The cobbler of Nîmes

Rosaline did not look at M. de Baudri, but beyond him into the room, and she saw her grandmother’s armchair vacant, and the door that led into the bedroom beyond stood open. The girl’s heart seemed to stop beating, yet she could not believe the evidence of her senses.

“Where is she?” she demanded of M. de Baudri imperiously. “Where is Madame de St. Cyr?”

He had greeted her with a profound bow and he stood now before her, smiling and composed.

“Madame is on her way to Nîmes, mademoiselle,” he said pleasantly.

“To Nîmes?” repeated Rosaline, with pale lips. “Mon Dieu! what have you done?”

Her agitation did not ruffle his composure; he still looked at her with a smile.

“I am afflicted to tell you such ill news, mademoiselle,” he said suavely, “but unhappily a complaint has been lodged against Madame de St. Cyr. She is accused of being a heretic, and of sheltering a heretic. A charge so serious must be investigated. Unfortunately,” he concluded with a shrug, “I have to do my duty.”

“Your duty!” repeated Rosaline, with sparkling eyes. “Your duty, then, monsieur, is to drag a helpless old woman from the shelter of her home?”

He bit his lip and a red spot showed in either cheek, but he controlled his own rising temper.

“Assuredly, mademoiselle,” he replied, “if she is guilty of the detestable crime of heresy.”

“And you will be guilty of the crime of murder, monsieur,” she retorted with a fierce indignation; for the moment, she was perfectly fearless. “Where is she? Where have you taken her?” she cried.

He looked at the clock. “She must be in Nîmes now, mademoiselle,” he replied courteously; “she will be strictly confined there under guard until she has been interrogated by the authorities.”

Rosaline uttered a low cry of despair.

“Mon Dieu!” she said, “it will kill her; you know it will kill her!”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I am not responsible,” he said; “I am a soldier, bound to execute the orders of my superiors. For her sake, for yours, mademoiselle, I have endeavored to alleviate the circumstances of her arrest, and ’tis possible that—that there might be a compromise.”

He paused, looking at her with a strange expression.

“What do you mean?” she demanded eagerly.

M. de Baudri laid his hand on his heart.

“It rests with you, mademoiselle,” he said with gallantry, “to determine madame’s fate. There is no doubt that she is a heretic, and you know the doom of heretics, but you may save her yet.”

Rosaline drew her breath sharply; an intuition warned her of what was coming. She was white to the lips, but her blue eyes shone.

“Your meaning, monsieur?” she said in a low voice.

“I stand high in the favor of M. Montrevel,” he said placidly; “I am a good Catholic. It is possible for me to obtain many concessions, if I wish to do so. Mademoiselle understands me; it is necessary for me to help her, and my help can be obtained if Rosaline de St. Cyr desires it.”

She stood looking at him in silence, and he became at last a little uneasy under that searching glance.

“You know that I love you, mademoiselle,” he said; “if you consent now—this moment—to marry me, I will save madame.”

He spoke with the air of one who contemplated a virtuous deed.

“You wish me to marry you!” she exclaimed, her voice quivering with passion. “M. de Baudri, I too am a heretic.”

She turned on him the same face that she had turned on the cobbler in the wood.

“Why do you not give me up to the authorities, monsieur?” she went on defiantly; “you are a soldier, do your duty!”

“Mademoiselle does not understand that I love her,” he retorted, unmoved. “Come, come, Rosaline, you are young, you are misguided, but you will be converted. Say the word; promise to be my wife, and your grandmother shall be saved, I pledge you my word.”

“Beware, monsieur!” Rosaline exclaimed with scorn. “I have thought you a brave man, but this is the act of a coward.”

His face reddened, and he suppressed the violence of his own mood with difficulty.

“You forget,” he said slowly, “that you are completely in my power. You are a heretic by your own declaration, your grandmother is a prisoner, and the precious steward, d’Aguesseau, is also in my power.”

His keen eyes saw the swift change in her face at d’Aguesseau’s name.

“M. d’Aguesseau?” she exclaimed, “is he taken?”

There was an expression of satisfaction in the keen blue eyes; he had touched her at last.

“This morning, mademoiselle,” he replied coolly. “He is not only a heretic, but also a rebel.”

She was controlling herself by a great effort.

“What will you do with him, monsieur?” she asked faintly.

“Hang him, or send him to the galleys,” he retorted calmly.

She reeled, catching at the back of a chair to save herself from falling. M. de Baudri sprang toward her to proffer his assistance, but she motioned him away with a gesture of horror.

“Do not touch me!” she cried; “do not touch me!”

She laid her head down on the back of the chair, overcome with contending emotions. The two she loved best in the world had been taken from her.

“Mon Dieu!” she cried in a choking voice; “what shall I do?”

The fiercest passions leaped up into M. de Baudri’s eyes,—anger, jealousy, the desire for revenge; he had suspected that there was some secret between François and Rosaline, and now he doubted it no longer.

“Mademoiselle is more afflicted at the capture of a menial than at the arrest of her own grandmother,” he remarked with a sneer. “Doubtless she would like to arrange for his liberation also.”

Rosaline made no reply; she was summoning all her powers to meet this terrible emergency.

“Even that is not beyond my power,” M. de Baudri added coolly, “if mademoiselle desires to purchase this—servant’s—liberty.”

Rosaline looked up with a haggard face, but her eyes sparkled with anger.

“François d’Aguesseau is no servant,” she cried; “he is as well born and far more noble than his persecutor!”

The man laughed fiercely. “He is doubtless mademoiselle’s lover,” he remarked contemptuously; “she is more lightly won than I supposed.”

“It is always in the power of the strong to insult the weak,” Rosaline retorted coldly.

“You cannot deny that this heretic is your lover!” he exclaimed passionately.

Rosaline raised her head proudly; her innocent gentleness had deserted her; she was like a young lioness roused in defence of her own.

“I do not deny it,” she said fearlessly; “M. d’Aguesseau is my equal—and—and, yes, monsieur, my affianced husband. I do not deny it, nor do I deny my love for him, though he is a prisoner and at your mercy; the bon Dieu defend him and me!”

She had never looked more beautiful than at that moment of passionate indignation and defiance in the cause of those she loved. M. de Baudri, looking at her, swore in his heart that he would have her despite heaven and hell.

“You are frank, mademoiselle,” he remarked coolly. “’Tis unusual for a young girl to be so eager to declare her affection. I am afflicted indeed; for ’tis my portion to decide M. d’Aguesseau’s fate, and it would grieve me to bereave mademoiselle of her lover!”

Rosaline’s distress was shaking her resolution; already her lips were quivering, and there were tears in the blue eyes.

“Is his fate in your hands, monsieur?” she asked, with passionate anxiety and a desperate hope.

M. de Baudri bowed, with his hand on his heart.

“Absolutely,” he replied pleasantly; “he has not yet been handed over to the authorities. By lifting my finger I can set him free and also your grandmother, and as easily I can consign both to the miserable fate awaiting the heretics.”

Rosaline took a step forward, clasping her hands and gazing intently into his face.

“Ah, monsieur, surely you will be merciful,” she exclaimed, “surely you will spare my grandmother—a feeble woman—and M. d’Aguesseau—has he not suffered enough? Dieu! he has lost all,—his parents, his sister, his property. I cannot believe that you will condemn these two! You are a man, and not a fiend.”

He watched her with an inscrutable expression on his face.

“And what will you do to regain their liberty?” he asked slowly. “What petition do you make for them?”

“I ask you in God’s name,” she said with passionate earnestness, “and on my knees, monsieur, though I never kneeled to living man before.”

She was kneeling, her white face lifted, her hands clasped; and with her golden hair she looked more like a supplicating angel than an unhappy and defenceless girl. For him it was a moment of triumph; and his heart was untouched by any feeling of compulsion; it only throbbed with fierce determination.

“Rise, mademoiselle,” he said, offering his hand with gallantry. “Serious as the situation is, dangerous as it is for me to release heretics, yet I must be less than human to resist such eloquence and beauty. Your petition is granted—on one condition.”

She looked at him searchingly, and her heart sank as she read the expression in his eyes.

“And that condition?” she demanded in a low tone.

“A simple one, mademoiselle,” he said, with an easy air of confidence: “I adore you, Rosaline; and when you are my wife, these two are free.”

“You say this to me after I have declared my love for another man!” she exclaimed aghast, “you say this to me,—a heretic! Your conscience is not very scrupulous.”

He smiled. “You are but a child, Rosaline,” he said; “you will embrace my religion and marry me, or—” he shrugged his shoulders,—“the Tour de Constance for madame and the gallows for your ex-lover. I give you a free choice!”

Rosaline clasped her hands against her heaving bosom, looking up, while the tears fell on her pale cheeks.

“Mon Dieu!” she cried; “forgive me for kneeling to mortal man. I ought to have known that there was no mercy save in Thee. Alas, alas, my dear ones!”

There was a pause; she seemed to be absorbed in her devotions, and M. de Baudri watched her in silence but with relentless eyes. Her beauty and her sorrow only intensified his fierce passion.

“I see that you are willing to kill both rather than sacrifice your whim,” he remarked, striking a skilful blow at her tottering resolution.

“Is it possible that this is your fixed purpose?” she cried. “Can it be that you would have me save them thus? Have you no pride, that you are willing to take a bride on such terms as these? Have you no mercy?”

“I am showing much,” he replied suavely. “How many men would spare a successful rival’s neck?”

“It will avail nothing,” she said passionately. “I will appeal to M. de Bâville himself!”

He laughed heartlessly. “Do so, mademoiselle,” he said, with a shrug, “and you will have the pleasure of seeing your lover broken on the wheel like his father.”

She gave a low cry of horror, hiding her face in her hands. He walked over to the window and looked out. The sun was setting behind the valley of the Vaunage, and the wind was already blowing the yellow leaves from the trees and strewing the garden path with a shower of gold. He knew that she was in the throes of a mortal agony, and he did not dream of relaxing the pressure until he broke her will. He knew something of her character, and he believed her capable of any sacrifice for those she loved. He stood a while watching his orderly leading his horse to and fro before the gate. He had purposely deceived her on one point, and he believed that he would succeed without violence, but he intended to have her at any cost. With her consent if he could, without it, if necessary, he was not troubled with many scruples, and her helpless anguish did not touch him.

He turned at last to find her sitting in her grandmother’s chair, her face buried in her hands, and her golden hair, escaping its bonds, had fallen about her like a mantle.

“I am going back to Nîmes, mademoiselle,” he said courteously, “and I regret that I have to leave the house in the hands of guards, but they are instructed to treat you with courtesy. Permit me to recommend that you continue your former prudent reserve in the matter of religion. At ten to-morrow morning, I shall return for my answer. You know the solitary condition, and you hold two lives in your lovely hands.”

She looked up with ineffable scorn in her blue eyes.

“Dieu! is this a man?” she exclaimed.

A deep red flush mounted to his forehead, but he bowed so profoundly that the curls of his periwig fell before his face.

“It is your devoted lover, mademoiselle,” he replied, and walked backward to the door, holding his plumed hat against his heart and stepping with the ease and precision of a dancing master.

On the threshold he made her another profound obeisance and, smiling, closed the door behind him. He paused only a moment in the hall below to give a few sharp instructions to the sergeant left in command.

“If any man attempts to enter this house to-night,” he said in a hard tone, “shoot him. If you let him evade you, I will hang you.”

The soldier saluted, and M. de Baudri walked calmly down the garden path, and leaping into the saddle, set off at a gallop for Nîmes.