CHAPTER II.
THE ORDEAL.
It was wonderful how quickly the room filled--filled with angry faces,so that almost before I knew what had happened, I found a crowd roundme, asking what it was; M. de St. Alais foremost. As all spoke atonce, and in the background where they could not see, ladies werescreaming and chattering, I might have found it difficult to explain.But the shattered window and the great stone on the floor spoke forthemselves, and told more quickly than I could what had taken place.
On the instant, with a speed which surprised me, the sight blew into aflame passions already smouldering. A dozen voices cried, "Out on the_canaille!_" In a moment some one in the background followed this upwith "Swords, Messieurs, swords!" Then, in a trice half the gentlemenwere elbowing one another towards the door, St. Alais, who burned toavenge the insult offered to his guests, taking the lead. M. deGontaut and one or two of the elders tried to restrain him, but theirremonstrances were in vain, and in a moment the room was almostemptied of men. They poured out into the street, and began to scour itwith drawn blades and raised voices. A dozen valets, running outofficiously with flambeaux, aided in the search; for a few minutes thestreet, as we who remained viewed it from the windows, seemed to bealive with moving lights and figures.
But the rascals who had flung the stone, whatever the motive whichinspired them, had fled in time; and presently our party returned,some a little ashamed of their violence, others laughing as theyentered, and bewailing their silk stockings and spattered shoes; whilea few, less fashionable or more impetuous, continued to denounce theinsult, and threaten vengeance. At another time, the act might haveseemed trivial, a childish insult; but in the strained state of publicfeeling it had an unpleasant and menacing air which was not lost onthe more thoughtful. During the absence of the street party, thedraught from the broken window had blown a curtain against somecandles and set it alight; and though the stuff had been torn downwith little damage, it still smoked among the _debris_ on the floor.This, with the startled faces of the ladies, and the shattered glass,gave a look of disorder and ruin to the room, where a few minutesbefore all had worn so seemly and festive an air.
It did not surprise me, therefore, that St. Alais' face, stern enoughat his entrance, grew darker as he looked round.
"Where is my sister?" he said abruptly, almost rudely.
"Here," Madame la Marquise answered. Denise had flown long before toher side, and was clinging to her.
"She is not hurt?"
"No," Madame answered, playfully tapping the girl's cheek. "M. de Sauxhad most reason to complain."
"Save me from my friends, eh, Monsieur?" St. Alais said, with anunpleasant smile.
I started. The words were not much in themselves, but the sneerunderlying them was plain. I could scarcely pass it by. "If you think,M. le Marquis," I said sharply, "that I knew anything of thisoutrage----"
"That you knew anything? _Ma foi_, no!" he replied lightly, and witha courtly gesture of deprecation. "We have not fallen to that yet.That any gentleman in this company should sink to play the fellow tothose--is not possible! But I think we may draw a useful lesson fromthis, Messieurs," he continued, turning from me and addressing thecompany. "And that is a lesson to hold our own, or we shall soon loseall."
A hum of approbation ran round the room.
"To maintain privileges, or we shall lose rights."
Twenty voices were raised in assent.
"To stand now," he continued, his colour high, his hand raised, "ornever!"
"Then now! Now!"
The cry rose suddenly not from one, but from a hundred throats--of menand women; in a moment the room catching his tone seemed to throb withenthusiasm, with the pulse of resolve. Men's eyes grew bright underthe candles, they breathed quickly, and with heightened colour. Eventhe weakest felt the influence; the fool who had prated of the socialcontract and the rights of man was as loud as any. "Now! Now!" theycried with one voice.
What followed on that I have never completely fathomed; nor whether itwas a thing arranged, or merely an inspiration, born of the commonenthusiasm. But while the windows still shook with that shout, andevery eye was on him, M. de Alais stepped forward, the most gallantand perfect figure, and with a splendid gesture drew his sword.
"Gentlemen!" he cried, "we are of one mind, of one voice. Let us bealso in the fashion. If, while all the world is fighting to get andhold, we alone stand still and on the defensive--we court attack, and,what is worse, defeat! Let us unite then, while it is still time, andshow that, in Quercy at least, our Order will stand or fall together.You have heard of the oath of the Tennis Court and the 20th of June.Let us, too, take an oath--this 22nd of July; not with uplifted handslike a club of wordy debaters, promising all things to all men; butwith uplifted swords. As nobles and gentlemen, let us swear to standby the rights, the privileges, and the exemptions of our Order!"
A shout that made the candles flicker and jump, that filled thestreet, and was heard even in the distant market-place, greeted theproposal. Some drew their swords at once, and flourished them abovetheir heads; while ladies waved their fans or kerchiefs. But themajority cried, "To the larger room! To the larger room!" And on theinstant, as if in obedience to an order, the company turned that way,and flushed, and eager, pressed through the narrow doorway into thenext room.
There may have been some among them less enthusiastic than others;some more earnest in show than at heart; none, I am sure, who, onthis, followed so slowly, so reluctantly, with so heavy a heart, andsure a presage of evil as I did. Already I foresaw the dilemma beforeme; but angry, hot-faced, and uncertain, I could discern no way out ofit.
If I could have escaped, and slipped clear from the room, I would havedone so without scruple; but the stairs were on the farther side ofthe great room which we were entering, and a dense crowd cut me offfrom them; moreover, I felt that St. Alais' eye was upon me, and that,if he had not framed the ordeal to meet my case, and extort mysupport, he was at least determined, now that his blood was fired,that I should not evade it.
Still I would not hasten the evil day, and I lingered near the innerdoor, hoping; but the Marquis, on reaching the middle of the room,mounted a chair and turned round; and so contrived still to face me.The mob of gentlemen formed themselves round him, the younger and moretumultuous uttering cries of "_Vive la Noblesse!_" And a fringe ofladies encircled all. The lights, the brilliant dresses and jewels onwhich they shone, the impassioned faces, the waving kerchiefs andbright eyes, rendered the scene one to be remembered, though at themoment I was conscious only of St. Alais' gaze.
"Messieurs," he cried, "draw your swords, if you please!"
They flashed out at the word, with a steely glitter which the mirrorsreflected; and M. de St. Alais passed his eye slowly round, while allwaited for the word. He stopped; his eye was on me.
"M. de Saux," he said politely, "we are waiting for you."
Naturally all turned to me. I strove to mutter something, and signedto him with my hand to go on. But I was too much confused to speakclearly; my only hope was that he would comply, out of prudence.
But that was the last thing he thought of doing. "Will you take yourplace, Monsieur?" he said smoothly.
Then I could escape no longer. A hundred eyes, some impatient, somemerely curious, rested on me. My face burned.
"I cannot do so," I answered.
There fell a great silence from one end of the room to the other.
"Why not, Monsieur, if I may ask?" St. Alais said still smoothly.
"Because I am not--entirely at one with you," I stammered, meeting alleyes as bravely as I could. "My opinions are known, M. de St. Alais,"I went on more steadfastly. "I cannot swear."
He stayed with his hand a dozen who would have cried out upon me.
"Gently, Messieurs," he said, with a gesture of dignity, "gently, ifyou please. This is no place for threats. M. de Saux is my guest; andI have too great a respect for him not to
respect his scruples. But Ithink that there is another way. I shall not venture to argue with himmyself. But--Madame," he continued, smiling as he turned with aninimitable air to his mother, "I think that if you would permitMademoiselle de St. Alais to play the recruiting-sergeant--for thisone time--she could not fail to heal the breach."
A murmur of laughter and subdued applause, a flutter of fans andwomen's eyes greeted the proposal. But, for a moment, Madame laMarquise, smiling and sphinx-like, stood still, and did not speak.Then she turned to her daughter, who, at the mention of her name, hadcowered back, shrinking from sight.
"Go, Denise," she said simply. "Ask M. de Saux to honour you bybecoming your recruit."
The girl came forward slowly, and with a visible tremor; nor shall Iever forget the misery of that moment, or the shame and obstinacy thatalternately surged through my brain as I awaited her. Thought, quickerthan lightning, showed me the trap into which I had fallen, a trap farmore horrible than the dilemma I had foreseen. Nor was the poor girlherself, as she stood before me, tortured by shyness, and stammeringher little petition in words barely intelligible, the least part of mypain.
For to refuse her, in face of all those people, seemed a thingimpossible. It seemed a thing as brutal as to strike her; an act ascruel, as churlish, as unworthy of a gentleman as to trample anyhelpless sensitive thing under foot! And I felt that; I felt it to theutmost. But I felt also that to assent was to turn my back onconsistency, and my life; to consent to be a dupe, the victim of aruse; to be a coward, though every one there might applaud me. I sawboth these things, and for a moment I hesitated between rage and pity;while lights and fair faces, inquisitive or scornful, shifted mazilybefore my eyes. At last--
"Mademoiselle, I cannot," I muttered. "I cannot."
"Monsieur!"
It was not the girl's word, but Madame's, and it rang high and sharpthrough the room; so that I thanked God for the intervention. Itcleared in a moment the confusion from my brain. I became myself. Iturned to her; I bowed.
"No, Madame, I cannot," I said firmly, doubting no longer, butstubborn, defiant, resolute. "My opinions are known. And I will not,even for Mademoiselle's sake, give the lie to them."
As the last word fell from my lips, a glove, flung by an unseen hand,struck me on the cheek; and then for a moment the room seemed to gomad. Amid a storm of hisses, of "_Vaurien!_" and "_A bas le traitre!_"a dozen blades were brandished in my face, a dozen challenges wereflung at my head. I had not learned at that time how excitable is acrowd, how much less merciful than any member of it; and surprised anddeafened by the tumult, which the shrieks of the ladies did not tendto diminish, I recoiled a pace.
M. de St. Alais took advantage of the moment. He sprang down, andthrusting aside the blades which threatened me, flung himself in frontof me.
"Messieurs, listen!" he cried, above the uproar. "Listen, I beg! Thisgentleman is my guest. He is no longer of us, but he must go unharmed.A way! A way, if you please, for M. le Vicomte de Saux."
They obeyed him reluctantly, and falling back to one side or theother, opened a way across the room to the door. He turned to me, andbowed low--his courtliest bow.
"This way, Monsieur le Vicomte, if you please," he said. "Madame laMarquise will not trespass on your time any longer."
I followed him with a burning face, down the narrow lane of shiningparquet, under the chandelier, between the lines of mocking eyes; andnot a man interposed. In dead silence I followed him to the door.There he stood aside, and bowed to me, and I to him; and I walked outmechanically--walked out alone.
I passed through the lobby. The crowd of peeping, grinning lackeysthat filled it stared at me, all eyes; but I was scarcely conscious oftheir impertinence or their presence. Until I reached the street, andthe cold air revived me, I went like a man stunned, and unable tothink. The blow had fallen on me so suddenly, so unexpectedly.
When I did come a little to myself, my first feeling was rage. I hadgone into M. de St. Alais' house that evening, possessing everything;I came out, stripped of friends, reputation, my betrothed! I had gonein, trusting to his friendship, the friendship that was a tradition inour families; he had worsted me by a trick. I stood in the street, andgroaned as I thought of it; as I pictured the sorry figure I had cutamongst them, and reflected on what was before me.
For, presently, I began to think that I had been a fool--that I shouldhave given way. I could not, as I stood in the street there, foreseethe future; nor know for certain that the old France was passing, andthat even now, in Paris, its death-knell had gone forth. I had to liveby the opinions of the people round me; to think, as I paced thestreets, how I should face the company to-morrow, and whether I shouldfly, or whether I should fight. For in the meeting on the morrow----
Ah! the Assembly. The word turned my thoughts into a new channel. Icould have my revenge there. That I might not raise a jarring note_there_, they had cajoled me, and when cajolery failed, had insultedme. Well, I would show them that the new way would succeed no betterthan the old, and that where they had thought to suppress a Saux theyhad raised a Mirabeau. From this point I passed the night in a fever.Resentment spurred ambition; rage against my caste, a love of thepeople. Every sign of misery and famine that had passed before my eyesduring the day recurred now, and was garnered for use. The earlydaylight found me still pacing my room, still thinking, composing,reciting; when Andre, my old body-servant, who had been also myfather's, came at seven with a note in his hand, I was still in myclothes.
Doubtless he had heard downstairs a garbled account of what hadoccurred, and my cheek burned. I took no notice of his gloomy looks,however, but, without speaking, I opened the note. It was not signed,but the handwriting was Louis'.
"Go home," it ran, "and do not show yourself at the Assembly. Theywill challenge you one by one; the event is certain. Leave Cahors atonce, or you are a dead man."
That was all! I smiled bitterly at the weakness of the man who coulddo no more for his friend than this.
"Who gave it to you?" I asked Andre.
"A servant, Monsieur."
"Whose?"
But he muttered that he did not know; and I did not press him. Heassisted me to change my dress; when I had done, he asked me at whathour I needed the horses.
"The horses! For what?" I said, turning and staring at him.
"To return, Monsieur."
"But I do not return to-day!" I said in cold displeasure. "Of what areyou speaking? We came only yesterday."
"True, Monsieur," he muttered, continuing to potter over my dressingthings, and keeping his back to me. "Still, it is a good day forreturning."
"You have been reading this note!" I cried wrathfully. "Who told youthat----"
"All the town knows!" he answered, shrugging his shoulders coolly. "Itis, 'Andre, take your master home!' and, 'Andre, you have a hot-patefor a master,' and Andre this, and Andre that, until I am fairlymuddled! Gil has a bloody nose, fighting a Harincourt lad that calledMonsieur a fool; but for me, I am too old for fighting. And there isone other thing I am too old for," he continued, with a sniff.
"What is that, impertinent?" I cried.
"To bury another master."
I waited a minute. Then I said: "You think that I shall be killed?"
"It is the talk of the town!"
I thought a moment. Then: "You served my father, Andre," I said.
"Ah! Monsieur."
"Yet you would have me run away?"
He turned to me, and flung up his hands in despair.
"_Mon Dieu!_" he cried, "I don't know what I would have! We are ruinedby these _canaille_. As if God made them to do anything but dig andwork; or we could do without poor! If you had never taken up withthem, Monsieur----"
"Silence, man!" I said sternly. "You know nothing about it. Go downnow, and another time be more careful. You talk of the _canaille_ andthe poor! What are you yourself?"
"I, Monsieur?" he cried, in astonishment.
"Yes--you!"
He stared at me
a moment with a face of bewilderment. Then slowly andsorrowfully he shook his head, and went out. He began to think me mad.
When he was gone I did not at once move. I fancied it likely that if Ishowed myself in the streets before the Assembly met, I should bechallenged, and forced to fight. I waited, therefore, until the hourof meeting was past; waited in the dull upper room, feeling thebitterness of isolation, and thinking, sometimes of Louis St. Alais,who had let me go, and spoken no word in my behalf, sometimes of men'sunreasonableness; for in some of the provinces half of the nobilitywere of my way of thinking. I thought of Saux, too; and I will not saythat I felt no temptation to adopt the course which Andre hadsuggested--to withdraw quietly thither, and then at some later time,when men's minds were calmer, to vindicate my courage. But a certainstubbornness, which my father had before me, and which I have heardpeople say comes of an English strain in the race, conspired withresentment to keep me in the way I had marked out. At a quarter pastten, therefore, when I thought that the last of the Members would havepreceded me to the Assembly, I went downstairs, with hot cheeks, buteyes that were stern enough; and finding Andre and Gil waiting at thedoor, bade them follow me to the Chapter House beside the Cathedral,where the meetings were held.
Afterwards I was told that, had I used my eyes, I must have noticedthe excitement which prevailed in the streets; the crowd, dense, yetsilent, that filled the Square and all the neighbouring ways; the airof expectancy, the closed shops, the cessation of business, thewhispering groups in alleys and at doors. But I was wrapped up inmyself, like one going on a forlorn hope; and of all remarked only onething--that as I crossed the Square a man called out, "God bless you,Monsieur!" and another, "_Vive Saux!_" and that thereon a dozen ormore took off their caps. This I did notice; but mechanically only.The next moment I was in the entry which leads alongside one wall ofthe Cathedral to the Chapter House, and a crowd of clerks andservants, who blocked it almost from wall to wall, were making way forme to pass; not without looks of astonishment and curiosity.
Threading my way through them, I entered the empty vestibule, keptclear by two or three ushers. Here the change from sunshine to shadow,from the life and light and stir which prevailed outside, to thesilence of this vaulted chamber, was so great that it struck a chillto my heart. Here, in the greyness and stillness, the importance ofthe step I was about to take, the madness of the challenge I was aboutto fling down, in the teeth of my brethren, rose before me; and if mymind had not been braced to the utmost by resentment and obstinacy, Imust have turned back. But already my feet rang noisily on the stonepavement, and forbade retreat. I could hear a monotonous voice droningin the Chamber beyond the closed door; and I crossed to that door,setting my teeth hard, and preparing myself to play the man, whateverawaited me.
Another moment, and I should have been inside. My hand was already onthe latch, when some one, who had been sitting on the stone bench inthe shadow under the window, sprang up, and hurried to stop me. It wasLouis de St. Alais. He reached me before I could open the door, and,thrusting himself in front of me, set his back against the panels.
"Stop, man! for God's sake, stop!" he cried passionately, yet kept hisvoice low. "What can one do against two hundred? Go back, man, goback, and I will----"
"_You will!_" I answered with fierce contempt, yet in the same lowtone--the ushers were staring curiously at us from the door by which Ihad entered. "You will? You will do, I suppose, as much as you didlast night, Monsieur."
"Never mind that now!" he answered earnestly; though he winced, andthe colour rose to his brow. "Only go! Go to Saux, and----"
"Keep out of the way!"
"Yes," he said, "and keep out of the way. If you will do that----"
"Keep out of the way?" I repeated savagely.
"Yes, yes; then everything will blow over."
"Thank you!" I said slowly; and I trembled with rage. "And how much,may I ask, are you to have, M. le Comte, for ridding the Assembly ofme?"
He stared at me. "Adrien!" he cried.
But I was ruthless. "No, Monsieur le Comte--not Adrien!" I saidproudly; "I am that only to my friends."
"And I am no longer one?"
I raised my eyebrows contemptuously. "_After last night?_" I said."After last night? Is it possible, Monsieur, that you fancy you playeda friendly part? I came into your house, your guest, your friend, yourall but relative; and you laid a trap for me, you held me up toridicule and odium, you----"
"I did?" he exclaimed.
"Perhaps not with your own voice. But you stood by and saw it done!You stood by and said no word for me! You stood by and raised nofinger for me! If you call that friendship----"
He stopped me with a gesture full of dignity. "You forget one thing,M. le Vicomte," he said, in a tone of proud reticence.
"Name it!" I answered disdainfully.
"That Mademoiselle de St. Alais is my sister!"
"Ah!"
"And that, whether the fault was yours or not, you last eveningtreated her lightly--before two hundred people! You forget that, M. leVicomte."
"I treated her lightly?" I replied, in a fresh excess of rage. We hadmoved, as if by common consent, a little from the door, and by thistime were glaring into one another's eyes. "And with whom lay thefault if I did? With whom lay the fault, Monsieur? You gave me thechoice--nay, you forced me to make choice between slighting her andgiving up opinions and convictions which I hold, in which I have beenbred, in which----"
"_Opinions!_" he said more harshly than he had yet spoken. "And whatare, after all, opinions? Pardon me, I see that I annoy you, Monsieur.But I am not philosophic; I have not been to England; and I cannotunderstand a man----"
"Giving up anything for his opinions!" I cried, with a savage sneer."No, Monsieur, I daresay you cannot. If a man will not stand by hisfriends he will not stand by his opinions. To do either the one or theother, M. le Comte, a man must not be a coward."
He grew pale, and looked at me strangely. "Hush, Monsieur!" hesaid--involuntarily, it seemed to me. And a spasm crossed his face, asif a sharp pain shot through him.
But I was beside myself with passion. "A coward!" I repeated. "Do youunderstand me, M. le Comte? Or do you wish me to go inside and repeatthe word before the Assembly?"
"There is no need," he said, growing as red as he had before beenpale.
"There should be none," I answered, with a sneer. "May I conclude thatyou will meet me after the Assembly rises?"
He bowed without speaking; and then, and not till then, something inhis silence and his looks pierced the armour of my rage; and on asudden I grew sick at heart, and cold. It was too late, however; I hadsaid that which could never be unsaid. The memory of his patience, ofhis goodness, of his forbearance, came after the event. I saluted himformally; he replied; and I turned grimly to the door again.
But I was not to pass through it yet.
A second time when I had the latch in my grasp, and the door an inchopen, a hand plucked me back; so forcibly, that the latch rattled asit fell, and I turned in a rage. To my astonishment it was Louisagain, but with a changed face--a face of strange excitement. Heretained his hold on me.
"No," he said, between his teeth. "You have called me a coward, M. leVicomte, and I will not wait! Not an hour. You shall fight me now.There is a garden at the back, and----"
But I had grown as cold as he hot. "I shall do nothing of the kind," Isaid, cutting him short. "After the Assembly----"
He raised his hand and deliberately struck me with his glove acrossthe face.
"Will that persuade you, then?" he said, as I involuntarily recoiled."After that, Monsieur, if you are a gentleman, you will fight me.There is a garden at the back, and in ten minutes----"
"In ten minutes the Assembly may have risen," I said.
"I will not keep you so long!" he answered sternly. "Come, sir! Ormust I strike you again?"
"I will come," I said slowly. "After you, Monsieur."
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