Angelot: A Story of the First Empire

Monsieur de Mauves smiled, took a delicate pinch of snuff, and stroked his chin.

"Sometimes I congratulate myself, madame," he said, "on having no young people to marry. Yet, with a sense of duty, which, thank God, they generally have, they are more manageable than their elders. Look, for instance, at your dear and charming brother-in-law. There he is hatching fresh plots, when I have just assured him that the police are not supervising him by my orders, and never shall, if I can trust him to behave like a peaceable citizen."

"Ah, you are very good, Monsieur le Préfet," said Madame de la Marinière. She went on talking absently. "Whatever we may think of your politics," she said, "it seems a crime to annoy or disappoint you. Indeed you do much to reconcile us. But as to Ange—his father's son is never likely—"

"It is a world of surprises, dear madame," said the Prefect, as she did not finish her sentence. "I wish him all that is good—and so I wish that you and Monsieur de la Marinière would send him into the army. He should serve France—should make her his only mistress, at least for the next ten years. Then let him marry, settle down amongst us here—turn against the Emperor, if he chooses—but by that time there will be no danger!"

Thus flattering himself and his master, the Prefect wished her an almost affectionate good night.

In a few minutes more, nearly all the guests were gone. Angelot, still in his quaint acting costume, went out to the court with Monsieur de Sainfoy to see the ladies into their carriages. He then went to change his clothes, his cousin returning to the salon. Hurrying back into the long hall, now empty of servants, vast and rather ghostly with its rows of family portraits dimly lighted, while caverns of darkness showed where passages opened and bare stone staircases led up or down, he saw Hélène, alone, coming swiftly towards him.

She flew up the stairs, the last landing of which he had just reached on his way down, where it turned sharply under a high barred window. Meeting Angelot suddenly, she almost screamed, but stopped herself in time. He laughed joyfully; he was wildly excited.

"Ah, belle cousine!" he said softly. "Dear, we shall say good night here better than in the salon!"

Never once, since that hour in the garden ten days ago, had these two met without witnesses. Hélène, as a rule, was far too well guarded for that. She tried even now, but not successfully, to keep her rather presumptuous lover at a little distance, but in truth she was too much enchanted to see him, her only friend, for this pretence of coldness to last long. Standing with Angelot's arms round her, trembling from head to foot with joy and fear, she tried between his kisses and tender words to tell him how indeed he must not stop her, for in real prosaic truth Madame de Sainfoy had sent her off to bed.

"But why, why, dear angel, before we were all gone! It was the best thing that could happen—but why?"

"That is what I do not know, and it frightens me a little," said Hélène.

"Frightened here with me!"

"Yes, Angelot!" She tried to speak, but he would hardly let her. She held him back with both hands, and went on hurriedly—"It was mamma's look—she looked at me so strangely, she spoke severely, as if I had done wrong, and indeed I have, mon Dieu! but she does not know it, and I hope she never may. If she knew, I believe she would kill me. Let me go, I must!"

"One moment, darling! Come away with me! I will fetch a horse and carry you off. Then it won't matter what any one knows!"

"You are distracted!" Hélène began to laugh, though her eyes were full of tears. "Listen, listen," she said. "Your father and mother and uncle were just going, when mamma called them back. She said to papa and them that she wished to consult the family. Oh, what is it all about? What can it be?"

"That matters very little as long as they don't want us. Let them talk. What are you afraid of, my sweet?"

"I can't tell you. I hardly know," murmured Hélène; and in the next instant she had snatched herself from him and flown upstairs.

There were quick steps in the hall below, and Monsieur Joseph's voice was calling "Angelot!"

CHAPTER X

"He likes to be surrounded by these country admirers," Madame de Sainfoy would have said. "If I do not talk to them about this, he will; and it will please him that I should consult them. Urbain is different, of course. Urbain is a sensible man; he will be on my side."

So she put Madame Urbain, rather grave, indifferent, and tired, into a chair on her right, smiled brilliantly upon her, and turned her attention upon the two men standing before the fireplace, Hervé and Urbain, one troubled and curious, for he knew her well, and her drift puzzled him, the other gay, serene, and waiting her commands with ready deference. Monsieur Joseph, not much interested, thinking of his talks with the Prefect and Monsieur des Barres, impatient to hurry home and say good night to Riette, sat a little in the background.

With all her eagerness, with all her ambition and policy, Adélaïde de Sainfoy flushed and hesitated a little before she set forth her plan.

"My friends," she said, "this is a family council. Hervé and I are fortunate, here at Lancilly. We need no longer decide family affairs by our unassisted wits."

She smiled on Hervé's cousins, and Urbain bowed; he, at least, recognised the honour that was done them.

"A proposal of marriage has been made to me for our daughter Hélène."

She spoke to the company, but looked at her husband; there was fear as well as defiance in her eyes. He returned her gaze steadily, slightly frowning. Urbain bowed again, and looked at the floor with an inscrutable countenance. Anne shrugged her shoulders slightly, as if to say, "How does that concern me?" Joseph jumped suddenly from his chair, the colour rushing into his thin brown face, and stood like a point of exclamation. Nobody spoke, not even Hélène's father.

"Let me announce to you," said Madame de Sainfoy, still looking at him, "that the personage who has done us this honour is—Monsieur le Général Ratoneau."

The moment of dead silence that followed this was broken by a short laugh from the Comte.

"Was it worth while to consult a family council?" he said. "I should have thought, my dear Adélaïde, that a word from you might have settled that matter on the spot."

Monsieur Joseph said aside: "Honour! It is an insult!"

Anne opened her eyes wide with horror, and even Urbain was startled, but he prudently said nothing.

"It might—it certainly might—" said Madame de Sainfoy, "if I could have been sure that you would take my view, Hervé."

"I imagine that we could hardly differ on such a point!" he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"What is your opinion, then? Think well before you speak."

"On my honour, no thought is necessary. To speak very mildly, a man of that birth, manners, appearance, is not worth considering at all as a husband for Hélène. Come, it is ridiculous! You cannot have encouraged such an idea, Adélaïde! Was that the subject of all your long conversation? Waste of time, truly!"

"Pardon, it is not ridiculous," said Madame de Sainfoy. "Your prejudices will end by sending Hélène into a convent; this, I believe, is the fourth good proposal that you have laughed at. Yes, a good proposal—listen, Urbain, I know you will agree with me, for every sensible man must. You talk of General Ratoneau's birth! All honour to him, that his talents and courage have raised him above it. As to his manners, they are those of a soldier; frank and rough, of course, but he seems to me both intelligent and sincere. Manners! It is a little late in the day to talk of them, when most of the Marshals of France and the new nobility have none better. Do you fancy yourself back in the eighteenth century, my poor Hervé?"

"Very well—but you would not like Georges to bring such manners home from Spain!"

"If Georges distinguishes himself, and gains the Emperor's favour, he may bring home what he likes," said Madame de Sainfoy, scornfully. "However, there is no danger; he is our son."

"I should have thought that our son-in-law mattered at least as much."

"We are not responsible for him. By the bye, as to the General's appearance, you can hardly object to that without bordering on treason. For my part, I call him a handsome man."

"A handsome butcher!" said Anne de la Marinière, under her breath.

"He is—he is a butcher's son," cried Joseph, suddenly. "I know it—the Prefect told me. His father is still alive—old Ratoneau—a wholesale butcher at Marseilles. He was one of the foremost among the Revolutionists there—a butcher, indeed. Oh, madame, Hervé is right! But it is more than ridiculous—it is impossible. Why, the very name is enough! Ratoneau!"

Madame de Sainfoy hardly seemed to hear him. She put him on one side with the slightest movement of her hand.

"Next year, probably," she said, "General Ratoneau will be a Marshal of France and ennobled. He will be the equal of all those other men who have already married into our best families. At this moment a friend of his, the Baron de Beauclair, formerly his equal, is an equerry to the Empress. General Ratoneau has only to do the Emperor's work here, to—to pacify and reconcile the West, and his turn will come."

She gave herself credit for not repeating Ratoneau's own words as to sweeping out the Chouans. Joseph de la Marinière did not deserve such consideration, but she wished to be careful and politic.

"After all, do you not see how inconsistent we are?" she said to the company generally. "We take all the benefits of the Empire, we submit to a successful soldier, accept a new régime for ourselves, and refuse it for our children. Is it not unreasonable?"

"On the face of it, yes," said Urbain, speaking for the first time. "And there is nothing, they say, that pleases the Emperor so much as the marriage of his officers with young ladies of good family. I have no doubt at all, if my friend Hervé could reconcile himself, that Mademoiselle Hélène would further the fortunes of her family by such a marriage as this. General Ratoneau is a fine soldier, I believe. I agree with you, madame, he is handsome. He rubs our instincts a little the wrong way, but after all, this is not the time to be sensitive. As to Mademoiselle Hélène herself, I am sure she is most dutiful. I could imagine marriages more obnoxious to her. She would soon reconcile herself to a husband chosen for her by all the authorities."

"Poor Hélène!" sighed Madame de la Marinière.

"Come, Urbain, you friend of liberty!" exclaimed Joseph. "You advise internal tyranny, it seems; what would you say to the external? If I were in my cousin's place, I would wait for that before making such a sacrifice."

"What do you mean, Joseph?" said his brother.

"I mean that our dear Prefect has the fates of all our young daughters in his hands. He has only to report them to the Emperor, and a marriage to please His Majesty will be at once arranged. Is not that enough obedience? Cannot we wait for that necessity, instead of running beforehand to give a beautiful girl to the first brutal soldier who asks for her?"

And after that the argument waxed loud and strong. Monsieur Joseph was called upon for his authority, for particulars as to this new power given to the Prefects, which was hardly yet known, their own good Prefect being heartily ashamed of it. Hervé de Sainfoy declared that it was stupid and intolerable, but also impracticable, and in this he and his Royalist cousin agreed. No one would bear it, they were sure; but they were also convinced that De Mauves would never make use of it. Urbain shrugged his shoulders, and was of a different opinion. He thought the idea quite of a piece with many of Napoleon's other administrative plans; it seemed to him far-reaching and clever, the foundation of a new Imperialist nobility. Madame de Sainfoy, her cheeks flushed, her blue eyes shining, applauded Urbain as he spoke. It seemed to her, as to him, common sense put into practice. If the foolish old families of France would not swallow and assimilate the new order of things, it must be forced down their throats. The Emperor, and no one else, had the power to do this. His resolute will had the task of making a new society, and it was useless to complain of his means. But, evidently, the way to the Emperor's favour was not to wait for coercion, but to accept this fine opportunity of ranging one's family definitely on his side. Georges an officer, Hélène married to an officer, herself a lady-in-waiting to Marie Louise; thus everything would be arranged for floating down the great river of the Empire into the ocean of a new world. And immediate action seemed all the more advisable, if the Prefect's false delicacy was likely to leave the Sainfoy family stranded on a reef of old-fashioned manners.

At last, when every one had ceased to talk at once and the clamour was a little stilled, Hervé de Sainfoy stepped forward and made his wife a low bow.

"Madame," he said, "I have heard all your arguments, and my old-fashioned prejudices remain the same. I have made some sacrifices to keep our country and position, and may have to make more; but when you ask me to give my eldest daughter to a man who is not even a poor imitation of a gentleman, you ask too much. I will choose a husband for Hélène myself, or she shall take the veil. That life, at least, has its distinction. Aunts, great-aunts, cousins, have chosen it before her. One of our best and most beautiful ancestors was a Carmelite nun."

Madame de la Marinière clapped her hands gently. Hervé smiled at her, and Madame de Sainfoy frowned.

"A convent! No, no!" cried Urbain, while Joseph muttered breathlessly, "But there is a better alternative, dear cousins!"

He flew out of the room. The rest of the council looked at each other, puzzled and smiling, except Madame de Sainfoy, whose irritation deepened. Who was this tiresome, old-fashioned little man, that he should interfere in her plans! and what lubies might possess him now!

The curtains at the door, flung back by Joseph, had hardly settled once more into their places when he came back again, clutching Angelot by the arm.

Coming from the darkness, from the presence of Hélène, Angelot was dazzled and slightly out of breath when his uncle dragged him into the salon. He had not had time to ask a question; he came utterly unprepared into the presence of the family, and the faces that received him were not encouraging. Three at least were flushed with anger or confusion; his father's, his mother's, Madame de Sainfoy's. It was at her that he looked most intently; and he had never seen anything more unfriendly than the gleam of her eyes, the flash of her white teeth between lips suddenly drawn back like those of a fierce animal, while her flush faded, as Monsieur Joseph spoke, to a whiteness even more threatening. He understood Hélène's words, "If she knew, she would kill me." No, this woman would not have much mercy on anything that crossed her will—and Hélène was in her power.

Monsieur Joseph's slight hands, like Angelot's, were strong. The young fellow tried instinctively to wrench himself from his uncle's grasp on his arm, but it only tightened.

"Here, dear friends, I bring you the alternative!" cried Monsieur Joseph, in his joyfullest tone. "Why not marry Mademoiselle Hélène to the best and handsomest boy in Anjou—in France, for that matter—a boy we have all known from his cradle—who will have a good fortune, a prudent father's only child—who would, no doubt, though I grieve to say it, serve under any flag you please for such a prize. Yes, I am safe in saying so, for—"

The romantic little gentleman was stopped in his wild career. Angelot, his eyes blazing, with a white face and teeth set as furiously as Madame de Sainfoy's own, turned round upon him, seized him with his free hand by the other arm, and shook him with all his young strength, hissing out: "Will you be quiet, Uncle Joseph! Will you hold your tongue, if you please, and leave me to manage my own affairs."

"Come, come, what does all this mean?" cried Urbain, stepping forward.

"It means that my uncle is mad—mad—you know you are!" Angelot said in a choked voice.

Still holding Monsieur Joseph with a dog's firm grip, he stared into his eyes and shook his head violently.

"What, ungrateful—" the little uncle tried to say, but Angelot's face, his totally unexpected rage, seemed to suggest such unknown mysteries that the words died in his throat.

Suddenly released, he dropped into a chair and swore prodigiously under his breath, quite forgetting the presence of ladies in the unnatural, awful change that had come over his nephew. He stared at Angelot, who was indeed the centre of all eyes; his mother sitting upright in consternation; his father with angry brow and queerly smiling mouth; Hervé de Sainfoy very grave, with elevated eyebrows; the Comtesse leaning back in her chair, hard, fierce, watchful, yet a shade less angry than before. If this was only a fancy of that ridiculous Joseph, it might not signify—yet who knew? She was ready to suspect any one, every one, even the young man's father. The name of La Marinière was odious to her.

Angelot drew himself very upright, folded his arms, and turned to face the family council.

"See what it is to have an uncle!" he said, and his voice, though clear enough, was not quite so proud and convincing as his attitude. "He treats me like a child crying for the moon. If he could, he would fetch the moon out of the sky for me. But his kind pains are quite thrown away, mesdames et messieurs, for—I do not want the moon, any more than the moon wants me!"

He almost laughed; and only the quick change of colour in his young face showed that any feeling lay behind the words which sounded—in Monsieur Joseph's ears at least—heartlessly playful.

Angelot stepped up to Madame de Sainfoy and respectfully kissed her hand. "Bonsoir, madame!"

"Bonsoir, Angelot."

She spoke coldly; she was still uneasy, still suspicious; she gave him a keen look, and his eyelids were not lifted to meet it. In another moment he was gone.

Then the others gathered round poor Monsieur Joseph, and tried to make him explain his wild behaviour. At first he stared at them vaguely, then in a few quick words took all the blame upon himself. Yes, it was an idea that had suddenly seized him. His love for Angelot, the beauty and sweetness of Hélène, a dream of happiness for them both! A pastoral poem, in short! but it seemed that the young man was not worthy of his place as its hero.

"It seems, after all, I am more poetical than you," he said rather bitterly to Urbain.

"My dear," his brother said, "poetry at its best is the highest good sense. Now your idea, as the boy himself let us know, is moonstruck madness."

"Ah, moonstruck madness! Ah, the boy! Yes, yes," said Monsieur Joseph, dreamily, and he also took his leave.

Monsieur Urbain and his wife followed immediately. Angelot had not waited for them and the little hooded carriage, but had walked on across the valley in the cool damp darkness. They talked very seriously as they drove home, for once in entire agreement. When they reached the manor, their son had shut himself into his own room, and they did not disturb him.

"I hope you will soon keep your word, and find a suitable husband for Hélène," Madame de Sainfoy said to her husband. "I am a little tired of the business."

"I don't think there will be much difficulty. We must look further afield. Plenty of men of our own rank have accepted the Empire, and Hélène is a match for a Prince, though our little cousin refuses her! I rather like that boy."

"Do you? I do not. Certainly he was candid—and he put an effectual stop to his uncle's absurdities. He is really out of his mind, that man. I wish the Chouans joy of him."

"Poor Joseph! After all, he is an excellent creature. In these days, it is amusing to meet any one so wild and so romantic."

"I find it tiresome," said Adélaïde.

CHAPTER XI

She came back from early mass, the morning after the dinner party, to find Angelot already gone out with his gun, and her husband just starting for Lancilly.

"He is not gone that way, I hope?" she said quickly.

"No, no, he is gone across the fields towards Les Chouettes. I told him to bring back some partridge and quail, and a hare or two, if possible. I think he is gone to make his peace with Joseph."

"I should like to know the meaning of all that. I must talk to him when he comes in."

"My dear Anne, do nothing of the sort. Let the boy alone. If he has a fancy for his cousin, and if Joseph guessed it, which I suspect, it is better for us to ignore it altogether."

"I am afraid he has, do you know. I did not think so till last night—but then I saw something. So did Monsieur de Mauves. He said as much. He advised sending Ange into the army—but you will never do that, Urbain!"

A gold mist filled the valley, hiding Lancilly, and through it rose the glittering points of the poplars. She walked with him to the garden gate, past the trim box hedges, and then down the lane towards the church. Apple-trees, heavy with red fruit, bent over the way, as safe on that village road as in any fenced orchard.

"I do not want to send him into the army," Urbain said, and he looked at her tenderly.

He had long doubted whether, to please her, he was not spoiling and wasting the boy's life. He was sometimes angry with himself for his weakness; then again philosophy came to his aid: he laughed and shrugged his shoulders. It had always been so: on one side the bringing up of his son according to his own mind; and on the other, domestic peace. For his little Anne, with all her religion, perhaps because of it, was anything but meek as a wife and mother. It was fortunate for all parties, he now thought, that the present slight anxiety found her and himself on the same side, though for different reasons.

"Hélène is an astonishingly pretty girl," he said, "and the sooner she is married the better. Young men will be foolish."

"More than pretty—beautiful, I think. A little lifeless—I don't know that I should fall in love with her. Yes—but a good marriage, poor girl. Not to that monster! Adélaïde amazes me."

Urbain's ugly face curled up in a rather sardonic smile. He took his wife's hand and kissed it.

"My little lady, Adélaïde is to be admired. You are to be adored. Go and say your prayers for us all."

He disappeared into the morning mist, which just then moved and swept away under a light wind, opening to view all the opposite slope and the gorgeous, sun-bathed front of Lancilly.

"Ah, mon Dieu!" murmured Anne. "To lose both of them to Lancilly—come, it is too much. You shall not have Ange, you horrible old walls—no!"

By this time Urbain had disappeared round the corner of the church, and was hurrying down the hill. She slipped in at her own little door, to her place near the altar, so lately left. All was silent now, the Curé was gone; she knelt there alone and prayed for them all, as Urbain had said. His words were mockery, she knew; but that only made her prayers more earnest.

The misty autumn morning grew into a cloudless day. Urbain came home to breakfast between ten and eleven, but Angelot did not appear. Urbain was grave and full of business. A short talk with Hervé, who was going out shooting, a much longer and more interesting talk with Adélaïde, had the consequence of sending him off that very day to the town of Sonnay-le-Loir, the Prefect's residence and General Ratoneau's headquarters.

It was not exactly a pleasant errand, to convey Monsieur and Madame de Sainfoy's refusal of his offer to a man like the General. It could have been done quite as easily by the post, thus sparing trouble and annoyance to the faithful cousin who had borne so much. But there were complications; and a careful talking over of these with Adélaïde, after Hervé was gone, had led Urbain to suggest going himself. He had a double reason for wishing to soften the effect of his cousin's rather short and haughty letter. It must go, of course, whatever his own and Madame de Sainfoy's disapproval; but there were things that diplomacy might do, without, as it seemed, any serious consequences to recoil on the diplomatists. Madame de Sainfoy might gain imperial favour, Monsieur de la Marinière might help her and save his foolish boy, and no one in the family, except themselves, need know what they were doing.

It was not an uncommon thing for Urbain to drive over to Sonnay, though he generally started much earlier. On this occasion he said nothing of his real errand to his wife, only telling her when she mentioned Hélène's marriage that Hervé continued in the same mind. Many things wanted for the house and the farm had come conveniently to his memory. He started with his groom at twelve o'clock, in the high, hooded carriage, with a pair of strong horses, which made short work of the rocky lanes about La Marinière. The high road towards Sonnay was smooth compared with these, running between belts of dark forest, and along it Monsieur Urbain drove at a good rattling pace of twelve miles an hour.

Sonnay-le-Loir was a beautiful and picturesque town, once strongly defended, both by walls and a deep river which flowed round below them. There was a good deal left of the old ramparts; the gates still stood, the narrow streets of tall old white houses, each with its court and carriage entrance and shady garden behind, went climbing up the hill to the large square where the Cathedral towered on one side, the town-hall and public offices filled up another, the Prefecture a third, and an old hotel, now used as military quarters, the fourth.

Though it was not market-day, the white cobbled square was cheerful enough; a few stalls of fruit and vegetables, sheltered by coloured umbrellas from the strong sunshine, were lodged about the broad steps of the Cathedral; peasants and townspeople were clattering about in their sabots, soldiers were being drilled in front of the hotel. The bells were chiming and clanging; high up into the blue air soared the tall pinnacles of the Cathedral, delicate stone lacework still fresh and young at five hundred years old, spared by the storm which twenty years ago had wrecked so much down below that was beautiful. A crowd of blue-grey pigeons flapped and cooed about the towers or strutted softly on the stones in the square.

Monsieur Urbain put up his horses at an old posting hotel in the street near the gateway, and walked up into the square. Finding that General Ratoneau was at home, he left Monsieur de Sainfoy's letter with his own card, and a message that he would have the honour of calling to see the General, later in the afternoon. He then went away to do his commissions. At the appointed time he returned to the hotel, and was at once shown upstairs to a large room at the back, looking on a broad, paved court surrounded by barracks.

Neither the room nor its inmate was attractive, and Urbain's humorous face screwed itself into a grimace of disgust as he walked in; but he did not, for that, renounce the errand with which Madame de Sainfoy had entrusted him. The floor was dusty and strewn with papers, the walls were stained, the furniture, handsome in itself, had been much ill-used, and two or three chairs now lay flung where it was tolerably evident that the General had kicked them. The western sun poured hotly in; the atmosphere was of wine, tobacco, and boots; dirty packs of cards were scattered on the table among bottles and glasses, pipes and cigars. General Ratoneau lay stretched on a large sofa in undress uniform, with a red face and a cigar in his mouth. Hervé de Sainfoy's letter, torn across, lay on the floor beside him.

He got up and received his visitor with formal civility, though his looks said plainly, "What the devil do you want here?"

Urbain was cool and self-possessed. He acted the rôle of an ordinary visitor, talking of the country and the news from Spain. The General, though extremely grumpy, was still capable of ordinary conversation, and his remarks, especially on the Spanish campaign, were those of an intelligent soldier who knew his subject.

"If the Emperor would send me to Spain," he growled, "I would teach those miserable Spaniards a lesson. As to the English, it is the desire of my life to fight them. They are bull-dogs, they say—sapristi, I am something of a bull-dog myself—when I lay hold, I don't often let go. You don't know me yet, monsieur, but you will find that that is my way. I am not easily thwarted, monsieur."

"A fine quality, Monsieur le Général!" said Urbain, calmly. "It is true, I hardly know you. I had heard of you from my brother, Joseph de la Marinière—"

"Your Chouan brother, ha, ha!"

"My Royalist brother, suppose we say. Every one has a right to his own private opinions, Monsieur le Général."

"A dangerous doctrine, that!"

"As long as he keeps them to himself, and does not disturb the public peace. I have acted successfully on that principle for the last thirty years, and it has carried me comfortably through various changes."

"What are you, monsieur?"

"A philosopher. I take life as it comes. That way happiness lies."

The General laughed. "I think differently. My idea is to make life come as I want it."

"That is a fine idea, too," Urbain said serenely. "Only it does not always seem to be within the limits of the possible."

"Ah, there I agree with the Emperor. He will not have the word 'impossible' in the dictionary."

"The Emperor is a great man," said Urbain, with his inscrutable smile.

It was certainly on Ratoneau's tongue to answer, "So am I!" but he only laughed again and muttered something about strength of will.

The dark, watchful eyes followed his visitor's to the floor, where Monsieur de Sainfoy's letter lay; that letter which seemed to belie his bull-dog boasting. Something he wanted in life had been refused him point-blank; in ceremonious terms, but with uncompromising plainness. The Comte de Sainfoy did not even trouble himself to find reasons for declining the offer of marriage that General Ratoneau had done Mademoiselle de Sainfoy the honour to make.

"We met last night at Lancilly, monsieur," said Ratoneau, "but I did not expect the politeness of a visit from you—at any rate so soon. But I understand that you are your cousin's messenger. You brought me that letter—neither did I expect that so soon."

He pointed to the fragments on the floor. His manner was insolent, and La Marinière felt it so; even to his seasoned cheek a little warmth found its way. Something of him was on Hervé's side, while he was prepared and resolved to serve Adélaïde in this matter.

"My own affairs brought me to Sonnay," he said. "My cousin wished you to receive his letter as soon as might be. I therefore took charge of it."

"Do you know what it is about?"

To this abrupt question Urbain answered by a bow.

The General frowned angrily. "Then what brought you here, monsieur? Do you want to report my disappointment to your aristocratic fool of a cousin? Merci!" and he swore a few hearty oaths. "There are plenty more pretty girls in France, and plenty of their fathers who would gladly be linked with the Empire. Take that message back to your cousin, if you please."

"But no, Monsieur le Général," said Urbain, smiling and shaking his head. "If I were to repeat all you have just said, my cousin might send me back to you with a challenge. And I am a man of peace, a philosopher, as I tell you. No, I did not come to report your disappointment. And indeed, to tell you the truth, my cousin did not know that I was going to visit you at all. And I do not think he will ever be wiser."

Ratoneau stared at him. "May I be extinguished if I understand you!"

"However," said Urbain, rising from his chair, "I am glad, personally, that you take the matter so well. As you say, the young ladies of France, and their fathers, will not all be so shortsighted."

"Thousand thunders! Sit down again, monsieur. Take one of these cigars—I had them from Spain—and try this Château Latour. Rather a different sort of thing from the stuff that son of yours expected me to enjoy at Les Chouettes, the other day. That's right. I like you, monsieur. You are a man without prejudices; one can talk frankly with you. Your health, monsieur!" and glasses were clinked together, for Urbain did not refuse the soldier's hospitality.

"Now tell me all about it!" cried the General, in a much better humour. "I understand your emphasis just now, sapristi! That was what puzzled me, that Madame la Comtesse should seem to have played me false. Last night, I assure you, she encouraged me to the utmost. At first, it's true, she muttered something about her daughter being too young, but I very soon convinced her what a foolish argument that was. I tell you, monsieur, when I left her, I considered the promise as good as made. She said her husband had a way of indulging his daughter's fancies—but after all, I took her to be a woman who could turn husband and daughter and everybody else round her little finger, if she chose. So this rag of a letter came upon me like a thunderbolt. Is that it? Has the young girl taken a dislike to me? Why, mille tonnerres, she has not even spoken to me, nor I to her!"

"No, Monsieur le Général," said Urbain, "Mademoiselle de Sainfoy has not been asked for her opinion. The decision comes from her father, and from him alone. Madame de Sainfoy was loyal to you; she urged your cause, but unsuccessfully. My cousin, I must say, much as I love him, showed a certain narrowness and obstinacy. He would hear nothing in favour of the marriage."

"Were you present when they discussed it?"

"I was. I am always on the advanced, the liberal side. I spoke in your favour."

"I am obliged to you. Your glass, monsieur. How do you find that cigar?"

"Excellent."

"Now, monsieur, give me your advice, for I see you are a clever man. First, is any other marriage on the tapis for Mademoiselle de Sainfoy?"

"Decidedly no, monsieur. None."

"Shall I then insist on seeing her, and pleading my cause for myself?"

"I should not advise that course," said Urbain, and there was something in his discreet smile which made the General's red face redder with a touch of mortification.

"Well, I should not eat her," he said. "Her mother found me agreeable enough, and a shy young girl rather likes a man who takes her by storm."

"Nevertheless, I think that plan would not answer. For one thing, my cousin would object: he considers his refusal final. In fact—after much thought—for I agree with Madame de Sainfoy as to the probable advantages of a connection with a distinguished man like yourself—in fact, there is only one faint possibility that occurs to me."

"What is that, monsieur?"

Urbain hesitated. He sat looking out of the window, frowning slightly, the tips of his fingers pressed together.

"I wonder," he said—something, perhaps conscience, made the words long in coming—"I wonder if some day, in the course of the reports that he is bound, I believe, to make to the Emperor, it might occur to Monsieur le Préfet to mention—"

General Ratoneau stared blankly. "Monsieur le Préfet?"

"Well, am I wrong? I heard something of an imperial order—a list of young ladies—marriages arranged by His Majesty, without much consulting of family prejudices—"

General Ratoneau brought down his heavy fist on the table, so that the glasses jumped and clattered. His language was startling.

"Monsieur de la Marinière, you are the cleverest man in Anjou!" he shouted. "And Madame la Comtesse would not be angry?"

"I think not. But a command from the Emperor—a command coming independently from the highest quarter—would naturally carry all before it," said Urbain.

CHAPTER XII

He had resisted the temptation of dining with the officers and playing cards afterwards, though he by no means disliked either a game of chance or a good dinner. It seemed to him that he had done as much in Madame de Sainfoy's interests as she could reasonably expect. Though there might be worse men, General Ratoneau could not be called a pleasant companion. His loud voice and swaggering manners could not be agreeable to a person of Monsieur Urbain's measured mind and self-controlled ways. He was a type, and in that way interesting. The strange likeness to his master lent him a touch of character, almost of distinction, neither of which really belonged to him; yet, somehow, by a certain appeal to the imagination, it made him a just possible husband for a girl of good family. Not a gentleman, or anything like one; yet not quite the ordinary bourgeois. Considering the times, it appeared to Urbain that his cousin de Sainfoy need not be actually ashamed of such a son-in-law. Anyhow, he had done his best to further the matter, with an earnest recommendation to the General to keep his name out of the affair.

"Why not?" said Ratoneau. "You only reminded me of what I knew before. In fact, it was through me you heard of it. I startled your brother with it; our dear Prefect would never have said a word on the subject—ha, ha! So I owe you no gratitude, monsieur. You have done nothing."

"Ah, but just a little gratitude, if you please," said Urbain, smiling. "Enough to shut your ears to any reports that may reach you about my brother Joseph."

Ratoneau looked at him sharply, and frowned.

"I can make no bargains as to my duty, monsieur. Let your brother be loyal."

"I do my utmost to make him so," said Urbain, still smiling, and they parted.

"He is right—the man is right—and by heaven, I respect him!" Urbain said to himself as he crossed the square.

Passing near the great gate of the Prefecture, he noticed a police officer loitering on the pavement, whose dark, keen, discontented face seemed not unknown to him.

As Urbain came nearer, this man raised his hand to his cap, and spoke with an impudent grin.

"Monsieur de la Marinière has been making peace with Monsieur le Général Ratoneau? It was a difficult matter, I bet! Monsieur has been successful?"

Urbain looked at the man steadily. He was not easily made angry.

"Who are you, my friend? and what do you mean?" he said.

"I am Simon, the police agent, monsieur. The affair rather interested me. I was there."

"What affair?"

"Your son's affair with the General. That droll adventure of the cattle in the lane—your cattle, monsieur, and it was your son's fault that the General was thrown. Monsieur heard of it, surely?"

"You are mistaken," Monsieur Urbain replied quietly. "It was an accident; it was not my son's fault. Nobody has ever thought of it or mentioned it since. It was nothing."

"General Ratoneau did not think it nothing. All we who were there, we saw the droll side of it, but he did not. He swore he would have his revenge on Monsieur Angelot, as they call him. He has not forgotten it, monsieur. Only last night, his servant told me, when he came back from dining at Lancilly, he was swearing about it again."

"Let him swear!" said Urbain, under his breath.

Then his eyes dwelt a moment on Simon, who looked the very incarnation of malice and mischief, and he smiled benignly.

"Merci, Monsieur Simon," he said. "We are fortunate in having you to watch over us. But do not let this anxiety trouble you. I have just been spending some time with General Ratoneau, as you appear to know. We are the best of friends, and if my son irritated him the other day, I think he has forgotten it."

"So much the better," grinned Simon, "for Monsieur le Général would not be a pleasant enemy." Then, as Urbain was walking on, he detained him. "Everybody must respect Monsieur Urbain de la Marinière," he said. "He has a difficult position. If certain eyes were not wilfully shut, serious things might happen in his family. And we sometimes ask ourselves, we of the police, whether closed eyes at headquarters ought to mean a silent tongue all round. How does it strike you, monsieur?"

Urbain hesitated a moment. He had done a certain amount of bribery in his day, for the sake of those he loved, but his native good sense and obstinacy alike arose against being blackmailed by a police spy, a subordinate official at best. The fellow could not do Joseph much harm, he thought, the Prefect being friendly, and the General likely to be a connection. And Joseph must in the future be loyal, as the General said. No; he might as well keep his napoleons in his pocket.

"I really have no time to discuss the subject," he said. "The police, like every one else, must do their duty according to their lights. Good-day, Monsieur Simon."

He touched his hat and walked on. Simon looked after him, muttering viciously.

After some minutes, a clash of arms from the opposite hotel archway drew his attention. The sentries were saluting the General as he came out, now in full uniform, and followed by two orderlies, while a third went before to announce him at the Prefecture.

Ratoneau looked every inch a soldier, broad, sturdy, and swaggering, as he clanked across the square. Simon noticed with surprise that his face was bright with most unusual good-humour.

"Why, what can that grinning monkey have been saying to him?" Simon asked himself. "Licking the dust off his boots somehow, for that is what he likes, the parvenu! They are like cats, those La Marinières! they always know how to please everybody, and to get their own way. It seems to me they want a lesson."

He moved a little nearer to the great gates, and watched the General as he walked in. The bell clanged, the sentries saluted, the gates were set open ceremoniously. With all his frank, soldierly ways, Ratoneau was extremely jealous of his position and the respect due to it. The Prefect, on the contrary, aimed at simplicity and liked solitude. His wife had died some years before, not surviving the death of her parents, guillotined in the Terror. If she had lived, her influence being very great, Monsieur de Mauves might never have held his present appointment; for her royalism was quite as pronounced as that of Anne de la Marinière and might have overpowered her husband's admiration for Napoleon. And this would have been a pity, for no part of France, at this time, had a wiser or more acceptable governor.

On that calm and sunny autumn afternoon, the Prefect was sitting in a classically pillared summerhouse near the open windows of his library. Late roses climbed and clustered above his amiable head; lines of orange trees in square green boxes were set along the broad gravel terrace outside, and there was a pleasant view down a walk to a playing fountain with trees about it, beyond which some of the high grey roofs of Sonnay shone in the sunlight.

The Prefect never smoked; his snuff-box and a book were enough for him. Monsieur de Chateaubriand's Itinéraire de Paris a Jérusalem, just published in three volumes, lay on a marble table beside him, and he was enjoying an hour of unusual peace and quietness, his only companions two little greyhounds sleeping at his feet.