Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  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.”

  “My dear Philippe, I exist to serve you. I warn you that it is a futile quest; but give me leave to finish my breakfast, and I am at your orders.”

  M. de Vilmorin dropped into a winged armchair by the well-swept hearth, on which a piled-up fire of pine logs was burning cheerily. And whilst he waited now 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?” 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? An interesting 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 hands.”

  “And you think that will make a difference?”

  “I know it will.”

  “Ah! I take it that being now in minor orders, you already possess the confidence of the Almighty. He will have confided to you His intention of changing the pattern of mankind.”

  M. de Vilmorin’s fine ascetic face grew overcast. “You are profane, Andre,” 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 Chamber of Rennes, or any other learned society of France, devise a system of government that has never yet been tried? Surely not. And can they say of any system tried that it proved other than a failure in the end? My dear Philippe, the future is to be read with certainty only in the past. Ab actu ad posse valet consecutio. Man never changes. He is always greedy, always acquisitive, always vile. I am speaking of Man in the bulk.”

  “Do you pretend that it is impossible to ameliorate the lot of the people?” M. de Vilmorin challenged him.

  “When you say the people you mean, of course, the populace. Will you abolish it? That is the only way to ameliorate its lot, for as long as it remains populace its lot will be damnation.”

  “You argue, of course, for the side that employs you. That is natural, I suppose.” M. de Vilmorin spoke between sorrow and indignation.

  “On the contrary, I seek to argue with absolute detachment. Let us test these ideas of yours. To what form of government do you aspire? A republic, it is to be inferred from what you have said. Well, you have it already. France in reality is a republic to-day.”

  Philippe stared at him. “You are being paradoxical, I think. What of the King?”

  “The King? All the world knows there has been no king in France since Louis XIV. There is an obese gentleman at Versailles who wears the crown, but the very news you bring shows for how little he really counts. It is the nobles and clergy who sit in the high places, with the people of France harnessed under their feet, who are the real rulers. That is why I say that France is a republic; she is a republic built on the best pattern — the Roman pattern. Then, as now, there were great patrician families in luxury, preserving for themselves power and wealth, and what else is accounted worth possessing; and there was the populace crushed and groaning, sweating, bleeding, starving, and perishing in the Roman kennels. That was a republic; the mightiest we have seen.”

  Philippe strove with his impatience. “At least you will admit — you have, in fact, admitted it — that we could not be worse governed than we are?”

  “That is not the point. The point is should we be better governed if we replaced the present ruling class by another? Without some guarantee of that I should be the last to lift a finger to effect a change. And what guarantees can you give? What is the class that aims at government? I will tell you. The bourgeoisie.”

  “What?”

  “That startles you, eh? Truth is so often disconcerting. You hadn’t thought of it? Well, think of it now. Look well into this Nantes manifesto. Who are the authors of it?”

  “I can tell you who it was constrained the municipality of Nantes to send it to the King. Some ten thousand workmen — 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 o’ 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 traffic 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 parlous 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 accomplish 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. Acquisitiveness 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; but 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.

  “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 witheringly 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!” he cried, in real solicitude.

  “I am hurt,” Vilmorin admitted. “I am deeply hurt by your attitude. And I am not alone in resenting your reactionary 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, Andre, 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.”

  “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

  The sleepy village of Gavrillac, a half-league removed from the main road to Rennes, and therefore undisturbed by the world’s traffic, lay in a curve of the River Meu, at the foot, and straggling halfway 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 Lord 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 wooden 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 balustraded 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, he 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 he cultivated his acres, and superficially he appeared to be little better than any of his rustic metayers. 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 different 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 fruitlessly at work 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 of her chin; on the left a long ringlet of corn-coloured hair had been permitted to escape. The keen air had whipped so much of her cheeks as was presented to it, and seemed to have added sparkle to eyes that were of darkest blue.

  Andre-Louis and M. de Vilmorin had been known to her from childhood. The three had been playmates once, and Andre-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 inopportunely, 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 would
haste to the uncle that may tarry a moment with the niece?”

  “M. l’abbe,” she teased him, “when you are in orders I shall take you for my confessor. You have so ready and sympathetic an understanding.”

  “But no curiosity,” said Andre-Louis. “You haven’t thought of that.”

  “I wonder what you mean, Cousin Andre.”

  “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. It was 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 empty, but the footman paced before the door, and as he emerged now 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!” 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. Did I not say that they are very closely engaged? You don’t ask me why, Andre.” There was an arch mysteriousness about her, a latent something that may have been elation or amusement, or perhaps both. Andre-Louis could not determine it.