The Project Gutenberg eBook of In the Day of Adversity, by John Bloundelle-Burton

"Madame la baronne will pardon my untimely appearance," he muttered in the most courtly manner, and with a comprehensive bow of much ease and grace which included St. Georges, "but my orders were—what—madame herself knows. Otherwise I should regret even more my presence here."

She, still on the lounge, her face buried in her Valenciennes handkerchief, was as yet unable to utter a word—he, standing before her, never removed his eyes from her. The officer's words had confirmed what he suspected—what he knew.

"But," continued the lieutenant, "madame will excuse. I have my orders to obey. The man she mentioned to the commandant has not yet endeavoured to pass the barrier—is it madame's desire that her house should be searched?"

She raised her head from the couch as he spoke, not daring to cast a glance at him whom she had betrayed to his doom. Then she said, her voice under no control and broken. "No. He is not here. He—has escaped."

"Escaped, madame? Impossible! Rambouillet is too small even for him to be in hiding—he——"

"Has not escaped," St. Georges said, turning suddenly on the officer. "On the contrary, he has been betrayed. I am the man."

"You! Madame's——" and he left his sentence unfinished. "You! Here alone with her, and a galérien!"

It was useless, he knew, to do aught than give himself up. Escape was impossible. It was known, must be known in this small town, that he was the only stranger who had entered it lately; nor did he doubt that when the treacherous creature had informed against him she had described him thoroughly. Even though now she lied to save him, it would be of no avail. He could not remain in her house, hide in it as she had suggested, take shelter from her. From her! No! even the galleys—or the gallows—were better than that.

"I regret to hear it," the officer said, "since monsieur appears to be a friend of madame la baronne. Yet, under the circumstances, monsieur will not refuse to accompany me."

Whatever the young fellow may have thought of the man who was now in his custody—and what he did think was that he was some old lover of la belle Louvigny who had either cast her off, or been cast off by her, and had reappeared at an awkward moment, so that she had taken an effectual manner of disposing of him—he at least did not show it. But for her he testified his contempt in a manner that was unmistakable. He motioned to St. Georges to precede him to the open window where his men were, and, putting on his hat before he had quitted the room, he strode after his prisoner without casting a glance at the woman.

But as they neared the window, and were about to step on to the path, St. Georges stopped and, addressing him, said: "Sir, grant me one moment's further grace, I beg of you. Ere I go I have a word to say to madame."

Courteous as he had been all through—to him—the young fellow shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly, raised no objection, and lounged by the open window, while St. Georges returned to where she still crouched upon the lounge. Yet, as she heard his footsteps nearing her, she looked up with terror-stricken eye, and shrunk back even further into its ample depths. The officer had not demanded his sword, it hung still by his side; her craven heart feared that in his last moment allowed to him he might wrench it from its sheath and punish her for her treachery. But, as she learned a moment later, he had a worse punishment in store for her than that.

"You have sent me to my doom," he said, gazing down on her, "yet, ere I go, hear what has been the doom of another—as vile as you yourself——"

In an instant she had sprung to her feet, was standing panting before him, one hand upon her heart, the other by her side in the folds of her dress. "Vile as she herself," he had said. "Vile as she herself!" To whom else but De Roquemaure could such words apply when issuing from that man's lips?

"The doom of another!" she hissed, repeating those words; "the doom of another—of whom?"

And again on her face there was now the look—the canine look—that had been there before—the lip drawn back, the small teeth showing, the threatening glance in the eyes.

"Of whom but one! Who else but your vile partner"—the young officer, of noble race as he was, and steeped in good breeding, could scarce refrain from being startled at those words—"the man you say you love? Well, love him! Only learn this, you have nothing but his memory to love. He is dead!——"

With a scream that rang not only through the salon, but the house also, and penetrated out into the cool garden beyond—a scream that caused the lieutenant to start toward them, and his men to peer into the room—she sprang at him, her right hand raised now, and in it the dagger she had so long concealed.

"Beware!" the officer cried. "Beware, she is dangerous!" And, even as he spoke, she struck full at St. Georges's breast with the knife.

"Bah!" he exclaimed, thrusting aside her upraised arm with the hand in which, all through the interview with her, he had held his hat—thrusting it aside with such force that she almost staggered and fell. "Bah! you mistake, woman. Did you think it was my back again at which you struck?"

The room was full of servants now; her own waiting maid and one or two of the lackeys busy about the house, preparing a little supper madame had intended giving that night to a few admirers, had rushed in at her scream; and now the former stood behind and half supported her while she muttered incoherent sounds amid which the words only could be caught, "You slew him!—at last!"

"Nay," he said, standing still in front of her, calm and sinister; "such satisfaction was not granted me, nor so easy an ending to him. The English who drove Tourville's fleet to its doom at La Hogue did their work effectively. Each ship, each transport, found by them was blown out of the water; in one of those transports, named the Vendôme, he was blown up, too. I was there but a little while before it exploded; I saw its fragments and all within it hurled into space. I think, madame, my doom is scarce worse than his."

With another shriek, as piercing as the first, she threw her arms above her head, then fell an insensible mass into the serving woman's arms. And St. Georges, turning to the young officer, said:

They took him that night to the Château de Rambouillet, he marching with three of the soldiers in front of and three behind him, the young officer by his side. And this scion of nobility, one of the De Mortemarts, testified by his actions that night that the French good breeding of the great monarch's day was no mere outward show. He permitted his prisoner to still retain his sword, and he walked by his side instead of ahead of his men, because he did not desire that those whom in his mind he considered the canaille should make any observations upon that prisoner as they passed through the streets. Moreover, wherever a knot of persons were gathered together in any corner he affected a smiling exterior, so that they should be induced to suppose that St. Georges was an ordinary acquaintance accompanying him.

"Sir," said the latter, observing all this, "you are very good to me. You make what I have to bear as light as possible."

"It is nothing, nothing," the lieutenant replied. "I only wish it had not fallen to my lot to undertake so unpleasant a duty. By the way, I suppose it is true, as she told the commandant! You have, unfortunately known—been—at the galleys?"

"Tiens! A pity. A thousand pities! Above all, that you should have encountered that she-devil. Well, I am glad you had those hard words with her. Ma foi! she is a tigress! I only hope you may escape from—from other things—as you did from her dagger."

The commandant—who was also the colonel of the Régiment de Grancé—was, however, a different style of man from his lieutenant—a man who from long service in the army had become rough and harsh; also, like many men commanding regiments under Louis, he had risen solely by his military qualifications, and owed nothing to birth or influence.

He listened, however, very attentively to all De Mortemart told him of the scene that had taken place, and especially as to how the Baronne de Louvigny—to whom he himself was paying court, as has been told—had evidently had some lover whose existence he had never suspected; and then he sent for St. Georges, who was brought into his presence by De Mortemart himself.

"So," he said, "you are an escaped galérien, monsieur. Well! You know what happens to them when retaken!"

"As a soldier!" he and De Mortemart exclaimed together, while the former continued, "In what capacity?"

"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the commandant. "A picked regiment, and commanded by De Beauvilliers—n'est-ce pas?"

"Come," said the other, relaxing his stern method of addressing St. Georges, and warming toward him, unknowingly to himself by the fact that this man in such dire distress was a comrade and had served in a corps d'élite—"come, tell us your history. We cannot help you—there is but one thing to do, namely, to send you to Paris for inquiry; but until you go we can at least make your existence here more endurable."

All through it both his listeners testified their sympathy—De Mortemart especially, by many exclamations against De Roquemaure and his sister, and also against la belle Louvigny—while the colonel spoke approvingly of the manner in which St. Georges had almost avenged himself on his foe in the inn. The description, too, of his existence in the galleys moved both young and old soldier alike; it was only when he arrived at the account of the destruction of Tourville's fleet that they ceased to make any remark and sat listening to him in silence.

It was finished, however, now, and when the colonel spoke his voice was more cold and unsympathetic.

"You have ruined yourself by the last month's work," he said. "I am afraid you can never recover from that. Did you not know that his Majesty has made it a rule that none who have served him shall ever take service under a foreign power and dare to venture into France again?"

"I know it," St. Georges said, "and I must abide by my fate. Yet, my child was here. I was forced to come, and there was no other way but this."

One thing only he had not told them, the story of what he believed to be his birth, the belief he held that he was the Duc de Vannes. Nor, he determined then—had, indeed, long since determined—would he ever publish that belief now. Had he kept his freedom until he had once more regained Dorine, it was his intention to have repassed to England and never again to have recalled that supposed birthright, or, as the child grew up, to have let her obtain any knowledge on the subject. He would work for her, slave for her, if necessary become tutor, or soldier, or sailor, as Fate might decree; but it must be as an Englishman, and with all connection with France broken forever.

And now, a prisoner, a man who would ere long be tried as an ex-galérien, as—if De Mortemart and the colonel did not hold their peace—a Frenchman who had joined England and helped her in administering the most crushing blow to France which she had suffered for centuries—he would never see his child again; what need, therefore, to publish his belief?

The hope that had sustained him for years was gone; the prayer he had uttered by night and day, that once more he might hold his little child in his arms and cherish and succour her, was gone, too; they would never meet again. Let him go, therefore, to his doom unknown, and, so going, pass away and be forgotten. And it might be that, with him removed, God would see fit to temper to his child the adversity that had fallen to his own lot.

CHAPTER XXXI.

A variety of malefactors, or so-called malefactors, had on that day received their sentences: some for professing the "reformed religion," as they blasphemously—in the judges' eyes—termed it; some for being bullies and cutthroats; a student aged sixteen had been sentenced to imprisonment in the Bastille for writing on the walls a distich on Louis, stating that he had displaced God in the minds of the French;[9] and a marchioness had been condemned to a fine of twenty pistoles and to remain out of Paris for a year for having poisoned her husband; also a spy, a Dutchman, supposed to be in the service of the accursed Stadtholder and English king, had been condemned to death by burning, his entrails to be first cut out and flung in his face; and several petty malefactors—a drunken priest who had read a portion of Rabelais to his flock instead of a sermon; a lampoonist who had written a joke on the De Maintenon; an actor who had struck a gentleman in defence of his own daughter; and a courtesan who had induced a young nobleman to spend too much money on her—were all sentenced to the Bastille, to Vincennes, and Bicêtre for various periods.

[9] The distich ran:

"La croix fait place au lis, et Jésus Christ au Roi
Louis, oh! race impie, est le seul Dieu chez toi."

For writing it the student remained in prison thirty-one years.

"Now," said Monsieur de Rennie, who presided to-day, when the last of these wretches had been finished off—"now, is the list cleared? We have sat six hours." And the other judges, one on either side of him, repeated his words and murmured, "Six hours!"

"Your lordships have still some other cases," the procureur du roi said, addressing them, "which you will probably be willing to dispose of to-day. There is one of a man who is thought to have abandoned his ship in the recent disaster at La Hogue, and to have escaped to Paris, where he was captured in hiding; and another of three Jansenists who have blasphemed the faith; also there is a man, an escaped galérien, brought hither from Rambouillet by an officer of the Régiment de Grancé for trial."

"Are the facts clear," asked the presiding judge, "against this man? If so, the case will not occupy us long, and we will take it to-night."

A moment later St. Georges stood in the dock set apart for the criminals, his hands tied in front of him. And in the court many eyes were cast toward him as he took his stand. All knew that, for those who successfully escaped the galleys, there was but one ending if ever caught again.

"Who gives evidence against this prisoner?" De Rennie asked, looking at St. Georges under his bushy white eyebrows. "And what is his name?—Prisoner, what is your name? Answer truly to the court."

The judge's eyebrows were lifted into his forehead and down again; then he observed to his brother judge on his right, with a shrug of his shoulders, "Contumacious!" and then, because he was a man who disliked to be thwarted, he exclaimed: "So much the worse for you. Well, M. le procureur, who prosecutes—who is there as witness?"

"The officer who arrested him and afterward brought him to Paris. He can give your lordships the facts."

The officer stood forward, in so far that he stood up in the well of the crowd—his gold-laced, cockaded hat still upon his head, since as an officer of the king he was entitled to wear it in all other places but church—and briefly he answered the presiding judge's questions. Yes, he was a lieutenant of the Régiment de Grancé, quartered at Rambouillet—in his opinion, a miserable hole. His opinion on Rambouillet, the judge said, frowning, was not required; he would be good enough to give his name. His name was De Mortemart. De Mortemart! Perhaps, said the judge, he might be a relative of the Duc de Mortemart? Yes, the officer replied, he might be; in effect he was a son of that personage. The judge was pleased to hear it; the duke was universally known and respected, and—the acoustic qualities of the court were bad—would M. de Mortemart take a seat on the bench, where he and his brother judges could better hear him? The officer did not mind, though he was not inconvenienced where he was, but, of course, if their lordships desired. And so forth.

"Now," the judge said with great sweetness, when he had reached the exalted elevation, "would M. de Mortemart give himself the trouble to state how the fellow before them had fallen into his hands?" M. de Mortemart did give himself the trouble—telling, however, exactly what he thought fit, and also omitting many facts which he did not feel disposed to mention—to wit, he contented himself by saying that the "gentleman" in the dock had been betrayed by a woman into their hands—a "treacherous reptile" he termed her—but he said nothing about St. Georges having acknowledged that he had been a soldier of France once, and had afterward fought on the English side against France. To his young and chivalrous mind it was, indeed, a terrible thing that any Frenchman should join with England against his own country, but—he did not say so to the judge trying that man. The case was bad enough against him without that.

In answer to further questions put with great politeness and an evident desire on the judge's part not to bore the son of the Duc de Mortemart too much, he stated that according to orders, he had escorted the gentleman in trouble to Paris, and that he had ridden by that gentleman's side all the way, treating him as well as possible. Yes, he was bound to say he sympathized with the prisoner (he did not say that he wished to Heaven the prisoner had availed himself of many opportunities he had given him of escaping); he thought he had been hardly treated—especially by the woman who was, in truth, a viper. Did he mean to say, the judge asked almost apologetically, that he had allowed the prisoner to ride unbound by his side? Yes, he did mean to say so; the prisoner had made no attempt, either, to take advantage of the license. Did Monsieur de Mortemart think that was wise on his part as an officer? Yes, on his part as an officer he did think so. He was an officer; not"—and here he cast his eye on the turnkeys and jailers in the court"—"the canaille." And, in effect, the prisoner was before the court; that justified him.

After this the judges ceased to ask the Duc de Mortemart's son any further questions, but went on with other matters. One of the canaille, a jailer, was put on the witness stand and questioned briefly. "Speak, fellow," said the president in a totally different tone from that which he had hitherto used to the duke's son, "have you examined the prisoner—is he branded?"

"Nothing that you would accept as such. Yet this I will say: I did not escape of my own attempt; the galley I was in was sunk by an English admiral off their coast; almost all were lost. I was saved and taken back to England."

Here the judge on the president's right hand leaned over to him and said: "This may be the truth. I had a nephew, an officer, on board L'Idole—she was sunk."

"Ay, he did," suddenly roared out a voice in the court. "And ask him how he returned, my lord; ask him that!"

In an instant all eyes were turned to the place whence the sound came, and the presiding judge became scarlet in the face at any one having the presumption to so bawl at him in the court. "Exempts," he cried, "find out the ruffian who dares to outrage the king's justice by bellowing before us thus. Find him out, I say, and bring him before us!"

It required, however, very little "finding out," since he who had so cried was the man whom the procureur du Roi had spoken of as having abandoned his ship at La Hogue and fled to Paris, and was now present as a prisoner in the court to be tried for his offence. Nor was there much need to hustle and drag him forward, since he came willingly enough—he thought he saw here an immunity from punishment—if punishment be deserved—a chance of escape by the evidence he could give.

"Who is the fellow?" asked De Rennie, when, partly by the man's own willing efforts and partly by pushings and jostlings, he had been got on to the witness stand with two jailers on either side of him. "Who is he?"

"He is, my lord," the procureur du roi said, "the man who is charged with deserting his ship at La Hogue and fleeing to Paris. He says, however, he can give evidence against the galérien here which will also go far to absolve him of his desertion—if your lordships will hear him."

"Ay," said De Rennie, "we will hear him very willingly. But," he said, addressing the sailor, "tell no lies, fellow, in hope of escaping your own punishment. Understand that! And understand, also, that you must justify your own desertion."

"I need tell no lies," the man replied, a rough, bull faced and throated man, with every mark of a seaman about him, "to justify myself. And there was no desertion. Mon Dieu! was Tourville a deserter when he went ashore from L'Ambitieux? If so, then I am one, for I went with him."

"Tell your tale," De Rennie exclaimed angrily, the man's utter want of respect irritating him, "and speak no slander against the king's officers."

"Slander!" the sailor repeated—"slander! How slander? I am Tourville's own coxswain; acted under his orders——"

Briefly the man's evidence was this—and as he told it all in the court knew that the fate of the prisoner was sealed. After that nothing could save him.

The man was Tourville's coxswain—he produced a filthy, water-soaked paper from his breast to prove it—had been with him in Le Soleil Royal, had gone with the admiral when he transferred his flag to L'Ambitieux, had taken that flag from the lieutenant's hands and, with his own, hauled it up on the latter vessel.

"But," continued the man, "it was not for long. The English had got us in shoal water, their fireships and attenders came at us and burned us; their boarding parties came in two hundred boats—we could do nothing after the first resistance! And among those boarding parties"—and he lifted his finger and pointed at the prisoner in the dock—"was one in command of that man—that, standing there in the dock."

"I tell no lies. It is the truth. Ask him. He was on the deck of L'Ambitieux with a dozen other boat crews; we could not resist; their whole fleet came over our sides; the admiral and I left in the same boat, he bade us all save ourselves, gave us our freedom, disbanded us. Send for him, ask him if I am a deserter. Ask, too, that man, if he fought not against us on the English side."

"You hear," De Rennie said, looking toward St. Georges, "the charge against you—that you, a Frenchman, fought on the English side against your country. Answer the court, is it true?"

With all eyes turned on him—the pitying eyes of De Mortemart, the scowling eyes of the judges, and the vindictive eyes of most people in the court, who, having been hitherto inclined to sympathize with the prisoner, now only thirsted for his death—St. Georges drew himself up and faced his inquirer. Then, a moment later, he said: "It is true."

Those words were the signal for an indescribable hubbub in the court. Men muttered fiercely, "Burn him, burn him!" women shrieked to one another that no wonder the English devils had beaten France when Frenchmen fought on their side, forgetting the mothers that bore them; and De Mortemart, muttering between white lips: "My God! nothing can save him," left the court. The coxswain, too, who but a quarter of an hour before had heard hissed in his ears the words "lâche," "déserteur," "misérable," and other epithets, was now the centre of a group of turnkeys and exempts, all asking him why he had not told them before that he was a hero?

Meanwhile the procureur du roi, arrayed in his scarlet gown, sat at his table arranging his papers—there would be no further trials that day, he knew, the Jansenists and others would have to wait—and glancing up now and again at the other three scarlet-robed figures on the bench, conferring with their heads close together. Presently, however, a nod from De Rennie to the greffier caused that official to bawl out orders for silence in the court, and forced the muttering men and shrieking women to hold their tongues. They did so, willingly enough, too; they knew what was coming.

"Are your lordships prepared to deliver judgment?" asked the procureur du roi, carrying out the usual formula and pushing his papers away and rising as he addressed them.

"The sentence of the court is that the prisoner be taken to the Hôtel de Ville, and from there to the Place de Grève, and there broken on the wheel till he is dead."

More murmurings, more exclamations from the nervous, excited crowd, and then a hush, while again the procureur's voice was heard:

"I pray your lordships to appoint a day and hour on which your righteous sentence shall be carried out."

"The decree of the court is that the sentence be carried out at the daybreak following the time when forty-eight hours shall have elapsed from now."

"In the name of justice I thank your lordships.—Prisoner," and the procureur turned to him, "you hear and understand your sentence?"

CHAPTER XXXII.

"For, figurez vous," said one, a hideous creature, "when we went to see the marchioness tried we could only hope she would be condemned, though all the while we know well that for the noblesse there is no serious punishment. Ma foi! what a punishment! Twenty pistoles—a sum she pays weekly, I'll be sworn, for absolution—and a retraite from Paris for a year. Tiens! she was not ill favoured, that marchioness; she will doubtless have a score of lovers follow her into the country. Say, Babette," and she turned to a pale-faced girl by her side, "shall we go to the Place de Grève to see that villain broken? Daybreak, after forty-eight hours; that will be daybreak on Monday. To-day is Friday!"

"Not I," the pale-faced girl replied. "For my part I could pity him—only that he fought against France. Il etait beau, cet homme la bas. His mustache was enough to set a girl dreaming. And his eyes! Ciel! what eyes, when he faced the old hérisson, De Rennie!"

But now they stood apart from the courtyard to look at a troop of the Mousquetaires Noirs riding away from the precincts of the court itself—where they had been on guard all day—and to admire their trappings and bravery. And the pale-faced girl, who seemed—like many other pale-faced, cadaverous girls!—to have a great appreciation of manly beauty, tugged at her companion's arm, and bade her observe the two handsome officers in conversation under the gateway.

"See, Manon, see!" she exclaimed. "There is the one who said he was son to the Duc de——"

"I hate all dukes," interrupted the other, "and all the noblesse. They grind the poor."

"Yet he seemed kind. He would have saved that one, I do believe, if he could. And how he spoke to the judge—as he himself speaks to others—like to a dog! And his companion, the officer of Mousquetaires who does not follow the troop. Mon Dieu! il est beau aussi. How many handsome men we see to-day!"

"Ah! voyons," exclaimed the other, grimacing irritably, "les beaux! les beaux! Nothing but les beaux! Some day, Babette, you will regret your admiration of the men."

"He looks pale and troubled, does that mousquetaire," the girl replied, taking no heed of the elder woman's reproofs; and then they passed on to the foul quarter of Paris where they dwelt, and where dukes' sons and handsome mousquetaires did not often obtrude themselves.

Had she been able to overhear the commencement of the conversation between De Mortemart and that officer of Mousquetaires she would probably not have wondered at the pallor which overspread the latter's face, nor at his look of trouble.

When the young fellow had fled out of the court, unable to remain and hear that doom pronounced on St. Georges, which he knew must come, he had gone straight to the guardroom with the intention of removing the three men of his troop whom he had brought with him to Paris in charge of their prisoner. Their work was done in Paris, he knew; it was best they should take the road hack to Rambouillet at once. It was but eight leagues, and the summer nights were long; they could ride that easily and regain their quarters almost without halting.

But as he entered the room set apart for officers preparatory to summoning his men, he saw that which prevented him from doing so for some little time longer. He saw, seated in a deep wooden chair, his wig off, and fast asleep in that chair—with a flask of wine by his side—an officer of the guard for the day, whose face he knew very well indeed. The Régiment de Grancé was not always quartered at such dead-and-alive places as Rambouillet; it was sometimes accorded the privilege of being in attendance on the court itself—since it was officered from the aristocrats as a rule, the colonel generally being an exception, and selected because of his services—and at Versailles it had, not long ago, been thrown in with the Mousquetaires Noirs.

"Tiens, Boussac!" the young fellow cried, slapping the sleeping officer on the shoulder, and disturbing his slumbers; "rouse yourself, man; the court will be up directly—already your brother officer is chuckling that his guard hour will not last half a one."

"De Mortemart!" cried Boussac, springing from his seat and grasping the newcomer's hand with his own, while with the other he clapped his wig on. "De Mortemart—what brings you here? Have you got the route, is the regiment returned to Paris?"

"No such chance, mon ami, our luck is out. Neither Paris, nor, ma foi! a campaign for us—we are stewed up in Rambouillet for another year. And, peste! the only woman there worth a pistole has turned out the vilest of creatures. We cannot even sup with her now, or take a glass of ratafia or a cup of chocolate from her hands."

"That is not well. But what—what—brings you here? Come, tell me," and drawing the wine flask toward him he poured out a drink for his comrade. "And you look sad, De Mortemart; is it because of the 'vilest of creatures'?"

Then, without more ado, his friend told what had brought him to Paris and in the vicinity of the cours criminel.

As he proceeded with his story—telling it all from the beginning, when la belle Louvigny had sent to the commandant, apprising him of an escaped galérien in her house—he marvelled at the excitement which took possession of his auditor. At the statement that the betrayed man was branded, was in truth an escaped galley slave, Boussac had sprung to his feet and commenced to pace the guardroom; when he described the scene he had witnessed between him and Madame de Louvigny, he could contain himself no longer.

"The man, De Mortemart, the man!" he broke out, "describe him to me." And without giving his friend time to do so, he went on:

"Tall, slight, long brown hair, curling at the ends, gray eyes—deep and clear. Gentleman to the tips of his fingers; a soldier above all."

"And his name—his name, my friend. It must be St. Georges. Come from England, you say, with the English fleet. It is St. Georges!"

"Nay, his name he will not tell. But this I know: he was once of the Chevaux-Légers of Nivernois."

"My God! it is he!" and overcome with excitement Boussac sank back into his seat again.

Rapidly De Mortemart told the rest—the coxswain's evidence; the certain doom that must be St. Georges's must be pronounced by now, since, outside, the clatter of the Mousquetaires could be heard, proclaiming already clearly enough that the court was up, the sentence awarded.

"I must know all!" Boussac cried, and followed by the other he rushed out. And then he learned the galérien's doom—wheel on the third morning from now.

No wonder the pale-faced girl thought he looked sad as he stood in the gateway bidding De Mortemart a hasty farewell.

"If I can," he said, "I must save him; must if necessary see the king. I am mousquetaire—I have the right of audience."

"Nothing can save him," the other replied. "He has served Louis, and he has fought against him—on the conquering side. That is enough!"

"Yet," said Boussac, "I will try. I can tell Louis something of his history that may—though the chance is poor, God knows!—induce him to hold his hand. Or, at least, to let the doom be something less awful than the wheel."

So they parted, the one to take his men back to Rambouillet, the other to try and save St. Georges, vain as he feared the attempt would be.

First, he sought a messenger, a trusty honest man he knew of, himself an old disbanded soldier, and told him he must ride that night on a message of life and death. Would he promise to let nothing stand in his way?—he should be well rewarded.

"Ay! or get a renfort on the road. 'Tis thirty leagues, but I will manage it. What have I to do when there?"

"This. Make for the Manoir de Roquemaure, then see at once la châtelaine, Mademoiselle de Roquemaure—she rules it since her mother's death. Next, give her this. Put it into her own hand and no other. In the name of God fail not! Again I say, it is life or death!"

"Fear not. I will not fail. In half an hour I am on the road. Hark! the clock strikes from the Tour St. Jacques; 'tis seven o'clock—ere it strikes the same hour in the morning I shall be there and to spare—or dead."

What the old soldier was to give into the hand of Aurélie de Roquemaure was a letter containing the following hastily scribbled words:

"Mademoiselle: You spoke to me once of an unhappy gentleman, a chevau-léger; asked me if he was dead, and said you had some news would make him happy if he knew it. Mademoiselle, he is not dead, but dies on Monday, on the wheel—Monday morning next at dawn! He has returned to France, fought against Tourville on the high seas, is taken, and, as I say, condemned. If you have any power with the king, if you know aught that may weigh with him, I beseech you lose no effort. It is Monday morning, I repeat, at dawn that he dies. Your respectful servitor,

The messenger departed—and about his fidelity he had no doubt, so well did he know him—Boussac mounted his horse and rode to where the three troops of the Mousquetaires now in Paris on guard duty were quartered. Then he made his way to the senior officer in command, begged leave of him on urgent matters of the last importance—so urgent, indeed, did he represent them to be that he stated he was about to seek an after-supper audience of the king—obtained the leave, and, procuring a fresh horse, set out for Versailles.

"I will tell him," he said, "who St. Georges is, whom he believes himself to be. The late duke was Louis's friend in the days when the king's heart was young and fresh—surely he will, at least, grant a reprieve. More especially if I tell him all of De Roquemaure's villainy. As for the sister—if she is what St. Georges told me in his last letter he felt convinced she was—she will do nothing. Yet, mon Dieu! mon Dieu! who can look in those eyes as I have done and deem her so vile? Surely, surely, though he stands in her way so much, she will not let him go to his doom. Even though she knows for certain he is De Vannes, she will strive to save him. She must!"

It was no easy thing to approach Louis at the after-supper audience, free as the monarch generally made himself for an hour at that period, and in spite of an officer of the Mousquetaires being a more or less favoured person. For there were many who had greater claims than a mousquetaire to the royal ear, the royal salutation—a finger to the hat for a man, the hat lowered to the right ear for a lady—to the royal smile.

There were, to wit, the bishops, the ladies of the court, the marshals and the bastards, the ministers and many others. And to-night the king was, and had been for some days, so depressed, so for him almost angry, that few took this period for presenting petitions or requests. His great fleet was shattered by the hereditary enemies of France—since the Spanish Armada no fleet had ever been so shattered!—his power and might were broken, even if for a time only; and though he had told Tourville—with that royal graciousness which scarcely ever deserted him—that he was satisfied "he had done his best," he was in no humour for granting boons.

What hope was there that a mousquetaire should obtain aught from him that night; should even be able to approach him? Above all, what hope that such a request as Boussac's—that one of his own subjects who had helped in the shattering of his great fleet should be pardoned—was likely to be granted?

Yet, at last, the soldier who had waited so patiently for hours drew nearer and nearer to the circle in which the arbiter of the destiny of all in France sat, a crowd of courtiers and nervous petitioners behind and round him; at last, after having seen countless others bowed and smiled to, he was face to face with Louis, stammering and scarce knowing how to begin his request.

But the finger went to the hat, the king's smile—perhaps a little artificial now—shone on him, the king's soft, courtly voice said:

"Monsieur le lieutenant, have you a petition to make also? I am afraid it cannot be granted. Is it for promotion?"

"No, sire. It is for a man's life," and before he thoroughly understood, himself, what he was saying, he poured out his story before the king and the astonished listeners. And, at last, in a halting, laboured way it was told. Then the king spoke, while the shoulder-shrugging, grinning courtiers held their breath to hear his reply.

"Mon brave mousquetaire," he said, "you have been imposed on. De Vannes never married. I know it well—know, too, the woman whom he loved, who married De Roquemaure. And even if he had married and had this son, do you think I would pardon him for doing that for which he lies under sentence of death? Nay, were he my own I would not do so. Ah!"—turning to a beautiful blue-eyed woman who stood by the side of Boussac, "Madame de Verneuil"—and the hand went up to the hat and lowered it till the fringe touched his right ear—"I rejoice to see you here to-night." Boussac's audience was over.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Yet not quite all, either! For some there were who, as they streamed across the Pont Neuf, or came in from the Charenton gate, or arrived back from Versailles or Marly, broke off in solitary twos and threes from the others and directed their footsteps toward the great place in front of the Hôtel de Ville—toward the Place de Grève! They, these solitary ones, had no intention of seeking their homes and beds that night—they could sleep long and well to-morrow night—instead they meant to enjoy themselves in the place until day broke, with the anticipation of what the daybreak would bring. For at that hour they knew they would see a man done to death upon the wheel; see limb after limb broken until life was extinguished by the final côup de grâce.

As they neared the great open space some cast their eyes up at the lights burning in the Hôtel de Ville and muttered to each other, wondering which room the man was in who would be led forth three hours hence; what he was thinking of; if he was counting each quarter as it sounded from tower and steeple; if—these speculations generally by women in the fast-gathering crowd—there were any who loved him? If he had a wife—a mother—a child? Any to mourn his loss?

"A traitor, they say," some whispered; "one who joined England against France." "A spy," others murmured, "who betrayed Tourville to the brutal islanders. Well, he deserves the dog's death! Let him endure it."

The quarters boomed forth again; at half past twelve the executioner and his assistants arrived in a cart. Ordinarily they came earlier when they had a scaffold to erect and a block to place upon it. Now, however, there was no block on which the man's head would need to be laid to receive the headsman's stroke. Instead, a great cannon wheel was lifted from out the cart, then next a wooden platform was constructed, having in it a socket of raised wood into which the wheel was dropped and firmly fixed by cords, three parts of it towering above that socket. Then a heap of ropes brought forth and flung down beside the wheel—they would secure the body tightly enough—following the heap two huge iron bars and a heavy iron-bound club. That was all, yet enough to do justice on the traitor.

"La toilette de la Roue est faite," said one man, a joker; "soon his will be made also. 'Tis well the early mornings are warm now. He will not miss his clothes so much when they strip him to his singlet," and he laughed and grinned like a wolf and turned his eyes on the Hôtel de Ville. And still, as the moments and the quarters crept by, they chattered and talked about the coming spectacle, and wondered how the man felt in there who was now so shortly to furnish it. If they could have seen him, have been able to read his thoughts, they would have been little gratified—perhaps, indeed, a little dissatisfied—for he knew as well as they that his doom was fast approaching, that the clocks were telling of his fast-ebbing hours on earth; knew, too, that down below the wheel was being prepared, and bore the knowledge calmly and with resignation.

As they discussed down in the place what he might be doing and speculated on what his feelings were in those last hours, he above, at the iron-barred window of a room to which they had brought him after his sentence was pronounced, was gazing down at the crowd gathering to see him die. The feelings on which they speculated so much were scarcely such as would have satisfied them.

"The dawn breaks," he murmured to himself, as, although heavily chained both at the feet and hands, he leaned against the window and gazed far away over the roofs of the houses to, across the Seine, where the mists rose in the fields—"is near at hand. Another hour and daylight will have come—and then it is ended! So best!—so best!"

He shifted his position a little, still gazing out, however; then continued his meditations:

"Yes, so best. My last chance, last hope of life was gone when M. de Mortemart trusted me—let me ride by his side a free man instead of bound. Then I knew I must go on—come on—to this. I could have stabbed him to the heart more than once—have perhaps evaded even his three men—have escaped—been free—but how! By treachery unparalleled, by murder and deceit! And, afterward, a life of reproach and self-contempt. No! better this—better that wheel below than such a freedom!"

Looking down now at the crowd, his attention was called to it by a slight stir in its midst; he saw a troop of dragoons ride in to the place and observed them distributing themselves all round it at equal distance under the orders of an officer. Also he saw that a lane was made to the platform where the wheel stood—a lane among the people that ended at the platform and began he knew at the door of the Hôtel de Ville beneath him, from which he would be led forth.

"Courage," he whispered to himself, "courage. It will not be long; they say the first blow sometimes brings insensibility, and after that there is no more. Only death—death! Death with my little child's name upon my lips—that name the last word I shall ever speak; my last thoughts a prayer for her."

Gradually now he let himself sink to the floor, his manacles almost preventing him from doing so, and when in a kneeling position he buried his head in his iron-bound hands and prayed long and fervently.

"O God," he murmured, "thou who hast in thy wisdom torn her from me, keep and guard her ever, I beseech thee, in this my darkest hour; let her never know her father's sorrow, nor share the adversity thou hast thought fit to visit upon him. And, since I may never gaze on her face again, see her whom I have so dearly loved, so mourned for, never hear the tones of her voice, be thou her earthly as her heavenly Father; sleeping and waking, oh, watch over her still!"

Then, because the thoughts of her were more than he could bear, and because he knew that the child whom he had loved so dearly—the child whose future life he had once sworn solemnly to her dying mother should be dearer to him than his own—would never know his fate nor his regrets, he buried his head once more in those manacled hands and wailed: "My child! my child! My little lost child! Oh, my child! my child!"

"If I could only know," he murmured, later, "that you were well, happy—feel sure, as that woman told me once herself, and Boussac thought—that whoever has you in his keeping was not cruel to you, my little, helpless child, the end might be easier. If I could only know! O Dorine! Dorine!"

Looking up, as he strove with his two hands, so tightly chained together, to wipe the tears from his eyes, he noticed that the room was lighter now; the sky was a clear daffodil. Daybreak was coming; the day was at hand—his last on earth!

And again he whispered: "It is better so. But for her there is naught to hold me to life. Better so. Now"—and as he spoke to himself, across the roofs of the houses the first rays of the summer sun shot up—"now be brave. The end is near; meet it like a man. And remember, her name the last word on your lips—the last ere your soul goes to meet its God!"

A murmur, a noise from the crowd below waiting for its victim, caused him to look forth again from the window, and to observe that some new officials had arrived. A horseman in a rich scarlet coat, over which, however, he wore a riding cloak—for the morning was still chilly—followed by two others in sober blue coats trimmed with silver lace, was making his way down the lane of people and was being greeted by the crowd.

Yet, to the doomed man standing by the window, he did not seem to be altogether popular with them, especially when he suddenly halted his horse, and turning round on the vast concourse behind him, said something to them, accompanied with a comprehensive wave of his disengaged hand—something that vexed and annoyed that concourse terribly, he could see, and hear, too—a vexation increased when, after the other had spoken a further word to the officer in command of the dragoons, they began to close in from the outside of the place round the assembled mob.

Then the horseman disappeared from St. Georges's view, evidently having entered the door beneath his window, and again the people murmured and shrieked.

"Has he given orders to clear them away," he began to speculate, "so that they may not witness my end?——" but his speculation was not concluded.

On the stone steps outside he could hear the tread of many feet, the clang of spurs and of swords as those who wore them mounted the stairs.

"They are coming for me," he thought, and again he whispered: "The time is at hand. Courage! Be brave!"

The keys turned grating in the locks, a great transverse bar outside was moved with a clash, and the door opened, the first person to enter being the newly arrived horseman, followed by the principal official of the Hôtel de Ville, and next by some of his subordinate officers, as well as the jailers, one of whom carried in his hands a large iron hammer and the other a great bunch of keys.

And St. Georges, standing there facing them, looked as brave a gentleman as any who had ever been led to his fate.

"This is the condemned man?" the horseman asked of the chief official; "the man who was sentenced at the cours criminel on Friday last to die this morning?"

"It is the man, Monsieur l'Hérault," the official replied, his questioner being none other than L'Hérault, the head of the police system.

At this order the two jailers stepped forward, the one unlocking the fetters that bound St. Georges's hands, the other knocking away with the hammer the iron pegs that ran through the steel ring which held the chains round his ankles. And in less than three moments chains and fetters lay at his feet.

"Here is the warrant," L'Hérault said, handing it to the governor of the Hôtel de Ville—for such the principal official by his side was—"read it aloud to the prisoner," and it was read accordingly. It ran:

CHAPTER XXX.

"IT IS TRUE."

CHAPTER XXXI.

ST. GEORGES'S DOOM

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE LAST CHANCE.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE DAY OF EXECUTION.