Without knowing why, Madame de Cambes shuddered. Misfortunes had always happened to her whenever she met that man.
As for Canolles, if he felt any emotion, it stayed in the depths of his heart and did not appear on his face.
The duke greeted Madame de Cambes and Canolles and even paused to pay them some compliments. Then he gave a signal to the gentlemen and guards behind him, and their ranks parted.
Suddenly, a voice could be heard coming from the corridor of the prison and these words rang around the yard: ‘Hey! Cell number one is empty! The other prisoner has not been in his room for five minutes. I’ve been looking for him, and I can’t find him.’
These words sent a long shudder through everyone who heard them. The Duke de La Rochefoucauld started and was unable to restrain an instinctive movement, holding out his hand towards Canolles as though to stop him.
Claire saw it and went pale.
‘Come on, come on,’ she told the young man. ‘Let’s hurry.’
‘Excuse me, Madame,’ said the duke, ‘but I must ask you to be a little patient. Let’s clear up this mistake, if you please. I can assure you, it will only take a minute.’
And, at another signal from the duke, the ranks that had parted, reclosed.
Canolles looked at Claire, the duke and the staircase from which the voices were coming, and the blood drained from his face too.
‘But, Monsieur,’ said Claire, ‘what is the point of my waiting? The Princess de Condé has signed the warrant for Monsieur de Canolles’s release. Here is the order which mentions him by name. Look at it.’
‘Certainly, Madame, I do not intend to deny the validity of that warrant. And it will be as valid a minute from now as it is at present. So be patient, I have just sent someone, who must surely be back soon.’
‘But what has that to do with us?’ Claire asked. ‘What does Monsieur de Canolles have to do with prisoner number one?’
‘We have just looked in vain, Duke,’ said the captain of the guards, whom Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld had sent to look. ‘The other prisoner cannot be found, and the turnkey-in-chief has also disappeared, while the turnkey’s child, who was questioned, says that his father and the prisoner left through the secret door opening on the river.’
‘Ah, ha!’ the duke said. ‘Do you know anything about this, Monsieur de Canolles? An escape!’
At that, Canolles understood everything and guessed everything. He realized that it was Nanon taking care of him. He realized that he was the one whom the jailer had come to look for and the one who was described as the brother of Mademoiselle de Lartigues; he realized that unwittingly Cauvignac had taken his place and found freedom when he expected to meet death. All these ideas were milling around at once in his head. He clasped his head in both hands, paled and staggered, only recovering his composure when he saw the viscountess trembling and gasping for breath at his side. Not one of these involuntary signs of terror had escaped the duke.
‘Close the gates!’ he shouted. ‘Monsieur de Canolles, please be so good as to stay here. You understand, we must clarify all this.’
‘But, Duke,’ the young woman cried, ‘I hope you are not presuming to countermand an order from the princess!’
‘No, Madame,’ the duke said. ‘But I think it is important for her to be informed of what is going on. I will not say to you: “I’ll go and inform her myself”, because you might think that I intend to influence our august mistress. What I shall say to you is: “You go, Madame”, because you are better able than anyone to beg Madame de Condé’s clemency.’
Lenet made a barely perceptible signal to Claire.
‘I’m not leaving him!’ the Viscountess de Cambes cried, grasping the young man’s arm in a convulsive grip.
‘And I shall hurry to Her Highness,’ said Lenet. ‘Come with me, Captain – and you, Duke.’
‘I shall go with you. The captain can stay here and continue his search while we are away. Perhaps they will find the other prisoner.’
As though to emphasize the final part of his sentence, the Duke de La Rochefoucauld whispered a few words in the captain’s ear and went out with Lenet. At the same moment, the two young people were hustled back into the courtyard by the crowd of horsemen accompanying Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld, and the door closed behind them.
In the previous ten minutes, the scene had taken on such a dark and solemn character that all those present were pale and silent, looking at one another and at Canolles and Claire to see which of them was suffering the most. Canolles realized that all the strength had to come from him: he was serious, but affectionate towards his friend, who, white as a sheet, red-eyed and weak-kneed, was hanging on to his arm, clasping him, drawing him towards her, smiling at him with a look of appalling tenderness, then shuddering as she looked round in terror at all those men, searching in vain for one friendly face among them…
The captain who had received his orders from the Duke de La Rochefoucauld was speaking quietly to his officers. Canolles, eagle-eyed and straining his ears for the least word that might change doubt into certainty, heard the captain say the following, despite his efforts to keep his voice as low as possible: ‘We must find some means of getting that poor woman away from here.’
At this, Canolles tried to loosen the affectionate grasp on his arm. Claire saw what he was doing and clung to him with all her might.
‘But you must have another look,’ she cried. ‘Perhaps the search was not properly conducted, and the man will be found. Let’s all look, all of us: he cannot have escaped. Why would Monsieur de Canolles not have escaped with him, if he did? Come, Captain, I beg you, order a search.’
‘They have searched, Madame,’ the captain said, ‘and they are still searching now. The jailer knows that it’s a death sentence for him if he doesn’t produce his prisoner, so he has every reason, as you must realize, to search as hard as he can.’
‘My God!’ Claire murmured. ‘And Monsieur Lenet is not back yet.’
‘Patience, dear friend, patience,’ said Canolles, in the soft tone that one uses when speaking to a child. ‘Monsieur Lenet has only just left; he has hardly had time to reach the princess. Give him the opportunity to explain the situation and then come back with the answer.’
Even as he said this, he was gently pressing the viscountess’s hand. Then, seeing the fixed stare and impatience of the officer who was in command in place of the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, he said:
‘Do you want to talk to me, Captain?’
‘Yes, indeed I do, Monsieur,’ he answered, tormented by the viscountess’s scrutiny.
‘I beg you, Monsieur,’ Madame de Cambes exclaimed, ‘take us to the princess. What difference can it make to you? You might as well go with us to see her as stay here in this uncertainty. She will see him, Monsieur, she will see me, I will speak to her, and she will repeat her promise to me.’
‘Why, that’s an excellent idea, Madame,’ he said, seizing on this suggestion. ‘Go yourself, you have every chance of success.’
‘What do you think, Baron?’ she asked. ‘Do you think it would be good? You would not wish to deceive me: what should I do?’
‘Go, Madame,’ said Canolles, making a superhuman effort to repress his feelings.
The viscountess let go of his arm and tried to walk a few steps, then went back to her lover.
‘No, no!’ she said. ‘I won’t leave him.’ Then, hearing the door open, she cried: ‘Oh, thank God! Monsieur Lenet and the duke are coming back.’
Behind the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, who reappeared with his face expressionless, came Lenet, looking very upset and with his hands trembling. Canolles had only to exchange one glance with the poor counsellor to realize that there was no further hope and that he really was doomed.
‘Well?’ said the young woman, launching herself so violently towards Lenet that she dragged Canolles with her.
‘Well,’ said Lenet, ‘the princess is embarrassed…’
‘Embarrassed!’ Claire
exclaimed. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that she is asking for you,’ the duke replied. ‘She wants to talk to you.’
‘Is this true, Monsieur Lenet?’ Claire asked, not caring that she was insultingly ignoring the duke.
‘Yes, Madame,’ Lenet stammered.
‘What about him?’ she asked.
‘Him?’
‘Monsieur de Canolles.’
‘Well, Monsieur de Canolles will go back to his prison, and you will bring him the princess’s reply,’ said the duke.
‘Will you stay with him, Monsieur Lenet?’ Claire asked.
‘Madame…’
‘Will you stay with him?’
‘I shall not leave his side.’
‘Do you swear that you will not leave him?’
‘Dear God!’ Lenet thought, looking at the young man waiting for his sentence and the young woman who was to bring it to him. ‘Dear God, since one of these two is condemned, at least give me the strength to save the other!’
‘Will you not swear, Monsieur Lenet?’
‘I swear,’ the counsellor replied, making an effort to put a hand on his breaking heart.
‘Thank you, Monsieur,’ Canolles whispered. ‘I understand.’ Then turning back to the viscountess, he said: ‘Go, Madame, you can see that I am in no danger with Monsieur Lenet and the duke beside me.’
‘Don’t let her go without kissing her,’ said Lenet.
A cold sweat broke out on Canolles’s forehead, and he felt as though a mist had drifted in front of his eyes. He stopped Claire from leaving, and, pretending to have a few words to say to her privately, he clasped her to him and bent down to whisper in her ear: ‘Entreat without demeaning yourself. I want to live for you, but you must want me to live with honour.’
‘I shall beg her in such a way as to save you,’ she replied. ‘Aren’t you my husband before God?’
Canolles, letting her go, managed to touch her neck with his lips, but so cautiously that she did not even feel it, and the poor woman, senseless with grief, left without returning his last kiss. However, as she was leaving the courtyard, she turned round, but ranks of soldiers had formed between her and the prisoner, blocking her view.
‘My friend, where are you?’ she cried. ‘I can’t see you. A word, one more word, so that I can go away with the sound of your voice in my ears!’
‘Go on, Claire,’ Canolles said. ‘I am waiting for you.’
‘Go on, Madame,’ said a considerate officer. ‘The sooner you leave, the sooner you will be back.’
‘Monsieur Lenet, dear Monsieur Lenet,’ Claire’s voice cried in the distance. ‘I am counting on you, you must answer to me for him!’
The gate closed behind her.
‘At last,’ said the philosopher duke. ‘It was not easy, but we are back in the real world.’
III
As soon as the viscountess had left, her voice had faded in the distance and the gate had closed behind her, the group of officers moved in around Canolles, and two men appeared, as though from nowhere, two men of sinister appearance, who came over to the duke and humbly asked him for his orders.
In reply, the duke merely indicated the prisoner. Then, going over to Canolles and saluting him with his usual icy politeness, he said: ‘Monsieur, you will no doubt have realized that the departure of your companion in misfortune has meant that the fate intended for him has reverted to you.’
‘Yes, Monsieur,’ Canolles replied. ‘Or at least I guessed as much. But what I do know for certain is that the princess specifically granted me a pardon. I have seen and you, no doubt, saw just now the warrant for my release in the hands of the Viscountess de Cambes.’
‘True,’ said the duke. ‘But the princess was not able to foresee the present circumstance.’
‘So is the princess withdrawing her signature?’ Canolles asked.
‘Yes.’
‘A princess of the blood is going back on her word!’
The duke remained impassive. Canolles looked around.
‘Has the moment arrived?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Monsieur.’
‘I thought that we were waiting for the Viscountess de Cambes to return. She was promised that nothing would be done in her absence. So is everyone going back on their word today?’
The prisoner looked reproachfully not at the duke, but at Lenet.
‘Alas, Monsieur!’ Lenet said, with tears in his eyes. ‘Forgive us. The princess emphatically refused to pardon you, even though I begged her. The duke will witness it and God too. But there had to be a reprisal for the death of poor Richon, and she was adamant. No, Baron, judge for yourself: instead of allowing this dreadful situation in which you find yourself to weigh both on you and on the viscountess, I dared – forgive me, because I feel that I have great need of your forgiveness – I dared to let it weigh on you alone, on you as a soldier and as a gentleman.’
‘So, I shall not see her again!’ Canolles stammered, his voice choked with emotion. ‘When you told me to kiss her, it was for the last time!’
A sob stronger than stoicism, or reason, or pride, shook Lenet’s breast, and he stepped back to weep bitterly. Canolles looked with penetrating eyes at all the men around him, but saw only men hardened by Richon’s cruel death, looking to see how he behaved, and thinking that if Richon had not flinched, he would, and, beside these, weak men, who were straining to hide their feelings, and to swallow their tears and their sighs.
‘How dreadful!’ the young man thought in one of those moments of superhuman lucidity that reveal to the soul the infinite horizons of all that is called life, that is to say a few short instants of happiness dotted like islands in an ocean of tears and suffering. ‘How dreadful! Here was a woman I loved, and who, for the first time, had just told me that she loved me. A long, sweet future ahead! The realization of my dearest wish! And now, in a moment, in a second, death has taken the place of all that…’
His heart ached, and he felt a stinging in his eyes as though he were about to weep, but he remembered, as Lenet had said, that he was a man and a soldier. ‘Pride!’ he thought. ‘The only real courage, help me now! Am I to weep over something as futile as life? How they would laugh if they could say: “When he heard he was to die, Canolles wept!” What did I do on the day when they besieged me in Saint-Georges and the people of Bordeaux tried to kill me, as they will today? I fought, I joked, I laughed… Well, by heaven, which hears me and may be as mistaken as I am, and by the devil, who at this moment is struggling with my good angel, I shall do today what I did then, and, though I am not fighting any more, at least I shall keep joking and laugh on.’
At once his face became calm, as though all emotion had drained from his heart. He put a hand through his fine black hair and walked over to the Duke de La Rochefoucauld and Lenet with a firm step and with a smile on his lips.
‘As you know, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘in this world, which is so full of various odd and unexpected occurrences, one must get used to everything. I was wrong not to ask you for the moment that it took me to get used to death. If it was too long, I offer you my apologies for having kept you waiting.’
A feeling of profound astonishment swept through the groups of men around him, and the prisoner himself felt that this astonishment was changing to admiration. That feeling, so flattering to himself, gave him greater strength.
‘When you are ready, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I am the one who is waiting.’
The duke, struck dumb with amazement for a moment, recovered his usual sang-froid and gave a signal. At that the gates reopened, and the procession prepared to set out.
‘One moment!’ Lenet said, to gain time. ‘One moment, Duke. We are taking Monsieur de Canolles out to die, aren’t we?’
The duke started with surprise, and Canolles looked at Lenet with astonishment.
‘Why, yes,’ said the duke.
‘Well,’ said Lenet, ‘if that’s the case, this worthy man cannot do without a confessor.’
‘How is that?’ Lenet asked, making signals that the prisoner deliberately ignored.
‘Because I’m a Huguenot,’2 said Canolles. ‘And a convinced one, I warn you. So, if you want to do me one last favour, let me die as I am.’
Even as he said this, he made a gesture of gratitude to Lenet, which showed that he had quite understood the other man’s intention.
‘Then there is nothing further to detain us, let’s go,’ said the duke.
‘Let him confess! Let him confess!’ a few angry voices shouted.
Canolles stood on tiptoe, looked around calmly and, speaking to the duke, said in a confident and stern voice:
‘Are we going to behave like cowards, Monsieur? It seems to me that if anyone here has the right to do as he pleases, it is I, the hero of the event. So I refuse to have a confessor, but demand the scaffold and as soon as possible. I, too, am tired of waiting.’
‘Silence, there!’ the duke shouted, turning to the soldiers. Then, when they had been hushed by the power of his voice and look, he turned to Canolles and said: ‘Monsieur, it shall be as you please.’
‘Thank you. Then, let’s go, and quickly. Agreed?’
Lenet took Canolles’s arm.
‘On the contrary, go slowly,’ he said. ‘Who knows? A reprieve, a second thought, an accident… something might happen. Go slowly, I beg you, in the name of the woman who loves you, and who will weep so much if we go quickly.’
‘Oh, don’t talk to me of her,’ Canolles replied. ‘I beg you. All my courage is dashed against the thought that I shall be for ever separated from her. But what am I saying? On the contrary, Monsieur Lenet, talk to me of her, tell me again that she loves me, that she will always love me and that she will weep for me.’
‘Now, now, my dear, unfortunate child,’ said Lenet. ‘Don’t weaken. Consider that people are watching us who don’t know what we are talking about.’
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