An Historical Mystery

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"When I get to Michu's house go to the stable; if you have served
twelve years in the cavalry you know when a horse is blown. Let me
know the condition of Michu's beast."

"See! that's where our corporal was thrown," said the man, pointing to
a spot where the road they were following entered the _rond-point_.

"Tell the captain to come and pick me up at Michu's, and I'll go with
him to Troyes."

So saying Corentin got down, and stood about for a few minutes
examining the ground. He looked at the two elms which faced each
other,--one against the park wall, the other on the bank of the
_rond-point_; then he saw (what no one had yet noticed) the button of a
uniform lying in the dust, and he picked it up. Entering the lodge he
saw Violette and Michu sitting at the table in the kitchen and talking
eagerly. Violette rose, bowed to Corentin, and offered him some wine.

"Thank you, no; I came to see the corporal," said the young man, who
saw with half a glance that Violette had been drunk all night.

"My wife is nursing him upstairs," said Michu.

"Well, corporal, how are you?" said Corentin who had run up the stairs
and found the gendarme with his head bandaged, and lying on Madame
Michu's bed; his hat, sabre, and shoulder-belt on a chair.

Marthe, faithful in her womanly instincts, and knowing nothing of her
son's prowess, was giving all her care to the corporal, assisted by
her mother.

"We expect Monsieur Varlet the doctor from Arcis," she said to
Corentin; "our servant-lad has gone to fetch him."

"Leave us alone for a moment," said Corentin, a good deal surprised at
the scene, which amply proved the innocence of the two women. "Where
were you struck?" he asked the man, examining his uniform.

"On the breast," replied the corporal.

"Let's see your belt," said Corentin.

On the yellow band with a white edge, which a recent regulation had
made part of the equipment of the guard now called National, was a
metal plate a good deal like that of the foresters, on which the law
required the inscription of these remarkable words: "Respect to
persons and to properties." Francois's rope had struck the belt and
defaced it. Corentin took up the coat and found the place where the
button he had picked up upon the road belonged.

"What time did they find you?" asked Corentin.

"About daybreak."

"Did they bring you up here at once?" said Corentin, noticing that the
bed had not been slept in.

"Yes."

"Who brought you up?"

"The women and little Michu, who found me unconscious."

"So!" thought Corentin: "evidently they didn't go to bed. The corporal
was not shot at, nor struck by any weapon, for an assailant must have
been at his own height to strike a blow. Something, some obstacle, was
in his way and that unhorsed him. A piece of wood? not possible! an
iron chain? that would have left marks. What did you feel?" he said
aloud.

"I was knocked over so suddenly--"

"The skin is rubbed off under your chin," said Corentin quickly.

"I think," said the corporal, "that a rope did go over my face."

"I have it!" cried Corentin; "somebody tied a rope from tree to tree
to bar the way."

"Like enough," replied the corporal.

Corentin went downstairs to the kitchen.

"Come, you old rascal," Michu was saying to Violette, "let's make an
end of this. One hundred thousand francs for the place, and you are
master of my whole property. I shall retire on my income."

"I tell you, as there's a God in heaven, I haven't more than sixty
thousand."

"But don't I offer you time to pay the rest? You've kept me here since
yesterday, arguing it. The land is in prime order."

"Yes, the soil is good," said Violette.

"Wife, some more wine," cried Michu.

"Haven't you drunk enough?" called down Marthe's mother. "This is the
fourteenth bottle since nine o'clock yesterday."

"You have been here since nine o'clock this morning, haven't you?"
said Corentin to Violette.

"No, beg your pardon, since last night I haven't left the place, and
I've gained nothing after all; the more he makes me drink the more he
puts up the price."

"In all markets he who raises his elbow raises a price," said
Corentin.

A dozen empty bottles ranged along the table proved the truth of the
old woman's words. Just then the gendarme who had driven him made a
sign to Corentin, who went to the door to speak to him.

"There is no horse in the stable," said the man.

"You sent your boy on horseback to the chateau, didn't you?" said
Corentin, returning to the kitchen. "Will he be back soon?"

"No, monsieur," said Michu, "he went on foot."

"What have you done with your horse, then?"

"I have lent him," said Michu, curtly.

"Come out here, my good fellow," said Corentin; "I've a word for your
ear."

Corentin and Michu left the house.

"The gun which you were loading yesterday at four o'clock you meant to
use in murdering the Councillor of State; but we can't take you up for
that--plenty of intention, but no witnesses. You managed, I don't know
how, to stupefy Violette, and you and your wife and that young rascal
of yours spent the night out of doors to warn Mademoiselle de
Cinq-Cygne and save her cousins, whom you are hiding here,--though I
don't as yet know where. Your son or your wife threw the corporal off
his horse cleverly enough. Well, you've got the better of us just now;
you're a devil of a fellow. But the end is not yet, and you won't have
the last word. Hadn't you better compromise? your masters would be the
better for it."

"Come this way, where we can talk without being overheard," said
Michu, leading the way through the park to the pond.

When Corentin saw the water he looked fixedly at Michu, who was no
doubt reckoning on his physical strength to fling the spy into seven
feet of mud below three feet of water. Michu replied with a look that
was not less fixed. The scene was absolutely as if a cold and flabby
boa constrictor had defied one of those tawny, fierce leopards of
Brazil.

"I am not thirsty," said Corentin, stopping short at the edge of the
field and putting his hand into his pocket to feel for his dagger.

"We shall never come to terms," said Michu, coldly.

"Mind what you're about, my good fellow; the law has its eye upon
you."

"If the law can't see any clearer than you, there's danger to every
one," said the bailiff.

"Do you refuse?" said Corentin, in a significant tone.

"I'd rather have my head cut off a thousand times, if that could be
done, than come to an agreement with such a villain as you."

Corentin got into his vehicle hastily, after one more comprehensive
look at Michu, the lodge, and Couraut, who barked at him. He gave
certain orders in passing through Troyes, and then returned to Paris.
All the brigades of gendarmerie in the neighborhood received secret
instructions and special orders.

During the months of December, January, and February the search was
active and incessant, even in remote villages. Spies were in all the
taverns. Corentin learned some important facts: a horse like that of
Michu had been found dead in the neighborhood of Lagny; the five
horses burned in the forest of Nodesme had been sold, for five hundred
francs each, by farmers and millers to a man who answered to the
description of Michu. When the decree against the accomplices and
harborers of Georges was put in force Corentin confined his search to
the forest of Nodesme. After Moreau, the royalists, and Pichegru were
arrested no strangers were ever seen about the place.

Michu lost his situation at that time; the notary of Arcis brought him
a letter in which Malin, now made senator, requested Grevin to settle
all accounts with the bailiff and dismiss him. Michu asked and
obtained a formal discharge and became a free man. To the great
astonishment of the neighborhood he went to live at Cinq-Cygne, where
Laurence made him the farmer of all the reserved land about the
chateau. The day of his installation as farmer coincided with the
fatal day of the death of the Duc d'Enghien, when nearly the whole of
France heard at the same time of the arrest, trial, condemnation, and
death of the prince,--terrible reprisals, which preceded the trial of
Polignac, Riviere, and Moreau.




PART II



CHAPTER X

ONE AND THE SAME, YET A TWO-FOLD LOVE

While the new farm-house was being built Michu the Judas, so-called,
and his family occupied the rooms over the stables at Cinq-Cygne on
the side of the chateau next to the famous breach. He bought two
horses, one for himself and one for Francois, and they both joined
Gothard in accompanying Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne in her many rides,
which had for their object, as may well be imagined, the feeding of
the four gentlemen and perpetual watching that they were still in
safety. Francois and Gothard, assisted by Couraut and the countess's
dogs, went in front and beat the woods all around the hiding-place to
make sure that there was no one within sight. Laurence and Michu
carried the provisions which Marthe, her mother, and Catherine
prepared, unknown to the other servants of the household so as to
restrict the secret to themselves, for all were sure that there were
spies in the village. These expeditions were never made oftener than
twice a week and on different days and at different hours, sometimes
by day, sometimes by night.

These precautions lasted until the trial of Riviere, Polignac, and
Moreau ended. When the senatus-consultum, which called the dynasty of
Bonaparte to the throne and nominated Napoleon as Emperor of the
French, was submitted to the French people for acceptance Monsieur
d'Hauteserre signed the paper Goulard brought him. When it was made
known that the Pope would come to France to crown the Emperor,
Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne no longer opposed the general desire that
her cousins and the young d'Hauteserres should petition to have their
names struck off the list of _emigres_, and be themselves reinstated
in their rights as citizens. On this, old d'Hauteserre went to Paris
and consulted the ci-devant Marquis de Chargeboeuf who knew
Talleyrand. That minister, then in favor, conveyed the petition to
Josephine, and Josephine gave it to her husband, who was addressed as
Emperor, Majesty, Sire, before the result of the popular vote was
known. Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, Monsieur d'Hauteserre, and the Abbe
Goujet, who also went to Paris, obtained an interview with Talleyrand,
who promised them his support. Napoleon had already pardoned several
of the principal actors in the great royalist conspiracy; and yet,
though the four gentlemen were merely suspected of complicity, the
Emperor, after a meeting of the Council of State, called the senator
Malin, Fouche, Talleyrand, Cambaceres, Lebrun, and Dubois, prefect of
police, into his cabinet.

"Gentlemen," said the future Emperor, who still wore the dress of the
First Consul, "we have received from the Sieurs de Simeuse and
d'Hauteserre, officers in the army of the Prince de Conde, a request
to be allowed to re-enter France."

"They are here now," said Fouche.

"Like many others whom I meet in Paris," remarked Talleyrand.

"I think you have not met these gentlemen," said Malin, "for they are
hidden in the forest of Nodesme, where they consider themselves at
home."

He was careful not to tell the First Consul and Fouche how he himself
had given them warning, by talking with Grevin within hearing of
Michu, but he made the most of Corentin's reports and convinced
Napoleon that the four gentlemen were sharers in the plot of Riviere
and Polignac, with Michu for an accomplice. The prefect of police
confirmed these assertions.

"But how could that bailiff know that the conspiracy was discovered?"
said the prefect, "for the Emperor and the council and I were the only
persons in the secret."

No one paid attention to this remark.

"If they have been hidden in that forest for the last seven months and
you have not been able to find them," said the Emperor to Fouche,
"they have expiated their misdeeds."

"Since they are my enemies as well," said Malin, frightened by the
Emperor's clear-sightedness, "I desire to follow the magnanimous
example of your Majesty; I therefore make myself their advocate and
ask that their names be stricken from the list of _emigres_."

"They will be less dangerous to you here than if they are exiled; for
they will now have to swear allegiance to the Empire and the laws,"
said Fouche, looking at Malin fixedly.

"In what way are they dangerous to the senator?" asked Napoleon.

Talleyrand spoke to the Emperor for some minutes in a low voice. The
reinstatement of the Messieurs de Simeuse and d'Hauteserre appeared to
be granted.

"Sire," said Fouche, "rely upon it, you will hear of those men again."

Talleyrand, who had been urged by the Duc de Grandlieu, gave the
Emperor pledges in the name of the young men on their honor as
gentlemen (a term which had great fascination for Napoleon), to
abstain from all attacks upon his Majesty and to submit themselves to
his government in good faith.

"Messieurs d'Hauteserre and de Simeuse are not willing to bear arms
against France, now that events have taken their present course," he
said, aloud; "they have little sympathy, it is true, with the Imperial
government, but they are just the men that your Majesty ought to
conciliate. They will be satisfied to live on French soil and obey the
laws."

Then he laid before the Emperor a letter he had received from the
brothers in which these sentiments were expressed.

"Anything so frank is likely to be sincere," said the Emperor,
returning the letter and looking at Lebrun and Cambaceres. "Have you
any further suggestions?" he asked of Fouche.

"In your Majesty's interests," replied the future minister of police,
"I ask to be allowed to inform these gentlemen of their reinstatement
--when it is _really granted_," he added, in a louder tone.

"Very well," said Napoleon, noticing an anxious look on Fouche's face.

The matter did not seem positively decided when the Council rose; but
it had the effect of putting into Napoleon's mind a vague distrust of
the four young men. Monsieur d'Hauteserre, believing that all was
gained, wrote a letter announcing the good news. The family at
Cinq-Cygne were therefore not surprised when, a few days later,
Goulard came to inform the countess and Madame d'Hauteserre that they
were to send the four gentlemen to Troyes, where the prefect would show
them the decree reinstating them in their rights and administer to them
the oath of allegiance to the Empire and the laws. Laurence replied that
she would send the notification to her cousins and the Messieurs
d'Hauteserre.

"Then they are not here?" said Goulard.

Madame d'Hauteserre looked anxiously after Laurence, who left the room
to consult Michu. Michu saw no reason why the young men should not be
released at once from their hiding-place. Laurence, Michu, his son,
and Gothard therefore started as soon as possible for the forest,
taking an extra horse, for the countess resolved to accompany her
cousins to Troyes and return with them. The whole household, made
aware of the good news, gathered on the lawn to witness the departure
of the happy cavalcade. The four young men issued from their long
confinement, mounted their horses, and took the road to Troyes,
accompanied by Mademoiselle Cinq-Cygne. Michu, with the help of his
son and Gothard, closed the entrance to the cellar, and started to
return home on foot. On the way he recollected that he had left the
forks and spoons and a silver cup, which the young men had been using,
in the cave, and he went back for them alone. When he reached the edge
of the pond he heard voices, and went straight to the entrance of the
cave through the brushwood.

"Have you come for your silver?" said Peyrade, showing his big red
nose through the branches.

Without knowing why, for at any rate his young masters were safe,
Michu felt a sharp agony in all his joints, so keen was the sense of
vague, indefinable coming evil which took possession of him; but he
went forward at once, and found Corentin on the stairs with a taper in
his hand.

"We are not very harsh," he said to Michu; "we might have seized
your ci-devants any day for the last week; but we knew they were
reinstated--You're a tough fellow to deal with, and you gave us too
much trouble not to make us anxious to satisfy our curiosity about
this hiding-place of yours."

"I'd give something," cried Michu, "to know how and by whom we have
been sold."

"If that puzzles you, old fellow," said Peyrade, laughing, "look at
your horses' shoes, and you'll see that you betrayed yourselves."

"Well, there need be no rancor!" said Corentin, whistling for the
captain of gendarmerie and their horses.

"So that rascally Parisian blacksmith who shoed the horses in the
English fashion and left Cinq-Cygne only the other day was their spy!"
thought Michu. "They must have followed our tracks when the ground was
damp. Well, we're quits now!"

Michu consoled himself by thinking that the discovery was of no
consequence, as the young men were now safe, Frenchmen once more, and
at liberty. Yet his first presentiment was a true one. The police,
like the Jesuits, have the one virtue of never abandoning their
friends or their enemies.

Old d'Hauteserre returned from Paris and was more than surprised not
to be the first to bring the news. Durieu prepared a succulent dinner,
the servants donned their best clothes, and the household impatiently
awaited the exiles, who arrived about four o'clock, happy,--and yet
humiliated, for they found they were to be under police surveillance
for two years, obliged to present themselves at the prefecture every
month and ordered to remain in the commune of Cinq-Cygne during the
said two years. "I'll send you the papers for signature," the prefect
said to them. "Then, in the course of a few months, you can ask to be
relieved of these conditions, which are imposed on all of Pichegru's
accomplices. I will back your request."

These restrictions, fairly deserved, rather dispirited the young men,
but Laurence laughed at them.

"The Emperor of the French," she said, "was badly brought up; he has
not yet acquired the habit of bestowing favors graciously."

The party found all the inhabitants of the chateau at the gates, and a
goodly proportion of the people of the village waiting on the road to
see the young men, whose adventures had made them famous throughout
the department. Madame d'Hauteserre held her sons to her breast for a
long time, her face covered with tears; she was unable to speak and
remained silent, though happy, through a part of the evening. No
sooner had the Simeuse twins dismounted than a cry of surprise arose
on all sides, caused by their amazing resemblance,--the same look, the
same voice, the same actions. They both had the same movement in
rising from their saddles, in throwing their leg over the crupper of
their horses when dismounting, in flinging the reins upon the animal's
neck. Their dress, precisely the same, contributed to this likeness.
They wore boots _a la_ Suwaroff, made to fit the instep, tight
trousers of white leather, green hunting-jackets with metal buttons,
black cravats, and buckskin gloves. The two young men, just thirty-one
years of age, were--to use a term in vogue in those days--charming
cavaliers, of medium height but well set up, brilliant eyes with long
lashes, floating in liquid like those of children, black hair, noble
brows, and olive skin. Their speech, gentle as that of a woman, fell
graciously from their fresh red lips; their manners, more elegant and
polished than those of the provincial gentlemen, showed that knowledge
of men and things had given them that supplementary education which
makes its possessor a man of the world.

Not lacking money, thanks to Michu, during their emigration, they had
been able to travel and be received at foreign courts. Old
d'Hauteserre and the abbe thought them rather haughty; but in their
present position this may have been the sign of nobility of character.
They possessed all the eminent little marks of a careful education, to
which they added a wonderful dexterity in bodily exercises. Their only
dissimilarity was in the region of ideas. The youngest charmed others
by his gaiety, the eldest by his melancholy; but the contrast, which
was purely spiritual, was not at first observable.

"Ah, wife," whispered Michu in Marthe's ear, "how could one help
devoting one's self to those young fellows?"

Marthe, who admired them as a wife and mother, nodded her head
prettily and pressed her husband's hand. The servants were allowed to
kiss their new masters.

During their seven months' seclusion in the forest (which the young
men had brought upon themselves) they had several times committed the
imprudence of taking walks about their hiding-place, carefully guarded
by Michu, his son, and Gothard. During these walks, taken usually on
starlit nights, Laurence, reuniting the thread of their past and
present lives, felt the utter impossibility of choosing between the
brothers. A pure and equal love for each divided her heart. She
fancied indeed that she had two hearts. On their side, the brothers
dared not speak to themselves of their impending rivalry. Perhaps all
three were trusting to time and accident. The condition of her mind on
this subject acted no doubt upon Laurence as they entered the house,
for she hesitated a moment, and then took an arm of each as she
entered the salon followed by Monsieur and Madame d'Hauteserre, who
were occupied with their sons. Just then a cheer burst from the
servants, "Long live the Cinq-Cygne and the Simeuse families!"
Laurence turned round, still between the brothers, and made a charming
gesture of acknowledgement.

When these nine persons came to actually observe each other,--for in
all meetings, even in the bosom of families, there comes a moment when
friends observe those from whom they have been long parted,--the first
glance which Adrien d'Hauteserre cast upon Laurence seemed to his
mother and to the abbe to betray love. Adrien, the youngest of the
d'Hauteserres, had a sweet and tender soul; his heart had remained
adolescent in spite of the catastrophes which had nerved the man. Like
many young heroes, kept virgin in spirit by perpetual peril, he was
daunted by the timidities of youth. In this he was very different from
his brother, a man of rough manners, a great hunter, an intrepid
soldier, full of resolution, but coarse in fibre and without activity
of mind or delicacy in matters of the heart. One was all soul, the
other all action; and yet they both possessed in the same degree that
sense of honor which is the vital essence of a gentleman. Dark, short,
slim and wiry, Adrien d'Hauteserre gave an impression of strength;
whereas Robert, who was tall, pale and fair, seemed weakly. Adrien,
nervous in temperament, was stronger in soul; while his brother though
lymphatic, was fonder of bodily exercise. Families often present these
singularities of contrast, the causes of which it might be interesting
to examine; but they are mentioned here merely to explain how it was
that Adrien was not likely to find a rival in his brother. Robert's
affection for Laurence was that of a relation, the respect of a noble
for a girl of his own caste. In matters of sentiment the elder
d'Hauteserre belonged to the class of men who consider woman as an
appendage to man, limiting her sphere to the physical duties of
maternity; demanding perfection in that respect, but regarding her
mentally as of no account. To such men the admittance of woman as an
actual sharer in society, in the body politic, in the family, meant
the subversion of the social system. In these days we are so far
removed from this theory of primitive people that almost all women,
even those who do not desire the fatal emancipation offered by the new
sects, will be shocked in merely hearing of it; but it must be owned
that Robert d'Hauteserre had the misfortune to think in that way.
Robert was a man of the middle-ages, Adrien a man of to-day. These
differences instead of hindering their affection had drawn its bonds
the closer. On the first evening after the return of the young men
these shades of character were caught and understood by the abbe,
Mademoiselle Goujet, and Madame d'Hauteserre, who, while playing their
boston, were secretly foreseeing the difficulties of the future.

At twenty-three years of age, having passed through the many
reflections of a long solitude and the anguish of a defeated
enterprise, Laurence had become a woman, and felt within her an
absorbing desire for affection. She now put forth all her graces of
her mind and was charming; she revealed the hidden beauties of her
tender heart with the simple candor of a child. For the last thirteen
years she had been a woman only through suffering; she longed to
obtain amends for it, and she showed herself as loving and winning as
she had been, up to this time, strong and great.