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SCARAMOUCHE
i___ .


BY THE SAME AUTHOR


ROMAN CES
The Tavern Knight
The Shame of Motley
Barders the Magniﬁcent
The Trampling of the Lilies
Love at Arms
St. Martin’s Summer
Anthony Wilding
The Lion’s Skin
The Justice of the Duke
The Gates of Doom
The Strolling Saint
The Sea-Hawk
The Banner 0! the Bull
The Snare
Captain Blood
HISTORICAL ESSAYS:
The Life of Cesare Borgia
Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition
The Historical Nights’ Entertainment
Series I
The Historical Nights’ Entertainment
Series II


SCARAMOUCHE
By RAFAEL SABATINI


TWELFTH EDITION


LONDON: HUTCHINSON (5' CO.
PATERNOS‘IER ROW "


' (ZZZ)
$OJ\§°a-/
\qzvla, CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE ROBE
CHAPTER
I. THE REPUBLICAN - -
II. THE ARISTOCRAT - -
III. THE ELOQUENCE OF M. DE VILMORIN
IV. THE HERITAGE - -
V. THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC -
VI. THE WINDMILL - -
VII. THE WIND - - -
VIII. OMNES OMNIBUS - -
IX. THE AFTERMATH - -
BOOK II
THE BUSKIN
I. THE TRESPASSERS - -
11. THE SERVICE OF THESPIS -
111. THE come MUSE - -
IV. EXIT MONSIEUR PARVISSIMUS -
v. ENTER SCARAMOUCHE - -
w. CLIMENE - - -
vn. THE CONQUEST OF NANTES -
vm. THE DREAM - -
IX. THE AWAKENING - -
x. CONTRITION
xr. THE FRACAS AT THE THEATRE FEYDAU
PAGE
18
27
35
4o
44
51
62
69
79
92
99
109
I I7
12 5
I37
I45
I 51
I67
I75


vi Contents
BOOK III
THE SWORD
CHAPI‘IR PAGE
I. TRANSITION - ~ - - - 191
II. quos DEUS VULT PERDERE - - - 204
III. PRESIDENT LE CHAPELIER - - - 216
Iv. INTERLUDE - - - - - 224
v. AT MEUDON - - - - - 229
VI. MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL - - - 24o
vn. POLITICIANS - - - - - 249
VIII. THE SPADASSINICIDES - - - - 257
Ix. THE PALADIN OF THE THIRD - - - 266
x. T0RN PRIDE - - - - - 273
x1. THE RETURNING CARRIAGE - - - 284
xn. INFERENCEs - - - - - 292
xm. TOWARDS THE CLIMAX - - - - 299
XIV. THE OVERWHELMING REASON - - - 305
xv. SANCTUARY - - - - - 320
xvr. THE BARRIER - - - - - 327
xvn. SAFE—CONDUCT - - - . . 335
XVIII. SUNRISE - - - - ' 341


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
“ ‘ Aline! Aline! ’ His voice broke on the name. ‘ It
I"
was I . . . - - - - Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
“ ‘ Philippe! Speak to me, Philippe! Philippe! . . don’t
you hear me? Oh;God of Heaven! Philippe ! 1 ,, _ 38
“ Scaramouche screamed in agony, until Climéne caught
Binet's arm and made him stop ” - - - - 110
6 He took the tips of her ﬁngers in his grasp . . . and
then the door opened, and M. Binet came in ” - I34
“ In the pit pandemonium was already raging. One cry
rang out . . . ‘Death to the butcher of Rennes!
Death to La Tour d'Azyr who makes war upon the
people ' ” - ~ - - - - I86
“ He sat down suddenly in the mud. . . . Andre-Louis
had made him ridiculous. ‘ You shall meet me for
this,’ he spluttered " - — - - - 262
“ ‘The barrier is closed, madame,’ she was curtly
informed. ‘Closed! ’ she echoed. ‘But . . . but do
you mean that we cannot pass? ’ ” - - - 306
“ ‘ He is your father, André! Gervais, he is your
son—our son I ’ ” - - - - - 334


BOOK I
THE ROBE


SCARAMOUCHE
CHAPTER I
THE REPUBLICAN
E was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that
the world was mad, And that was all his patrimony.
His very paternity was obscure, although the village
of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of
mystery that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk were
not so simple as to be deceived by a pretended relationship
which did not even possess the virtue of originality. When
a nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the
godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence, and there-
after cares for the lad’s rearing and education, the most
unsophisticated of country folk perfectly understand the situa-
tion. And so the good people of Gavrillac permitted themselves
no illusions on the score of the real relationship between
Andre-Louis Moreau—as the lad had been named—and Quintin
de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the big grey
house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering
below.
Andre-Louis had learnt his letters at the village school,
lodged the while with old Rabouillet, the attorney, who in
the capacity of ﬁscal intendant looked after the affairs of M.
de Kercadiou. Thereafter, at the age of ﬁfteen, he had been
packed off to Paris, to the Lycée of Louis Le Grand, to study
law, which he was now returned to practise in conjunction
with Rabouillet. All this at the charges of his godfather,
M. de Kercadiou, who by placing him once more under the
tutelage of Rabouillet would seem thereby quite clearly to
be making provision for his future.
Andre-Louis, on his side, had made the most of his
opportunities. You behold him at the age of four-and-twenty
stuﬂed with learning enough to produce an intellectual
indigestion in an ordinary mind. Out of his zestful study of
Man, from Thucydides to the Encyclopaedists, from Seneca


ro Scaramouche
to Rousseau, he had conﬁrmed into an unassailable conviction
his earliest conscious impressions of the general insanity of
his own species. Nor can I discover that anything in his
eventful life ever afterwards caused him to waver in that
opinion.
In body he was a slight wisp of a fellow, scarcely above
middle height, with a lean, astute countenance, prominent
of nose and cheek-bones, and with lank, black hair that reached
almost to his shoulders. His mouth was long, thin-lipped
and humorous. He was only just redeemed from ugliness
by the Splendour of a pair of ever-questing, luminous eyes,
so dark as to be almost black. Of the whimsical quality of
his mind and his rare gift of graceful expression, his writings—
unfortunately but too scanty—and particularly his Confessions,
afford us very ample evidence. Of his gift of oratory he was
hardly conscious yet, although he had already achieved a
certain fame for it in the literary Chamber of Rennes—one
of those clubs by now ubiquitous in the land, in which the
intellectual youth of France forgathered to study and discuss
the new philosophies that were permeating social life. But
the fame he had acquired there was hardly enviable. He was
too immsh, too caustic, too much disposed—so thought his
colleagues—to ridicule their sublime theories for the regenera-
tion of mankind. Himself he protested that he merely held
up to them the mirror of truth, and that it was not his fault
if when reﬂected there they looked ridiculous.
All that he achieved by this, as you conceive, was to exasper-
ate; and to such an extent, that his expulsion from the
Literary Chamber was under serious consideration, and seemed
at last to be rendered inevitable by the fact that the Lord of
Gavrillac had appointed him his delegate in the States of
Brittany. It was felt almost unanimously that there was no
room for the oﬁicial representative of a nobleman, for a man
of such avowed reactionary principles, in a society devoted
to social reform.
This was no time for half-measures. The light of hope
which had begun to glow upon the horizon when M. Necker
had at last persuaded the King to convoke the States General—
a thing that had not happened for nearly two hundred years
-~had lately been overcast by the insolence of the nobility
and clergy, who were determined that these States General
should be so composed as to safeguard their own privileges.
The prosperous, industrious maritime city of Nantes—the
ﬁrst to express the feeling that was now rapidly spreading
throughout the land—had issued in the ﬁrst days of that


12 Scaramouche
Infuriated by an act of tyranny so absolute and merciless,
M. de Vilmorin proposed to lay the matter before M. de
Kercadiou. Mabey was a vassal of Gavrillac, and Vilmorin
hoped to move the Lord of Gavrillac to demand at least some
measure of reparation for the widow and the three orphans
which that brutal deed had made.
But because Andre-Louis was Philippe’s dearest friend—-
indeed, his almost brother—the young seminarist sought him
out in the ﬁrst instance. He found him at breakfast alone in
the long, low-ceilinged, white-panelled dining-room at Rabouil-
let’s—the only home that Andre-Louis had ever known—
and after embracing him, deafened him with his denunciation
of M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
“ I have heard of it already,” said Andre-Louis.
“ You say it as if the thing occasioned no surprise, " his
friend reproached him.
“ Nothing beastly can surprise me when done by a beast.
And La Tour d’Azyr is a beast, as all the world knows. The
more fool Mabey for stealing his pheasants. He should have
stolen somebody else’s."
“ Is that all you have to say about it P "
" What more is there to say? I’ve a practical mind, I
hope."
“ What more there is to say I propose to say to your god-
father, M. de Kercadiou. I shall appeal to him for justice.”
“ Against M. de La Tour d'Azyr? ” Andre-Louis raised
his eyebrows.
“ Why not ? ’5
“ My dear ingenuous Philippe, dog doesn't eat dog.”
" You are unjust to your godfather. He is a humane man."
5' Oh, as humane as you please. But this isn’t a question
of humanity, it’s a question of game-laws."
M. de Vilmorin tossed his long arms to Heaven in disgust.
He was a tall, slender young gentleman, a year or two younger
than Andre-Louis. He was very soberly dressed in black, as
became a seminarist, with white bands at wrists and throat
and silver buckles to his shoes. His neatly clubbed brown
hair was innocent of powder.
“ You talk like a lawyer," he exploded.
“ Naturally. But don’t waste anger on me on that account.
Tell me what you want me to do? "
“ I want you to come to M. de Kercadiou with me, and to
use your inﬂuence to obtain justice. I suppose I am asking
too much P '1
‘5 My dear Philippe, I exist to serve you. I warn you that


The Robe 13
it is a futile quest 1 but give me leave to ﬁnish my breakfast,
and I am at your orders.” ,
M. de Vilmorin dropped into a winged arm-chair by the
well-swept hearth, on which a piled-up ﬁre of pine-logs was
burning cheerily. And whilst he waited he gave his friend
the latest news of the events in Rennes. Young, ardent,
enthusiastic and inspired by Utopian ideals, he passionately
denounced the rebellious attitude of the privileged.
Andre-Louis, already fully aware of the trend of feeling in
the ranks of an order in whose deliberations he took part as
the representative of a nobleman, was not at all surprised by
what he heard. M. de Vilmorin found it exasperating that
his friend should apparently decline to share his own
indignation.
“ Don’t you see what it means P " he cried. “ The nobles,
by disobeying the King, are striking at the very foundations
of the throne. Don’t they perceive that their very existence
depends upon it ; that if the throne falls over, it is they who
stand nearest to it who will be crushed? Don’t they see
that ? ’
“ Evidently not. They are just governing classes, and I
never heard of governing classes that had eyes for anything
but their own proﬁt."
“ That is our grievance. That is what we are going to
change."
“ You are going to abolish governing classes P An interest-
ing experiment. I believe it was the original plan of creation,
and it might have succeeded but for Cain. "
“ What we are going to do,” said M. de Vilmorin, curbing
his exasperation, “ is to transfer the government to other
bands."
“ And you think that will make a difference ? "
" I know it will.”
“ Ah I I take it that being now in minor orders, you already
possess the conﬁdence of the Almighty. He will have con-
ﬁded to you His intention of changing the pattern of mankind.“
M. de Vilmorin’s ﬁne ascetic face grew overcast.
" You are profane, André,” he reproved his friend.
“ I assure you that I am quite serious. To do what you
imply would require nothing short of divine intervention. You
must change man, not systems. Can you and our vapouring
friends of the Literary Ghamber of Rennes, or any other learned
society of France, devise a system of government that has
never yet been tried P Surely not. And can they say of any
system tried that it proved other than a failure in the end P


The Robe r 5
" I can tell you who it was constrained the municipality
of Nantes to send it to the King. Some ten thousand
workrnen—shipwrights, weavers, labourers and artisans of
every kind."
" Stimulated to it, driven to it, by their employers, the
wealthy traders and shipowners of that city,” Andre-Louis
replied. “ I have a habit of observing things at close quarters,
which is why our colleagues of the Literary Chamber dislike
me so cordially in debate. Where I delve they but skim.
Behind those labourers and artisans of Nantes, counselling
them, urging on these poor, stupid, ignorant toilers to shed their
blood in pursuit of the will 0’ the wisp of freedom, are the sail-
makers, the spinners, the ship-owners and the slave-traders.
The slave-traders! The men who live and grow rich by a.
traﬂic in human ﬂesh and blood in the colonies are conducting
at home a campaign in the sacred name of liberty ? Don’t you
see that the whole movement is a movement of hucksters and
traders and peddling vassals swollen by wealth into envy of
the power that lies in birth alone? The money-changers in
Paris who hold the bonds in the national debt, seeing the par-
lous ﬁnancial condition of the State, tremble at the thought
that it may lie in the power of a single man to cancel the
debt by bankruptcy. To secure themselves, they are burrowing
underground to overthrow a State and build upon its ruins
a new one in which they shall be the masters. And to accom-
plish this they inﬂame the people. Already in Dauphiny we
have seen blood run like water—the blood of the populace,
always the blood of the populace. Now in Brittany we may see
the like. And if in the end the new ideas prevail? If the
seigneurial rule is overthrown, what then? You will have
exchanged an aristocracy for a plutocracy. Is that worth
while? Do you think that under money-changers and slave~
traders, and men who have waxed rich in other ways by the
ignoble arts of buying and selling, the lot of the people will
be any better than under their priests and nobles? Has it
ever occurred to you, Philippe, what it is that makes the rule
of the nobles so intolerable? Acquisitiveness. Acquisi-
tiveness is the curse of mankind. And shall you expect less
acquisitiveness in men who have built themselves up by
acquisitiveness? Oh, I am ready to admit that the present
government is execrable, unjust, tyrannical— what you will—
btt I beg you to look ahead, and to see that the government
for which it is aimed at exchanging it may be inﬁnitely worse.“
Philippe sat thoughtful a moment. Then he returned
to the attack.


r6 Scaramouche
" You do not speak of the abuses, the horrible, intolerable
abuses of power under which we labour at present."
" Where there is power there will always be the abuse of it."
" Not if the tenure of power is dependent upon its equitable
administration."
" The tenure of power is power. We cannot dictate to those
who hold it.”
“ The people can—the people in its might."
“ Again I ask you, when you say the people, do you mean the
populace? You do. What power can the populace wield?
It can run wild. It can burn and slay for a time. But enduring
power it cannot wield, because power demands qualities which
the populace does not possess, or it would not be populace.
The inevitable, tragic corollary of civilization is populace.
For the rest, abuses can be corrected by equity; and equity,
if it is not found in the enlightened, is not to be found at all.
M. Necker is to set about correcting abuses, and limiting
privileges. That is decided. To that end the States
General are to assemble.”
“ And a promising beginning we have made in Brittany,
as Heaven hears me," cried Philippe.
“ Pooh! That is nothing. Naturally the nobles will not
yield without a struggle. It is a futile and ridiculous struggle
-—but then . . . it is human nature, I suppose, to be futile and
ridiculous.”
M. de Vilmorin became witherineg sarcastic. " Probably
you will also qualify the shooting of Mabey as futile and
- ridiculous? I should even be prepared to hear you argue in
defence of the Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr that his gamekeeper
was merciful in shooting Mabey, since the alternative would
have been a life-sentence to the galleys.“
Andre-Louis drank the remainder of his chocolate ; set down
his cup, and pushed back his chair, his breakfast done.
“ I confess that I have not your big charity, my dear
Philippe. I am touched by Mabey’s fate. But, having
conquered the shock of this news to my emotions, I do not
forget that, after all, Mabey was thieving when he met his
death.”
M. de Vilmorin heaved himself up in his indignation.
“ That is the point of view to be expected in one who is
the assistant ﬁscal intendant of a nobleman, and the delegate
of a nobleman to the States of Brittany.”
" Philippe, is that just? You are angry with me I " he
cried, in real solicitude.
" I am hurt," Vilmorin admitted. “ I am deeply hurt by


The Robe 17
your attitude. And I am not alone in resenting your re-
actionary tendencies. Do you know that the Literary Chamber
is seriously considering your expulsion? "
Andre-Louis shrugged. “ That neither surprises nor
troubles me.”
M. de Vilmorin swept on, passionately: “ Sometimes I
think that you have no heart. With you it is always the
law, never equity. It occurs to me, André, that I was
mistaken in coming to you. You are not likely to be of
assistance to me in my interview with M. de Kercadiou.” He
took up his hat, clearly with the intention of departing.
Andre-Louis sprang up and caught him by the arm.
“ I vow,” said he, “ that this is the last time ever I shall
consent to talk law or politics with you, Philippe. I love you
too well to quarrel with you over other men’s affairs.”
“ But I make them my own,” Philippe insisted, vehemently.
“ Of course you do, and I love you for it. It is right that
you should. You are to be a priest; and everybody’s business
is a priest’s business. Whereas I am a lawyer—the ﬁscal
intendant of a nobleman, as you say-and a lawyer’s busineSS
is the business of his client. That is the difference between
us. Nevertheless, you are not going to shake me off.”
5‘ But I tell you frankly, now that I come to think of it,
that I should prefer you did not see M. de Kercadiou with me.
Your duty to your client cannot be a help to me." His Wrath
had passed ; but his determination remained ﬁrm, based upon
the reason he gave.
“ Very well,” said Andre-Louis. “ It shall be as you
please. But nothing shall prevent me at least from walking
with you as far as the chateau, and waiting for you while you
make your appeal to M. de Kercadiou."
And so they left the house good friends, for the sweetness
of M. de Vilmorin’s nature did not admit of rancour, and
together they took their way up the steep main street of
Gavrillac. '


CHAPTER II
THE ARISTOCRAT
HE sleepy village of Gavrillac, a half-league removed
I from the main road to Rennes, and therefore
undisturbed by the world’s traﬁic, lay in a curve
of the River Meu, at the base, and straggling
half-way up the slope of the shallow hill that was crowned by
the squat manor. By the time Gavrillac had paid tribute to
its seigneur—partly in money and partly in service—tithes
to the Church and imposts to the King, it was hard put to it
to keep body and soul together with what remained. Yet
hard as conditions were in Gavrillac, they were not so hard
as in many other parts of France ; not half so hard, for instance,
as with the wretched feudatories of the great 10rd of La Tour
d'Azyr, whose vast possessions were at one point separated
from this little village by the waters of the Meu.
The Chateau de Gavrillac owed such seigneurial airs as might
be claimed for it to its dominant position above the village
rather than to any feature of its own. Built of granite, like
all the rest of Gavrillac, though mellowed by some three
centuries of‘ existence, it was a squat, ﬂat-fronted ediﬁce of
two stories, each lighted by four windows with external wooded
shutters, and ﬂanked at either end by two square towers or
pavilions under extinguisher roofs. Standing well back in
a garden, denuded now, but very pleasant in summer, and
immediately fronted by a ﬁne sweep of balustrated terrace, it
looked what indeed it was, and always had been, the residence
of unpretentious folk who found more interest in husbandry
than in adventure.
Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac—Seigneur de
Gavrillac was all the vague title that he bore, as his forefathers
had borne before him, derived no man knew whence or how—
conﬁrmed the impression that his house conveyed. Rude as
the granite itself, be had never sought the experience of courts,
had not even taken service in the armies of his King. He left
it to his younger brother, Etienne, to represent the family in
those exalted spheres. His own interests from earliest years
had been centred in his woods and pastures. He hunted, and
be cultivated his acres, and superﬁcially he appeared to be


The Robe 19
little better than any of his rustic métayers. He kept no
state, or at least no state commensurate with his position or
with the tastes of his niece, Aline de Kercadiou. Aline, having
spent some two years in the court atmosphere of Versailles
under the aegis of her uncle Etienne, had ideas very diﬁerent
from those of her uncle Quintin of what was beﬁtting seigneurial
dignity. But though this only child of a third Kercadiou
had exercised, ever since she was left an orphan at the early
age of four, a tyrannical rule over the Lord of Gavrillac, who
had been father and mother to her, she had never yet succeeded
in beating down his stubbornness on that score.
She did not yet despair—persistence being a dominant note
in her character—although she had been assiduously and
fruitlesst at work ever since her return from the great world
of Versailles, some three months ago.
She was walking on the terrace when Andre-Louis and M.
de Vilmorin arrived. Her slight body was wrapped against
the chill air in a white pelisse ; her head was encased in a close-
ﬁtting bonnet, edged with white fur. It was caught tight in
a knot of pale-blue ribbon on the right other chin ; on the left
a long ringlet of com-coloured hair had been permitted to
escape. The keen air had whipped so much of her cheeksas
was presented to it, and seemed to have added a sparkle to
eyes that were of darkest blue.
Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin had been known to her
from infancy. The three had been playmates once, and
André-Louis—in view of his spiritual relationship with her
uncle—she called her cousin. The cousinly relations had
persisted between these two long after Philippe de Vilmorin
had outgrown the earlier intimacy, and had become to her
Monsieur de Vilmorin.
She waved her hand to them in greeting as they advanced,
and stood—an entrancing picture, and fully conscious of it—
to await them at the end of the terrace nearest the short
avenue by which they approached.
“ If you come to see monsieur my uncle, you come inoppor-
tunely, messieurs,” she told them, a certain feverishness in
her air. " He is closely—oh, so very closely—engaged.”
“ We will wait, mademoiselle,” said M. de Vilmorin, bowing
gallantly over the hand she extended to him. “ Indeed, who
wouldPhasten to the uncle that may tarry a moment with the
mece ”
" Monsieur l’Abbé,“ she teased him, " when you are in
orders I shall take you for my confessor. You have so ready
and sympathetic an understanding.”


20 Scaramouche
“ But no curiosity," said Andre-Louis. " You haven’t
thought of that."
“I wonder what you mean, cousin André ? ”
“ Well you may," laughed Philippe. “ For no one ever
knows." And then, his glance straying across the terrace settled
upon a carriage that was drawn up before the door of
the chateau. It was a vehicle such as was often to be seen in
the streets of a great city, but rarely in the country :
a beautifully-sprung two-horse cabriolet of walnut, with a
varnish upon it like a sheet of glass and little pastoral scenes
exquisitely painted on the panels of the door. It was built
to carry two persons, with a box in front for the coachman and
a stand behind for the footman. This stand was now empty,
but the footman paced before the door, and as he emerged
from behind the vehicle into the range of M. de Vilmorin’s
vision, he displayed the resplendent blue and gold livery of
the Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr.
" Why!" he exclaimed. “ Is it M. de La Tour d’Azyr
who is with your uncle ? "
" It is, monsieur," said she, a world of mystery in voice and
eyes, of which M. de Vilmorin observed nothing.
“ Ah, pardon l " He bowed low, hat in hand. “ Serviteur,
mademoiselle," and he turned to depart towards the house.
“ Shall I come with you, Philippe? " Andre-Louis called
after him.
" It would be ungallant to assume that you would prefer
it," said M. de Vilmorin, with a glance at Mademoiselle.
“ Nor do I think it would serve. If you will wait . . . ”
M. de Vilmorin strode off. Mademoiselle, after a moment’s
blank pause, laughed ripplingly. “ Now where is he going
in such a hurry? ”
“ To see M. de La Tour d'Azyr as well as your uncle, I
should say.”
“ But he cannot. They cannot see him. Didn’t I say
that they are very closely engaged? You don’t ask me why,
André.” There was an arch mysteriousness about her, a
latent something that may have been elation or amusement,
or perhaps both. André-Louispould not determine it.
" Since obviously you are all' eagerness to tell, why should
I ask? ” quoth he.
“ If you are caustic I shall not tell you even if you ask. Oh
yes, I will. It will teach you to treat me with the respect that
is my due.”
5‘ I hope I shall never fail in that."
“ Less than ever when you learn that I am very closely


The Robe 21
concerned in the visit of M. de La Tour d’Azyr. I am the
object of this visit.“ And she looked at him with sparkling
eyes and lips parted in laughter.
“ The rest, you would seem to imply, is obvious. But I
am a dolt, if you please, for it is not obvious to me.”
“ Why, stupid, he comes to ask my hand in marriage."
" Good God! “ said Andre-Louis, and stared at her, chap-
fallen.
She drew back from him a little with a frown and an up-
ward tilt of her chin. “ It surprises you ? "
“ It disgusts me," said he, bluntly. “ In fact, I don’t
believe it. You are amusing yourself with me.”
For a moment she put aside her visible annoyance to remove
his doubts. “ I am quite serious, monsieur. There came
a formal letter to my uncle this morning from M. de La Tour
d’Azyr, announcing the visit and its object. I will not say that
it did not surprise us a little. . . . "
“ Oh, I see,” cried Andre-Louis, in relief. “ I understand.
For a moment I had almost feared—~" He broke off,
looked at her, and shrugged.
“ Why do you stop ? You had almost feared that Versailles
had been wasted upon me ? That I should permit the courtship
of me to be conducted like that of any village wench ? It was
stupid of you. I am being sought in proper form, at my uncle’s
hands."
“ Is his consent, then, all that matters, according to
Versailles? ”
" What else? '5
" There is your own."
She laughed. “ I am a dutiful niece . . . when it suits
me.“
“ And will it suit you to be dutiful if your uncle accepts
this monstrous proposal ? “
“ Monstrous! " She bridled. " And why monstrous, if
you please? ”
” For a score of reasons,” he answered irritably.
" Give me one," she challenged him.
“ He is twice your age.”
“ Hardly so much," said she.
" He is forty-ﬁve at least."
“ But he looks no more than thirty. He is very handsome—-
so much you will admit; nor will you deny that he is very
wealthy and very powerful ; the greatest nobleman in Brittany.
He will make me a great lady."
” God made you that, Aline."


22 Scaramouche

" Come, that's better. Sometimes you can be almost polite."
And she moved along the terrace, Andre-Louis pacing beside her.
“ I can be more than that to show reason why you should
not let this beast befoul the beautiful thing that God has
made."
She frowned, and her lips tightened. " You are speaking
of my future husband," she reproved him.
His lips tightened too ; his pale face grew paler.
“ And is it so ? It is settled, then ? Your uncle is to agree P
You are to be sold thus, lovelessly, into bondage to a man
you do not know. I had dreamed of better things for you,
Aline.”
“ Better than to be Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr? "
He made a gesture of exasperation. “ Are men and women
nothing more than names? Do the souls of them count for
nothing? Is there no joy in life, no happiness, that wealth
and pleasure and empty, high-sounding titles are to be its only
aims? I had set you high—so high, Aline—a thing scarce
earthly. There is joy in your heart, intelligence in your mind,
and, as I thought, the vision that pierces husks and shams to
claim the core of reality for its own. Yet you will surrender
all for a parcel of make-believe. You will sell your soul and
your body to be Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr.”
“ You are indelicate," said she, and though she frowned
her eyes laughed. “ And you go headlong to conclusions.
My uncle will not consent to more than to allow my consent
to be sought. We understand each other, my uncle and I.
I am not to be bartered like a turnip.” -
He stood still, facing her, his eyes aglow, a ﬂush creeping
into his pale cheeks.
“ You have been torturing me to amuse yourself,” he cried.
“ Ah well, I forgive you out of my relief.”
“ Again you go too fast, Cousin André. I have permitted
my uncle to consent that M. le Marquis shall make his court to
me. I like the look of the gentleman. I am ﬂattered by his
preference when I consider his eminence. It is an eminence
that I may ﬁnd it desirable to share. M. 1e Marquis does not
look as if he were a dullard. It should be interesting to be
wooed by him. It may be more interesting still to marry him,
and I think, when all is considered, that I shall probably—very
probably—decide to do so."
He looked at her, looked at the sweet, challenging loveliness
of that childlike face so tightly framed in the oval of white
fur, and all the life seemed to go out of his own countenance.
“ God help you, Aline l ” he groaned.


The Robe 23
She stamped her foot. He was really very exasperating,
and something presumptuous too, she thought.
“ You are insolent, monsieur."
“ It is never insolent to pray, Aline. And I did no more than
pray, as I shall continue to do. You’ll need my prayers, I
think.”
“ You are insufferable! " She was growing angry, as he
saw by the deepening frown, the heightened colour.
" That is because I suffer. Oh, Aline, little cousin, think
well of what you do; think well of the realities you will be
bartering for these shams—the realities that you will never
know, because these cursed shams will block your way to them.
When M. de La Tour d’Afgr comes to make his court, study
him well ; consult your ﬁ instincts ; leave your own noble
nature free to judge this animal by its intuitions. Consider
that . . . ”
“ I consider, monsieur, that you presume upon the kindness
I have always shown you. You abuse the position of tolera-
tion in which you stand. Who are you ? What are you, that
you should have the insolence to take this tone with me? "
He bowed, instantly his cold, detached self again, and
resumed the mockery that was his natural habit.
" My congratulations, mademoiselle, upon the readiness with
which you begin to adapt yourself to the great role you are to
lay.”
p “ Do you adapt yourself also, monsieur,” she retorted
angrily, and turned her shoulder to him.
" To be as the dust beneath the haughty feet of Madame
la Marquise P I hope I shall know my place in future.”
The phrase arrested her. She turned to him again, and he
perceived that her eyes were shining now suspiciously. In
an instant the mockery in him was quenched in contrition.
“ Lord, what a beast I am, Alinel ” he cried, as he advanced.
" Forgive me, if you can.”
Almost had she turned to sue forgiveness from him. But
his contrition removed the need.
“ I’ll try," said she, “ provided that you undertake not to
offend again.“
“ But I shall,” said he. “ I am like that. I will ﬁght to
save you, from yourself if need be, whether you forgive me or
not."
They were standing so, confronting each other a little
breathlessly, a little deﬁantly, when the others issued from the
orch.
p First came the Marquis of La Tour d'Azyr, Count of $011,


24 Scaramouche

Knight of the Orders of the Holy Ghost and Saint Louis, and
Brigadier in the armies of the King. He was a tall, graceful
man, upright and soldierly of carriage, with his head disdain-
fully set upon his shoulders. He was magniﬁcently dressed
in a full skirted coat of mulberry velvet that was laced with
gold. His waistcoat, of velvet too, was of a golden apricot
colour; his breeches and stockings were of black silk, and
his lacquered, red-heeled shoes were buckled in diamonds.
His powdered hair was tied behind in a broad ribbon of watered
silk ; he carried a little three-cornered hat under his arm, and
a gold-hilted slender dress-sword hung at his side.
Considering him now in complete detachment, observing
the magniﬁcence of him, the elegance of his movements, the
great air, blending in so extraordiﬁary a manner disdain and
graciousness, André-Louis trembled for Aline. Here was a
practised, irresistible wooer, whose bonnes fortunes were
become a by-word, a man who had hitherto been the despair
of dowagers with marriageable daughters, and the desolation
of husbands with attractive wives.
He was immediately followed by M. de Kercadiou, in com-
pletest contrast. On legs of the shortest, the Lord of Gavrillac
carried a body that at forty-ﬁve was beginning to incline to
corpulence and an enormous head containing an indifferent
allotment of intelligence. His countenance was pink and
blotchy, liberally branded by the small-pox which had almost
extinguished him in youth. In dress he was careless to the
point of untidiness, and to this and the fact that he had never
married—disregarding the ﬁrst duty of a gentleman to provide
himself with an heir—he owed the character of misogynist
attributed to him by the countryside.
After M. de Kercadiou came M. de Vilmorin, very pale and
self-contained, with tight lips and an overcast brow.
To meet them, there stepped from the carriage a very
elegant young gentleman, the Chevalier de Chabrillanne,
M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s cousin, who whilst awaiting his
return had watched with considerable interest—his own
presence unsuspected—the perambulations of André—Louis and
Mademoiselle.
Perceiving Aline, Monsieur de La Tour d’Azyr detached
, himself from the others, and lengthening his stride came
straight across the terrace to her.
To André-Louis the Marquis inclined his head with that
mixture of courtliness and condescension which he used.
Socially, the young lawyer stood in a curious position. By


The Robe ‘ 25
#:rsﬁnw' ‘ ""' g>.__. "3::—
virtue of the theory of his birth, he ranked neither as noble
nor as simple, but stood somewhere between the two classes,
and whilst claimed by neither he was used familiarly by both.
Coldly now he returned M. de La Tour d'Azyr's greeting, and
discreetly removed himself to go and join his friend.
The Marquis took the hand that Mademoiselle extended to
him, and bowing over it, bore it to his lips.
“ Mademoiselle," he said, looking into the blue depths of
her eyes, that met his gaze smiling and untroubled, “ mon-
sieur your uncle does me the honour to permit that I pay my
homage to you. Will you, mademoiselle, do me the honour
to receive me when I come to-morrow? I shall have something
of great importance for your ear.”
“ Of importance, Monsieur le Marquis P You almost
frighten me.” But there was no fear on the serene little face
in its furred hood. It was not for nothing that she had
graduated in the Versailles school of artiﬁcialities.
“ That,” said he, “ is very far from my design."
“ But of importance to yourself, monsieur, or to me? “
" To us both, I hope,” he answered her, a world of meaning
in his ﬁne, ardent eyes.
“ You whet my curiosity, monsieur; and, of course, I am
a dutiful niece. It follows that I shall be honoured to receive
you.”
“ Not honoured, mademoiselle ; you will confer the honour.
To-morrow at this hour, then, I shall have the felicity to wait
upon you."
He bowed again ; and again he bore her ﬁngers to his lips,
what time she curtsied. Thereupon, with no more than this
formal breaking of the ice, they parted.
She was a little breathless now, a little dazzled by the beauty
of the man, his princely air, and the conﬁdence of power he
seemed to radiate. Involuntarily, almost, she contrasted him
with his critic—the lean and impudent André-Louis in his plain
brown coat and steel-buckled shoes—and she felt guilty of
an unpardonable offence in having permitted even one word
of that presumptuous criticism. To-morrow M. 1e Marquis
would come to offer her a great position, a great rank. And
already she had derogated from the increase of dignity accruing
to her from his very intention to translate her to so great an
eminence. Not again would she suffer it ; not again would
she be so weak and childish as to permit Andre-Louis to
utter his ribald comments upon a man by comparison with
whom he was no better than a lackey.


26 Scaramouche
Thus argued vanity and ambition with her better self;
and to her vast annoyance her better self would not admit
entire conviction.
Meanwhile, M. de La Tour d'Azyr was climbing into his
carriage. He had spoken a word of farewell to M. de Kercadiou,
and he had also had a word for M. de Vilmorin, in reply to
which M. de Vilmorin had bowed in assenting silence.
The carriage rolled away, the powdered footman in blue
and gold very stiff behind it, M. de La Tour d'Azyr bowing
to Mademoiselle, who waved to him in answer.
Then M. de Vilmorin put his arm through that of André
Louis, and said to him :
“ Come, André." '
" But you'll stay to dine, both of you," cried the hospit-
able Lord of Gavrillac. “ We’ll drink a certain toast,” he
added, winking an eye that strayed towards Mademoiselle,
who was approaching. He had no subtleties, good soul that
he was.
M. de Vilmorin deplored an appointment that prevented
him doing himself the honour. He was very stiff and formal.
“ And you, André ? "
" I? Oh, I share the appointment, godfather," he lied,
“ and I have a superstition against toasts.” He had no wish
to remain. He was angry with Aline for her smiling reception
of M. de La Tour d'Azyr, and the sordid bargain he saw her
set on making. He was suffering from the loss of an illusion.


CHAPTER III
THE ELOQUENCE or M. DE VILMORIN
S they walked down the hill together, it was now M.
de Vilmorin who was silent and preoccupied, André-
Louis who was talkative. He had chosen Woman
as a subject for his present discourse. He claimed-—
quite unjustiﬁably—to have discovered Woman that morning ;
and the things he had to say of the sex were unﬂattering, and
occasionally almost gross. M. de Vilmorin, having ascertained
the subject, did not listen. Singular though it may seem in a
young French abbé of his day, M. de Vilmorin was not
interested in Woman. Poor Philippe was in several ways
exceptional.
Opposite the Breton Armé—the inn and posting-house at the
entrance of the village of Gavrillac—M. de Vilmorin interrupted
his companion just as he was soaring to the dizziest heights
of caustic invective, and Andre-Louis, restored thereby to
actualities, observed the carriage of M. de La Tour d'Azyr
standing before the door of the hostelry.
“ I don't believe you've been listening to me," said he.
“ Had you been less interested in what you were saying,
you might have observed it sooner and spared your breath.
The fact is, you disappoint me, André. You seem to have for-
gotten what we went for. I have an appointment here with
M. le Marquis. He desires to hear me further in the matter.
Up there at Gavrillac I could accomplish nothing. The time
was ill-chosen, as it happened. But I have hopes of M. le
Marquis.”
" Hopes of what ? ”
" That he will make what reparation lies in his power. Pro-
vide for the widow and the orphans. Why else should he desire
to hear me further ? "
“ Unusual condescension," said Andre-Louis, and quoted:
" Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”
" Why ? " asked Philippe.
“ Let us go and discover—unlas you consider that I shall
be in the way."
Into a room on the right, rendered private to M. le Marquis


28 Scaramouche
for so long as he should elect to honour it, the young men were
ushered by the host. A ﬁre of logs was burning brightly at
the room's far end, and by this sat now M. de La Tour d’Azyr
and his cousin, the Chevalier de Ohabrillanne. Both rose
as M. de Vilmorin came in. Andre-Louis, following, paused to
close the door.
" You oblige me by your prompt courtesy, M. de Vilmorin,"
said the Marquis, but in a tone so cold as to belie the politeness
of his words. “ A chair, I beg. Ah, Moreau? ” The note
was frigidly interrogative. “ He accompanies you, monsieur? "
he asked.
“ If you please, M. 1e Marquis."
“ Why not? Find yourself a seat, Moreau." He spoke
over his shoulder as to a lackey.
" It is good of you, monsieur," said Philippe, " to have
offered me this opportunity of continuing the subject that took
me so fruitlessly, as it happens, to Gavrillac."
The Marquis crossed his legs, and held one of his ﬁne hands
to the blaze. He replied, without troubling to turn to the
young man, who was slightly behind him.
" The goodness of my request we will leave out of question
for the moment," said he, darkly, and M. de Chabrillanne
laughed. André-Louis thought him easily moved to mirth,
and almost envied him the faculty.
" But I am grateful," Philippe insisted, " that you should
condescend to hear me plead their cause.“
The Marquis stared at him over his shoulder. “ Whose
cause 2 ” quoth he.
“ Why, the cause of the widow and orphans of this unfor-
tunate Mabey."
The Marquis looked from Vilmorin to the Chevalier, and
again the Chevalier laughed, slapping his leg this time.
" I think," said M. de La Tour d’Azyr, slowly, “ that we
are at cross purposes. I asked you to come here because the
Chateau de Gavrillac was hardly a suitable place in which to
carry our discussion further, and because I hesitated to incom-
mode you by suggesting that you should come all the way to
Azyr. But my object is connected with certain expressions
that you let fall up there. It is on the subject of those expres-
sions, monsieur, that I would hear you further—if you will
honour me."
André-Louis began to apprehend that there was something
sinister in the air. He was a man of quick intuitions, quicker
far than those of M. de Vilmorin, who evinced no more than
a mild surprise.


The Robe 29
" I am at a loss, monsieur," said he. “ To what expressions
does monsieur allude ? ”
“ It seems, monsieur, that I must refresh your memory."
The Marquis uncrossed his legs, and swung sideways on his
chair, so that at last he directly faced M. de Vilmorin. " You
spoke, monsieur—and however mistaken you may have been,
you spoke very eloquently, too eloquently almost, it seemed to
me——of the infamy of such a deed as the act of summary
justice upon this thieving fellow Mabey, or whatever his name
may be. Infamy was the precise word you used. You did
not retract that word when I had the honour to inform you
that it was by my orders that my gamekeeper Benet proceeded
as he did."
“ If," said M. de Vilmorin, “ the deed was infamous, its
infamy is not modiﬁed by the rank, however exalted, of the
person responsible. Rather is it aggravated.”
“ Ah I ” said M. 1e Marquis, and drew a gold snuff-b0x from
his pocket. " You say, ‘ if the deed was infamous,’ monsieur.
Am I to understand that you are no longer as convinced as
you appeared to be of its infamy? "
M. de Vilmorin’s ﬁne face wore a look of perplexity. He did
not understand the drift of this.
" It occurs to me, M. le Marquis, in view of your readiness to
assume responsibility, that you must believe in some justiﬁca-
tion for the deed which is not apparent to myself."
" That is better. That is distinctly better.” The Marquis
took snuff delicately, dusting the fragments from the ﬁne lace
at his throat. " You realise that with an imperfect under-
standing of these matters, not being yourself a landowner,
you may have rushed to unjustiﬁable conclusions. That is
indeed the case. May it be a warning to you, monsieur.
When I tell you that for months past I have been annoyed by
similar depredations, you will perhaps understand that it had
become necessary to employ a deterrent sufﬁciently strong to
put an end to them. Now that the risk is known, I do not
think there will be any more prowling in my coverts. And
there is more in it than that, M. de Vilmorin. It is not the
poaching that annoys me so much as the contempt for my abso-
lute and inviolable rights. There is, monsieur, as you cannot
fail to have observed, an evil spirit of insubordination in the
air, and there is only one way in which to meet it. To tolerate
it, in however slight a degree, to show leniency, however
leniently disposed, would entail having recourse to still harsher
measures to-morrow. You understand me, I am sure, and you
will also, I am sure, appreciate the condescension of what


3o Scaramouche
amounts to an explanation from me where I cannot admit that
any explanations were due. If anything in what I have said
is still obscure to you, I refer you to the game laws, which
your lawyer friend there will expound for you at need."
With that the gentleman swung round again to face the
ﬁre. It appeared to convey the intimation that the interview
was at an end. And yet this was not by any means the inti-
mation that it conveyed to the watchful, puzzled, vaguely
uneasy Andre-Louis. It was, thought he, a very curious, a very
suspicious oration. It affected to explain, with a politeness of
terms and a calculated insolence of tone ; whilst in fact it could
only serve to stimulate and goad a man of M. de Vilmorin’s
opinions. And that is precisely what it did. He rose.
“ Are there in the world no laws but game laws?" he
demanded heatedly. “ Have you never by any chance heard of
the laws of humanity ? ”
The Marquis sighed wearily. “ What have I to do with the
laws of humanity ? " he wondered.
M. de Vilmorin looked at him a moment in speechless
amazement.
“ Nothing, Monsieur le Marquis. That is—alas l—too
obvious. I hope you will remember it in the hour when you
may wish to appeal to those laws which you now deride."
M. de La Tour d’Azyr threw back his head sharply, his
high-bred face imperious.
" Now what precisely shall that mean? It is not the
ﬁrst time to-day that you have made use of dark sayings that
I could almost believe to veil the presumption of a threat.”
“ Not a threat, Monsieur 1e Marquis—a warning. A
warning that such deeds as these against God’s creatures . . .
Oh, you may sneer, monsieur, but they are God’s creatures,
even as you or I—neither more nor less, deeply though the
reﬂection may wound your pride. In His eyes . . . ”
“ Of your charity, spare me a sermon, Monsieur l’Abbé l "
" You mock, monsieur. You laugh. Will you laugh, I
wonder, when God presents His reckoning to you for the blood
and plunder with which your hands are full ? ”
“ Monsieur l " The word, sharp as the crack of a Whip,
was from M. de Chabrillanne, who bounded to his feet. But
instantly the Marquis repressed him.
" Sit down, Chevalier. You are interrupting Monsieur
l'Abbé, and I should like to hear him further. He interests
me profoundly."
In the background, Andre-Louis, too, had risen, brought to
his feet by alarm, by the evil that he saw written on the


The Robe ' 3r
handsome face of M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He approached,
and touched his friend upon the arm.
“ Better be going, Philippe," said he.
But M. de Vilmorin, caught in the relentless grip of passions
long repressed, was being hurried by them recklessly along.
“ Oh, monsieur,” said he, “ consider what you are and what
you will be. Consider how you and your kind live by abuses,
and consider the harvest that abuses must ultimately bring."
” Revolutionist l ” said Monsieur 1e Marquis contemptuously.
" You have the effrontery to stand before my face and offer
me this stinking cant of your modern so-called intellectuals ! "
“ Is it cant, monsieur P Do you think—do you believe
in your soul—that it is cant ? Is it cant that the feudal grip
is on all things that live, crushing them like grapes in the press,
to its own proﬁt? Does it not exercise its rights upon the
waters of the river, the ﬁre that bakes the poor man’s bread
of grass and barley, on the wind that turns the mill? The
peasant cannot take a step upon the road, cross a crazy bridge
over a river, buy an ell of cloth in the village market, without
meeting feudal rapacity, without being taxed in feudal dues.
Is not that enough, Monsieur 1e Marquis? Must you also
demand his wretched life in payment for the least infringement
of your sacred privileges, careless of what widows or orphans
you dedicate to woe ? Will naught content you but that your
shadow must lie like a curse upon the land ? And do you think
in your pride that France, this Job among the nations, will
suffer it forever? ”
He paused as if for a reply. But none came. The Marquis
considered him, strangely silent, a half-smile of disdain at
the corner of his lips, an ominous hardness in his eyes.
Again Andre-Louis tugged at his friend's sleeve.
“ Philippe."
Philippe shook him off, and plunged on, fanatically.
" Do you see nothing of the gathering clouds that herald
the coming of the storm? You imagine perhaps that these
States General summoned by M. Necker, and promised for
next year, are to do nothing but devise fresh means of extortion
to liquidate the bankruptcy of the State ? You delude your-
selves, as you shall ﬁnd. The Third Estate, which you despise,
will prove itself the preponderating force, and it will ﬁnda way
to make an end of this canker of Privilege that is devouring the
vitals of this unfortunate country."
Monsieur le Marquis shifted in his chair, and spoke at last.
" You have, monsieur," said he, " a very dangerous gift of
eloquence. And it is of yourself rather than of your subject.


32 Scaramouche
For after all, what do you offer me P A réchauﬁé of the dishes
served to out-at-elbow enthusiasts in the provincial literary
chambers, compounded of the effusions of your Voltaires and
Jean-Jacques, and such dirty-ﬁngered scribblers. You have
not among all your philosophers one with the wit to understand
that we are an order consecrated by antiquity, that for our
rights and privileges we have behind us the authority of
centuries."
“ Humanity, monsieur," Philippe replied, “ is more ancient
than nobility. Human rights are contemporary with man.“
The Marquis laughed and shrugged.
“ That is the answer I might have expected. It has the
right note of cant that distinguishes the philosophers."
And then M. de Chabn'llanne spoke.
" You go a long way round," he criticised his cousin, on
a note of impatience.
“ But I am getting there,” he was answered. " I desired to
make quite certain ﬁrst.”
“ Faith, you should have no doubt by now.“
“ I have none.” The Marquis rose and turned again to
M. de Vilmorin, who had understood nothing of that brief
exchange. “ M. l'Abbé,” said he once more, “ you have a very
dangerous gift of eloquence. I can conceive of men being
swayed by it. Had you been born a gentleman, you would
not so easily have acquired these false views that you
express."
Monsieur de Vilmorin stared blankly, uncomprehending.
" Had I been born a gentleman, do you say? ” quoth he,
in a slow, bewildered voice. “ But I was born a gentleman.
My race is as old, my blood as good, as yours, monsieur."
From Monsieur le Marquis there was a slight play of eye-
brows, a vague, indulgent smile. His dark, liquid eyes looked
squarely into the face of M. de Vilmorin.
“ You have been deceived in that, I fear."
“ Deceived ? "
“ Your sentiments betray the indiscretion of which madame
your mother must have been guilty.”
The brutally affronting words were sped beyond recall,
and the lips that had uttered them, coldly, as if they had been
the merest commonplace, remained calm and faintly sneering.
A dead silence followed. André-Louis’s wits were numbed.
He stood aghast, all thought suspended in him, what time
M. de Vilmorin's eyes continued ﬁxed upon M. de La Tour
d'Azyr’s, as if searching there for a meaning that eluded him.
Quite suddenly he understood the vile affront. The blood


The Robe 33
leapt to his face, ﬁre blazed in his gentle eyes. A convulsive
quiver shook him. Then, with an inarticulate cry, he leaned
forward, and with his open hand struck M. 1e Marquis full and
hard upon his sneering face.
In a ﬂash M. de Chabrillanne was on his feet, between the
two men.
Too late Andre-Louis had seen the trap. La Tour d’Azyr’s
words were but as a move in a game of chess, calculated to
exasperate his opponent into some such counter-move as this
—a counter-move that left him entirely at the other’s mercy.
M. 1e Marquis looked on, very white save where M. de
Vilmorin’s ﬁnger-prints began slowly to colour his face: but he
said nothing more. Instead, it was M. de Chabrillanne who
now did the talking, taking up his preconcerted part in this
vile game.
“ You realise, monsieur, what you have done P ” said he,
coldly, to Philippe. “ And you realise, of course, what must
inevitably follow P "
Monsieur de Vilmorin had realised nothing. The poor
young man had acted upon impulse, upon the instinct of
decency and honour, never counting the consequences. But he
realised them now at the sinister invitation of M. de Chabrillanne,
and if he desired to avoid these consequences, it was out of
respect for his priestly vocation, which strictly forbade such
adjustments of disputes as M. de Chabrillanne was clearly
thrusting upon him.
He drew back. “ Let one affront wipe out the other,” said
he, in a dull voice. " The balance is still in M. le Marquis's
favour. Let that content him.”
"Impossible." The Chevalier’s lips came together tightly.
Thereafter he was suavity itself, but very ﬁrm. “A blow
has been struck, monsieur. I think I am correct in
saying that such a thing has never happened before to
Monsieur 1e Marquis in all his life. If you felt yourself
aﬂronted, you had but to ask the satisfaction due from one
gentleman to another. Your action would seem to conﬁrm
the assumption that you found so offensive. But it does not
on that account render you immune from the consequences. ”
It was, you see, M. de Chabrillanne's part to heap coals upon
tlhqis ﬁre, to make quite sure that their victim should not escape
t em.
“ I desire no immunity," ﬂashed back the young seminarist,
stung by this fresh goad. After all, he was nobly born, and the
traditions of his class were strong upon him—stronger far
than the seminarist schooling in humility. He owed it to
B


9‘
CHAPTER IV
THE HERITAGE
settled out of hand. In this he was at once objective
and subjective. A prey to emotions sadly at conﬂict
with his priestly vocation, he was above all in haste to
have done, so that he might resume a frame of mind more proper
to it. Also he feared himself a little; by which I mean that
his honour feared his nature. The circumstances of his educa-
tion, and the goal that for some years now he had kept in view,
had robbed him of much of that spirited brutality that is the
birthright of the male. He had grown timid and gentle as a
woman. Aware of it, he feared that once the heat of his passion
wei'e spent he might betray a dishonouring weakness in the
or eal.
Monsieur le Marquis, on his side, was no less eager for an
immediate settlement ; and since they had M. de Chabrillanne
to act for his cousin, and Andre-Louis to serve as witness for
M. de Vilmorin, there was nothing to delay them.
And so, within a few minutes, all arrangements were
concluded, and you behold that sinisterly-intentioned little
group of four assembled in the afternoon sunshine on the
bowling-green behind the inn. They were entirely private,
screened more or less from the windows of the house by a
ramage of trees which, if leaﬂess now, was at least dense
enough to provide an effective lattice.
There were no formalities over measurements of blades
or selection of ground. Monsieur le Marquis removed his
sword-belt and scabbard, but declined—not considering it
worth while for the sake of so negligible an opponent—to
divest himself either of his shoes or his coat. Tall, lithe, and
athletic, he stood to face the no less tall, but why delicate and
frail, M. de Vilmorin. The latter also disdained to make any
of the usual preparations. Since he recognised that it could
avail him nothing to strip, he came on guard fully dressed,
two hectic spots above the cheekbones burning on his other-
wise grey face.
M. de Chabrillanne, leaning upon a cane—for he had relin-
quished his sword to M. de Vilmorin—looked on with quiet
IT was M. de Vilmorin’s desire that the matter should be


36 Scaramouche
interest. Facing him on the other side of the combatants
stood Andre-Louis, the palest of the four, staring from fevered
eyes, twisting and untwisting clammy hands.
His every instinct was to ﬂing himself between the antag-
onists, to protest against and frustrate this meeting. That
sane impulse was curbed, however, by the consciousness of
its futility. To calm him, he clung to the conviction that the
issue could not really be very serious. If the obligations of
Philippe's honour compelled him to cross swords with the
man he had struck, M. de La Tour d’Azyr's birth compelled
him no less to do no serious hurt to the unfledged lad he had
so grievoust provoked. M. le Marquis, after all, was a man
of honour. He could intend no more than to administer a
lesson ; sharp, perhaps, but one by which his opponent
must live to proﬁt. Andre-Louis clung obstinately to this
for comfort.
Steel beat on steel, and the men engaged. The Marquis
presented to his opponent the narrow edge of his upright body,
his knees slightly ﬂexed and converted into living springs,
whilst M. de Vilmorin stood squarely, a full target, his knees
wooden. Honour and the spirit of fair play alike cried out
against such a match.
The encounter was very short, of course. In youth, Philippe
had received the tutoring in sword-play that was given to every
boy born into his station of life. And so he knew at least the
rudiments of what was now expected of him. But what could
rudiments avail him here P Three disengages completed the
exchanges, and then without any haste the Marquis slid his
right foot along the moist turf, his long graceful body extending
itself in a lunge that went under M. de Vilmorin’s clumsy guard,
and with the utmost deliberation he drove his blade through
the young man’s vitals.
Andre-Louis sprang forward just in time to catch his friend’s
body under the armpits as it sank. Then, his own legs
bending beneath the weight of it, he went down with his
burden until he was kneeling on the damp turf. Philippe’s
limp head lay against André-Louis’s left shoulder ; Philippe’s
relaxed arms trailed at his sides ; the blood welled and bubbled
from the ghastly wound to saturate the poor lad’s garments.
With white face and twitching lips, André~Louis looked up
at M. de La Tour d’Azyr, who stood surveying his work with
a countenance of grave but remorseless interest.
“ You have killed him 1 " cried Andre-Louis.
" Of course.”
The Marquis ran a lace handkerchief along his blade to


The Robe 37

wipe it. As he let the dainty fabric fall, he explained himself.
" He had, as I told him, a too dangerous gift of eloquence."
And he turned away, leaving completest understanding
with Andre-Louis. Still supporting the limp, draining body,
the young man called to him.
" Come back, you cowardly murderer, and make yourself
quite safe by killing me too.”
The Marquis half-turned his face, dark with anger. Then
M. de Chabrillanne set a restraining hand upon his arm.
Although a party throughout to the deed, the Chevalier was a
little appalled now that it was done. He had not the high
stomach of M. de La Tour d’Azyr, and he was a good deal
younger.
" Come away," he said. “ The lad is raving. They were
friends.” I
“ You heard what he said? " quoth the Marquis.
“ Nor can he, or you, or any man deny it,” ﬂung back
Andre-Louis. “ Yourself, monsieur, you made confession when
you gave me now the reason why you killed him. You did
it because you feared him.”
” If that were true—what then? ” asked the great gentle-
man.
“ Do you ask P Do you understand of life and humanity
nothing but how to wear a coat and dress your hair—oh, yes,
and to handle weapons against boys and priests P Have you
no mind to think, no soul into which you can turn its vision ?
Must you be told that it is a coward’s part to kill the thing he
fears, and doubly a coward's part to kill in this way? Had
you stabbed him in the back with a knife, you would have
shown the courage of your vileness. It would have been a
vileness undisguised. But you feared the consequences of
that, powerful as you are ; and so you shelter your cowardice
under the pretext of a duel."
The Marquis shook off his cousin’s hand, and took a step
forward, holding now his sword like a whip. But again the
Chevalier caught and held him.
“ No, no, Gervaisl Let be, in God’s name l ”
" Let him come, monsieur,” raved Andre-Louis, his voice

thick and concentrated. “ Let him complete his coward’s
work on me, and thus make himself safe from a coward’s
wa es.”
M. de Chabrillanne let his cousin go. He came, white to
the lips, his eyes glaring at the lad who so recklessly insulted him.
And then he checked. It may be that he remembered suddenly
the relationship in which this young man was popularly believed


38 Scaramouche
to stand to the Seigneur de Gavrillac, and the well-known
affection in which the Seigneur held him. And so he may
have realised that if he pushed this matter further, he
might ﬁnd himself upon the horns of a dilemma. He would
be confronted withthe alternatives of shedding more blood, and
so embroiling himself with the Lord of Gavrillac at a time when
that gentleman's friendship was of the ﬁrst importance to him,
or else of withdrawing with such hurt to his dignity as must
impair his authority in the countryside hereafter.
Be it so or otherwise, the fact remains that he stopped short;
then, with an incoherent ejaculation, between anger and con-
tempt, he tossed his arms, turned on his heel, and strode off
quickly with his cousin.
When the landlord and his people came, they found Andre-
Louis, his arms about the body of his dead friend, mur-
muring passionately into the deaf ear that rested almost
against his lips:
“ Philippe I Speak to me, Philippe I Philippe.
don't you hear me? Oh God of Heaven! Philippel ”
At a glance they saw that here neither priest nor doctor
could avail. The check that lay against André-Louis’s was
leaden-hued, the half-open eyes were glazed, and there was
a little froth of blood upon the vacuously parted lips.
Half-blinded by tears, Andre-Louis stumbled after them when
they bore the body into the inn. Upstairs in the little room
to which they conveyed it he knelt by the bed, and
holding the dead man’s hand in both his own, he swore to
him out of his impotent rage that M. de La Tour d’Azyr
should pay a bitter price for this.
" It was your eloquence he feared, Philippe,” he said.
" Then if I can get no justice for this deed, at least it shall be
fruitless to him. The thing he feared in you, he shall fear in
me. He feared that men might be swayed by your eloquence
to the undoing of such things as himself. Men shall be swayed
by it still. For your eloquence and your arguments shall be
my heritage from you. I will make them my own. It matters
nothing that I do not believe in your gospel of freedom. I
know it—every word of it ; that is all that matters to our purpose,
yours and mine. If all else fails, your thoughts shall ﬁnd
expression in my living tongue. Thus at least we shall have
frustrated his vile aim to still the voice he feared. It shall
proﬁt him nothing to have your blood upon his soul. That
voice in you would never half so relentlessly have hounded him
and his as it shall in me—if all else fails.”
It was an exulting thought. It calmed him; it soothed


The Robe 39
his grief, and he began very softly to pray. And then his
heart trembled as he considered that Philippe, a man of
peace, almost a priest, an apostle of Christianity, had gone to
his Maker with the sin of anger on his soul. It was horrible.
Yet God would see the righteousness of that anger. And in
no case—be man's interpretation of Divinity what it might
—could that one sin outweigh the loving good that Philippe
had ever practised, the noble purity of his great heart. God
after all, reﬂected Andre-Louis, was not a grand-seigneur.


CHAPTER V
THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC
the chateau, walking briskly, and heeding not at
all the curious eyes that followed him through the
village, and the whisperings that marked his passage
through the people, all agog by now with that day’s event
in which he had been an actor.
He was ushered by Bénoit, the elderly body-servant, rather
grandiloquently called the seneschal, into the ground-floor
room known traditionally as the library. It still contained
several shelves of neglected volumes, from which it derived its
title, but implements of the chase—fowling-pieces, powder-
horns, hunting-bags, sheath-knives—obtruded far more pro-
minently than those of study. The furniture was massive,
of oak richly carved, and belonging to another age. Great
massive oak beams crossed the rather lofty whitewashed
ceiling.
Here the squat Seigneur de Gavrillac was restlessly pacing
when Andre-Louis was introduced. He was already informed,
as he announced at once, of what had taken place at the Bréton
Arrné. M. de Chabrillanne had just left him, and he confessed
himself deeply grieved and deeply perplexed.
“ The pity of it I ” he said. “ The pity of it l " He bowed
his enormous head. “ So estimable a young man, and so
full of promise. Ah, this La Tour d’Azyr is a hard man, and
he feels very strongly in these matters. He may be right.
I don't know. I have never killed a man for holding different
views from mine. In fact, I have never killed a man at all.
It isn’t in my nature. I shouldn’t sleep of nights if I did.
But men are differently made.”
" The question, monsieur my godfather," said André“
Louis, “ is what is to be done P " He was quite calm and self-
possessed, but very white.
M. de Kercadiou stared at him blankly out of his pale eyes.
" Why, what the devil is there to do? From what I am
told, Vilmorin went so far as to strike M. le Marquis.”
FOR the second time that day Andre-Louis set out for


The Robe 41


“ Under the very grossest provocation.”
" Which he himself provoked by his revolutionary language.
The poor lad’s head was full of this encyclopmdist trash. It
comes of too much reading. I have never set much store by
books, André ; and I have never known anything but trouble
to come out of learning. It unsettles a man. It complicates
his views of life, destroys the simplicity which makes for
peace of mind and happiness. Let this miserable affair
be a warning to you, André. You are, yourself, too prone
to these new-fashioned speculations upon a different consti-
tution of the social order. You see what comes of it. A ﬁne,
estimable young man, the only prop of his widowed mother
too, forgets himself, his position, his duty to that mother—
everything ; and goes and gets himself killed like this. It is
infernally sad. On my soul it is sad.” He produced a hand-
kerchief and blew his nose with vehemence.
Andre-Louis felt a tightening of his heart, a lessening of the
hopes, never too sanguine, which he had founded upon his
godfather.
“ Your criticisms,” he said, “ are all for the conduct of the
dead, and none for that of the assassin. It does not seem
possible that you should be in sympathy with such a crime."
“ Crime ? " shrilled M. de Kercadiou. “ My God, boy, you
are speaking of M. de La Tour d’Azyr ! ”
" Iarn, and of theabominable murderhehas committed . .
“ Stop l ” M. de Kercadiou was very emphatic. “ I
cannot permit that you apply such terms to him. I cannot
permit it. M. le Marquis is my friend, and is likely very soon
to stand in a still closer relationship."
“ Notwithstanding this? ” asked Andre-Louis.
M. de Kercadiou was frankly impatient.
" Why, what has this to do with it? I may deplore it.
But I have no right to condemn it. It is a common way of
adjusting differences between gentlemen.”
“ You really believe that i”
“ What the devil do you imply, André? Should I say a
thing that I don’t believe? You begin to make me angry."
" ‘ Thou shalt not kill,’ is the King’s law as well as God s.”
" You are determined to quarrel with me, I think. It was
a duel. . . ."
Andre-Louis interrupted him. " It was no more a duel than
if it had been fought with pistols of which only M. le Marquis’s
was loaded. He invited Philippe to discuss the matter further,
with the deliberate intent of forcing a quarrel upon him and
killing him. Be patient with me, monsieur my godfather.


42 Scaramouche
[am not telling you of what I imagine, but what M. le Marquis
himself admitted to me."
Dominated a little by the young man’s earnestness, M. de
Kercadiou's pale eyes fell away. He turned with a shrug,
and sauntered over to the window.
“ It would need a court of honour to decide such an issue.
And we have no courts of honour,” he said.
" But we have courts of justice.”
With returning testiness the Seigneur swung round to face
him again. “ And what court of justice, do you think, would
listen to such a plea as you appear to have in mind? "
" There is the court of the King’s Lieutenant at Rennes."
" And do you think the King's Lieutenant would listen
to you ? "
“ Not to me, perhaps, :monsieur. But if you were to bring
the plaint . . . ” Q
“ I bring the plaint ? “ M. de Kercadiou’s pale eyes were
wide with the horror of the suggestion.
“ The thing happened here on your domain."
“ I bring a plaint against M. de La Tour d’Azyr? You
are out of your senses, I think. 0, you are mad; as mad as
that poor friend of yours who has come to this end through
meddling in what did not concern him. The language he
used here to M. le Marquis on the score of Mabey was of the
most offensive. Perhaps you didn’t know that. It does
not at all surprise me that the Marquis should have desired
satisfaction."
" I see," said Andre-Louis, on a note of hopelessness.
“ You see? What the devil do you see? "
" That I shall have to depend upon myself alone."
” And what the devil do you propose to do, if you please ? "
“ I shall go to Rennes, and lay the facts before the King's
Lieutenant."
“ He’ll be too busy to see you." And M. de Kercadiou’s
mind swung a triﬂe inconsequently, as weak minds will.
“ There is trouble enough in Rennes already on the score of
those crazy States General, with which the wonderful M.
Necker is to repair the ﬁnances of the kingdom. As if a
peddling Swiss bank-clerk, who is also a damned Protestant,
could succeed where such men as Calonne and Brienne have
failed."
“ Good afternoon, monsieur my godfather," said André-
Louis.
“ Where are you going ? " was the querulous demand.
" Home at present. To Rennes in the morning.”


The Robe 43
\
" Wait, boy, wait I “ The squat little man rolled forward,
affectionate concern on his great ugly face, and he set one of
his podgy hands on his godson’s shoulder. “ Now listen to me,
Andre,” he reasoned. “ This is sheer knight-errantry—moon-
shine, lunacy. You'll come to no good by it if you persist.
You’ve read Don Quixote, and what happened to him when he
went tilting against windmills. It’s what will happen to you,
neither more nor less. Leave things as they are, my boy.
I wouldn't have a mischief happen to you.”
Andre-Louis looked at him, smiling wanly.
“ I swore an oath to-day which it would damn my soul to
break."
“ You mean that you'll go in spite of anything that I may
say? " Impetuous as he was inconsequent, M. de Kercadiou
was bristling again. " Very well, then, go. . . Go to the devil!"
“ I will begin with the King’s Lieutenant.“
“ And if you get into the trouble you are seeking, don’t
come whimpering to me for assistance," the Seigneur stormed.
He was very angry now. " Since you choose to disobey me,
you can break your empty head against the windmill, and be
damned to you I "
Andre-Louis bowed with a touch of irony, and reached the
door.
“ If the windmill should prove too formidable," said he,
from the threshold, “ I may see what can be done with the
wind. Good-bye, monsieur my godfather."
He was gone, and M. de Kercadiou was alone, purple in
the face, puzzling out that last cryptic utterance, and not at
all happy in his mind, either on the score of his godson or of
M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He was disposed to be angry with them
both. He found these headstrong, wilful men who relentlessly
followed their own impulses very disturbing and irritating.
Himself, he loved his ease, and to be at peace with his neigh-
bours; and that seemed to him so obviously the supreme good
of life that he was disposed to brand them as fools whotroubled
to seek other things.


CHAPTER VI
THE WINDMILL
HERE was between Nantes and Rennes an estab-
lished service of three stage—coaches weekly in
each direction, which for a sum of twenty-four
livres—roughly, the equivalent of an English
guinea—would carry you the seventy and odd miles of the
journey in some fourteen hours. Once a week one of the
diligences going in each direction would swerve aside from the
highroad to call at Gavrillac, to bring and take letters, news-
papers, and sometimes passengers. It was usually by this
coach that André-Louis came and went when the occasion
offered. At present, however, he was too much in haste to
lose a day awaiting the passing of that diligence. So it was on
a horse hired from the Bréton Armé that he set out next morn-
ing ; and an hour's brisk ride under a grey wintry sky. by a
half-ruined road through ten miles of ﬂat, uninterestin
country, brought him to the City of Rennes. -
He rode across the main bridge over the Vilaine, and so
into the upper and principal part of that important city of
some thirty thousand souls, most of whom, he opined from the
seething, clamant crowds that everywhere blocked his way,
must on this day have taken to the streets. Clearly Philippe
had not overstated the excitement prevailing there.
He pushed on as best he could, and so came at last to the
Place Royale, where he found the crowd to be most dense.
From the plinth of the equestrian statue of Louis XV. a white-
faced young man was excitedly addressing the multitude.
His youth and dress proclaimed the student, and a group of
his fellows, acting as a guard of honour to him, kept the
immediate precincts of the statue.
Over the heads of the crowd André-Louis caught a few of
the phrases ﬂung forth by that eager voice.
“ It was the promise of the King. . . . It is the King's
authority they ﬂout . . . they arrogate to themselves the
whole sovereignty in Brittany. The King has dissolved them.
. . . These insolent nobles defying their sovereign and
the people. . . ."


The Robe 45
Had he not known already, from what Philippe had told
him, of the events which had brought the Third Estate to the
point of active revolt, those few phrases would fully have
informed him. This popular display of temper was most 0p-
portune to his need, he thought. And in the hope that it
might serve his turn by disposing to reasonableress the mind
of the King’s Lieutenant, he pushed on up the wide and well-
paved Rue Royale, where the concourse of people began to
diminish. He put up his hired horse at the Corne de Cerf.
and set out again, on foot, to the Palais de Justice.
There was a brawling mob by the framework of poles and
scaffoldings about the building Cathedral, upon which work had
been commenced a year ago. But he did not pause to ascer-
tain the particular cause of that gathering. He strode on,
and thus came presently to the handsome Italianate palace
that was one of the few public ediﬁces that had survived the
devastating ﬁre of sixty years ago.
He won through with difﬁculty to the great hall, known as
the Salle des Pas Perdus, where he was left to cool his heels
for a full half-hour after he had found an usher so condes-
cending as to inform the god who presided over that shrine
of Justice that a lawyer from Gavrillac humbly begged an
audience on an affair of gravity.
That the god condescended to see him at all was probably
due to the grave complexion of the hour. At long length
he was escorted up the broad stone staircase, and ushered
into a spacious meagrely-furnished anteroom, to make one of
a waiting crowd of clients, mostly men.
There he spent another half—hour, and employed the time
in considering exactly what he should say. This considera-
tion made him realise the weakness of the case he proposed to
set before a man whose views of law and morality were coloured
by his social rank.
At last, he was ushered through a narrow but very massive
and richly decorated door into a ﬁne, well-lighted room,
furnished with enough gilt and satin to have supplied the
boudoir of a lady of fashion. '
It was a trivial setting for a King’s Lieutenant, but about
the King's Lieutenant there was—at least to ordinary eyes-—
nothing trivial. At the far end of the chamber, to the right
of one of the tall windows that looked out over the inner
court, before a goat-legged writing-table with Watteau
panels, heavily encrusted with ormolu, sat that exalted being.
Above a scarlet coat with an order ﬂaming on its breast, and
a billow of lace in which diamonds sparkled like drops of water


46 Scaramouche
sprouted the massive powdered head of M. de Lesdiguieres.
It was thrown back to scowl upon this visitor with an expec-
tant arrogance that made Andre-Louis wonder almost was a
genuﬂexion awaited from him.
Perceiving a lean, lantern-jawed young man, with straight,
lank black hair, in a caped riding-coat of brown cloth, and
yellow buckskin breeches, his knee-boots splashed with mud,
the scowl upon that august visage deepened until it brought
together the thick black eyebrows above the great hooked nose.
“ You announce yourself as a lawyer of Gavrillac with an
important communication,” he growled. It was a peremptory
command to make this communication without wasting the
valuable time of the King’s Lieutenant, of whose immense
importance it conveyed something more than a hint. Monsieur
de Lesdiguieres accounted himself an imposing personality,
and he had every reason to do so, for in his time he had seen
many a poor devil scared out of all his senses by the thunder
of his voice.
He waited now to see the same thing happen to this youthful
lawyer from Gavrillac. But he waited in vain.
Andre-Louis found him ridiculous. He knew pretentious-
ness for the mask of worthlessness and weakness. And here
he beheld pretentiousness incarnate It was to be read in
that arrogant poise of the head, that scowling brow, the in-
ﬂexion of that reverberating voice. Even more difﬁcult than it
is for a man to be a hero to his valet—who has witnessed
the dispersal of the parts that make up the imposing whole—-
is it for a man to be a hero to the student of Man, who has
witnessed the same in a different sense.
Andre-Louis stood forward boldly—impudently, thought
M. de Lesdiguieres.
" You are His Majesty's Lieutenant here in Brittany," he
said—and it almost seemed to the august lord of life and death
that this fellow had the incredible effrontery to address him
as one man speaking to another. “ You are the dispenser of
the King’s high justice in this province.”
Surprise spread on that handsome, sallow face under the
heavily-powdered wig.
“ Is your business concerned with this infernal insubordina-
tion of the canaille ? " he asked.
“ It is not, monsieur.”
The black eyebrows rose. “ Then what the devil do you
mean by intruding upon me at a time when all my attention
isﬁabsing claimed by the obvious urgency of this disgraceful
a ‘ ? ’5


The ROM 47
" The aﬂair that brings me is no less disgraceful and no less
ur ent.“
' It will have to wait i ” thundered the great man in a
passion, and tossing back a cloud of lace from his hand, he
reached for the little silver bell upon his table.
“ A moment, monsieur l " André-Louis’s tone was peremp-
tory. M. de Lesdiguiéres checked in sheer amazement at its
impudence. “ I can state it very brieﬂy . . . "
“ Haven’t I said already . . . ”
“ And when you have heard it," Andre-Louis went on
relentlessly, interrupting the interruption, " you will agree with
me as to its character."
M. de Lesdiguieres considered him very sternly.
‘ What is your name? " he asked.
“ Andre-Louis Moreau."
“ Well, Andre-Louis Moreau, if you can state your plea
brieﬂy, I will hear you. But I warn you that I shall be very
angry if you fail to justify the impertinence of this insistence
at so inopportune a moment.”
“ You shall be the judge of that, monsieur,” said André-
Louis, and he proceeded at once to state his case, beginning
with the shooting of Mabey, and passing thence to the killing
of M. de Vilmorin. But he withheld until the end the name of
the great gentleman against whom he demanded justice,
persuaded that did he introduce it earlier he would not be
allowed to proceed.
He had a gift of oratory of whose full powers he was himself
hardly conscious yet, though destined very soon to become so.
He told his story well, without exaggeration, yet with a force
of simple appeal that was irresistible. Gradually the great
man’s face relaxed from its forbidding severity. Interest,
warming almost to sympathy, came to be reﬂected on it.
“ And who, sir, is the man you charge with this P ”
“ The Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr."
The effect of that formidable name was immediate. Dis-
mayed anger, and an arrogance more utter than before, took
the place of the sympathy he had been betrayed into display-
mg.
“ Who ? " he shouted, and without waiting for an answer.
“ Why, here’s impudence," he stormed on, “ to come before
me with such a charge against a gentleman of M. de La Tour
d’Azyr’s eminence! How dare you speak of him as a
coward. . ."
“ I speak of him as a murderer,” the young man corrected.
“And I demand justice against him."


48 Scaramouche

“ You demand it, do you P My God, what next P "
" That is for you to say, monsieur.”
It surprised the great gentleman into a more or less success-
ful effort at self-control.
“ Let me warn you," said he, acidly, “ that it is not wise
to make wild accusations against a nobleman. That, in
itself, is a punishable offence, as you may learn. Now listen
to me. In this matter of Mabey—assuming your statement
of it to be exact—the gamekeeper may have exceeded his duty ;
but by so little that it is hardly worth comment. Consider,
however, that in any case it is not a matter for the King’s
Lieutenant, or for any court but the seigneurial court of M.
de La Tour d’Azyr himself. It is before the magistrates of
his own appointing that such a matter must be laid, since it
is a matter strictly concerning his own seigneurial jurisdiction.
As a lawyer, you should not need to be told so much."
“ As a lawyer, I am prepared to argue the point. But as
a lawyer, I also realise that if that case were prosecuted, it
could only end in the unjust punishment of a wretched
gamekeeper, who did no more than carry out his orders, but
who none theless would now be made ascapegoat, if scapegoat
were necessary. I am not concerned to hang Benet 0n the
gallows earned by M. de La Tour d’Azyr."
M. de Lesdiguieres smote the table violently. " My God I "
he cried out, to add more quietly, on a note of menace, ” You
are singularly insolent, my man."
“ That is not my intention, sir, I assure you. I am a lawyer,
pleading a case—-the case of M. de Vilmorin. It is for his
assassination that I have come to beg the King’s justice.”
“ But you yourself have said that it was a duel l " cried the
Lieutenant, between anger and bewilderment.
“ I have said that it was made to appear a duel. There is
a distinction, as I shall show, if you will condescend to hear me
out.”
“ Take your own time, sirl " said the ironical M. de Les-
diguiéres, whose tenure of ofﬁce had never yet held anything
that remotely resembled this experience.
André-Louis took him literally. “ I thank you, sir," he
answered solemnly, and submitted his argument. “ It can
be shown that M. de Vilmorin never practised fencing in all
his life, and it is notorious that M. de La Tour d’Azyr is
an exceptional swordsman. Is it a duel, monsieur, where
one of the combatants alone is armed? For it amounts-to
that on a comparison of their measures of respective


The Robe 49
" There has scarcely been a duel fought on which the same
trumpery argument might not be advanced.”
“ But not always with equal justice. And in one case, at
least, it was advanced successfully.”
“ Successfully ? When was that ? ”
“ Ten years ago, in Dauphiny. I refer to the case of M.
de Gesvres, a gentleman of that province, who forced a duel upon
M. de la Roche Jeannine, and killed him. M. de Jeannine
was a member of a powerful family, which exerted itself to
obtain justice. It put forward just such arguments as now
obtain against M. de La Tour d’Azyr. As you will remember,
the judges held that the provocation had proceeded of intent
from M. de Gesvres; they found him guilty of premeditated
murder, and he was hanged."
M. de Lesdiguiéres exploded yet again. " Death of my
life i " he cried. “ Have you the effrontery to suggest that
M. de La Tour d’Azyr should be hanged ? Have you ? "
“ But why not, monsieur, if it is the law, and there is precedent
for it, as I have shown you, and if it can be established that
what I state is the truth—as established it can be without
difﬁculty P ”
“ Do you ask me, why not? Have you temerity to ask
me that P "
" I have, monsieur. Can you answer me ? If you cannot,
monsieur, I shall understand that whilst it is possible for a
powerful family like that of La Roche Jeannine to set the
law in motion, the law must remain inert for the obscure and
uninfluential, however brutally wronged by a great nobleman.”
Monsieur de Lesdiguiéres perceived that in argument he
would accomplish nothing against this irnpassive, resolute
young man. The menace of him grew more ﬁerce.
“ I should advise you to take yourself off at once, and to
be thankful for the opportunity to depart unscathed.”
“ I am, then, to understand, monsieur, that there will
be no inquiry into this case? That nothing that I can say
will move you ? "
“ You are to understand that if you are still there in two
minutes it will be very much the worse for you.” And
Monsieur de Lesdiguiéres tinkled the silver handbell upon his
table.
“ I have informed you, monsieur, that a duel—so-called—
has been fought, and a man killed. It seems that I must remind
you, the administrator of the King’s justice, that duels are
against the law, and that it is your duty to hold an inquiry.
I come as the legal representative of the bereaved mother of


5o Scaramouche
Monsieur de Vilmorin to demand of you the inquiry that is
due."
The door behind Andre-Louis opened softly. Monsieur
de Lesdiguiéres, pale with anger, contained himself with
difﬁculty.
“ You seek to compel us, do you, you impudent rascal? "
he growled. “ You think the King's justice is to be driven
headlong by the voice of any impudent roturier? I marvel
at my own patience with you. But I give you a last warning,
master lawyer ; keep a closer guard over that insolent tongue
of yours, or you will have cause very bitterly to regret its
glibness." Ho waved a jewelled, contemptuous hand, and
spoke to the usher standing behind André. " To the door I "
he said shortly.
Andre-Louis hesitated a second. Then with a shrug he
turned. This was the windmill indeed, and he a poor knight
of rueful countenance. To attack it at closer quarters would
mean being dashed to pieces. Yet on the threshold he turned
a am.
g" Monsieur de Lesdiguiéres," said he, “ may I recite to you
an interesting fact in natural history? The tiger is a great
lord in the jungle, and was for centuries the terror of lesser
beasts, including the wolf. The wolf, himself a hunter, wearied
of being hunted. He took to associating with other wolves,
and then the wolves, driven to form packs for self-protection,
discovered the power of the pack, and took to hunting the
tiger, with disastrous results to him. You should study
Buﬁon, Monsieur de Lesdiguiéres."
“ I have studied a buffoon this morning, I think," was the
punning sneer with which Monsieur de Lesdiguiéres replied.
But that he conceived himself witty, it is probable he would
not have condescended to reply at all. “ I don’t understand
you," he added.
“ But you will, Monsieur de Lesdiguiéres. You will,"
said Andre-Louis, and so departed.


CHAPTER VII
THE WIND
E had broken his futile lance with the windmill—
the image suggested by M. de Kercadiou persisted in
his mind——and it was, he perceived, by sheer good
fortune that he had escaped without hurt. There
remained the wind itself—the whirlwind. And the events
in Rennes, reﬂex of the graver events in Nantes, had set that
wind blowing in his favour.
He set out briskly to retrace his steps towards the Place
Royale, where thegathering of the populace was greatest, where,
as he judged, lay the heart and brain of this commotion that
was exciting the city.
But the commotion that he had left there was as nothing to
the commotion which he found on his return. Then there had
been a comparative hush to listen to the voice of a speaker who
denounced the First and Second Estates from the pedestal
of the statue of Louis XV. Now the air was vibrant with the
voice of the multitude itself, raised in anger. Here and there
men were ﬁghting with canes and ﬁsts ; everywhere a ﬁerce
excitement raged, and the gendarrnes sent thither by
the King’s Lieutenant to restore and maintain order were
so much helpless ﬂotsam in that tempestuous human ocean.
There were cries of “ To the Palais I To the Palais I
Down with the assassins! Down with the nobles! To the
Palais l ”
An artisan who stood shoulder to shoulder with him in
the press enlightened Andre-Louis on the score of the increased
excitement.
“ They've shot him dead. His body is lying there where
it fell at the foot of the statue. And there was another student
killed not an hour ago over there by the Cathedral works.
Pauli! If they can’t prevail in one way they’ll prevail in
another.” The man was ﬁercely emphatic. “ They’ll stop
at nothing. If they can’t overawe us, by God, they’ll assassi-
nate us! They are determined to conduct these States of
Brittany in their own way. No interests but their own shall
be considered."


52 Scaramouche
Andre-Louis left him still talking, and clove himself a way
through that human press.
At the statue’s base he came upon a little cluster of students
about the body of the murdered lad, all stricken with fear
and helplessness.
“ You here, Moreaul " said a voice.
He looked round to ﬁnd himself confronted by a slight,
swarthy man of little more than thirty, ﬁrm of mouth and
impertinent of nose, who considered him with disapproval.
It was Le Chapelier, a lawyer of Rennes, a prominent
member of the Literary Chamber of that city, a forceful
man, fertile in revolutionary ideas and of an exceptional
gift of eloquence.
“ Ah, it is you, Chapelier P Why don’t you speak to them P
Why don’t you tell them what to do P Up with you, man I ”
And he pointed to the plinth.
Le Chapelier’s dark, restless eyes searched the other's
impassive face for some trace of the irony he suspected. They
were as wide asunder as the poles, these two, in their politi-
cal views; and mistrusted as André~Louis was by all his
colleagues of the Literary Chamber of Rennes, he was by none
mistrusted so thoroughly as by this vigorous republican.
Indeed, had Le Chapelier been able to prevail against the
inﬂuence of the seminarist Vilmorin, Andre-Louis would long
since have found himself excluded from that assembly of
the intellectual youth of Rennes, which he exasperated by
his eternal mockery of their ideals.
So now Le Chapelier suspected mockery in that invitation,
suspected it even when he failed to ﬁnd traces of it on André-
Louis’s face, for he had learnt by experience that it was a
face not oftento be trusted for an indication of the real thoughts
that moved behind it.
" Your notions and mine on that score can hardly coincide,”
said he.
“ Can there be two opinions P " quoth Andre-Louis.
“ There are usually two opinions whenever you and I
are together, Moreau—more than ever now that you are the
appointed delegate of a nobleman. You see wha‘. your friends
have done. No doubt you approve their methods.“ He
was coldly hostile.
André-Louis looked at him without surprise. So invari-
ably opposed to each other in academic debates, how should
Le Chapelier suspect his present intentions P
“ If you won’t tell them what is to be done, I will,” said he.
“ Nom de Dieu! If you want to invite a bullet from the


The Robe 53


other side, I shall not hinder you. It may help to square
the account."
Scarcely were the words out than he repented them; for
as if in answer to that challenge Andre-Louis sprang up on to
the plinth. Alarmed now, for he could only suppose it to
be André-Louis’s intention to speak on behalf of Privilege,
of which he was a publicly appointed representative, Le
Ohapelier clutched him by the leg to pull him down
agam.
" Ah, that no! ” he was shouting. “ Come down, you fool!
Do you think we will let you ruin everything by your clowning?
Come down i ”
Andre-Louis, maintaining his position by clutching one of
the legs of the bronze horse, ﬂung his voice like a bugle-note
over the heads of that seething mob.
“ Citizens of Rennes, the motherland is in danger l ”
The effect was electrical. A stir ran, like a ripple over
water, across that froth of upturned human faces, and completest
silence followed. In that great silence they looked at this
slim young man, hatless, long wisps of his black hair ﬂuttering
in the breeze, his neck-cloth in disorder, his face white, his
eyes on ﬁre.
Andre-Louis felt a sudden surge of exultation as he
realised by instinct that at one grip he had seized that
crowd, and that he held it fast in the spell of his cry and his
audacity.
Even Le Chapelier, though still clinging to his ankle, had
ceased to tug. The reformer, though unshaken in his assump-
tion of André-Louis’s intentions, was for a moment bewild-
ered by the ﬁrst note of his appeal.
And then, slowly, impressively, in a voice that travelled
clear to the ends of the square, the young lawyer of Gavrillac
began to speak. /
“ Shuddering in horror of the vile deed here perpetrated,
my voice demands to be heard by you. You have seen murder
done under your eyes—the murder of one who nobly, without
any thought of self, gave voice to the wrongs by which we
are all oppressed. Fearing that voice, shunning the truth
as foul things shun the light, our oppressors sent their agents
to silence him in death.”
Le Chapelier released at last his hold of André-Louis's ankle,
staring up at him the while in sheer amazement. It seemed
that the fellow was in earnest ; serious for once; and for once
on the right side. What had come to him P
“ Of assassins what shall you look for but assassination?


54 Scaramouche
I have a tale to tell which will show that this is no new thing
that you have witnessed here to-day; it will reveal to
you the forces with which you have to deal.
Yesterday. . . "
There was an interruption. A voice in the crowd, some
twenty paces off, perhaps, was raised to shout:
“ Yet another of them! "
Immediately after the voice came a pistol-shot, and a
bullet ﬂattened itself against the bronze ﬁgure just behind
Andre-Louis.
Instantly there was turmoil in the crowd, most intense
about the spot whence the shot had been ﬁred. The assailant
was one of a considerable group of the opposition, a group
that found itself at once beset on every side, and hard put to
it to defend him.
From the foot of the plinth rang the voice of the students
making chorus to Le Chapelier, who was bidding André-
Louis to seek shelter.
" Come down ! Come down at once I They’ll murder you
as they murdered La Riviere.”
" Let them ! " He ﬂung wide his arms in agesture supremely
theatrical, and laughed. “ I stand here at their mercy.
Let them, if they will, add mine to the blood that will presently
rise up to choke them. Let them assassinate me. It is a
trade they understand. But until they do so, they shall not
prevent me from speaking to you, from telling you what is
to be looked for in them." And again he laughed, not merely
in exultation, as they supposed who watched him from below,
but also in amusement. And his amusement had two sources.
One was to discover how glibly he uttered the phrases proper
to whip up the emotions of a crowd; the other was in the
remembrance of how the crafty Cardinal de Retz, for the
purpose of inﬂaming popular sympathy on his behalf, had been
in the habit of hiring fellows to ﬁre upon his carriage. He was
in just such case as that arch-politician. True, he had not
hired the fellow to ﬁre that pistol-shot ; but he was none the
less obliged to him, and ready to derive the fullest advantage
from the act.
The group that sought to protect the assassin was battling
on, seeking to hew a way out of that angry, heaving press.
“ Let them go ! “ Andre-Louis called down. “ What
matters one murderer more or less ? Let them go, and listen
to me, my countrymen."
And presently, when some measure of order was restored, he
began his tale. In simple language now, yet with a vehemence


The rRobe 55
and directness that drove home every point, he tore their
hearts with the story of yesterday’s happenings at Gavrillac.
He drew tears from them with the pathos of his picture
of the bereaved widow Mabey and her three starving,
destitute children—" orphaned to avenge the death of a
pheasant "—-and the bereaved mother of that M. de Vilmorin,
a student of Rennes, known here to many of them, who had
met his death in a noble endeavour to champion the cause of
an esurient member of their afﬂicted order.
“ The Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr said of him that he had
too dangerous a gift of eloquence, and to silence his brave
voice he killed him. But he has failed of his object. For
I, poor Philippe de Vilmorin’s friend, have assumed the mantle
of his apostleship, and I speak to you with his voice
to-day.”
It was a statement that helped Le Chapelier at last to under-
stand, at least in part, this bewildering change in Andre-Louis,
which rendered him faithless to the side that employed him.
“ I am not here," continued Andre-Louis, " merely to
demand at your hands vengeance upon Philippe de Vilmorin’s
murderers. I am here to tell you the things he would to-day
have told y0u had he lived.“
So far at least he was frank. But he did not add that they
were things he did not himself believe, thingsthat he accounted
the cant by which an ambitious bourgeoisie—speaking through
the mouths of the lawyers, who were its articulate part——
sought to overthrow to its own advantage the present state
of things. He left his audience in the natural belief that the
views he expressed were the views he held.
And now in a terrible voice, with an eloquence that amazed
himself, he denounced the inertia of the royal justice where
the great are the offenders. It was with bitter sarcasm that
he spoke of their King’s Lieutenant, M. de Lesdiguiéres.
“ Do you wonder,” he asked them, “ that M. de Lesdiguiéres
should administer the law so that it shall ever be favourable
to our great nobles P Would it be just, would it be reasonable,
that he should otherwise administer it ? ”
He paused dramatically to let his sarcasm sink in. It had
the effect of reawakening Le Ohapelier‘s doubts, and checking
his dawning conviction in André-Louis’s sincerity. Whither
was he going now ?
He was not left long in doubt. Proceeding, Andre-Louis
spoke as he conceived that Philippe de Vilmorin would have
s ken. He had so often argued with him, so often attended
t2: discussions of the Literary Chamber, that he had all the


The Robe 57
and refresh his feet in their blood, he could still claim in his
suﬂicient defence that it was his absolute feudal right to do
so.
" Rough-shod, these million Privileged ride over the souls
and bodies of twenty-four million contemptible canaille existing
but for their own pleasure. Woe betide him who so much as
raises his voice in protest in the name of humanity against an
excess of these already excessive abuses. I have told you of
one remorselessly slain in cold blood for doing no more than
that. Your 0Wn eyes have witnessed the assassination of
another here upon this plinth, of yet another over there by the
Cathedral works, and the attempt upon my own life.
“ Between them and the justice due to them in such cases
stand these Lesdiguiercs, these King's Lieutenants : not
instruments of justice, but walls erected for the shelter of
Privilege and Abuse whenever it exceeds its grotesquely
excessive rights.
" Do you wonder that they will not yield an inch; that
they will resist the election of a Third Estate with the voting
power to sweep all these privileges away, to compel Privilege
to submit to a just equality in the eyes of the law with the
meanest of the canaille it tramples underfoot, to provide that
the moneys necessary to save this State from the bankruptcy
into which Privilege has all but plunged it shall be raised by
taxation to be borne by themselves in the same proportion
as by others?
“ Sooner than yield to so much they prefer to resist even the
royal command.”
A phrase occurred to him, used yesterday by Vilmorin,
a phrase to which he had refused to attach importance when
uttered then. He used it now. “ In doing this they are
striking at the very foundations of the throne. These fools
do not perceive that if that throne falls over, it is they who
stand nearest to it who will be crushed.”
A terriﬁc roar acclaimed that statement. Tense and quiver-
ing with the excitement that was ﬂowing throughhim, and from
him out into that great audience, he stood a moment smiling
ironically. Then he waved them into silence, and saw by
their ready obedience how completely he possessed them. For
in the voice with which he spoke each new recognised the voice
of himself, giving at last expression to the thoughts that for
months and years had been inarticulately stirring in each
simple mind.
Presently he resumed, speaking more quietly, that ironic
smile about the corner of his mouth growing more marked.


58 Scaramouche
“ In taking my leave of Monsieur de Lesdiguiéres I gave
him warning out of a page of natural history. I told him
that when the wolves, roaming singly through the jungle, were
weary of being hunted by the tiger, they banded themselves
into packs, and went a-hunting the tiger in their turn. Mon-
sieur de Lesdiguieres contemptuously answered that he did
not understand me. But your wits are better than his. You
understand me, I think? Don’t you P ”
Again a great roar, mingled now with some approving
laughter, was his answer. He had wrought them up to a pitch
of dangerous passion, and they were ripe for any violence to
which he urged them. If he had failed with the windmill, at
least he was now master of the wind.
“ To the Palaisl ” they shouted, waving their hands,
brandishing canes, and—here and there—even a sword. “ To
the Palaisl Down with Monsieur de Lesdiguiéresl Death
to the King’s Lieutenant l ”
He was master of the wind, indeed. His dangerous gift of
oratory—a gift nowhere more powerful than in France, since
nowhere else are men’s emotions so quick to respond to the
appeal of eloquence-had given him this mastery. At his
bidding now the gale would sweep away the windmill against
which he had ﬂung himself in vain. But that, as he straight-
forwardly revealed it, was no part of his intent.
“ Ah, wait I " he bade them. “ Is this miserable instrument
of a corrupt system worth the attention of your noble indigna-
tion ? ”
He hoped his words would be reported to M. de Lesdiguieres.
He thought it would be good for the soul of M. de Lesdiguiéres
to hear the undiluted truth about himself for once. “ It is
the system itself you must attack and overthrow ; not a mere
instrument—a miserable painted lath such as this. And
precipitancy will spoil everything. Above all, my children,
no violence I "
My childrenl Gould his godfather have heard him!
" You have seen often already the result of premature
violence elsewhere in Brittany, and you have heard of it else-
where in France. Violence on your part will call for violence
on theirs. They will welcome the chance to assert their mastery
by a ﬁrmer grip than heretofore. The military will be sent
for. You will be faced by the bayonets of mercenaries.
Do not provoke that, I implore you. Do not put it into
their power; do not afford them the pretext they would
welcome, to crush you down into the mud of your own
blood"


The Robe 59
_ r 7 ___.74 a »__;~1 Hui-F: --. .

Out of the silence into which they had fallen anew broke
now the cry of :
“ What else, then? What else? "
“ I will tell you," he answered them. “ The wealth and
strength of Brittany lies in Nantes—a bourgeois city, one of
the most prosperous in this realm, rendered so by the energy
of the bourgeoisie and the toil of the people. It was in Nantes
that this movement had its beginning, and as a result of it
the King issued his order dissolving the States as now consti-
tuted—an order which those who base their power on privilege
and abuse do not hesitate to thwart. Let Nantes be informed
of the precise situation, and let nothing be done here until
Nantes shall have given us the lead. She has the power—-
which we in Rennes have not—to make her will prevail, as we
have seen already. Let her exert that power once more, and
until she does so do you keep the peace in Rennes. Thus shall
you triumph. Thus shall the outrages that are being perpe-
trated under your eyes be fully and ﬁnally avenged.”
As abruptly as he had leapt upon the plinth did he now
leap down from it. He had ﬁnished. He had said all—
perhaps more than all—that could have been said by the dead
friend with whose voice he spoke. But it was not their will
that he should thus extinguish himself. The thunder of their
acclamations rose deafenineg upon the air. He had played
upon their emotions—each in turn—as a skilful harpist plays
upon the strings of his instrument. And they were vibrant
with the passions he had aroused and the high note of hope
on which he had brought his symphony to a close.
A dozen students caught him as he leapt down, and swung
him to their shoulders, where again he came within view of
all the acclairning crowd.
The delicate Ohapelier pressed alongside of him with ﬂushed
face and shining eyes.
" My lad,” he said to him, “ you have kindled a fire to-day
that will sweep the face of France in a blaze of liberty." And
then to the students he issued a sharp command. “To the
Literary Chamber—at once l we must concert measures
upon the instant, a delegate must be dispatched to Nantes
forthwith, to convey to our friends there the message of the
people of Rennes.”
The crowd fell back, opening a lane through which the
students bore the hero of the hour. Waving his hands to them,
he called upon them to disperse to their homes, and await
there in patience what must follow very soon.
“ You have endured for centuries with a fortitude that is


6o Searamouche
a pattern to the world," he ﬂattered them. “ Endure a little
longer yet. The end, my friends, is well in sight at last."
They carried him out of the square and up the Rue Royale
to an old house, one of the few old houses surviving in that
city that had risen from its ashes, where in an upper chamber
lighted by diamond-shaped panes of yellow glass the Literary
Chamber usually held its meetings. Thither in his wake the
members of that Chamber came hurrying, summoned by the
messages that Chapelier had issued during their progress.
Behind closed doors a ﬂushed and excited group of some
ﬁfty men, the majority of whom were young, ardent, and aﬁre
with the illusion of liberty, hailed Andre-Louis as the strayed
sheep who had returned to the fold, and smothered him in
congratulations and thanks.
Then they settled down to deliberate upon immediate
measures, whilst the doors below were kept by a guard of
honour that had improvised itself from the masses. And very
necessary was this. For no sooner had the Chamber assembled
than the house was assailed by the gendannerie of M. de
Lesdiguiéres, dispatched in haste to arrest the ﬁrebrand who
was inciting the people of Rennes to sedition. The force con-
sisted of ﬁfty men. Five hundred would have been too few.
The mob broke their carbines, broke some of their heads,
and would indeed have torn them into pieces had they not beaten
a timely and well-advised retreat before a form of horseplay
to which they were not at all accustomed.
And whilst this was taking place in the street below, in the
room above-stairs the eloquent Le Chapelier was addressing
his colleagues of the Literary Chamber. Here, with no
bullets to fear, and no one to report his words to the authorities,
Le Chapelier could permit his oratory a full, unintimidated
ﬂow. And that considerable oratory was as direct and brutal
as the man himself was delicate and elegant.
He praised the vigour and the greatness of the speech they
had heard from their colleague Moreau. Above all, he praised
its wisdom. Moreau’s words had come as a surprise to them.
Hitherto they had never known him as other than a bitter
critic of their projects of reform and regentration ; and quite
lately they had heard, not without misgivings, of his appointment
as delegate for a nobleman in the States of Brittany. But
they held the explanation of his conversion. The murder of
their dear colleague Vilmorin had produced this change.
In that brutal deed Moreau had beheld at last in true propor-
tions the workings of that evil spirit which they were vowed
to exercise from France. And to-day he had proven himself


The Robe 61
the stoutest apostle among them of the new faith. He had
pointed out to them the only sane and useful course. The
illustration he had borrowed from natural history was most apt.
Above all, let them pack like the wolves, and to ensure this
uniformity of action in the people of all Brittany, let a delegate
at once be sent to Nantes, which had already proved itself
the real seat of Brittany's power. It but remained to appoint
that delegate, and Le Chapelier invited them to do so.
Andre-Louis, on a bench near the window, a prey now to
some measure of reaction, listened in bewilderment to that
ﬂood of eloquence.
As the applause died down, he heard a voice exclaiming:
“ I propose to you that we appoint our leader here, Chapelier,
to be that delegate.”
Le Chapelier reared his elegantly-dressed head, which had
been bowed in thought, and it was seen that his countenance
was pale. Nervously he ﬁngered a gold spy-glass.
" My friends," he said slowly, “I am deeply sensible of
the honour that you do me. But in accepting it I should be
usurping an honour that rightly belongs elsewhere. Who could
represent us better, who more deserving to be our representa-
tive, to speak to our friends of Nantes with the voice of Rennes,
than the champion who once already to-day has so incom-
parany given utterance t0 the voice of this great city ? Confer
this honour of being your spokesman where it belongs—upon
Andre-Louis Moreau."
Rising in response to the storm of applause that greeted
the proposal, Andre-Louis bowed and forthwith yielded.
“ Be it so,” he said simply. “ It is perhaps ﬁtting that
I should carry out what I have begun, though 1, too, am of
the opinion that Le Chapelier would have been a worthier
representative. I will set out to-night.”
“ You will set out at once, my lad,” Le Chapelier informed
him, and now revealed what an uncharitable mind might
account the true source of his generosity. “ It is not safe
after what has happened for you to linger an hour in Rennes.
And you must go secretly. Let none of you allow it to be known
that he has gone. I would not have you come to harm over
this, Andre-Louis. But you must see the risks you run,
and if you are to be spared to help us in this work of salva-
tion of our afﬂicted motherland, you must use caution,
move secretly, veil your identity even. Or else Monsieur de
Lesdiguiéres will have you laid by the heels, and it will be
good-night for you."


CHAPTER VIIl
OMNES OMNIBUS
to a deeper adventure than he had dreamed of
when he left the sleepy village of Gavrillac.
Lying the night at a roadside inn, and setting out
again early in the morning, he reached Nantes soon after noon
of the following day.
Through that long and lonely ride through the dull plains of
Brittany, now at their dreariest in their winter garb, he had
ample leisure in which to review his actions and his position.
From one who had taken hitherto a purely academic and by no
means friendly interest in the new philosophies of social life,
exercising his wits upon these new ideas merely as a fencer
exercises his eye and wrist with the foils, without ever suﬁering
himself to be deluded into supposing the issue a real one, he
found himself suddenly converted into a revolutionary
ﬁrebrand, committed to revolutionary action of the most
desperate kind. The representative and delegate of a nobleman
in the States of Brittany, he found himself simultaneously
and incongruoust the representative and delegate of the whole
Third Estate of Rennes.
It is diﬁcult to determine to what extent, in the heat of
passion and swept along by the torrent of his own oratory,
he might yesterday have succeeded in deceiving himself.
But it is at least certain that, looking back in cold blood now,
he had no single delusion on the score of what he had
done. Oynically he had presented to his audience one side
only of the great question that he propounded.
But since the established order of things in France was such
as to make a rampart for M. de La Tour d’Azyr, affording him
completeimmunity for anycrimethat it pleasedhim to commit,
why then the established order must take the consequences
of its wrong-doing. Therein he perceived his clear justiﬁca-
tion. And so it was without misgivings that he came on
his errand of sedition into that beautiful city of Nantes,
rendered by its spacious streets and splendid port the rival
in prosperity of Bordeaux and Marseilles.
! NDRE-LOUIS rode forth from Rennes committed


The Robe 63
He found an inn on the Quai La Fosse, where he put up his
horse, and where he dined in the embrasure of a window that
looked out over the tree-bordered quay and the broad bosom
of the Loire, on which argosies of all nations rode at anchor.
The sun had again broken through the clouds, and shed its
pale wintry light over the yellow waters and the tall-masted
shipping.
Along the quays there was a stir of life as great as that to
be seen on the quays of Paris. Foreign sailors in outlandish
garments and of harsh-sounding, outlandish Speech, stalwart
ﬁshwives with baskets of herrings on their heads, voluminous
of petticoat above bare legs and bare feet, calling their wares
shrilly and almost inarticulately, watermen in woollen caps
and loose trousers rolled to the knees, peasants in goatskin
coats, their wooden shoes clattering on the round kidney-
stones, shipwrights and labourers from the dockyards, bellows-
menders, rat-catchers, water-carriers, ink-sellers, and other
itinerant pedlars. And, sprinkled through this proletariat
mass that came and went in constant movement, André-
Louis beheld tradesmen in sober garments, merchants in long
fur-lined coats; occasionally a merchant-prince rolling
along in his two-horse cabriolet to the whip-crackings and
shouts of “ Gare l ” from his coachman ; occasionally a dainty
lady carried past in her sedan-chair, with perhaps a mincing
abbé from the episcopal court tripping along in attendance ;
occasionally an officer in scarlet riding disdainfully ; and once
the great carriage of a nobleman, with escutcheoned panels
and a pair of white-stockinged, powdered footmen in gorgeous
liveries hanging on behind. And there were Canuchins in
brown and Benedictines in black, and secular priests in plenty
—-for God was well served in the sixteen parishes of Nantes—
and by way of contrast there were lean-jawed, out-at-elbow
adventurers, and gendarmes in blue coats and gaitered legs,
sauntering guardians of the peace.
Representatives of every class that went to make up the
seventy thousand inhabitants of that wealthy industrious
city were to be seen in the human stream that ebbed and ﬂowed
beneath the window from which Andre-Louis observed it.
Of the waiter who ministered to his humble wants with soup
and bouilli, and a measure of vin gris, Andre-Louis inquired
into the state of public feeling in the city. The waiter, a
staunch supporter of the privileged orders, admitted regret-
fully that an uneasiness prevailed. Much would depend upon
what happened at Rennes. If it was true that the King had
dissolved the States of Brittany, then all should be well


64 Scaramouche
and the malcontents would have no pretext for further dis-
turbances. There had been trouble and to spare in Nantes
already. They wanted no repetition of it. All manner of
rumours were abroad, and since early morning there had been
crowds besieging the portals of the Chamber of Commerce
for deﬁnite news. But deﬁnite news was yet to come. It
was not even known for a fact that his Majesty actually had
dissolved the States.
It was striking two, the busiest hem of the day upon the
Bourse, when Andre-Louis reached the Place du Commerce.
The square, dominated by the imposing classical building of
the Exchange, was socrowded that he was compelled almost to
ﬁght his way through to the steps of the magniﬁcent Ionic
porch. A word would have sufﬁced to have opened a way
for him at once. But guile moved him to keep silent. He
would come upon that waiting multitude as a thunder-clap,
precisely as yesterday he had come upon the mob at Rennes.
He desired to lose nothing of the surprise effect of his entrance.
The precincts of that House of Commerce were jealously
kept by a line of ushers armedwith staves, a guard as hurriedly
assembled by the merchants as it was evidently necessary.
One of these now effectively barred the young lawyer's passage
as he attempted to mount the steps.
Andre-Louis announced himself in a whisper.
The stave was instantly raised from the horizontal, and he
passed and went up the steps in the wake of the usher. At
the top, on the threshold of the chamber, he paused, and
stayed his guide.
“ I will wait here,” he announced. “ Bring the president to
me."
“ Your name, monsieur P ”
Almost had Andre-Louis answered him, when he remem-
bered Le Chapelier’s warning of the danger with which his
mission was fraught, and Le Ghapelier’s parting admonition
to conceal his identity.
“ My name is unknown to him ; it matters nothing. I am
the mouthpiece of a people, no more. Go.”
The usher went, and in the shadow of that lofty, pillared
portico Andre-Louis waited, his eyes strayingout ever and anon
to survey that spread of upturned faces immediately below
him.
Soon the president came, others following, crowding
out into the portico, jostling one another in their eagerness
to hear the news.
" You are a messenger from Rennes? "


The Robe 65
“ I am the delegate sent by the Literary Chamber of that
city to inform you here in Nantes of what is taking place.”
“ Your name 1’ ”
Andre-Louis paused. “ The less we mention names,
perhaps, the better."
The president’s eyes grew big with gravity. He was a
corpulent, ﬂorid man, purse-proud and self-suﬁicient.
He hesitated a moment. Then: “ Come into the Cham-
ber,” said he.
“ By your leave, monsieur, I will deliver my message from
here—from these steps."
“ From here ? ” The great merchant frowned.
“ My message is for the people of Nantes, and from here
I can speak at once to the greatest number of Nantais of all
ranks; and it is my desire—and the desire of those whom
I represent—that as great a number as possible should hear
my message at ﬁrst hand.”
“ Tell me, sir, is it true that the King has dissolved the
States P "
Andre-Louis looked at him. He Smiled apologetically,
and waved a hand towards the crowd, which by now was
straining for a glimpse of this slim young man who had
brought forth the president and more than half the members
of the Chamber, guessing already, with that curious instinct of
crowds, that he was the awaited bearer of tidings.
“ Summon the gentlemen of your Chamber, monsieur,"
said he, “ and you shall hear all."
“ So be it."
A word, and forth they came to crowd upon the steps, but
leaving clear the topmost step and a half-moon space in the
middle.
To the spot so indicated Andre-Louis now advanced very
deliberately. He took his stand there, dominating the entire
assembly. He removed his hat, and launched the opening
bombshell of that address which is historic, marking as it
does one of the great stages of France’s progress towards
revolution.
" People of this great city of Nantes, I have come to summon
you to arms I "
In the amazed and rather scared silence that followed he
surveyed them for a moment before resuming.
" I am a delegate of the people of Rennes, charged to
announce to you what is taking place, and to invite you in
this dreadful hour of our country’s peril to rise and march
to her defence."
C


66 Scaramouche
m

“ Name! Your name I ” a voice shouted, and instantly
the cry was taken up by others, until the multitude rang with
the question.
He could not answer that excited mob as he had answered
the president. It was necessary to compromise, and he did
so, happily. “ My name," said he, “ is Omnes Omnibus—
all for all. Let that sufﬁce you now. I am a herald, a mouth-
piece, a voice—no more. I come to announce to you that since
the privileged orders, assembled for the States of Brittany
in Rennes, resisted your will—our will—despite the King’s
plain hint to them, his Majesty has dissolved the States.”
There was a burst of delirious a plause. Men laughed and
shouted, and cries of ” Vive le Roi “ rolled forth like thunder.
Andre-Louis waited, and gradually the preternatural gravity
of his countenance came to be observed, and to beget the sus-
picion that there might be more to follow. Gradually silence
was restored, and at last Andre-Louis was able to proceed.
" You rejoice too soon. Unfortunately the nobles, in
their insolent arrogance, have elected to ignore the royal
dissolution, and in despite of it persist in sitting and in conduct-
ing matters as seems good to them.”
A silence of utter dismay greeted that disconcerting epilogue
to the announcement that had been so rapturously received.
Andre-Louis continued after a moment's pause:
“ So that these men who were already rebels against the
people, rebels against justice and equity, rebels against
humanity itself, are now also rebels against their King. Sooner
than yield an inch of the unconscionable privileges by which
too long already they have ﬂourished, to the misery of a whole
nation, they will make a mock of royal authority, hold up
the King himself to contempt. They are determined to prove
that there is no real sovereignty in France but the sovereignty
of their own parasitic fainéantise.”
There was a faint splutter of applause, but the majority
of the audience remained silent, waiting.
“ This is no new thing. Always has it been the same.
No minister in the last ten years, who, seeing the needs and
perils of the State, counselled the measures that we now
demand as the only means of arresting our motherland in its
ever-quickening progress to the abyss, but found himself
as a consequence cast out of ofﬁce by the inﬂuence which
Privilege brought to bear against him. Twice already has
Monsieur Necker been called to the ministry, to be twice
dismissed when his insistent counsels of reform threatened the
privileges of clergy and nobility. For the third time now has


The Robe 67
he been called to oﬂice, and at last it seems we are to have
States General in spite of Privilege. But what the privileged
orders can no longer prevent, they are determined to stultify.
Since it is now a settled thing that these States General are
to meet, at least the nobles and the clergy will see to it—unless
we take measures to prevent them—by packing the Third
Estate with their own creatures, and denying it all effective
representation, that they convert the States General into an
instrument of their own will for the perpetuation of the
abuses by which they live. To achieve this end they will
stop at nothing. They have ﬂouted the authority of the King,
and they are silencing by assassination those who raise their
voices to condemn them] Yesterday in Rennes two young
men who addressed the people as I am addressing you were
done to death in the streets by assassins at the instigation
of the nobility. Their blood cries out for vengeance."
Beginning in a sullen mutter, the indignation that moved
his hearers swelled up to express itself in a roar of anger.
“ Citizens of Nantes, the motherland is in peril. Let us
march to her defence. Let us proclaim it to the world that
we recognise that the measures to liberate the Third Estate from
the slavery in which for centuries it has groaned ﬁnd only
obstacles in those orders whose phrenetic egotism sees in the
tears and suffering of the unfortunate an odious tribute which
they would pass on to their generations still unborn. Realising
from the barbarity of the means employed by our enemies
to perpetuate our oppression that we have everything to fear
from the aristocracy they would set up as a constitutional
principle for the governing of France, let us declare ourselves
at once enfranchised from it.
“ The establishment of liberty and equality should be the
aim of every citizen member of the Third Estate : and to this
end we should stand indivisibly united,especially the young and
vigorous, especially those who have had the good fortune to
be born late enough to be able to gather for themselves the
precious fruits of the philosophy of this eighteenth century. "
Acclamations broke out unstintedly now. He had caught
them in the snare of his oratory. And he pressed his advan-
tage instantly.
“ Let us all swear,” he cried in a great voice, “ to raise up
in the name of humanity and of liberty a rampart against
our enemies, to oppose to their bloodthirsty covetousness the
calm perseverance of men whose cause is just. And let us
protest here and in advance against any tyrannical decrees
that should declare us seditious when we have none but pure


68 Scaramouche
and just intentions. Let us make oath upon the honour of
our motherland that should any of us be seized by an unjust
tribunal, intending against us one of those acts termed of
political expediency—which are, in effect, but acts of despotism
—let us swear, I say, to give a full expression to the strength
that is in us and do that in self-defence which nature, courage
and despair dictate to us.”
Loud and long rolled the applause that greeted his conclu-
sion, and he observed with satisfaction and even some inward
grim amusement that the wealthy merchants who had been
congregated upon the steps, and who now came crowding
about him to shake him by the hand and to acclaim him, were
not merely participants in, but the actualleaders of, this delirium
of enthusiasm.
It conﬁrmed him, had he needed conﬁrmation, in his
conviction that just as the philosophies upon which this new
movement was based had their source in thinkers extracted
from the bourgeoisie, so the need to adopt those philosophies
to the practical purposes of life was most acutely felt at present
by that same bourgeoisie which found itself debarred by
Privilege from the expansion its wealth permitted. If it
might be said of Andre-Louis that he had that day lighted the
torch of the Revolution in Nantes, it might with even greater
truth be said that the torch itself was supplied by the opulent
bourgeoisie.
I need not dwell at any length upon the sequel. It isa
matter of history how that oath which Omnes Omnibus
administered to the citizens of Nantes formed the backbone
of the formal protest which they drew up and signed in their
thousands. Nor were the results of that powerful protest—
which, after all, might already be said to harmonise with the
expressed will of the sovereign himself—long delayed. Who
shall say how far it may have strengthened the hand of Necker,
when on the 27th of that same month of Novemberhe compelled
the Council to adopt the most signiﬁcant and comprehensive
of all those measures to which clergy and nobility had refused
their consent P On that date was published the royal decree
ordaining that the deputies to be elected to the States General
should number at least one thousand, and that the deputies
of the Third Estate should be fully representative by number-
ing as many as the deputies of clergy and nobility together.


CHAPTER IX
THE AF TERMATH
USK of the following day was falling when the
homing Andre-Louis approached Gavrillac. Realis-
ing fully what a hue-and-cry there would presently
be for the apostle of revolution who had summoned
the people of Nantes to arms, he desired as far as possible to
conceal the fact that he had been in that maritime city.
Therefore he made a wide détour, crossing the river at Bruz,
and recrossing it a little above Chavagne, so as to approach
Gavrillac from the north and create the impression that he
was returning from Rennes, whither he was known to have
gone two days ago.
Within a mile or so of the village, he caught in the fading
light his ﬁrst glimpse of a ﬁgure on horseback pacing slowly
towards him. But it was not until they had come within
a few yards of each other, and he observed that this cloaked
ﬁgure was leaning forward to peer at him, that he took much
notice of it. And then he found himself challenged almost at
once by a woman’s voice.
“ It is you, Andre—at last ! "
He drew rein, mildly surprised, to be assailed by another
question, impatiently, anxiously asked.
" Where have you been P "
“ Where have I been, Cousin Aline P Oh . . . seeing
the world."
“ I have been patrolling this road since noon to-day, waiting
for you." She spoke breathlessly, in haste to explain. “A
troop of the maréchausséefrom Rennes descendedupon Gavrillac
this morning in quest of you. They turned the chateau and
the village inside out, and at last discovered that you were
due to return with a horse hired from the Bréton Anné. So
they have taken up their quarters at the inn to wait for you.
I have been here all the afternoon on the look-out, to warn
you against walking into that trap.“
" My dear Alinel That I should have been the cause of
so much concern and trouble l "
“ Never mind that. It is not important."
“ On the contrary; it is the most important part of what
you tell me. It is the rest that is unimportant.”


7o Scaramouche
“ Do you realise that they have come to arrest you? "
she asked him, with increasing impatience. “ You are wanted
for sedition, and upon a warrant from M. de Lesdiguiires."
“ Sedition? ” quoth he, and his thoughts ﬂew to that
business at Nantes. It was impossible they could'have had
news of it in Rennes and acted upon it in so short a time.
“ Yes, sedition. The sedition of that wicked speech of
yours at Rennes on Wednesday.”
" Oh, that l " said he. " Pooh l " His note of relief
might have told her, had she been more attentive, that he
had to fear the consequences of a greater wickedness committed
since. “ Why, that was nothing."
" Nothing ? ”
“ I almost suspect that the real intentions of these gentle-
men of the marechaussée have been misunderstood. Most
probably they have come to thank me on M. de Lesdiguieres’
behalf. I restrained the people when they would have burnt
the Palais and himself inside it.”
“ After you had ﬁrst incited them to do it. I suppose
you were afraid of your work. You drew back at the last
moment. But you said things of M. de Lesdiguiéres, if you
are correctly reported, which he will never forgive."
“ I see,” said Andre-Louis, and he fell into thought.
But Mademoiselle de Kercadiou had already done what
thinking was necessary, and her alert young mind had settled
all that was to be done.
“ You must not go into Gavrillac,” she told him, “ and you
must get down from your horse, and let me take it. I will
stable it at the chateau to-night. And some time to-morrow
afternoon, by when you should be well away, I will return
it to the Bréton Armé."
“ Oh, but that is impossible."
" Impossible ? Why P ”
“ For several reasons. One of them is that you haven’t
considered what will happen to you if you do such a thing.“
“ To me? Do you suppose I am afraid of that pack of
oafs sent by M. Lesdiguieres ? I have committed no sedition."
“ But it is almost as bad to give aid to one who is wanted
for the crime. That is the law."
“ What do I care for the law? Do you imagine that the
law will presume to touch me? "
“ Of course there is that. You are sheltered by one of
the abuses I complained of at Rennes. I was forgetting."
“ Complain of it as much as you please, but meanwhile
proﬁt by it. Come, André. do as I tell you. Get down from


The Robe 71'
your horse." And then, as he still hesitated, she stretched
out and caught him by the arm. Her voice was vibrant with
earnestness. “ André, you don’t realise how serious is your
position. If these people take you, it is almost certain that
you will be hanged. Don’t you realise it? You must not
go to Gavrillac. You must go away at once, and lie completely
lost for a time until this blows over. Indeed, until my uncle
can bring inﬂuence to bear to obtain your pardon, you must
keep in hiding."
“ That will be a long time, then,” said Andre-Louis. “ M.
de Kercadiou has never cultivated friends at Court.”
“ There is M. de La Tour d’Azyr,” she reminded him, to his
astonishment.
" That man ! " he cried, and then he laughed. “ But it was
chieﬂy against him that I aroused the resentment of the people
of Rennes. I should have known that all my speech was not
reported to you.”
“ It was, and that part of it among the rest.”
" Ah! And yet you are concerned to save me, the man
who seeks the life of your future husband at the hands either of
the law or of the people ? Or is it, perhaps, that since you have
seen his true nature revealed in the murder of poor Philippe,
you have changed your views on the subject of becoming
Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr? "
“ You often show yourself without any faculty of deductive
reasoning.“
“ Perhaps. But hardly to the extent of imagining that M.
de La Tour d'Azyr will ever lift a ﬁnger to do as you suggest."
“ In which, as usual, you are wrong. He will certainly do
so if I ask him.”
“ If you ask him ? ” Sheer horror rang in his voice.
" Why, yes. You see, I have not yet said that I will be
Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr. I am still considering. It is
a position that has its advantages. One of them is that it
ensures a suitor’s complete obedience.”
“ So, so. I see the crooked logic of your mind. You
might go so far as to say to him : ‘Refuse me this, and I shall
refuse to be your marquise.’ You would go so far as that P "
“ At need, I might.”
“ And do you not see the converse implication? Do you
not see that your hands would then be tied, that you would
be wanting in honour if afterwards you refused him P And
do you think that I would consent to anything that could
so tie your hands ? Do you think I want to see you damned,
Aline ?”


72 Scaramouche
Her hand fell away from his arm.
“ Oh, you are mad I” she exclaimed, quite out of patience.
“ Possibly. But I like my madness. There is a thrill
in it unknown to such sanity as yours. By your leave,
Aline, I think I will ride on to Gavrillac.”
“ André, you must not I It is death to you I " In her alarm
she backed her horse, and pulled it across the road to bar his
way.
It was almost completely night by now; but from behind
the wrack of clouds overhead a crescent moon sailed out to
alleviate the darkness.
“ Come, now,” she enjoined him. “ Be reasonable. Do
as I bid you. See, there is a carriage coming up behind you.
Do not let us be found here together thus."
He made u his mind quickly. He was not the man to be
actuated by also heroics about dying, and he had no fancy
whatever for the gallows of M. de Lesdiguiéres' providing.
The immediate task that he had set himself might be accom-
plished. He had made heard—and ringingly—the voice that
M. de La Tour d’Azyr imagined he had silenced. But he was
very far from having done with life.
“ Aline, on one condition only."
“ And that ? "
“ That you swear to me you will never seek the aid of M.
de La Tour d’Azyr on my behalf.”
" Since you insist, and as time presses, I consent. And
now ride on with me as far as the lane. There is that carriage
coming up."
The lane to which she referred was one that branched off
the road some three hundred yards nearer the village and
led straight up the hill to the chateau itself. In silence they
rode together towards it, and together they turned into that
thickly hedged and narrow bypath. At a depth of ﬁfty yards
she halted him.
“ Now 1 ” she bade him.
Obediently he swung down from his horse and surrendered
the reins to her.
“ Aline,“ he said, “ I haven’t words in which to thank you."
“ It isn’t necessary," said she.
“ But I shall hope to repay you some day."
“ Nor is that necessary. Could I do less than I am doing ?
I do not want to hear of you hanged, André, nor does my
uncle, though he is very angry with you.”
“ I suppose he is."
" And you can hardly be surprised. You were his delegate,


The Robe 73
his representative. He depended upon you, and you have
turned your coat. He is rightly indignant, calls you a traitor
and swears that he will never speak to you again. But he
doesn’t want you hanged, André."
" Then we are agreed on that at least ; for I don’t want it
myself."
“ I’ll make your peace with him. And now—good-bye,
André. Send me a word when you are safe."
She held out a hand that looked ghostly in the faint light.
He took it and bore it to his lips.
“ God bless you, Aline.”
She was gone, and he stood listening to the receding clopper-
clop of hooves until it grew faint in the distance. Then
slowly, with shoulders hunched and head sunk on his breast,
he retraced his steps to the main road, cogitating whither
he should go. Quite suddenly he checked, remembering
with dismay that he was almost entirely without money.
In Brittany itself he knew of no dependable hiding-place,
and as long as he was in Brittany his peril must remain
imminent. Yet to leave the province, and to leave it as
quickly as prudence dictated, horses would be necessary. And
how was he to procure horses, having no money beyond
a single leuis d’or and a few pieces of silver P
There was also the fact that he was very weary. He had
had little sleep since Tuesday night, and not very much then;
and much of the time had been spent in the saddle, a wearing
thing to one so little accustomed to long rides. Worn as he
was, it was unthinkable that he should go far to-night. He
might get as far as Chavagne, perhaps. But there he must
sup and sleep ; and what, then, of to-morrow P
Had he but thought of it before, perhaps Aline might have
been able to assist him with the loan of a few louis. His
ﬁrst impulse now was to follow her to the chateau. But pru-
dence dismissed the notion. Before he could reach her, he must
be seen by servants, and word of his presence would go forth.
There was no choice for him; he must tramp as far as
Chavagne, ﬁnd a bed there, and leave to-morrow until it
dawned. On the resolve he set his face in the direction whence
he had come. But again he paused. Chavagne lay on the
road to Rennes. To go that way was to plunge further into
danger. He would strike south again. At the foot of some
meadows on this side of the village there was a ferry that would
put him across the river. Thus he would avoid the village,
and by placing the river between himself and the immediate
danger, he would obtain an added sense of security.


74 Scaramouche
A lane, turning out of the high road, a quarter of a mile
this side of Gavrillac, led down to that ferry. By this lane
some twenty minutes later came Andre-Louis with dragging
feet. He avoided the little cottage of the ferryman, whose
window was alight, and in the dark crept down to the boat,
intending if possible to put himself across. He felt for the
chain by which the boat was moored, and ran his ﬁngers along
this to the point where it was fastened. Here to his dismay
he found a padlock.
He stood up in the gloom and laughed silently. Of course,
he might have known it. The ferry was the property of
M. de La Tour d’Azyr, and not likely to be left unfastened so
that poor devils might cheat him of seigneurial dues.
There being no possible alternative, he walked back
to the cottage and rapped on the door. When it opened
he stood well back, and aside, out of the shaft of light that
issued thence.
“ Ferryl " he rapped out, laconically.
The ferryman, a burly scoundrel well known to him,
turned aside to pick up a lantern, and came forth
as he was bidden. As he stepped from the little porch, he
raised the lantern so that the light fell on the face of this
traveller.
“ My Godl " he ejaculated.
“ You realise, I see, that I am pressed,” said Andre-Louis,
his eyes on the fellow’s startled countenance.
“ And well you may be with the gallows waiting for you at
Rennes,” growled the ferryman. " Since you’ve been so
foolish as to come back to Gavrillac, you had better go again
as quickly as you can. I will say nothing of having seen
ou.”
“ I thank you, Fresnel. Your advice accords with my
intention. That is why I need the boat."
“ Ah, that no,” said Fresnel, with determination. “ I’ll
hold my peace, but it’s as much as my skin is worth to help
ou."
y “ You need not have seen my face. Forget that you have
seen it."
"I’ll do that, monsieur. But that is all I will do. I
cannot put you across the river."
" Then give me the key of the boat, and I will put myself
across."
“ That is the same thing. I cannot. I'll hold my tongue,
but I will not—I dare not—help you."
Andre-Louis looked a moment into that sullen, resolute


The Robe 75
face, and understood. This man, living under the shadow
of La Tour d'Azyr, dared exercise no will that might be in
conﬂict with the will of his dread lord.
“ Fresnel,” he said quietly, “if, as you say, the gallows
claim me, the thing that has brought me to this extremity
arises out of the shooting of Mabey. Had not Mabey been
murdered there would have been no need for me to have
raised my voice as I have done. Mabey was your friend, I
think. Will you for his sake lend me the little help I need to
save my neck ? "
The man kept his glance averted, and the cloud of sullenness
deepened on his face.
“ I would if I dared, but I dare not." Then quite suddenly
he became angry. It was as if in anger he sought support.
“ Don't you understand that I dare not ? Would you have
a poor man risk his life for you ? What have you or yours
ever done for me that you should ask that? You do not
cross to-night in my ferry. Understand that, monsieur, and
go at once—g0 before I remember that it may be dangerous
even to have talked to you and not give information. Go! ”
He turned on his heel to re-enter his cottage, and a wave of
hopelessness swept over Andre-Louis.
But in a second it was gone. The man must be compelled,
and he had the means. He bethought him of a pistol pressed
upon him by Le Ghapelier at the moment of his leaving
Rennes, a gift which at the time he had almost disdained.
True, it was not loaded, and he had no ammunition. But
how was Fresnel to know that?
He acted quickly. As with his right hand he pulled it
from his pocket, with his left he caught the ferryman by the
shoulder, and swung him round.
“ What do you want now P " Fresnel demanded angrily.
" Haven’t I told you that I . . . "
He broke off short. The nozzle of the pistol was within
a foot of his eyes.
“ I want the key of the boat. That is all, Fresnel. And
you can either give it me at once, or I'll take it after
I have burnt your brains. I should regret to kill you, but
I shall not hesitate. It is your life against mine, Fresnel;
and you'll not ﬁnd it strange that if one of us must die I
prefer it shall be you."
Fresnel dipped a hand into his pocket and fetched thence
a key. He held it out to Andre-Louis in ﬁngers that shook—
more in anger than in fear.
3' I yield to violence," he said, showing his teeth like a


76 Searamouche
snarling dog. “ But don't imagine that it will greatly proﬁt you."
Andre-Louis took the key. His pistol remained levelled.
“ You threaten me, I think," he said. “ It is not diﬁcult
to read your threat. The moment I am gone, you will run
to inform against me. You will set the maréchaussée on my
heels to overtake me."
“ No, no i " cried the other. He perceived his peril.
He read his doom in the cold, sinister note on which André-
Louis addressed him, and grew afraid. “ I swear to you,
monsieur, that I have no such intention.”
" I think I had better make quite sure of you.”
“ Oh, my God I Have mercy, monsieurl " The knave
was in a palsy of terror. “ I mean you no harm—I swear to
Heaven I mean you no harm. I will not say a word. I
will not . . ."
“ I would rather depend upon your silence than your assur-
ances. Still, you shall have your chance. I am a fool,
perhaps, but I have a reluctance to shed blood. Go into the
house, Fresnel. Go, man. I follow you.”
In the shabby main room of that dwelling, Andre-Louis
halted him again. “ Get me a length of rope," he commanded
and was readily obeyed.
Five minutes later Fresnel was securely bound to a chair,
and effectively silenced by a very uncomfortable gag
improvised out of a block of wood and a muﬂier.
On the threshold the departing Andre-Louis turned.
“ Good-night, Fresnel," he said. Fierce eyes glared mute
hatred at him. “ It is unlikely that your ferry will be required
again to-night. But someone is sure to come to your relief
quite early in the morning. Until then bear your discomfort
with what fortitude you can, remembering that you have
brought it entirely upon yourself by your uncharitableness.
If you spend the night considering that, the lesson should
not be lost upon you. By morning you may even have
grown so charitable as not to know who it was that tied you
up. Good-night."
He stepped out and closed the door.
To unlock the ferry and pull himself across the swift-
running waters, on which the faint moonlight was making a
silver ripple, were matters that engaged not more than six
or seven minutes. He drove the nose of the boat through the
decaying sedges that fringed the southern bank of the stream,
sprang ashore, and made the little craft secure. Then,
missing the footpath in the dark, he struck out across a sodden
meadow in quest of the road.


BOOK II
THE BUSKIN


CHAPTER I
THE TRESPASSERS
OMING presently upon the Rédon road, André-
Louis, obeying instinct rather than reason, turned his
face to the south and plodded wearily and mechanic-
ally forward. He had no clear idea of whither he was
going or of whither he should go. All that imported at the
moment was to put as great a distance as possible between
Gavrillac and himself.
He had a vague, half-formed notion of returningto Nantes;
and there, by employing the newly-found weapon of his
oratory, excite the people into sheltering him as the ﬁrst victim
of the persecution he had foreseen, and against which he had
sworn them to take up arms. But the idea was one which
he entertained merely as an indeﬁnite possibility upon which
he felt no real impulse to act.
Meanwhile he chuckled at the thought of Fresnel as he had
last seen him, with his muﬂled face and glaring eyeballs.
“ For one who was anything but a man of action," he writes,
“ I felt that I had acquitted myself none so badly.” It is
a phrase that recurs at intervals in his sketchy Confessions.
Constantly is he reminding you that he is a man of mental and
not physical activities, and apologising when dire necessity
drives him into acts of violence. I suspect this insistence
upon his philosophic detachment—for which I confess he
had justiﬁcation enough—to betray his besetting vanity.
With increasing fatigue came depression and self-criticism.
He had stupidly overshot his mark in insultineg denouncing
M. de Lesdiguieres. “ It is much better,” he says somewhere.
" to be wicked than to be stupid. Most of this world’s
misery is the fruit, not as priests tell us, of wickedness, but of
stupidity.” And we know that of all stupidities he considered
anger the most deplorable. Yet he had permitted himself
to be angry with a creature like M. de Lesdiguieres—a lackey,
a fribble, a nothing, despite his potentialities for evil. He
could perfectlyhave discharged his self-imposed mission without
arousing the vindictive resentment of the King’s Lieutenant.
K


8o Scaramouche
He beheld himself vaguely launched upon life with the
riding-suit in which he stood, a single louis d’or and a few
pieces of silver for all capital, and a knowledge of law which
had been inadequate to preserve him from the consequences
of infringing it.
He had, in addition—but these things that were to be the
real salvation of him he did not reckon—his gift of laughter,
sadly repressed of late, and the philosophic outlook and
mercurial temperament which are the stock-in-trade of your
adventurer in all ages.
Meanwhile he tramped mechanically on through the night,
until he felt that he could tramp no more. He had skirted
the little township of Guichen, and now within a half-mile of
Guignen, and with Gavrillac a good seven miles behind him.
his legs refused to carry him any further.
He was midway across the vast common to the north of
Guignen when he came to a halt. He had left the road, and
taken heedlessly to the footpath that struck across the waste
of indifferent pasture interspersed with clumps of gorse. A
stone’s throw away on his right the common was bordered by
a thorn hedge. Beyond this loomed a tall building which he
knew to be an open barn, standing on the edge of a long
stretch of meadowland. That dark, silent shadow it may have
been that had brought him to a standstill, suggesting shelter
to his subconsciousness. A moment he hesitated; then he
struck across towards the spot where a gap in the hedge was
closed by a ﬁve-barred gate. He pushed the gate open,went
through the gap, and stood now before the barn. It was as
big as a house, yet consisted of no more than a roof carried
upon half a dozen tall brick pillars. But densely packed under
that roof was a great stack of hay that promised a warm
couch on so cold a night. Stout timbers had been built into
the brick pillars, with projecting ends to serve as ladders
by which the labourer might climb to pack or withdraw hay.
With what little strength remained him, Andre-Louis climbed by
one of these and landed safely at the top, where he was forced
to kneel for lack of room to stand upright. Arrived there,
he removed his coat and neckcloth, his sodden boots and
stockings. Next he cleared a trough for his body, and, lying
down in it, covered himself to the neck with the hay he had
removed. Within ﬁve minutes he was lost to all worldly
cares and soundly asleep.
When next he awakened, the sun was already high in the
heavens, from which he concluded that the morning was well
advanced: and this before he realised quite where he was or


The Buskin 81
how he came there. Then to his awakening senses came a
drone of voices close at hand, to which at ﬁrst he paid little
heed. He was deliciously refreshed, luxuriously drowsy and
luxuriously warm.
But as consciousness and memory grew more full, he raised
his head clear of the hay that he might free both ears to
listen, his pulses faintly quickened by the nascent fear that
those voices might bode him no good. Then he caught the
reassuring accents of a woman, musical and silvery, though
laden with alarm. *
“ Ah, mon Dieu, Léandre, let us separate at once. If it
should be my father . . . "
And upon this a man's voice broke in, calm and reassuring :
" No, no, Climene, you are mistaken. There is no one
coming. We are quite safe. Why do you start at shadows P "
“ Ah, Léandre, if he should ﬁnd us here together! I
tremble at the very thought."
More was not needed to reassure Andre-Louis. He had
overheard enough to know that this was but the case of a
pair of lovers who, with less to fear of life, were yet—after the
manner of their kind—more timid of heart than he. Curiosity
drew him from his warm trough to the edge of the hay. Lying
prone, he advanced his head and peered down.
In the space of cropped meadow between the barn and the
hedge stood a man and a woman, both young. The man was
a well—set-up, comely fellow, with a ﬁne head of chestnut hair
tied in a queue by a broad bow of black satin. He was dressed
with certain tawdry attempts at ostentatious embellishments,
which did not prepossess one at ﬁrst glance in his favour. His
coat of a fashionable cut was of faded plum-coloured velvet
edged with silver lace, whose glory had long since departed.
He affected rufﬂes, but for want of starch they hung like
weeping willows over hands that were ﬁne and delicate. His
breeches were of plain black cloth, and his black stockings
were of cotton—matters entirely out of harmony with his
magniﬁcent coat. His shoes, stout and serviceable, were
decked with buckles of cheap, lack-lustre paste. But for his
engaging and ingenuous countenance, André_Louis must have
set him down as a knight of that order which lives dishonestly
by its wits. As it was, he suspended judgment whilst pushing
investigation further by a study of the girl. At the outset, be it
confessed that it was a study that attracted him prodigiously.
And this notwithstanding the fact that, bookish and studious
as were his ways, and in despite of his years, it was far from his
habit to waste consideration on femininity.


82 Scaramouche
The child—she was no more than that, perhaps twenty
at the most—possessed in addition to the allurements of face
and shape that went very near perfection, a sparkling vivacity
and a grace of movement the like of which Andre-Louis did
not remember ever before to have beheld assembled in one
person. And her voice too—that musical, silvery voice that
had awakened him, possessed in its exquisite modulations an
allurement of its own that must have been irresistible, he
thought, in the ugliest of her sex. She wore a hooded mantle
of green cloth, and the hood being thrown back, her dainty
head was all revealed to him. There were glints of gold
struck by the morning sun from her light nut-brown hair that
hung in a cluster of curls about her oval face. Her complexion
was of a delicacy that he could compare only with a rose petal.
He could not at that distance discern the colour of her eyes,
but he guessed them blue, as he admired the sparkle of them
under the ﬁne, dark line of eyebrows.
He could not have told you why, but he was conscious that
it aggrieved him to ﬁnd her so intimate with this pretty young
fellow, who was partly clad, as it appeared, in the cast-oﬁs
of a nobleman. He could not guess her station, but the speech
that reached him was cultured in tone and word. He strained
to listen.
“ I shall know no peace, Léandre, until we are safely
wedded," she was saying. " Not until then shall Icount myself
beyond his reach. And yet if we marry without his consent,
we but make trouble for ourselves, and of gaining his consent
I almost despair."
Evidently, thought Andre-Louis, her father was a man of
sense, who saw through the shabby ﬁnery of Monsieur Léandre,
and was not to be dazzled by cheap paste buckles.
“ My dear Glimene," the young man was answering her,
standing squarely before her, and holding both her hands,
“ you are wrong to despond. If I do not reveal to you all the
stratagem that I have prepared to win the consent of your
unnatural parent, it is because I am loth to rob you of the
pleasure of the surprise that is in store. But place your faith
in me, and in that ingenious friend of whom I have spoken, and
who should be here at any moment."
The stilted assl Had he learnt that speech by heart in
advance or was he by nature a pedantic idiot who expressed
himself in this set and formal manner? How came so sweet
a blossom to waste her perfumes on such a prig? And what
a ridiculous name the creature owned!


:The Buakin 83
Thus Andre-Louis to himself from his observatory. Mean-
while, she was speaking.
" That is what my heart desires, Léandre, but I am beset
by fears lest your stratagem should be too late. Iam to
marry this horrible Marquis of Sbrufadelli this very day. He
arrives by noon. He comes to sign the contract—to make me
the Marchioness of Sbrufadelli. Oh I " It was a cry of pain
from that tender young heart. “ The very name burns my
lips. If it were mine I could never utter it—neverl The
man is so detestable. Save me, Léandre! Save me] You
are my only hope.”
Andre—Louis was conscious of a pang of disappointment.
She failed to soar to the heights he had expected of her. She
was evidently infected by the stilted manner of her ridiculous
lover. There was an atrocious lack of sincerity about her
words. They touched his mind, but left his heart unmoved.
Perhaps this was because of his antipathy to Monsieur Léandre
and to the issue involved.
So her father was marrying her to a marquis I That implied
birth on her side. And yet she was content to pair off with this
dull young adventurer in the tarnished lace I It was, he supposed,
the sort of thing to be expected of a sex that all philosophy had
taught him to regard as the maddest part of a mad species.
“ It shall never be I " Monsieur Léandre was storming
ionately. “ Never! I swear it I " He shook his puny
ﬁst at the blue vault of heaven—Ajax defying Jupiter. “ Ah,
but here comes our subtle friend . . . ” (Andre-Louis
did not catch the name, Monsieur Léandre having at that
moment turned to face the gap in the hedge). “ He will
bring us news, I know.“
Andre-Louis looked also in the direction of the gap. Through
it emerged a lean, slight man in a rusty cloak and a three-
cornered hat worn well down over his nose so as to shade his
face. And when presently he doffed this hat, and made a
sweeping bow to the young lovers, Andre-Louis confessed to
himself that had he been cursed with such a hang-dog coun-
tenance he would have worn his hat in precisely such a manner,
so as to conceal as much of it as possible. If Monsieur Léandre
appeared to be wearing, in part at least, the cast-offs of a noble-
man, the newcomer appeared to be wearing the cast-offs of
Monsieur Léandre. Yet despite his vile clothes and viler
face, with its three days’ growth of beard, the fellow carried
himself with a certain air ; he positively strutted as he
advanced, and he made a leg in a manner that was courtly
and practised.


84 ' Scaramouche
“ Monsieur,’ said he, with the air of a conspirator, “ the
tirtrlie for action has arrived, and so has the Marqius. That is
w y.ll
The young lovers sprang apart in consternation; Glimene
with clasped hands, parted lips and a bosom that raced distract-
ingly under its white ﬁchu-menteur ; Monsieur Léandre agape,
the very picture of foolishness and dismay.
Meanwhile the newcomer rattled on. “I was at the inn
an hour ago when he descended there, and I studied him
attentively whilst he was at breakfast. Having done so, not
a single doubt remains me of our success. As for what he looks
like, I could entertain you at length upon the fashion in which
Nature has designed his gross fatuity. But that is no matter.
We are concerned with what he is, with the wit of him. And I
tell you conﬁdently that I ﬁnd him so dull and stupid that you
may be sure he will tumble headlong into each and all of the
traps I have so cunningly prepared for him."
“ Tell me, tell me I Speak I " Olirnene implored him,
holding out her hands in a supplication no man of sensibility
could have resisted. And then on the instant she caught
her breath on a faint scream. " My father I " she exclaimed,
turning distractedly from one to the other of those two.
" He is comin I We are lost I "
“ You must ﬁy, Oliméne I " said Monsieur Léandre.
" Too late l " she sobbed. " Too late I He is here.“
" Oalm, mademoiselle, calm I " the subtle friend was
urging her. “ Keep calm and trust to me. I promise you
that all shall be well."
“ Oh I " cried Monsieur Léandre limply. “ Say what you
will, my friend, this is ruin—the end of all our hopes. Your
wits will never extricate us from this. Never I "
Through the gap strode now an enormous man with an
inﬂamed moon face and a great nose, decently dressed after
the fashion of a solid bourgeois. There was no mistaking his
anger, but the expression that it found was an amazement to
Andre-Louis.
“ Léandre, you’re an imbecile I Too much phlegm, too
much phlegm I Your words wouldn’t convince a ploughboy I
Have you considered what they mean at all? Thus," he
cried, and casting his round hat from him in a broad gesture, he
took his stand at Monsieur Léandre’s side, and repeated the
very words that Léandre had lately uttered, what time the
three observed him coolly and attentively.
" Oh, say what you will, my friend, this is ruin—the end of all
our hopes Your wits will never extricate usfrom this. Never! ’


The Buskln 85
A frenzy of despair vibrated in his accents. He swung
again to face Monsieur Léandre. “ Thus," he bade him
contemptuously. “ Let the passion of your hopelessness
express itself in your voice. Consider that you are not asking
Scaramouche here whether he has put a patch in your breeches.
You are a despairing lover expressing . . ."
He checked abruptly, startled. Andre-Louis, suddenly
realising what was afoot, and how duped he had been, had
loosed his laughter The sound of it pealing and booming
uncannin under the great roof that so immediately conﬁned
him was startling to those below.
The fat man was the ﬁrst to recover, and he announced it
after his own fashion in one of the ready sarcasms in which
he habitually dealt.
“ Hark l " he cried, “ the very gods laugh at you, Léandre."
Then he addressed the roof of the barn and its invisible
tenant. " Hi! You therel "
Andre-Louis revealed himself by a further protrusion of
his touzled head.
“ Good-morning,’ said he pleasantly. Rising now on his
knees, his horizon was suddenly extended to include the broad
common beyond the hedge. He beheld there an enormous
and very battered travelling chaise, a cart piled up with
timbers partly visible under the sheet of oiled canvas that
covered them, and a sort of house on wheels equipped with a tin
chimney from which the smoke was slowly curling. Three
heavy Flemish horses and a couple of donkeys—all of them
hobbled—werecontentedly cropping the grass in the neighbour—
hood of these vehicles. These, had he perceived them sooner,
must have given him the clue to the queer scene that had been
played under his eyes. Beyond the hedge, other ﬁgures were
moving. Three at that moment came crowding into the gap—
a saucy-faced girl with a tip-tilted nose, whom be supposed
to be Columbine, the soubrette; a lean, active youngster, who
must be the lackey Harlequin; and another rather loutish
youth who might be a zany or an apothecary.
All this he took in at a comprehensive glance that
consumed no more time than it had taken him to say good-
morning. To that good-morning Pantaloon replied in a
bellow :
" What the devil are you doing up there P "
“ Precisely the same thing that you are doing down there,”
was the answer. “ I am trespassing."
“ Eh I " said Pantaloon, and looked at his companions,
some of the assurance beaten out of his big red face. Although
)


86 Scaramouche
the thing was one that they did habitually, to hear it called
by its proper name was disconcerting.
" Whose land is this? " he asked. with diminishing assurance.
Andre-Louis answered whilst drawing on his stockings.
“(iibelieve it to be the property of the Marquis de La Tour
zyr.’
“ That’s a high-sounding name. Is the gentleman severe P "
“ The gentleman," said Andre-Louis, " is the devil; or
rather, I should prefer to say, upon reﬂection, that the devil
is a gentleman by comparison."
“ And yet," interposed the villainous-looking fellow who
played Scaramouche, " by your own confessing you don't
hesitate, yourself, to trespass upon his property.”
" Ah, but then, you see, I am a lawyer. And lawyers are
notoriously unable to observe the law, just as actors are notor-
iously unable to act. Moreover, sir, nature imposes her limits
upon us ; and nature conquers respect for law as she conquers
all else. Nature conquered me last night when I had got as
far as this. And so I slept here without regard for the very
high and puissant Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr. At the same
time, Monsieur Scaramouche, you’ll observe that I did
not ﬂaunt my trespass quite as openly as you and your
compamons. ”
Having donned his boots, Andre-Louis came nimny to
the ground in his shirt-sleeves, his riding-coat over his arm.
As he stood there to don it, the little cunning eyes of the
heavy father conned him in detail. Observing that his clothes,
if plain, were of a good fashion, that his shirt was of ﬁne
cambric, and that he expressed himself like a man of culture,
such as he claimed to be, Monsieur Pantaloon was disposed
to be civil.
“ I am very grateful to you for the warning, sir," he was
beginning.
“ Act upon it, my friend. The gardes champétres of
Monsieur d'Azyr have orders to ﬁre on trespassers. Imitate
me, and decamp."
They followed him upon the instant through that gap in
the hedge to the encampment on the common. There André-
Louis took his leave of them. But as he was turning away,
he perceived a young man of the company performing his
morning toilet at a bucket placed upon one of the wooden
steps at the tail of the house on wheels. A moment he hesitated,
then he turned frankly to Monsieur Pantaloon, who was still
at his elbow.
“ If it were not unconscionable to encroach so far upon your


The Buskin 87
hospitality, monsieur," said he, “'I would beg leave to imitate
that very excellent young gentleman before I leave you.”
“ But, my dear sir!" Good-nature oozed out of every
pore of the fat body of the master-player. “ It is nothing at
all. But, by all means. Rhodomont will provide what you
require. He is the dandy of the company in real life, though
a ﬁre—eater on the stage. Hi, Rhodomont l ”
The young ablutionist straightened his long body from the
right angle in which it had been bent over the bucket, and
looked out through a foam of soap-suds. Pantaloon issued an
order, and Rhodomont, who was indeed as gentle and amiable
off the stage as he was formidable and terrible upon it, made
the stranger free of the bucket in the friendliest manner.
80 Andre-Louis once more removed his neckcloth and
his coat, and rolled up the sleeves of his ﬁne shirt, whilst
Rhodomont procured him soap, a towel, and presentlyabroken
comb, and even a greasy hair-ribbon, in case the gentleman
should have lost his own. This last Andre-Louis declined, but
the comb he gratefully accepted, and having presently washed
himself clean, stood, with the towel ﬂung over hisleft shoulder,
restoring order to his dishevelled locks before a broken piece
of mirror afﬁxed to the door of the travelling house.
He was standing thus, what time the gentle Rhodomont
babbled aimlessly at his side, when his ears caught the sound
of hooves. He looked over his shoulder carelessly, and then
stood frozen, with uplifted comb and loosened mouth. Away
across the common, on the road that bordered it, he beheld
a party of seven horsemen in the blue coats with red facings of
the maréchaussée.
Not for a moment did he doubt what was the quarry of
this prowling gendarmcrie. It was as if the chill shadow of
the gallows had fallen suddenly upon him.
And then the troop halted, abreast with them, and the
sergeant leading it sent his bawling voice across the common.
“ Hi, there 1 Hi ! " His tone rang with menace.
Every member of the company—and there were some twelve
in all—stood at gaze. Pantaloon advanced a step or two,
stalking, his head thrown back, his manner that of a King's
Lieutenant.
" Now what the devil’s this? ” quoth he, but whether of
Fate or Heaven or the sergeant was not clear. Then, raising
his voice to shout, he asked again: “ What is it? ”
There was a brief colloquy among the horsemen, then they
came trotting across the common straight towards the players'
encampment.


88 Scaramouche
Andre-Louis still remained standing at the tail of the travel-
ling house. He was still passing the comb through his strag-
g‘ing hair, but mechanically and unconsciously. His mind was
all intent upon the advancing troop, his wits alert and gathered
together for a leap in whatever direction should be indicated.
Still in the distance, but evidently impatient, the sergeant
bawled a question.
" Who gave you leave to encamp here? "
It was a question that reassured Andre-Louis not at all.
He was not deceived by it into supposing, or even hoping, that
the business of these men was merely to round up vagrants
and trespassers. That was no part of their real duty ; it was
something done in passing—done, perhaps, in the hope of
levying a tax of their own. It was very long odds that they
were from Rennes, and that their real businesswas the hunting
down of a young lawyer charged with sedition. Meanwhile
Pantaloon was shouting back: _
“ Who gave us leave, do you say? What leave? This
is communal land, free to all."
The sergeant laughed unpleasantly, and came on, his troop
following.
“ There is," said a voice at Pantaloon's elbow, “ no such thing
as communal land in the proper sense in all Monsieur de La Tour
d’Azyr’s vast domain. This is a terre censive, and his bailiffs
collect his dues from all who send their beasts to graze here."
Pantaloon turned to behold at his side Andre-Louis in his
shirt-sleeves, and without a neckcloth, the towel still trailing
over his left shoulder, a comb in his hand, his hair half
dressed.
“ God of God I ” swore Pantaloon, “ but it is an ogre, this
Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr.”
“ I have told you already what I think of him," said André-
Louis. " As for these fellows, you had better let me deal with
them. I have experience of their kind." And without waiting
for Pantaloon’s consent, Andre-Louis stepped forward to meet
the advancing men of the maréchaussée. He had realised
that here boldness alone could save him.
When a moment later the sergeant pulled up his horse
alongside of this half~dressed young man, Andre-Louis combed
his hair what time he looked up with a half-smile, intended
to be ingenuous, friendly and disarming.
In spite of it the sergeant hailed him gruﬁy:
“ Are you the leader of this troupe of vagabonds? ”
“ Yes . . . that is to say, my father, there, is really the
reader." And he jerked a thumb in the direction of Monsieur


The Buskin 89


Pantaloon, who stood at gaze, out of earshot, in the background.
“ What is your pleasure, captain? ”
“ My pleasure is to tell you that you are very likely to be
gaoled for this, all the pack of you.” His voice was loud and
bullying. It carried across the common to the ears of every
member of the company, and brought them all to stricken
attention where they stood. The lot of strolling players was
hard. enough without the addition of gaolings.
" But how so, my captain? This is communal land—free
to all.”
“ It is nothing of the kind.“
" Where are the fences? ” quoth Andre-Louis, waving the
hand that held the comb, as if to indicate the openness of the
lace.
p “ Fencesl " snorted the sergeant. “ What have fences to
do with the matter? This is terre censive. There is no grazing
here save by payment of dues to the Marquis de La Tour
d'Azyr.”
" But we are not grazing,” quoth the innocent Andre-Louis.
“ To the devil with you, zany! You are not grazing!
But your beasts are grazing! “
" They eat so little,” Andre-Louis apologised, and again
essayed his ingratiating smile.
The sergeant grew more terrible than ever. “ That is not
the point. The point is that you are committing what amounts
to a theft, and there’s the gaol for thieves.”
“ Technically, I suppose you are right," sighed André-
Louis, and fell to combing his hair again, still looking up into
the sergeant’s face “ But we have sinned in ignorance. We
are grateful to you for the warning." He passed the comb into
his left hand, and with his right fumbled in his breeches'
pocket, whence there came a faint jingle of coins. “ We are
desolated to have brought you out of your way. Perhaps
for their trouble your men would honour us by stopping at the
next inn to drink the health of . . . of . . . this Monsieur
de La Tour d'Azyr, or any other health that they think proper.”
Some of the clouds lifted from the sergeant's brow. But
not yet all.
" Well, well," said he, gruﬁly. “ But you must decamp,
you understand." He leaned from the saddle to bring his
recipient hand to a convenient distance. Andre-Louis placed
in it a three-livre piece.
“ In half an hour,” said Andre-Louis.
" Why in half an hour? Why not at once? "
“ Oh, but time to break our fast.”


90 . Scaramouche
They looked at each other. The sergeant next considered
the broad piece of silver in his palm. Then at last his features
relaxed from their sternness.
“ After all," said he, “ it is none of our business to play the
tipstaves for Monsieur de La Tour d'Azyr. We are of the
maréchaussée from Rennes." André-Louis's eyelids played
him false by ﬂickering. “ But if you linger, look out for the
gardes champétres of the Marquis. You'll ﬁnd them not at
all accommodating. Well, well—a good appetite to you,
monsieur," said he in valediction.
“ A pleasant ride, my captain," answered Andre-Louis.
The sergeant wheeled his horse about, his troop wheeled
with him. They were starting off, when he reined up again.
“ You, monsieur! ” he called over his shoulder. In a
bound Andre-Louis was beside his stirrup. “ We are in quest
of a scoundrel named Andre-Louis Moreau, from Gavrillac,
a fugitive from justice wanted for the gallows on a matter of
sedition. You’ve seen nothing, I suppose, of a man whose
movements seemed to you suspicious? "
“ Indeed we have," said Andre-Louis, very boldly, his
face eager with consciousness of the ability to oblige.
“ You have? " cried the sergeant, in a ringing voice.
“ Where P When P “
“ Yesterday evening in the neighbourhood of Guignen . . .
“ Yes, yes! ” the sergeant felt himself hot upon the trail.
“ There was a fellow who seemed very fearful of being
recognised . . . a man of ﬁfty or thereabouts . . . ”
“ Fifty l " cried the sergeant, and his face fell. “ Bahl
This man of ours is no older than yourself, a thin wisp of a
fellow of about your own height and of black hair, just like
your own, by the description. Keep a look-out on your
travels, master player. The King’s Lieutenant in Rennes
has sent us word this morning that he will pay ten louis to
anyone giving information that will lead to this scoundrel's
arrest. So there’s ten louis to be earned by keeping your eye
open and sending word to the nearest justices. It would
be a ﬁne windfall for you, that.”
“ A ﬁne windfall indeed, captain,” answered Andre-Louis,
laughing. But the sergeant had touched his horse with the
spur, and was already trotting off in the wake of his men.
Andre-Louis continued to laugh, quite silently, as he sometimes
did when the humour of a jest was peculiarly keen.
Then he turned slowly about, and came back towards
Pantaloon and the rest of the company, who were now all
grouped together, at gaze.


The Buekin 91
——_;=--‘:Jhwﬁrmr u .i-q. .1

Pantaloon advanced to meet him with both hands outheld.
For a moment Andre-Louis thought he was about to be
embraced.
“ We hail you our saviour! “ the big man declaimed.
“ Already the shadow of the gaol was creeping over us,
chilling us to the very marrow. For though we be poor, yet
are we all honest folk and not one of us has ever suffered the
indignity of prison. Nor is there one of us would survive it.
But for you, my friend, it might have happened. What
magic did you work? ”
“ The magic that is to be worked in France with a King’s
portrait. The French are a very loyal nation, as you will have
observed. They love their King—and his portrait even better
than himself, especially when it is wrought in gold. But even
in silver it is respected. The sergeant was so overcome by the
sight of that noble visage—on a three-livre piece—that his
anger vanished, and he has gone his ways leaving us to depart
in peace.”
“ Ah, true ! He said we must decamp. About it, my
lads! Come, come . . . "
“ But not until after breakfast,” said Andre-Louis. “ A
half-hour for breakfast was conceded us by that loyal fellow,
so deeply was he touched. True, he spoke of possible gardes
champétres. But he knows as well as I do that they are not
seriously to be feared, and that if they came, again the King’s
portrait—wrought in copper this time—would produce the
same melting effect upon them. So, my dear Monsieur
Pantaloon, break your fast at your ease. I can smell your
cooking from here, and from the smell I argue that there is
no need to wish you a good appetite."
" My friend, my saviour!" Pantaloon ﬂung a great arm
about the young man’s shoulders. “ You shall stay to
breakfast with us.“
3%“ I confess to a hope that you would ask me,” said André-
Louis.


CHAPTER II
THE SERVICE OF THESPIS
HEY were, thought Andre-Louis, as he sat down to
breakfast with them behind the itinerant house,
in the bright sunshine that tempered the cold
breath of that November morning, an odd and yet
an attractive crew. An air of gaiety pervaded them. They
affected to have no cares, and made merry over the trials and
tribulations of their nomadic life. They were curiously,
yet amiably, artiﬁcial ; histrionic in their manner of discharging
the most commonplace of functions; exaggerated in their
gestures; stilted and affected in their speech. They seemed
indeed to belong to a world apart, a world of unreality which
became real only on the planks of their stage, in the glare of
their footlights. Good-fellowship bound them one to another ;
and Andre-Louis reﬂected cynically that this harmony amongst
them might be the cause of their apparent unreality. In
the real world, greedy striving and the emulation of acquisitive-
ness preclude such amity as was present here.
They numbered exactly eleven, three women and eight
men; and they addressed each other by their stage names :
names which denoted their several types, and never—or
only very slightly—varied, no matter what might be the play
that they performed.
“ We are,“ Pantaloon informed him, " one of those few
remaining staunch bands of real players, who uphold the
traditions of the old Italian Commedia dell’Arte. Not for
us to vex our memories and stultify our wit with the stilted
phrases that are the fruit of a wretched author’s lucubrations.
Each of us is in detail his own author in a measure as he
develops the part assigned to him. We are improvisers—
improvisers of the old and noble Italian schoo ."
“ I had guessed as much,” said Andre-Louis, “ when I
discovered you rehearsing your improvisations."
Pantaloon frowned.
“ I have observed, young sir, that your humour inclines
to the pungent, not to say the acrid. It is very well. It
is, I suppose, the humour that should go with such a counten-
ance. But it may lead you astray, as in this instance. That


The Buskin 93
rehearsal—a most unusual thing with us—was necessitated
by the histrionic rawness of our Léandre. We are seeking to
inculcate into him by training an art with which Nature
neglected to endow him against his present needs. Should
he continue to fail in doing justice to our schooling . . . .
But we will not disturb our present harmony with the unpleasant
anticipation of misfortunes which we still hope to avert. We
love our Léandre, for all his faults. Let me make you acquainted
with our company.”
And he proceeded to introduction in detail. He pointed
out the long and amiable Rhodomont, whom Andre-Louis
already knew.
“ His length of limb and hooked nose were his superﬁcial
qualiﬁcations to play roaring captains,” Pantaloon explained.
“ His lungs have justiﬁed our choice. You should hear him
roar. At ﬁrst we called him Spavento or Epouvante. But
that was unworthy of so great an artist. Not since the superb
Mondor amazed the world has so thrasonical a bully been seen
upon the stage. So we conferred upon him the name of
Rhodomont that Mondor made famous ; and I give you my
word, as an actor and a gentleman—for I am a gentleman,
monsieur, or was—that he has justiﬁed us."
His little eyes beamed in his great swollen face as he turned
their gaze upon the object of his encomium. The terrible
Rhodomont, confused by so much praise, blushed like a school-
girl as he met the solemn scrutiny of Andre-Louis.
" Then here we have Scaramouche, whom also you already
know. Sometimes he is Scapin and sometimes Coviello,
but in the main Scaramouche, to which, let me tell you, he is
best suited—sometimes too well suited, I think. For he is
Scaramouche not only on the stage, but also in the world.
He has a gift of sly intrigue, an art of setting folk by the ears,
combined with an impudent aggressiveness upon occasion when
he considers himself safe from reprisals. He is Scaramouche,
the little skirmisher, to the very life. I could say more. But
I am by disposition charitable, and loving to all mankind."
“ As the priest said when he kissed the serving-wench,"
snarled Scaramouche, and went on eating.
“ His humour, like your own, you will observe is acrid,”
said Pantaloon. He passed on. " Then that rascal with the
lumpy nose and the grinning bucolic countenance is, of course.
Pierrot. Could he be aught else P "
“ I could play lovers a deal better," said the rustic cherub.
“ That is the delusion proper to Pierrot,” said Pantaloon
contemptuously. ‘3 This heavy, beetle-browed ruﬁian, who


94 Scaramouche

has grown old in sin, and whose appetite increases with hrs
years, is Polichinelle. Each one, as you perceive, is designed by
Nature for the part he plays. This nimble, freckled jackanapes
is Harlequin ; not your spangled Harlequin into which modern
degeneracy has debased that ﬁrst-born of Momus, but the
genuine original zany of the Oommedia, ragged and patched,
an impudent, cowardly, blackguardly clown."
“ Each one of us, as you perceive," said Harlequin, mimicking
the leader of the troupe, " is designed by Nature for the part
he plays.”
“ Physically, my friend—physically only, else we should
not have so much trouble in teaching this beautiful Léandre
to become a lover. Then we have Pasquariel here, who is
sometimes an apothecary, sometimes a notary, sometimes
a lackey—an amiable, accommodating fellow. He is also an
excellent cook, being a child of Italy, that land of gluttons.
And, ﬁnally, you have myself, who as the father of the company
very properly play, as Pantaloon, the reles of father. Some-
times, it is true, I am a deluded husband, and sometimes an
ignorant, self-sufficient doctor. But it is rarely that I ﬁnd
it necessary to call myself other than Pantaloon. For the
rest, I am the only one who has a name—~a real name. It is
Binet, monsieur.
“ And now for the ladies. First in order of seniority we
have Madame there." He waved one of his great hands
towards a buxom, smiling blonde of ﬁve-and-forty, who was
seated on the lowest step of the travelling house. “ She
is our Duegne, or Mother, or Nurse, as the case requires.
She is known quite simply and royally as Madame. If she
ever had a name in the world, she has long since forgotten it,
which is perhaps as well. Then we have this pert jade with
the tip-tilted nose and the wide mouth, who is of course our
soubrette Columbine, and lastly, my daughter Climene, an
amoureuse of talents not to be matched outside of the Comédie
Francaise, of which she has the bad taste to aspire to become
a member."
The lovely Glimene—and lovely indeed she was—tossed her
nut-brown curls and laughed as she looked across at André-
Louis. Her eyes, he had perceived by now, were not blue,
but hazel.
“ Do not believe him, monsieur. Here I am queen, and I
prefer to be queen here rather than a slave in Paris."
“ Mademoiselle," said Andre-Louis, quite solemnly, “ will
be queen wherever she condescends to reign."
Her only answer was a timid—timid and yet alluring—


The Buskin 95
glance from under ﬂuttering lids. Meanwhile her father was
bawling at the comely young man who played lovers:
" You hear, Léandre ! That is the sort of speech you should
practise.“
Léandre raised languid eyebrows. " That 2’ " quoth he,
and shrugged. “ The merest commonplace.”
Andre-Louis laughed approval “ Monsieur Léandre is
of a readier wit than you concede. There is subtlety in
pronouncing it a commonplace to call Mademoiselle Climene
a queen."
Some laughed, Monsieur Binet amongst them, with good-
humoured mockery.
“ You think he has the wit to mean it thus? Bah ! His
subtleties are all unconscious."
The conversation becoming general, Andre-Louis soon learnt
what yet there was to learn of this strolling band. They
were on their way to Guichen, where they hoped to prosper
at the fair that was to open on Monday next. They would make
their triumphal entry into the town at noon, and setting up
their stage in the old market, they would give their ﬁrst
performance that same Saturday night, in a new canevas—or
scenario—of Monsieur Binet’s own, which should set the
rustics gaping. And then Monsieur Binet fetched a sigh, and
addressed himself to the elderly, swarthy, beetle-browed
Polichinelle, who sat on his left.
" But we shall miss Félicien,“ said he. “ Indeed, I do not
know what we shall do without him.”
“ Oh, we shall contrive," said Polichinelle, with his mouth
full.
“ So you always say, whatever happens, knowing that in
any case the contriving will not fall upon yourself.’
“ He would not be diﬂicult to replace," said Harlequin.
“ True, if we were in a civilised land. But where among the
rustics of Brittany are we to ﬁnd afellow of even his poor parts?
Monsieur Binet turned to Andre-Louis. “ He was our property-
man, our machinist, our stage-carpenter, our man of affairs,
and occasionally he acted."
“ The part of Figaro, I presume," said Andre-Louis, which
elicited a laugh.
" So you are acquainted with Beaumarchais ! " Binet
eyed the young man with fresh interest.
" He is tolerably well known, I think."
“ In Paris, to be sure. But I had not dreamt his fame had
reached the wilds of Brittany."
" But then I was some years in Paris—at the Lycée of Louis


96 Scaramouche
le Grand. It was there I made acquaintance with his work.”
" A dangerous man," said Polichinelle sententiously.
" Indeed, and you are right," Pantaloon agreed. “ Clever
—I do not deny him that, although myself I ﬁnd little use
for authors. But of a sinister cleverness responsible for the
dissemination of many of these subversive new ideas. I
think such writers should be suppressed.”
“ Monsieur de La Tour d’Azyr would probably agree with
you—the gentleman who by the simple exertion of his will
turns this communal land into his own property." And
Andre-Louis drained his cup, which had been ﬁlled with the
poor vin gris that was the players’ drink.
It was a remark that might have precipitated an argument,
had it not also reminded Monsieur Binet of the terms on which
they were encamped there, and of the fact that the half-hour
was more than past. In a moment he was on his feet, leaping
up with an agility surprising in so corpulent a man, issuing
his commands like a marshal on a ﬁeld of battle.
“ Come, come, my ladsl Are we to sit guzzling here all
day? Time ﬂees, and there's a deal to be done if we are to
make our entry into Guichen at noon. Go, get you dressed.
We strike camp in twenty minutes. Bestir ladies I To your
chaise, and see that you contrive to look your best. Soon the
eyes of Guichen will be upon you, and the condition of your
interior to-morrow will depend upon the impression made by
your exterior to-day. Awayl Away l "
The implicit obedience this autocrat commanded set them
in a whirl. Baskets and boxes were dragged forth to receive
the platters and remains of their meagre feast. In an instant
the ground was cleared, and the three ladies had taken their
departure to the chaise, which was set apart for their use.
The men were already climbing into the house on wheels when
Binet turned to Andre-Louis.
“ We part here, sir," said be, dramatically, “ the richer
by your acquaintance ; your debtors and your friends." He
put forth his podgy hand.
Slowly Andre-Louis took it in his own. He had been
thinking swiftly in the last few moments. And remembering
the safety he had found from his pursuers in the bosom of this
company, it occurred to him that nowhere could he be better
hidden for the present, until the quest for him should have
died down.
"Sir," he said, “ the indebtedness is on my side. It is
not every day one has the felicity to sit down with so illustrious
and engaging a company."


The Buskin 97

r-ﬁr'rwri- w s;


an“,
Binet's little eyes peered suspiciously at the young man, in
quest of irony. He found nothing but candour and simple
good faith.
" I part from you reluctantly," Andre-Louis continued.
" The more reluctantly since I do not perceive the absolute
necessity for parting.”
“ How? ” quoth Binet, frowning, and slowly withdrawing
the hand which the other had already retained rather longer
than was necessary.
" Thus.” Andre-Louis explained himself. “ You may set
me down as a sort of knight of rueful countenance in quest of
adventure, with no ﬁxed purpose in lif e at present. You will
not marvel that what I have seen of yourself and your distin-
guished troupe should inspire me to desire your better
acquaintance. On your side, you tell me that you are in
need of someone to replace your Figaro—Félicien, I
think you called him. Whilst it may be presumptuous of
me to hope that I could discharge an ofﬁce so varied and so
onerous . . . ”
“ You are indulging that acrid humour of yours again, my
friend,” Binet interrupted him. “ Excepting for that," he
added slowly, meditatively, his little eyes screwed up, " we
might discuss this proposal that you seem to be making.”
“ Alas! we can except nothing. If you take me, you take
me as I am. What else is possible? As for this humour—
such as it is—which you decry, you might turn it to proﬁtable
account.”
" How so ? "
" In several ways. I might, for instance, teach Léandre
to make love."
Pantaloon burst into laughter. " You do not lack conﬁdence
in your powers. Modesty does not afﬂict you.”
“ Therefore I evince the ﬁrst quality necessary in an actor."
“ Can you act P "
“ Upon occasion, I think,” said Andre-Louis, his thought
upon his performance at Rennes and Nantes, and wondering
when in all his histrionic career Pantaloon’s improvisations
had so rent the heart of mobs.
Monsieur Binet was musing. “ Do you know much of the
theatre P ” quoth he.
" Everything,” said Andre-Louis.
" I said that modesty will prove no obstacle in your career."
“ But consider. I know the work of Beaumarchais, Eglan-
tine, Mercier, Ohenier, and many other of our contemporaries.
Then I have read, of course, Moliere, Racine, Oorneille,
/
D


98 Scaramouche
m
besides many lesser French writers. Of foreign authors,
I am intimate with the works of Gozzi, Goldoni, Guarini,
Bibbiena, Machiavelli, Secchi, Tasso, Ariosto and Fedini
Whilst of those of antiquity I know most of the work of
Euripides, Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus . . . "
" Enough l " roared Pantaloon.
" I am not nearly through with my list,” said Andre-Louis.
" You may keep the rest for another day. In Heaven’s
name, what can have induced you to read so many dramatic
authors P "
“ In my humble way I am a student of man, and some
years ago I made the discovery that he is most intimately
to be studied in the reﬂections of him provided for the theatre."
“ That is a very original and profound discovery," said
Pantaloon, quite seriously. “ It had never occurred to me.
Yet it is true. Sir, it is a truth that digniﬁes our art. You
are a man of parts, that is clear to me. It has been clear since
ﬁrst I met you. I can read a man. I knew you from the
moment that you said ‘ good-morning.’ Tell me, now,
do you think you could assist me upon occasion in the prepara-
tion of a scenario? My mind, fully engaged as it is with a
thousand details of organisation, is not always as clear as
I would have it for such work. Could you assist me there,
do you think? "
“ I am quite sure I could."
" Hum, yes. I was sure you would be. The other duties
that were Félicien’s you would soon learn. Well, well, if
you are willing, you may come along with us. You’d want
some salary, I suppose P "
“ If it is usual," said André-Louis.
“ What should you say to ten livres a month P "
“ I should say that it isn’t exactly the riches of Peru."
" I might go as far as ﬁfteen," said Binet reluctantly.
“ But times are bad."
" I’ll make them better for you."
" I've no doubt you believe it. Then we understand each
other? ”
“ Perfectly,” said Andre-Louis dryly, and was thus com-
mitted to the service of Thespis.


CHAPTER III
THE COMIC MUSE
if not exactly triumphal, as Binet had expressed
the desire that it should be, was at least sufﬁciently
startling and cacophonous to set the rustics gaping.
To them these fantastic creatures appeared—as indeed they
were—beings from another world.
First went the great travelling chaise, creaking and groaning
on its way, drawn by two of the Flemish horses. It was
Pantaloon who drove it, an obese and massive Pantaloon
in a tight-ﬁtting suit of scarlet under a long brown bedgown,
his countenance adorned by a colossal cardboard nose.
Beside him on the box sat Pierrot in a white smock, with sleeves
that completely covered his hands, loose white trousers and
a black skull-cap. He had whitened his face with ﬂour, and
he made hideous noises with a trumpet.
On the roof of the coach were assembled Polichinelle,
Scaramouche, Harlequin and Pasquariel. Polichinelle in
black and white, his doublet cut in the fashion of a century
ago, with humps before and behind, a white frill round his
neck and a black mask upon the upper half of his face, stood
in the middle, his feet planted wide to steady him, solemnly
and viciously hanging a big drum. The other three were
seated each at one of the corners of the roof, their legs
dangling over. Scaramouche all in black in the Spanish fashion
of the seventeenth century, his face adorned with a pair
of moustachios, jangled a guitar discordantly. Harlequin,
ragged and patched in every colour of the rainbow, with his
leather girdle and sword of lath, the upper half of his face
smeared in soot, clashed a pair of cymbals intermittently.
Pasquariel, as an apothecary in skull-cap and white apron,
excited the hilarity of the onlookers by his enormous tin
clyster, which emitted when pumped a dolorous squeak.
Within the chaise itself, but showing themselves freely
at the windows, and exchanging quips with the townsfolk, sat
the three ladies of the company. Olimene, the amoureuse,
beautiquy gowned in ﬂowered satin, her own clustering
T HE company’s entrance into the township of Guichen,


r00 Scaramouche
ringlets concealed under a pumpkin-shaped wig, looked so
much the lady of fashion that you might have wondered what
she was doing in that fantastic rabble. Madame, as the mother,
was also dressed with splendour, but exaggerated to achieve
the ridiculous. Her head-dress was a monstrous structure
adorned with ﬂowers, and superimposed by little ostrich plumes.
Columbine sat facing them, her back to the horses, falsely
demure, in milkmaid bonnet of white muslin and a striped
gown of green and blue.
The marvel was that the old chaise, which in its halcyon
days may have served to carry some dignitary of the church,
did not founder instead of merely groaning under that exces-
sive and ribald load.
Next came the house on wheels, led by the long, lean
Rhodomont, who had daubed his face red, and increased
the terror of it by a pair of formidable moustachios. He was
in long thigh-boots and leather jerkin, trailing an enormous
sword from a crimson baldrick. He wore a broad
felt hat with a draggled feather, and as he advanced he raised
his great voice and roared out deﬁance, and threats
of blood-curdling butchery to be performed upon all and sundry.
On the roof of this vehicle sat Léandre alone. He was in
blue satin, with rufﬂes, small-sword, powdered hair, patches
and spy-glass, and red-heeled shoes: the complete courtier,
looking very handsome. The women of Guichen ogled him
coquettishly. He took the ogling as a proper tribute to his
personal endowments, and returned it with interest. Like
Olimene, he looked out of place amid the bandits who
composed the remainder of the company.
Bringing up the rear came Andre-Louis leading the two
donkeys that dragged the property-cart. He had insisted
upon assuming a false nose, representing as for embellishment
that which he intended for disguise. For the rest, he had
retained his own garments. No one paid any attention to
him as he trudged along beside his donkeys, an insigniﬁcant
rearguard, which he was well content to be.
They made the tour of the town, in which the activity was
already above the normal in preparation for next week's fair.
At intervals they halted, the cacophony would cease abruptly,
and Polichindle would announce in a stentorian voice that
at ﬁve o'clock that evening in the old market Monsieur
Binet's famous company of improvisors would perform a new
comedy in four acts entitled, ‘The Heartless Father.’
Thus at last they came to the old market, which was the
ground ﬂoor of the town hall, and open to the four winds by two


The Buskin ror
archways on each side of its length and one archway on each
side of its breadth. These archways, with two exceptions,
had been boarded up. Through those two, which gave
admission to what presently would be the the theatre, raga-
muﬂins of the town, and the niggards who were reluctant to
spend the necessary sous to obtain proper admission, might
catch furtive glimpses of the performance.
That afternoon was the most strenuous of André-Louis's
life, unaccustomed as he was to any sort of manual labour.
It was spent in erecting and preparing the stage at the end
of the market-hall; and he began to realise how hard-earned
were to be his monthly ﬁfteen livres. At ﬁrst there were four
of them to the task—or really three, for Pantaloon did no
more than bawl directions. Stripped of their ﬁnery, Rhodo-
mont and Léandre assisted Andre-Louis in that carpentering.
Meanwhile the other four were at dinner with the ladies.
When a half-hour or so later they came to carry on the work,
Andre-Louis and his companions went to dine in their turn,
leaving Polichinelle to direct the operations as well as assist
in them.
They crossed the square to the cheap little inn where they
had taken up their quarters. In the narrow passage, André~
Louis came face to face with Climene, her ﬁne feathers cast,
and restored by now to her normal appearance.
“ And how do you like it P ” she asked him pertly.
He looked her in the eyes. “ It has its compensations,"
quoth he, in that curious cold tone of his that left one wondering
whether he meant or not what he seemed to mean.
She knit her brows. “ You . . . you feel the need of
compensations already P ”
“ Faith, I felt it from the beginning,” said he. “ It was
the perception of them allured me."
They were quite alone, the others having gone on into the
room set apart for them, where food was spread. Andre-
Louis, who was as unlearned in Woman as he was learned in
Man, was not to know, upon feeling himself suddenly extra-
ordinarily aware of her femininity, that it was she who in
some subtle, imperceptible manner so rendered him.
" What," she asked him, with demurest innocence, “ are
these compensations P "
He caught himself upon the brink of the abyss.
“ Fifteen livres a month," said he, abruptly.
A moment she stared at him bewildered. He was very
disconcerting. Then she recovered.
“ Oh, and bed and board," said she. “ Don't be leaving


roz Scaramouche
that from the reckoning, as you seem to be doing; for your
dinner will be going cold. Aren’t you coming P "
" Haven't you dined P “ he cried, and she wondered had
she caught a note of eagerness.
" No," she answered over her shoulder. " I waited."
“ What for P “ quoth his innocence hopefully.
“ I had to change, of course, zany," she answered rudely.
Having dragged him, as she imagined, to the chopping-block,
she could not refrain from chopping. But then he was of
those who must be chopping back.
“ And you left your manners upstairs with your grand-
lady clothes, mademoiselle. I understand."
A scarlet ﬂame suffused her face. “ You are very insolent,"
she said lamely.
“ I've often been told 50. But I don't believe it." He
thrust open the door for her, and bowing with an air which
imposed upon her, although it was merely copied from Fleury
of the Oomédie Francaise, so often visited in the Louis Le Grand
days, he waved her in. “ After you, ma demoiselle." For
greater emphasis he deliberately broke the word into its two
component parts.
" I thank you, monsieur," she answered frostily, as nearly
sneering as was possible to so charming a person, and went in,
nor addressed him again throughout the meal. Instead, she
devoted herself with an unusual and devastating assiduity to
the suspiring Léandre, that poor devil who could not success-
fully play the lover with her on the stage because of his longing
to play it in reality.
Andre-Louis ate his herrings and black bread with a good
appetite nevertheless. It was poor fare, but then poor fare
was the common lot of poor people in that winter of starvation,
and sincehe had cast in his fortuneswith acompany whose affairs
were not ﬂourishing, he must accept the evils of the situation
philosophically.
“ Have you a name P " Binet asked him once in the course
of that repast, and during a pause in the conversation.
“ It happens that I have,” said he. “ I think it is Parvis-
simus.”
“ Parvissimus P " quoth Binet. “ Is that a family
name P "
“ In such a company, where only the leader enjoys the
privilege of a family name, the like would be unbecoming in
its least member. So I take the name that best becomes me.
And I think it is Parvissimus—the very least.”
Binet was amused. It was droll ; it showed a ready fancy.


The Buskin 103
Oh, to be sure, they must get to work together on those
scenarios!
“ I shall prefer it to carpentering,“ Andre-Louis confessed.
Nevertheless, he had to go back to it that afternoon, and
to labour strenuously until four o'clock, when at last the
autocratic Binet announced himself satisﬁed with the prepara-
tions, and proceeded, again with the help of Andre-Louis,
to prepare the lights, which were supplied partly by tallow
candles and partly by lamps burning ﬁsh-oil.
At ﬁve o’clock that evening the three knocks were sounded,
and the curtain rose on ‘ The Heartless Father.’
Among the duties inherited by Andre-Louis from the dc.-
parted Félicien whom be replaced was that of doorkeeper. This
duty he discharged dressed in a Polichinelle costume and
wearing a cardboard nose. It was an arrangement mutually
agreeable to M. Binet and himself. M. Binet—who had taken
the further precaution of retaining André-Louis's own garments
—was thereby protected against the risk of his latest recruit
absconding with the takings. Andre-Louis, without illusions
on the score of Pantaloon’s real object, agreed to it willingly
enough, since it protected him from the chance of recognition
by any acquaintance who might possibly be in Guichen.
The performance was in every sense unexciting; the audience
meagre and unenthusiastic. The benches provided in the
front half of the market contained some twenty-seven persons :
eleven at twenty sous a head and sixteen at twelve. Behind
these stood a rabble of some thirty others at six sous apiece.
Thus the gross takings were two louis, ten livres, and two sous.
By the time M. Binet had paid for the use of the market, his
lights, and the eXpenses of his company at the inn over Sunday,
there was not likely to be very much left towards the wages
of his players. It is not surprising, therefore, that M. Binct's
bonhomie should have been a triﬂe overcast that evening.
“ And what do you think of it ? “ he asked André Louis,
as they were walking back to the inn after the performance.
“ Possibly it could have been worse; probably it could no ,”
said he.
In sheer amazement, M. Binet checked in his stride, and
turned to look at his companion.
" Huh ! " said he. “ Dieu de Dieu I But you are frank."
" A unpopular form of servica among fools, I know."
“ Well, I am not a fool," said Binet.
“ That is why I am frank. I pay you the compliment of
assuming intelligence in you, M. Binet."
" Oh, you do? " quoth M. Binet. " And who the devil are you


104 Scaramouche
to assume anything? Your assumptions are presumptuous,
sir.” And with that he lapsed into silence and the gloomy
business of mentally casting up his accounts.
But at table over supper a half-hour later he revived the
topic.
" Our latest recruit, this excellent M. Parvissimus," he
announced, " has the impudence to tell me that possibly our
comedy couldhave been worse, but that probably it could not."
And he blew out his great round cheeks to invite a laugh at
the expense of that foolish critic.
" That’s bad,” said the swarthy and sardonic Polichinelle.
He was as grave as Rhadamanthus pronouncing judgment.
" That's bad. But what is inﬁnitely worse is that the audience
had the impudence to be of the same mind.”
" An ignorant pack of clods,” sneered Léandre, with a toss
of his handsome head.
" You are wrong,” quoth Harlequin. “ You were born for
love, my dear, not criticism."
Léandre—a dull dog, as you will have conceived—looked
contemptuously down upon the little man. “ And you,
what were you born for? “ he wondered.
“ Nobody knows,” was the candid admission. “ Nor yet
why. It. is the case of many of us, my dear, believe me.”
“ But why,” M. Binet took him up, and thus spoilt the
beginnings of a very pretty quarrel, " why do you say that
Léandre is wrong P ”
“ To be general, because he is always wrong. To be
particular, because I judge the audience of Guichen to be too
sophisticated for ‘The Heartless Father."’
“ You would put it more happily,” interposed André-
Louis—who was the cause of this discussion—" if you said
that ‘The Heartless Father' is too unsophisticated for the
audience of Guichen."
“ Why, what's the diﬂerence P ” asked Léandre.
“ I didn't imply a difference. I merely suggested that it is
a happier way to express the fact."
" The gentleman is being subtle, sneered Binet.
“ Why happier? " Harlequin demanded.
" Because it is easier to bring ‘ The Heartless Father ’ to the
sophistication of the Guichen audience, than the Guichen
audience to the unsophistication of ‘The Heartless Father.'"
“ Let me think it out,” groaned Polichinelle, and he took
his head in his hands.
But from the tail of the table Andre-Louis was challenged
by Climene, who sat there between Columbine and Madame.


The Buskin 105
“ You would alter the comedy, would you, M. Parvissimus? "
she cried.
He turned to parry her malice.
“ I would suggest that it be altered,” he corrected, inclining
his head.
“ And how would you alter it, monsieur P "
" I? Oh, for the better."
“ But of course ! " She was sleekest sarcasm. “ And
how would you do it P "
“ Ay, tell us that," roared M. Binet, and added: "Silence, I
pray you, gentlemen and ladies. Silence for M. Parvissimus.”
Andre-Louis looked from father to daughter, and smiled.
“ Pardi l " said he. “ I am between bludgeon and dagger.
If I escape with my life, I shall be fortunate. Why, then,
since you pin me to the very wall, I'll tell you what I should
do. I should go back to the original and help myself more
freely from it."
" The original P “ questioned M. Binet—the author.
“ It is called, Ibelieve, ‘Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, and
was written by Moliere.”
Somebody tittered, but that somebody was not M. Binet.
He had been touched on the raw, and the look in his little
eyes betrayed the fact that his bonhomme exterior covered
anything but a bonhomme.
“ You charge me with plagiarism," he said at last, “ with
ﬁlching the ideas of Moliere? ”
“ There is always, of course," said Andre-Louis, unruﬂied,
“ the alternative possibility of two great minds worldng upon
parallel lines."
M. Binet studied the young man attentively a moment. He
found him bland and inscrutable, and decided to pin him down.
“ Then you do not imply that I have been stealing from
Moliere P '
“ I advise you to do so, monsieur," was the disconcerting
repl .
M): Binet was shocked.
" You advise me to do so I You advise me, Antoine Binet,
to turn thief at my age I ”
" He is outrageous,” said Mademoiselle indignantly.
“ Outrageous is the word. I thank you for it, my dear.
I take you on trust, sir. You sit at my table, you have the
honour to be included in my company, and to my face you
have the audacity to advise me to become a thief—the worst
kind of thief that is conceivable, a thief of spiritual things, a
thief of ideas ! It is insuﬂerable, intolerable! I have been,


106 Scaramouche
I fear, deeply mistaken in you, monsieur ; just as you appear
to have been mistaken in me. I am not the scoundrel you
suppose me, sir, and I will not number in my company a man
who dares to suggest that I should become one. Outrageousl ”
He was very angry. His voice boomed through the little
room, and the company sat hushed and something scared, their
eyes upon AndréLouis, who was the only one entirely unmoved
by this outburst of virtuous indignation.
" You realise, monsieur," he said very quietly, “ that you
are insulting the memory of the illustrious dead P "
" Eh P ” said Binet.
André-Louis developed his sophistries
“ You insult the memory of Moliere, the greatest ornament
of our stage, one of the greatest ornaments of our nation,
when you suggest that there is vileness in doing that which he
never hesitated to do, which no great author yet has hesitated
to do. You cannot suppose that Moliere ever troubled him-
self to be original in the matter of ideas You cannot suppose
that the stories he tells in his plays have never been told
before. They were culled, as you very well know—though you
seem momentarily to have forgotten it, and it is therefore
necessary that I should remind you—they were culled, many
of them, from the Italian authors, who themselves had culled
them Heaven alone knows where. Moliere took those old
stories and re-told them in his own language. That is precisely
what I am suggesting that you should do. Your company
is a' company of improvisers. You supply the dialogue as
you proceed, which is rather more than Moliere ever attempted.
You may, if you prefer it—though it would seem to me to
be yielding to an excess of scruple—go straight to Boccaccio
or Sacchetti. But even then you cannot be sure that you
have reached the sources."
Andre-Louis came off with ﬂying colours after that, You
see what a debater was lost in him; how nimble he wa in
the art of making white 100k black. The company was
impressed, and no one more than M. Binet, who found himself
supplied with a crushing argument against those who in future
might tax him with the impudent plagiarisms which he
undoubtedly perpetrated. He retired in the best order he
could from the position he had taken up at the outset.
“ So that you think,” he said, at the end of a long out-
burst of agreement, " you think that our story of ‘The Heartless
Father ' could be enriched by dipping into ‘Monsieur de Pour-
ceaugnac,’ to which I confess upon reﬂection that it may
present certain superﬁcial resemblances P "


The Buskin 107
“ I do ; most certainly I do—always provided that you do
so judiciously. Times have changed since Moliere."
It was as a consequence of this that Binet retired soon after,
taking Andre-Louis with him. The pair sat together late that
night, and were again in close communion throughout the
whole of Sunday morning.
After dinner M. Binet read to the assembled company the
amended and ampliﬁed canevas of ‘ The Heartless Father,’
which, acting upon the advice of M. Parvissimus, he had been at
great pains to prepare. The company had few doubts as
to the real authorship before he began to read; none at all
when he had read. There was a verve, a grip about this story;
and, what was more, those of them who knew their Moliere
realised that far from approaching the original more closely,
this canevas had drawn further away from it. Moliere's
original part—the title-role—had dwindled into insigniﬁcance,
to the great disgust of Polichinelle, to whom it fell. But the
other parts had all been built up into importance, with the
exception of Léandre, who remained as before. The two great
roles were now Scaramouche, in the character of the intriguing
Sbrigandini, and Pantaloon the father. There was, too, a
comical part for Rhodomont, as the roaring bully hired by
Polichinelle to cut Léandre into ribbons. And in view of
the importance now of Scaramouche, the play had been re-
christened ‘Figaro Scaramouche.‘
This last had not been without a deal of opposition from
M. Binet. But his relentless collaborator, who was inzreality
the real author—drawing shamelessly, but practically, at last
upon his great store of reading—had overborne him.
“ You must move with the times, monsieur. In Paris
Beaumarchais is the rage. Figaro is known to-day throughout
the world. Let us borrow a little of his glory. It will draw the
people in. They will come to see half a Figaro when they will
not come to see a dozen Heartless Fathers. Therefore let us
cast the mantle of Figaro upon someone, and proclaim it in
our title."
“ But as I am the head of the company . . . " began M.
Binet weakly.
“If you will be blind to your interests, you will presently
be a head without a body. And what use is that? Can
the shoulders of Pantaloon carry the mantle of Figaro P You
laugh. Of course you laugh. The notion is absurd. The
proper person for the mantle of Figaro is Scaramouche, who
is naturally Figaro's twin-brother "
Thus tyrannised, the tyrant Binet gave way, comforted by


108 Scaramouche
the reﬂection that if he understood anything at all about the
theatre, he had for ﬁfteen livres a month acquired something
that would presently be earning him as many louis.
The company's reception of the canevas now conﬁrmed
him, if we except Polichinelle, who, annoyed at having lost
half his part in the alterations, declared the new scenario
fatuous.
“ Ahl You call my work fatuous, do you ? ” M. Binet
hectored him.
“ Your work? " said Polichinelle, to add with his tongue in
his cheek: " Ah, pardon. I had not realised that you were
the author."
“ Then realise it now."
“ You were very close with M. Parvissimus over this
authorship," said Polichinelle, with impudent suggestiveness.
“ And what if I was? What do you imply?"
" That you took him to cut quills for you, of course."
" I’ll cut your ears for you if you're not civil," stormed the
infuriated Binet.
Polichinelle got up slowly and stretched himself.
" Dieu de D1euI" said he. “ If Pantaloon is to play
Rhodomont, I think I’ll leave you. He is not amusing in
the part.” And he swaggered‘ out before M. Binet had
recovered from his speechlessness.


GHAPTER IV
exn‘ monsnwn PAerssrifus
T four o’clock on Monday afternoon the curtain rose
A on ‘ Figaro-ScaramOuche ’ to an audience that ﬁlled
three-quarters of the market-hall. M. Binet
attributed this good attendance to the inﬂux of
people to Guichen for the fair, and to the magnificent parade
of his company through the streets of the township at the
busiest time of the day. Andre-Louis attributed it entirely
to the title. It was the Figaro touch that had fetched in
the better class bourgeoisie, which ﬁlled more than half of
the twenty-sous places and three-quarters of the twelve-sous
seats. The lure had drawn them. Whether it was to continue
to do so would depend upon the manner in which the caneVas
over which he had laboured to the glory of Binet was inter-
preted by the company. Of the merits of the canevas itself
he had no doubt. The authors upon whom he had drawn for
the elements of it were sound, and he had taken of their best,
which he claimed to be no more than the justice due to them.
The company excelled itself. The audience followed with
gusto the sly intriguings of Scaramouche, delighted in the
beauty and freshness of Climéne, was moved almost to tears
by the hard fate which through four long acts kept her from
the hungering arms of the so beautiful Léandre, howled its
delight over the ignominy of Pantaloon, the buffooneries of
his sprightly lackey Harlequin, and the thrasonical strut and
bellowing ﬁerceness of the cowardly Rhodomont.
The success of the Binet troupe in Guichen was assured.
That night the company drank Burgundy at M. Binet’s expense.
The takings reached the sum of eight louis, which was as good
business as M. Binet had ever done in all his career. He was
very pleased. Gratiﬁcation rose like steam from his fat
body. He even condescended so far as to attribute a share of
the credit for the success to M. Parvissimus.
“ His suggestion," he was careful to say, by way of properly
delimiting that share, “ was most valuable, as I perceived
at the time.”
" And his cutting of quills," growled Polichinelle. "Don’t


no Scaramouche
forget that. It is most important to have by you a man who
understands how to cut a quill, as I shall remember when I
turn author."
But not even that gibe could stir M. Binet out of his lethargy
of content.
On Tuesday the success was repeated artistically and
augmented ﬁnancially. Ten louis and seven livres was the
enormous sum that Andre-Louis, the doorkeeper, counted
over to M. Binet after the performance. Never yet had M.
Binet made so much money in one evening—and a miserable
little village like Guichen was certainly the last place in which
he would have ex ected this windfall.
“ Ah, but Guic en in time of fair,” Andre-Louis reminded
him. “ There are people here from as far as Nantes and Rennes
to buy and sell. To-morrow, being the last day of the fair,
the crowds will be greater than ever. We should better the
evening’s receipts."
“ Better them ? I shall be quite satisﬁed if we do as well
my friend."
“ You can depend upon that," Andre-Louis assured him.
" Are 'we to have Burgundy P "
And then the tragedy occurred. It announced itself in a
succession of bumps and thuds, culminating in a crash outside
the door that brought them all to their feet in alarm.
Pierrot sprang to open, and beheld the tumbled body of
a man lying at the foot of the stairs. It emitted groans, there-
fore it was alive. Pierrot went forward to turn it over, and
disclosed the fact that the body wore the wizened face of
Scaramouche, a grimacing, groaning, twitching Scaramouche.
The whole company, pressing after Pierrot, abandoned itself
to laughter.
“ I always said you should change parts with me," cried
Harlequin. “ You're such an excellent tumbler. Have you
been practising? "
“ Fool l ” Scaramouche snapped. “ Must you be laughing
when I've all but broken my neck ? "
" You are right. We ought to be weeping because you
didn’t break it. Come, man, get up,“ and he held out a hand
to the prostrate rogue.
Scaramouche took the hand, clutched it, heaved himself
from the ground, then with a scream dropped back again.
“ My foot I " he complained.
Binet rolled through the group of players, scattering them
to right and left. Apprehension had been quick to seize him.
Fate had played him such tricks before.


112 Scaramouche
The members of the company were all standing in silence before
him, sharing his dismay. " I might have known that this—
or something like it—would occur to spoil the ﬁrst vein of
luck that I have found in years. Ah well, it is ﬁnished.
To-morrow we pack and depart. The best day of the fair,
on the crest of the wave of our success—a good ﬁfteen lonis
to be taken, and this happens 1 God of God I “
“ Do you mean to abandon to-morrow’s performance? "
All turned to stare with Binet at Andre-Louis.
“Are we to play ‘ Figaro-Scaramouche’ without Scara-
mouche?” asked Binet, sneering.
" Of course not." Andre-Louis came forward. " But
surely some re-arrangement of the parts is possible. For
instance, there is a ﬁne actor in Polichinelle.”
Polichinelle swept him a bow. “ Overwhelmed," said he,
ever sardonic.
“ But he has a part of his own,“ objected Binet.
" A small part, which Pasquariel could play."
“ And who will play Pasquariel ? "
" Nobody. We delete it. The play need not suffer."
“ He thinks of everything," sneered Polichinelle. “ What
a man I "
But Binet was far from agreement. “ Are you suggesting
that Polichinelle should play Scaramouche? " he asked
incredulously.
" Why not ? He is able enough I “
" Overwhelmed again,” interjected Polichinelle.
" Play Scaramouche with that ﬁgure? ” Binet heaved
himself up to point a denunciatory ﬁnger at Polichinelle’s
sturdy, thickset shortness.
1‘ For lack of a better," said Andre-Louis.
“ Overwhelmed more than ever." Polichinelle’s bow was
superb this time. “ Faith, I think I’ll take the air to cool me
after so much blushing.”
" Go to the devil,” Binet ﬂung at him.
“ Better and better.” Polichinelle made for the door.
On the threshold be halted and struck an attitude " Under-
stand me, Binet. I do not now play Scaramouche in any
circumstances whatever.“ And he went out. On the whole,
it was a very digniﬁed exit.
Andre-Louis shrugged, threw out his arms, and let them
all to his sides again. “ You have ruined everything," he
told M. Binet. “ The matter could easily have been arranged.
Well, well, it is you are master here ; and since you want us
to pack and be oﬂ‘, that is what we will do, I suppose.”


The Buskin II 3
He went out too. M. Binet stood in thought a moment,
then followed him, his little eyes very cunning. He caught -
him up in the doorway. “ Let us take a walk together,
M. Parvissimus," said he, very aﬁably.
He thrust his arm through André-Louis’s, and led him out
into the street, where there was still considerable movement.
Past the booths that ranged about the market they went, and
down the hill towards the bridge.
“ I don’t think we shall pack to-morrow,” said M. Binet
presently. “ In fact, we shall play to-morrow night.”
" Not if I know Polichinelle. You have . . . "
“ I am not thinking of Polichinelle."
“ Of whom, then? "
“ Of yourself."
“ I am ﬂattered, sir. And in what capacity are you think-
ing of me? “ There was something too sleek and oily in Binet's
voice for André-Louis’s taste.
“ I am thinking of you in the part of Scaramouche."
" Day-dreams," said Andre-Louis. “ You are amusing
yourself, of course."
“ Not in the least. I am quite serious."
“ But I am not an actor.”
“ You told me that you could be."
“ Oh, upon occasion . . . a small part, perhaps . . . "
“ Well, here is a big part—the chance to arrive at a single
stride. How many men have had such a chance? "
“ It is a chance I do not covet, M. Binet. Shall we change
the subject ? " He was very frosty, as much perhaps because
he scented in M. Binet’s manner something that was vaguely
menacing as for any other reason.
“ We’ll change the subject when I please," said M. Binet,
allowing a glimpse of steel to glimmer through the silk of him.
“ To-morrow night you play Scaramouche. You are ready
enough in your wits, your ﬁgure is ideal, and you have just the
kind of mordant humour for the part. You should be a
great success."
“ It is much more likely that I should be an egregious
failure."
“ That won’t matter," said Binet cynically, and explained
himself. “ The failure will be personal to yourself. The
receipts will be safe by then."
“ Much obliged,” said Andre-Louis.
“ We should take ﬁfteen louis to-morrow night.“
“ It is unfortunate that you are without a Scaramouche,"
said Andre-Louis.


n4 Scaramouche
" It is fortunate that I have one, M. Parvissimus."
Andre-Louis disengaged his arm. " I begin to ﬁnd you
tiresome," said he. “ I think I will return."
“A moment, M. Parvissimus. If I am to lose that ﬁfteen
louis, you’ll not take it amiss that I compensate myself in
other ways P "
“ That is your own concern, M. Binet."
“ Pardon, M. Parvissimus. It may possibly be also yours."
Binet took his arm again. “ Do me the kindness to step
across the street with me. Just as far as the post-oﬂice there.
I have something to show you.”
Andre-Louis went. Before they reached that sheet of
paper nailed upon the door, he knew exactly what it would
say. And in effect it was, as he had supposed, that twenty
louis would be paid for information leading to the apprehension
of one Andre-Louis Moreau, lawyer, of Gavrillac, who was
wanted by the King's Lieutenant in Rennes upon a charge of
sedition
M. Binet watched him whilst he read. Their arms were
linked, and Binet’s grip was ﬁrm and powerful.
“ Now, my friend," said he, “ will you be M. Parvissimus
and play Scaramouche to-morrow, or will you be Andre-Louis
Moreau of Gavrillac and go to Rennes to satisfy the King's
Lieutenant ? ”
“ And if it should happen that you are mistaken P " quoth
Andre-Louis, his face a mask.
“ I'll take the risk of that,” leered M. Binet. " You
mentioned, Ithink, that you were a lawyer. An indiScretion,
my dear. It is unlikely that two lawyers will be in hiding
at the same time in the same district. You see it is not really
clever of me. Well, M. André~Louis Moreau, lawyer, of
Gavrillac, what is it to be? ”
“ We will talk it over as we walk back," said Andre-Louis.
“ What is there to talk over ? ”
" One or two things, I think. I must know where I stand.
Oome, sir, if you please."
“ Very well,” said M. Binet, and they turned up the street
ain, but M. Binet maintained a ﬁrm hold of his young
friend’s arm, and kept himself on the alert for any tricks that
the young gentleman might be disposed to play. It was an
unnecessary precaution. Andre—Louis was not the man to
waste his energy futilely. He knew that in bodily strength
he was no match at all for the heavy and powerful Pantaloon.
“ If I yield to your most eloquent and seductive persuasions,


The Buskin II 5
M. Binet,” said he sweetly, “ what guarantee do you give me
that you will not sell me for twenty louis after I shall have
served your turn ? "
“ You have my word of honour for that." M. Binet was
emphatic.
Andre-Louis laughed. " Oh, we are to talk of honour, are
we ? Really, M. Binet, it is clear you think me a foo ."
In the dark he did not see the ﬂush that leapt to M. Binet’s
round face. It was some moments before he replied.
“ Perhaps you are right," he growled. " What guarantee
do you want ? "
“ I do not know what guarantee you can possibly give.“
“ I have said that I will keep faith with you.“
“ Until you ﬁnd it more proﬁtable to sell me."
“ You have it in your power to make it more proﬁtable always
for me to keep faith with you. It is due to you that we have
done so well in Guichen. Oh, I admit it frankly."
" In private,“ said Andre-Louis.
M. Binet left the sarcasm unheeded.
" What you have done for us here with ' Figaro-Scaramouche ’
you can do elsewhere with other things. Naturally I shall
not want to lose you. That is your guarantee."
" Yet to-night you would sell me for twenty louis.”
“ Because—name of God l—you enrage me by refusing
me a service well within your powers. Don’t you think, had I
been entirely the rogue you think me, I could have sold you
on Saturday last ? I want you to understand me, my dear
Parvissimus."
" I beg that you'll not apologise. You would be more
tiresome than ever."
“ Of course you will be gibing. You never miss a chance
to gibe. It'll bring you trouble before you're done with life.
Come ; here we are back at the inn, and you have not yet given
me your decision."
Andre-Louis looked at him. " I must yield, of course.
I can’t help myself."
M. Binet released his arm at last, and slapped him heartily
upon the back. “ Well declared, my lad. You’ll never
regret it. If I know anything of the theatre, I know that you
have made the great decision of your life. To-morrow night
you’ll thank me."
Andre-Louis shrugged, and stepped out ahead towards the
inn. But M. Binet called him back.
“ M. Parvissimus ! "


n6 Scaramouche

He turned. There stood the man’s great bulk, the moon-
light beating down upon that round fat face of his, and he was
holding out his hand.
" M. Parvissimus, no rancour. It is a thing I do not admit
into my life. You will shake hands with me, and we will forget
all this."
Andre-Louis considered him a moment with disgust. He
was growing angry. Then realising this, he conceived hiniself
ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as that sly, scoundrelly
Pantaloon. He laughed and took the outstretched hand.
" No rancour P " M. Binet insisted.
" Oh, no rancour," said Andre-Louis.


CHAPTER V ‘
ENTER SCARAMOUCHE
RESSED in the close-ﬁtting suit of a bygone age,
all black, from ﬂat velvet cap to rosetted shoes, his
face whitened and a slight upcurled moustache
glued to his upper lip, a small-sword at his side
and a guitar slung behind him, Scaramouche surveyed him-
self in a mirror, and was disposed to be sardonic—which was
the proper mood for the character.
He reﬂected that his life, which until lately had been of a
stagnant, contemplative quality, had suddenly become
excessively active. In the course of one week he had been
lawyer, mob-orator, outlaw, property-man, and ﬁnally buffoon.
Last Wednesday he had been engaged in moving an audience
of Rennes to anger ; on this Wednesday he was to move an
audience of Guichen to mirth. Then he had been concerned
to draw tears; today it was his business to provoke laughter.
There was a difference, and yet there was a parallel. Then
as now he had been a comedian; and the part that he had
played then was, when you came to think of it, akin to the
part he was to play this evening. For what had he been at
Rennes but a sort of Scaramouche—the little skirmisher, the
astute intriguer, scattering the seed of trouble with a sly hand.
The only difference lay in the fact that to-day he went forth
under the name that properly described his type, whereas
last week he had been disguised as a respectable young
provincial attorney.
He bowed to his reﬂection in the mirror.
“ Buﬂoon l " he apostrophized it. “ At last you have found
yourself. At last you have come into your heritage. You
should be a great success."
Hearinghis new name called out by M. Binet, he went below
to ﬁnd the company assembled, and waiting in the entrance
corridor of the inn.
He was, of course, an object of great interest to all the
:ompany. Most critically was he conned by M. Binet and
Mademoiselle ; by the former with gravely searching eyes,
by the latter with a curl of scornful lip.


n8 Scaramouche
" You'll do," M. Binet commended his make-up. “ At
least you look the part."
" Unfortunately, men are not always what they look," said
Olimene acidly.
“ That is a truth that does not at present apply to me,"
said AndréLouis, " for it is the ﬁrst time in my life that I
look what I am."
Mademoiselle curled her lip a little further and turned her
shoulder to him. But the others thought him very witty-—
robably because he was obscure. Columbine encouraged
im with a friendly smile that displayed her large white teeth,
and M. Binet sw0re yet once again that he would be a
great success, since he threw himself with such spirit into the
undertaking. Then, in a voice that for the moment he appeared
to have borrowed from the roaring Captain, M. Binet marshalled
them for the short parade across to the market-hall.
The new Scaramouche fell into place beside Rhodomont.
The old one, hobbling on a crutch, had departed an hour ago to
take the place of doorkeeper, vacated of necessity by André
Louis. 50 that the exchange between thosetwo was a complete
one.
Headed by Polichinelle banging his great drum, and Pierrot
blowing his trumpet, they set out, and were duly passed in
review by the ragamufﬁns drawn upin ﬁles to enjoy so much of
the spectacle as was to be obtained for nothing.
Ten minutes later the three kndcks sounded, and the curtains
were drawn aside, to reveal a battered set that was partly
garden, partly forest, in which Oliméne feverishly looked
for the coming of Léandre. In the wings stood the beautiful,
melancholy lover, awaiting his cue, and immediately behind
him the unﬂedged Scaramouche, who was anon to follow him.
Andre-Louis was assailed with nausea in that dread moment.
He attempted to take a lightning mental review of the ﬁrst
act of this scenario of which he was himself the author-in-chief,
but found his mind a complete blank. With the perspira-
tion starting from his skin, he stepped back to the wall, where
above a dim lantern was pasted a sheet bearing the brief outline
of the piece. He was still studying it, when his arm was
clutched, and he was pulled violently towards the wings.
He had a glimpse of Pantaloon’s grotesque face, its eyes
blazing, and he caught a raucous growl :
" Oliméne has spoken your cue three times already."
Before he realised it, he had been bundled on to the stage,
and stood there foolishly, blinking in the glare of the footlights
with their tin reﬂectors. So utterly foolish and bewildered


The Buskin 119
did he look, that volley upon volley of laughter welcomed him
from the audience, which this evening packed the hall from end
to end. Trembling a little, his bewilderment at ﬁrst increasing,
he stood there to receive that rolling tribute to his absurdity.
Climene was eyeing him with expectant mockery, savouring
in advance his humiliation; Léandre regarded him in con-
sternation, whilst behind the scenes M. Binet was dancing
in fury.
" Name of a name," he groaned to the rather scared members
of the company assembled there, " what will happen when
they discover that he isn’t acting? "
But they never did discover it Scaramouche’s bewildered
paralysis lasted but a few seconds. He realised that he was
being laughed at, and remembered that his Scaramouche was
a creature to be laughed with, and not at. He must save the
situation; twist it to his own advantage as best he could.
And now his real bewilderment and terror was succeeded
by acted bewilderment and terror far more marked, but not
quite so funny. He contrived to make it clearly appear that
his terror was of someone off the stage. He took cover
behind a painted shrub, and thence, the laughter at last
beginning to subside, he addressed himself to Climene and
Léandre.
“ Forgive me, beautiful lady, if the abrupt manner of my
entrance startled you. The truth is that I have never been the
same since that last affair of mine with Almaviva. My heart
is not what it used to be. Down there at the end of the lane
I came face to face with an elderly gentleman carrying a
heavy cudgel, and the horrible thought entered my mind that
it might be your father, and that our little stratagem to get
you safely married might already have been betrayed to him.
I think it was the cudgel put such a notion in my head. Not
that I am afraid. I am not really afraid of anything. But
I could not help reﬂecting that, if it should really have been
your father, and he had broken my head with his cudgel,
your hopes would have perished with me. For without me,
what should you have done, my poor children ? "
A ripple of laughter from the audience had been steadily
enheartening him, and helping him to recover his natural
impudence. It was clear they found him comical. They were
to ﬁnd him far more comical than ever he had intended, and
this was largely due to a fortuitous circumstance upon which he
had insufﬁciently reckoned. The fear of recognition by some-
one from Gavrillac or Rennes had been strong upon him.
His face was sufﬁciently made up to baﬂle recognition ; but


no Scaramouche
there remained his voice. To dissemble this he had availed
himself ofithe fact that Figaro was a Spaniard. He had known
a Spaniard at Louis Le Grand who spoke a ﬂuent but most
extraordinary French, with a grotesque excess of sibilant
sounds. It was an accent that he had often imitated, as
youths will imitate characteristics that excite their mirth.
Opportunely he had bethought him of that Spanish student,
and it was upon his speech that to-night he modelled his own.
The audience of Guichen found it as laughable on his lips as
he and his fellows had found it formerly on the lips of that
derided Spaniard.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Binet—listening to that glib
impromptu of which the scenario gave no indication—had
recovered from his fears.
“ Dieu do Dieu l " he whispered, grinning. “ Did he do it
then on purpose ? ”
It seemed to him impossible that a man who had been so
terror-stricken as he had fancied Andre-Louis, could have
recovered his wits so quickly and completely. Yet the doubt
remained.
To resolve it after the curtain had fallen upon a ﬁrst act
that had gone with a verve unrivalled until this hour in the
annals of the company, borne almost entirely upon the slim
shoulders of the new Scaramouche, M. Binet bluntly questioned
him.
They were standing in the space that did duty as green-room,
the company all assembled there, showering congratulations
upon their new recruit. Scaramouche, a little exalted at the
moment by his success, however trivial he might consider it
to-morrow, took then a full revenge upon Olimene for the
malicious satisfaction with which she had regarded his momen-
tary blank terror.
“ I do not wonder that you ask,” said he. “ Faith, I should
have warned you that I intended to do my best from the start
to put the audience in a good humour with me. Mademoiselle
very nearly ruined everything by refusing to reﬂazt any of
my terror. She was not even startled. Another time,
mademoiselle, I shall give you full warning of my every
intention.”
She crimsoned under her grease-paint. But before she
could ﬁnd an answer of sufﬁcient venom, her father was rating
her soundly for her stupidity—the more soundly because he
himself had been deceived by Scaramouche’s supreme acting.
Scaramouche’s success in the ﬁrst act was more than con-
ﬁrmed as the performance proceeded. Completely master of


The Buskin 121
himself by now, and stimulated as only success can stimulate,
he warmed to his work. Impudent, alert, sly, graceful,
he incarnated the very ideal of Scaramouche, and he helped
out his own native wit by many a remembered line from
Beaumarchais, thereby persuading the better informed among
the audience that here indeed was something of the real Figaro.
and bringing them, as it were, into touch with the great
world of the capital.
When at last the curtain fell for the last time, it was Scara-
mouche who shared with Olimene the honours of the evening,
his name that was coupled with hers in the calls that summoned
them before the curtains.
As they stepped back, and the curtains screened them again
from the departing audience, M. Binet approached them,
rubbing his fat hands softly together. This runagate young
lawyer, whom chance had blown into his company, had
evidently been sent by Fate to make his fortune for him.
The sudden success at Guichen, hitherto unrivalled, should
be repeated and augmented elsewhere. There would be
no more sleeping under hedges and tightening of belts. Adver-
sity was behind him. He placed a hand upon Scaramouche’s
shoulder and surveyed him with a smile whose oiliness not
even his red paint and colossal false nose could dissemble.
" And what have you to say to me now P ” he asked him.
“ Was I wrong when I assured you that you would succeed P
Do you think I have followed my fortunes in the theatre for
a lifetime without knowing a born actor when I see one ? You
are my discovery, Scaramouche. I have discovered you to
yourself. I have set your feet upon the road to fame and
fortune. I await your thanks.”
Scaramouche laughed at him, and his laugh was not alto-
gether pleasant.
" Always Pantaloon l " said he.
The great countenance became overcast. “ I see that you
do not yet forgive me the little stratagem by which I forced
you to do justice to yourself Ungrateful dogl As if I
could have had any purpose but to make you ; and Ihave done
so. Continue as you have begun, and you will end in Paris.
You may yet tread the stage of the Oomédie Francaise, the
rival of Talma, Fleury, and Dugazon When that happens
to you perhaps you will feel the gratitude that is due to old
Binet, for you will owe it all to this soft-hearted old fool."
“ If you were as good an actor on the stage as you are in
private," said Scaramouche, “ you would yourself have won
to the Comédie Francaise long since. But I bear no rancour,


122 Scaramouche
M. Binet." He laughed, and put out his hand. Binet fell
upon it and wrung it heartily.
" That, at least, is something,“ he declared. “ My boy, I
have great plans for you—for us. To-morrow we go to Maure ;
there is a fair there to the end of this week. Then on Monday
we take our chances at Pipriac, and after that we must consider.
It may be that I am about to realise the dream of my life.
There must have been upwards of ﬁfteen louis taken to-night.
Where the devil is that rascal Oordemais? "
Oordemais was the name of the original Scaramouche, who
had so unfortunately twisted his ankle. That Binet should
refer to him by his secular designation was a sign that in the
Binet company at least he had fallen for ever from the lofty
eminence of Scaramouche.
" Let us go and ﬁnd him, and then we'll away to the inn
and crack a bottle of the best Burgundy, perhaps two bottles."
But Oordemais was not readily to be found. None of
the company had seen him since the close of the performance
M. Binet went round to the entrance. Cordemais was not
there. At ﬁrst he was annoyed; then as he continued in
vain to bawl the fellow's name, he began to grow uneasy;
lastly, when Polichinelle, who was with them, discovered
Cordemais' crutch standing discarded behind the door,
M. Binet became alarmed. A dreadful suspicion entered his
mind. He grew visibly pale under his paint.
" But this evening he couldn’t walk without the crutch l ”
he exclaimed. “ How then does he come to leave it there and
take himself off? "
“ Perhaps he has gone on to the inn," suggested someone.
“ But he couldn’t walk without his crutch," M. Binet
insisted.
Nevertheless, since clearly he was not anywhere about the
market-hall, to the inn tbev all trooped, and deafened the
landlady with their inquiries.
“ Oh yes, M. Oordemais came in some time ago."
“ Where is he now 2 "
“ He went away again at once. He just came for his bag."
" For his bagl " Binet was on the point of apoplexy,
“ How long ago was that ? ’
She glanced at the timepiece on the overmantel. “ It would
be about half an hour ago. It was a few minutes before the
Rennes diligence passed through."
“ The Rennes diligence l “ M. Binet was almost inarticu-
late. " Could he . . . could he walk P ” he asked, on a
note of terrible anxiety.


The Buskin 123
" Walk? He ran like a hare when he left the inn. I
thought, myself, that his agility was suspicious, seeing howlame
he had been since he fell downstairs yesterday. Is anything
wrong ? ”
M. Binet had collapsed into a chair. He took his head
in his hands and groaned.
" The scoundrel was shamming all the time i " exclaimed
Oliméne. " His fall downstairs was a trick. He was playing
for this. He has swindled us.“
" Fifteen louis at least—perhaps sixteen! " said M. Binet.
" Oh, the heartless blackguardl To swindle me who have
been as a father to him—and to swindle me in such a moment."
From the ranks of the silent, awe-stricken company, each
member of which was wondering by how much of the loss
his own meagre pay would be mulcted, there came a splutter
of laughter.
M. Binet glared with blood-injected eyes.
“ Who laughs? ” he roared. “ What heartless wretch
has the audacity to laugh at my misfortune P "
Andre-Louis, still in the sable glories of Scaramouche,
stood forward. He was laughing still.
“ It is you, is it P You may laugh on another note, my
friend, if I choose a way to recoup myself that I know of."
" Dullard l " Scaramouche scorned him. “ Rabbit-
brained elephant I What if Cordemais has gone with ﬁfteen
louis? Hasn’t he left you something worth twenty times as
much P "
M. Binet gaped uncomprehending.
" You are between two wines, I think. You’ve been
drinking," he concluded.
“ So I have—at the fountain of Thalia. Oh, don’t you see P
Don't you see the treasure that Oordemais has left behind
him ? ”
" What has he left ? "
“ A unique idea for the groundwork of a scenario. It
unfolds itself all before me. I’ll borrow part of the title
from Moliére. We’ll call it ‘ Les Fourberies de Scaramouche,’
and if we don’t leave the audiences of Maure and Pipriac with
sides aching from laughter I’ll play the dullard Pantaloon
in future."
Polichinelle smacked ﬁst into palm. " Superb! " he said
ﬁercely. “ To cull fortune from misfortune, to turn loss into
proﬁt, that is to have genius."
Scaramouche made a leg. “ Polichinelle, you are a fellow
after my own heart. I love a man who can discern my


124 Scaramouche
merit. If Pantaloon had half your wit, we should have
Burgundy to-night in spite of the ﬂight of Oordemais."
" Burgundy? " roared M. Binet, and before he could get
farther Harlequin had clapped his hands together.
“ That is the spirit, M. Binet. You heard him, landlady?
He called for Burgundy."
“ I called for nothing of the kind."
“ But you heard him, dear madame. We all heard him."
The others made chorus, whilst Scaramouche smiled at him
and patted his shoulder.
“ Up, man, a little courage. Did you not say that
fortune awaits us? And have we not now the wherewithal
to constrain fortune? Burgundy, then, to . . . to toast
Les Fourberies de Scaramouche.' ”
And M. Binet, who was not blind to the force of the idea,
yielded, took courage, and got drunk with the rest.


CHAPTER VI
CLIMENE
ILIGENT search among the many scenarios of the
improvisers which have survived their day has
failed to bring to light the scenario of ‘ Les F our-
beries de Scaramouche, ' upon which we are told the
fortunes of the Binet troupe came to be soundly established.
They played it for the ﬁrst time at Maure in the following week,
with Andre-Louis, who was known by now as Scaramouche
to all the company, and to the public alike, in the title-rele.
If he had acquitted himself well as Figaro-Scaramouche, he
excelled himself in the new piece, the scenario of which would
appear to be very much the better of the two.
After Maure came Pipriac, where four performances were
given, two of each of the scenarios that now formed the back-
bone of the Binet repertoire. In both Scaramouche, who was
beginning to ﬁnd himself, materially improved his performances.
So smoothly now did the two pieces run that Andre-Louis
actually suggested to Binet that after F ougeray, which they
were to visit in the following week, they should tempt fortune
in a real theatre in the important town of Redon. The notion
terriﬁed Binet at ﬁrst, but coming to think of it, and his
ambition being fanned by Andre-Louis, he ended by allowing
himself to succumb to the temptation.
It seemed to Andre-Louis in those days that he had found
his real métier, and not only was he beginning to like it, but
actually to look forward to a career as actor-author that might
indeed lead him in the end to that Mecca of all comedians,
the Comédie Francaise. And there were other possibilities.
From the writing of skeleton scenarios for i.nprovisers, he
might presently pass to writing plays of dialogue, plays in
the proper sense of the word, after the manner of Ohénier,
Eglantine and Beaumarchais.
The fact that he dreamed such dreams shows us how very
kindly he had taken to the profession into which Chance and
M. Binet between them had conspired to thrust him. That
he had real talent, both as author and as actor, I do not doubt;


126 Scaramouche
and I am persuaded that had things fallen out diﬁerently
he would have won for himself a lasting place among French
dramatists, and thus fully have realised that dream of his.
Now, dream though it was, he did not neglect the practical
side of it.
“ You realise," he told M. Binet, " that I have it in my
power to make your fortune for you P "
He and Binet were sitting alone together in the parlour of
the inn at Pipriac, drinking a very excellent bottle of Volnay.
It was on the night after the fourth and last performance
there of ' Les F ourberies. ' The business in Pipriac had been as
excellent as in Maure and Guichen. You will have gathered
this from the fact that they drank Volnay.
“ I will concede it, my dear Scaramouche, so that I may hear
the sequel."
“ I am disposed to exercise this power if the inducement is
sufﬁcient. You will realise that for ﬁfteen livres a month
a man does not sell such exceptional gifts as mine."
" There is an alternative," said M. Binet darkly.
“ There is no alternative. Don’t be a fool, Binet."
Binet sat up as if he had been prodded. Members of his
company did not take this tone of direct rebuke with him.
" Anyway, I make you a present of it,” Scaramouche pur-
sued airily. “ Exercise it if you please. Step outside and
inform the police that they can lay hands upon one André-
Louis Moreau. But that will be the end of your ﬁne dreams
of going to Rédon, and for the ﬁrst time in your life playing
in a real theatre. Without me, you can't do it, and you know
it; and I am not going to Rédon or anywhere else, in fact
I am not even going to Fougeray, until we have an equitable
arrangement."
“ But what heat l " complained Bine , “ and all for what P
Why must you assume that I have the soul of a usurerP
When our little arrangement was made, I had no idea—how
could I P—that you would prove as valuable to me as you
are? You had but to remind me, my dear Scaramouche.
I am a just man. As from to-day you shall have thirty livres
a month. See, I double it at once. I am a generous man."
“ But you're not ambitious. Now listen to me a momen .“
And he proceeded to unfold a scheme that ﬁlled Binet with
a paralysing terror.
“ After Rédon, Nantes," he said. “ Nantes and the
Theatre Feydau."
M. Binet choked in the act of drinking. The Theatre
Feydau was a sort of provincial Oomédie Francaise. The


The Buskin 127
great Fleury had played there to an audience as critical as
any in France. The very thought of Rédon, cherished as
it had come to be by M. Binet, gave him at moments acramp
in the stomach, so dangerously ambitious did it seem to him.
And Rédon was a puppet-show by comparison with Nantes.
Yet this rawlad whom he had picked up by chance three weeks
ago, and who in that time had blossomed from a country
attorney into author and actor, could talk of Nantes and the
Theatre Feydau without changing colour.
“ But why not Paris and the Oomédie Francaise? ” wondered
M. Binet, with sarcasm, when at last he had got his breath.
“ That may come later," said impudence.
"Eh? You've been drinking, my friend.”
But Andre-Louis detailed the plan that had been forming
in his mind. Fougeray should be a training-ground for
Rédon, and Rédon should be a training-ground for Nantes.
They would stay in Rédon as long as Rédon would pay
adequately to come and see them, working hard to perfect
themselves the while. They would add three or four new
players of talent to the company; he would write three or
four fresh scenarios, and these should be tested and perfected
until the troupe was in possession of at least half a dozen
plays upon which they could depend; they would lay out a
portion of their proﬁts on better dresses and better scenery,
and ﬁnally in a couple of months' time, if all went well, they
should be ready to make their real bid for fortune at Nantes.
It was quite true that distinction was usually demanded of
the companies appearing at the Feydau, but, on the other hand,
Nantes had not seen a troupe of improvisers for a generation
and longer. They would be supplying a novelty to which
all Nantes should ﬂock, provided that the work were really
well done; and Scaramouche undertook—pledged himself-—
that if matters were left in his own hands, his projected revival
of the Oommedia dell’Arte in all its glories would exceed
whatever expectations the public of Nantes might bring to the
theatre.
" We’ll talk of Paris after Nantes,” he ﬁnished, supremely
matter-of-fact, " just as we will deﬁnitely decide on Nantes
after Rédon."
The persuasiveness that could sway a mob ended by sweep-
ing M. Binet off his feet. The prospect which Scaramouche
unfolded, if terrifying, was also intoxicating, and as Scara-
mouche delivered a crushing answer to each weakeni
objection in a measure as it was advanced, Binet ended by
promising to think the matter over-


128 Scaramouche
" Rédon will point the way,” said Andre-Louis, “and I
don’t doubt which way Rédon will point."
Thus the great adventure of Rédon dwindled to insigniﬁ-
cance. Instead of a terrifying undertaking in itself, it became
merely a rehearsal for something greater. In his momentary
exaltation, Binet proposed another bottle of Volnay. Scara-
mouche waited until the cork was drawn before he continued.
“ The thing remains possible,” said he then, holding his
glassnto the light, and speaking casually, " as long as I am with
you.
" Agreed, my dear Scaramouche, agreed. Our chance
meeting was a fortunate thing for both of us."
“ For both of us,” said Scaramouche, with stress. “ That
is as I would have it. So that I do not think you will surrender
me just yet to the police."
“ As if I could think of such a thing 1 My dear Scaramouche,
you amuse yourself. I beg that you will never, never allude
to that little joke of mine again."
“ It is forgotten,” said Andre-Louis. “ And now for the
remainder of my proposal. If I am to become the architect of
your fortunes, if I am to build them as I have planned them,
I must also and in the same degree become the architect of
my own.”
“ In the same degree ? “ M. Binet frowned.
" In the same degree. From to-day, if you please, we will
conduct the affairs of this company in a proper manner, and we
will keep account books."
“ I am an artist," said M. Binet, with pride. “ I am not a
merchant."
“ There is a business side to your art, and that shall be
conducted in the business manner. I have thought it all
out for you. You shall not be troubled with details that
might hinder the due exercise of your art. All that you have
to do is to say yes or no to my proposal."
“ Ah ? And the proposal ? ”
“ Is that you constitute me your partner, with an equal
share in the proﬁts of your company."
Pantaloon’s great countenance grew pale, his little eyes
widened to their fullest extent as he conned the face of his
companion. Then he exploded.
“ You are mad, of course, to make me such a proposal so
monstrous."
" It has its injustices, I admit. But I have provided for
them. It would not, for instance, be fair, that in addition
to all that I am proposing to do for you, I should also play


The Buskin 12 9

Scaramouche and write y0ur scenarios without any reward
outside of the half-proﬁt which would come to me as a partner.
Thus, before the proﬁts come to be divided, there is a salary to
be paid me as actor, and a small sum for each scenario with
which I provide the company; that is a matter for mutual
agreement. Similarly, you shall be paid a salary as Pantaloon.
After those exPenses are cleared up, as well as all the other
salaries and disbursements, the residue is the proﬁt to be
divided equally between us.“
It was not, as yOu can imagine, a proposal that M'. Binet
would swallow at a draught. He began with a point-blank
refusal to consider it.
“ In that case, my friend,” said Scaramouche, “ we part
company at once; To-morrow I shall bid you a reluctant
farewell."
Binet fell to raging. He spoke of ingratitude in feeling
terms; he even permitted himself another sly allusion to
that little jest of his concerned with the police, which he had
promised never again to mention.
“ As to that, you may do as you please. Play the informer,
by all means. But consider that you will just as deﬁnitely
be deprived of my services, and that without me you are
nothing—as you were before I joined your company.”
M. Binet did not care what the consequences might be.
A ﬁg for the consequences 1 He w0uld teach this impudent
young country attorney that M. Binet was not the man to be
imposed upon.
Scaramouche rose. “ Very well,” said he, between indiffer-
ence and resignation. “ As you wish. But before you act,
sleep on the matter. In the cold light of morning you may
see our two proposals in their proper proportions. Mine
spells fortune for both of us. Yours spells ruin for both of
us. Good-night, M. Binet. Heaven help you to a wise
decision"
The decision to which M. Binet ﬁnally came was naturally
the only one possible in the face of so ﬁrm a resolve as that of
Andre-Louis, who held the trumps. Of course there were
further discussions before all was settled, and M. Binet was
brought to an agreement only after an inﬁnity of haggling
surprising in one who was an artist and not a man of business.
One or two concessions were made by Andre-Louis ; he
consented, for instance, to waive his claim to be paid for
scenarios, and he also consented that M. Binet should
appoint himself a salary that was out of all proportion to his
deserts.
E


r30 Scaramouche
Thus in the end the matter was settled, and the announce-
ment duly made to the assembled company. There were, of
course, j ealousies and resentments. But these were not
deep-seated, and they were readily swallowed when it was
discovered that under the new arrangement the lot of the
entire company was to be materially improved from the
point of view of salaries. This was a matter that had met
with considerable opposition from M. Binet. But the irresist-
ible Scaramouche swept away all objections.
“ If we are to play at the Feydau, you want a company of
self-respecting comedians, and not a pack of cringing starve-
lings. The better we pay them in reason, the more they will
earn for us.”
Thus was conquered the company’s resentment of this too
swift promotion of its latest recruit. Cheerftu now—with
one exception—they accepted the dominance of Scaramouche,
a dominance soon to be so ﬁrmly established that M. Binet
himself came under it.
The one exception was Olimene. Her failure to bring to
heel this interesting young stranger, who had almost literally
dropped into their midst that morning outside Guichen, had
begotten in her a malice which his persistent ignoring of her
had been steadily inﬂaming. She had remonstrated with
her father when the new partnership was ﬁrst formed. She
had lost her temper with him, and called him a fool, whereupon
M. Binet—in Pantaloon’s best manner—had lost his temper
in his turn and boxed her ears. She piled it up to the account
of Scaramouche, and spied her opportunity to pay off some of
that ever-increasing score. But opportunities were few.
Scaramouche was too occupied just then. During the week
of preparation at Fougeray he was hardly seen save at the
performances, whilst, when once they were at Rédon, he came
and went like the wind between the theatre and the inn.
The Rédon experiment had justiﬁed itself from the ﬁrst.
Stimulated and encouraged by this, André-Louis worked day
and night during the month that they spent in that busy little
town. The moment had been well chosen, for the trade in
chestnuts, of which Rédon is the centre, was just then at its
height. And every afternoon the little theatre was packed
with spectators. The fame of the troupe had gone forth,
borne by the chestnut-growers of the district, who were
bringing their wares to Rédon market, and the audiences
were made up of people from the surrounding country, and
from neighbouring villages as far out as Allaire, St Perrieux,
and St. Nicholas. To keep the business from slackening,


The Buskin I31
Andre-Louis prepared a new scenario every week. He wrote
three in addition to those two with which he had already
supplied the company ; these were ' The Marriage of Pantaloon, ’
‘ The Shy Lover, ’and ' The Terrible Captain.’ Of these the last
was the greatest success. It was based upon the M iles Glorfosus
of Plautus, with great opportunities for Rhodomont, and a
good part for Scaramouche as the roaring captain's sly
lieutenant. Its success was largely due to the fact that
Andre-Louis ampliﬁed the scenario to the extent of indicating
very fully in places the lines which the dialogue should follow,
whilst here and there he had gone so far as to supply some of
the actual dialogue to be spoken, without, however, making
it obligatory upon the actors to keep to the letter of it.
And meanwhile, as the business prospered, he became busy
with tailors, improving the wardrobe of the company, which
was sorely in need of improvement. He ran to earth a couple
of needy artists, lured them into the company to play small
parts—apothecaries and notaries—and set them to beguile their
leisure in painting new scenery, so as to be ready for what he
called the conquest of Nantes, which was to come in the new
year. Never in his life had he worked so hard; never in
his life had he worked at all by comparison with his activities
now. His fund of energy and enthusiasm was inexhaustible,
like that of his good humour. He came and went, acted,
wrote, conceived, directed, planned. and executed, what time
M. Binet took his ease at last in comparative aﬁuence, drank
Burgundy every night, ate white bread and other delicacies,
and began to congratulate himself upon his . astuteness in
having made this industrious, tireless fellow his partner.
Having discovered how idle had been his fears of performing
at Rédon, he now began to dismiss the terrors with which the
notion of Nantes had haunted him.
And his happiness was reﬂected throughout the ranks of
his company, with the single exception always of Climene.
She had ceased to sneer at Scaramouche, having realised at
last that her sneers left him untouched and recoiled upon
herself. Thus her almost indeﬁnable resentment of him was
increased by being stiﬂed, until, at all costs, an outlet for it
must be found.
One day she threw herself in his way as he was leaving the
theatre after the performance The others had already gone,
and she had returned upon pretence of having forgotten
something.
“ Will you tell me what I have done to vou? " she asked
him, point-blank.


r32 Scaramouche


“ Done to me, mademoiselle ? " He did not understand.
She made a gesture of impatience. “ Why do you hate
me ? "
“ Hate you, mademoiselle? I do not hate anybody. It
is the most stupid of all the emotions I have never hated—
not even my enemies."
“ What Christian resignation l "
“ As for hating you, of all people. Why . . . I consider
you adorable. I envy Léandre every day of my life. I
have seriously thought of setting him to play Scaramouche,
and playing lovers myself."
" I don’t think you would be a success,” said she.
“ That is the only thing that restrains me. And yet,
given the inspiration that is given Léandre, it is possible
that I might be convincing.”
“ Why, what inspiration do you mean ? "
“ The inspiration of playing to so adorable a Climéne."
Her lazy eyes were now alert to search that lean face of his.
“ You are laughing at me,” said she, and swept past him
into the theatre on her pretended quest. There was nothing
to be done with such a fellow. He was utterly without feeling.
He was not a man at all.
Yet when she came forth again at the end of some ﬁve
minutes she found him still lingering at the door.
“ Not gone yet ? ” she asked him, superciliously.
" I was waiting for you, mademoiselle. You will be
walking to the inn. If I might escort you . . . "
“ But what gallantry! What condescension l "
" Perhaps you would prefer that I did not? "
" How could I prefer that, Monsieur Scaramouche? Besides,
we are both going the same way, and the streets are common
to all. It is that I am overwhelmed by this unusual honour.”
He looked into her piquant little face, and noted how
obscured it was by its cloud of dignity. He laughed.
“ Perhaps I feared that the honour was not sought."
“Ah, now I understand,” she cried. “ It is for me to seek
these honours. I am to woo a man before he will pay me
the homage of civility. It must be so, since you, who clearly
know everything, have said so. It remains for me to beg
your pardon for my ignorance."
“ It amuses you to be cruel,” said Scaramouche. " No
matter. Shall we walk? "
They set out together, stepping briskly to warm their
blood against the wintry evening air. Awhile they went in
‘ence, yet each furtively observing the other.


The Buskin r33
“ And so you ﬁnd me cruel?" she challenged him at
length, thereby betraying the fact that the accusation had
struck home.
He looked at her with a half smile. " Will you deny it ? "
“ You are the ﬁrst man that ever accused me of it."
“ I dare not suppose myself the ﬁrst man to whom you
have been cruel. That were an assumption too ﬂattering
to myself. I must prefer to think that the others suffered
in silence."
“ Mon Dieul Have you suffered? ' She was between
seriousness and raillery.
“ I place the confession as an offering on the altar of your
vanity.” '
“ I should never have suspected it."
“ How could you? Am I not what your father calls a
natural actor? I was an actor long before I became Scara-
mouche. Therefore I have laughed. I often do when Iam
hurt. When you were pleased to be disdainful, I acted disdain
in my turn."
“ You acted very well,” said she, without reﬂecting.
" Of course, I am an excellent actor.”
“ And why this sudden change ? "
“ In response to the change in you. You have grown weary
of your part of cruel madam—a dull part, believe me, and
unworthy of your talents. Were I a woman, and had I your
loveliness and your grace, Climene, I should disdain to use
them as weapons of offence."
“ Loveliness and grace l ’ she echoed, feigning amused
surprise. But the vain baggage was molliﬁed. “ When
was it that you discovered this beauty and this grace,
M. Scaramouche ? "
He looked at her a moment, considering the sprightly
beauty of her, the adorable femininity that from the ﬁrst had
so irresistibly attracted him.
“ One morning when I beheld youwrehearsing a love-scene
with Léandre." '
He caught the surprise that leapt to her eyes before she
veiled them under drooping lids from his too questing gaze.
“ Why, that was the ﬁrst time you saw me.”
“ I had no earlier occasion to remark your charms."
“ You ask me to believe too much," said she, but her tone
was softer than he had ever known, it yet.
“ Then you’ll refuse to believe me if I confess that it was
this grace and beauty that determinedimy destiny that day
by urging me to join your father’s troupe? "


134 Scaramouche
At that she became a little out of breath. There was no
longer any question of ﬁnding an outlet for resentment.
Resentment was all forgotten.
“ But why? With what object P “
“ With the object of asking you one day to be my wife."
She halted under the shock of that, and swung round to
face him. Her glance met his own without shyness now,
there was a hardening glitter in her eyes, a faint stir of colour
in her cheeks. She suspected him of an unpardonable mockery.
“ You go very fast, don’t you P " she asked him, with heat.
" I do. Haven’t you observed it? I am a man of sudden
impulses. See what I have made of the Binet Troupe in less
than a couple of months. Another might have laboured for
a year and not achieved the half of it. Shall I be slower in
love than in work? Would it be reasonable to expect it P
I have curbed and repressed myself not to scare you by
precipitancy. In that I have done violence to my feelings,
and, more than all, in using the same cold aloofness with which
you chose to treat me. I have waited—oh so patiently l —
until you should tire of that mood of cruelty.”
“ You are an amazing man,” said she, quite colourlessly.
“ I am," he agreed with her. “ It is only the conviction
that I am not commonplace that has permitted me to hope
as I have hoped.”
Mechanically, and as if by tacit consent, they resumed
their walk.
5‘ And I ask you to observe,” he said, “ when you complain
that I go very fast, that, after all, I have so far asked you
for nothing.”
“ How? " quoth she, frowning.
" I have merely told you of my hopes. I am not so rash as
to ask at once whether I may realise them."
" My faith, but that is prudent,” said she, tartly.
“ Of course.”
It was his self-possession that exasperated her; for after
that she walked the short remainder of the way in silence,
and so, for the moment, the matter was left just there.
But that night, after they had supped, it chanced that when
Olimene was about to retire, he and she were alone together in
the room abovestairs that her father kept exclusively for his
company. The Binet Troupe, you see, was rising in the world.
As Climene now rose to withdraw for the night, Scaramouche
rose with her to light her candle. Holding it in her left
hand, she offered him her right, a long, tapering, white hand
at the end of a softly-rounded arm that was bare to the elbow.


The Buskin r3 5
“ Good-night, Scaramouche," she said, but so softly, so
tenderly, that he caught his breath, and stood conning her,
his dark eyes aglow.
Thus a moment, then he took the tips of her ﬁngers in his
grasp, and, bowing over the hand, pressed his lips upon it.
Then he looked at her again. The intense femininity of her
ured him on, invited him, surrendered to him. Her face was
pale, there was a glitter in her eyes, a curious smile upon her
parted lips, and under its ﬁchu-menteur her bosom rose and
fell to complete the betrayal of her.
By the hand he continued to hold, he drew her towards
him. She came unresisting. He took the candle from her,
and set it down on the sideboard, by which she stood. The
next moment her slight, lithe body was in his arms, and he
was kissing her, murmuring her name as if it were a prayer
“ Am I cruel now? “ she asked him, panting. He kissed
her again for only answer. “ You made me cruel because
you would not see,” she told him next in a whisper.
And then the door opened, and M. Binet came in to have his
paternal eyes regaled by this highly indecorous behaviour of
his daughter.
He stood at gaze, whilst they quite leisurely, and in a self-
potssession too complete to be natural, detached each from the
ot er.
“ And what may be the meaning of this? “ demanded M.
Binet, bewildered and profoundly shocked.
“ Does it require explaining ? ” asked Scaramouche.
" Doesn’t it speak for itself—eloquently ? It means that
Olimene and I have taken it into our heads to be married.”
“ And doesn’t it matter what I may take into my head P "
" Of course. But you could have neither the bad taste nor
the bad heart to offer any obstacle."
“ You take it for granted? Ay, that is your way, to be
sure—to take things for granted. But my daughter is not to
be taken for granted. I have very deﬁnite views for my
daughter. You have done an unworthy thing, Scaramouche.
You’liave betrayed my trust in you. I am very angry with
you.
He rolled forward with his ponderous yet curiously noiseless
gait. Scaramouche turned to her, smiling, and handed her
the candle.
" If you will leave us, Glimene, I will ask your hand of your
father in proper form." .
She vanished, a little ﬂuttered, lovelier than ever in her
mixture of confusion and timidity Scaramouche closed the


Wk,“ a A ,_____f
136 Scaramouche
door and faced the enraged M. Binet, who had ﬂung himself
into an arm-chair at the head of the short table, faced him with
the avowed purpose of asking for Climene's hand in proper
form. And this was how he did it :
" Father-in-law," said he, “ I congratulate yon. This
will certainly mean the Oomédie Francaise for Climéne, and
that before long; and you shall shine in the glory she will
reﬂect. As the father of Madame Scaramouche you may
yet be famous.”
Binet, his face slowly empurpling, glared at him in speechless
stupefaction. His rage was the more utter from his humiliat-
ing conviction that, whatever he might say or do, this irre-
sistible fellow would bend him to his will. At last speech came
to him.
“ You're a damned corsair l " he cried thickly, banging
his ham-like ﬁst upon the table. “ A corsair ! First you sail
in and plunder me of half my legitimate gains ; and now you
want to carry off my daughter. But I'll be damned if I'll
give her to a graceless, nameless scoundrel like you, for whom
the gallows are waiting already."
Scaramouche pulled the bell-rope, not at all discomposed.
He smiled. There was a ﬂush on his cheeks and a gleam in
his eyes. He was very pleased with the world that night.
He really owed a great debt to M. de Lesdiguieres.
“ Binet,” said he, “ forget for once that you are Pantaloon,
and behave as a nice, amiable father-in-law should behave
when he has secured a son-in-law of exceptional merits. We
are going to have a bottle of Burgundy at my expense, and
it shall be the best bottle of Burgundy to be found in Rédon.
Compose yourself to do ﬁtting honour to it. Excitations of
the bile invariably impair the ﬁne sensitiveness of the palate."


The Buskin I 39
He had his way, of course. M. Binet, worn already with
battling against the strong waters of this young man’s will, was
altogether unequal to the contest now that he found Olimene
in alliance with Scaramouche, adding her insistence to his,
and joining with him in reprobation of her father’s sluggish
and reactionary wits. Metaphorically, M. Binet threw up
his arms, and cursing the day on which he had taken this
young man into his troupe, he allowed the current to carry
him whither it would. He was persuaded that he would be
drowned in the end. Meanwhile he could drown his vexation
in Burgundy. At least there was abundance of Burgundy.
Never in his life had he found Burgundy so plentiful. Perhaps
things were not as bad as he imagined, after all. He reﬂected
that, when all was said, he had to thank Scaramouche for
the Burgundy. Whilst fearing the worst, he would hope for
the best.
And it was very much the worst that he feared as he waited
in the wings when the curtain rose on that ﬁrst performance of
theirs at the Théatre Feydau to a house that was tolerably
ﬁlled by a public whose curiosity the preliminary announce-
ments had thoroughly stimulated.
Although the scenario of ' Les Fourberies dc Scaramouche '
has not, apparently, survived, yet we know from André-Louis'
“Confessions " that it is opened by Polichinelle in the character
of an arrogant and ﬁercely jealous lover shown in the act of
beguiling the waiting-maid, Columbine, to play the spy upon
her mistress, Glimene. Beginning with cajolery, but failing
in this with the saucy Columbine, who likes cajolers to be at
least attractive and to pay a due deference to her own very
piquant charms, the ﬁerce humpbacked scoundrel passes on
to threats of the terrible vengeance he will wreak upon her
if she betrays him or neglects to obey him implicitly ; failing
here likewise, he ﬁnally has recourse to bribery, and after he
has bled himself freely to the very expectant Oolumbine, he
succeeds by these means in obtaining her consent to spy upon
Glimene, and to report to him upon her lady’s conduct.
The pair played the scene well together, stimulated perhaps
by their very nervousness at ﬁnding themselves before so
imposing an audience. Polichinelle was everything that is
ﬁerce, contemptuous, and insistent; Columbine was the essence
of pert indifference under his cajolery, saucily mocking under
his threats, and ﬁnely sly in extorting the very maximum
when it came to accepting a bribe. laughter rippled through
the audience and promised well. But M. Binet, standing
trembling in the wings, missed the great guﬁaws of the rustic


r40 Scaramouche


spectators to whom they had played hitherto, and his fears
steadily mounted.
Then, scarcely has Polichinelle departed by the door, than
Scaramouche bounds in through the window. It was an
effective entrance, usually performed with a broad comic
effect that set the people in a roar. Not so on this occasion.
Meditating in bed that morning, Scaramouche had decided to
present himself in a totally different aspect. He would cut
out all the broad play, all the usual clowning which had
delighted their past rude audiences, and he would obtain his
effects by subtlety instead. He would present a slyly humor-
ous rogue, restrained, and of a certain dignity, wearing a
countenance of complete solemnity, speaking his lines dryly,
as if unconscious of the humour with which he intended to
invest them. Thus, though it might take the audience longer
to understand and discover him, they would like him all the
better in the end.
True to that resolve, he now playedhis part as the friend and
hired ally of the love-sick Léandre, on whose behalf he came
for news of Olimene, seizing the opportunity to further his own
amour with Columbine and his designs upon the moneybags
of Pantaloon. Also he had taken certain liberties with the
traditional costume of Scaramouche ; he had caused the
black doublet and breeches to be slashed with red, and the
doublet to be cut more to a peak, (i la Henri III. The conven-
tional black velvet cap he had replaced by a conical hat with
a turned-up brim and a tuft of feathers on the left, and he
had discarded the guitar.
M. Binet listened desperately for the roar of laughter that
usually greeted the entrance of Scaramouche, and his dismay
increased when it did not come. And then he became conscious
of something alarmingly unusual in Scaramouche’s manner.
The sibilant foreign accent was there, but none of the broad
boisterousness their audiences had loved.
He wrung his hands in despair. “ It is all over,” he said.
“ The fellow has ruined us. It serves me right for being a fool,
and allowing him to take control of everything."
But he was profoundly mistaken. He began to have an
inkling of this when presently, Himself, he took the stage, and
found the public attentive, remarked a grin of quiet apprecia—
tion on every upturned face. It was not, however, until the
thunders of applause greeted the fall of the curtain on the ﬁrst
act that he felt quite sure they would be allowed to escape
with their lives.
Had the part of Pantaloon in ‘ Les Fourberies ’ been other than


The Buskin 141
that of a blundering, timid old idiot, Binet would have ruined
it by his apprehensions. As it was, those very apprehensions,
magnifying as they did the hesitancy and bewilderment that
were the essence of his part, contributed to the success. And
a success it proved that more than justiﬁed all the heralding
of which Scaramouche had been guilty.
For Scaramouche himself this success was not conﬁned to
the public. At the end of the play a great reception awaited
him from his companions assembled in the green-room of
the theatre. His talent, resource and energy had raised them
in a few weeks from a pack of vagrant mountebanks to a self-
respecting company of ﬁrst-rate players. They acknowledged
it generously in a speech entrusted to Polichinelle, adding the
tribute to his genius that, as they had conquered Nantes, so
would they conquer the world under his guidance.
In their enthusiasm they were a little neglectful of the
feelings of M. Binet. Irritated enough had he been already
by the over-riding of his every wish, by the consciousness of
his weakness when opposed to Scaramouche. And although
he had suffered the gradual process of usurpation of authority
because its every step had been attended by his own greater
proﬁt, deep down in him the resentment abode to stiﬂe every
spark of that gratitude due from him to his partner. To-night
his nerves had been on the rack, and he had suffered agonies
of apprehension, for all of which he blamed Scaramouche
so bitterly that not even the ultimate success— almost
miraculous when all the elements are considered—could
justify his partner in his eyes.
And now, to ﬁnd himself, in addition, ignored by this
company—his own company, which he had so laboriously
and slowly assembled and selected among the men of ability
whom he had found here and there in the dregs of cities—was
something that stirred his bileandarousedthe malevolence that
never did more than slumber in him. But deeply though his
rage was moved, it did not blind him to the folly of betraying
it. Yet that he should assert himself in this hour was impera-
tive, unless he were for ever to become a thing of no account
in this troupe over which he had lorded it for long months
before this interloper came amongst them to ﬁll his purse and
destroy his authority.
So he stepped forward now when Polichinelle had done.
His make-up assisting him to mask his bitter feelings, he
professed to add his own to Polichinelle’s acclamations of his
dear partner. But he did it in such a manner as to make
it clear that what Scaramouche had done, he had done by


r42 Scaramouche
M. Binet’s favour, and that in all M. Binet's had been the
guiding hand. In associating himself with Polichinelle, he
desired to thank Scaramouche, much in the manner ofalord
rendering thanks to his steward for services diligently rendered
and orders scrupulously carried out
It neither deceived the troupe nor molliﬁed himself. Indeed
his consciousness of the mockery of it but increased his
bitterness. But at least it saved his face and rescued him from
nullity—he who was their chief.
To say, as I have said, that it did not deceive them, is
perhaps to say too much, for it deceived them at least on the
score of his feelings. They believed, after discountingthe
insinuations in which he took all credit to himself, that at
heart he was ﬁlled with gratitude as they were. That belief
was shared by Andre-Louis himself, who in his brief, grateful
answer was very generous to M. Binet, more than endorsing
the claims that M. Binet had made.
And then followed from him the announcement that their
success in Nantes was the sweeter to him because it rendered
almost immediately attainable the dearest wish of his heart,
which was to make Climene his wife. It was a felicity of
which he was the ﬁrst to acknowledge his utter unworthiness.
It was to bring him into still closer relations with his good
friend M. Binet, to whom he owed all that he had achieved
for himself and for them. The announcement was joyously
received, for the world of the theatre loves a lover as dearly
as does the greater world. So they acclaimed the happy pair,
with the exception of poor Léandre, whose eyes were more
melancholy than ever.
They were a happy family that night in the upstairs room
of their inn on the Quai La Fosse—the same in from which
Andre-Louis had set out some weeks ago to play a vastly
different role before an audience of Nantes. Yet was it so
different? he wondered. Had he not, then, been a sort of
Scaramouche—an intriguer, glib and specious, deceiving folk,
cynically misleading them with opinions that were not really
his own P Was it at all surprising that he should have made
so rapid and signal a success as a mime? Was not this
really all that he had ever been, the thing for which Nature
had designed him P
On the following night they played ‘ The Shy Lover ’ to a full
house, the fame of their début having gone abroad, and the
success of Monday was conﬁrmed. On Wednesday they
gave ‘Figaro-Scaramouche,’ and on Thursday morning the
Counter Nantafs came out with an article of-more than a


r44 Scaramouche
in having his mimes play upon the stage the parts that suit
their natural temperaments.”
“ Yes, you take ev hing you want, don’t you? " She
looked up at him, hal -adoringly, half-shyly
“ If it is possible," said he. “ I took his consent to our
marriage by main force from him. I never waited for him to
give it. When, in fact, he refused it, I just snatched it from
him, and I'll defy him now to win it back from me. I think
that is what he most resents."
She laughed, and launched upon an animated answer.
But he did not hear a word of it. Through the bustle of trafﬁc
on the quay a cabriolet, the upper half of which was almost
entirely made of glass, had approached them. It was drawn
by two magniﬁcent bay horses and driven by a superbly
liveried coachman.
In the cabriolet alone sat a slight young girl wrapped in a
lynx-fur pelisse, her face of a delicate loveliness. She was
leaning forward, her lips parted, her eyes devouring Scara-
mouche until they drew his gaze. When that happened, the
shock of it brought him abruptly to a dumbfounded halt.
Climene, checking in the middle of a sentence, arrested by
his own sudden stopping, plucked at his sleeve.
“ What is it, Scaramouche ? "
But he made no attempt to answer her, and at that moment
the coachman, to whom the little lady had already signalled,
brought the carriage to a standstill beside them. Seen in the
gorgeous setting of that coach, with its escutcheoned panels,
its portly coachman, and its white-stockinged footman—
who swung instantly to earth as the vehicle stopped—its
dainty occupant seemed to Climene a princess out of a fairy-
tale. And this princess, leaning forward, with eyes aglow
and cheeks aﬂush, stretched out a choicely-gloved hand to
Scaramouche.
" Andre-Louis l " she called him.
And Scaramouche took the hand of that exalted being, just
as he might have taken the hand of Climéne herself, and with
eyes that reﬂected the gladness of her own, in a voice that
echoed the joyous surprise of hers, he addressed her familiarly
by name, just as she had addressed him.
“ Aline l "


r46 Scaramouche
“ You are not mistaken. But I had not imagined Made-
moiselle Binet so famous already."
" Oh, as to that . . . ” Mademoiselle shrugged, her
tone quietly scornful. And she explained. “ It is simply
that I was at the play last night. I thought I recognised her."
“ You were at the Feydau last night? And I never saw
you I "
" Were you there, too? '
“ Was I there P " he cried. Then he checked, and abruptly
changed his tone. “ Oh yes, I was there," he said, ascommon-
place as he could, beset by a sudden reluctance to avow that
he had so willingly descended to depths that she must account
unworthy, and grateful that his disguise of face and voice
should have proved impenetrable even to one who knew him
so very well.
“ I understand," said she, and compressed her lips a little
more tightly.
" But what do you understand P "
" The rare attractions of Mademoiselle Binet. Naturally
you would be at the theatre. Your tone conveyed it very
clearly. Do you know that you disappoint me, André? It
is stupid of me, perhaps ; it betrays, I suppose, my imperfect
knowledge of your sex. I am aware that most young men of
fashion ﬁnd an irresistible attraction for creatures who
parade themselves upon the stage. But I did not expect you
to ape the ways of a man of fashion. I was foolish enough to
imagine you to be different ; rather above such trivial pursuits.
I conceived you something of an idealist."
“ Sheer ﬂattery l "
“ So I perceive. But you misled me. You talked so much
morality of a kind, you made philosophy so readily, that I
came to be deceived. In fact, your hypocrisy was so consum-
mate that I never suspected it. With your gift of acting, I
wonder that you haven’t joined Mademoiselle Binet's troupe."
“ I have," said he.
It had really become necessary to tell her, making choice
of the lesser of the two evils with which she confronted him.
He saw ﬁrst incredulity, then consternation, and lastly
disgust overspread her face.
“ Of course,” said she, after a long pause, “ that would have
the advantage of bringing you closer to your charmer."
“ That was only one of the inducements. There was
another. Finding myself forced to choose between the stage
and the gallows, I had the incredible weakness to prefer the
former. It was utterly unworthy of a man of my lofty ideals,


r48 Scaramouche
“ And I didn't recognise you i "
" I thank you for the tribute. You imagined, of course,
that I was a scene-shifter. And now that you know all about
me, what of Gavrillac ? What of my godfather? "
He was well, she told him, and still profoundly indignant
with Andre-Louis for his defection, whilst secretly concerned
on his behalf.
" I shall write to him to-day that I have seen you."
“ Do so. Tell him that I am well and prospering. But say
no more. Do not tell him what I am doing. He has his
prejudices, too. Besides, it might not be prudent. And now
the question I have been burning to ask ever since Ientered
your can'iage : Why are you in Nantes, Aline P ”
“ I am on a visit to my aunt, Madame de Sautron. It was
with her that I came to the play yesterday. We have been
dull at the chateau ; but it will be different now. Madame my
aunt is receiving several guests to-day. M. de La Tour
d'Azyr is to be amongst them.“
Andre-Louis frowned and sighed. “ Did you ever hear,
Aline, how poor Philippe de Vilmorin came by his end? "
“ Yes; I was told, ﬁrst by my uncle, then by M. de La
Tour d’Azyr himself."
‘ Did not that help you to decide this marriage question '2‘ "
“ How- could it? You forget that I am but a woman.
You don’t expect me to judge between men in matters such
as these ? "
“ Why not ? You are well able to do so. The more since
you have heard two sides. For my godfather would tell you
the truth. If you cannot judge, it is that you do not wish
to judge.” His tone became harsh. “ Wilfully you close
your eyes to justice that might check the course of your
unhealthy, unnatural ambition.”
“ Excellent I ” she exclaimed, and considered him with
amusement and something else. “ Do you know that you
are almost droll? You rise unblushing from the dregs of
life in which I ﬁnd you, shake off the arm of that theatre
girl and come to preach to me.”
“ If these were the dregs of life I might still speak from them
to counsel you out of my respect and devotion, Aline." He
was very stiﬁ and stern. “ But they are not the dregs of life.
Honour and virtue are possible to a theatre girl ; they are
impossible to a lady who sells herself to gratify ambition;
who for position, riches, and a great title barters herself in
marriage."


r50 Scaramouche
and carried off by her ; and it was a tale that had lost nothing
in the telling.
Climene had been silent and thoughtful, pondering what
Columbine had called this romance of hers. Clearly her
Scaramouche must be vastly other than he had hitherto
appeared, or else that great lady and he would never have
used such familiarity with each other. Imagining him no
better than he was, Olimene had made him her own. And
now she was to receive the reward of disinterested affection.
Even old Binet’s secret hostility towards Andre-Louis
melted before this astounding revelation. He had pinched
his daughter's ear quite playfully. “ Ah, ah, trust you to
have penetrated his disguise, my child] “
She shrank resentfully from that implication.
“ But I did not," she said. “ I took him for what he
seemed."
Her father winked at her very solemnly and laughed.
“ To be sure you did. But like your father, who was once a
gentleman, and knows the ways of gentlemen, you detected
in him a subtle something different from those with whom
misfortune has compelled you hitherto to herd. You knew
as well as I did that he never caught that trick of haughtiness,
that grand air of command, in a lawyer’s musty oﬂice, and that
his speech had hardly the or his thoughts the complexion
of the bourgeois that he pretended to be. And it was shrewd
of you to have made him yours. Do you know that I shall
be very proud of you yet, Climene P "
She moved away without answering. Her father’s oiliness
offended her. Scaramouche was clearly a great gentleman;
an eccentric, if you please, but a man born. And she was to
be his lady. Her father must learn to treat her differently.
She looked shyly—with a new shyness—at her lover when
he came into the room where they were dining. She observed
for the ﬁrst time that proud carriage of the head, with the
chin thrust forward, that was a trick of his, and she noticed
with what a grace he moved—the grace of one who in youth
has had his dancing-masters and fencing-masters.
It almost hurt her when he ﬁung himself into a chair and
exchanged a quip with Harlequin in the usual manner as
with an equal, and it offended her still more that Harlequin,
knowing what he now knew, should use him with the same
unbecoming familiarity.


CHAPTER IX
THE AWAKENING
" 0 you know," said Climene, “ that I am waiting
for the explanation which I think you owe me P "
They were alone together, lingering still at the
table to which Andre-Louis had come belatedly,
and Andre-Louis was loading himself a pipe Of late—since
joining the Binet Troupe—he had acquired the habit of smoking.
The others had gone, some to take the air, and others, like
Binet and Madame, because they felt that it was discreet
to leave those two to the explanations that must pass. It
was a feeling that Andre-Louis did not share. He kindled
a light, and leisurely applied it to his pipe. A frown came to
settle on his brow.
“ Explanation P " he questioned presently, and looked at
her. “ But on what score? "
“ On the score of the deception you have practised on us—
on me."
" I have practised none," he assured her.
" You mean that you have simply kept your own counsel,
and that in silence there is no deception? But it is deceitful
to withhold facts concerning yourself and your true station
from your future wife. You should not have pretended to be
a simple country lawyer, which, of course, anyone could see
that you are not. It may have been very romantic, but . . .
Enﬁn, will you explain?”
" I see," he said, and pulled at his pipe. “ But you are
wrong, Olimene. I have practised no deception. If there are
things about me that I have not told you, it is that I did not
account them of much importance. But I have never deceived
you by pretending to be other than I am. I am neither more
nor less than I have represented myself."
This persistence began to annoy her, and the annoyance
showed on her Winsome face, coloured her voice.
“ Ha I And that ﬁne lady of the nobility with whom you
are so intimate, who carried you oﬂ in her cabriolet with so
little ceremony towards myself? What is she to you P "


r52 Scaramouche


" A sort of sister," said he.
" A sort of sisterl " She was indignant. " Harlequin
foretold that you would say so ; but he was amusing himself.
It was not very funny. It is less funny still from you. She
has a name, I suppose, this sort of sister? "
“ Certainly she has a name. She is Mademoiselle Aline
de Kercadiou, the niece of Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of
Gavrillac."
" Ohol That's a suﬂiciently ﬁne name for your sort of
sister. What sort of sister, my friend? ”
For the ﬁrst time in their relationship, he observed and
deplored the taint of vulgarity, of shrewishness, in her manner.
“ It would have been more accurate in me to have said a
sort of reputed left-handed cousin.”
“ A reputed left-handed cousin! And what sort of rela-
tionship may that be? Faith, you dazzle me with your
lucidity."
“ It requires to be explained."
“ That is what I have been telling you. But you seem
very reluctant with your explanations."
“ Oh no. It is only that they are so unimportant. But
be you the judge. Her uncle, M. de Kercadiou, is my god-
father, and she and I have been playmates from infancy
as a consequence. It is popularly believed in Gavrillac that
M. de Kercadiou is my father. He has certainly cared for
my rearing from my tenderest years, and it is entirely owing
to him that I was educated at Louis Le Grand. I owe to him
everything that I have—or, rather, everything that I had;
for of my own free will I have out myself adrift, and to-day
I possess nothing save what I can earn for myself in the
theatre or elsewhere."
She sat stunned and pale under that cruel blow to her
swelling pride. Had he told her this but yesterday, it would
have made no impression upon her, it would have mattered
not at all ; the event of to-day coming as a sequel would but
have enhanced him in her eyes. But coming now, after her
imagination had woven for him so magniﬁcent a background,
after the rashly assumed discovery of his splendid identity
had made her the envied of all the company, after having been
in her own eyes and theirs enshrined by marriage with him
as a great lady, this disclosure crushed and humiliated her.
Her prince in disguise was merely the outcast bastard of a
country gentlemanl She would 'be the laughing-stock of
every member of her father’s troupe, of all those who had so
lately envied her this romantic good fortune.


The Buskin 153
“ You should have told me this before,” she said, in a dull
voice that she strove to render steady.
“ Perhaps I should. But does it really matter? "
“ Matter ? " She suppressed her fury to ask another
question. “ You say that this M. de Kercadiou is popularly
believed to be your father. What precisely do you mean?"
“ Just that. It is a belief that I do not share. It is a
matter of instinct perhaps with me. Moreover, once I asked
M. de Kercadiou point-blank, and I received from him a denial.
It is not, perhaps, a denial to which one would attach too
much importance in all the circumstances. Yet I have never
known M. de Kercadiou for other than a man of strictest
honour, and I should hesitate to disbelieve him—particularly
when his statement leaps with my own instincts. He assured
me that he did not know who my father was."
" And your mother, was be equally ignorant ? " She was
sneering, but he did not remark it. Her back was to the
light.
“ He would not disclose her name to me. He confessed
her to be a dear friend of his.”
She startled him by laughing, and her laugh was not pleasant.
“ A very dear friend, you may be sure, you simpleton.
What name do you bear ? "
He restrained his own rising indignation to answer her
question calmly. " Moreau. It was given me, so I am told,
from the Brittany village in which I was born. But I have
no claim to it. In fact I have no name, unless it be Scara-
mouche, to which I have earned a title So that you see, my
dear," he ended with a smile, " I have practised no
deception whatever.”
“ No, no, I see that now.” She laughed without mirth,
then drew a deep breath and rose. “ I am very tired," she
said.
He was on his feet in an instant, all solicitude. But she
waved him wearily back.
“ I think I will rest until it is time to go to the theatre."
She moved towards the door, dragging her feet a little.
He sprang to open it, and she passed out without looking at
him
Her so brief romantic dream was ended. The glorious
world of fancy which in the last hour she had built with such
elaborate detail, over which it should be her exalted destiny
to rule, lay shattered about her feet, its débris so many
stumbling-blocks that prevented her from winning back to
her erstwhile content in Scaramouche as he really was.


I 54 Scaramouche
Andre-Louis sat in the window embrasure, smoking and
looking idly out across the river. He was intrigued and
meditative. He had shocked her. The fact was clear ;
not so the reason. That he should confess himself nameless
should not particularly injure him in the eyes of a girl reared
amid the surroundings that had been Climene’s. And yet
that his confession had so injured him was fully apparent.
There, still at his brooding, the returning Columbine
discovered him a half-hour later.
“ All alone, my prince l " was her laughing greeting, which
suddenly threw light upon his mental darkness. Climene had
been disappointed of hopes that the wild imagination of these
players had suddenly erected upon the incident of his meeting
with Aline. Poor child 1 He smiled whimsically at Columbine.
“ I am likely to be so for some little time,” said he, “ until
it becomes a commonplace that I am not, after all, a prince."
“ Not a prince? Oh, but a duke, then—at least a marquis."
“ Not even a chevalier unless it be of the order of fortune.
I am just Scaramouche. My castles are all in Spain."
Disappointment clouded the lively good-natured face.
“ And I had imagined you . . . "
“ I know," he interrupted. “ That is the mischie ."
He might have gauged the extent of that mischief by Climene's
conduct that evening towards the gentlemen of fashion who
clustered now in the green-room between the acts to pay their
homage to the incomparable amoureuse. Hitherto she had
received them with a circumspection compelling respect.
To-night she was recklessly gay, impudent, almost wanton.
He spoke of it gently to her as they walked home together,
counselling more prudence in the future.
" We are not married yet,” she told him tartly. “ Wait
until then before you criticise my conduct."
“ I trust that there will be no occasion then,“ said he.
“ You trust P Ah, yes. You are very trusting."
“ Climéne, I have offended you. I am sorry."
“ It is nothing," said' she. “ You are what you are."
Still was he not concerned. He perceived the source of
her ill-humour; understood, whilst deploring it; and, be-
cause he understood, forgave. He perceived also that her
ill-humour was shared by her father, and by this he was
frankly amused. Towards M. Binet a tolerant contempt was
the only feeling that complete acquaintance could beget. As for
the rest of the company, they were disposed to be very kindly
towards Scaramouche. It was almost as if in reality he had
fallen from the high estate to which their own imaginations


___._E‘ 7

The Buskin r 55
had raised him ; or possibly it was because they saw the effect
which that fall from his temporary and ﬁctitious elevation
had produced upon Olimene,
Léandre alone made himself an exception. His habitual
melancholy seemed to be dispelled at last, and his eyes gleamed
now with malicious satisfaction when they rested upon
Scaramouche, whom occasionally he continued to address
with sly mockery as “ mon prince.”
On the morrow Andre-Louis saw but little of Climéne.
This was not in itself extraordinary, for he was very hard at
work again, with preparations now for ‘ Figaro-Scaramouche ’
which was to be played on Saturday. Also, in addition to
his manifold theatrical occupations, he now devoted an hour
every morning to the study of fencing in an academy of
arms. This was done not only to repair an omission in his
education, but also, and chieﬂy, to give him added grace and
poise upon the stage. He found his mind that morning
distracted by thoughts of both Climene and Aline. And, oddly
enough, it was Aline who provided the deeper perturbation.
Climene’s attitude he regarded as a passing phase which need
not seriously engage him. But the thought of Aline’s conduct
towards him kept rankling, and still more deeply rankled the
thought of her possible betrotha! to M. de La Tour d'Azyr.
This it was that brought forcibly to his mind the self-
imposed but by now half-forgotten mission that he had made
his own. He had boasted that he would make the voice which
M. de La Tour d’Azyr had sought to silence ring through the
length and breadth of the land. And what had he done of
all this that he had boasted? He had incited the mob of
Rennes and the mob of Nantes in such terms as poor Philippe
might have employed, and then because of a hue-and-cry
he had ﬂed like a cur and taken shelter in the ﬁrst kennel
that offered. there to lie quiet and devote himself to other
things—self-seeking things. What a ﬁne contrast between
the promise and the fulﬁlment!
Thus Andre-Louis to himself in his self~contempt. And
whilst he triﬂed away his time and played Scaramouche, and
centred all his hopes in presentlybecoming the rival of such men
as Chénier and Mercier, M. de La T0ur d’Azyr went his proud
ways unchallenged and wr0ught his will. It was idle to tell
himself that the seed he had sown was bearing fruit. That
the demands he had voiced in Nantes for the Third Estate
had been granted by M. Necker, thanks largely to the com-
motion which his anonymous speech had made. That was
not his concern or his mission. It was no part of his concern


r 56 Scaramouche
to set about the regeneration of mankind, oreven the regenera—
tion of the social structure of France. His concern was to see
that M. de La Tour d'Azyr paid to the uttermost hard for the
brutal wrong he had done Phili pe de Vihnorin. And it did
not increase his self-respect to grid that the danger in which
Aline stood of being married to the Marquis was the real
spur to his rancour and to remembrance of his vow. He was—
too unjustly perhaps—disposed to dismiss as mere sophistries
his own arguments that there was nothing he could do ; that,
in fact, he had but to show his head to ﬁnd himself going to
Rennes under arrest and making his ﬁnal exit from the world's
stage by way of the gallows.
It is impossible to read that part of his “ Confessions "without
feeling a certain pity for him. You realise what must have
been his state of mind. You realise what a prey he was to
emotions so conﬂicting, and if you have the imagination that
will enable you to put yourself in his place, youwill also realise
how impossible was any dedsion save the one to which he says
he came, that he w0uld move at the ﬁrst moment that he
perceived in what direction it would serve his real aims to
move.
It happened that the ﬁrst person he saw when he took the
stage on that Thursday evening was Aline ; the second was
the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr. They occupied a box on
the right of, and immediately above, the stage. There were
others with them—notably a thin, elderly, resplendent lady
whom Andre-Louis supposed to be Madame la Comtesse de
Sautron. But at the time he had no eyes for any but those
two, who of late had so haunted his thoughts. The sight of
either of them would have been sufficiently disconcerting.
The sight of both together very nearly made him forget the
purpose for which he had come upon the stage. Then he
pulled himself together, and played. He played, he says, with
an unusual verve, and never in all that brief but eventful
career of his was he more applauded.
That was the evening’s ﬁrst shock. The next came after
the second act. Entering the green-room, he found it more
thronged than usual, and at the far end with Climene, over
whom he was bending from his ﬁne height, his eyes intent
upon her face, what time his smiling lips moved in talk, M. de
La Tour d'Azyr. He had her entirely to himself, a privilege
none of the men of fashion who were in the habit of visiting
the coulisses had yet enjoyed. Those lesser gentlemen had
withdrawn before the Marquis, as jackals withdraw before the
ion.


The Buskin r57
Andre-Louis stared a moment, stricken. Then recovering
from his surprise he became critical in his study of the Marquis.
He considered the beauty and grace and splendour of him,
his courtly air, his complete and unshakable self-possession.
But more than all, he considered the expression of the dark
eyes that were devouring Climene’s lovely face, and his own
lips tightened.
M. de La Tour d’Azyr never heeded him or his stare ; nor
had he done so would he have known who it was that looked
at him from behind the make-up of Scaramouche ; nor, again,
had he known, would he have been in the least troubled or
concerned.
Andre-Louis sat down apart, his mind in turmoil. Presently
he found a mincing young gentleman addressing him, and made
shift to answer as was expected. Climene having been thus
sequestered, and Columbine being already thickly besieged
by gallants, the lesser visitors had to content themselves with
Madame and the male members of the troupe. Monsieur
Binet, indeed, was the centre of a gay cluster that shook with
laughter at his sallies. He seemed of a sudden to have emerged
from the gloom of the last two days into high good-humour,
and Scaramouche observed how persistently his eyes kept
ﬂickering upon his daughter and her splendid courtier.
That night there were high words between André-Louis
and Climene, the high words proceeding from Climéne.
When Andre-Louis again, and more insistently, enjoined pru-
dence upon his betrothed, and begged her to beware how far
she encouraged the advances of such a man as M. de La Tour
d'Azyr, she became roundly abusive. She shocked and stun-
ned him by her virulently shrewish tone, and her still more
unexpected force of invective.
He sought to reason with her, and ﬁnally she came to cer-
tain terms with him.
“ If you have become betrothed to me simply to stand as
an obstacle in my path, the sooner we make an end the better."
" You do not love me then, Climene ? ”
“ Love has nothing to do with it. I’ll not tolerate your
insensate jealousy. A girl in the theatre must make it her
business to accept homage from all."
“ Agreed ,' and there is no harm provided she gives nothing
in exchange."
White-faced, with ﬂaming eyes, she turned on him at that.
" Now what exactly do you mean? "
“ My meaning is clear. A girl in your position may receive
all the homage that is oﬂered, provided she receives it with


r 58 Scaramouche
a digniﬁed aloofness implying clearly that she has no favours
to bestow in return beyond the faVOur of her smile. If she is
wise she will see to it that the homage is always offered
collectively by her admirers, and that no single one amongst
them shall ever have the privilege of approaching her alone.
If she is wise she will give no encouragement, nourish no
hopes that it may afterwards be beyond her power to deny
realisation."
" How I You dare P "
" I know my world. And I know M. de La Tour d'Azyr,”
he answered her. “ He is a man without charity, without
humanity almost ; a man who takes what he wants wherever
he ﬁnds it, and whether it is given willingly or not ; a man
who reckons nothing of the misery he scatters on his self-
indulgent way: a man whose only law is force. Ponder it,
Climéne, and ask yourself if I do you less than honour in
warning you."
He went out on that, feeling a degradation in continuing
the subject.
The days that followed were unhapp days for him, and for
at least one other. That other was 'andre, who was cast
into the profoundest dejection by M. de La Tour d'Azyr's
assiduous attendance upon Climene. The Marquis was to be
seen at every performance ; a box was perpetually reserved
for him, and invariably he came either alone or else with his
cousin, M. de Chabrillanne.
On Tuesday of the following week, Andre-Louis went out
alone early in the morning. He was out of temper, fretted
by an overwhelming sense of humiliation, and he hoped to
clear his mind by walking. In turning the comer of the Place
du Bouﬂay he ran into a slightly-built, sallow-complexioned
gentleman very neatly dressed in black, wearing a tie-wig
under a round hat. The man fell back at sight of him,
levelling a spy-glass, then hailed him in a voice that rang
with amazement.
“ Moreau I Where the devil have you been hiding yourself
these months P ”
It was Le Chapelier, the lawyer, the leader of the Literary
Chamber of Rennes.
“ Behind the skirts of Thespis," said Scaramouche.
“ I don’t understand.”
“ I didn’t intend that you should. What of yourself,
Isaac P And what of the world, which seems to have been
standing still of late P "
" Standing still I ” Chapelier laughed. " But where have


The Buskin 159
you been, then P Standing still ! " he pointed across the
square to a café under the shadow of the gloomy prison. “ Let
us go and drinka bavaroise. You are of all men the man we
want,the man we have been seeking everywhere, and—behold!
—— ou drop from the skies into my path."
hey crossed the square and entered the café.
“ So you think the world has been standing still! Dieu
de Dieu ! I suppose you haven’t heard of the royal order for
the convocation of the States General, or the terms of them—-
that we are to have what we demanded, what you demanded
for us here in Nantes P You haven ’t heard that the order has
gone forth for the primary elections—the elections of the
electors P You haven’t heard of the fresh uproar in Rennes
last month P The order was that the three Estates should sit
together at the States General of the bailliages, but in the
bailliage of Rennes the nobles must ever be recalcitrant.
They took up arms actually—six hundred of them with their
valetaille, headed by your old friend M. de La Tour d’Azyr,
and they were for slashing us—the members of the Third
Estate—into ribbons, so as to put an end to our insolence.” He
laughed delicately. “ But, by God, we showed them that we,
too, could take up arms. It was what you yourself advocated
here in Nantes, last November. We fought them a pitched
battle in the streets, under the leadership of your namesake
Moreau, the provost, and we so peppered them that theywere
glad to take shelter in the Cordelier Convent. That is the end
of their resistance to the royal authority and the people's
will."
He ran on at great speed detailing the events that had
taken place, and ﬁnally came to the matter which had, he
announced, been causing him to hunt for Andre-Louis until
he had all but despaired of ﬁnding him.
Nantes was sending ﬁfty delegates to the assembly of
Rennes, which was to select the deputies to the Third Estate
and edit their cahier of grievances: Rennes itself was being as
fully represented, whilst such villagesas Gavrillac were sending
two delegates for every two hundred hearths or less. Each
of these three had clamoured that Andre-Louis Moreau should
be. one of its delegates. Gavrillac wanted him because he
belonged to the village and it was known there what sacriﬁces
he had made in the popular cause ; Rennes wanted him
because it had heard his spirited address on the day of the
shooting of the students ; and Nantes—to whom his identity
was unknown—asked for him as the speaker who had addressed
them under the name of Omnes Omnibus and who had framed


I60 Scaramouche
for them the memorial that was believed so largely to have
inﬂuenced M. Necker in formulating the terms of the convoca-
tion.
Since he could not be f0und, the delegations had been made
up with0ut him. But now it happened that one or two
vacancies had occurred in the Nantes representation ; and it
was the business of ﬁlling these vacancies that had brought
Le Chapelier to Nantes.
Andre-Louis ﬁrmly shook his head in answer to Le
Chapelier's proposal.
“ You refuse ? " the other cried. “ Are you mad ? Refuse,
when you are demanded from so many sides ? Do you realise
that it is more than probable you will be elected one of the
deputies, that you will be sent to the States General at Ver-
sailles to represent us in this work of saving France ? "
But Andre-Louis, we know, was not concerned to save
France. At the moment he was concerned to save two women,
both of whom he loved, though in vastly different ways, from
a man he had vowed to ruin. He stood ﬁrm in his refusal
until Le Chapelier dejectedly abandoned the attempt to
persuade him.
“ It is odd," said Andre-Louis, " that I should have been
so deeply immersed in triﬂes as never to have perceived that
Nantes is being politically active."
“ ActiVe l My friend, it is a seething cauldron of political
emotions. It is kept quiet on the surface only by the persua-
sion that all goes well. At a hint to the contrary it would
boil over."
“ Would it so P " said Scaramouche thoughtfully. “ The
knowledge may be useful." And then he changed the
subject. “ You know that La Tour d'Azyr is here ? ”
“ In Nantes P He has courage if he shows himself. They
are not a docile people, these Nantais, and they know his
record and the part he played in the rising at Rennes. I
marvel they haven’t stoned him. But they will, sooner or
later. It only needs that someone should suggest it."
“ That is very likely," said Andre-Louis, and smiled.
“ He doesn’t show himself much ; not in the streets at least.
So that he has not the courage you Suppose ; nor any kind of
courage, as I told him once. He has only insolence."
At parting Le Chapelier again exhorted him to give thought
to what he proposed. “ Send me word if you change your
mind. I am lodged at the Cerf, and I shall be here until the
day after to-morrow. If you have ambition, this is your
moment."


The Buskin I61
“I have no ambition, Isuppose,” said Andre-Louis, and
went his way.
That night, at the theatre, he had a mischievous impulse
to test what Le Cha lier had told him of the state of public
feeling in the cit y. hey were playing ‘ The Terrible Captain,‘
in the last act of which the empty cowardice of the bullying
braggart Rhodomont is revealed by Scaramouche.
After the laughter which the exposme of the roaring
captain invariably produced, it remained for Scaramouche
contemptuOusly to dismiss him in a phrase that varied
nightly, according to the inspiration of the moment. This
time he chose to give his phrase a political complexion.
“ Thus, 0 thrasonical coward, is your emptiness exposed.
Because of your long length, and the great sword you
carry, and the angle at which you cock your hat, people have
gone in fear of you, have believed in you, have imagined you
to be as terrible and as formidable as you insolently make
yourself appear. But at the ﬁrst touch of true spirit you
crumple up, you tremble, you whine pitifully, and the great
sword remains in your scabbard. You remind me of the
Privileged Orders when confronted by the Third Estate."
It was audacious of him, and he was prepared for anything
—a laugh, applause, indignation, or all together. But he was
not prepared for what came. And it came so suddenly and
spontaneously from the groundlings and the body of those in
the amphitheatre that he was almost scared by it—as a boy
may be scaredwho has held a match to a sun-scorched hayrick.
It was a hurricane of furious applause. Men leapt to their
feet, sprang up on to the benches, waving their hats in the
air, deafening him with the terriﬁc uproar of their acclama-
gins. And it rolled on and on, nor ceased until the curtain
e .
Scaramouche stood meditatively smiling with tight 1i .
At the last moment he had caught a glimpse of M. de l:
Tour d'Azyr's face thrust farther forward than usual from the
shariiipyvs of his box, and it was a face set in anger, with eyes
on .
“ Mon Dieu l " laughed Rhodomont, recovering from the
real scare that had succeeded his histrionic terror, “ but you
have a great trick of tickling them in the right place,
Scaramouche."
Scaramouche looked up at him and smiled. “ It can be
useful upon occasion,” said he, and went off to his dressing-
room to change.
But a reprimand awaited him. He was delayed at the
F


16¢ Scaramouche
theatre by matters concerned with the scenery of the new
piece they were to mount upon the morrow. By the time
he was rid of the business the rest of the company had long
since left. He called a chair and had himself carried back
to the in in solitary state. It was one of many minor
luxuries his comparatively amuent present circumstances
permitted.
Coming into that Rpstairs room that was common to all
the troupe, he found . Binet talking lOudly and vehemently.
He had caught sounds of his voice whilst yet upon the stairs.
As he entered, Binet broke 013 short, and wheeled to face
him.
“ You are here at last I " It was so odd a greeting that
Andre-Louis did no more than look his mild surprise. "I
await your explanations of the disgraceful scene you provoked
to-night."
“Disgraceful? Is it disgraceful that the public should
applaud me ? "
“The public? The rabble, y0u mean. Do you want to
deprive us of the patronage of all gentlefolk by vulgar appeals
to the low passions of the mob ? "
Andre-Louis stepped past M. Binet, and forward to the
table. He shrugged contemptuously. The man offended
him, after all.
“ You exaggerate grossly—as usual."
“ I do not exaggerate. And I am the master in my own
theatre. This is the Binet Troupe, and it shall be conducted
in the Binet way.“
“Who are the gentlefolk the loss of whose patronage to
the Feydau will be so poignantly felt ? “ asked Andre-Louis.
“ You imply that there are none ? See how wrong you are.
After the play to-night M. le Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr
came to me, and spoke to me in the severest terms about your
scandalous outburst. Iwas forced to a logise,and . . . "
“The more fool you," said André- uis. "A man who
mpected himself would have shown that gentleman the door."
M. Binet’s face began to empurple. " You call yourself the
head of the Binet Troupe, you boast that you will be master
in your own theatre, and you stand like a lackey to take the
orders of the ﬁrst insolent fellow who comes to you green-
room to tell y0u that he does not like a line spoken by one of
your company! I say again that had you really respected
yourself you would have turned him out."
There was a murmur of approval from several members
of the company, who, having heard the arrogant tone assumed


The Buskin 163
by the Marquis, were ﬁlled with resentment against the slur
cast upon them all.
“ And Isay further,“ Andre-Louis went on, “ that a man
who respects himself, on quite other grounds, would have been
only too glad to have seized this pretext to show M. de La
Tour d’Azyr the door."
“ What do you mean by that P ” There was a rumble
of thunder in the question.
André-Louis's eyes swept round the company assembled
at the Supper-table. " Where is Climene ? ” he asked
shaggy.
ndre leapt up to answer him, white in the face, tense and
quivering with excitement.
“ She left the theatre in the Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr’s
carriage immediately after the performance. We heard him
oﬁer to drive her to this inn."
Andre-Louis glanced at the timepiece on the overmantel.
He seemed unnaturally calm.
“ That would be an hour ago—rather more. And she has
not yet arrived ? ”
His eyes sought M. Binet's. M. Binet’s eyes eluded his
glanoe. Again it was Léandre who answered him.
“ Not yet."
“ Ah I ' Andre-Louis sat down, and poured himself
wine. There was an oppressive silence in the room. Léandre
watched him expectantly, Columbine commiseratingly.
Even M. Binet appeared to be waiting for a cue from Scara-
mouche. But Scaramouche disappointed him. “ Have you
left me anything to eat P " he asked.
Platters were pushed towards him. He helped himself
calmly to food, and ate in silence, apparently with a good
appetite. M. Binet sat down, poured himself wine, and drank.
Presently he attempted to make conversation with one and
another. He was answered curtly, in monosyllables. M.
Binet did not appear to be in favour with his troupe that
night.
At long length came a rumble of wheels below and a rattle
of halting hooves. Then voioes, the high trilling laugh of
Climene ﬂoating upwards. Andre-Louis went on eating
unconcernedly.
“ What an actor I " said Harlequin under his breath to
Polichinelle, and Polichinelle nodded gloomily.
She came in, a leading lady taking the stage, head high,
chm thrust forward, eyes dancing with laughter : she expressed
triumph and arrogance. Her cheeks were ﬂushed, and there


164 Scaramouche
was some disorder in the mass of nut-brown hair that crowned
her head. In her left hand she carried an enormous bouquet
of white camelias. On its middle ﬁnger a diamond of great
price drew almost at once by its eﬂulgence the eyes of all.
Her father sprang to meet her with an unusual display of
paternal tenderness. “ At last, my child l "
He conducted her to the table. She sank into a chair, a
little wearily, a little nervelessly, but the smile did not leave
her face, not even when she glanced across at Scaramouche.
It was only Léandre, observing her closely, with hungry
scowling stare, who detected something as of fear in the hazel
eyes momentarily seen between the ﬂuttering of her lids.
Andre-Louis, however, still went on eating stolidly, without
so much as a look in her direction. Gradually the company
came to realise that just as surely as a scene was brooding,
just so surely would there be no scene as long as they remained.
It was Polichinelle, at last, who gave the signal by rising and
withdrawing, and within two minutes none remained in the
room but M. Binet, his daughter, and Andre-Louis. And
then at last, Andre-Louis set down knife and fork, washed
his throat with a draught of Burgundy, and sat back in his
chair to consider Climene.
“ I trust," said he, " that you had a pleasant ride, mademoi-
selle."
“ Most pleasant, monsieur.” Impudently she strove to
emulate his coolness, but did not completely succeed.
" And not unproﬁtable, if I may judge that jewel at this
distance. It should be worth at least a couple of hundred
louis, and that is a formidable sum even to so wealthy a
nobleman as M. de La Tour d'Azyr. W0uld it be impertinent
in one who has had some notion of becoming your husband
to ask you, mademoiselle, what you have given him in return?”
M. Binet uttered a gross laugh, a queer mixture of cynicism
and contempt.
“ I have given nothing," said Climéne indignantly.
“ Ahl Then the jewel is in the nature of a payment in
advance.”
“ My God, man, y0u’re not decent l " M. Binet protested.
“Decent P ” André-Louis's smouldering eyes turned to
discharge upon M. Binet such a fulmination of contempt
that the old sooundrel shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
" Did you mention decency, Binet ? Almost you make me
lose my temper, which is a thing that I detest above all
others.” Slowly his glance returned to Climéne, who sat
with elbows on the table, her chin cupped in her palms,


The Buskin 165
regarding him with something between scorn and deﬁance.
"Mademoiselle," he said slowly, “I desire you purely in
your own interests to consider whither you are going."
“I am well able to consider it for myself, and to decide
without advice from you, monsieur.”
“ And now you’ve got your answer,” chuckled Binet.
" I hope you like it."
Andre-Louis had paled a little 2 there was incredulity in
his great sombre eyes as they continued steadily to regard
her. Of M. Binet he took no notice.
“ Surely, mademoiselle, you cannot mean that willingly
with open eyes and a full understanding of what you do, you
would exchange an honourable wifehood for . . . . fo
the thing that such men as M. de La T0ur d'Azyr may have
in store for you? "
M. Binet made a wide gesture, and swung to his daughter
“ You hear him, the mealy-mouthed prudel Perhaps you’ll
believe at last that marriage with him would be the ruin of
you. He would always be there—the inconvenient husband
~to mar your every chance, my gir ."
She tossed her lovely head in agreement with her father.
“ I begin to ﬁnd him tiresome with his silly iealousics," she
confessed. “As ahusband, I am afraid he wouldbe impossible.”
Andre-Louis felt a constriction of the heart. But—always
the actor—he showed nothing of it. He laughed a little,
not very pleasantly, and rose.
“ I bow to your choice, mademoiselle. I pray that you
may not regret it."
“ Regret it ? " cried M. Binet. He was laughing, relieved
to see his daughter at last rid of this suitor of whom he had
never approved, if we except those few hours when he really
believed him to be an eccentric of distinction. " And what
shall she regret? That she accepted the protection of a
nobleman so powerful and wealthy that as a mere trinket he
gives her a jewel worth as much as an actress earns in a year
at the Comedic Francaise ? “ He got up, and advanced
towards Andre-Louis. His mood became conciliatory.
“ Come, come, my friend, no ranoour now. What the devil I
You wouldn’t stand in the girl's way? You can't really
blame her for making this choice ? Have you thought
what it means to her? Have you thought that under the
protection of such a gentleman there are no heights which
she may not reach P Don't you see the wonderful luck of it P
Surely if yOu’re fond of her, particularly being of a jealous
telnperament, you wouldn't wish it otherwise 1’ "


166 Scaramouche
Andre-Louis looked at him in silence for a long moment.
Then he laughed again. “ Oh, you are fantastic, ” he said,
“ You are not real." He turned on his heel and strode
to the door.
The action, and more the contempt of his look, laugh, and
words, stung M. Binet to passion, drove out the conciliatori-
ness of his mood.
“ Fantastic, are we ? " he cried, turning to follow the
departing Scaram0uche with his little eyes that now were
inexpressibly evil. “ Fantastic that we should prefer the
powerful protection of this great nobleman to marriage with a
beggarly nameless bastard. Oh, we are fantastic I "
Andre-Louis turned, his hand upon the door-handle.
" No,” he said, “ I was mistaken. You are not fantastic.
Yon are just vile—both of you." And he went out.


CHAPTER X
CONTRITION
her aunt in the bright morning sunshine of a
Sunday in March on the broad terrace of the
Chateau de Sautron.
For one of her natural sweetness of disposition she had been
oddly irritable of late, manifesting signs of a cynical worldli-
ness, which convinced Madame de Sautron more than ever that
her brother Quintin had scandalously conducted the child '5
education. She appeared to be instructed in all the things
of which a girl is better ignorant, and ignorant of all the things
that a girl should lmow. That at least was the point of view
of Madame de Sautron.
" Tell me, madame," quoth Aline, “ are all men beasts ? "
Unlike her brother, Madame la Comtesse was tall and
majestically built. In the days before her marriage with M. de
Sautron, ill-natured folk described her as the only man in the
family. She looked down now from her noble height upon
her little niece with startled eyes.
“ Really, Aline, you have a trick of asking the most discon-
certing and improper questions."
_ “ Perhaps it is because I ﬁnd life disconcerting and
rmproper.‘
“ Life P A young girl should not discuss life.”
“ Why not, since I am alive ? You do not suggest that it
is an impropriety to be alive ? "
“ It is an impropriety for a young unmarried girl to seek
to know too much ab0ut life. As for your abSurd question
about men, when I remind you that man is the noblest work
of God, perhaps you will consider yourself answered."
Madame de Sautron did not invite a pursuance of the
subject. But Mademoiselle de Kercadiou’s outrageous
rearing had made her headstrong.
“ That being so," said she, “ will you tell me why they ﬁnd
such? an overwhelming attraction in the immodest of our
sex "
M ADEMOISELLE DE KERCADIOU walked with


168 Scaramouche
Madame stood still and raised shocked hands. Then
she looked down her handsome, high-bridged nose.
“ Sometimes—often, in fact, my dear Aline—you pass all
understanding. I shall write to Quintin that the sooner you
are married the better it will be for all."
" Uncle Quintin has left that matter to my own deciding,"
Aline reminded her.
" That,“ said Madame, with complete conviction, “ is the
last and most outrageous of his errors. Whoever heard of a
girl being left to decide the matter of her own marriage P It
is . . . indelicate almost to expose her to thoughts of such
things.“ Madame de Sautron shuddered. “ Quintin is a
boor. His conduct is unheard-of. That M. de La Tour d’Azyr
sh0uld parade himself before you so that you may make up
your mind whether he is the proper man for you l ” Again
she shuddered. “ It is of a grossness, of . . . of a prurience
almost . . . M011 Dieu 1 When I married your uncle,
all this was arranged between our parents. I ﬁrst saw him
when he came to sign the contract. I should have died of
shame had it been otherwise. And that is how these affairs
should be conducted.”
" You are no doubt right, madame. But since that is not
how my own case is being conducted. you will forgive me if I '
deal with it apart from others. M. de La Tour d'Azyr desires
to marry me. He has been permitted to pay his court. I
should be glad to have him informed that he may cease to
do so.”
Madame de Sautron stood still, petriﬁed by amazement.
Her long face turned white; she seemed to breathe with
difﬁculty.
“But . . . but . . . what are you saying ? " she gasped.
Quietly Aline repeated her statement.
“ But this is outrageous. You cannot be permitted to ay
fast-and-loose with a gentleman of M. le Marquis’s qu 'ty.
Why, it is little more than a week since you permitted him to
be informed that you w0uld become his wife I "
“I did so in a moment of . . . rashness. Since then
M. le Marquis's own conduct has convinced me of my
error."
“ But—mun Dieu l " cried the Countess. “ Are you blind
to the great honour that is being paid you ? M. 1e Marquis
will make you the ﬁrst lady in Brittany. Yet, little fool that
you are, and greater fool that Quintin is, you triﬂe with this
extraordinary good-fortune. Let me warn you." She raised
an admonitory foreﬁnger. “ If you continue in this stupid


The Buskin 169
humour, M. de La Tour d'Azyr may deﬁnitely withdraw his
oﬁer and depart in justiﬁed mortiﬁcation.”
“ That, madame, as I am endeavouring to convey to you,
is what I most desire."
" Oh, you are mad.”
" It may be, madame, that I am sane in preferring to be
guided by my instincts. It may be even that I am justiﬁed
in resenting that the man who aSpires to become my husband
should at the same time be paying such assiduOus homage to
a wretched theatre-girl at the Feydau."
“ Aline l "
“ Is it not true ? Or perhaps you do not ﬁnd it strange
that M. de La Tour d’Azyr should so conduct himself at such
a time.“
“ Aline, you are so extraordinary a mixture. At moments
you shock me by the indecency of your expressions; at
others you amaze me by the excess of your prudery. You
have been brought up like a little bourgeoise, I think. Yes,
that is it—a little bourgeoise. Quintin was always something
of a shopkeeper at heart.”
“ I was asking your opinion on the conduct of M. de La
Tour d’Azyr, madame. Not on my own."
" But it is an indelicacy in yen to observe such things.
You should be ignorant of them, and I can’t think who is so
. so unfeeling as to inform you. But since you are
informed, at least you sh0u1d be modestly blind to things that
take place Outside the . . . orbit of a properly conducted
demoiselle."
“ Will they still be outside my orbit when I am married P "
" If you are wise. You should remain without knowledge
of them. It . . . it deﬂowers your innocence. I would
not for the world that M. de La Tour d’Azyr should know you
so extraordinarily instructed. Had you been properly reared
in a convent this would never have happened to you."
“ But you do not answer me, madame,“ cried Aline in
despair. “ It is not my chastity that is in question, but that
of M. de La Tour d’Azyr."
“ Chastity! " Madarne's lips trembled with horror.
Horror overspread her face. “ Wherever did you learn that
dreadful, that so improper word P "
And then Madame de Sautron did violence to her feelings.
She realised that here great calm and prudence were required.
“ My child, since you know so much that you ought not to
know, there can be no harm in my adding that a gentleman
must have these little distractions."


r70 Scaramouche

“ But why, madame ? Why is it so ? "
" Ah, mon Dieul you are asking me riddles of Nature. It
is so because it is so. Because men are like that."
“ Because men are beasts, you mean—which is what I
be by asking you."
‘ You are incorriginy stupid, Aline."
“ You mean that I do not see things as you do, madame.
I am not over-expectant, as you appear to think ; yet surely
I have the right to expect that whilst M. de La Tour d'Azyr
is wooing me, he shall not be wooing at the same time a drab
of the theatre. I feel that in this there is a subtle association
of myself with that unspeakable creature, which soils and
insults me. The Marquis is a dullard whose wooing takes the
form, at best, of stilted compliments, stupid and unoriginal.
They gain nothing when they fall from lips still warm from the
contamination of that woman’s kisses."
So utterly scandalized was Madame that for a moment she
remained speechless. Then :
“ Mon Dieu l “ she exclaimed. “ I should never have
suspected you of so indelicate an imagination."
“ I cannot help it, madame. Each time his lips touch my
fingers I ﬁnd myself thinking of the last object that they
touched. I at once retire to wash my hands. Next time,
madame, unless you are good enough to convey my message
to him, I shall call for water and wash them in his presence."
“ But what am I to tell him P How . . . in what words,
can Iconvey Suchamessage P ” Madame was aghast.
“ Be frank with him, madame. It is easiest in the end. Tell
him that, however impure may have been his life in the past,
however impure he intend that it shall be in the future, he
must at least study purity whilst approaching with a view
to marriage a virgin who is herself pure and without
stain."
Madame recoiled, and put her hand to her ears, horror
stam d on her handsome face. Her massive bosom heaved.
“ h, how can you? " she panted. “ How can you make
use of?such terrible expressions ? Wherever have you learnt
them ”
“ In church," said Aline.
" Ah, but in church many things are said that . . . that
one would not dream of saying in the world. My dear child,
how could I possibly say Such a thing to M. le Marquis?
How could I possibly? ”
“ Shall I say it P “
“ Aline ! "


The Buskin r71
“ Well, there it is," said Aline. “ Something must be done
to shelter me from insult. I am utterly disgusted with M.
le Marquis—a disgusting man. And however ﬁne a thing it
may be to become Marquise de La Tour d'Azyr—why, frankly,
I'd sooner marry a cobbler who practised decency."
Such was her vehemence and obvious determination that
Madame de Sautron fetched herself cut of her despair to
attempt persuasion. Aline was her niece, and such a marriage
in the family would be to the credit of the whole of it. At all
costs nothing must frustrate it.
" Listen, my clear,“ she said. “ Let us reason. M. le
Marquis is away and will not be back until to~morrow.”
“ True. And I know where he has gone—0r at least whom
he has gone with. Mon Dieu, and the drab has a father and
a lout of a fellow who intends to make her his wife, and neither
of them chooses to do anything. I suppose they agree with
you, madame, that a great gentleman must have his little
distractions.” Her contempt was scorching as a thing of
ﬁre. “ However, madame, you were about to say . . . P "
“ That on the day after to-morrow you are returning to
Gavrillac. M. de la Tour d’Azyr will most likely follow at his
leisure.”
“ You mean when this dirty candle is burnt out P ”
“ Call it what you will." Madame, you see, despaired by
now of controlling the impropriety of her niece’s expressions.
“ At Gavrillac there will be no Mademoiselle Binet. This
thing will be in the past. It is unfortunate that he should
have met her at such a moment. The chit is very attractive,
after all. You cannot deny that. And you must make
allowances.”
“ M. 1e Marquis formally proposed to me a week ago.
Partly to satisfy the wishes of the family, and partly . . .”
She broke off, hesitating a moment, to resume on a note of
dull pain, " partly because it does not seem greatly to matter
whom I marry, I gave him my consent. That consent, for the
reasons I have given y0u, madame, I desire now deﬁnitely
to withdraw.”
Madame fell into agitation of the wildest. “ Aline, I should
never forgive you. Your uncle Quintin would be in despair.
You do not lcnow what u are saying, what a wonderful
thing y0u are refusing. ave you no sense of your position,
of the station into which you were born ? ”
“ If I had not, madame, I should have made an end long
since. If I have tolerated this suit for a single moment it
is because I realise the importance of a suitable marriage in


172 Scaramouche

the worldly sense. But I ask of marriage something more ;
and uncle Quintin has placed the decision in my hands."
" God forgive him I " said Madame. And then she hurried
on. " Leave this to me now, Aline. Be guided by me—Oh, be
guided by me i " Her tone was beseeching. "I will take
counsel with your uncle Charles. But do not deﬁnitely decide
until this unfortunate aﬂair has blown over. Charles will
know how to arrange it. M. le Marquis shall do penance,
child, since your tyranny demands it : but not in sackcloth
and ashes. You'll not ask so much ? "
Aline shrugged. " I ask nothing at all," she said, which
was neither assent nor dissent.
So Madame de Sautron interviewed her husband, a slight,
middle-aged man, very aristocratic in appearance and gifted
with a certain shrewd sense. She took with him precisely
the tone that Aline had taken with herself and which in Aline
she had found so disconcertineg indelicate. She even
borrowed several of Aline’s phrases.
The reSult was that on the Monday afternoon, when at last
M. de La Tour d’Azyr's returning berline drove up to the
chateau, he was met by M. le Comte de Sautron, who desired a
word with him even before he changed.
“ Gervais, you're a fool," was the excellent opening made
by M. le Comte.
“ Charles, you give me no news,“ answered M. le Marquis.
" Of what particular folly do you take the trouble to com-
lain ? “
p He ﬂung himself wearily upon a sofa, and, his long graceful
body sprawling there, he looked up at his friend with a tired
smile on that nobly handsome pale face that seemed to defy
the onslaught of age.
“ Of your last. This Binet gir ."
“ That I Pooh I An incident ; hardly a folly."
" A folly—at such a time," Sautron insisted. The
Marquis looked a question. The Count answered it. “ Aline,”
said he pregnantly. " She knows. How she knows I can’t
tell you, but she knows, and she is deeply offended."
The smile perished on the Marquis’s face. He gathered
himself up.
“ Offended ? " said he, and his voice was anxious.
“ But yes. You know what she is. You know the ideals
she has formed. It wounds her that at Such a time, whilst
you are here for the purpose of wooing her, you should at the
sarpe time be pursuing this affair with that chit of a Binet
g“ .ll


The Buskin I73
" How do you know ? ” asked La Tour d’Azyr.
" She has conﬁded in her aunt. And the poor child seems
to have some reason. She says she will not tolerate that you
should come to kiss her hand with lips that are still contami-
nated from . . . Oh, you understand. You appreciate
the impression of such a thing upon a pure, sensitive girl such
as Aline. She said—I had better tell you—that the next
time you kiss her hand, she will call for water and wash it in
your presence.”
The Marquis’s face ﬂamed scarlet. He rose. Knowing
his violent, intolerant spirit, M. de Sautron was prepared for
an outburst. But no outburst came.
The Marquis turned away from him, and paced slowly to the
window, his head bQWed, his hands behind his back. Halted
there, he spoke without turning, and his voice was at once
scornful and wistful.
“ You are right, Charles, I am a fool—a wicked fool I
I have just enough sense left to perceive it. It is the way
I have lived, I suppose. I have never known the need to
deny myself anything I wanted.” Then suddenly he swung
round, and the outburst came. " But, my God! I want Aline
as I have never wanted anything yet. I think I sh0uld kill
myself in rage if through my folly I should have lost her."
He struck his brow with his hand. “ I am a beast,” he said.
" I sh0uld have known that if that sweet saint got word of
these petty devilries of mine she would despise me ; and I tell
you, Charles, I’d go through ﬁre to regain her respect."
“ I hope it is to be regained on easier terms,” said Charles,
and then to ease the situation, which began to irk him by its
solemnity, he made a feeble joke. “ It is merely asked of you
that you refrain from going through certain ﬁres that are not
accounted by Mademoiselle of too purifying a nature."
" As to that Binet girl, it is ﬁnished—ﬁnished," said the
Marquis.
“ I congratulate you. When did you make that decision P "
" This moment. I would to God I had made it twenty-four
hours ago. As it is . . .” he shrugged. " Why, twenty-four
hours of her have been enough for me, as they would have
been for any man—a mercenary, self-seeking little baggage
with the soul of a trull. Bah l " He shuddered in disgust
of himself and her.
“ Ah I That makes it easier for you,” said M. de Sautron
cynically.
“ Don't say it, Charles. It is not so. Had you been less of
a fool, you would have warned me sooner."


r74 Scaramouche
“ I may prove to have warned you soon enough, if you'll
proﬁt by the warning."
“ There is no penance I will not do. I will prostrate myself
at her feet. I will abase myself before her. I will make
confession in the proper spirit of contrition, and, Heaven
helping me, I’ll keep to my purpose of amendment for her
sweet sake.” He was tragically in earnest.
To M. de Sautron, who had never seen him other than self-
contained, supercilious, and mocking, this was an amazing
revelation. He shrank from it almost ; it gave him the feeling
of prying, of peeping through a keyhole. He slapped his
friend’s shoulder.
“ My dear Gervais, here is a magniﬁcently romantic mood.
Enough said. Keep to it, and I promise you that all will
presently be well. I will be your ambassador, and you shall
have no cause to complain."
“ But may I not go to her myself? ”
“ If you are wise you will at once eﬂace yourself. Write
to her if you will—make your act of contrition by letter. I
will explain why you have gone without seeing her. I will tell
her that you did so upon my advice, and I will do it tactfully.
I am a good diplomat, Gervais. Trust me."
M. le Marquis raised his head, and showed a face that pain
was searing. He held out his hand. “ Very well, Charles.
Serve me in this, and count me your friend in all things."


CHAPTER XI
ran mucus AT THE THEATRE FEYDAU
Mademoiselle de Kercadiou, and to explain to
her that itwas his profoundcontrition that compelled
him to depart without taking formal leave of her,
the Marquis rolled away from Sautron in a cloud of gloom.
Twent y-four hours with La Binet had been more than enough
for a man of his fastidiOus and discerning taste. He looked
back upon the episode with nausea—the inevitable psycho-
logical reaction—marvelling at himself that until yesterday
he should have found her so desirable, and cursing himself
that for the sake of that ephemeral and worthless gratiﬁcation
he should seriously have imperilled his chances of winning
Mademoiselle de Kercadiou to wife. There is, after all,
nothing very extraordinary in his frame of mind, so that I
need not elaborate it further. It resulted from the conﬂict
between the beast and the angel that go to make up the
composition of every man.
The Chevalier de Chabrillanne—who in reality occupied
towards the Marquis a position aldn to that of gentleman-in-
waiting—sat opposite to him inthe enormoustravelling berline.
A small folding table had been erected between them, and the
Chevalier Suggested piquet. But M. le Marquis was in no
humourfor cards. His th0ughts absorbed him. As theywere
rattling over the cobbles of Nantes' streets, he remembered a
promise to La Binet to witness her performance that night in
‘ The Faithless Lover. ' And now he was running away from her.
The thought was repugnant to him on two scores. He was
breaking his pledged word, and he was acting like a coward.
And there was more than that. He had led the mercenary
little strumpet—it was thus he thought of her at present,
and with some justice—to expect favours from him in addition
to the lavish awards which already he had made her. The
baggage had almost sought to drive a bargain with him as to
her future. He was to take her to Paris, put her into her own
furniture—as the expression ran, and still runs—and under
LEAVING his host to act as his plenipotentiary with


r 76 Scaramouche
the shadow of his powerful protection see that the doors of
the great theatres of the capital should be opened to her
talents. He had not—he was thankful to reﬂect—exactly
committed himself. But neither had he deﬁnitely refused her.
It became necessary now to come to an understanding, since
he was compelled to choose between his trivial passion for
her—a passion quenched already—and his deep, almost
spiritual devotion to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou.
His honour, he considered, demanded of him that he should
at once deliver himself from a false position. La Binet
would make a scene, of Course; but he knew the proper
speciﬁc to apply to hysteria of that nature. Money, after
all, has its uses.
He pulled the cord. The carriage rolled to a standstill;
a footman appeared at the door.
" To the Theatre Feydau." said he.
The footman vanished and the berline rolled on. M. de
Chabrillanne laughed cynically.
" I’ll trouble you not to be amused," snapped the Marquis.
“ You don't understand." Thereafter he explained himself.
It was a rare condescension in him. But then, he could not
bear to be misunderstood in SuCh a matter. Chabrillanne
grew serious in reﬂection of the Marquis 's extreme seriousness.
“Why not write? " he suggested. “ Myself, I confess
that I should ﬁnd it easier."
Nothing could better have revealed M. le Marquis’s state
of mind than his answer.
“ Letters are liable both to miscarriage and to misconstrue-
tion—two risks I will not run. If she did not answer, I
should never know which had been incurred. And I shall
have no peace of mind until I know that I have set a term to
this affair. The berline can wait while we are at the theatre.
We will go on afterwards. We will travel all night if neces-
sar .”
“yPeste l " said M. de Chabrillanne with a grimace. But
that was all.
The great travelling carriage drew up at the lighted portals
of the Feydau, and M. le Marquis stepped out. He entered
the theatre with Chabrillanne, all unconsciously to deliver
himself into the hands of Andre-Louis.
Andre-Louis was in a state of exasperation produced by
Climéne’s long absence from Nantes in the company of M. le
Marquis, and fed by the unspeakable complacency with which
M. Binet regarded that event of quite unmistakable import.
However much he might affect the frame of mind of the


The Buskin I77

stoics, and seek to judge with a complete detachment, in the
heart and50ul of him Andre-Louis was tormented and revolted.
It was not Climene he blamed. He had been mistaken in
her. She was just a poor, weak vesel driven helplessly by
the ﬁrst breath, however foul, that promised her advancement.
She suffered from the plague of greed : and he congratulated
himself upon having discovered it before making her his wife.
He felt for her now nothing but a deal of pity and some
contempt. The pity was begotten of the love she had lately
inspired in him. It might be likened to the dregs of love, all
that remained after the potent wine of it had been drained off.
His anger he reserved for her father and her seducer.
The thoughts that were stirring in him on that Monday
morning, when it was discovered that Climene had not yet
returned from her excursion of the previous day in the coach
of Monsieur le Marquis, were already wicked enough without
the spurring they received from the distraught Léandre.
Hitherto the attitude of each of these men towards the other
had been one of mutual contempt. The phenomenon has
frequently been observed in like cases. Now, what appeared
to be a common misfortune brought them into a sort of
alliance. So, at least, it seemed to Léandre when he went in
quest of Andre-Louis, who with apparent unconcem was
smoking a pipe upon the quay immediately facing the inn.
“ Name of a pig 1 "said Léandre. " How can you take your
ease and smoke at such a time ? "
ScaramOuche surveyed the sky. “ I do not ﬁnd it too
cold," said he. " The sun is shining. I am very well here."
“ Do I talk of the weather P " Léandre was very excited.
“ Of what, then P "
“ Of Climene, of course."
“ Ohl The lady has ceased to interest me," he lied.
Léandre stood squarely in front of him, a handsome ﬁgure
handsomely dressed in those days, his hair well powdered, his
stockings of silk. His face was pale, his large eyes looked
larger than usual.
“ Ceased to interest you ? Are you not to marry her ? "
Andre-Louis expelled a cloud of smoke. “ You cannot
wish to be offensive. Yet you almost suggest that I live on
other men’s leavings.”
“ My God I " said Léandre, overcome, and he stared
awhile. Then he burst out afresh. “ Are you quite heartless P
Are you always Scaramouche ? ”
“ What do you expect me to do P " asked André-Louis,
evincing surprise in his own turn, but faintly.


r78 Scaramouche
“ I do not expect you to let her go without a struggle."
“ But she has gone already." Andre-Louis pulled at his
ipe a moment, what time Léandre clenched and unclenched
Bis hands in impotent rage. “ And to what purpose struggle
against the inevitable ? Did you struggle when I took her
from you ? "
" She was not mine to be taken from me. I but aspired,
and you won the race. But even had it been otherwise, where
is the comparison ? That was a thing in honour : this—this
is hell."
His emotion moved Andre-Louis. He took Léandre's arm.
“ You're a good fellow, Léandre. I am glad I intervened
. to save you from your fate.”
“ Oh, you don’t love her," cried the other passionately.
“ You never did. You don't know what it means to love, or
you'd not talk like this. My Godl if she had been my
aﬂianced wife and this had happened, I should have killed the
man—killed him! Do you hear me? But you . . . Oh,
you, you come out here and smoke, and take the air, and talk
of her as another man's leavings. I wonder I didn't strike
you for the wor ."
He tore his arm from the other's grip, and looked almost as
if he would strike him now.
" You should have done," said Andre-Louis. " It's in
yourwpart.)l
ith an imprecation Léandre turned on his heel to go.
Andre-Louis arrested his departure.
“ A moment, my friend. Test me by yourself. Would
you marry her now P “
“ Would I P " The young man’s eyes blazed with passion.
“ Would I P Let her say that she will marry me, and I am
her slave.”
“ Slave is the right word—a slave in hell."
“ It would never be hell to me where she was, whatever she
had done. I love her, man—I am not like you. I love her,
do you hear me P "
“ I have knownit for some time,"st Andre-Louis, " though
I didn't suspect your attack of the disease to be quite so
violent. Well, God knows I loved her too, quite enough to
share your thirst for killing. For myself, the blue blood of
La Tour d’Azyr would hardly quench this thirst. I should
like to add to it the dirty ﬂuid that ﬂows in the veins of the
unspeakable Binet.”
For a second his emotion had been out of hand, and he
revealed to Léandre in the mordant tone of those last words


The Buskin r79
something of the ﬁres that burned under his icy exterior.
The young man caught him by the hand.
" knew you were acting," said he. “ You feel—you feel
as I do.”
“ Behold us, fellows in viciousness. I have betrayed
myself, it seems. Well, and what now? Do you want to
see this pretty Marquis torn limb from limb ? I might afford
you the s ctacle.”
“ What . “ Léandre stared, wondering was this another
of Scaramouche's cynicisms.
"It isn’t really difﬁcult provided I have aid. I require
only a little. Will you lend it me ? ”
‘ Anything you ask," Léandre exploded. " My life if you
require it.“
Andre-Louis took his arm again. " Let us walk,” he said.
“I will instruct you."
When they came back the company was already at dinner.
Mademoiselle had not yet returned. Sullenness presided at
the table. Columbine and Madame wore anxious expressions.
The fact was that relations between Binet and his troupe were
daily growing more strained.
André~Louis and Léandre went each to his accustomed
place. Binet's little eyes followed them with a malicious
gleam, his thick lips pouted into a crooked smile.
“ Y0u two are grown very friendly of a sudden," he mocked.
" You are a man of discernment, Binet," said Scaramouche,
the cold loathing of his voice itself an insult. “ Perhaps you
discern the reason P "
“ It is readily discerned."
" Regale the company with it i " he begged, and waited.
“ What ? You hesitate ? Is it possible that there are limits
to your shamelessness P "
Binet reared his great head. “Are you trying to quarrel
with me, Scaramouche ? " Thunder was rumbling in his
deep voice.
" Quarrel? You want to laugh. A man doesn’t quarrel
with creatures like you. We all know the place held in the
public esteem by complacent husbands. But, in God's name,
what place is there at all for complacent fathers P”
Binet heaved himself up, a great towering mass of manhood.
Violently he shook off the restraining hand of Pierrot, who
sat on his left.
" A thousand devils! ” he roared, “ if on take that tone
with me, I'll break every bone in your ﬁl y body."
“ If you were to lay a ﬁnger on me, Binet, you would give


180 Scaramouche
me the only provocation I still need to kill you." He was as
calm as ever, and therefore the more menacing. Alarm stirred
the company. He protruded from his pocket the butt of a
pistol—newly purchased. “ I go armed, Binet. It is only
fair to give you warning. Provoke me as you have suggested,
and I’ll kill you with no more compunction than I should
kill a slug, which, after all, is the thing you most resemble—-
a slug, Binet ; a fat, slimy body ; foulness without soul and
without intelligence. When I come to think/of it, I can ’t suﬁer
to sit at table with you. It turns my stomach.“
He pushed away his platter and got up. “ I'll go and eat
at the ordinary below stairs."
Thereupon up jumped Columbine.
“ And I'll come with you, Scaramouche,” cried she.
It acted like a signal. Had the thing been concerted it
could not have fallen out more uniformly. Binet, in fact,
was persuaded of a conspiracy. For in the wake of Columbine
went Léandre, in the wake of Léandre, Polichinelle ; and then
all the rest together, until Binet found himself sitting alone
at the head of an empty table in an empty room—a badly
shaken man whose rage could afford him no support against
the dread by which he was suddenly invaded.
He sat down to think things out, and he was still at that
melancholy occupation when perhaps a half-hour later his
daughter entered the room, returned at last from her excursion.
She looked pale, even a little scared—in reality excessively
self-conscious now that the ordeal of facing all the company
awaited her.
Seeing no one but her father in the room, she checked on
the threshold.
“ Where is everybody? ’ she asked, in a voice rendered
natural by an effort.
M. Binet reared his great head and turned upon her eyes
that were blood-injected. He scowled, blew out his thick
lips and made harsh noises in his throat. Yet he took stock
of her, so graceful and comely, and looking so completely the
lady of fashion in her long fur-trimmed travelling-coat of
bottle-green, her muff, and her broad hat adorned by a spark-
ling Rhine-stone buckle above her adorably coiffed brown hair.
No need to fear the future whilst he owned such a daughter,
let Scaramouche play what tricks he would. _
He expressed, however, none of these comforting reﬂec-
tions.
“ So you’re back at last, little fool," he growled in greeting.
“ I was beginning to ask myself if we should perform this


The Buskin r81
evening. It wouldn’t greatly have surprised me if you had
not returned in time. Indeed, since you have chosen to play
the ﬁne hand you held in your own way, and scorning my
advice, nothing can surprise me.”
She crossed the room to the table, and, leaning against it,
looked down upon him almost disdainfully.
“ I have nothing to regret," she said.
“ So every fool says at ﬁrst. Nor would you admit it if
you had. You are like that. You go your own way in spite
of advice from older heads. Death of my life, girl, what do
you know of men P "
“ I am not complaining,” she reminded him.
" No, but you may be presently, when you discover that
you would have done better to have been guided by your old
father. So long as your Marquis languished for you, there was
nothing you could not have done with the fool. So long as
you let him have no more than your ﬁnger-tips to kiss. .
Ah, name of a name I that was the time to build your future.
If you live to be a thousand you’ll never have such a chance
again, and you’ve squandered it—for what ? "
Mademoiselle sat down. ” You’re sordid,” she said with
disgust.
“ Sordid, am I ? " His thick lips curled again. " I have
had enough of the dregs of life, and so I should have thought
have you. You held a hand on which to have won a fortune
if you had played it as I bade you. Well, you've played it,
and where’s the fortune ? We can whistle for that as a sailor
whistles for wind. And, by Heaven, we’ll need to whistle
presently if the weather in the troupe continues as it’s set in i
That scoundrel Scaramouche has been at his ape’s tricks with
them. They’ve suddenly turned moral. They won’t sit
at table with me any more." He was spluttering between
anger and sardonic mirth. “ It was your friend Scaramouche
set them the example of that. He threatened my life actually.
Threatened my life ! Called me . . . Oh, but what does that
matter? What matters it that the next thing to happen to
us will be that the Binet Troupe will discover it can manage
without M. Binet and his daughter. This scoundrelly bastard
I’ve befriended has little by little robbed me of everything.
It’s in his power today to rob me of my troupe, and the
knave’s ungrateful enough and vile enough to make use of
his power.”
“ Let him," said Mademoiselle contemptuously.
“ Let him P ” He was aghast. “ And what’s to become


r82 Scaramouche
n
“ In no case will the Binet Troupe interest me much longer,
said she. “ I shall be going to Paris soon. There are better
theatres there than the Feydau. There's Mlle. Montansier’s
theatre in the Palais Royal ; there’s the Ambigu Comique ,-
there's the Comédie Francaise ; there's even a possibility
that I may have a theatre of my own.”
His eyes grew big for once. He stretched out a fat hand
and placed it on one of hers. She noticed that it trembled.
“ Has he promised that ? Has he promised ? "
She looked at him with her head on one side, eyes sly and
a queer little smile on her perfect lips.
“ He did not refuse me when I asked it," she answered, with
conviction that all was as she desired it.
" Bah l " He withdrew his hand and heaved himself up.
There was disgust on his face. “ He did not refuse l " he
mocked her, and then with passion: “ Had you acted as I
advised you, he would have consented to anything that you
asked, and, what is more, he would have provided anything
that you asked—anything that lay within his means, and they
are inexhaustible. You have changed a certainty into a possi~
bility, and I hate-possibilities. God of God I I have lived on
possibilities, and infernally near starved on them."
Had she known of the interview taking place at that
moment at the Chateau de Sautron she would have laughed
less conﬁdently at her father's gloomy forebodings. But she
was destined never to know, which indeed was the cruellest
punishment of all. She was to attribute all the evil which
suddenly overwhelmed her, the shattering of all the future hopes
she had founded upon the Marquis, and the sudden disintegra-
tion of the Binet Troupe, to the wicked interference of that
villain Scaramouche.
She had this much justiﬁcation, that possibly, without the
warning from M. de Sautron, the Marquis would have found
in the events of that evening at the Theatre Feydau a sufﬁcient
reason for ending an entanglement that was fraught with too
much unpleasant excitement, whilst the breaking-up of the
Binet Troupe was most certainly the result of André-Louis’
work. But it was not a result that he intended, or even
foresaw.
So much was this the case, that in the interval after the
second act he sought the dressing-room shared by Polichinelle
and Rhodomont. Polichinelle was in the act of changing.
“ I shouldn't trouble to change,” he said. “ The piece isn't
lIi-léelydmto go beyond my opening scene of the next act with
an e."


The Buskin 183
“ What do you mean? ” _
“ You’ll see." He put a paPer on Polichinelle's table
amid the grease-paints. " Cast your eye QVer that. It’s a
sort of last will and testament in favour of the troupe. I was
a lawyer once ; the document is in order. I relinquish to all
of you the share produced by my partnership in the company."
“ But you don’t mean that you are leaving us? ” cried
Polichinelle in alarm, whilst Rhodomont's sudden stare asked
the same question.
Scaramouche’s shrug was eloquent. Polichinelle ran on,
gloomily. “ Of course, it was to have been foreseen. But why
should you be the one to go ? It is you who have made us ;
and it is you who are the real head and brains of the troupe ;
it is you who have raised it into a real theatrical company.
If anyone must go, let it be Binet—Binet and his infernal
daughter. Or if you go, name of a name! we all go [with
you."
“ Ay," added Rhodomont, “ we’ve had enough of that fat
scoundrel.”
“I had thought of it, of course," said Andre-Louis. “ It
was not vanity, for once; it was trust in your friendship.
After to-night we may consider it again, if I survive.”
“ If you survive P " both cried.
Polichinelle got up. " Now what madness have you in
mind ? “ he asked.
“ For one thing, I think I am indulging Léandre; for
another, I am pursuing an old quarrel."
The three knocks sounded as he spoke.
" There, I must go. Keep that paper, Polichinelle. After
all, it may not be necessary."
He was gone. Rhodomont stared at Polichinelle, Poli-
chinelle stared at Rhodomont.
“ What the devil is he thinking of? ” quoth the latter.
" That is most readily ascertained by going to see,” replied
Polichinelle. He completed changing in haste, and despite
what Scaramouche had said ; and then followed with Rhodo-
mont.
As they approached the wings a roar of applause met them
coming from the audience. It was applause and something
else; applause on an unusual note. As it faded away they
heard the voice of Scaramouche ringing clear as a bell:
“ And so you see, my dear M. Léandre, that when you speak
of the Third Estate it is necessary to be more explicit. What
precisely is the Third Estate ? ”
“ Nothing," said Léandre.


184 Scaramouche
There was a gasp from the audience, audible in the wings,
and then swiftly followed Scaramouche's next question :
“ True. Alas! But what should it be? "
“ Everything," said Léandre.
The audience roared its acclarnations, the more violent
because of the unexpectedness of that reply.
" True again,” said Scaramouche. “ And what is more, that
is what it will be ; that is what it already is. Do you doubt
it P "
“ I hope it," said the schooled Léandre.
" You may believe it,“ said Scaramouche, and again the
acclamations rolled into thunder.
Polichinelle and Rhodomont exchanged glances; indeed,
the former winked, not without mirth.
“Sacred name 1 ” growled a voice behind them. “ Is the
scoundrel at his political tricks again? “
They turned to confront M. Binet. Moving with that
noiseless tread of his, he had come up unheard behind them,
and there he stood now, in his scarlet suit of Pantaloon under
a trailing bedgown, his little eyes glaring from either side of
his false nose. But their attention was held by the voice
of Scaramouche. He had stepped to the front of the stage.
“ He doubts it,” he was telling the audience. “ But then
this M. Léandre is himself akin to those who worship the worm-
eaten idol of Privilege, and so he is a little afraid to believe
a truth that is becoming apparent to all the world. Shall I
convince him ? Shall I tell him how a company of noblemen
backed by their servants under arms—six hundred men in all
—sought to dictate to the Third Estate of Rennes a few short
weeks ago ? Must I remind him of the martial front shown on
that occasion by the Third Estate, and how they swept the
streets clean of that rabble of nobles—eerie canaille noble P . . .“
Applause interrupted him. The phrase had struck home and
caught. Those who had writhed under that infamous designa-
tion from their betters leapt at this turning of it against the
nobles themselves.
“ But let me tell you of their leader—k plus noble de cette
canaille, ou bim la plus canaz'lle de ces nobles! You know
him—that one. He fears many things, but the voice of truth
he fears most. With such as him the eloquent truth eloquently
spoken is a thing instantly to be silenced. So he marshalled
his peers and their valetaille, and led them out to slaughter
these miserable bourgeois who dared to raise a voice. But
these same miserable bourgeois did not choose to be slaugh-
tered in the streets of Rennes. It occurred to them that,


The Buskin 185
since the nobles decreed that blood should ﬂow, it might as
well be the blood of the nobles. They marshalled themselves
tom—this noble rabble against the rabble of nobles—and they
marshalled themselves so well that they drove M. de La Tour
d’Azyr and his warlike following from the ﬁeld with broken
heads and shattered delusions. They sought shelter at the
hands of the Oordeliers ; and the shavelings gave them
sanctuary in their convent-those who survived, among whom
was their proud leader, M. de La Tour d’Azyr. You have heard
of this valiant Marquis, this great lord of life and death ? "
The pit was in an uproar a moment. It quieted again as
Scaramouche continued.
“ Oh, it was a ﬁne spectacle to see this mighty hunter scuttling
to cover like a hare, going to earth in the Cordelier Convent.
Rennes has not seen him since. Rennes would like to see
him again. But if he is valorous, he is also discreet. And
where do you think he has taken refuge—this great nobleman
who wanted to see the streets of Rennes washed in the blood
of its citizens, this man who would have butchered old and
young of the contemptible canaille to silence the voice of reason
and of liberty that presumes to ring through France to-day ?
Where do you think he hides himself ? Why, here in Nantes.”
Again there was uproar.
“ What do you say? Impossible? Why, my friends, at
this moment he is here in this theatre—skulking up there in
that box. He is too shy to show himself—oh, a very modest
gentleman! But there he is behind the curtains. Will you
not show yourself to your friends, M. de La Tour d’Azyr,
Monsieur le Marquis who considers eloquence so very dangerous
a gift ? See, they would like a word with you ; they do not
believe me when I tell them that you are here.”
Now, whatever he may have been, and whatever the views
held on the subject by André-Lonis, M. de la Tour d'Azyr was
certainly not a coward. To say that he was hiding in Nantes
was not true. He came and went there openly and unabashed.
It happened, however, that the Nantais were ignorant until
this moment of his presence among them. But then he would
have disdained to have informed them of it, just as he would
have disdained to have concealed it from them.
Challenged thus, however, and despite the ominous manner
in which the bourgeois element in the audience had responded
to Scaramouche’s appeal to its passions, despite the attempts
made by Chabrillanne to restrain him, the Marquis swept
aside the curtain at the side of the box, and suddenly showed
himself, pale but self-contained and scornful as he surveyed


186 Scaramouche
ﬁrst the daring Scaramouche and then those others who at
sight of him had given tongue to their hostility.
Hoots and yells assailed him, ﬁsts were shaken at him,
canes were brandished menacingly.
“ Assassin 1 Scoundrel l Oowardl Traitorl “
But he braved the storm, smiling upon them his ineffable
contempt. He was waiting for the noise to cease: waiting
to address them in his turn. But he waited in vain, as he
very soon perceived.
The contempt he did not trouble to dissaane served but to
goad them on.
In the pit pandemonium was already raging. Blows
were being freely exchanged ; there were scuﬂling groups, and
here and there swords were being drawn, but fortunately
the press was too dense to permit of their being used effectively.
Those who had women with them, and the timid by nature,
were making haste to leave a house that looked like becoming
a cock-pit, where chairs were being smashed to provide
weapons, and parts of chandeliers were already being used as
missiles.
One of these, hurled by the hand of a gentleman in one of
the boxes, narrowly missed Scaramouche where he stood,
looking down in a sort of grim triumph upon the havoc which
his words had wrought. Knowing of what inﬂammable
material the audience was composed, he had deliberately
ﬂung down amongst them the lighted torch of discord, to
produce this conﬂagration.
He saw men falling quickly into groups representative of
one side or the other of this great quarrel that already was
beginning to agitate the whole of France. Their rallying-
cries were ringing through the theatre.
“ Down with the canaillel " from some.
“ Down with the privileged! ” from others.
And then above the general din one cry rang out sharply
and insistently.
“ To the boxl Death to the butcher of Rennes! Death
to La Tour d’Azyr who makes war upon the people l "
There was a rush for one of the doors of the pit that opened
upon the staircase leading to the boxes.
And now whilst battle and confusion spread with the speed
of ﬁre, overﬂowing from the theatre into the street itself, La
Tour d’Azyr’s box, which had become the main object of the
attack of the bourgeoisie, had also become the rallying-ground
for such gentlemen as were present in the theatre and for those


The Buskin 187

___. _‘mﬁffiif_fi
who, without being men of birth themselves, were nevertheless
attached to the party of the nobles.
La Tour d'Azyr had quitted the front of the box to meet
those who came to join him. And now in the pit one group of
infuriated gentlemen in attempting to reach the stage across
the empty orchestra, so that they might deal with the audacious
comedian who was responsible for this explosion, found itself
opposed and held back by another group composed of men
to whose feelings Andre-Louis had given expression.
Perceiving this, and remembering the chandelier, he turned
to Léandre, who had remained beside him.
“ I think it is time to be going," said he.
Léandre, looking ghastly under his paint, appalled by the
storm which exceeded by far anything that his unimaginative
brain could have conjectured, gurgled an inarticulate agree-
ment. But it looked as if already they were too late, for in
that moment they were assailed from behind.
M. Binet had succeeded at last in breaking past Polichinelle
and Rhodomont, who in view of his murderous rage had been
endeavouring to restrain him. Half a dozen gentlemen,
habitués of the green-room, had come round to the stage to
disembowel the knave who had created this riot, and it was
they who had ﬂung aside those two comedians who hung upon
Binet. After him they came now, their swords out; but
after them again came Polichinelle, Rhodomont, Harlequin,
Pierrot, Pasquariel, and Basque the artist, armed with such
implements as they could hastily snatch up, and intent upon
saving the man with whom they sympathized in spite of all,
and in whom now all their hopes were centred.
Well ahead rolled Binet, moving faster than any had ever
seen him move, and swinging the long cane from which
Pantaloon is inseparable.
“ Infamous scoundrell ” he roared. “ You have ruined
me I But, name of a name, you shall pay! "
Andre-Louis turned to face him. “ You confuse cause
with effect," said he. But he got no further. Binet's cane,
viciously driven, descended and broke upon his shoulder.
Had he not moved swiftly aside as the blow fell it must have
taken him across the head, and possibly stunned him. As he
moved, he dropped his hand to his pocket, and swift upon
the cracking of Binet's breaking cane came the crack of the
pistol with which Andre-Louis replied.
" You had your warning, you ﬁlthy pander,” he cried,
and shot him through the body.


r88 Scaramouche
Binet went down screaming, whilst the ﬁerce Polichinelle,
ﬁercer than ever in that moment of ﬁerce reality, spoke
quickly into André-Louis’ ear.
“ Fooll So much was not necessary! Away with you
now, or you'll leave your skin here. Away with you I "
Andre-Louis thought it good advice, and took it. The
gentlemen who had followed Binet in that punitive rush upon
the stage, partly held in check by the improvised weapons of
the players, partly intimidated by the second pistol that
Scaramouche presented, let him go. He gained the wings,
and here found himself faced by a couple of sergeants of the
watch, part of the police that was already invading the theatre
with a view to restoring order. The sight of them reminded
him unpleasantly of how he must stand towards the law for
this night's work, and more particularly for that bullet
lodged somewhere in Binet’s obese body. He ﬂourished his
pistol.
“ Make way, or I’ll burn your brains l " he threatened them,
and intimidated, themselves without ﬁre-arms, they fell
back and let him go. He slipped past the door of the green—
room, where the ladies of the company had shut themselves
in until the storm should be over, and so gained the street
behind the theatre. It was deserted. Down this he went at
a run, intent on reaching the inn for clothes and money,
since it was impossible that he should take the road in the
garb of Scaramouche.


BOOK III
THE SWORD


CHAPTER I
TRANSITION
" OU may agree," wrote Andre-Louis from Paris
to Le Chapelier, in a letter which survives, " that
it is to be regretted I should deﬁnitely have
discarded the livery of Scaramouche, since clearly
there could be no livery ﬁtter for my wear. It seems to be my
part always to stir up strife and then to slip away before I am
caught in the crash of the waning elements I have aroused.
It is a humiliating reﬂection. I seek consolation in the
reminder of Epictetus (do you ever read Epictetus ?) that we
are but actors in a play, of such a part as it may please the
Director toassign us. It doesnot, however, console me to have
been cast for a part so contemptible, to ﬁnd myself excelling
ever in the art of running away. But if I am not brave, at
least I am prudent; so that where I lack one virtue I may
claim possession of another almost to excess. On a previous
occasion it was proposed to hang me for sedition. Should I
have stayed to be hanged ? This time it may be proposed to
hang me for several things, including murder ; for I do not know
whether that scoundrel Binet be alive or dead from the dose
of lead I pumped into his fat paunch. Nor can I say that
I very greatly care. If I have a hope at all in the matter, it is
that he is dead—and damned. But I am really indiﬂerent. My
own concerns are troubling me enough. I have all but spent
the little money that I contrived to conceal about me before
I ﬂed from Nantes on that dreadful night ; and both of the
only two professions of which I can claim to know anything—
the law and the stage—are closed to me, since I cannot ﬁnd
employment in either without revealing myself as a fellow
who is urgently wanted by the hangrnan. As things are, it
is very possible that I may die of hunger, especially considering
the present price of victuals in this ravenous city. Again I
have recourse to Epictetus for comfort. ‘ It is better,’
he says, ‘ to die of hunger having lived without grief and
fear, than to live with a troubled spirit amid abundance.’
I seem likely to perish in the estate that he accounts so


192 Scaramouche
enviable. That it does not seem exactly enviable to me merdy
proves that as a Stoic I am not a success."
There is also another letter of his written at about the same
time to the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr—a letter since pub-
lished by M. Emile Quersac in his Undercurrents of the Revolu-
tion in Brittany, unearthed by him from the archives of Rennes,
to which it had been consigned by M. de Lesdiguieres, who
had received it for justiciary purposes from the Marquis.
" The Paris newspapers," he writes in this, “ which have
reported in considerable detail the fracas at the Theatre
Feydau and disclosed the true identity of the Scaramouche
who provoked it, inform me also that you have escaped the
fate I had intended for you when I raised that storm of public
opinion and public indignation. I would not have you take
satisfaction in the thought that I regret your escape. I do
not. I rejoice in it. To deal justice by death has this
disadvantage, that the victim has no knowledge that justice
has overtaken him. Had you died, had you been torn limb
from limb that night, I should now repine in the thought of
your eternal and untroubled slumber. Not in euthanasia,
but in torment of mind should the guilty atone. You see,
I am not sure that hell hereafter is a certainty, whilst I
am quite sure that it can be a certainty in this life; and I
desire you to continue to live yet awhile that you may taste
something of its bitterness.
“ You murdered Philippe de Vilmorin because you feared
what you described as his very dangerous gift of eloquence.
I took an oath that day that your evil deed should be fruitless ;
that I would render it so; that the voice you had done
murder to stiﬂe should in spite of that ring like a trumpet
through the land. That was my conception of revenge. Do
you realise how I have been fulﬁlling it, how I shallcontinue
to fulﬁl it as occasion offers? In the speech with which I
ﬁred the people of Rennes on the very morrow of that deed
did you not hear the voice of Philippe de Vilmorin uttering
the ideas that were his, with a ﬁre and a passion greater than he
could have commanded, because Nemesis lent me her inﬂaming
aid? In the voice of Omnes Omnibus at Nantes—my voice
again—demanding the petition that sounded the knell of your
hopes of coercing the Third Estate, did you not hear again
the voice of Philippe de Vihnorin? Did you not reﬂect that
it was the mind of the man you had murdered, resurrected in
me, his surviving friend, which made necessary your futile
attempt under arms last January, wherein your order, ﬁnally
beaten, was driven to seek sanctuary in the Cordelier Convent.


The Sword 193
And that night when from the stage of the Feydau you were
denounced to the people, did you not hear yet again in the voice
of Scaramouche the voice of Philippe de Vilmorin, using that
dangerous gift of eloquence which you so foolishly imagined y0u
could silence with a sword-thrust ? It is becoming a persecu-
tion—is it not ?—this voice from the grave that insists upon
making itself heard, that will not rest until you have been cast
into the pit. You will be regretting by now that you did not
kill me too, as I invited you on that occasion. I can picture
to myself the bitterness of this regret, and I contemplate it
with satisfaction. Regret of neglected opportunity is the
worst hell that a living soul can inhabit, particularly such a
soul as yours. It is because of this that I am glad to know
that you survived the riot at the Feydau, although at the time
it was no part of my intention that you should. Because
of this I am content that you shouldlive to enrage and suffer
in the shadow of your evil deed, knowing at last—since you
had not hitherto the wit to discern it for yourself—that the
voice of Philippe de Vilmorin will follow you to denounce
you ever more loudly, ever more insistently, until having
lived in dread you shall go down in blood under the just rage
which your victim’s dangerous gift of eloquence is kindling
against you.”
I ﬁnd it odd that he should have omitted from this letter
all mention of Mademoiselle Binet, and I am disposed to
account it at least a partial insincerity that he should have
assigned entirely to his self-imposed mission, and not at all
to his lacerated feelings in the matter of Climene, the action
which he had taken at the Feydau.
Those two letters, both written in April of that year 1789,
had for only immediate effect to increase the activity with
which Andre-Louis Moreau was sought.
Le Chapelier would have found him so as to lend him
assistance, to urge upon him once again that he should take up
a political career. The electors of Nantes would have found
him—at least, they would have found Omnes Omnibus,
of whose identity with himself they were still in ignorance—-
on each of the several occasions when a vacancy occurred
in their body. And the Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr and M. de
Lesdigui‘eres would have found him that they might send
him to the gallows.
With a purpose no less vindictive was he being sought by
M. Binet, now unhappily recovered from his wound to face
completest ruin. His troupe had deserted him during his
illness, and, reconstituted under the direction of Polichinelle,
G


194 Scaramouche


it was now striving with tolerable success to continue upon
the lines which Andre-Louis had laid down. Monsieur le
Marquis, prevented by the riot from expressing in person
to Mademoiselle Binet his purpose of making an end of their
relations, had been constrained to write to her to that eﬁect
from Azyr a few days later. He tempered the blow by
enclosing in discharge of all liabilities a bill on the Caisse
d'Escompte for a hundred louis. Nevertheless, it almost
crushed the unfortunate Oliméne, and it enabled her father
when he recovered to enrage her by pointing out that she
owed this turn of events to the premature surrender she had
made in deﬁance of his sound worldly advice. Father and
daughter alike were left to assign the Marquis’s desertion,
naturally enough, to the riot at the Feydau. They laid that
with the rest to the account of Scaramouche, and were forced
in bitterness to admit that the scoundrel had taken a super-
lative revenge. Climéne may even have come to consider
that it would have paid her better to have run astraight
course with Scaramouche, and by marrying him to have trusted
to his undoubted talents to place her on the summit to which
her ambition urged her, and to which it was now futile for
her to aspire. If so, that reﬂection must have been her
sufﬁcient punishment. For, as Andre-Louis so truly says,
there is no worse hell than that provided by the regrets for
wasted opportunities.
Meanwhile the ﬁercely-sought Andre—Louis Moreau had
gone to earth completely for the present. And the brisk
police of Paris, urged on by the King’s Lieutenant from Rennes,
hunted for him in vain. Yet he might have been found in
a house in the Rue du Hasard within a stone’s throw of the
Palais Royal, whither purest chance had conducted him.
That which in his letter to Le Chapelier he represents as
a contingency of the near future was, in fact, the case in which
already he found himself. He wm destitute. His money
was exhausted, including that procured by the sale of such
articles of adornment as were not of absolute necessity.
So desperate was his case that, strolling one gusty April
morning down the Rue du Hasard with his nose in the wind
looking for what might be picked up, he stopped to read a
notice outside the door of a house on the left side of the
street as you approach the Rue de Richelieu. There was no
reason why he should have gone down the Rue du Hasard.
Perhaps its name attracted him, as appropriate to his
case.
The notice, written in a big round hand, announced that a


The Sword 195
young man of good address with some knowledge of swords-
manship was required by M. Bertrand des Amis on the second
ﬂoor. Above this notice was a black oblong board, and on
this a shield, which, in vulgar terms, may be described as red,
charged with two swords crossed and four ﬁeurs-de-lys, one
in each angle of the saltire. Under the shield, in letters of
gold, ran the legend:
BERTRAND DES AMIS
Mairros EN FAIT o’ARMEs nus ACADEMIES nu Ror
Andre-Louis stood considering. He could claim, he thought,
to possess the qualiﬁcations demanded. He was certainly
young, and, he believed, of tolerable address, whilst the fencing-
lessons he had received in Nantes had given him at least an
elementary knowledge of swordsmanship. The notice looked
as if it had been pinned there some days ago, suggesting that
applicants for the post were not very numerous. In that
case perhaps M. Bertrand des Amis would not be too exigent.
And anyway, Andre-Louis had not eaten for four-and~twenty
hours, and whilst the employment here offered—the precise
nature of which was yet to ascertain—did not appear to be
such as Andre-Louis would deliberately have chosen, he was
in no case now to be fastidious.
Then, too, he liked the name of Bertrand des Amis. It
felicitously combined suggestions of chivalry and friendli-
ness. Also the man’s profession being of a kind that is ﬂavoured
with romance, it was possible that M. Bertrand des Amis
would not ask too many questions.
In the end he climbed to the second ﬂoor. On the landing
he paused outside a door, on which was written, “Academy
of M. Bertrand des Amis." He pushed this open and found
himself in a sparsely-furnished, untenanted ante-chamber.
From a room beyond, the door of which was closed, came the
stamping of feet, the click and slither of steel upon steel,
and dominating these sounds a vibrant, sonorous voice speak-
ing a language that was certainly French—but such French
as is never heard outside a fencing-school.
" Coulezl Mais, coulez done I . . . So 1 Now the ﬂanconnade
—en carte. . . . And here is the riposte. . . . Let us begin again.
Come! The ward of tierce. Make the coupé, and then the
quinte par dessus les armes. . . . Oh, mais allongez l Allongezl
Allez au fondl " the voice cried in expostulation. “ Come,
that was better.” The blades ceased.
“ Remember: the hand in pronation,v the elbow not to_


r96 Scaramouche
far out. That will do for to-day. On Wednesday we shall
see you tirer au mur. It is more deliberate. Speed will
follow when the mechanism of the movements is more assured."
Another voice murmured in answer. The steps moved
aside. The lesson was at an end. Andre-Louis tapped on
the door.
It was opened by a tall, slender, gracefully proportioned
man of perhaps forty. Black silk breeches and stockings
ending in light shoes clothed him from the waist down. Above
he was encased to the chin in a closely-ﬁtting plastron of
leather. His face was aquiline and swarthy, his eyes full and
dark, his mouth ﬁrm, and his clubbed hair was of a lustrous
black with here and there a thread of silver showing.
In the crook of his left arm he carried a fencing-mask, a
thing of leather with a wire grating to protect the eyes. His
keen glance played over Andre-Louis from head to foot.
“ Monsieur? " he inquired politely.
It was clear that he mistook André-Louis’ quality, which
is not surprising, for despite his sadly reduced fortunes, his
exterior was irreproachable, and M. des Amis was not to guess
that he carried upon his back the whole of his possessions.
“ You have a notice below, monsieur,” he said, and from
the swift lighting of the fencing-master’s eyes he saw that he
had been correct in his assumption that applicants for the
position had not been jostling one another on his threshold.
And then that ﬂash of satisfaction was followed by a look of
surprise.
“ You are come in regard to that? "
André-Louis shrugged and half smiled. “ One must live,"
said he.
“ But come in. Sit down there. I shall be at your . . .
I shall be free to attend to you in a moment."
André-Louis took a seat on the bench ranged against one
of the white-washed walls. The room was long and low, its
ﬂoor entirely bare. Plain wooden forms such as that which be
occupied were placed here and there against the wall. These
last were plastered with fencing trophies, masks, crossed
foils, stuffed plastrons, and a variety of swords, daggers and
targets, belonging to a variety of ages and countries. There
was also a portrait of an obese, big-nosed gentleman in an
elaborately curled wig, wearing the blue ribbon of the Saint
Esprit, in whom André-Louis recognised the King. And there
was a framed parchment—M. des Amis’ certiﬁcate from the
King’s Academy. A bookcase occupied one corner, and near
this, facing the last of the four windows that abundantly


The Sword 197
lighted the long room, there was a small writing-table and an
arm-chair. A plump and beautifully dressed young gentleman
stood by this table in the act of resuming coat and wig. M.
des Amis sauntered over to him—moving, thought André-
Louis, with extraordinary grace and elasticity—and stood
in talk with him whilst also assisting him to complete his
toilet.
At last the young gentleman took his departure, mopping
himself with a ﬁne kerchief that left a trail of perfume in the
air. M. des Amis closed the door and turned to the applicant,
who rose at once.
“ Whereihave you studied?” quoth the fencing-master
abruptly.
“ Studied P " Andre-Louis was taken aback by the question.
“ Oh, at Louis Le Grand."
M. des Amis frowned, looking up sharply as if to see whether
his applicant was taking the liberty of amusing himself.
" In Heaven’s name I I am not asking you where you did
your humanities, but in what academy you studied fencing.”
“ Oh—fencingl ” It had hardly ever occurred to André-
Louis that the sword ranked seriously as a study. “ I never
studied it very much. I had some lessons in . . . in the
country once.”
The master’s eyebrows went up. “ But then,” he cried,
“ why trouble to come up two ﬂights of stairs? " He was
impatient.
“ The notice does not demand a high degree of proﬁciency.
If I am not proﬁcient enough, yet, knowing the rudiments, I
can easily improve. I learn most things readily,” André-
Louis commended himself. “ For the rest, I possess the
other qualiﬁcations. I am young, as you observe, and I
leave you to judge whether I am wrong in assuming that my
address is good. I am by profession a man of the robe, though
I realise that the motto here is cedal toga armis."
M. des Amis smiled approvingly. Undoubtedly the young
man had a good address, and a certain readiness of wit, it
would appear. He ran a critical eye over his physical points.
“ What is your name? “ he asked.
Andre-Louis hesitated a moment. “ André Louis," he
said.
The dark keen eyes conned him more searchingly.
“ Well P Andre-Louis what P ”
"Just André Louis. Louis is my surname."
“ Ohl An odd surname. You come from Brittany by
your accent. Why did you leave it P ”


+~e-~~~~ 4-“
198 Scaramouche
“ To save my skin," he answered, without reﬂecting. And
then made haste to cover the blunder. " I have an enemy,"
he explained.
M. des Amis frowned, stroking his square chin. “ You ran
away P ”
“ You may say so.’
“ A coward, eh P ”
" I don’t think so.” And then he lied romantically.
Surely a man who lived by the sword should have a weakness
for the romantic. “ You see, my enemy is a swordsman of
great strength—the best blade in the province, if not the best
blade in France. That is his repute. I thought I would come
to Paris to learn something of the art, and then go back and
kill him. That, to be frank, is why y0ur notice attracted me.
You see, I have not the means to take lessons otherwise.
I thought to ﬁnd work here in the law. But I have failed.
There are too many lawyers in Paris as it is, and whilst
waitingIhave consumed thelittle money thatIhad, so that . . .
so that, enﬁn, your notice seemed to me something to which a
special providence had directed me."
M. des Amis gripped him by the shoulders and looked
into his face.
“ Is this true, my friend ? " he asked.
“ Not a word of it,” said Andre-Louis, wrecking his chances
on an irresistible impulse to say the unexpected. But he
didn’t wreck them. M. des Amis burst into laughter; and
having laughed his ﬁll, confessed himself charmed by his
applicant’s fundamental honesty.
“ Take off your coat,” he said, “ and let us see what you
can do. Nature, at least, designed you for a swordsman. You
are light, active, and supple, with a good length of arm, and
you seem intelligent. I may make something of you, teach
you enough for my purpose, which is that you should give the
elements of the art to new pupils before I take them in hand
to ﬁnish them. Let us try. Take that mask and foil, and
come over here."
He led him to the end of the room, where the bare ﬂoor was
scored with lines of chalk to guide the beginner in the manage-
ment of his feet.
At the end of a ten minutes’ bout, M. des Amis offered him
the situation, and explained it. In addition to imparting the
rudiments of the art to beginners, he was to brush out the
fencing-room every morning, keep the foils furbished, assist
the gentlemen who came for lessons to dress and undress,
and make himself generally useful. His wages for the present


The Sword 199
were to be forty livres a month, and he might sleep in an
alcove behind the fencing-room if he had no other lodging.
The position, you see, had its humiliations. But, if André-
Louis would hope to dine, he must begin by eating his pride
as an hors d’auvre.
“ And so,” he said, controlling a grimace, “ the robe yields
not only to the sword, but to the broom as well. Be it so.
I stay.”
It is characteristic of him that, having made that choice,
he should have thrown himself into the work with enthusiasm.
It was ever his way to do whatever he did with all the resources
of his mind and energies of his body. When he was not
instructing very young gentlemen in the elements of the art,
showing them the elaborate and intricate salute—which with
a few days’ hard practice he had mastered to perfection—
and the eight guards, he was himself hard at work on those
same guards, exercising eye, wrist, and knees.
Perceiving his enthusiasm, and seeing the obvious possi-
bilities it opened out of turning him into a really effective
assistant, M. des Amis presently took him more seriously in
hand.
“ Your application and zeal, my friend, are deserving of
more than forty livres a month,” the master informed him
at the end of a week. “ For the present, however, I will make
up what else I consider due to you by imparting to you the
secrets of this noble art. Your future depends upon how you
proﬁt by your exceptional good fortune in receiving instruction
from me.”
Thereafter every morning before the opening of the academy
the master would fence for half an hour with his new assist-
ant. Under this really excellent tuition André-Louis improved
at a rate that both astounded and ﬂattered M. des Amis.
He would have been less ﬂattered and more astounded had
he known that at least half the secret of André-Louis’ amazing
progress lay in the fact that he was devouring the contents
of the master’s library, which was made up of a dozen or so
treatises on fencing by such great masters as La Boéssiere,
Danet, and the symdic of the King’s Academy, Augustin
Rousseau. To M. des Amis, whose swordsmanship was all based
on practice and not at all on theory, who was, indeed, no theorist
or student in any sense, that little library was merely a
suitable adjunct to a fencing academy, a proper piece of
decorative furniture. The books themselves meant nothing
to him in any other sense. He had not the type of mind that
could have read them with proﬁt, nor could he understand that


The Sword 201
Then one recommenced. But even so, these disengages were
fortuitous. What if from ﬁrst to last they should be
calculated P
That was part of the thought—one of the two legs on which
his theory was to stand. The other was : what would happen
if one so elaborated Danet’s ideas on the triple feint as to
merge them into a series of actual calculated disengages to
culminate at the fourth or ﬁfth or even sixth disengage——
—-that is to say, if one were to make a series of attacks inviting
ripostes again to be countered, each of which was not intended
to go home, but simply to play the opponent’s blade into a line
that must open him ultimately, and as predetermined, for
an irresistible lunge P Each counter of the opponent's would
have to be preconsidered in this widening of his guard,
a widening so gradual that he should himself he unconscious
of it, and throughout intent upon getting home his own
point on one of those counters.
Andre-Louis had been in his time a chess-player of some
force, and at chess he had excelled by virtue of his capacity
for thinking ahead. That virtue applied to fencing should all
but revolutionise the art. It was so applied already, of course,
but only in an elementary and very limited fashion, in mere
feints, single, double, or triple. But even the triple feint
should be a clumsy device compared with this method upon
which he theorised.
He considered further, and the conviction grew that he
held the key of a discovery. He was impatient to put his
theory to the test.
That morning he was given a pupil of some force, against
whom usually he was hard put to it to defend himself. Coming
on guard, he made up his mind to hit him on the fourth
disengage, predetermining the four passes that should lead
up to it. They engaged in tierce, and Andre-Louis led the
attack by a beat and a straightening of the arm. Game the
demi-contre he expected, which he promptly countered by a
thrust in quinte ; this being countered again, he re-entered still
lower, and being again correctly parried, as he had calculated,
he lunged swirling his point into carte, and got home full upon
his Opponent’s breast. The ease of it surprised him.
They began again. This time he resolved to go in on the
ﬁfth disengage, and in on that he went with the same ease.
Then, complicating the matter further, he decided to try the
sixth, and worked out in his mind the combination of the
ﬁve preliminary engages. Yet again he succeeded as easily
as before. .


202 Scaramouche


The young gentleman opposed to him laughed with just a
tinge of mortiﬁcation in his voice.
“ I am all to pieces this morning,” he said.
" You are not of your usual force,” Andre-Louis politely
agreed. And then greatly daring, always to test that theory
of his to the uttermost : “ So much so,“ he added, “ that I
could almost be sure of hitting you as and when I declare."
The capable pupil looked at him with a half-sneer. " Ah,
that, no! " said he.
“ Let us try. On the fourth disengage I shall touch you.
Allons! En gardel"
And as he promised, so it happened.
The young gentleman, who hitherto had held no great
opinion of André-Louis' swordsmanship, accounting him well
enough for purposes of practice when the master was other-
wise engaged, opened wide his eyes. In a burst of mingled
generosity and intoxication, Andre-Louis was almost for
disclosing his method—a method which a little later was to
become a commonplace of the fencing-rooms. Betimes he
checked himself. To reveal his secret would be to destroy
the prestige that must accrue to him from exercising it.
At noon, the academy being empty, M. des Amis called
Andre-Louis to one of the occasional lessons which he still
received. And for the ﬁrst time in all his experience with
Andre-Louis, M. des Amis received from him a full hit in the
course of the ﬁrst bout. He laughed, well pleased, like the
generous fellow he was.
“ Aha 1 You are improving very fast, my friend."
He still laughed, though not so well pleased, when he was
hit in the second bout. After that he settled down to ﬁght
in earnest, with the result that Andre-Louis was hit three
times in succession. The speed and accuracy of the fencing-
master when fully exerting himself disconcerted André-Louis’
theory, which, for want of being exercised in practice, still
demanded too much consideration.
But that his theory was sound he accounted fully estab-
lished, and with that, for the moment, he was content. It
remained only to perfect by practice the application of it.
To this he now devoted himself with the passionate enthusiasm
of the discoverer. He conﬁned himself to a half-dozen
combinations, which he practised assiduously until each had
become almost automatic. And he proved their infallibility
upon the best among M. des Amis’ pupils.
Finally, a week or so after that last bout of his with des
Amis, the master called him once more to practice.


The Sword 203
Hit again in the ﬁrst bout, the master set himself to exert
all his skill against his assistant. But to-day it availed him
nothing before André-Louis’ impetuous attacks.
After the third hit, M. des Amis stepped back and pulled oﬂ
his mask.
“What’s this? ” he asked. He was pale, and his dark
brows were contracted in a frown. Not in years had he been
so wounded in his self-love. “ Have you been taught a
secret botte? ”
He had always boasted that he knew too much about the
sword to believe any nonsense about secret bottes, but this
performance of André-Louis’ had shaken his convictions on
that score.
“ No,” said André-Louis. “I have been working hard;
and it happens that I fence with my brains.”
“ So I perceive. Well, well, I think I have taught you
enough, my friend. I have no intention of having an assist-
ant who is superior to myself.”
Little danger of that,” said Andre-Louis, smiling pleas-
antly. “You have been fencing hard all morning, and you
are tired, whilst I,having done little, am entirely fresh. That
is the only secret of my momentary success.”
His tact and the fundamental good nature of M. des Amis
prevented the matter from going further along the road it
was almost threatening to take. And thereafter, when they
fenced together, Andre-Louis, who continued daily to perfect
his theory into an almost infallible system, saw to it that M.
des Amis always scored against him at least two hits for every
one of his own. So much he would grant to discretion, but
no more. He desired that M. des Amis should be conscious
of his strength, without, however, discovering so much of its
real extent as would have excited in him an unnecessary
degree of jealousy.
And so well did he contrive, that whilst he became ever of
greater assistance to the master—for his style and general
fencing, too, had materially improved—he was also a source
of pride to him as the most brilliant of all the pupils that had
ever passed through his academy. Never did Andre-Louis
disillusion him by revealing the fact that his skill was due far
more to M. des Amis' library and his own mother wit than to.
any lessons received.


The Sword 205
Looking on, Andre-Louis smiled grimly. So far he was
right. The sufferers were ever the proletariat. The men who
sought to make this revolution, the electors—here in Paris as
elsewhere—were men of substance, notable bourgeois, wealthy
traders. And whilst these, despising the canaille and envying
the privileged, talked largely of equali ty—by which they meant
an ascending equality that should confuse themselves with
the gentry-—the proletariat perished of want in its kennels.
At last with the month of May the deputies arrived, André-
Louis’ friend, Le Chapelier, prominent amongst them, and the
States General were inaugurated at Versailles. It was then that
affairs began to become interesting, then that Andre-Louis
began seriously to doubt the soundness of the views he had
held hitherto.
When the royal proclamation had gone forth decreeing that
the deputies of the Third Estate should number twice as many
as those of the other two orders together, Andre-Louis had
believed that the preponderance of votes thus assured to the
Third Estate rendered inevitable the reforms to which they
had pledged themselves.
But he had reckoned without the power of the privileged
orders over the proud Austrian Queen, and her power over the
obese, phlegmatic, irresolute monarch. That the privileged
orders should deliver battle in defence of their privileges
André-Louis could understand. Man being what he is, and
labouring under his curse of acquisitiveness, will never willingly
surrender possessions, whether they be justly or unjustly
held. But what surprised Andre-Louis was the unutterable
crassness of the methods by which the Privileged ranged
themselves for battle. They opposed brute force to reason
and philosophy, and battalions of foreign mercenaries to
ideas. As if ideas were to be impaled on bayonets l
“ It is clear,” he writes, “ that each and all of them were
just so many Tours d’Azyr. I had never realised that his
species swarmed so thickly in France. The noblesse might
almost be symbolised by a swaggering bully ready to run a
sword through the entrails of any who opposed him. And the
method! After the farce of that ﬁrst Assembly the Third
were left to themselves, to meet daily in the Salle des Menus
Plaisirs at Versailles, unable to proceed because the Privileged
would not join them for the common and public veriﬁcation
of powers which was necessary as a. preliminary to the business
of making a constitution. Privilege fatuously imagined
that by this inaction it would compel the Third to decay and
disintegrate. Already it found a deal of amusement with


206 Scaramouche
which to excite the laughter of the Comité Polignac that ruled
the foolish Queen, in the absurd spectacle of the Third Estate
thus checkmated and impotent at the outset."
That was the beginning of the war between the Privileged and
the Court on one side, and the Assembly and the People on
the other.
The Third contained itself, and waited; waited with the
patience of nature ; waited a month whilst with the paralysis
of business now complete the skeleton hand of famine took a
ﬁrmer grip of Paris ; waited a month whilst Privilege gradually
assembled an army in Versailles to intimidate it—an army of
ﬁfteen regiments, nine of which were Swiss and German—and
mounted a park of artillery before the building in which the
deputies sat. But the deputies refused to be intimidated ; they
refused to see the guns and foreign uniforms; they refused
to see anything but the purpose for which they had been
brought together by royal proclamation.
Thus until the 10th of June, when that great thinker and
metaphysician, the Abbé Siéyes, gave the signal. “ It is time,"
said he, “ to cut the cable."
On his motion, the preliminary action was taken of formally
summoning the two absent orders to sit in common assembly
with the Third Estate.
But Privilege—not seeing in its stupid tenacity of greed
whither it was going, believing in force as the supreme law,
and trusting to guns and foreign regiments—still refused to
accede to the just and reasonable demand of of a common
assembly.
“ It is said, ” Siéyés had written, “ that the Third Estate
alone cannot form States General. So much the better, it
will compose a National Assembly. '
This he now demanded should be done, and the Third, as
representing ninety-six per centum of the nation, proceeded to
do it. As a beginning the nobility and clergy were pronounced
to be no more than two corporations nowise representative.
They willed it so, and they had it so.
The (Eil de Boeui was intensely amused. This Third was
so droll in its fantastic contortions. The reloinder was of
the simplest. It consisted in closing the Hall of the Menus
Plaisirs where the Assembly was held. How the gods must
have laughed at those so reckless laughersl Andre-Louis
certainly laughs as he writes of it.
" Again brute force against ideas. Again the manner of
La_Tour d’Azyr. The Assembly no doubt had too dangerous
a gift of eloquence. But how to conceive that the closing of a


208 Scaramouche
a reunion, he will permit it, but for this occasion only, and to
treat only of general affairs, which general affairs do not
comprise any matters concerning the respective rights of the
three orders, the constitution of future States General, feudal
and seigneurial property, or privileges pecuniary or honourable ;
in short, nothing that can alter the existing régime, nothing
of all that purpose by which the Third is inspired. The
royal convocation of these States is revealed at last for an
impudent mockery, a thing devised solely to mystify and to
delude.
The Third, notiﬁed, repairs to the Menus Plaisirs to meet
the other orders and hear the royal declaration. M. Necker
is absent ; the rumour runs that he is on the point of depar-
ture. Since Privilege will not use the bridge of his providing,
he will certainly not remain to have it supposed from his
presence that he approves the declaration to be made. How
could he approve it, since it changes nothing? It declares
that the King will sanction equality of taxation if the nobility
and the clergy will renounce their pecuniary privileges ;
that property shall be respected, particularly tithes and
feudal rights and dues; that on the question of individual
liberty the States are invited to seek and to propose means
that will reconcile the abolition of lettres-de-cachet with the
precautions necessary to spare the honour of families and to
repress the beginnings of sedition; that in the matter of
throwing State employment open equally to all, the King must
refuse, particularly in so far as the army is concerned, in the
institution of which it is not his wish to make the slightest
modiﬁcation—by which it is meant that the military career
must remain a privilege of the noblesse, as hitherto, and that
no man who is not nobly born may aspire to any rank above
that of an under-ofﬁcer.
And lest any doubts should linger in the minds of the already
sufficiently disillusioned representatives of ninety-six per
centum of the nation, comes from that sluggish, phlegmatic
prince the challenge:
“ If you abandon me in so beautiful an enterprise, I shall,
alone, dispose for the welfare of my people ; I shall consider
myself, alone, their true representative.”
And upon that he dismisses them:
“ I order you, messieurs to separate at once. To-morrow
morning you will repair to the chambers assigned to your
respective orders, there to resume your sittings."
And so his Majesty departs followed by Privilege—nobility
and clergy. He returns to the Chateau to receive the


zro Scaramouche /
They kiss his hands as he moves through them, in tears,
deeply moved by this display of faith in him. Thus, obvering
with his reputation for honesty the brutal stupidity of the
cabal, he gains them a respite.
That was on the twenty-third of June. The news of it
came quickly to Paris. Did it mean, wondered Andre-Louis,
that the National Assembly had conquered, that the door
would be opened to the reforms the need for which grew
every day more desperate P He hoped it might be so, for Paris
was becoming restive and ever hungrier. The queues outside
the bread-shops were daily increasing as bread grew daily
more scarce, and accusations of gambling in corn ﬂew recklessly
and dangerously, likely at any moment to precipitate grave
trouble.
For two days nothing happened. The reconciliation was
not conﬁrmed; the royal declaration was not revoked. It
began to look as if the Court would not keep faith. And then
the electors of Paris took a hand. This body had concerted
to continue to assemble after the elections, so as to complete
the instructions of their elected deputies. They now proposed
the formation of a civic guard, the organisation of an elective
annual commune, and an address to the King petitioning the
withdrawal of the troops assembled at Versailles, and the
revocation of the royal declaration of the 23rd. On that
same day the soldiers of the French Guards broke out of
barracks, and came to fraternize with the people in the Palais
Royal, swearing to refuse to obey any order against the
National Assembly. For this, eleven of them were placed
under arrest by their Colonel, M. du Chatelet.
Meanwhile the petition of the electors was before the King.
In addition to this, a minority of the nobles, with the self-
seeking, effete Duke of Orléans at their head, had of their own
impulse joined the National Assembly, to the great delight of
Paris.
The King, urged to prudence by M. Necker, decided upon
the reunion of the orders, which the National Assembly
demanded. There was great joy at Versailles, and thus,
apparently, the peace was made between Privilege and People.
Had it been real all might have been well. But Privilege
had not yet learnt its lesson; indeed, would never learn it
until all was lost. The reunion was but a. pretence, a mockery,
made by the temporising nobles, who now—as was becoming
obvious—but watched for an opportunity, awaited a pretext
to resort to the force in which alone they believed.
And the opportunity came soon, at the very beginning of


The Sword 211
July. M. du Chatelet, a harsh, haughty disciplinarian, pro-
posed to transfer the eleven French Guards placed under arrest
from the military gaol of the Abbaye to the ﬁlthy prison of
Bicétre reserved for thieves and felons of the lowest order.
Word of that intention going forth, the people at last met
violencewithviolence. A mob of four thousand strongbroke into
the Abbaye, and delivered thence not only the eleven guards-
men, but all the other prisoners, with the exception of one
whom they discovered to be a thief, and whom they put back
again.
That was open revolt at last, and with revolt Privilege knew
how to deal. It would strangle this mutinous Paris in the iron
grip of the foreign regiments. Measures were quickly concerted.
Old Maréchal de Broglie, a veteran of the Seven Years’ War,
imbued with a soldier’s contempt for civilians, conceiving
that the sight of a uniform would be enough to restore peace
and order, took control with Besenval as his second-in-
command. The foreign regiments were stationed in the
environs of Paris, regiments whose very names were an irrita-
tion to the Parisians, regiments of Reisbach, of Diesbach, of
Nassau, Esterhazy, and Roehmer. Reinforcements of Swiss
were sent to the Bastille, between whose crenels already since
the thirtieth of June were to be seen the menacing mouths of
loaded cannon.
On the tenth of July the electors once more addressed the
King to request the withdrawal of the troops. They were
answered next day that the troops served the purpose of
defending the liberties of the Assembly 1 And on the next day
to that, which was a Sunday, the philanthropist, Dr. Guillotin
—-whose philanthropic engine of painless death was before
very long to ﬁnd a deal of work—came from the Assembly,
of which he was a member, to assure the electors of Paris
that all was well, appearances notwithstanding, since Necker
was more ﬁrmly in the saddle than ever. He did not know
that at the verymoment in whichhe was speaking so conﬁdently
the oft-dismissed and oft-recalled M. Necker had just been
dismissed yet again by the hostile cabal about the Queen.
Privilege wanted conclusive measures, and conclusive measures
it would have—conclusive to itself.
And at the same time yet another philanthropist, also a
doctor, one Jean Paul Mara, of Italian extraction—better
known as Marat, the gallicized form of name he adopted—a
man of letters, too, who had spent some years in England,
and there published several works on sociology, was
writing:


212 Scaramouche /
/
“ Have a carel Consider what would be the fatal eﬁect
of a. seditious movement. If you should have the misfortune
to give way to that, you will be treated as people in revolt,
and blood will ﬂow." /
Andre—Louis was in the gardens of the Palais Royal—that
place of shops and puppet-shows, of circus and cafés, of
gaming-houses and brothels, that universal rendezvous—
on that Sunday morning when the news of N ecker’s dismissal
spread dismay and fury.
He beheld a slight young man with a pock—marked face
redeemed from utter ugliness by a pair of magniﬁcent eyes
leap to a table outside the Café de Foy, a drawn sword in
his hand, crying “ To arms I ” And then upon the silence of
astonishment which that cry imposed, this young man poured a
flood of inﬂammatory eloquence, in a voice marred at
moments by a stutter. He told the people that the Germans
on the Champ de Mars would enter Paris that night to butcher
the inhabitants. “ Let us mount a cockade l ” he cried, and
tore a leaf from a tree to serve his purpoch-the green cockade
of hope.
Enthusiasm swept the crowd, a motley crowd made up of
men and women of every class, from vagabond to nobleman,
from harlot to lady of fashion. Trees were despoiled of their
leaves, and the green cockade was ﬂaunted from almost
every head.
“ You are caught between two ﬁres," the incendiary’s
stuttering voice raved on. “ Between the Germans on the
Champ de Mars and the Swiss in the Bastille. To arms, then i
To arms! ”
Excitement boiled up, and over. From a neighbouring
waxworks show came the bust of Necker, and presently a bust
of that comedian the Duke of Orleans, who had a party and
who was as ready as any other of the budding opportunists
of those days to take advantage of the moment for his own
aggrandisement. The bust of Necker was draped with crepe.
Andre-Louis looked on, and grew afraid. Marat’s pamphlet
had impressed him. It had expressed what himself he had
expressed more than half a year ago to the mob at Rennes.
This crowd, he felt, must be restrained. That hot-headed,
irresponsible stutterer would have the town in a blaze by
night unless something were done. The young man, a cause-
less advocate of the Palais named Camille Desmoulins, later
to become famous, leapt down from his table still waving his
sword, still shouting “ To arms 1 Follow me I " Andre-Louis
advanced to occupy the improvised rostrum, which the stutterer


The Sword 213
had just vacated, to make an effort at counteracting that
inﬂammatory performance. He thrust through the crowd,
and came suddenly face to face with a tall man, beautifully
dressed, whose handsome countenance was sternly set,
whose great sombre eyes smouldered as if with suppressed
anger.
Thus face to face, each looking into the eyes of the other,
they stood for a long moment, the jostling crowd streaming
past them, unheeded. Then Andre-Louis laughed.
“ That fellow, too, has a very dangerous gift of eloquence.
M. 1e Marquis," he said. “ In fact there are a number of such
in France to-day. They grow from the soil, which you and
yours have irrigated with the blood of the martyrs of liberty.
Soon it may be your blood instead. The soil is parched, and
thirsty for it.”
“ Gallows-bird,” he was answered. “The police will do
your affair for you. I shall tell the Lieutenant-General that
you are to be found in Paris.”
“ My God, man! ” cried Andre-Louis, “ will you never get
sense ? Will you talk like that of Lieutenant-Generals when
Paris itself is likely to tumble about your ears or take ﬁre
under your feet P Raise your voice, M. le Marquis. Denounce
me here, to these. You will make a hero of me in such an
hour as this. Or shall I denounce you? I think I will.
I think it is high time you received your wages. Hi! You
others, listen to me! Let me present you to . . . "
A rush of men hurtled against him, swept him along with
them, do what he would, separating him from M. de La Tour
d’Azyr, so oddly met. He sought in vain to breast that human
torrent; the Marquis, caught in an eddy of it, remained
where he had been, and André-Louis’ last glimpse of him was
of a man smiling with tight lips, an ugly smile.
Meanwhile, the gardens were emptying in the wake of that
stuttering ﬁrebrand who had mounted the green cockade.
The human torrent poured out into the Rue de Richelieu, and
Andre-Louis perforce must suffer himself to be borne along by
it, at least as far as the Rue du Hasard. There he sidled out
of it, and having no wish to be crushed to death or to take
further part in the madness that was afoot, he slipped down the
street, and so got home to the deserted academy. For there
were no pupils to-day, and even M. des Amis, like Andre-Louis,
had gone out to seek for news of what was happening at
Versailles.
This was no normal state of things at the academy of
Bertrand des Amis. Whatever else in Paris might have been


214 Scaramouche
at a standstill lately, the fencing academy had ﬂourished as
never hitherto. Usually both the master and his assistant
were busy from morning until dusk, and Andre-Louis was
being paid now by the lessons that he gave, the master allowing
him one half of the fee in each case for himself, an arrangement
that the assistant found proﬁtable. On Sundays the academy
made half holiday; but on this Sunday, such had been the
state of suspense and ferment in the city, that no one having
appeared by eleven o’clock, both des Amis and Andre-Louis
had gone out. Little they thought as they lightly took leave
of each other—they were very good friends by now—that they
were never to meet again in this world.
Bloodshed there was that day in Paris. On the Place
Venddme a detachment of dragoons awaited the crowd out
of which Andre-Louis had slipped. The horsemen swept
down upon the mob, dispersed it, smashed the waxen efﬁgy
of M. Necker, and killed one man on the spot—an unfortunate
French Guard who stood his ground. That was a beginning.
As a consequence Besenval brought up his Swiss from the
Champ de Mars and marshalled them in battle order on the
Champs Elysées with four pieces of artillery. His dragoons
he stationed in the Place Louis XV.
That evening an enormous crowd, streaming along the
Champs Elysées and the Tuileries Gardens, considered with
eyes of alarm that warlike preparation. Some insults were
cast upon those foreign mercenaries and some stones were
ﬂung. Besenval, losing his head, or acting under orders, sent
for his dragoons and ordered them to disperse the crowd.
But that crowd was too dense to be dispersed in this fashion;
so dense that it was impossible for the horsemen to move
without crushing someone. There were several crushed, and
as a consequence, when the dragoons, led by the Prince de
Lambesc, advanced into the Tuileries Gardens, the outraged
crowd met them with a fusillade of stones and bottles. Lambosc
gave the order to ﬁre. There was a stampede. Pouring forth
from the Tuileries through the city went those indignant
people with their story of German cavalry trampling upon
women and children, and uttering now in grimmest earnest
the call to arms, raised at noon by Desmoulins in the Palais
R0 al.
"lyhe victims were taken up and borne thence, and amongst
Ithem was Bertrand des Amis, himself—like all who lived by
the sword—an ardent upholder of the noblesse, trampled to
death under hooves of foreign horsemen launched by the
noblesse and led by a nobleman.


CHAPTER III
PRESIDENT LE CHAPELIER
HE ferment of Paris, which during the two following
| days resembled an armed camp rather than a city,
delayed the burial of Bertrand des Amis until the
Wednesday of that eventful week. Amid events
that were shaking a nation to its foundations the death of a
fencing-master passed almost unnoticed even among his pupils,
most of whom did not come to the academy during the two
days that his body lay there. Some few, however, did come,
and these conveyed the news to others, with the result that
the master was followed to Pere La Chaise by a score of young
men, at the head of whom as chief mourner walked André-
Louis.
There were no relatives to be advised so far as Andre-Louis
was aware, although within a week of M. des Amis’ death
a sister turned up from Passy to claim his heritage. This
was considerable, for the master had prospered and saved
money, most of which was invested in the Compagnie des
Eaux and the National Debt. Andre-Louis consigned her
to the lawyers, and saw her no more.
The death of des Amis left him with so profound a sense of
loneliness and desolation, that he had no thought or care for
the sudden access of fortune which it automatically procured
him. To the master’s sister might fall such wealth as he had
amassed, but Andre-Louis succeeded to the mine itself from
which that wealth had been extracted—the fencing-school,
in which by now he was himself so well established as an
instructor that its numerous pupils looked to him to carry it
forward successfully as its chief. And never was there a
season in which fencing academies knew such prosperity as
in these troubled days, when every man was sharpening his
sword and schooling himself in the uses of it.
It was not until a couple of weeks later that Andre-Louis
realised what had really happened to him, and he found himself
at the same time an exhausted man, for during that fortnight
he had been doing the work of two. If he had not hit upon


The Sword 217
the happy expedient of pairing oﬁ his more advanced pupils
to fence with each other, himself standing by to criticise,
correct, and otherwise instruct, he must have found the task
utterly beyond his strength. Even so, it was necessary for
him to fence some six hours daily, and every day he brought
arrears of lassitude from yesterday, until he was in danger of
succumbing under the increasing burden of fatigue. In the
end he took an assistant to deal with beginners, who gave the
hardest work. He found him readily enough by good fortune
in one of his own pupils named Le Duc. As the summer
advanced, and the concourse of pupils steadily increased, it
became necessary for him to take yet another assistant—-
an able young instructor named Galoche—and another room
on the ﬂoor above.
They were strenuous days for Andre-Louis, more strenuous
than he had ever known, even when he had been at work to
build up the Binet Company; but it follows that they were
days of extraordinary prosperity. He comments regretfully
upon the fact that Bertrand des Amis should have died by
ill-chance on the very eve of so proﬁtable a vogue of sword-
lay.
P The arms of the Academic du Roi, to which Andre-Louis
had no title, still continued to be displayed outside his door.
He had overcome the diﬂiculty in a manner worthy of Scara-
mouche. He left the escutcheon and the legend “ Academies
de Bertrand des Amis, Maitre en fait d'Armes des Académies
du Roi,” appending to it the further legend: “ Conducted
by André Louis.”
With little time now in which to go abroad, it was from his
pupils and the newspapers—of which a ﬂood had risen in
Paris with the establishment of the freedom of the Press—-
that he learnt of the revolutionary processes around him,
following upon, as a measure of anti—climax, the fall of the
Bastille. That had happened whilst M. des Amis lay dead,
on the day before they buried him, and was indeed the chief
reason of his burial’s delay. It was an event that had its
inspiration in that ill-considered charge of Prince Lambesc
in which the fencing-master had been killed.
The outraged people had besieged the electors in the Hetel
de Ville demanding arms with which to defend their lives from
these foreign murderers hired by despotism. And in the end
the electors had consented to give them arms, or rather—
for arms it had none to give—to permit them to arm them-
selves. Also they had given them a cockade, of red and blue,
the colours of Paris. Because these colours were also those


218 Scaramouche
of the liven'es of the Duke of Orleans, white was added to
them—the white of the ancient standard of France—and thus
was the tricolour born. Further, a permanent committee
of electors was appointed to watch over public order.
Thus empowered, the people went to work with such good
effect that within thirty-six hours sixty thousand pikes had
been forged. At nine o’clock on Tuesday morning thirty
thousand men were before the Invalides. By eleven o’clock
they had ravished it of its store of arms, amounting to some
thirty thousand muskets, whilst others had seized the Arsenal
and possessed themselves of powder.
Thus they prepared to resist the attack that from seven
points was to be launched that evening upon the city. But
Paris did not wait for the attack. It took the initiative.
Mad with enthusiasm, it conceived the insane project of seizing
that terrible, menacing fortress the Bastille, and, what is more,
it succeeded, as you know, before ﬁve o’clock that night, aided
in the enterprise by the French Guards with cannon.
The news of it, borne to Versailles by Lambesc in flight with
his dragoons before the vast armed force that had sprouted
from the paving—stones of Paris, gave the Court pause. The
people were in possession of the guns captured from the
Bastille. They were erecting barricades in the streets and
mounting these guns upon them. The attack had been too
long delayed. It must be abandoned, since now it could lead
only to fruitless slaughter that must further shake the already
sorely shaken prestige of royalty.
And so the Court, growing momentarily wise again under
the spur of fear, preferred to temporise. Necker should be
brought back yet once again; the three orders should sit
united as the National Assembly demanded. It was the
completest surrender of force to force—the only argument.
The King went alone to inform the National Assembly of that
eleventh-hour resolve, to the great comfort of its members,
who viewed with pain and alarm the dreadful state of things
in Paris. “ No force but the force of reason and argument ”
was their watchword, and it was so to continue for two years
yet, with a patience and fortitude in the face of ceaseless provo—
cation to which insuﬂicient justice has been done.
As the King was leaving the Assembly, a woman, embracing
his knees, gave tongue to what might well be the question of
all France:
" Ah, sire, are you really sincere ? Are you sure they will
not make you change your mind? "
Yet no such question was asked when a couple of days


The Sword 221
small silver-hilted sword, and wore it as if used to it, and his
black hair that Le Chapelier had never seen other than ﬂutter-
ing lank about his bony cheeks was glossy now and gathered
into a club. Almost he had the air of a petit maitre.
In both, however, the changes were purer superﬁcial, as
each was soon to reveal to the other. Le Chapelier was ever
the same direct and downright Breton, abrupt of manner and
of speech. He stood smiling a moment in mingled surprise and
pleasure, then opened wide his arms. They embraced under
the awe-stricken gaze of the waiter, who at once effaced himself.
“ Andre-Louis, my friend! Whence do you drop ? ”
“ We drop from above. I come from below to survey at
close quarters one who is on the heights."
“ On the heights ! But that you willed it so, it is yourself
might now be standing in my place."
“ I have a poor head for heights, and I ﬁnd the atmosphere
too rareﬁed. Indeed, you look none too well on it yourself,
Isaac. You are pale.”
“ The Assembly was in session all last night. That is all.
These damned Privileged multiply our difficulties. They will
do so until we decree their abolition.”
They sat down. “ Abolition ! You contemplate so much P
Not that you surprise me. You have always been an ex-
trernist."
“ I contemplate it that I may save them. I seek to abolish
them ofﬁcially, so as to save them from abolition of another
kind at the hands of a people they exasperate.”
“ I see. And the King ? "
“ The King is the incarnation of the nation. We shall
deliver him together with the nation from the bondage of
Privilege. Our constitution will accomplish it. You agree ? "
André~Louis shrugged. “ Does it matter P I am a dreamer
in politics, not a man of action. Until lately I have been very
moderate ; more moderate than you think. But now
almost I am a republican. I have been watching, and I
have perceived that this King is—~just nothing, a puppet
who dances according to the hand that pulls the string.”
“ This King, you say P What other king is possible P You
are surely not of those who weave dreams about Orleans?
He has a sort of party, a following largely recruited by the
popular hatred of the Queen and the known fact that she
detests him. There are some who have thought of making him
Regent, some even more ; Robespierre is of the number."
“ Who ? “ asked Andre-Louis, to whom the name was
unknown.


222 Scaramouche
“ Robespierre—a preposterous little lawyer who represents
Arras, a shabby, clumsy, timid dullard, who will make speeches
through his nose to which nobody listens—an ultra-royalist
whom the royalists and the Orléanists are using for their
own ends. He has pertinacity, and he insists upon being
heard. He may be listened to some day. But that he,
or the others, will ever make anything of Orléans . . . pish !
Orléans himself may desire it, but . . . the man is a
eunuch in crime; he would, but he can’t. The phrase is
Mirabeau’s."
He broke off to demand André-Louis’ news of himself.
“ You did not treat me as a friend when you wrote to me,”
he complained. “ You gave me no clue to your whereabouts ;
you represented yourself as on the verge of destitution and
withheld from me the means to come to your assistance. I
have been troubled in mind about you, André. Yet, to judge
by your appearance, I might have spared myself that. You
seem prosperous, assured. Tell me of it.”
Andre-Louis told him frankly all that there was to tell.
“ Do you know that you are an amazement to me ? ” said
the deputy. “ From the robe to the buskin, and now from the
buskin to the sword I What will be the end of you, I wonder ? “
“ The gallows, probably."
“ Pish I Be serious. Why not the toga of the senator in
senatorial France ? It might be yours now if you had willed
it so.”
“ The surest way to the gallows of all," laughed André-
Louis.
At the moment Le Ohapelier manifested impatience.
I wonder did the phrase cross his mind that day four years
later when he himself rode in the death-cart to the Gréve ?
“ We are sixty-six Bréton deputies in the Assembly. Should
a vacancy occur, will you act as suppléant ? A word from me,
together with the inﬂuence of your name in Rennes and Nantes,
and the thing is done.’
Andre-Louis laughed outright. “ Do you know, Isaac,
that I never meet you but you seek to thrust me into.
politics P "
“ Because you have a gift for politics. You were born for
politics.”
" Ah, yes—Scaramouche in real life. I’ve played it on the
stage. Let that sufﬁce. Tell me, Isaac, what news of my
old friend, La. Tour d’Azyr ? ”
“ He is herein Versailles, damn him—a thorn in the ﬂesh
of the Assembly. They've burnt his chateau. at La Tour,


The Sword 223
d’Azyr. Unfortunately he wasn’t in it at the time. The
ﬂames haven’t even singed his insolence. He dreams that
when this philosophic aberration is at an end there will be
serfs to rebuild it for him."
“ So there has been trouble in Brittany? " Andre-Louis
had become suddenly grave, his thoughts swinging to
Gavrillac.
“ An abundance of it, and elsewhere too. Can you wonder ?
These delays at such a time, with famine in the land ? C'hateaux
have been going up in smoke during the last fortnight. The
peasants took their cue from the Parisians, and treated every
castle as a Bastille. Order is being restored there as here,
and they are quieter now.”
“ What of Gavrillac? Do you know? "
" I believe all to be well. M. de Kercadiou was not a
Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr. He was in sympathy with his
people. It is not likely that they would injure Gavrillac.
But don't you correspond with your godfather? "
“ In the circumstances—no. What you tell me would make
it now more difﬁcult than ever, for he must account me one
of those who helped to light the torch that has set ﬁre to so
much belonging to his class. Ascertain for me that all is
well, and let me know.”
“ I will, at once.”
At parting, when Andre-Louis was on the point of stepping
into his cabriolet to return to Paris, he sought information
on another matter.
" Do you happen to know if M. de La Tour d’Azyr has
married? " he asked.
" I don't ; which really means that he hasn't. One would
have heard of it in the case of that exalted Privileged."
" To be sure.” Andre-Louis spoke indifferently. “ Au
revoi'r, Isaac l You’ll come and see me—I3 Rue du Hasard.
Oome soon."
“ As soon and as often as my duties will allow. They keep
me chained here at present."
“ Poor slave of duty with your gospel of liberty l "
“ True ! And because of that I will come. I have a duty
to Brittany : to make Omnes Omnibus one of her representa-
tives in the National Assembly.”
" That is a duty you will oblige me by neglecting,” laughed
Andre-Louis, and drove away.


CHAPTER IV
INTERLUDE
visit. He came to the Rue du Hasard with deﬁnite
news that all was well at Gavrillac, and that the
people of M. de Kercadiou had taken no part in
the recent provincial disturbances, now happily quelled.
And now, save that the pinch of want was still being felt
by the poor, and that the queues outside the bakers’ shops
increased as the autumn advanced, life resumed its habitual
course. Naturally there were constant explosions of feeling
in Paris, but the Parisians were becoming accustomed to living
in an explosive atmosphere, and they no longer permitted it
seriously to interfere with their affairs and their amusements.
Even those explosions might have been avoided, but that
Privilege determined to ﬁght to the last ditch, still offered a
stubborn resistance on one side, even whilst on the other it was
already ﬂinging great offerings on the altar of the fatherland.
In the coming of the regiment of Flanders to Versailles in
September the people saw a new menace, perceived in it a. sign
that Privilege was rearing again its hideous greedy head.
There was a plot afoot to coerce them, to starve them at need
into submission. Hence that excursion, so-called of Maenads,
that march to Versailles of the market-women of Paris, led
by the unique Maillard, and as an outcome in early October,
the Palace of the Tuileries was cleared of all the vermin, human
and otherwise, that infested it, to make room for the King.
The King was to come and live among his people. His loving
people desired to have him in their midst—as a hostage for
their own safety. If they must starve, he should starve with
them.
Andre-Louis observed these things, and began to wonder
where they would end. The only sane nobles appeared to him
to be those who had crossed the frontier before the hot-heads
constituting the large majority of their party should have
brought destruction upon the whole class. Meanwhile,
he, himself, was kept busy in his ﬂourishing academy ; so busy
that he contemplated acquiring the ground-ﬂoor of No.
! FEW days later Le Chapelier returned André-Louis’


The Sword 22 5

I3 and a third assistant : he was restrained, however, by the
impossibility of inducing the ground-floor tenant, a barber-
dasher who throve on the custom of the fencing-school upstairs,
to evacuate such advantageous premises.
With that exception the whole of No. 13 was now in his
hands. He had lately acquired the ﬁrst ﬂoor, converting it in-
to a comfortable dwelling for himself and his two assistants,
installing a housekeeper and a boy as page.
Now that the National Assembly sat in Paris be frequently
saw Le Chapelier, and the intimacy grew between them.
They commonly dined together at the Palais Royal or elsewhere,
and through Le Chapelier Andre-Louis began to make a few
friends ; but he avoided the salons to which he was freely invited,
those salons in which the ﬁne new republican and philosophic
spirit presided.
He was present at the Comédie Francaise one night in the
following spring when Chénier's Charles IX was being
performed more or less under protest.
It was a stormy evening. Allusions from the stage were
taken up now by one section, now by another, of the audience,
to be used as catch-words between the politically hostile
parties, between the old régime and the new. The climax was
ludicrously provided bv some men in the pit, who insisted upon
remaining covered. The Comédie Francaise contained a
royal box, and it was an unwritten law that respect for royalty
should go the length of demanding bared heads even when this
royal box was untenanted.
The men who chose to remain covered did so as a republican
protest against what they considered an empty sham. But
before the storm that arose when their action was denounced,
before an uproar that rendered inaudible a word from the
stage, they made haste to beat a retreat from their republican
arrogance—with one exception. One man stubbornly remained
covered, and turned about his broad leonine head to
laugh at those who demanded that he should take off his hat,
his great voice trumpeting through the house : “ Do you
imagine that you can force me to take off my hat ? "
It was the last provocation. Menaces were hurled at him.
He rose to them undaunted, heaved himself up, displaying
an enormous athletic frame, a Herculean neck bare to the
breast below his broad, unspeakany hideous countenance.
He laughed in their faces. He pressed his round headgear
down more securely about his brows.
“ Firm as the hat of Servandony! " he mocked them, and
ﬂourished an arm in deﬁance.
H


226 Scaramouche
Andre-Louis laughed. There was something at once
grotesque and magniﬁcently heroic about that great ﬁgure,
mocking and undaunted amid the ever increasing uproar.
The affair might have ended badly had not the police inter-
vened to arrest him and lead him out a prisoner. He was
clearly not of those who yield.
“ Who is he ? ” Andre-Louis asked of a neighbour, as the
house was settling down again after the disorder.
“ I don't know,” he was answered. “ I am told that his
name is Danton, and that he is the president of the Oordeliers.
He will come to a bad end, of course ; a madman, an original."
Next day it was the talk of Paris, ﬂoating for a moment
on the surface of more serious matter. In the fencing academy
nothing else was discussed but the Comédie Francaise and the
quarrel between Talma and Naudet that was at the root of
all the mischief. But soon Andre-Louis had something else
to engage his attention He received a visit from Le Chapelier
just before noon.
“ I have news for you, André. Your godfather is at
Meudon. He arrived there two days ago. Had you heard ? “
“ But no. How should I hear ? Why is he at Meudon ? ”
He was conscious of a faint excitement, which he could hardly
have explained.
“ I don’t know. There have been fresh disturbances in
Brittany. It may be due to that.”
" And so he has come for shelter to his brother ? ” asked
Andre-Louis.
“ To his brother's house, yes; but not to his brother.
Where do you live at all, André? Do you never hear any
of the news? Etienne de Gavrillac emigrated months ago.
He was of the household of M. d’Artois, and he crossed the
frontier with him. By now, no doubt, he is in Germany with
him, conspiring against France. For that is what the émigrés
are doing. That Austrian woman at the Tuileries will end
by destroying the monarchy."
“ Yes, yes,” said Andre-Louis impatiently. Politics in-
terested him not at all this morning. “ But about Gavrillac P "
"Why, haven’t I told you that Gavrillac is at Meudon,
installed in the house his brother has left P Dieu de Dieul
Don't I speak French P I believe that Rabouillet, his intendant,
is in charge of Gavrillac. I have brought you the news the
moment I received it. I thought you would probably wish
to go out to Meudon.”
“ Of course. I will go at once—that is, as soon as I can.
I can’t to—day, nor yet to-rnorrow. I am too busy here."


230 Scaramouche
The Seigneur—furbished and beruﬁied to harmonise with
his surroundings—had risen, startled by this exuberant
invasion on the part of Be'noit, who had been almost as forlorn
as himself since their coming to Meudon.
“ What is it P Eh ? " His pale, short-sighted eyes peered
at the visitor. “ André l " said he, between surprise and
sternness, and the colour deepened in his great pink face.
Benoit, with his back to his master, deliberately winked
and grinned at Andre-Louis to encourage him not to be put off
by any apparent hostility on the part of his godfather. That
done, the intelligent old fellow discreetly effaced himself.
“ What do you want here? " growled M. de Kercadiou.
“ No more than to kiss your hand, as Bénoit has told you,
monsieur my godfather," said Andre-Louis submissively,
bowing his sleek black head.
“ You have contrived without kissing it for two years."
“ Do not, monsieur, reproach me with my misfortune.”
The little man stood very stiﬂiy erect, his disproportionately
large head thrown back, his pale prominent eyes very stern.
“ Did you think to make your outrageous oﬂence any better
by vanishing in that heartless manner, by leaving us without
knowledge of whether you were alive or dead ? ”
" At ﬁrst it was dangerousadangerous to my life—to
disclose my whereabouts. Then for a time I was in need,
almost destitute, and my pride forbade me, after what I had
done and the view you must take of it, to appeal to you for
help. Later . . . ”
“ Destitute P " The Seigneur interrupted. For a moment
his lip trembled. Then he steadied himself, and the frown
deepened as he surveyed this very changed and elegant godson
of his, noted the quiet richness of his apparel, the paste
buckles and red heels to his shoes, the sword, hilted in mother-
o’-pearl and silver, and the carefully dressed hair that he had
always seen hanging in wisps about his face. “ At least you do
not look destitute now," he sneered.
“ I am not. I have prospered since. In that, monsieur,
I differ from the ordinary prodigal, who returns only when he
needs assistance. I return solely because I love you, monsieur
—to tell you so. I have come at the very ﬁrst moment after
hearing of your presence here.” He advanced. “ Monsieur
my godfather l " he said, and held out his hand.
But M. de Kercadiou remained unbending, wrapped in his
cold dignity and resentment.
" Whatever tribulations you may have suffered or consider
that you may have suffered, they are far less than your


The Sword 231
disgraceful conduct deserved, and I observe that they have
nothing abated your impudence. You think that you have
but to come here and say ' Monsieur my godfather I ’ and
everything is to be forgiven and forgotten. That is your error.
You have committed too great a wrong ; you have offended
against everything by which I hold, and against myself
personally, by your betrayal of my trust in you. You are one
of those unspeakable scoundrels who are responsible for this
revolution.”
" Alas, monsieur, I see that you share the common delusion.
These unspeakable scoundrels but demanded a constitution,
as was promised them from the Throne. They were not to
know that the promise was insincere, or that its fulﬁlment
would be baulked by the privileged orders. The men who
have precipitated this revolution, monsieur, are the nobles
and the prelates.”
“ You dare—and at such a time as this-stand there and tell
me that abominable lie! You dare to say that the nobles
have made the revolution, when scores of them, following
the example of M. le Duc d’Aiguillon, have ﬂung their privi-
leges, even their title-deeds, into the lap of the people! Or
perhaps you deny it ? "
“Oh no. Having wantonly set ﬁre to their house, they now
try to put it out by throwing water on it ; and where they
fail they put the entire blame on the flames.”
"I see that you have come here to talk politics.”
“ Far from it. I have come, if possible, to explain myself.
To understand is always to forgive. That is a great saying
of Montaigne's. If I could make you understand . . . "
“ You can’t. You'll never make me understand how you
came to render yourself so odiously notorious in Brittany.“
“ Ah, not odiously, monsieur l ”
“ I say odiously—among those that matter. It is said
even that you were Omnes Omnibus, though that I cannot,
will not believe."
“ Yet it is true."
M. de Kercadiou choked. “ And you confess it? You
dare to confess it ? "
" What a man dares to do, he should dare to confess—
unless he is a coward.”
“ Oh, and to be sure you were very brave, running away
each time after you had done the mischief "rturning comedian
to hide yourself ; doing more mischief as a comedian ; provoking
a riot in Nantes ; and then running away again, to become God
knows what—something dishonest by the aﬁluent look of you.


232 Scaramouche
My God, man! I tell you that in these past two years I have
hoped that you were dead, and you profoundly disappoint
me that you are not." He beat his hands together, and
raised his shrill voice to call “ Bénoit l " He strode away
towards the ﬁreplace, scarlet in the face, shaking with the
passion into which he had wrought himself. “ Dead, I might
have forgiven you, as one who had paid for his evil and his
folly. Living, I never can forgive you. You have gone too
far. God alone knows where it will end."
“ Benoit, the door. M. Andre-Louis Moreau to the door.”
The tone argued an irrevocable determination. Pale and
self-contained, but with a queer pain at his heart, Andre-Louis
heard that dismissal, saw Bénoit’s white, scared face and
shaking hands half-raised as if he were about to expostulate
with his master. And then another voice, a crisp, boyish voice,
cut in.
“ Uncle l " it cried, a world of indignation and surprise in
its pitch, and then 1 “ André l “ And this time a note almost
of gladness, certainly of welcome, was blended with the
surprise that still remained.
Both turned, half the room between them at the moment,
and beheld Aline in one of the long open windows, arrested
there in the act of entering from the garden, Aline in a milk-
maid bonnet of the latest mode, though without any of the
tricolour embellishments that were so commonly to be seen
upon them. .
The thin lips of André’s long mouth twisted into a queer
smile. Into his mind had ﬂashed the memory of their last
parting. He saw himself again, burning with indignation
upon the pavement of Nantes, looking after her carriage as
it receded down the Avenue de Gigan.
She was coming towards him now with outstretched hands,
a heightened colour in her cheeks, a smile of welcome on her
lips. He bowed low and kissed her hand in silence.
Then with a glance and a gesture she dismissed Benoit,
and in her imperious fashion constituted herself Andre’s
advocate against the harsh dismissal which she had overheard.
“ Uncle," she said, leaving André and crossing to M. de
Kercadiou, “ you make me ashamed of you! To allow a
feeling of peevishness to overwhelm all your affection for
André ! "
“ I have no affection for him. I had once. He chose to
extinguish it. He can go to the devil ; and please observe that
I don’t permit you to interfere."


The Sword 233
“ But if he confesses that he has done wrong . . .
“ He confesses nothing of the kind. He comes here to
argue with me about these infernal Rights of Man. He pro-
claims himself unrepentant. He announces himself with
pride to have been, as all Brittany says, the scoundrel who hid
himself under the sobriquet of Omnes Omnibus. Is that to
be condoned P "
She turned to look at Andre across the wide space that
separated them.
“ But is this really so? Don’t you repent, Andre—not
now that you see all the harm that has come ? ”
It was a clear invitation to him, a pleading to him to say
that he repented, to make his peace with his godfather. For
a moment it almost moved him. Then, considering the
subterfuge unworthy, he answered truthfully, though the
pain he was suffering rang in his voice.
" To confess repentance," he said slowly, “ would be to
confess a monstrous crime. Don’t you see that P Oh,
monsieur, have patience with me; let me explain myself a
little. You say that I am in part responsible for something
of all this that has happened. My exhortations to the people
at Rennes and twice afterwards at Nantes are said to have had
their share in what followed there. It may be so. It would
be beyond my power positively to deny it. Revolution
followed and bloodshed. More may yet come. To repent
implies a recognition that I have done wrong. How shall I
say that I have done wrong, and thus take a share of the
responsibility for all that blood upon my soul? I will be
quite frank with you to show you how far indeed I am from
repentance. What I did, I actually did against all my convic-
tions at the time. Because there was no justice in France to
move against the murderer of Philippe de Vilmorin, I moved
in the only way that I imagined could make the evil done
recoil upon the hand that did it, and those other hands that
had the power but not the spirit to punish. Since then I
have come to see that I was wrong, and that Philippe de
Vilmorin and those who thought with him were in the right. A
government in which there is no justice is an impossible
government to emancipated man. I had imagined that
whatever class were given power would abuse that power.
I have come to see that the only guarantee against the abuse
of power lies in a tenure of power governed by the people's
will. Had I notcome to see that, what to-day would be my
position? I must lie crushed under the consciousness that


234 Scaramouche
in an insensate attempt to obtain vengeance, I had perpetrated
a wrong more unspeakable, far greater, than the one I sought
to avenge.
“ Y0u must realise, monsieur, that it is with sincerest
thankfulness that I ﬁnd I have done nothing calling for
repentance ; and that on the contrary, when France is given
the inestirnable boon of a constitution, as will shortly happen,
I may take pride in having played my part in bringing about
the conditions that have made this possible."
There was a pause. M. de Kercadiou’s face turned from
pink to purple.
“ You have quite ﬁnished? ” he said harshly.
“ If you have understood me, monsieur.”
“ Oh, I have understood you, and . . . and I begthat you
will go."
Andre-Louis shrugged his shoulders and hung his head.
He had come there so joyously, in such yearning, merely
to receive a ﬁnal dismissal. He looked at Aline. Her face
was pale and troubled ; but her wit failed to show her how she
could come to his assistance. His excessive honesty had
burnt all his boats.
" Very well, monsieur. Yet this I would ask you to
remember after I am gone. I have not come to you as one
seeking assistance, as one driven to you by need. I am no
returning prodigal, as I have said. I am one who, needing
nothing, asking nothing, master of his own destinies, has come
to you driven by aﬁection only, urged by the love and grati-
tude he bears you and will continue to bear you.”
“ Ah yes! " cried Aline, turning now to her uncle. Here
at least was an argument in André's favour, thought she.
" That is true. Surely that . . . ”
Inarticulately he hissed her into silence, exasperated.
“ Hereafter perhaps that will help you to think of me more
kindly, monsieur.”
“ I see no occasion, sir, to think of you at all. Again, I
beg that you will go.”
Andre-Louis looked at Aline an instant, as if still hesitating.
She answered him by a glance at her furious uncle, a faint
shrug and a lift of the eyebrows, dejection the while in her
countenance.
It was as if she said : “ You see his mood. There is nothing
to be done."
He bowed with that singular grace the fencing-room had
given him and went out by the door.


The Sword 235
“ Oh, it is cruel I " cried Aline, in a stiﬂed voice, her hands
clenched, and she sprang to the window.
“ Aline I ” her uncle’s voice arrested her. “ Where are you
going ? "
" But we do not know where he is to be found.“
“ Who wants to ﬁnd the scoundrel ? "
“ We may never see him again."
“That is most fervently to be desired."
Aline said “ Out I " and went out by the window.
He called after her, imperiously commanding her return.
But Aline—dutiful child—closed her ears lest she must disobey
him, and sped light-footed across the lawn to the avenue,
there to intercept the departing Andre-Louis.
As he came forth, wrapped in gloom, she stepped from the
bordering trees into his path.
“ Aline I " he cried, joyously almost.
“ I did not want you to go like this. I couldn’t let you,"
she explained herself. “ I know him better than you do, and
I know that his great soft heart will presently melt. He will
be ﬁlled with regret. He will want to send for you, and he
will not know where to send."
“ You think that ? "
“ Oh, I know it. You arrive in a bad moment. He is
peevish and cross-grained, poor man, since he came here.
These soft surroundings are all so strange to him. He wearies
himself away from his beloved Gavrillac, his hunting and
tillage, and the truth is that in his mind he very largely blames
-you for what has happened—for the necessity, or, at least,
the wisdom, of this change. Brittany, you must know, was
becoming too unsafe. The chateau of La Tour d'Azyr,
amongst others, was burnt to the ground some months ago.
At any moment, given a fresh excitement, it may be the turn
of Gavrillac. And for this and his present discomfort he
blames you and your friends. But he will come round presently.
He will be sorry that he sent you away like this—for I know
that he loves you, André, in spite of all. I shall reason with
him when the time comes. And then we shall want to know
where to ﬁnd you.”
“ At number 13, Rue du Hasard. The number is unlucky,
the name of the street appropriate. Therefore both are easy
to remember."
She nodded. “ I will walk with you to the gates." And
side by side now they proceeded at a leisurely pace down the
long avenue in the June sunshine dappled by the shadows of


236 Scaramouche

the bordering trees. " You are looking well, André ; and do
you know that you have changed a deal P I am glad that you
have prospered.” And then abruptly changing the subject
before he had time to answer her, she came to the matter
uppermost in her mind.
“ I have so wanted to see you in all these months, Andre.
You were the only one who could help me ; the only one who
could tell me the truth, and I was angry with you for never
having written to say where you were to be found.”
“ Of course you encouraged me to do so when last we met
in Nantes."
" What ? Still resentful ? ”
“ I am never resentful. You should know that." He
expressed one of his vanities. He loved to think himself a
Stoic. “ But I still bear the scar of a wound that would be the
better for the balm of your retraction.”
“ Why, then, I retract, André. And now tell me . . .
" Yes, a self-seeking retraction," said he. “ You give me
something that you may obtain something.” He laughed
quite pleasantly. “ Well, well; command me."
" Tell me, Andre.” She paused, as if in some diﬂiculty, and
then went on, her eyes upon the ground : " Tell me—the truth
of that event at the Feydau.”
The request fetched a frown to his brow. He suspected
at once the thought that prompted it. Quite simply and brieﬂy
he gave her his version of the affair.
She listened very attentively When he had done, she
sighed; her face was very thoughtful.
" That is much what I was told,” she said. “ But it was
added that M. de La Tour d’Azyr had gone to the theatre
expressly for the purpose if breaking ﬁnally with La Binet.
Do you know if that was so ? "
“ I don’t ', nor of any reason why it should be so. La Binet
provided him the sort of amusement that he and his kind are
forever craving . . . "
“ Oh, there was a reason,” she interrupted him. “ I was the
reason. I spoke to Madame de Sautron. I told her that I
would not continue to receive one who came to me contami-
nated in that fashion.” She spoke of it with obvious
diﬂiculty, her colour rising as he watched her half-averted
face.
“ Had you listened to me . . . " he was beginning, when
again she interrupted him.
“ M. de Sautron conveyed my decision to him, and after-
‘vards represented him to me as a man in despair, repentant,
n


The Sword 237
ready to give proofs—any proofs—of his sincerity and devo-
tion to me. He told me that M. de La Tour d'Azyr had sworn
to him that he would cut short that affair, that he would see
La Binet no more. And then, on the very next day, I heard
of his having all but lost his life in that riot at the theatre.
He had gone straight from that interview with M. de Sautron,
straight from those protestations of future wisdom, to La
Binet. I was indignant. I pronounced myself ﬁnally. I
stated deﬁnitely that I would not in any circumstances receive
M. de La Tour d’Azyr again. And then they pressed this
explanation upon me. For a long time I would not
believe it."
“ So that you believe it now," said André quickly.
II P H L
" I have not said that I believe it now. But . . .
but . . . neither can I disbelieve. Since we came to Meudon
M. de La Tour d'Azyr has been here, and himself he has sworn
to me that it was so."
“ Oh, if M. de La Tour d'Azyr has sworn . . . ” André-
Louis was laughing on a bitter note of sarcasm.
“ Have you ever known him lie? " she cut in sharply.
That checked him. " M. de La Tour d’Azyr is, after all, a
man of honour, and men of honour never deal in falsehood.
Have you ever known him do so, that you should be justiﬁed
of your sneer ? ”
“ No," he confessed. Common justice demanded that he
should admit that virtue at least in his enemy. “ I have not
known him lie, it is true. His kind is too arrogant, too self-
conﬁdent to have recourse to untruth. But I have known
him do things as vile . . . ”
" Nothing is as vile," she interrupted, speaking from the
code by which she had been reared. “ It is for liars only—-
who are ﬁrst cousins to thieves—that there is no hope. It is
in falsehood only that there is real loss of honour."
“ You are defending that satyr, I think," he said frostily.
"‘ I desire to be just.“
“ Justice may seem to you a different matter when at last
you shall have resolved yourself to become Marquise de La
Tour d’Azyr." He spoke bitterly.
“ I don't think that I shall ever take that resolve.”
“ But you are still not sure—in spite of everything? “
" Gan one ever be sure of anything in this world ? “
“ Yes. One can be sure of being foolish."
Either she did not hear or did not heed him.
“ You do not of your own knowledge know that it was not


The Sword 239
pure and adorable. Angels do not mate with devils. His
wife you might become, but never his mate, Aline—never."
They had reached the wrought iron gates at the end of
the avenue. Through these they beheld the waiting yellow
chaise which had brought Andre-Louis. From near at hand
came the creak of other wheels, the beat of other hooves, and
now another vehicle came in sight, and drew to a standstill
beside the yellow chaise—a handsome equipage with polished
mahogany panels on which the gold and azure of armorial
bearings ﬂashed brilliantly in the sunlight. A footman
swung to earth to throw wide the gates ; but in that moment
the lady who occupied the carriage, perceiving Aline, waved
to her and issued a command.


CHAPTER vr ‘
MADAME DE PLOUGASTEL
'._
I» :1 ;- s.- t .
HE postilion drew rein, and the footman opened
the door, letting down the steps and proﬁering
his arm to his mistress to assist her to alight,
since that was the wish she had expressed. Then
he opened one wing of the iron gates and held it for her. She
was a woman of something more than forty, who once must
have been very lovely, who was very lovely still with the
reﬁning quality that age brings to some women. Her dress and
carriage alike advertised great rank.
“ I take my leave here, since you have a visitor,“ said
Andre-Louis. ‘
“ But it is an old acquaintance of your own, Andre.
You remember Madame la Comtesse de Plougastel P ”
He looked at the approaching lady, whom Aline was now
running forward to meet, and because she was named to him
be recognised her. He must. he thought, had he but looked,
have recognised her without prompting anywhere at any time,
and this although it was some sixteen years since last he had
seen her. The sight of her now brought it all back to him—-
a treasured memory that had never permitted itself to be
entirely overlaid by subsequent events.
When he was a boy of ten, on the eve of being sent to school
at Rennes, she had come on a visit to his godfather, who was
her cousin. It happened that at the time he was taken by
Rabouillet to the Manor of Gavrillac, and there he had been
presented to Madame de Plougastel. The great lady, in all
the glory then of her youthful beauty, with her gentle cultured
voice—so cultured that she had seemed to speak a language
almost unknown to the little Bréton lad—and her majestic
air of the great world, had scared him a little at ﬁrst. Very
gently had she allayed those fears of his, and by some myster-
ious enchantment she had completely enslaved his regard. He
recalled now the terror in which he had gone to the embrace
to which he was bidden, and the subsequent reluctance with
which he had left those soft round arms. He remembered,
too, how sWeetly she had smelled and the very perfume she


The Sword 241
had used, a perfume as of lilac—for memory is singularly
tenacious in these matters.
For three days whilst she had been at Gavrillac he had
gone daily to the manor,and sohad spent hours in hercompany.
A childless woman with the maternal instinct strong within
her, she had taken this precocioust intelligent wide-eyed lad
to her heart.
“ Give him to me, Cousin Quintin," be remembered her
saying on the last of those days to his godfather. " Let me
take him back with me to Versailles as my adopted child."
But the Seigneur had gravely shaken his head in silent
refusal, and there had been no further question of such a thing.
And then, when she said good-bye to him—the thing came
ﬂooding back to him now—there had been tears in her eyes.
“ Think of me sometimes, Andre-Louis,“ had been her last
words.
He remembered how ﬂattered he had been to have won
within so short a time the affection of this great lady.
The thing had given him a sense of importance .that
had endured for months thereafter, ﬁnally to fade into
oblivion.
But all was vividly remembered now upon beholding her
again, after sixteen years, profoundly changed and matured,
the girl—for she had been no more in those old days—sunk
in thisworldly woman with the air of calm dignityand complete
self-possession. Yet, he insisted, he must have known her
anywhere again.
Aline embraced her affectionately. and then, answering the
questioning glance with faintly raised eyebrows that Madame
was directing towards Aline's companion:
" This is André-Lours,’ she said. “ You remember André~
Louis, madame ? "
Madame checked. Andre-Louis saw the surprise ripple
over her face. taking with it some of her colour, leaving her
for a moment breathless.
And then the voice—the well remembered rich musical
voice—richer and deeper now than of yore, repeated his
name :
“ Andre-Louis l "
Her manner of uttering it suggested that it awakened
memories, memories perhaps of the departed youth with which
it was associated. And she paused a long moment, considering
him, a little wide-eyed, what time he bowed before her.
“ But of course I remember him," she said at last, and came
towards him, putting out her hand. He kissed it dutifully,


242 Scaramouche
submissively, instinctively. " And this is what you have
grown into P " she appraised him, and he ﬂushed with
pride at the satisfaction in her tone. He seemed to have
gone back sixteen years, and to be again the little Brétonlad
at Gavrillac. She turned to Aline. " How mistaken Quintin
was in his assumptions. He would be pleased to see him again,
was he not? ”
“ So pleased, madame, that he has shown me the door,”
said Andre-Louis.
" Ah 1 " She frowned, conning him still with those dark
wistful eyes of hers. " We must change that, Aline. He
is of course very angry with you. But it is not the way to
make converts. I will plead for you, Andre-Louis. I am a
good advocate.”
He thanked her, and took his leave.
“ I leave my casein your hands with gratitude. My homage,
madame."
And so it happened that, in spite of his godfather s forbid-
ding reception of him, the fragment of a song was on his lips
as his yellow chaise whirled him back to Paris and the Rue du
Hasard. That meeting with Madame de Plougastel had
enheartened him ; her promise to plead his case in alliance
with Aline gave him assurance that all would be well.
That he was justified of this was proved when on the
following Thursday towards noon his academy was invaded
by M. de Kercadiou. Gilles, the boy, brought him word of it,
and, breaking off at once the lesson upon which he was engaged,
he pulled off his mask and went as he was-in a chamois
waistcoat buttoned to the chin and with his foil under his arm—-
to the modest salon below, where his godfather awaited him.
The ﬂorid little Lord of Gavrillac stood almost deﬁantly
to receive him.
“ I have been over-persuaded to forgive you,” he announced
aggressively, seeming thereby to imply that he consented to
this merely so as to put an end to tiresome impm-tunitiesI
Andre-Louis was not misled. He detected a pretence
adopted by the Seigneur so as to enable him to retreat
in good order.
“ My blessings on the persuaders, whoever they may have
been. You restore me my happiness, monsieur my godfather."
He took the hand that was proffered and kissed it, yielding
to the impulse of the unfailing habit of his boyish days. It
was an act symbolical of his complete submission, re-establishing
between himself and his godfather the bond of protected and
protector, with all the mutual claims and duties that it


The Sword 243
carries. No mere words could more completely have made his
peace with this man who loved him. M. de Kercadiou’s
face ﬂushed a deeper pink, his lip trembled, and there was a
huskiness in the voice that murmured:
“ My dear boy I " Then he recollected himself, threw back
his great head and frowned. His voice resumed its habitual
shrillness. “ You realise, I hope, that you have behaved
damnably . . . damnably, and with the utmost ingratitude ?”
“ Does not that depend upon the point of view? " quoth
Andre-Louis, but his tone was studiously conciliatory.
“ It depends upon a fact; and not. upon any point of
view. Since I have been persuaded to overlook it, I trust that
at least you have some intention of reforming."
“ I . . . I will abstain from politics,” said Andre-Louis,
that being the utmost he could say with truth.
“ That is something, at least.” His godfather permitted
himself to be molliﬁed, now that a concession—or a seeming
concession—had been made to his just resentment.
“ A chair, monsieur P "
“ No, no. I have come to carry you off to pay a visit with
me. You owe it entirely to Madame de Plougastel that I
consent to receive you again. I desire that you come with me
to thank her." '
“ I have my engagements here . . . " began Andre-Louis,
and then broke off. “ N o matter I I will arrange it. A
momen " ; and he was turning away to re-enter the academy.
“ What are your engagements? You are not by chance
.a fencing instructor? ” M. de Kercadiou had observed the
leather waistcoat and the foil tucked under André-Louis'
arm.
" I am the master of this academy—the academy of the late
Bertrand des Amis, the most ﬂourishing school of arms in
Paris to-day.”
M. de Kercadiou's brows went up.
" And you are master of it? "
“Maitre en fait d’armes. I succeeded to the academy
upon the death of des Amis."
He left M. de Kercadiou to think it over, and went to make
hisl arrangements and effect the necessary changes in his
to' et.
“ So that is why you have taken to wearing a sword,"
said M.-de Kercadiou, as they climbed into his waiting carriage.
“ That and the need to guard one's self in these times."
“ And do you mean to tell me that a man who lives by what
is, after all, an honourable profession, a profession mainly


244 ' Scaramouche
supported by the nobility, can at the same time associate
himself with these peddling attorneys and low pamphleteers
who are spreading dissension and insubordination P ”
“ You forget that I am a peddling attorney myself, made
so by your own wishes, monsieur."
M. de Kercadiou grunted, and took snuff. " You say the
academy flourishes? ” he asked presently.
“ It does. I have two assistant instructors. I could
employ a third. It is hard work."
“ That should mean that your circumstances are aﬁluent.”
" I have reason to be satisﬁed. I have far more than I
need.“
“ Then you’ll be able to do your share in paying off this
national debt,” growled the nobleman, well-content that-—
as he conceived it—some of the evil Andre-Louis had helped
to sow should recoil upon him.
Then the talk veered to Madame de Plougastel. M. de
Kercadiou, Andre-Louis gathered, but not the reason for it,
disapproved most strongly of this visit. But then Madame la
Comtesse was a headstrong woman whom there was no denying,
whom all the world obeyed. M. de Plougastel was at present
absent in Germany, but would shortly be returning. It was
an indiscreet admission, from which it was easy to infer that
M. de Plougastel was one of those intriguing emissaries who
came and went between the Queen of France and her brother
the Emperor of Austria.
The carriage drew up before a handsome hotel in the
Faubourg St. Denis,at the corner of the Rue Paradis,and they
were ushered by a sleek servant into a little boudoir, all gilt
and brocade, that opened upon a terrace above a garden that
was a park in miniature. Here Madame awaited them. She
rose, dismissing the young person who had been reading to her,
and came forward with both hands outheld to greet her cousin
Kercadiou.
“ I almost feared you would not keep your word,” she said.
“ It was unjust. But then I hardly hoped that you would
succeed in bringing him." And her glance, gentle, and
smiling welcome upon him, indicated Andre-Louis.
The young man made answer with formal gallantry.
“ The memory of you, madame, is too deeply imprinted on
my heart for any persuasions to have been necessary.”
“Ah, the courtierl " said Madame, and abandoned him
her hand. " We are to have a little talk, Andre-Louis," she
informed him, with a gravity that left him vaguely ill at ease.


The Sword 245 I
They sat down, and for awhile the conversation was of
general matters, chieﬂy concerned, however, with André-
Louis, his occupations and his views. And all the while
Madame was studying him attentively with those gentle,
wistful eyes, until again that sense of uneasiness began to
pervade him. He realised instinctively that he had been
brought here for some purpose deeper than that which had
been avowed.
At last, as if the thing were concerted—and the clumsy
Lord of Gavrillac was the last man in the world to cover his
tracks—his godfather rose, and upon a pretext of desiring to
survey the garden, sauntered through the windows on to the
terrace, over whose white stone balustrade the geraniums trailed
in a scarlet riot. Thence he vanished among the foliage
below. .
“ Now we cantalk more intimately,“ said Madame. " Come
here, and sit beside me." She indicated the empty half of
the settee she occupied.
Andre-Louis went obediently, but a little uncomfortably.
“ You know,” she said gently, placing a hand upon his
arm, ‘ that you have behaved very ill, that your godfather’s
resentment is very justly founded? ”
" Madame, if I knew that, I should be the most unhappy,
the most despairing, of men.” And he explained himself, as
he had explained himself on Sunday to his godfather. " What
I did, I did because it was the only means to my hand in a
country in which justice was paralysed by Privilege to make
war upon an infamous scoundrel who had killed my best friend
—a wanton, brutal act of murder, which there was no law to
punish. And as if that were not enough—forgive me if I
speak with the utmost frankness, madame—he afterwards
debauched the woman I was to have married."
“ Ah, mon Dieu! ” she cried out.
“ Forgive me. I know that it is horrible. You perceive
perhaps what I suffered, how I came to be driven. That last
affair of which I am guilty—the riot that began in the Feydau
Theatre, and afterwards enveloped the whole city of Nantes,
was provoked by this."
“ Who was she, this girl ? "
It was like a woman, he thought, to fasten upon the
unessential.
" Oh, a theatre-girl, a poor fool of whom I have no regrets.
La Binet was her name. I was a player at the time in her
father's troupe. That was after the Rennes business, when


246 Scaramouche
it was necessary to hide from such justice as exists in France
-the gallows’ justice for unfortunates who are not ‘ born.’
This added wrong led me to provoke a riot in the theatre."
“ Poor boy,” she said tenderly. “ Only a woman’s heart
can realise what you must have suffered ; and because of that
I can so readily forgive you. But now . . ”
“ Ah, but you don’t understand, madame. If to-day I
thought that I had none but personal grounds for having
lent a hand in the holy work of abolishing Privilege, I think
I should cut my throat. My true justiﬁcation lies in the
insincerity of those who intended that the convocation of the
States General should be a sham, mere dust in the eyes of the
nation.”
“ Was it not perhaps wise to have been insincere in such a
matter P ”
He looked at her blankly.
“ Can it ever be wise, madame, to be insincere? ”
“ Oh, indeed it can; believe me, who am twice your age,
and know my world.”
“ I should say, madame, that nothing is wise that compli-
cates existence; and I know of nothing that so complicates
it as insincerity. Consider a moment the complications
that have arisen out of this."
“ But surely, Andre-Louis, your views have not been so
perverted that you do not see that a governing class is a
necessity in any country ? "
‘1, " Why, of course. But not necessarily a hereditary one."
All" What else? "
He answered her with an epigram. “Man, madame, is
the child of his own work. Let there be no inheriting of
rights but from such a parent. Thus a nation’s best will
always predominate, and such a nation will achieve greatly.”
" But do you account birth of no importance ? ”
“ Of none, madame—or else my own might trouble me."
From the deep ﬂush that stained her face, he feared that
he had offended by what was almost an indelicacy. But the
reproof that hefwas expecting did not come. Instead :
“ And does it not? " she asked. “ Never, André ? '
“ Never, madame. I am content.“
" You have never . . . never regretted your lack of
parents’ care ? “
He laughed, sweeping aside her sweet charitable concern
that was so superﬂuous. ‘ On the contrary, madame.’
I tremble to think what they might have made of me, and I
amgrateful to have had the fashioning _of myself.”


The Sword 247
She looked at him for a moment very sadly, and then,
smiling, gently shook her head.
“ You do not want self-satisfaction. Yet I could wish
that you saw things differently, André. It is a moment of
great opportunities for a young man of talent and spirit.
I could help you ; I could help you perhaps to go very far if
you would permit yourself to be helped after my fashion.”
“ Yes,” he thought, “help me to a halter by sending me
on treasonable missions to Austria on the Queen’s behalf,
like M. de Plougastel. That would certainly end in a high
position for me.”
Aloud he answered more as politeness prompted.
“ I am grateful, madame. But you will see that, holding
the ideals I have expressed, I could not serve any cause that
is opposed to their realisation."
“ You are misled by prejudice, Andre-Louis, by personal
grievances. Will you allow them to stand in the way of your
advancement ? ”
" If what I call ideals were really prejudices, would it be
honest of me to run counter to them whilst holding them ? “
“ If I could convince you that you are mistaken I I could
help you so much to ﬁnd a worthy employment for the talents
you possess. In the service of the King you would prosper
quickly. Will you think of it, Andre-Louis, and let us talk
of this again P ”
He answered her with formal chill politeness.
“ I fear that it would be idle, madame. Yet your interest
in me is very ﬂattering, and I thank you. It is unfortunate
for me that I am so headstrong.”
“ And now who deals in insincerity ? ” she asked him.
“ Ah, but you see, madame, it is an insincerity that does
not mislead."
And then M. de Kercadiou came in through the window
again, and announced fussily that he must be getting back to
Meudon, and that he would take his godson with him and set
him down at the Rue du Hasard.
“ You must bring him again, Quintin," the Countess said,
as they took their leave of her.
“ Some day, perhaps,” said M. de Kercadiou vaguely, and
swept his godson out.
In the carriage he asked him bluntly of what Madame had
talked.
“ She was very kind—a sweet woman," said Andre-Louis
pensively.
" Devil take you, I didn’t ask you the opinion that you


248 Scaramouche
presume to have formed of her. I asked you what she said
to you."
“ She strove to point out to me the error of my ways. She
spoke of great things that I might do—to which she would very
kindly help me—if I were to come to my senses. But as
miracles do not happen, I gave her little encouragement to
hope.”
“ I see. I see. Did she say anything else ? "
He was so peremptory that Andre-Louis turned to look at
him.
“ What else did you expect her to say, monsieur my god-
father ? ”
“ Oh, nothing.”
“ Then she fulﬁlled your expectations.’
" Eh? Oh, a thousand devils! Why can’t you express
yourself in a sensible manner that aplain man can understand
without having to think about it ? "
He sulked after that most of the way to the Rue du Hasard,
or so it seemed to Andre-Louis. At least he sat silent, gloomily
thoughtful to judge by his expression. _
“ You may come and see us soon again at Meudon,” he told
Andre-Louis at parting. “ But please remember—no revolu-
tionary politics in future, if we are to remain friends."


CHAPTER VII
POLITICIANS
NE morning in August the academy in the Rue du
Hasard was invaded by Le Chapelier, accompanied
by a man of remarkable appearance, whose
herculean stature and disﬁgured countenance
seemed vaguely familiar to Andre-Louis. He was a man of
little, if anything, over thirty, with small bright eyes buried
in an enormous face. His cheek-bones were prominent, his
nose awry, as if it had been broken by a blow, and his mouth
was rendered almost shapeless by the scars of another injury
(a bull had horned him in the face when he was but a lad).
As if that were not enough to render his appearance terrible,
his cheeks were deeply pock-marked. He was dressed untidily
in a long scarlet coat that descended almost to his ankles,
soiled buckskin breeches, and boots with reversed tops. His
shirt, none too clean, was open at the throat, the collar hanging
limply over an unknotted cravat, displaying fully the muscular
neck that rose like a pillar from his massive shoulders. He
swung a cane that was almost a club in his left hand, and there
was a cockade in his biscuit-coloured, conical hat. He
carried himself with a truculent, masterful air, that great
head of his thrown back as if he were eternally at deﬁance.
Le Chapelier, whose manner was very grave, named him to
Andre-Louis.
“This is M. Danton, a brother-lawyer, President of the
Cordeliers, of whom you will have heard.”
Of course Andre-Louis had heard of him. Who had not,
by then ? Moreover, he remembered now where it was that
already he had seen him ; he was the man who had refused to
take off his hat at the Comédie Francaise on the night of the
stormy performance of Charles XI.
Looking at him now, with interest, Andre-Louis wondered
how it came that all, or nearly all, the leading innovators
were pock-marked. Mirabeau, the journalist Desmoulins,
the philanthropist Marat, Robespierre, the little lawyer from
Arras, this formidable fellow Danton, and several others
he could call to mind all bore upon them the scars of smallpox.


The Sword 253
have time to insult any of the representatives. Then to-
morrow morning, six --- phlebotomists themselves phle-
botomized secundum Minn. That will give the others
something to think about. It will give them a great deal
to think about, by Godl If necessary, the dose may be
repeated to ensure a cure. If you kill the -——s so much
the better.”
He paused, his sallow face ﬂushed with the enthusiasm of
his idea. Andre-Louis stared at him inscrutably.
“ Well, what do you say to that? ”
“ That it is most ingenious.” And Andre-Louis turned
aside to look out of the window.
" And is that all you think of it? "
“ I will not tell you what else I think of it because you
probably would not understand. For you, M. Danton. there
is at least this excuse, that you did not know me. But you,
Isaac—to bring this gentleman here with such a proposal 1 "
Le Chapelier was overwhelmed in confusion. “ I confess
I hesitated,” he apologised. “ But M. Danton would not
take my word for it that the proposal might not be to your
taste."
“ I would not," Danton broke in, bellowing. He swung
upon Le Chapelier, brandishing his great arms. " You told
me monsieur was a patriot. Patriotism knows no scruples.
You call this mincing dancing-master a patriot? "
" Would you, monsieur, out of patriotism, consent to
become an assassin ? "
“Of course I would. Haven’t I told you so? Haven’t
I told you that I would gladly go among them with my club,
and crack them like so many -— ﬂeas? ”
" Why not, then? "
“ Why not ? Because I should get myself hanged. Haven't
I said so? "
“But what of that, being a patriot? Why not, like
another Curtius, jump into the gulf, since you believe that your
country would beneﬁt by your death ? "
M. Danton showed signs of exasperation.
“ Because my country will beneﬁt more by my life."
“ Permit me, monsieur, to suffer from a similar vanity."
" You? But where would be the danger to you? You
would do your work under the cloak of duelling—as they do."
“ Have you reﬂected, monsieur, that the law will hardly
regard a fencing-master who kills his opponent as an ordinary
combatant, particularly if it can be shown that the fencing-
master himself provoked the attack? “


The Sword 255
“ Wait ! ” He put up his hand. Then, with chin sunk on
his breast, he paced away to the window, musing.
Le Chapelier and Danton exchanged glances, then watched
him, waiting, what time he considered.
At ﬁrst he almost wondered why he should not of his own
accord have decided upon some such course as this to settle
that long-standing account of M. de La Tour d’Azyr. What
was the use of this great skill in fence that he had come to
acquire, unless he could turn it to account to avenge Vihnorin,
and to make Aline safe from the lure of her own ambition?
It would be an easy thing to seek out La Tour d’Azyr,
put a mortal affront upon him, and thus bring him to the
point. To-day this would be murder; murder as treacherous
as that which La Tour d’Azyr had done upon Philippe de Vil-
morin; for to-day the old positions were reversed, and it
was Andre-Louis who might go to such an assignation without
a doubt of the issue. It was a moral obstacle of which he made
short work. But there remained the legal obstacle he had
expounded to Danton. There was still a law in France;
the same law which he had found it impossible to move against
La Tour d’Azyr, but which would move briskly enough against
himself in like case. And then, suddenly, as if by inspiration,
he saw the way—a way which, if adopted, would probably
bring La Tour d’Azyr to a poetic justice, bring him insolent,
conﬁdent, to thrust himself upon André-Louis’ sword, with
all the odium of provocation on his own side.
He turned to them again, and they saw that he was very
pale, that his great dark eyes glowed oddly.
“ There will probably be some difﬁcultyin ﬁnding a suppléant
for this poor Lagron," he said. “ Our fellow-countrymen
will be none so eager to offer themselves to the swords of
Privilege.”
“ True enough," said Le Chapelier gloomily, and then as
if suddenly leaping to the thing in André-Louis’ mind :
“ Andre] ” he cried. “ Would you . . . ? "
“ It is what I was considering. It would give me a legitimate
place in the Assembly. If your Tour d’Azyrs choose to seek
me out then—why their blood be upon their own heads. I
shall certainly do nothing to discourage them.” He smiled
curiously. “I am just a rascal who tries to be honest-—
Scaramouche always, in fact; a creature of sophistries. Do
you think that Ancenis would have me for its representative ? "
“ Will it have Omnes Omnibus for its representative? "
Le Chapelier was laughing, his countenance eager. " Ancenis


256 Scaramouche
will be beside itself with pride. It is not Rennes or Nantes,
as it might have been had you wished it. But it gives you a
voice for Brittany.”
“I should have to go to Ancenis . . . ? "
“ No need at all. A letter from me to the Municipality,
and the Municipality will conﬁrm you at once. No need to
move from here. In a fortnight at most the thing can be
accomplished. It is settled then? “
Andre-Louis considered yet a moment. There was his
academy. But he could make arrangements with Le Duc
and Galoche to carry it on for him, whilst himself directing
and advising. Le Duc, after all, was become a thoroughly
eﬁicient master, and he was a trustworthy fellow. At need
a third assistant could be engaged.
“ Be it so," he said at last.
Le Chapelier clasped hands with him and became congratu-
latorin voluble, until interrupted by the red-coated giant
at the door.
“What exactly does it mean to our business, anyway? "
he asked. " Does it mean that when you are a representative
you will not scruple to skewer Monsieur le Marquis ? "
“ If Monsieur le Marquis should offer himself to be skewered,
as he no doubt will."
“ I perceive the distinction," said M. Danton, and sneered.
“ You've an ingenious mind.” He turned to Le Chapelier.
“What did you say he was to begin with—a lawyer, wasn't
it P "
“ Yes, I was a lawyer, and afterwards a mountebank.”
“And this is the result l ”
“ As you say. And do you know that we are, after all, not
so dissimilar, you and I? "
“ What ? “
“ Once, like you, I went about inciting other people to go
and kill the man I wanted dead. You'll say I was a coward,
of course." _
Le Chapelier prepared to slip between them as the clouds
gathered on the giant’s brow. Then these were dispelled
again, and the great laugh vibrated through the long room.
“ You’ve touched me for the second time, and in the same
place. Oh, you can fence, my lad. We should be friends.
Rue des Cordeliers is my address. Any—scoundrel will tell
you where Danton lodges. Desmoulins lives underneath.
Corfne and visit us one evening. There's always a bottle for
a riend."


CHAPTER VIII
THE SPADASSINICIDES
FTER an absence of rather more than a week, M. le
Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr was back in his place
on the Cote Droit of the National Assembly.
Properly speaking, we should already at this date
allude to him as the ci-de'uant Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr,for the
timewas September of 1790, two months after the passing—on
the motion of that downright Bréton leveller, Le Chapelier
-—0f the decree that nobility should no more be hereditary
than infamy, that just as the brand of the gallows must not
deﬁle the possibly worthy descendants of one who had been
convicted of evil, neither should the blazon advertising
achievement glorify the possibly unworthy descendants of
one who had proved himself good. And so the decree had
been passed abolishing hereditary nobility and consigning
family escutcheons to the rubbish-heap of things no longer
to be tolerated by an enlightened generation of philosophers.
M. 1e Comte de Lafayette, who had supported the motion, left
the Assembly as plain M. Motier, the great tribune Count
Mirabeau became plain M. Riquetti, and M. le Marquis de
La Tour d'Azyr just simple M. Lesarques. The thing was
done in one of those exaltations produced by the approach of
the great National Festival of the Champ de Mars, and no
doubt it was thoroughly repented on the morrow by those
who had lent themselves to it. Thus, although law by now,
it was a law that no one troubled just yet to enforce.
That, however, is by the way. The time, as I have said,
was September, the day dull and showery, and some of the
damp and gloom of it seemed to have penetrated the long Hall
of the Manege, where on their eight rows of green benches,
eliptically arranged in ascending tiers about the space known as
La Piste, sat some eight or nine hundred of the representatives
of the three orders that composed the nation.
The matter under debate by the constitution-builders was
whether the deliberating body to succeed the Constituent
Assembly should work in conjunction with the King, whether
it should be periodic or permanent, whether it should govern
by two chambers or by one
A
I


2 58 Scaramouche
The Abbé Maury, son of a cobbler, and therefore in these
days of antitheses orator-in-chief of the party of the Right—
the Blacks, as those who fought Privilege’s losing battles
were known—was in the tribune. He appeared to be urging
the adoption of a two-chambers system framed on the English
model. He was, if anything, more long-winded and prosy
even than his habit ; his arguments assumed more and more
the form of a sermon ; the tribune of the National Assembly
became more and more like a pulpit; but the members,
conversely, less and less like a congregation. They grew
restive under that steady ﬂow of pompous verbiage, and it
was in vain that the four ushers in black satin breeches and
carefully powdered heads, chain of ofﬁce on their breasts,
gilded sword at their sides, circulated in the Piste, clapping
their hands, and hissing:
“ Silence 1 En place I ”
Equally vain was the intermittent ringing of the bell by
the president at his green-covered table facing the tribune.
The Abbé Maury had talked too long, and for some time had
failed to interest the members. Realising it at last, he ceased,
whereupon the hum of conversation became general. And
then it fell abruptly. There was a silence of expectancy,
and a turning of heads, a craning of necks. Even the group
of secretaries at the round table below the president’s da'i's
roused themselves from their usual apathy to consider this
young man who was mounting the tribune of the Assembly
for the ﬁrst time.
" M. Andre-Louis Moreau, deputy-suppléant, vice Emmanuel
Lagron, deceased, for Ancenis in the Department of the Loire."
M. de La Tour d’Azyr shook himself out of the gloomy
abstraction in which he had sat. The successor of the deputy
he had slain must, in any event, be an object of grim interest
to him. You conceive how that interest was heightened
when he heard him named, when, looking across, he recognised
indeed in this Andre-Louis Moreau the young scoundrel
who was continually crossing his path, continually exerting
against him a deep~moving, sinister influence to make him
regret that he should have spared his life that day at Gavrillac
two years ago. That he should thus have stepped into the
shoes of Lagron seemed to M. de La Tour d’Azyr too apt
for mere coincidence, a direct challenge in itself.
He looked at the young man in wonder rather than in anger,
and looking at him he was ﬁlled by a vague, almost premoni-
tory uneasiness.
And at the very outset, the presence, which in itself he


The Sword 259
conceived to be a challenge, was to demonstrate itself for this
in no equivocal terms. _
“I come before you," Andre-Louis began, “ as a deputy-
suppléant to ﬁll the place of one who was murdered some
three weeks ago."
It was an arresting opening that instantly provoked an
indignant outcry from the Blacks. Andre-Louis paused
and looked at them, smiling a little, a singularly self-conﬁdent
young man.
“ The gentlemen of the Right, M. 1e President, do not appear
to like my words. But that is not surprising. The gentlemen -
of the Right notoriously do not like the truth."
This time there was uproar. The members of the Left
roared with laughter, those of the Right thundered menacingly.
The ushers circulated at a pace beyond their usual, agitated
themselves, clapped their hands, and called in vain for silence.
The president rang his bell.
Above the general din came the voice of La Tour d’Azyr,
who had half-risen from his seat: “ Mountebank! This is
not the theatre! "
“ No, monsieur, it is becoming a hunting-ground for bully
swordsmen,” was the answer, and the uproar grew.
The deputy~suppléant looked round and waited. Near
at hand he met the encouraging grin of Le Chapelier, and the
quiet, approving smile of Kersain, another Bréton deputy
of his acquaintance. A little farther off he saw the great head
of Mirabeau thrown back, the great eyes regarding him from
under a frown in a sort of wonder, and yonder, among all that
moving sea of faces, the sallow countenance of the Arras’
lawyer, Robespierre—or dc Robespierre, as the little snob
now called himself, having assumed the aristocratic particle
as the prerogative of a man of his distinction in the councils
of his country. With his tip-tilted nose in the air, his care-
fully curled head on one side, the deputy for Arras was observ-
ing Andre-Louis attentively. The horn-rimmed spectacles
he used for reading were thrust up on to his pale forehead,
and it was through a levelled spy-glass that he considered the
speaker, his thin-lipped mouth stretched a little in that tiger-cat
smile that was afterwards to become so famous and so feared.
Gradually the uproar wore itself out, and diminished so
that at last the president could make himself heard. Leaning
forward, he gravely addressed the young man in the tribune.
" Monsieur, if you wish to be heard, let me beg of you not
to be provocative in your language.” And then to the
others : “ Messieurs, if we are to proceed, I beg that you will


26o Scaramouche
restrain your feelings until the deputy-suppléant has concluded
his discourse.”
"I shall endeavour to obey, M. 1e President, leaving
provocation to the gentlemen of the Right. If the few words“
I have used so far have been provocative, I regret it. But
it was necessary that I should refer to the distinguished
deputy whose place I come so unworthin to ﬁll, and it was
unavoidable that I should refer to the event which has procured
us this sad necessity. The deputy Lagron was a man of
singular nobility of mind, a selﬂess, dutiful, zealous man,
inﬂamed by the high purpose of doing his duty by his electors
and by this Assembly. He possessed what his opponents
would call a dangerous gift of eloquence."
La Tour d’Azyr writhed at the well-known phrase—his own
phrase, the phrase that he had used to explain his action in
the matter of Philippe de Vilmorin, the phrase that froml time
to time had been cast in his teeth with such vindictive
menace.
And then the crisp voice of the witty Oazalés, that very
rapier of the Privileged party, cut sharply into the speaker’s
momentary pause.
“M. le President,” he asked with great solemnity, “has
the deputy suppléant mounted the tribune for the purpose of
taking part in the debate on the constitution of the legisla-
tive assemblies, or for the purpose of pronouncing a funeral
oration upon the departed deputy Lagron ? ”
This time it was the Blacks who gave way to mirth, until
checked by the deputy-suppléant.
“ That laughter is obscene! ” In this truly Gallic fashion
he ﬂung his glove into the face of Privilege, determined, you
see, upon no half-measures ; and the rippling laughter
perished on the instant, quenched in speechless fury.
Solemnly he proceeded.
“ You all know how Lagron died. To refer to his death
at all requires courage, to laugh in referring to it requires
something that I will not attempt to qualify. If I have
alluded to his decease, it is because my own appearance among
you seemed to render some such allusion necessary. It is
mine to take up the burden which he set down. I do not
pretend that I have the strength, the courage, or the wisdom
of Lagron ; but with every ounce of such strength and courage
and wisdom as I possess that burden will I bear. And I trust,
for the sake of those who might attempt it, that the means
taken to impose silence upon that eloquent voice will not -
be taken to impose silence upon mine."


The Sword 261
There was a faint murmur of applause from the Left, a
splutter of contemptuous laughter from the Right.
" Rhodomont ! ” a voice called to him.
He looked in the direction of that voice, proceeding from
the group of spadassins amid the Blacks across the Piste, and
he smiled. Inaudibly his lips answered:
" No, my friend—Scaramouche ; Scaramouche, the subtle,
dangerous fellow who goes tortuously to his ends.” Aloud he
resumed: “ M. 1e President, there are those who will not
understand that the purpose for which we are assembled here
is the making of laws by which France may be equitably
governed, by which France may be lifted out of the morass
of bankruptcy into which she is in danger of sinking. For
there are some who want, it seems, not laws, but blood; I
solemnly warn them that this blood will end by choking them,
if they do not learn in time to discard force and allow reason
to prevail.”
Again in that phrase there was something that stirred a
memory in La Tour d’Azyr. He turned in the fresh uproar
to speak to his cousin Chabrillanne who sat beside him.
“ A daring rogue, this bastard of Gavrillac's,” said he.
Chabrillanne looked at him with gleaming eyes, his face white
with anger.
“ Let him talk himself out. I don't think he will be heard
again after to-day. Leave this to me."
Hardly could La Tour have told you why, but he sank back
in his seat with a sense of relief. He had been telling himself
that here was matter demanding action, a challenge that he
must take up. But despite his rage, he felt a singular
unwillingness. This fellow had a trick of reminding him, be
supposed, too unpleasantly of that young abbé done to
death in the garden behind the ‘Bréton Armé' at Gavrillac.
Not that the death of Philippe de Vilmorin lay heavily upon
M. de La Tour d'Azyr’s conscience. He had accounted himself
fully justiﬁed of his action. It was that the whole thing as
his memory revived it for him made an unpleasant picture:
that distraught boy kneeling over the bleeding body of the
friend he had loved, and almost begging to be slain with
him, dubbing the Marquis murderer and coward to incite
him.
Meanwhile, leaving now the subject of the death of Lagron,
the deputy-suppléant had at last brought himself into order,
and was speaking upon the question under debate. He
contributed nothing of value to it ; he urged nothing deﬁnite.
His speech on the subject was very brief—that being the


262 _ Scaramouche
pretext and not the purpose for which he had ascended the
tribune.
When later he was leaving the hall at the end of the sitting,
with Le Chapelier at his side, he found himself densely sur-
rounded by deputies as by a body-guard. Most of them were
Brétons, who aimed at screening him from the provocations
which his own provocative words in the Assembly could not
fail to bring down upon his head. For a moment the massive
form of Mirabeau brought up alongside of him.
“ Felicitations, M. Moreau,” said the great man. “ You
acquitted yourself very well. They will want your blood, no
doubt. But be discreet, monsieur, if I may presume to advise
you, and do not allow yourself to be misled by any false sense
of quixotry. Ignore their challenges. I do so myself. I
place each challenger upon my list. There are some ﬁfty
there already, and there they will remain. Refuse them what
they are pleased to call satisfaction, and all will be well.”
Andre-Louis smiled and sighed. “ It requires courage," said
the hypocrite.
“ Of course it does. But you would appear to have plenty."
“ Hardly enough, perhaps. But I shall do my best."
They had come through the vestibule, and although this
was lined with eager Blacks waiting for the young man who had
insulted them so ﬂagrantly from the rostrum, André-Louis’
body-guard had prevented any of them reaching him.
Emerging now into the open, under the great awning at the
head of the Oarriere, erected to enable carriages to reach the
door under cover, those in front of him dispersed a little,
and there was a moment as he reached the limit of the awning
when his front was entirely uncovered. Outside the rain was
falling heavily, churning the ground into thick mud, and
for a moment Andre-Louis, with Le Chapelier ever at his side,
stood hesitating to ste out into the deluge.
The watchful Chabn' lanne had seen his chance, and by a
détour that took him momentarily out into the rain, he came
face to face with the too-daring young Bréton. Rudely,
violently, he thrust André—Louis back, as if to make room for
himself under the shelter.
Not for a second was Andre-Louis under any delusion as
to the man’s deliberate purpose, nor were those who stood near
him, who made a belated and ineffectual attempt to close about
him. He was grievously disappointed. It was not Chabril-
lanne he had been expecting. His disappointment was
reﬂected on his countenance, to be mistaken for something very
different by the arrogant Chevalier.


The Sword 263
But if Chabrillanne was the man appointed to deal with him,
he would make the best of it.
“ I think you are pushing against me, monsieur," he said,
very civilly, and with elbow and shoulder he thrust M. de
Chabrillanne back into the rain.
“ I desire to take shelter, monsieur,“ the Chevalier hectored.
“ You may do so without standing on my feet. I have a
prejudice against anyone standing on my feet. My feet are
very tender. Perhaps you did not know it, monsieur. Please
say no more.”
" Why, I wasn’t speaking, you lout l " exclaimed the Cheva-
lier, slightly discomposed.
" Were you not? I thought perhaps you were about to
apologise.”
“ Apologise? ” Chabrillanne laughed. " To you? Do
you know that you are amusing? " He stepped under the
awning for the second time, and again in view of all thrust
André~Louis rudely back.
“ Ah I ” cried Andre-Louis, with a grimace. ” You hurt
me, monsieur. I have told you not to push against me."
He raised his voice that all might hear him, and once more
impelled M. de Chabrillanne back into the rain.
Now, for all his slendernes, his assiduous daily sword-
practice had given Andre-Louis an arm of iron. Also he threw
his weight into the thrust. His assailant reeled backward
a few steps, and then his heel struck a baulk of timber left on
the ground by some workmen that morning, and he sat down
suddenly in the mud.
A roar of laughter rose from all who witnessed the ﬁne
gentleman’s downfall. He rose, mud-bespattered, in a fury,
and in that fury sprang at Andre-Louis.
Andre-Louis had made him ridiculous, which was altogether
unforgivable.
" You shall meet me for this,” he spluttered. “ I shall kill
you for it."
His inﬂamed face was within a foot of André—Louis’. André-
Louis laughed. In the silence everybody heard the laugh
and the words that followed.
" Oh, is that what you wanted? But why didn't you say
so before ? You would have spared me the trouble of knocking
you down. I thought gentlemen of your profession invariably
conducted these affairs with decency, decorum, and a certain
grace. Hadyou done so, you might have saved your breeches."
“ How soon shall we settle this? ” snapped Chabrillanne,
livid with very real fury.


CHAPTER IX
THE PALADIN OF THE THIRD
LE OHEVALIER DE CHABRILLANNE had
been closely connected, you willremember, with
the iniquitous affair in which Philippe de
Vilmorin had lost his life. We know enough
to justify a surmise that he had not merely been La Tour
d'Azyr’s second in the encounter, but actually an instigator
of the business. Andre-Louis may therefore have felt a
justifiable satisfaction in offering up the Chevalier’s life to
the Manes of his murdered friend. He may have viewed it as
an act of common justice not to be procured by any other
means. Also it is to be remembered that Chabrillanne had
gone conﬁdently to the meeting, conceiving that he, a practised
ferailleur, had to deal with a bourgeois utterly unskilled in
swordsmanship. Morally, then, he was little better than
a murderer, and that he should have tumbled into the pit
he conceived that he dug for Andre-Louis was a poetic
retribution. Yet, notwithstanding all this, I should ﬁnd the
cynical note on which Andre-Louis announced the issue to
the Assembly utterly detestable did I believe it sincere. It
would justify Aline of the expressed opinion which she held
in common with so many others who had come into close
contact with him, that Andre-Louis was quite heartless.
You have seen something of the same heartlessness in his
conduct when he discovered the faithlessness of La Binet,
although that is belied by the measures he took to avenge
himself. His subsequent contempt of the woman I account
to be born of the affection in which for a time he held her.
That this affection was as deep as he ﬁrst imagined, I do not be-
lieve ; but that it was as shallow as he would almost be at pains
to make it appear by the completeness with which he affects
to have put her from his mind when he discovered her worthless-
ness, I do not believe; nor, as I_have said, do his actions
encourage that belief. Then, again, his callous cynicism in
‘ hoping that he had killed Binet is also an aﬁectation.
Knowing that such things as Binet are better out of the world,
he can have suffered no compunction; he had, you must


The Sword 267
remember, that rarely level vision which sees things in their
just proportions, and never either magniﬁes or reduces them
by sentimental considerations. At the same time, that he
should contemplate the taking of life with such complete and
cynical equanimity, whatever the justiﬁcation, is quite
incredible.
Similarly now, it is not to be believed that in coming
straight from the Bois de Boulogne, straight from the killing
of a man, he should be sincerely expressing his nature in
alluding to the fact in terms of such outrageous ﬂippancy.
Not quite to such an extent was he the incarnation of Scara-
mouche. But sufficiently was he so ever to mask his true
feelings by an arresting gesture, his true thoughts by
an effective phrase. He was the actor always: a man ever
calculating the effect he would produce, ever avoiding self-
revelation, ever concerned to overlay his real character by
an assumed and quite ﬁctitious one. There was in this
something of impishness, and something of other things.
No one laughed now at his ﬁippancy. He did not intend
that anybody should. He intended to be terrible ; and he knew
that the more ﬂippant and casual his tone, the more terrible
would be its effect. He produced exactly the effect he
desired.
What followed in a place where feelings and practices had
become what they had become is not difﬁcult to surmise.
When the session rose, there were a dozen spadassins awaiting
him in the vestibule, and this time the men of his own party
were less concerned to guard him. He seemed so entirely
capable of guarding himself ; he appeared, for all his circum-
spection, to have so completely carried the war into the enemy’s
camp, so completely to have adopted their own methods,
that his fellows scarcely felt the need to protect him as yester-
da .
X5 he emerged, he scanned that hostile ﬁle, whose air and
garments marked them so clearly for what they were. He
paused, seeking the man he expected, the man he was most
anxious to oblige. But M. de La Tour d’Azyr was absent
from those eager ranks. This seemed to him odd. La Tour
d’Azyr was Chabrillanne’s cousin and closest friend. Surely
he should have been among the ﬁrst to-day. The fact was
that La Tour d’Azyr was too deeply overcome by amazement
and grief at the utterly unexpected event. Also his vindic-
tiveness was held curiously in leash. Perhaps he, too, remem-
bered the part played by Chabrillanne in the affair at Gavrillac,
and saw in this obscure Andre-Louis Moreau, who had so


268 Scaramouche
persistently persecuted him ever since, an ordained avenger.
The repugnance he felt to come to the point with him, particu-
larly after this culminating provocation, was puzzling even to
himself. But it existed, and it curbed him now.
To Andre-Louis, since La Tour was not one of that waiting
pack, it mattered little on that Tuesday morning who should
be the next. The next, as it happened, was the young Vicomte
de La Motte-Royau, one of the deadliest blades in the group.
On the Wednesday morning, coming again an hour or so
late to the Assembly, Andre-Louis announced—in much the
same terms as he had announced the death of Chabrillannc;
that M. de La Motte-Royau would probably not disturb the
harmony of the Assembly for some weeks to come, assuming
that he were so fortunate as to recover ultimately from the
effects of an unpleasant accident with which he had quite
unexpectedly had the misfortune to meet that morning.
On Thursday he made an identical announcement with
regard to the Vidame de BlaVon. On Friday he told them
that he had been delayed by M. de Troiscantins, and then
turning to the members of the COté Droit, and lengthening
his face to a sympathetic gravity:
“ I am glad to inform you, messieurs, that M. des Trois-
cantins is in the hands of a very competent surgeon, who hopes
with care to restore him to your councils in a few weeks' time.”
It was paralyzing, fantastic, unreal; and friend and foe
in that Assembly sat alike stupeﬁed under those bland daily
announcements. Four of the most redoubtable spadassini-
cides put away for a time, one of them dead~and all this
performed with such an air of indifference and announced
in such casual terms by a wretched little provincial lawyer!
He began to assume in their eyes a romantic aspect. Even
that group of philosophers of the core Gauche, who refused
to worship any force but the force of reason, began to look
upon him with a respect and consideration which no oratorical
triumphs could ever have procured him.
And from the Assembly the fame of him oozed out gradually
over Paris. Desmoulins wrote a panegyric upon him in his
paper, Les Révolutions, wherein he dubbed him the Paladin of
the Third Estate, a name that caught the fancy of the people
and clung to him for some time. Disdainfully was he men-
tioned in the Acles des Apétres, the mocking organ of the
Privileged party, so light-heartedly and provocatively edited
by a group of gentlemen aﬁiicted by a singular mental myopy.
The Friday of that very busy week in the life of this young
man, who even thereafter is to persist in reminding us that


The Sword 269
he is not in any sense a man of action, found the vestibule
of the Manege empty of swordsmen when he made his
leisurely and expectant egress between Le Chapelier and
Kersain.
So surprised was he that he checked in his stride.
“ Have they had enough P " he wondered, addressing the
question to Le Chapelier.
" They have had enough of you, I should think,” was the
answer. “They will prefer to turn their attention to someone
less able to take care of himself."
Now this was disappointing. Andre-Louis had lent himself
to this business with a very deﬁnite object in view. The
slaying of Chabrillanne had, as far as it went, been satisfactory.
He had regarded that as a sort of acceptable hors d’oeuvre.
But the three who had followed Were no affair of his at all.
He had met them with a certain amount of repugnance, and
dealt with each as lightly as consideration of his own safety
permitted. Was the baiting of him now to cease whilst the
man at whom he aimed had not presented himself? In
that case it would be necessary to force the pace !
Out there under the awning a group of gentlemen
stood in earnest talk. Scanning the group, André-Louis
perceived M. de La Tour d’Azyr amongst them. He
tightened his lips. He must afford no provocation. It
must be for them to fasten their quarrels upon him. Already
the Actes des Ap6tres that morning had tom the mask from
his face, and proclaimed him the fencing-master of the Rue
du Hasard, successor to Bertrand des Amis. Hazardous as
it had been hitherto for a man of his condition to engage in
single combat, it was rendered doubly so by this exposure,
offered to the public as an aristocratic apologia.
Still, matters could not be left where they were, or he should
have had all his pains for nothing. Carefully looking away
from that group of gentlemen, he raised his voice so that his
words must carry to their ears.
'-‘ It begins to look as if my fears of having to spend the
remainder of my days in the Bois were idle."
Out of the corner of his eye he caught the stir his words
created in that group. Its members had turned to look at
him; but for the moment that was all. A little more was
necessary. Pacing slowly along between his friends he resumed:
“ But is it not remarkable that the assassin of Lagron should
make no move against Lagron’s successor? Or perhaps it
is not remarkable. Perhaps there are good reasons. Perhaps
the gentleman is prudent."


CHAPTER X
TORN PRIDE
DE LA TOUR D'AZYR’S engagement in the
country on that Sunday was with M. de Kercadiou.
.To fulﬁl it he drove out early in the day to
Meudon, taking with him in his pocket a copy of
the last issue of The Acts of the Apostles, a journal whose
merry sallies at the expense of the innovators greatly diverted
the Seigneur de Gavrillac. The venomous scorn it poured
upon those worthless rapscallions afforded him a certain
solatium against the discomforts of expatriation by which
he was aﬂlicted as a result of their detestable energies
Twice in the last month had M. de La Tour d’Azyr gone to
visit the Lord of Gavrillac at Meudon, and the sight of Aline,
so sweet and fresh, so bright and of so lively a mind, had
caused those embers smouldering under the ashes of the past,
embers which until now he had believed utterly extinct, to
kindle into flame once more. He desired her as we desire
heaven. I believe that it was the purest passion of his life ;
that had it come to him earlier he might have been a vastly
different man. The cruellest wound that in all his selﬁsh life
he had taken was when she sent him word quite deﬁnitely
after the affair at the Feydau that she could not again in any
circumstances receive him. At one blow—through that
disgraceful riot—he had been robbed of a mistress he prized
and of a wife who had become a necessity to the very soul
of him. The sordid love of La Binet might have consoled him
for the compulsory renunciation of his exalted love of Aline
just as to his exalted love of Aline he had been ready to sacri-
ﬁce his attachment to La Binet. But that ill-timed riot had
robbed him at once of both. Faithful to his word to Sautron,
he had deﬁnitely broken with La Binet, only to ﬁnd that Aline
had deﬁnitely broken with him. And by the time that he
had sufﬁciently recovered from his grief to think again of La
Binet, the comedienne had-vanished beyond discovery.
For all this he blamed, and most bitterly blamed, André-
Louis. That low-bom provincial lout pursued him like a
Nemesis, was become indeed the evil genius of his life. That


The Sword 275
lawyer rabble was leading it. He pulled out The Acts ofthc
Ajwstles and read a stinging paragraph. Then, when Made-
moiselle at last made her appearance, he resigned the journal
into the hands of M. de Kercadiou.
M. de Kercadiou, with his niece's future to consider, went
to read the paper in the garden, taking up there a position
whence he could keep the couple within sight—as his obliga-
tions seemed to demand of him—whilst being discreetly out
of earshot.
The Marquis made the most of an opportunity that might
be brief. He quite frankly declared himself, and begged,
implored to be taken back into Aline’s good graces, to be
admitted at least to the hope that one day before very long she
would bring herself to consider him in a nearer relationship.
“ Mademoiselle,” he told her, his voice vibrating with a
feeling that admitted of no doubt, “ you cannot lack convic-
tion of my utter sincerity. The very constancy of my devotion
should afford you this. It is just that I should have been
banished from you, since I showed myself so utterly unworthy
of the great honour to which I aspired. But this banishment
has nowise diminished my devotion. If you could conceive
what I have suffered, you would agree that I have fully
expiated my abject fault."
She looked at him with a curious, gentle wistfulness on her
lovely face.
“ Monsieur. it is not you whom I doubt. It is myself."
“ You mean your feelings towards me ? "
(l Yes-I,
“ But that Ican understand. After what has happened . . ."
" It was always so, monsieur,” she interrupted quietly.
“ You speak of me as if lost to you by your own action.
That is to say too much. Let me be frank with you. Mon-
sieur, I was never yours to lose. I am conscious of the honour
that you do me. I esteem you very deeply . . . "
" But then,” he cried, on a high note of conﬁdence, “from
such a beginning . . . “
"Who shall assure me that it is a beginning? May it
not be the whole ? Had I held you in affection, monsieur,
I should have sent for you after the affair of which you have
spoken. I should at least not have condemned you without
hearing your explanation. Asit was . . . " She shrugged,
smiling gently, sadly. “ You see? "
But his optimism, far from being crushed, was stimulated.
“ But it is to give me hope, mademoiselle. If already I
possess so much, I may look with conﬁdence to win more.


276 Scaramouche
I shall prove myself worthy. I swear to do that. Who that
is pemritted the privilege of being near you could do other
than seek to render himself worthy P "
And then before she could add a word, M. de Kercadiou came
blustering through the window, his spectacles on his forehead,
his face inflamed, waving in his hand The Acts 0 f the A postles,
and apparently reduced to speechlessness.
Had the Marquis expressed himself aloud he would have
been profane. As it was, he bit his lip in vexation at this
most inopportune interruption.
Aline sprang up, alarmed by her uncle's agitation.
“ What has happened P "
“ Happened P ” He found speech at last. " The scoundrel l
The faithless dog! I consented to overlook the past on the
clear condition that he should avoid revolutionary politics
in future. That condition he accepted, and now "-—
he smacked the news-sheet furiously—“ he has played
me false again. Not only has he gone into politics once
more, but he is actually a member of the Assembly, and, what
is worse, he has been using his assassin’s skill as a fencing-
master, turning himself into a bully swordsman. My Godl
Is there any law at all left in France P ”
One doubt M. de La Tour d'Azyr had entertained, though
only faintly, to mar the perfect serenity of his growing opti-
mism. That doubt concerned this man Moreau and his relations
with M. de Kercadiou. He knew what once they had been,
and how changed they subsequently were by the ingratitude
of Moreau’s own behaviour in turning against the class to
which his benefactor belonged. What he did not know was
that a reconciliation had been effected. Forin the past month
-ever since circumstances had driven Andre-Louis to depart
from his undertaking to steer clear of politics—the young man
had not ventured to approach Meudon, and, as it happened,
his name had not been mentioned in La Tour d’Azyr’s hearing
on the occasion of either of his own previous visits. He
learnt of that reconciliation now ; but he learnt at the same
time that the breach was now renewed, and rendered wider
and more impassable than ever. Therefore he did not hesitate
to avow his own position.
“There is a law,” he answered. “The law that this rash
young man himself evokes. The law of the sword.” He
spoke very gravely, almost sadly. For he realised that, after
all, the ground was tender. “ You are not to suppose that he
is to continue indeﬁnitely his career of evil and murder.
Sooner or later he will meet a sword that will avenge the others.


The Sword 277
You have observed that my cousin Chabrillanne is among
the number of this assassin's victims ; that he was killed on
Tuesday last.”
" If I have not expressed my condolence, Azyr, it is because
myindignation stiﬂes at the moment every other feeling. The
scoundrel ! You say that sooner or later he will meet a sword
that will avenge the others. I pray that it may be
soon."
The Marquis answered him quietly, without anything but
sorrow in his voice. "I think your prayer is likely to be
heard. This wretched young man has an engagement to-
morrow, when his account may be deﬁnitely settled.”
He spoke with such calm conviction, that his words had all
the sound of a sentence of death. They suddenly stemmed
the ﬂow of M. de Kercadiou’s anger. The colour receded
from his inﬂamed face ; dread looked out of his pale eyes, to
inform M. de La Tour d’Azyr more clearly than any words that
M. de Kercadiou's hot speech had been the expression of
unreﬂecting anger, that his prayer that retribution might
soon overtake his godson had been unconsciously insincere.
Confronted now by the fact that'this retribution was about
to be visited upon that scoundrel, the fundamental gentleness
and kindliness of his nature asserted itself ; his anger was sud-
denly whelmed in apprehension; his affection for the lad beat
up to the surface, making André-Louis' sin, however hideous,
a thing of no account by comparison with the threatened
punishment.
M. de Kercadiou moistened his lips.
“ With whom is this engagement ?“ he asked, in a voice
that by an effort he contrived to render steady.
M. de La Tour d’Azyr bowed his handsome head, his eyes
upon the gleaming parquetry of the ﬂoor. “ With myself,"
he answered quietly, conscious already with a tightening
of the heart that his answer must sow dismay. He caught
the sound of a faint outcry from Aline; he saw the sudden
recoil of M. de Kercadiou. And then he plunged headlong
into the explanation that he deemed necessary.
“In view of his relations with you, M. de Kercadiou, and
because of my deep regard for you, I did my best to avoid
this, even though, as you willunderstand,the deathof my dear
friend andcousin Chabrillanne seemed to summon me to actionI
even though I knew that my circumspection was becoming
matter for criticism among my friends. But yesterday this
unbridled young man made further restraint impossible to me.
He provoked me deliberately and publicly. He put upon me


The Sword 279
“To what end? He was in the right,and . . . and . . .
there are things one cannot ask ; things it would be a useless
humiliation to ask." He sat down, groaning. " Oh, the poor
boy—the poor, misguided boy! "
In the mind of neither, you see, was there any doubt of
what must be the iSSue. The calm conﬁdence in which La
Tour d’Azyr had spoken compelled itself to be shared. He was
no vainglorious boaster, and they knew of what a force as a
swordsman he was generally accounted.
"What does humiliation matter? A life is at issue—
André's life."
"I know. My God, don't I know ? And I would humili-
ate myself if by humiliating myself I could hope to prevail.
But Azyr is a hard, relentless man, and . . .”
Abruptly she left him.
She overtook the Marquis as he was in the act of stepping
into his carriage. He turned as she called, and bowed.
" Mademoiselle ? "
At once he guessed her errand, tasted in anticipation the
unparalleled bitterness of being compelled to refuse her. Yet
at her invitation he stepped back into the cool of the hall.
In the middle of the ﬂoor of chequered marbles, black and
white, stood a carved table of black oak. By this he halted,
leaning, lightly against it whilst she sat enthroned in the great
crimson chair beside it.
“ Monsieur, I cannot allow you so to depart,” she said.
" You cannot realise, monsieur, what a blow would be dealt
myuncle if . . . if evil, irrevocable evil were to overtake
his godson to-morrow. The expressions that he used at
ﬁrst . . . "
“ Mademoiselle, I perceived their true value. Spare your-
self. Believe me, Iam profoundly desolated bycircumstances
which I had not expected to ﬁnd. You must believe me when
I sa that. It is all that I can say."
“ ust it really be all ? André is very dear to his god-
father."
The pleading tone cut him like a knife ; and then suddenly
it aroused another emotion—an emotion which he realised
to be utterly unworthy, an emotion which, in his overwhelming
pride of race, seemed almost sullying, yet not to be repressed.
He hesitated to give it utterance ; hesitated even remotely
to suggest so horrible a thing as that in a man of such lowly
origin he might conceivably discover a rival. Yet that
sudden pang of jealousy was stronger than his monstrous
pride.


The Sword 281
She brushed that aside almost contemptuously, conceiving .
it the merest quibble.
“ Some men, yes. But not you, M. le Marquis.“
Her conﬁdence in him on every count was most sweetly
ﬂattering. But there was a bitterness behind the sweet.
“ Even I, mademoiselle, let me assure you. And there is
more than that. This quarrel which M. Moreau has forced
upon me is no new thin . ﬁt is merely the culmination of a
long-drawn persecution.’
“ Which you invited," she cut in. “ Be just, monsieur."
“I hope that it is not in my nature to be otherwise,
mademoiselle. ’ ’
“ Consider, then, that you killed his friend."
“ I ﬁnd in that nothing with which to reproach myself.
My justiﬁcation lay in the circumstances—the subsequent
events in this distracted country surely conﬁrm it.”
“ And . . . " She faltered a little, and looked away
from him for the ﬁrst time. “ And that you . . . that you
And what of Mademoiselle Binet, whom he was to
have married? ”
He stared at her for a moment in sheer surprise. " Was
to have married? ". he repeated incredulously, dismayed
almost.
" You did not know that P "
“ But how do you? ”
" Did I not tell you that we are- as brother and sister almost P
I have his conﬁdence. He told me, before . . . before you
made it impossible.”
He looked away, chin in hand, his glance thoughtful,
disturbed, almost wistful.
“ There is," he said slowly, musingly, " a singular fatality
at work between that man and me, bringing us ever each by
turns athwart the other’s path . . . ”
He sighed; then swung to face her again, speaking more
briskly. " Mademoiselle, until this moment I had no knowledge
—no suspicion of this thing. But . . . " He broke off,
considered, and then shrugged. “ If I wronged him, I did
so unconsciously. It would be unjust to blame me, surely.
In all our actions it must be the intention alone that counts."
“ But does it make no difference? ”
“ None that I can discern, mademoiselle. It gives me no
justiﬁcation to withdraw from that to which I am irrevocably
committed. N0 justiﬁcation, indeed, could ever be greater
than my concern for the pain it must occasion my good friend
your uncle, and perhaps yourself, mademoiselle."


282 Scaramouche
She rose suddenly, squarely, confronting him, desperate
now, driven to play the only card upon which she thought
she might count.
“ Monsieur," she said, “ you did me the honour to-day to
speak in certain terms; to . . . to allude to certain hopes
with which you honour me."
He looked at her almost in fear In silence, not daring
to speak, he waited for her to continue.
“I . . . I . . . Will you pleaseto understand, monsieur,
that if you persist in this matter, if . . . unless you can
break this engagement of yours to-morrow morning in the
Bois, you are not to presume to mention that subject to me
again, or, indeed, ever a in to approach me."
To put the matter in t is negative way was as far as she
could possibly go. It was for him to make the positive
proposal to which she had thus thrown wide the door.
“ Mademoiselle, you cannot mean . . . "
" I do, monsieur . . . irrevocably, please to understand."
He looked at her with eyes of misery, his handsome manly
face as pale as she had ever seen it. The hand he had been
holding out in protest began to shake. He lowered it to his
side again, lest she should perceive its tremor. Thus a brief
second, while the battle was fought within him, the bitter
engagement between his desires and what he conceived to
be the demands of his honour, never perceiving how far his
honour was buttressed by implacable vindictiveness. Retreat,
he conceived, was impossible without shame ; and shame was
to him an agony unthinkable. She asked too much. She
could not understand what she was asking, else she would
never be so unreasonable, so unjust. But also he saw that
it would be futile to attempt to make her understand.
It was the end. Though he kill André-Louis Moreau in
the morning, as he ﬁercely hoped he would, yet the victory
even in death must lie with Andre-Louis Moreau.
He bowed profoundly, grave and sorrowful of face as he
was grave and sorrowful of heart.
“ Mademoiselle, my homage," he murmured, and turned to
go.
Startled, appalled, she stepped back, her hand pressed to
her tortured breast.
" But you have not answered me," she called after him in
terror.
He checked on the threshold, and turned ; and there from
the cool gloom of the hall she saw him,a black, graceful
silhouette against the brilliant sunshine beyond—a memory


The Sword 283
of him that was to cling as something sinister and menacing
in the dread hours that were to follow.
“What would you, mademoiselle? I but spared myself
and you the pain of a refusal.”
He was gone, leaving her crushed and raging. She sank
down again into the great red chair, and sat there crumpled,
her elbows on the table, her face in her hands—a face that was
on ﬁre with shame and passion. She had offered herself,
and she had been refused! The inconceivable had befallen
her. The humiliation of it seemed to her something that
could never be effaced.


CHAPTER XI
THE RETURNING CARRIAGE
DE KERCADIOU wrote a letter.
“ Godson,” he began, without any softening
adjectiVe, “ I have learnt with pain and in-
dignation that you have dishonoured yourself
againby breakingthepledge you gave me to abstainfrom politics.
With still greater pain and indignation do I learn that your
name has become in a few short days a byword, that you
have discarded the weapon of false insidious arguments
against my class—the class to which you owe everything——
for the sword of the assassin. It has come to my knowledge
that you have an assignation to-morrow with my good friend
M. de La Tour d’Azyr. A gentleman of his station is under
certain obligations imposed upon him by his birth, which
do not permit him to draw back from an engagement. But
you labour under no such disadvantages. For a man of your
class to refuse an engagement of honour, or to neglect it when
made, entails no sacriﬁce. Your peers will probably be of
the opinion that you display a commendable prudence. There-
fore I beg you—indeed, did I think that I still exercise over you
any such authority as the favours you have received from me
should entitle me to exercise, I would command you—to allow
this matter to go no further, and to refrain from rendering
yourself to your assignation to-morrow morning. Having
no such authority, as your past conduct now makes clear,
having no reason to hope that a proper sentiment of gratitude
to me will induce you to give heed to this my most earnest
request, I am compelled to add that, should you survive to-
morrow’s encounter, I can in no circumstances ever again
permit myself to be conscious of your existence. If any
spark survives of the affection that once you expressed for me,
or if you set any value upon the affection which, in spite of
all that you have done to forfeit it, is the chief prompter of
this letter, you will not refuse to do as I am asking."
It was not a tactful letter. M. de Kercadiou was not a
tactful man. Read it as he would, André-Louis—when it
was delivered to him on that Sunday afternoon by the groom
dispatched with it into Paris—could read into it only concern


The Sword 285
for M. de La Tour d’Azyr, M. de Kercadiou’s good friend,
as he called him, and prospective nephew-in-law.
He kept the groom waiting a full hour while composing
his answer. Brief though it was, it cost him very considerable
effort and several unsuccessful attempts. In the end this is
what he wrote:
“Mousnwn MY Gommrnzn,
" You make refusal singularly hard for me when you
appeal to me upon the ground of affection. It is a thing
of which all my life I shall hail the opportunity to give you
proofs, and I am therefore desolated beyond anything I
could hope to express that I cannot give you the proof you ask
to-day. There is too much between M. de La Tour d’Azyr
and me. Also you do me and my class—whatever it may be—
less than justice when you say that obligations of honour
are not binding upon us. So binding do I count them, that,
if I would, I could not now draw back.
“ If hereafter you should persist in the harsh intention
you express, I must suﬁer it. That I shall suffer be assured.
" Your affectionate and grateful godson,
“ ANDRt-Lours."
He dispatched that letter by M. de Kercadiou’s groom, and
conceived this to be the end of the matter. It cut him
keenly; but he bore the wound with that outward stoicism
be affected.
Next morning, at a quarter past eight, as with Le Chapelier
--who had come to break his fast with him—he was rising
from table to set out for the Bois, his housekeeper startled
him by announcing Mademoiselle de Kercadiou.
He looked at his watch. Although his cabriolet was already
at the door, he had a few minutes to spare. He excused him-
self from Le Chapelier, and went briskly out to the anteroom.
She advanced to meet him, her manner eager, almost
feverish.
“ I will not affect ignorance of why you have come," he
said quickly, to make short work. " But time presses,
and I warn you that only the most solid of reasons can be
worth stating."
It surprised her. It amounted to a rebuff at the very outset
before she had uttered a word; and that was the last thing
she had expected from Andre-Louis. Moreover, there was
about him an air of aloofness that was unusual where she wa
concerned, and his voice had been singularly cold and formal.


286 Scaramouche
It wounded her. She was not to guess the conclusion to
which he had leapt. He made with regard to her—as was but
natural, after all—the same mistake that he had made with
regard to yesterday’s letter from his godfather. He conceived
that the mainspring of action here was solely concern for M.
de La Tour d’Azyr. That it might be concern for himself never
entered his mind. So absolute was his own conviction of what
must be the inevitable issue of that meeting that he could not
conceive of anyone entertaining a fear on his behalf.
What he assumed to be anxiety on the score of the predes-
tined victim had irritated him in M. de Kercadiou; in Aline
it ﬁlled him with cold anger. He argued from it that she had
hardly been frank with him; that ambition was urging her
to consider with favour the suit of M. de La Tour d’Azyr.
And than this there was no spur that could have driven more
relentlessly in his purpose, since to save her was in his eyes
almost as momentous as to avenge the past.
She conned him searchingly, and the complete calm of him
at such a time amazed her. She could not repress the mention
of it.
" How calm you are, Andrél"
“ I am not easily disturbed. It is a vanity of mine."
" But . . . Oh, André, this meeting must not take place I "
She came close up to him, to set her hands upon his shoulders,
and stood so, her face within a foot of his own.
‘ You know, of course. of some good reason why it should
not P " said he.
“ You may be killed," she answered him, and her eyes
dilated as she spoke.
It was so far from anything that he had expected that for
a moment he could only stare at her. Then he thought he had
understood. He laughed as he removed her hands from his
shoulders, and stepped back. This was a shallow device,
childish and unworthy in her.
“ Can you really think to prevail by attempting to frighten
me?” he asked, and almost sneered.
“ Oh, you are surely mad I M. de la Tour d’Azyr is reputed
the most dangerous sword in France."
“ Have you never noticed that most reputations are
undeserved? Chabrillanne was a dangerous swordsman, and
Chabrillanne is under ground. La Motte-Royau was an even
more dangerous swordsman, and he is in a surgeon’s hands.
So are the other spadissinicides who dreamt of skewen'ng a
poor sheep of a provincial lawyer. And here to-day comes
the chief, the ﬁne ﬂ0wer of these bully-swordsmen. He comes


The Sword 287
for wages long overdue. Be sure of that. So if you have no
other reason to urge . . . "
It was the sarcasm of him that mystiﬁed her. Could he
possibly be sincere in his assurance that he must prevail against
M. de La Tour d'Azyr ? To her, in her limited knowledge, her
mind ﬁlled with her uncle's contrary conviction, it seemed that
Andre-Louis was only acting; he would act a part to the
very end.
Be that as it might, she shifted her ground to answer him.
“ You had my uncle’s letter ?' ”
“And I answered it."
“ I know. But what he said, he will fulﬁl. Do not dream
that he will relent if you carry out this horrible purpose."
" Come now, that is a better reason than the other," said
he. " If there is a reason in the world that could move me,
it would be that. But there is too much between La Tour
d’Azyr and me. There is an oath I swore on the dead
hand of Philippe de Vilmorin. I could never have hoped
that God would aﬁ’ord me so great an opportunity of
keeping it."
“ You have not kept it yet," she warned him.
He smiled at her. “ True 1 " he said. “ But nine o’clock
will soon be here. Tell me," he asked her suddenly, “ why
did you not carry this request of yours to M. de la Tour
d’Azyr? "
“ I did,” she answered him, and ﬂushed as she remembered
her yesterday’s rejection. He interpreted the flush quite
otherwise. '
" And be P ” he asked.
" M. de La Tour d'Azyr's obligations . . . ” she was
beginning; then she broke off to answer shortly, " Oh, he
refused."
“ So, so. He must, of course, whatever it may have cost
him. Yet, in his place, I should have counted the cost as
nothing. But men are different, you see." He sighed. “ Also
in your place, had that been so, I think I should have left
the matter there. But then . . . "
"I don’t understand you, Andre."
“ I am not so very obscure. Not nearly so obscure as I
can be. Turn it over in your mind. It may help to comfort
you presently.” He consulted his watch again. “ Pray use
this house as your own. I must be going.”
Le Chapelier put his head in at the door.
“ Forgive the intrusion. But we shall be late, André,
unless you . . . “


288 Scaramouche

" Coming," André answered him. " If you will await
my return, Aline, you will oblige me deeply. Particularly
in view of your uncle's resolve."
She did not answer him. She was numbed. He took
her silence for assent, and, bowing, left her. Standing there,
she heard his steps going down the stairs together with Le
Ohapelier's. He was speaking to his friend, and his voice was
calm and normal.
Oh, he was mad—blinded by self-conﬁdence and vanity.
As his carriage rattled away, she sat down limply, with a
sense of exhaustion and nausea. She was sick and faint with
horror. Andre-Louis was going to his death. Conviction
of it—an unreasoning conviction, the result perhaps of all
M. de Kercadiou’s rantings—entered her soul. Awhile she
sat thus, paralysed by hopelessness. Then she sprang up
again, wringing her hands. She must do something to avert
this horror. But what could she do? To follow him to the
Bois and intervene there would be to make a scandal for no
purpose. The conventions of conduct were all against her,
oﬂering a barrier that was not to be overstepped. Was there
no one could help her?
Standing there, half-frenzied by her helplessness, she
caught again a sound of vehicles and hooves on the cobbles
of the street below. A carriage was approaching. It drew
up with a clatter before the fencing academy. Could it be
Andre-Louis returning? Passionately she snatched at that
straw of hope. Knocking, loud and urgent, fell upon the door.
She heardAndré-Louis’housekeeper,her wooden shoes clanking
upon the stairs, hurrying down to open.
She sped to the door of the anteroom and, pulling it wide,
stood breathlessly to listen. But the voice that ﬂoated up
to her was not the voice she so desperately hoped to hear. It
was a woman’s voice asking in urgent tones for Monsieur
André-Louis—a voice at ﬁrst vaguely familiar, then clearly
recognised: the voice of Madame de Plougastel.
Excited, she ran to the head of the narrow staircase in time
to hear Madame de Plougastel exclaim in agitation :
“ He has gone already ? Oh, but how long since ? Which
way did he take? ”
It was enough toinform Aline that Madame de Plougastel’s
errand must be akin to her own. At the moment, in the
general distress and confusion of her mind, her mental vision
focussed entirely on the one vital point, she found in this
no matter for astonishment. The singular regard conceived


The Sword 289
by Madame de Plougastel for Andre-Louis seemed to her then
a sufﬁcient explanation.
Without pausing to consider, she ran down that steep
staircase, calling:
"Madame! Madame!"
The portly, comely housekeeper drew aside, and the two
ladies faced each other on that threshold. Madame de
Plougastel looked white and haggard, a nameless dread staring
from her eyes.
“Aline! You here!” she exclaimed. And then in the
urgency sweeping aside all minor considerations : “ Were you
also too late? “ she asked.
"No, madame. I saw him. I implored him. But he
would not listen."
“ Oh, this is horrible I " Madame de Plougastel shuddered
as she spoke. “ I heard of it only half-an-hour ago, and I
came at once, to prevent it at all costs.”
The two women looked blankly, despairingly, at each other.
In the sunshine-ﬂooded street one or two shabby idlers were
pausing to eye the handsome equipage with its magniﬁcent
bay horses and the two great ladies on the doorstep of the
fencing academy. From across the way came the raucous
voice of an itinerant bellows-mender raised in the cry of his
trade.
" A raccommoder les vieux soufflets l "
Madame swung to the housekeeper.
“ How long is it since Monsieur left ? ”
" Ten minutes, maybe; hardly more." Conceiving these
great ladies to be friends of her invincible master’s latest
victim, the good woman preserved a decently stolid exterior.
Madame wrung her hands. " Ten minutes! Oh I" It
Was almost a moan. " Which way did he go? ”
" The assignation is for nine o’clock in the Bois de Boulogne,”
Aline informed her. “ Could we follow? Could we prevail
if we did? ”
“ Ah, my God I The question is, should we come in time ?
At nine o'clock l And it wants but little more than a quarter
of an hour. Mon Dieu 1 Mon Dieu l " Madame clasped and
unclasped her hands in anguish. “ Do you know, at least,
where in the Bois they are to meet ? "
“ No—only that it is in the Bois."
“ In the Bois l ” Madame was ﬂung into a frenzy. “ The
Bois is nearly half as large as Paris.” But she swept breath-
lesst on. “ Come, Aline, get in, get in l "
_ x


294 Scaramouche
whole days of fencing in succession for nearly two years had
given the master. With a beautiful, easy pressure of forte
on foible Andre-Louis kept himself completely covered in that
second bout, which once more culminated in a lunge.
Expecting it now, Andre-Louis parried it by no more than
a deﬂecting touch. At the same moment he stepped suddenly
forward, right within the other's guard, thus placing his man so
completely at his mercy that, as if fascinated, the Marquis
did not even attempt to recover himself.
This time Andre-Louis did not laugh. He just smiled
into the dilating eyes of M. de La Tour d’Azyr, and made no
shift to use his advantage.
“ Come, come, monsieur! ” he bade him sharply. “ Am
I to run my blade through an uncovered man P “ Deliberater
he fell back, whilst his shaken opponent recovered himself
at last. -
M. d’Ormesson released the breath which horror had for
a moment caught. Le Chapelier swore softly, muttering:
" Name of a name! It is tempting Providence to play
the fool in this fashion! ”
Andre-Louis observed the ashen pallor that now over-
spread the face of his opponent.
“ I think you begin to realise, monsieur, what Philippe de
Vilmorin must have felt that day at Gavrillac. I desired that
you should ﬁrst do so. Since that is accomplished, why,here‘s
to make an end.”
He went in with lightning rapidity. For a moment his
point seemed to La Tour d’Azyr to be everywhere at once,
and then from a low engagement in sixte, Andre-Louis
stretched forward with swift and vigorous ease to lunge in
tierce. He drove his point to transﬁx his opponent, whom a
series of calculated disengages uncovered in that line. But
to his amazement and chagrin, La Tour d'Azyr parried the
stroke , inﬁnitely more to his chagrin La Tour d’Azyr parried
it just too late. Had he completely parried it, all would yet
have been well. But striking the blade in the last fraction
of a second, the Marquis deﬂected the point from the line of
his body, yet not so completely but that a couple of feet of
that hard-driven steel tore through the muscles of his sword-
arm.
To the seconds none of these details had been visible. All
that they had seen had been a swift whirl of ﬂashing blades,
and then Andre-Louis stretched almost to the ground in an
upward lunge that had pierced the Marquis’s right arm just
below the shoulder.


The Sword 303
should go down to Brittany to combat, by peaceful means if
possible, the evil inﬂuences at work.
It was a matter in which the municipalities had clear and
well-timed powers. But many of the municipalities were
themselves growing suspect for their singular inertion before
the steadily spreading reactionary sentiments. Hence the
need to send down an elected representative with fullest
powers to arouse the municipalities to a sense of their danger.
He was desired to proceed peacefully; but that he was
empowered to have recourse to other measures is clear from
the nature of the orders he carried—orders enjoining upon all
Frenchmen, in the name of the nation, to render him all
possible assistance, and warning those who hindered him that
they would do so at their peril.
He accepted the task, and so he was one of ﬁve similar
plenipotentiaries dispatched on the same errand in that
Spring of r792—which saw for the ﬁrst time the philanthropic
Dr. Guillotin’s engine of painless death erected in the Carrousel
-into the provincial departments, forerunners in a sense of
the representatives en mission so common later on under the
National Conventional.
Considering what afterwards happened in Brittany, it
cannot be pretended that his mission achieved the success
that was expected. That, however, is no part of our present
concern. It kept him absent from Paris for some four months,
and might have engaged him longer, and perhaps to better
purpose, but that at the beginning of August he was recalled.
More imminent than any trouble in Brittany was the trouble
brewing at home in Paris itself, where the political sky was
blacker than it had been since ’89.
Of this trouble André-Louis saw signs and heard rumours
ever increasing as his berline bore him eastwards towards
the capital. Into that powder magazine that Paris was
become the torch had been recklessly cast by the manifesto
of their Majesties of Prussia and Austria, a manifesto declaring
responsible for all events and to be dealt with in summary
military fashion all members of the Assembly, of departments,
of districts, of municipalities, the very justices of the peace,
and the soldiers of the National Guard.
It was a declaration of war of an unprecedented kind-—
a declaration of war, not against France, but against one
section of France. And the amazing thing is that this mani-
festo, published in Coblentz on the 26th of July, was known
already in Paris on the 28th, justifying those who denounced
its real source as being not Coblentz at all, but the Tuileries.


The Sword 307
Martin. They travelled with a single footman behind.
Rougane—terrifying condescension—was given a seat inside
the carriage with the ladies, and proceeded to fall in love with
Mademoiselle dc Kercadiou, whom he accounted the most
beautiful being he had ever seen, yet who talked to him simply
and unaﬁectedly as with an equal. The thing went to his head
a little, and disturbed certain republican notions which he
had hitherto conceived himself to have thoroughly digested.
The carriage drew up at the barrier, checked there by a
picket of the National Guard posted before the iron gates.
The sergeant in command strode to the door of the vehicle.
The Countess put her head from the window.
" The barrier is closed, madame," she was curtly informed.
" Closed! ” she echoed. The thing was incredible. " But
. . but do you mean that we cannot pass? "
“ Not unless you have a permit, madame." The sergeant
leaned nonchalantly on his pike. “ The orders are that
no one is to leave or enter without proper papers."
" Whose orders? "
“ Orders of the Commune of Paris.“
“ But I must go into the country this evening.” Madame's
voice was almost petulant. " I am expected."
" In that case let madame procure a permit."
" Where is it to be procured? “
“ At the Hetel de Ville or at the headquarters of Madame's
section."
She considered a moment. “ To the section, then. Be
so good as to tell my coachman to drive to the Bondy Section."
He saluted her and stepped back. “ Section Bondy, Rue
des Morts," he bade the driver.
Madame sank into her seat again, in a state of agitation
fully shared by Mademoiselle. Rougane set himself to pacify
and reassure them. The section would put the matter in
order. They would most certainly be accorded a permit.
What possible reason could there be for refusing them? A
mere formality, after all!
His assurance uplifted them merely to prepare them for
a still more profound dejection when presently they met with
a ﬂat refusal from the president of the section who received the
Countess.
“ Your name, madame? " he had asked brusquely. A
rude fellow of the most advanced republican type, he had not
even risen out of deference to the ladies when they entered.
He was there, he would have told you, to perform the duties
of his oﬂice, not to give dancing lessons.


The Sword 309
closed to all who cannot prove the most urgent and satisfactory
reasons for wishing to pass.” You will wait, madame, until
the restriction is removed. Good-evening."
“ But, monsieur . . . "
“ Good-evening, madame," be repeated signiﬁcantly. It
WLS a dismissal more contemptuous and despotic than the
royal formula, “ You have leave‘to go.”
Madame went out with Aline. Both were quivering with
the anger that prudence had urged them to suppress. They
climbed into the coach again, desiring to be driven home.
Rougane’s astonishment turned into dismay when they
told him what had taken place. “ Why not try the H6tel
de Ville, madame?” he suggested.
“ After that? It would be useless. We must resign
ourselves to remaining in Paris until the barriers are opened
again."
“ Perhaps it will not matter to us either way by then,
madame,” said Aline.
“Aline!” she exclaimed in horror.
“ Mademoiselle l ” cried Rougane on the same note. And
then because he perceived that people detained in this fashion
must be in some danger not yet discernible, but on that
account more dreadful, he set his wits to work. As they were
approaching the Hotel Plougastel once more, he announced
that he had solved the problem.
“A passport from without would do equally well,” he
announced. “ Listen, now, and trust to me. I will go back
to Meudon at once. My father shall give me two permits-—
one for myself alone, and another for three persons—from
Meudon to Paris and back to Meudon. I re-enter, Paris with
my own permit, which I then proceed to destroy, and we
leave together, we three, on the strength of the other one,
repreSenting ourselves as having come from Meudon in the
course of the day. It is quite simple after all. If I go at once,
I shall be back to-night."
“ But how will you leave? " asked Aline.
"I? Pooh! As to that, have no anxiety. My father
is Mayor of Meudon. There are plenty who know him. I
will go to the HOtel de Ville, and tell them what is, after all,
true—that I am caught in Paris by the closing of the barriers,
and that my father is expecting me home this evening. They
will pass me through. It is quite simple.”
His conﬁdence uplifted them again. The thing seemed as
easy as he represented it.
" Then let your passport be for four, my friend,” Madame


312 Scaramouche
" Monsieur Andre l ” he cried. “ Monsieur Andre l "
And then he looked at the sash and the cockade, and hesitated,
apparently at a loss.
But Andre-Louis stepped past him into the wide vestibule,
with its tesselated ﬂoor of black and white marble.
" If my godfather has not yet retired, take me to him, If
he has retired, take me to him all the same."
" Oh, but certainly, M. Andre-and I am sure he will be
ravished to see you. No, he has not yet retired. This way,
M. Andre; this way, if you please,"
The returning Andre-Louis, reaching Meudon a half-hour
ago, had gone straight to the mayor for some deﬁnite news of
what might be happening in Paris that should either conﬁrm
or dispel the ominous rumours that he had met in ever-increas-
ing volume as he approached the capital. Rougane informed
him that insurrection was imminent, that already the sections
had possessed themselves of the barriers, and that it was
impossible for any person not fully accredited to enter or
leave the city.
Andre-Louis bowed his head, his thoughts of the gravest.
He had for some time perceived the danger of this second
revolution from within the ﬁrst, which might destroy every-
thing that had been done, and give the reins of power to a
villainous faction that would plunge the country into anarchy.
The thing he had feared was more than ever on the point of
taking place. He would go on at once, that very night, and
see for himself what was happening.
And then, as he was leaving, he turned again to Rougane
to ask if M. de Kercadiou was still at Meudon.
“ You know him, monsieur? "
“ He is my godfather."
“ Your godfather! And you a representative! Why,
then, you may be the very man he needs“; and Rougane
told him of his son's errand into Paris that afternoon and its
result.
No more was required. That two years ago his godfather
should upon certain terms have refused him his house weighed
for nothing at the moment. He left his travelling carriage at
the little inn, and went straight to M. de Kercadiou.
And M. de Kercadiou, startled in such an hour by this
sudden apparition of one against whom he nursed a bitter
grievance, greeted him in terms almost identical with those
in which in that same room he had greeted him on a similar
occasion once before.


The} Sword 317
-" My God, André, of what are you made? You can take
such an announcement in this fashion?"
" And how would you have me take it ? Should it surprise
me to discover that I had a mother? After all, a mother is
an indispensable necessity to getting one’s self born.”
He sat down abruptly, to conceal the too-revealing fact
that his limbs were shaking. He pulled a handkerchief from
his pocket to mop his brow, which had grown damp. And
then, quite suddenly, he found himself weeping.
At the sight of those tears streaming silently down that
face that had turned so pale, M. de Kercadiou came quickly
across to him. He sat down beside him, and threw an arm
affectionately over his shoulder.
“André, my poor lad,“ he murmured. "I . . . I was
fool enough to think you had no heart. You deceived me
with your infernal pretence, andnowl see . . . I see . .
He was not sure what it was that he saw, or else he hesitated
to express it.
" It is nothing, monsieur. I am tired out, and . . . and
I have a cold in the head.” And then, ﬁnding the part
beyond his power, he abruptly threw it up, utterly abandoned
all pretence. “ Why . . . why has there been all this
mystery ? ” he asked. “ Was it intended that I should never
know ? "
“It was, Andre. It . . . it had to be, for prudence'
sake."
“ But why? Complete your conﬁdence, sir. Surely you
cannot leave it there. Having told me so much, you must tell
me all.”
"The reason, my boy, is that you were born some three
years after your mother’s marriage with M. de Plougastel,
some eighteen months after M. de Plougastel had been away
with the army, and some four months before his return to his
wife. It is a matter that M. de Plougastel has never suspected,
and for gravest family reasons must never suspect. That is
why the utmost secrecy has been preserved. That is why
none was ever allowed to know. Your mother came betimes
into Brittany, and under an assumed name spent some months
in the village of Moreau. It was while she was there that you
were born.”
Andre-Louis turned it over in his mind. He had dried his
tears, and sat now rigid and collected.
" When you say that none was ever allowed to know, you
are telling me of course that you, monsieur . . . "
“ Oh, mon Dieu, no I " The denial came in a violent


The Sword 321
each other. They had heard the sound of the ravishing of
that other house in the neighbourhood, without knowledge
of the reason. What if now it should be the turn of the Hotel
Plougastel I There was no real cause to fear it, save that amid
a turmoil imperfectly understood, and therefore the more
awe-inspiring, the worst must be feared always.
The dreadful song, so dreadftu sung, and the thunder
of heavily-shod feet upon the roughly-paved street passed on
and receded. They breathed again, almost as if amiracle
had saved them, to yield to fresh alarm an instant later, when
Madame’s young footman, Jacques, the most trusted of her
servants, burst into their presence unceremoniously with a
scared face, bringing the announcement that a man who
had just climbed over the garden wall professed himself
a friend of Madame’s, and desired to be brought immediately
to her presence.
“ But he looks like a sansculotte, madame," the staunch
fellow warned her. e
Her thoughts and hopes leapt at once to Rougane.
“ Bring him in," she commanded breathlessly.
Jacques went out, to return presently accompanied by a
tall man in a long, shabby and very ample overcoat and a
wide-brimmed hat that was turned down all round and adorned
by an enormous tricolour cockade. This hat he removed as
he entered.
Jacques, standing behind him, perceived that his hair,
although now in some disorder, bore signs of having been
carefully dressed. It was clubbed, and it carried some
lingering vestiges of powder. The young footman wondered
what it was in the man’s face, which was turned from him, that
should cause his mistress to cry out and recoil. Then he
found himself dismissed abruptly by a gesture.
The newcomer advanced to the middle of the salon, moving
like a man exhausted and breathing hard. There he leaned
against a table, across which he confronted Madame de
Plougastel. And she stood regarding him, a strange horror
in her eyes.
In the background, on a settle at the salon’s far end, sat
Aline, staring in bewilderment and some fear at a face which,
if unrecognisable through the mask of blood and dust that
smeared it, was yet familiar. And then the man spoke, and
instantly she knew the voice for that of the Marquis de La
Tour d’Azyr.
“ My dear friend," he was saying, “ forgive me if I startled
L


322 Scaramouche
you. Forgive me if I thrust myself in here without leave, at
such a time, in such a manner. But . . . you see how it is
with me. I am a fugitive. In the course of my distracted
ﬂight, not knowing which way to turn for safety, I thought
of you. I told myself that if I could but safely reach your
house, I might ﬁnd sanctuary.”
I" You are in danger?“
“ In danger! " Almost he seemed silently to laugh at the
unnecessary question. “ If I were to show myself openly
in the streets just now, I might with luck contrive to live for
ﬁve minutes! My friend, it has been a massacre. Some few
of us escaped from the Tuileries at the end, to be hunted to
death in the streets. I doubt if by this time a single Swiss
survives. They had the worst of it, poor devils. And as for
us—my Godl they hate us more than they hate the Swiss.
Hence this ﬁlthy disguise."
He peeled off the shaggy great-coat, and casting it from him
stepped forth in the black satin that had been the general
livery of the hundred knights of the dagger who had rallied
in the Tuileries that morning to the defence of their King.
His coat was rent across the back, his neckcloth and the
rufﬂes at his wrists were torn and bloodstained ; with his
smeared face and disordered head-dress, he was terrible to
behold. Yet he contrived to carry himself with his habitual
easy assurance, remembered to kiss the trembling hand which
Madame de Plougastel extended to him in welcome.
" You did well to come to me, Gervais,” she said. “ Yes,
here is sanctuary for the present. You will be quite safe, at
least for as long as we are safe. My servants are entirely
trustworthy. Sit down and tell me all.”
He obeyed her, collapsing almost into the armchair which
she thrust forward, a man exhausted, whether by physical
exertion or by nerve-strain, or both. He drew a handker-
chief from his pocket and wiped some of the blood and grime
from his face. .
" It is soon told.” His tone was bitter with the bitterness
of despair. “ This, my dear, is the end of us. Plougastel
is lucky in being across the frontier at such a time. But then,
Plougastel was lucky always. Had I not been fool enough
to trust those who to-day have proved themselves utterly
unworthy of trust, that is where I should be myself. My
remaining in Paris is the crowning folly of a life full of follies
and mistakes. That I should come to you in my hour of
most urgent need adds point to it." He laughed in his
bitterness,


The Sword 32 3
Madame moistened her dry lips. “ And . . . and now P "
she asked him.
“ It only remains to get away as soon as may be, if it is
still possible. Here in France there is no longer any room for
us--at least, not above ground. To-day has proved it.”
And then he looked up at her, standing there beside him so
pale and timid, and he smiled. He patted the ﬁne hand that
rested upon the arm of his chair. “ My dear Therese, unless
you carry charitableness to the length of giving me to drink,
you will see me perish of thirst under your eyes before ever
the canaille has a chance to ﬁnish me.”
She started. “ I should have thought of it," she cried in
self-reproach, and she turned quickly. " Aline," she begged,
“ tell Jacques to bring . . . “
“ Aline I ” he echoed, interrupting, and swinging round in
his turn. Then, as Aline rose into view, detaching from her
background, and he at last perceived her, he heaved himself
abruptly to his weary legs again, and stood there stifﬂy bowing
to her across the space of gleaming ﬂoor. “ Mademoiselle,
I had not suspected your presence,” he said, and he seemed
extraordinarily ill at ease, a man startled, as if caught in an
illicit act.
“ I perceived it, monsieur,” she answered, as she advanced
to do Madame’s commission. She paused before him. “ From
my heart, monsieur, I grieve that we should meet again in
circumstances so very painful."
Not since the day of his duel with André~Louis—the day
which had seen the death and burial of his last hope of winning
her—had they stood face to face.
He checked as if on the point of answering her. His glance
strayed to Madame de Plougastel, and, oddly reticent for one
who could be very glib, he bowed in silence.
“ But sit, monsieur, I beg. You are fatigued."
"You are gracious to observe it. With your permission,
then.” And he resumed his seat. She continued on her way
to the door, and passed out upon her errand.
When presently she returned they had almost unaccountany
changed places. It was Madame de Plougastel who was
seated in that armchair of brocade and gilt, and M. de La Tour
d’Azyr who, despite his lassitude, was leaning over the back of
it, talking earnestly, seeming by his attitude to plead with her.
On Aline’s entrance, he broke oﬁ instantly and moved away,
so that she was left with a sense of having intruded. Further,
she observed that the Countess was in tears.
Following her came presently the diligent Jacques, bearing


The Sword 325
Their spirits rose with his, and their ﬂagging hopes revived.
But as dusk again descended upon the city, without any sign of
the deliverer they awaited, those hopes began to ebb once more.
M. de La Tour d’Azyr at last pleaded weariness, and begged
to be permitted to withdraw that he might endeavour to take
some rest against whatever might have to be faced in the
immediate future. When he had gone, Madame persuaded
Aline to go and lie down.
“I will call you, my dear, the moment he arrives,” she
said, bravely maintaining that pretence of a conﬁdence that
had by now entirely evaporated.
Aline kissed her affectionately and departed, outwardly so
calm and unperturbed as to leave the Conntess wondering
whether she realised the peril by which they were surrounded,
a peril inﬁnitely increased by the presence in that house of
a man so widely known, and detested, as M. de La Tour d’Azyr,
a man who was probably being sought for by his enemies at
this moment.
Left alone, Madame lay down on a couch in the salon itself,
to be ready for any emergency. It was a hot summer night,
and the glass doors opening upon the luxuriant garden stood
wide to admit the air. On that air came intermittently from
the distance sounds of the populace's continuing horrible
activities, the aftermath of that bloody day.
Madame de Plougastel lay there, listening to those sounds
for upwards of an hour, thanking Heaven that for the present
at least the disturbances were distant, dreading lest at any
moment they should occur nearer at hand, lest this Bondy
section in which her hotel was situated should become the
scene of horrors similar to those whose echoes reached her ears
from other sections away to the south and west.
The couch occupied by the Countess lay in shadow; for
all the lights in that long salon had been extinguished with the
exception of a cluster of candles in a massive silver candle-
branch placed on a round marquetry table in the middle of
the room—an island of light in the surrounding gloom.
The time-piece on the overmantel chimed melodioust the
hour of ten, and then, startling in the suddenness with which
it broke the immediate silence, another sound vibrated through
the house, and brought Madame to her feet in a breathless
mingling of hope and dread. Someone was knocking sharply
on the door below. Followed moments of agonised suspense,
culminating in the abrupt invasion of the room by the footman
Jacques. He looked round, not seeing his mistress at ﬁrst.
“ Madamel Madame l “ he panted, out of breath,


The Sword 329
angered almost by his heart’s response to it, reason and senti-
ment at grips in his soul. This was not real, his reason postu-
lated; this poignant emotion that she displayed and that he
experienced was fantastic. Yet he went. Her arms enfolded
him; her wet check was pressed hard against his own; her
frame, which the years had not yet succeeded in robbing of its
grace, was shaken by the passionate storm within her.
"Oh, Andre-Louis, my child, if you knewhowI have hungered
to hold you sol If you knew how in denying myself this I
have atoned and suffered! Kercadiou should not have told
you—not even now. It was wrong—most wrong perhaps to
you. It would have been better that he should have left
me here to my fate, whatever that may be. And yet—come
what may of this—to be able to hold you so, to be able to
acknowledge you, to hear you call me mother—Oh, André-
Louis, I cannot now regret it. I cannot . . . I cannot wish
it otherwise.”
“ Is there any need, madame ? ” he asked her, his stoicism
deeply shaken. “ There is no occasion to take others into
our conﬁdence. This is for to-night alone To-night we are
mother and son. To-morrow we resume our former places,
and, outwardly at least, forget.”
“ Forget? Have you no heart, André-Louis ? "
The question recalled him curiously to his attitude towards
life—that histrionic attitude of his that he accounted true
philosophy. Also he remembered what lay before them ;
and he realised that he must master not only himself but her ;
that to yield too far to sentiment at such a time might be the
ruin of them all.
“ It is a question propounded to me so often that it must
contain the truth,” said he. " My rearing is to blame for that."
She tightened her clutch about his neck even as he would
have attempted to disengage himself from her embrace.
“ You do not blame me for your rearing? Knowing all,
as you do, Andre-Louis, you cannot altogether blame. You
must be merciful to me. You must forgive me. You must I
I had no choice.”
“ When we know all of whatever it may be, we can never
do anything but forgive, madame That is the profoundest
religious truth that was ever written. It contains, in fact, a
whole religion—the noblest religion any man could have to
guide him. I say this for your comfort, madame my mother.”
She sprang away from him with a startled cry. Beyond him
in the shadows by the door a pale ﬁgure shimmered ghostly.
It advanced into the light, and resolved itself into Aline. She


332 Scaramouche
other source, yet that inconclusive duel was cause enough
for Aline’s fears.
And so she had proposed this obvious deception ; and Aline
had consented to be a passive party to it. They had made the
mistake of not fully forewarning and persuading M. de La
Tour d’Azyr. They had trusted entirely to his anxiety
to escape from Paris to keep him rigidly within the part
imposed upon him. They had reckoned without the queer
sense of honour that moved such men as M. 1e Marquis,
nurtured upon a code of shams.
Andre-Louis, turning to scan that mumed ﬁgure, advanced
from the dark depths of the salon. As the light beat on his
white, lean face the pseudo-footman started. The next
moment he too stepped forward into the light, and swept his
broad-brimmed hat from his brow. As he did so, André—
Louis observed that his hand was ﬁne and white and that a
jewel ﬂashed from one of the ﬁngers. Then he caught his
breath and stiffened in every line as he recognised the face
revealed to him.
“ Monsieur," that stern, proud man was saying, “ I cannot
take advantage of your ignorance. If these ladies can persuade
you to save me, at least it is due to you that you shall know
whom you are saving.”
He stood there by the table very erect and digniﬁed, ready
to perish as he had lived—if perish he must—without fear
and without deception. '
Andre-Louis came slowly forward until he reached the table
on the other side, and then at last the muscles of his set face
relaxed, and he laughed.
“ You laugh?“ said M. de La Tour d’Azyr, frowning,
offended.
“ It is so damnably amusing,“ said Andre-Louis.
“ You’ve an odd sense of humour, M. Moreau."
“ Oh, admitted. The unexpected always moves me so.
I have found you many things in the course of our acquain-
tance. To-night you are the one thing I never expected to
ﬁnd you: an honest man."
M. de La Tour d’Azyr quivered. But he attempted no
reply.
“ Because of that, monsieur, I am disposed to be element.
It is probably a foolishness. But you have surprised me
into it. I give you three minutes in which to leave
this house, and to take your own measures for your safety.
What afterwards happens to you shall be no concern of mine.”
“ Ah, no, Andre I Listen . . . " Madame began in anguish.


The Sword 333
" Pardon, madame. It is the utmost that I will do, and
already I am violating what I conceive to be my duty. If M.
de La Tour d’Azyr remains he not only ruins himself but he
imperils you. For unless he departs at once, he goes with me
to the headquarters of the section, and the section will have
his head on a pike inside the hour. He is a notorious counter-
revolutionary, a knight of the dagger, one of those whom an
exasperated populace is determined to exterminate. Now,
monsieur. you know what awaits you. Resolve yourself, and
at once, for these ladies’ sake.”
“ But you don’t know, Andre-Louis! " Madame de Plougas-
tel’s condition was one of anguish, indescribable. She came
to him, and clutched his arm. “ For the love of Heaven,
Andre-Louis, be merciful with him. You must I "
“ But that is what I am being, madame—merciful: more
merciful than he deserves. And he knows it. Fate has
meddled most oddly in our concerns to bring us together
to-night. Almost it is as if Fate were forcing retribution at
last upon him. Yet, for your sakes, I take no advantage of
it, provided that he does at once as I have desired him."
And now from beyond the table the Marquis spoke icily,
and as he spoke his right hand stirred under the ample folds
of his greatcoat.
“ I am glad, M. Moreau, that you take that tone with me.
You relieve me of the last scruple. You spoke of Fate just
now, and I must agree with you that Fate has meddled oddly,
though perhaps not to the end that you discern. For years now
you have chosen to stand in my path and thwart me at every
turn, holding over me a perpetual menace. Persistently you
have sought my life in various ways, ﬁrst indirectly and at
last directly. Your intervention in my affairs has ruined
my highest hopes—more effectively perhaps than you suppose.
Throughout you have been my evil genius. And you are
even one of the agents of this climax of despair that has
been reached by me to-night.”
“ Wait I Listen I “ Madame was panting. She ﬂung
away from Andre-Louis, as if moved by some premonition
of what was coming. “ Gervais! This is horriblel”
" Horrible, perhaps, but inevitable. Himself he has
invited it. I am a man in despair, the fugitive of a lost cause.
That man holds the keys of escape. And besides, between
him and me there is a reckoning to be paid.”
His hand came from beneath the coat at last, and it came
armed with a pistol.
Madame de Plougastel screamed and ﬂung herself upon


334 Scaramouche
him. On her knees now, she clung to his arm with all her
strength and might.
vainly he scught to shake himself free frrm that desperate
clut
“ Therese l ” he cried. “ Are you mad P Will you destroy
me and yourself? This creature has the safe-conducts
that mean our salvation. Himself, he is nothing.”
From the background Aline, a breathless, horror-stricken
spectator of that scene, spoke sharply, her quick mind pointing
out the line of checkmate.
“ Burn the safe-conducts, Andre-Louis. Burn them at
once—in the candles there."
But Andre-Louis had taken advantage of that moment of
M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s impotence to draw a pistol in his turn.
“ I think it will be better to burn his brains instead,” he said.
“ Stand away from him, madame."
Far from obeying that imperious command, Madame de
Plougastel rose to her feet to cover the Marquis with her body.
But she still clung to his arm, clung to it with unsuspected
strength that continued to prevent him from attempting to
use the pistol.
"Andrél For God's sake, Andre l " she panted hoarsely
over her shoulder.
“ Stand away, madame,” he commanded her again, more
sternly, “ and let this murderer take his due. He is jeopardis-
ing all our lives, and his own has been forfeit these years.
Stand awayl " He sprang forward with intent now to
ﬁre over her shoulder, and Aline moved too late to hinder
him.
“Andrél Andrél" '
Panting, gasping, haggard of face, on the verge almost of -
hysteria, the distracted Countess ﬂung at last an effective,
a terrible barrier between the hatred of those men, each intent
upon taking the other’s life.
“ He is your father, Andrél Gervais, he is your son—our
son. Theletter there . . . on thetable . . . Oh, my Godl"
And she slipped nervelessly to the ground, and crouched there
sobbing at the feet of M. de La Tour d'Azyr.


336 Scaramouche
" I was afraid. I . . . I thought it better so—that
nobody, nobody, not even you, should know. And nobody
has known save Quintin until last night, when to induce him
to come here and save me he was forced to tell him.”
“ But I, Therese?” the Marquis insisted. “ It was my
right to know.”
“ Your right I What could you have done? Acknowledge
him? And then? Ha I ” It was a queer, desperate note
of laughter. “ There was Plougastel; there was my family.
And there was you . . . you, yourself, who had ceased to
care, in whom the fear of discovery had stiﬂed love. Why
should I have told you then? Why? I should not have
told you now had there been any other way to . . . to
save you both. Once before I suffered just such dreadful
apprehensions when you and he fought in the Bois. I was
on my way to prevent it when you met me. I would have
divulged the truth, as a last resource, to avert that horror.
But merciftu God spared me the necessity then.”
It had not occurred to any of them to doubt her statement,
incredible though it might seem. Had any done so her present
words must have resolved all doubt, explaining as they did
much that to each of her listeners had been obscure until this
moment.
M. de La Tour d’Azyr, overcome, reeled away to a chair and
sat down heavily. Losing command of himself for a moment,
he took his haggard face in his hands.
Through the windows open to the garden came from the
distance the faint throbbing of a drum to remind them of what
was happening around them. But the sound went unheeded.
To each it must have seemed that here they were face to face
with a horror greater than any that might be tormenting
Paris. At last Andre-Louis began to speak, his voice level
and unutterably cold.
“ M. de La Tour d’Azyr," he said, " I trust that you’ll
agree that this disclosure, which can hardly be more distasteful
and horrible to you than it is to me, alters nothing. since it
eﬂaces nothing of all that lies between us. Or if it alters
anything, it is merely to add something to that score. And
yet . . . Oh, but what can it avail to talk ? Here, monsieur,
take this safe-conduct which is made out for Madame de
Plougastel’s footman, and with it make your escape as best
you can. In return I will beg of you the favour never to
allow me to see you or hear of you again.“
“Andrél " His mother swung upon him with that cry
And yet again that question: “ Have you no heart ? What


The Sword 343
seekers, for opportunists ; but none for a man who desires
to respect himself. It is time to go. I make no sacriﬁce
in going.”
“ But where will you go? What will you do? "
“ Oh, something. Consider that in four years I have been
lawyer, politician, swordsman, and buﬁoon—especially the
latter. There is always a place in the world for Scaramouche.
Besides, do you know that, unlike Scaramouche, I have been
oddly provident ? I am the owner of a little farm in Saxony.
I think that agriculture might suit me. It is a meditative
occupation ; and when all is said, I am not a man of action.
I haven’t the qualities for the part.”
She looked up into his face, and there was a wistful smile
in her deep blue eyes.
“ Is there any part for which you have not the qualities, I
wonder ? ”
" Do you really ? Yet you cannot say that I have made a
success of any of those which I have played. I have always
ended by running away. I am running away now from a
thriving fencing academy, which is likely to become the pro-
perty of Le Duc. That comes of having gone into politics, from
which I am also running away. It is the one thing in which
I really excel. That, too, is an attribute of Scaramouche."
“ Why will you always be deriding yourself ? " she wondered.
“ Because I recognise myself for part of this mad world, I
suppose. You wouldn’t have me take it seriously? I
should lose my reason utterly if I did; especially since dis-
covering my parents."
“ Don't, André l " she begged him. “ You are insincere,
you know."
“ Of course I am. Do you expect sincerity in man when
hypocrisy is the very keynote of human nature? We are
nurtured on it; we are schooled in it ; we live by it; and
we rarely realise it. You have seen it rampant and out of
hand in France during the past four years—cant and hypocrisy
on the lips of the revolutionaries, cant and hypocrisy on the
lips of the upholders of the old. régime; a riot of hypocrisy
out of which in the end is begotten chaos. And I who criti-
cise it all on this beautiful God-given morning am the rankest
and most contemptible hypocrite of all. It was this—the
realisation of this truth—kept me awake all night. For two
years I have persecuted by every means in my power . . .
M. de La Tour d'Azyr."
He paused before uttering the name, paused as if hesitating
how to speak of him.


344 Scaramouche
" And in those two years I have deceived myself as to the
motive that was spurring me. He spoke of me last night as
the evil genius of his life, and himself he recognised the justice
of this. It may be that he was right, and because of that it is
probable that even had he not killed Philippe de Vilmorin,
things would still have been the same. Indeed, to-day I
know that they must have been. That is why I call myself
a hypocrite, a poor self-duping hypocrite.”
" But why, André ? ”
He stood still and looked at her. " Because he sought
you, Aline. Because in that alone he must have found me
ranged against him, utterly intransigent. Because of that
I must have strained every nerve to bring him down—so as
to save you from becoming the prey of your own ambition.
“ I wish to speak of him no more than I must. After this,
I trust never to speak of him again Before the lines of our
lives crossed, I knew him for what he was, I knew the report
of him that ran the countryside. Even then I found him
detestable. You heard him allude last night to the unfortunate
La Binet. You heard him plead in extenuation of his fault
his mode of life, his rearing. To that there is no answer,
I suppose. He conforms to type. Enough I But to me,
he was the embodiment of evil, just as you have always
been the embodiment of good; he was the embodiment of
sin, just as you are the embodiment of purity. I had enthroned
you so high, Aline, so high, and yet no higher than your place.
Could I then suffer that you should be dragged down by am-
bition, could I suffer the evil I detested to mate with the good
I loved? What could have come of it, but your own damna-
tion, as I told you that day at Gavrillac ? Because of that my
detestation of him became a personal, active thing. I
resolved to save you at all costs from a fate so horrible. Had
you been able to tell me that you loved him it would have been
different. I should have hoped that in a union sanctiﬁed by
love you would have raised him to your own pure heights.
But that out of considerations of worldly advancement you
should lovelesst consent to mate with him . . . Oh, it was
vile and hopeless. And so I fought him—a rat ﬁghting
a lion—fought him relentlessly until I saw that love had come
to take in your heart the place of ambition. Then I desisted."
“ Until you saw that love had taken the place of ambition l "
Tears had been gathering in her eyes whilst he was speaking.
Now amazement eliminated her emotion. " But when did
you see that P When? "
"1—1 was mistaken. I know it now. Yet, at the time


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00 man.
" One is impressed at once by the careful historical research that. has
gone to the making of these arresting essays, and by the charm and
skill with which the narratives are afterwards presented. A vivid
vocabulary, a strong sense of character and an unerring instinct for the
dramatic are Mr. Sa atini’s unique qualiﬁcations for a task of this kind,
and have already obtained for him the ﬁrst place among contemporary
historical novelists."—The Liverpool Daily Post.
“ All the stories are cod, and the collection is sure to give pleasure to
Mr. Sabatlni’s many a. mirers."—-Pall M all Gazette.


London: HUTGHINSON 8c 00., PATERNOSTER ROW, 5.0.