With a rapidity and good nature that did honor to his courtesy, he went close to the candelabra, which were burning on the chimney-piece. The waistcoat and trousers seemed to be of the same stuff; but what was that stuff? The most experienced connoisseur would have been puzzled.
The trousers were tight-fitting as usual, of a light tint between buff and flesh color; the only remarkable thing about them was the absence of the seam, and the closeness with which they clung to the leg. The waistcoat, on the other hand, had two characteristic signs which attracted attention; it had been pierced by three balls, which had the holes gaping, and these were stained a carmine, so like blood, that it might easily have been mistaken for it. On the left side was painted a bloody heart, the distinguishing sign of the Vendéans. Morgan examined the two articles with the closest attention, but without result.
"If I were not in such a hurry," said he, "I should like to look into the matter for myself. But you heard for yourself; in all probability, some news has reached the committee; government money probably. You can announce it to Cadoudal; only we shall have to take it first. Ordinarily, I command these expeditions; if I delay, some one may take my place. So tell me what your waistcoat and trousers are made of."
"My dear Morgan," replied the Vendéan, "perhaps you have heard that my brother was captured near Bressure, and shot by the Blues?"
"Yes, I know that."
"The Blues were retreating; they left the body at the corner of the hedge. We were pursuing them so closely that we arrived just after them. I found the body of my brother still warm. In one of his wounds a sprig was stuck with these words: 'Shot as a brigand by me, Claude Flageolet, corporal of the Third Battalion of Paris.' I took my brother's body, and had the skin removed from his breast. I vowed that this skin, pierced with three holes, should eternally cry vengeance before my eyes. I made it my battle waistcoat."
"Ah!" exclaimed Morgan, with a certain astonishment, in which, for the first time, was mingled something akin to terror--"Ah! then that waistcoat is made of your brother's skin? And the trousers?"
"Oh!" replied the Vendéan, "the trousers, that's another matter. They are made of the skin of Claude Flageolet, corporal of the Third Battalion of Paris." At that moment the voice again called out, in the same order, the names of Morgan, Montbar, Adler and d'Assas.
Morgan rushed out of the study, crossed the dancing-hall from end to end, and made his way to a little salon on the other side of the dressing-room. His three companions, Montbar, Adler and d'Assas, were there already. With them was a young man in the government livery of a bearer of despatches, namely a green and gold coat. His boots were dusty, and he wore a visored cap and carried the despatch-box, the essential accoutrements of a cabinet courier.
One of Cassini's maps, on which could be followed the whole lay of the land, was spread on the table.
Before saying why this courier was there, and with what object the map was unfolded, let us cast a glance at the three new personages whose names had echoed through the ballroom, and who are destined to play an important part in the rest of this history.
The reader already knows Morgan, the Achilles and the Paris of this strange association; Morgan, with his blue eyes, his black hair, his tall, well-built figure, graceful, easy, active bearing; his eye, which was never without animation; his mouth, with its fresh lips and white teeth, that was never without a smile; his remarkable countenance, composed of mingling elements that seemed so foreign to each other--strength and tenderness, gentleness and energy; and, through it all, that bewildering expression of gayety that was at times alarming when one remembered that this man was perpetually rubbing shoulders with death, and the most terrifying of all deaths--that of the scaffold.
As for d'Assas, he was a man from thirty-five to thirty-eight years of age, with bushy hair that was turning gray, and mustaches as black as ebony. His eyes were of that wonderful shade of Indian eyes, verging on maroon. He was formerly a captain of dragoons, admirably built for struggle, whether physical or moral, his muscles indicating strength, and his face, obstinacy. For the rest, a noble bearing, great elegance of manners, scented like a dandy, carrying, either from caprice or luxury, a bottle of English smelling-salts, or a silver-gilt vinaigrette containing the most subtle perfumes.
Montbar and Adler, whose real names were unknown, like those of d'Assas and Morgan, were commonly called by the Company "the inseparables." Imagine Damon and Pythias, Euryalus and Nisus, Orestes and Pylades at twenty-two-one joyous, loquacious, noisy, the other melancholy, silent, dreamy; sharing all things, dangers, money, mistresses; one the complement of the other; each rushing to all extremes, but forgetting self when in peril to watch over the other, like the Spartan youths on the sacred legions--and you will form an idea of Montbar and Adler.
It is needless to say that all three were Companions of Jehu. They had been convoked, as Morgan suspected, on business of the Company.
On entering the room, Morgan went straight to the pretended bearer of despatches and shook hands with him.
"Ah! the dear friend," said the latter, with a stiff movement, showing that the best rider cannot do a hundred and fifty miles on post-hacks with impunity. "You are taking it easy, you Parisians. Hannibal at Capua slept on rushes and thorns compared to you. I only glanced at the ballroom in passing, as becomes a poor cabinet courier bearing despatches from General Masséna to the citizen First Consul; but it seemed to me you were a fine lot of victims! Only, my poor friends, you will have to bid farewell to all that for the present; disagreeable, unlucky, exasperating, no doubt, but the House of Jehu before all."
"My dear Hastier--" began Morgan.
"Stop!" cried Hastier. "No proper names, if you please, gentlemen. The Hastiers are an honest family in Lyons, doing business, it is said, on the Place des Terreaux, from father to son, and would be much humiliated to learn that their heir had become a cabinet courier, and rode the highways with the national pack on his back. Lecoq as much as you please, but not Hastier. I don't know Hastier; and you, gentlemen," continued the young man, addressing Montbar, Adler and d'Assas, "do you know him?"
"No," replied the three young men, "and we ask pardon for Morgan, who did wrong."
"My dear Lecoq," exclaimed Morgan.
"That's right," interrupted Hastier. "I answer to that name! Well, what did you want to tell me?"
"I wanted to say that if you are not the antipodes of the god Harpocrates, whom the Egyptians represent with a finger on his lips, you will, instead of indulging in a lot of declamations, more or less flowery, tell us why this costume, and why that map?"
"The deuce!" retorted the young man. "If you don't know already, it's your fault and not mine. If I hadn't been obliged to call you twice, caught as you doubtless were in the toils of some beautiful Eumenides imploring vengeance of a fine young man for the death of her old parents, you'd know as much as these gentlemen, and I wouldn't have to sing an encore. Well, here's what it is: simply of the remaining treasure of the Berne bears, which General Lecourbe is sending to the citizen First Consul by order of General Masséna. A trifle, only a hundred thousand francs, that they don't dare send over the Jura on account of M. Teysonnet's partisans, who, they pretend, are likely to seize it; so it will be sent by Geneva, Bourg, Mâcon, Dijon, and Troyes; a much safer way, as they will find when they try it."
"Very good!"
"We were informed of this by Renard, who started from Gex at full speed, and transmitted the news to l'Hirondelle, who is at present stationed at Châlon-surSaône. He transmitted it to me, Lecoq, at Auxerre, and I have done a hundred and fifty miles to transmit it in turn to you. As for the secondary details, here they are. The treasure left Berne last octodi, 28th Nivôse, year VIII. of the Republic triple and indivisible. It should reach Genoa to-day, duodi, and leave to-morrow, tridi, by the diligence from Geneva to Bourg; so that, by leaving this very night, by the day after to-morrow, quintide, you can, my dear sons of Israel, meet the treasure of messires the bears between Dijon and Troyes, near Bar-sur-Seine or Châtillon. What say you?"
"By heavens!" cried Morgan, "we say that there seems to be no room for argument left; we say we should never have permitted ourselves to touch the money of their Highnesses the bears of Berne so long as it remained in their coffers; but as it has changed hands once, I see no objection to its doing so a second time. Only how are we to start?"
"Haven't you a post-chaise?"
"Yes, it's here in the coach-house."
"Haven't you horses to get you to the next stage?"
"They are in the stable."
"Haven't you each your passports."
"We have each four."
"Well, then?"
"Well, we can't stop the diligence in a post-chaise. We don't put ourselves to too much inconvenience, but we don't take our ease in that way."
"Well, and why not?" asked Montbar; "it would be original. I can't see why, if sailors board from one vessel to another, we couldn't board a diligence from a post-chaise. We want novelty; shall we try it, Adler?"
"I ask nothing better," replied the latter, "but what will we do with the postilion?" "That's true," replied Montbar.
"The difficulty is foreseen, my children," said the courier; "a messenger has been sent to Troyes. You will leave your post-chaise at Delbauce; there you will find four horses all saddled and stuffed with oats. You will then calculate your time, and the day after to-morrow, or rather to-morrow, for it is past midnight, between seven and eight in the morning, the money of Messires Bruin will pass an anxious quarter of an hour."
"Shall we change our clothes?" inquired d'Assas.
"What for?" replied Morgan. "I think we are very presentable as we are. No diligence could be relieved of unnecessary weight by better dressed fellows. Let us take a last glance at the map, transfer a pâté, a cold chicken, and a dozen of champagne from the supper-room to the pockets of the coach, arm to the teeth in the arsenal, wrap ourselves in warm cloaks, and--clack! postilion!" "Yes!" cried Montbar, "that's the idea."
"I should think so," added Morgan. "We'll kill the horses if necessary, and be back at seven in the evening, in time to show ourselves at the opera."
"That will establish an alibi," observed d'Assas.
"Precisely," said Morgan, with his imperturbable gayety. "How could men who applaud Mademoiselle Clotilde and M. Vestris at eight o'clock in the evening have been at Bar and Chatillon in the morning settling accounts with the conductor of a diligence? Come, my sons, a last look at the map to choose our spot."
The four young men bent over Cassini's map.
"If I may give you a bit of topographical advice," said the courier, "it would be to put yourselves in ambush just beyond Massu; there's a ford opposite to the Riceys--see, there!"
And the young man pointed out the exact spot on the map.
"I should return to Chacource, there; from Chacource you have a department road, straight as an arrow, which will take you to Troyes; at Troyes you take carriage again, and follow the road to Sens instead of that to Coulommiers. The donkeys--there are plenty in the provinces--who saw you in the morning won't wonder at seeing you again in the evening; you'll get to the opera at ten instead of eight--a more fashionable hour--neither seen nor recognized, I'll warrant you." "Adopted, so far as I am concerned," said Morgan.
"Adopted!" cried the other three in chorus.
Morgan pulled out one of the two watches whose chains were dangling from his belt; it was a masterpiece of Petitot's enamel, and on the outer case which protected the painting was a diamond monogram. The pedigree of this beautiful trinket was as well established as that of an Arab horse; it had been made for Marie-Antoinette, who had given it to the Duchesse de Polastron, who had given it to Morgan's mother.
"One o'clock," said Morgan; "come, gentlemen, we must relay at Lagny at three." From that moment the expedition had begun, and Morgan became its leader; he no longer consulted, he commanded.
D'Assas, who in Morgan's absence commanded, was the first to obey on his return.
Half an hour later a closed carriage containing four young men wrapped in their cloaks was stopped at the Fontainebleau barrier by the post-guard, who demanded their passports.
"Oh, what a joke!" exclaimed one of them, putting his head out of the window and affecting the pronunciation of the day. "Passpawts to dwive to Gwobois to call on citizen Ba-as? 'Word of fluted honor!' you're cwazy, fwend! Go on, dwiver!" The coachman whipped up his horses and the carriage passed without further opposition.
Let us leave our four hunters on their way to Lagny--where, thanks to the passports they owed to the obligingness of certain clerks in citizen Fouché's employ, they exchanged their own horses for post-horses and their coachman for a postilion--and see why the First Consul had sent for Roland.
After leaving Morgan, Roland had hastened to obey the general's orders. He found the latter standing in deep thought before the fireplace. At the sound of his entrance General Bonaparte raised his head.
"What were you two saying to each other?" asked Bonaparte, without preamble, trusting to Roland's habit of answering his thought.
"Why," said Roland, "we paid each other all sorts of compliments, and parted the best friends in the world."
"How does he impress you?"
"As a perfectly well-bred man."
"How old do you take him to be?"
"About my age, at the outside."
"So I think; his voice is youthful. What now, Roland, can I be mistaken? Is there a new royalist generation growing up?"
"No, general," replied Roland, shrugging his shoulders; "it's the remains of the old one."
"Well, Roland, we must build up another, devoted to my son--if ever I have one." Roland made a gesture which might be translated into the words, "I don't object." Bonaparte understood the gesture perfectly.
"You must do more than not object," said he; "you must contribute to it." A nervous shudder passed over Roland's body.
"In what way, general?" he asked.
"By marrying."
Roland burst out laughing.
"Good! With my aneurism?" he asked.
Bonaparte looked at him, and said: "My dear Roland, your aneurism looks to me very much like a pretext for remaining single."
"Do you think so?"
"Yes; and as I am a moral man I insist upon marriage."
"Does that mean that I am immoral," retorted Roland, "or that I cause any scandal with my mistresses?"
"Augustus," answered Bonaparte, "created laws against celibates, depriving them of their rights as Roman citizens."
"Augustus--"
"Well?"
"I'll wait until you are Augustus; as yet, you are only Cæsar."
Bonaparte came closer to the young man, and, laying his hands on his shoulders, said: "Roland, there are some names I do not wish to see extinct, and among them is that of Montrevel."
"Well, general, in my default, supposing that through caprice or obstinacy I refuse to perpetuate it, there is my little brother."
"What! Your brother? Then you have a brother?"
"Why, yes; I have a brother! Why shouldn't I have brother?"
"How old is he?"
"Eleven or twelve."
"Why did you never tell me about him?"
"Because I thought the sayings and doings of a youngster of that age could not interest you."
"You are mistaken, Roland; I am interested in all that concerns my friends. You ought to have asked me for something for your brother."
"Asked what, general?"
"His admission into some college in Paris."
"Pooh! You have enough beggars around you without my swelling their number." "You hear; he is to come to Paris and enter college. When he is old enough, I will send him to the Ecole Militare, or some other school which I shall have founded before then."
"Faith, general," said Roland, "just as if I had guessed your good intentions, he is this very day on the point of, starting for Paris."
"What for?"
"I wrote to my mother three days ago to bring the boy to Paris. I intended to put him in college without mentioning it, and when he was old enough to tell you about him--always supposing that my aneurism had not carried me off in the meantime. But in that case--"
"In that case?"
"Oh! in that case I have left a bit of a will addressed to you, and recommending to your kindness my mother, and the boy and the girl--in short, the whole raft." "The girl! Who is she?"
"My sister."
"So you have a sister also?"
"Yes."
"How old is she?"
"Seventeen."
"Pretty?"
"Charming."
"I'll take charge of her establishment."
Roland began to laugh.
"What's the matter?" demanded the First Consul.
"General, I'm going to put a placard over the grand entrance to the Luxembourg." "What will you put on the placard?"
"'Marriages made here.'"
"Why not? Is it any reason because you don't wish to marry for your sister to remain an old maid? I don't like old maids any better than I do old bachelors." "I did not say, general, that my sister should remain an old maid; it's quite enough for one member of the Montrevel family to have incurred your displeasure." "Then what do you mean?"
"Only that, as the matter concerns my sister, she must, if you will allow it, be consulted."
"Ah, ha! Some provincial love-affair, is there?"
"I can't say. I left poor Amélie gay and happy, and I find her pale and sad. I shall get the truth out of her; and if you wish me to speak to you again about the matter, I will do so."
"Yes, do so--when you get back from the Vendée."
"Ah! So I am going to the Vendée?"
"Why, is that, like marriage, repugnant, to you?"
"Not in the least."
"Then you are going to the Vendée."
"When?"
"Oh, you need not hurry, providing you start to-morrow."
"Excellent; sooner if you wish. Tell me what I am to do there."
"Something of the utmost importance, Roland."
"The devil! It isn't a diplomatic mission, I presume?"
"Yes; it is a diplomatic mission for which I need a man who is not a diplomatist." "Then I'm your man, general! Only, you understand, the less a diplomatist I am, the more precise my instructions must be."
"I am going to give them to you. Do you see that map?"
And he showed the young man a large map of Piedmont stretched out on the floor, under a lamp suspended from the ceiling.
"Yes, I see it," replied Roland, accustomed to follow the general along the unexpected dashes of his genius; "but it is a map of Piedmont."
"Yes, it's a map of Piedmont."
"So there is still a question of Italy?"
"There is always a question of Italy."
"I thought you spoke of the Vendée?"
"Secondarily."
"Why, general, you are not going to send me to the Vendée and go yourself to Italy, are you?"
"No; don't be alarmed."
"All right; but I warn you, if you did, I should desert and join you."
"I give you permission to do so; but now let us go back to Mélas." "Excuse me, general; this is the first time you have mentioned him." "Yes; but I have been thinking of him for a long time. Do you know where I shall defeat him?"
"The deuce! I do."
"Where?"
"Wherever you meet him."
Bonaparte laughed.
"Ninny!" he said, with loving familiarity. Then, stooping over the map, he said to Roland, "Come here."
Roland stooped beside him. "There," resumed Bonaparte; "that is where I shall fight him."
"Near Alessandria?"
"Within eight or nine miles of it. He has all his supplies, hospitals, artillery and reserves in Alessandria; and he will not leave the neighborhood. I shall have to strike a great blow; that's the only condition on which I can get peace. I shall cross the Alps"--he pointed to the great Saint-Bernard--"I shall fall upon Mélas when he least expects me, and rout him utterly."
"Oh! trust you for that!"
"Yes; but you understand, Roland, that in order to quit France with an easy mind, I can't leave it with an inflammation of the bowels--I can't leave war in the Vendée."
"Ah! now I see what you are after. No Vendée! And you are sending me to the Vendée to suppress it."
"That young man told me some serious things about the Vendée. They are brave soldiers, those Vendéans, led by a man of brains, Georges Cadoudal. I have sent him the offer of a regiment, but he won't accept."
"Jove! He's particular."
"But there's one thing he little knows."
"Who, Cadoudal?"
"Yes, Cadoudal. That is that the Abbé Bernier has made me overtures." "The Abbé Bernier?"
"Yes."
"Who is the Abbé Bernier?"
"The son of a peasant from Anjou, who may be now about thirty-three or four years of age. Before the insurrection he was curate of Saint-Laud at Angers. He refused to take the oath and sought refuge among the Vendéans. Two or three times the Vendée was pacificated; twice she was thought dead. A mistake! the Vendée was pacificated, but the Abbé Bernier had not signed the peace; the Vendée was dead, but the Abbé Bernier was still alive. One day the Vendée was ungrateful to him. He wished to be appointed general agent to the royalist armies of the interior; Stofflet influenced the decision and got his old master, Comte Colbert de Maulevrier, appointed in Bernier's stead. When, at two o'clock in the morning, the council broke up, the Abbé Bernier had disappeared. What he did that night, God and he alone can tell; but at four o'clock in the morning a Republican detachment surrounded the farmhouse where Stofflet was sleeping, disarmed and defenceless. At half-past four Stofflet was captured; eight days later he was executed at Angers. The next day Autichamp took command, and, to avoid making the same blunder as Stofflet, he appointed the Abbé Bernier general agent. Now, do you understand?"
"Perfectly."
"Well, the Abbé Bernier, general agent of the belligerent forces, and furnished with plenary powers by the Comte d'Artois--the Abbé Bernier has made overtures to me."
"To you, to Bonaparte, to the First Consul he deigns to--? Why, that's very kind of the Abbé Bernier? Have you accepted them?"
"Yes, Roland; if the Vendée will give me peace, I will open her churches and give her back her priests."
"And suppose they chant the Domine, salvum fac regem?"
"That would be better than not singing at all. God is omnipotent, and he will decide. Does the mission suit you, now that I have explained it?"
"Yes, thoroughly."
"Then, here is a letter for General Hédouville. He is to treat with the Abbé Bernier as the general-in-chief of the Army of the West. But you are to be present at all these conferences; he is only my mouthpiece, you are to be my thought. Now, start as soon as possible; the sooner you get back, the sooner Mélas will be defeated."
"General, give me time to write to my mother, that's all."
"Where will she stop?"
"At the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs."
"When do you think she will arrive?"
"This is the night of the 21st of January; she will be here the evening of the 23d, or the morning of the 24th."
"And she stops at the Hôtel des Ambassadeurs?"
"Yes, general."
"I take it all on myself."
"Take it all on yourself, general?"
"Certainly; your mother can't stay at a hotel."
"Where should she stay?"
"With a friend."
"She knows no one in Paris."
"I beg your pardon, Monsieur Roland; she knows citizen Bonaparte, First Consul, and his wife."
"You are not going to lodge my mother at the Luxembourg. I warn you that that would embarrass her very much."
"No; but I shall lodge her in the Rue de la Victoire."
"Oh, general!"
"Come, come; that's settled. Go, now, and get back as soon as possible." Roland took the First Consul's hand, meaning to kiss it; but Bonaparte drew him quickly to him.
"Embrace me, my dear Roland," he said, "and good luck to you."
Two hours later Roland was rolling along in a post-chaise on the road to Orleans. The next day, at nine in the morning, he entered Nantes, after a journey of thirtythree hours.
About the hour when Roland was entering Nantes, a diligence, heavily loaded, stopped at the inn of the Croix-d'Or, in the middle of the main street of Châtillonsur-Seine.
In those days the diligences had but two compartments, the coupé and the interior; the rotunda is an adjunct of modern times.
The diligence had hardly stopped before the postilion jumped down and opened the doors. The travellers dismounted. There were seven in all, of both sexes. In the interior, three men, two women, and a child at the breast; in the coupé, a mother and her son.
The three men in the interior were, one a doctor from Troyes, the second a watchmaker from Geneva, the third an architect from Bourg. The two women were a lady's maid travelling to Paris to rejoin her mistress, and the other a wetnurse; the child was the latter's nursling, which she was taking back to its parents.
The mother and son in the coupé were people of position; the former, about forty years of age, still preserving traces of great beauty, the latter a boy between eleven and twelve. The third place in the coupe was occupied by the conductor. Breakfast was waiting, as usual, in the dining-room; one of those breakfasts which conductors, no doubt in collusion with the landlords, never give travellers the time to eat. The woman and the nurse got out of the coach and went to a baker's shop nearby, where each bought a hot roll and a sausage, with which they went back to the coach, settling themselves quietly to breakfast, thus saving the cost, probably too great for their means, of a meal at the hotel. The doctor, the watchmaker, the architect and the mother and son entered the inn, and, after warming themselves hastily at the large kitchen-fire, entered the dining-room and took seats at the table.
The mother contented herself with a cup of coffee with cream, and some fruit. The boy, delighted to prove himself a man by his appetite at least, boldly attacked the viands. The first few moments were, as usual, employed in satisfying hunger. The watchmaker from Geneva was the first to speak. "Faith, citizen," said he (the word citizen was still used in public places), "I tell you frankly I was not at all sorry to see daylight this morning."
"Cannot monsieur sleep in a coach?" asked the doctor.
"Oh, yes, sir," replied the compatriot of Jean-Jacques; "on the contrary, I usually sleep straight through the night. But anxiety was stronger than fatigue this time." "Were you afraid of upsetting?" asked the architect.
"No. I'm very lucky in that respect; it seems enough for me to be in a coach to make it unupsettable. No, that wasn't it."
"What was it, then?" questioned the doctor.
"They say in Geneva that the roads in France are not safe."
"That's according to circumstances," said the architect.
"Ah! how's that?" inquired the watchmaker.
"Oh!" replied the architect; "if, for example, we were carrying government money, we would surely be stopped, or rather we would have been already." "Do you think so?" queried the watchmaker.
"That has never failed. I don't know how those devils of Companions of Jehu manage to keep so well posted; but they never miss an opportunity." The doctor nodded affirmatively.
"Ah!" exclaimed the watchmaker, addressing the doctor; "do you think so, too?" "I do."
"And if you knew there was government money in the coach, would you be so imprudent as to take passage in it?"
"I must admit," replied the doctor, "that I should think twice about it." "And you, sir?" said the questioner to the architect.
"Oh, I," replied the latter--"as I am on important business, I should have started anyway."
"I am tempted," said the watchmaker "to take off my valise and my oases, and wait for