directed her looks toward that window so long closed, and that room so long empty. He took leave of Madame Denis with an effusion of gratitude which she was far from attributing to its true cause; and on the landing he met the Abbe Brigaud, who was coming to pay his