CHAPTER XXV.
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD
It was nearly midnight when a man hesitatingly walked up to the irongateway of St. Jean's burying-ground, in Croix Blanche Street.
As midnight boomed, he saw a spectre cross the grounds under the yewsand cypresses, and, approaching the grating, turn a key harshly in thegatelock to show that, if he were a ghost and had the leave to quit hisgrave, he also had that to go beyond the cemetery altogether.
"Do you not recognize me, Captain B.?" queried the jesting voice ofCagliostro, "or did you forget our appointment?"
"I am glad it is you," said the man in the French Guards sergeant dress,breathing as if his heart were relieved of great weight. "These devilishstreets are so dark and deserted that I do not know but it is better torun up against any body than not to meet a soul."
"Pshaw," returned the magician, "the idea of your fearing any thing atany hour of the day or night! You will never make me believe that of aman like you who would go anywhere with a sword by his side. However,step on this side of the railings, and you will be tranquil, my dearCaptain Beausire, for you will meet no one but me."
Beausire acted on the invitation, and the key grated again in the lock,to fasten the gate behind him.
"Keep to this little path," continued Cagliostro, "and at twenty pacesyou will come upon a little broken altar, on the steps of which we cannicely manage our little business."
"Where the mischief do you see any path?" he grumbled, after startingwith a good will. "I meet nothing but nettles tearing my ankles andgrass up to my knees."
"I own that this cemetery is as badly kept as any I know of; but it isnot astonishing, for here are buried only the condemned prisonersexecuted in the City, and no one plants flowers for such poor fellows.Still we have some undeniable celebrities here, my dear Beausire. If itwere daylight I would show you where lies Bouteville Montmorency,decapitated for having fought a duel; the Knight of Rohan who sufferedthe same fate for conspiring against the Government; Count Horn brokenon the wheel for murdering a Jew; Damiens who tried to kill Louis XVI.,and lots more. Oh, you are wrong to defame St. Jean's; it is badly keptbut it well keeps its famous ones."
Beausire followed the guide so closely that he locked steps with himlike a soldier in the second rank with the predecessor so that when thelatter stopped suddenly he ran up against him.
"Ah! this is a fresh one; the grave of your comrade Fleurdepine, one ofthe murderers of Francois the Assemblymen's baker, who was hanged a weekago by sentence at the Chatelet; this ought to interest you, as he was,like you, a corporal, a sergeant by his own promotion, and a crimp--Imean a recruiter."
The hearer's teeth chattered; the thistles he walked among seemed somany skeleton fingers stretched up to trip him, and make him understandthat this is the place where he would have his everlasting sleep.
"Well, we have arrived," said the cicerone, stopping at a mound ofruins.
Sitting down on a stone he pointed out another to his companion, as ifplaced for a conversation. It was time, for the ex-soldier's knees wereknocking together so that he fell rather than sat on the elevation.
"Now that we are comfortable for a chat," went on the magician, "let usknow what went on under the Royale Place arches. The meeting must havebeen interesting?"
"To tell the truth, count, I am so upset that I really believe you willget a clearer account by questioning me."
"Be it so, I am easy going, and the shape of news little mattersprovided I get it. How many of you met at the arches?"
"Six, including myself."
"I wonder if they were the persons I conjecture to be there? _Primo_,you, no doubt."
Beausire groaned as though he wished there could be doubt on that head.
"You do me much honor in commencing by me, for there were very greatgrandees compared with me."
"My dear boy, I follow the Gospel: 'The first shall be last.' If thefirst are to be last, why, the last will naturally lead. So I begin withyou, according to Scripture. Then there would be your comrade Tourcaty,an old recruiting officer who is charged to raise the Brabant Legion?"
"Yes, we had Tourcaty."
"Then, there would be that sound royalist Marquie, once sergeant in theFrench Guards, now sub-lieutenant in a regiment of the centre line.Favras, of course? the Masked Man? Any particulars to furnish about theMasked Man?"
The traitor looked at the inquirer so fixedly that his eyes seemed tokindle in the dark.
"Why, is it not--" but he stopped as if fearing to commit a sacrilege ifhe went farther.
"What's this? have you a knot in your tongue? Take care of beingtongue-tied. Knots in the tongue lead to knots round the neck, and asthey are slip ones, they are the worst kind."
"Well, is it not the King's b-b-brother?" stammered the other.
"Nonsense, my dear Beausire, it is conceivable that Favras, who wants itbelieved that he clasps hands with a royal prince in the plot, shouldgive out that the Mask hides the King's brother, Provence, but you andyour mate, Tourcaty, recruiting-sergeants, are men used to measure menby their height in inches and lines, and it is not likely you would becheated that way."
"No, it is not likely," agreed the soldier.
"The King's brother is five feet three and seven lines," pursued themagician, "while the Masked Man is nearly five feet six."
"To a T.," said the traitor, "that occurred to me; but who can it be ifnot the King's brother?"
"Excuse me, I should be proud and happy to teach you something,"retorted Cagliostro: "but I came here to be taught by you."
"But if your lordship knows who this man is," said the ex-corporal,becoming more at home, "might I ask his name?"
"A name is a serious thing to divulge," responded the strange man: "andreally I prefer you should guess. Do you know the story of OEdipus andthe Sphinx?"
"I went to see a tragedy of that title and fell asleep, unfortunately,in the fourth act."
"Plague take me, but you ought not to call that a misfortune!"
"But I lose by it now."
"Not to go into details, suffice it that OEdipus, whom I knew as a boyat one royal court and as a man at another, was predicted to be themurderer of his father and the husband of his mother. Believing KingPolybius this father, he departed from his realm, but would not take ahint from me about the road. The result was that he met his own sire onthe road where, as neither would turn out, a fight ensued in which heslew his father. Some time after he met the Sphinx. It was a monsterwith a woman's head on a lion's body which I regret never to have seen,as it was a thousand years after her death that I travelled that road.She had the habit of putting riddles to the wayfarers and eating thosewho could not read them aright. To my friend OEdipus she put thefollowing:
"'What animal goes upon four legs at morning, two at noon and three atnight?'"
"OEdipus answered off-hand: 'Man, who in the morning of life as achild crawls on all fours; as an adult walks upright; as an old manhobbles with a stick.'"
"That is so," exclaimed Beausire: "it crossed the sphinx!"
"She threw herself down a precipice and the winner went on to where hemarried his father's widow to accomplish the prophecy."
"But what analogy between the Sphinx and the Masked Man?"
"A close one. I propose an enigma; only I am not cruel like the Sphinxand will not devour you if you fail to guess. Listen: Which lord at thecourt is grandson of his father, brother of his mother and uncle of hissisters?"
"The devil!" burst forth Beausire, falling into a reverie. "Can you notalso help me out here, my lord?"
"Let us turn from pagan story to sacred history, then. Do you know thetale of Lot?"
"Lot and the Pillar of Salt, and his daughters?"
"The same."
"Of course, I do. Wait a bit, do they not say that old King Louis XIV,and his daughter the Lady Adeliade----"
"You are getting warm, captain----"
"In that case the Masked Man would be Count Louis Narbonne!"
"For money we have two millions cash----"
"Lent by a Genoese banker? I know him. Any other funds?"
"I know of none."
"So much for the money: now for the men."
"General Lafayette has authorized the raising of a legion to fly to thehelp of Brabant revolting against the Empire."
"Under cover of which you form a royalist legion? I see the hand ofLafayette in this," muttered Cagliostro. "But you will want more than alegion to carry out this plan--an army."
"Oh, we have the army. Two hundred horsemen are gathered at Versaillesready to start at the appointed hour: they can arrive in three columnsat Paris by two in the morning. The first gets in to kill GeneralLafayette: the second to settle old Necker; the third will do for MayorBaily."
"Good!" exclaimed the listener.
"This done, the cannons are spiked, and all rally on the Champs Elysees,and march on the Tuileries where our friends will be masters."
"What about the National Guards there?"
"The Brabant Column attends to them: it joins with it part of the Guardswhich has been bought over: four hundred Swiss, three hundred countryfriends, and so on. These will have taken possession of all the gatesby help within. We rush in on the King, saying: 'Sire, the St. Antoineward is in insurrection; a carriage is ready--you must be off!' if heconsents, all right: if he resists, we hustle him out and drive him toSt. Denis."
"Capital!"
"There we find twenty thousand infantry, with all the country royalists,well armed, in great force, who conduct the King to Peronne."
"Better and better. What do you do there?'
"The gathering there brings our whole array up to one hundred and fiftythousand men."
"A very pretty figure," commented the Chief of the Invisibles.
"With the mass we march on Paris, cutting off supplies above and belowon the river. Famished Paris capitulates; the Assembly is kicked topieces, and the King enjoys his own again on the throne of his fathers."
"Amen!" sang Cagliostro. "My dear Beausire," he went on, rising, "yourconversation is most agreeable; but as they say of the greatest orators,when they have spoken all that is in them, nothing more is to be got.You are done?"
"Yes, my lord, for the moment."
"Then, good-night: when you want another ten louis call for them at myhome, at Bellevue."
"At the Count of Cagliostro's?"
"No; they would not know who you meant. Ask for Baron Zannone."
"But that is the banker who cashed up the two millions on the King'sbrother's notes!" ejaculated Beausire.
"That is not unlikely; only I do such a large business that I haveconfounded it with the others. That is why it was not clear in my mindbut now you remind me, I believe I did something of the kind."
Beausire went his way, stupefied that a banker could forget a matter oftwo millions, and beginning to believe that he was quite right in sidingwith the lender rather than with the borrower. He bowed lowly while thecount favored him with a slight nod at the cemetery gateway.
The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty Page 25