The Conspirators, Alexandre Dumas père [books to read this summer TXT] 📗

on the contrary, he defended himself, or cried out, they were determined to proceed to extremities.

Contrary to the expectation of D'Harmental and Valef, who knew the courage of the regent, the prince only said:

"Well, gentlemen, do not harm me. I will go wherever you wish."

D'Harmental and Valef threw a glance at the road; they saw Pompadour and D'Avranches leading into the depth of the wood the outrider, the two jockeys, the outrider's horse, and two of the carriage horses which they had unharnessed. The chevalier sprang from his horse, mounted that of the first postilion; Laval and Valef placed themselves before the doors, the carriage set off at a gallop, and taking the first turn to the left, began to roll, without noise and without light, in the direction of Charenton. All the arrangements had been so perfect, that the seizure had not occupied more than five minutes; no resistance had been made, not a cry had been uttered. Most assuredly, this time fortune was on the side of the conspirators.

But having arrived at the end of the cross-road, D'Harmental encountered a first obstacle; the barrier--either by accident or design--was closed, and they were obliged to retrace their steps and take another road. The chevalier turned his horses, took a lateral alley, and the journey, interrupted for an instant, recommenced at an increased speed.

The new route which the chevalier had taken led him to a four-cross road; one of the roads led straight to Charenton. There was no time to lose, and in any event he must traverse this square. For an instant he thought he distinguished men in the darkness before him, but this vision disappeared like a mist, and the carriage continued its progress without interruption. On approaching the cross-roads D'Harmental fancied he heard the neighing of a horse, and a sort of ringing of iron, like sabers being drawn from their sheaths, but either taking it for the wind among the leaves, or for some other noise for which he need not stop, he continued with the same swiftness, the same silence, and in the midst of the same darkness. But, having arrived at the cross-roads, D'Harmental noticed a singular circumstance, a sort of wall seemed to close all the roads; something was happening. D'Harmental stopped the carriage, and wished to return by the road he had come down, but a similar wall had closed behind him. At that instant he heard the voices of Laval and Valef crying:

"We are surrounded, save yourself!"

And both left the doors, leaped their horses over the ditch, darted into the forest, and disappeared among the trees.

But it was impossible for D'Harmental, who was mounted on the postilion's horse, to follow his companions, and, not being able to escape the living wall, which the chevalier recognized as a regiment of musketeers, he tried to break through it, and with his head lowered, and a pistol in each hand, spurred his horse up the nearest road, without considering whether it was the right one. He had scarcely gone ten steps, however, when a musket-ball entered the head of his horse, which fell, entangling D'Harmental's leg. Instantly eight or ten cavaliers sprang upon him; he fired one pistol by hazard, and put the other to his head, to blow his brains out, but he had not time, for two musketeers seized him by the arms, and four others dragged him from beneath the horse. The pretended prince descended from the carriage, and turned out to be a valet in disguise; they placed D'Harmental with two officers inside the carriage, and harnessed another horse in the place of the one which had been shot. The carriage once more moved forward, taking a new direction, and escorted by a squadron of musketeers. A quarter of an hour afterward it rolled over a drawbridge, a heavy door grated upon its hinges, and D'Harmental passed under a somber and vaulted gateway, on the inner side of which, an officer in the uniform of a colonel was waiting for him. It was Monsieur de Launay, the governor of the Bastille.

If our readers desire to know how the plot had been discovered, they must recall the conversation between Dubois and La Fillon. The gossip of the prime minister, it will be remembered, suspected Roquefinette of being mixed up in some illicit proceeding, and had denounced him on condition of his life being spared. A few days afterward D'Harmental came to her house, and she recognized him as the young man who had held the former conference with Roquefinette. She had consequently mounted the stairs behind him, and, going into the next room, had, by aid of a hole bored in the partition, heard everything.

What she had heard was the project for carrying off the regent on his return from Chelles. Dubois had been informed the same evening, and, in order to take the conspirators in the act, had put a suit of the regent's clothes on Monsieur Bourguignon, and, having surrounded the Bois de Vincennes with a regiment of Gray Musketeers, besides light-horse and dragoons, had produced the result we have just related. The head of the plot had been taken in the fact, and as the prime minister knew the names of all the conspirators, there was little chance remaining for them of escape from the meshes of the vast net which was hourly closing around them.


CHAPTER XXXIX.

A PRIME MINISTER'S MEMORY.

When Bathilde reopened her eyes, she found herself in Mademoiselle Emilie's room. Mirza was lying on the end of the bed; the two sisters were one at each side of her pillow, and Buvat, overcome by grief, was sitting in a corner, his head bent, and his hands resting on his knees.

At first all her thoughts were confused, and her sensation was one of bodily pain; she raised her hand to her head; the wound was behind the temple. A doctor, who had been called in, had arranged the first dressing, and left orders that he was to be sent for if fever declared itself.

Astonished to find herself--on waking from a sleep which had appeared to her heavy and painful--in bed in a strange room, the young girl turned an inquiring glance on each person present, but Emilie and Athenais shunned her eyes, and Buvat heaved a mournful sigh. Mirza alone stretched out her little head for a caress. Unluckily for the coaxing little creature, Bathilde began to recover her memory; the veil which was drawn before the late events rose little by little, and soon she began to connect the broken threads which might guide her in the past. She recalled the return of Buvat, what he had told her of the conspiracy, the danger which would result to D'Harmental from the revelation he had made. Then she remembered her hope of being in time to save him, the rapidity with which she had crossed the street and mounted the staircase; lastly, her entry into Raoul's room returned to her memory, and once more she found herself before the corpse of Roquefinette.

"And he," she cried, "what has become of him?"

No one answered, for neither of the three persons who were in the room knew what reply to give; only Buvat, choking with tears, rose, and went toward the door. Bathilde understood the grief and remorse expressed in that mute withdrawal; she stopped him by a look, and extending her arms toward him--

"My father," said she, "do you no longer love your poor Bathilde?"

"I no longer love you, my darling child!" cried Buvat, falling on his knees, and kissing her hand, "I love you no longer! My God! it will be you who will not love me now, and you will be right, for I am worthless; I ought to have known that that young man loved you, and ought to have risked all, suffered all, rather than--. But you told me nothing, you had no confidence in me, and I--with the best intentions in the world--made nothing but mistakes; oh, unlucky, unhappy, that I am, you will never forgive me, and then--how shall I live?"

"Father," cried Bathilde, "for Heaven's sake try and find out what has happened."

"Well, my child, well, I will discover; will not you forgive me if I bring you good news? If the news is bad, you will hate me even more; that will but be just, but you will not die, Bathilde?"

"Go, go," said Bathilde, throwing her arms round his neck, and giving him a kiss in which fifteen years of gratitude struggled with one day of pain; "go, my existence is in the hands of God, He only can decide whether I shall live or die."

Buvat understood nothing of all this but the kiss, and--having inquired of Madame Denis how the chevalier had been dressed--he set out on his quest.

It was no easy matter for a detective so simple as Buvat to trace Raoul's progress; he had learned from a neighbor that he had been seen to spring upon a gray horse which had remained some half hour fastened to the shutter, and that he had turned round the Rue Gros Chenet. A grocer, who lived at the corner of the Rue des Jeuneurs, remembered having seen a cavalier, whose person and horse agreed perfectly with the description given by Buvat, pass by at full gallop; and, lastly, a fruit woman, who kept a little shop at the corner of the Boulevards, swore positively that she had seen the man, and that he had disappeared by the Porte Saint Denis; but from this point all the information was vague, unsatisfactory, and uncertain, so that, after two hours of useless inquiry, Buvat returned to Madame Denis's house without any more definite information to give Bathilde than that, wherever D'Harmental might be gone, he had passed along the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. Buvat found his ward much agitated; during his absence she had grown rapidly worse, and the crisis foreseen by the doctor was fast approaching. Bathilde's eyes flashed; her skin seemed to glow; her words were short and firm. Madame Denis had just sent for the doctor.

The poor woman was not without her own anxieties; for some time she had suspected that the Abbe Brigaud was mixed up in some plot, and what she had just learned, that D'Harmental was not a poor student but a rich colonel, confirmed her conjectures, since it had been Brigaud who had introduced him to her. This similarity of position had not a little contributed to soften her heart--always kind--toward Bathilde. She listened, then, with eagerness to the little information which Buvat had been able to collect for the sufferer, and, as it was far from being sufficiently positive to calm the patient, she promised, if she heard anything herself, to report it directly.

In the meantime the doctor arrived. Great as was his command over himself, it was easy to see that he thought Bathilde in some danger--he bled her abundantly, ordered refreshing drinks, and advised that some one should watch at the bedside. Emilie and Athenais, who, their little absurdities excepted, were excellent girls, declared directly that that was their business, and that they would pass the night with Bathilde alternately; Emilie, as eldest, claimed the first watch, which was given her without contest. As to Buvat, since he could not remain in the room, they asked him to return home; a thing to which he would not consent till Bathilde herself had begged it. The bleeding had somewhat calmed her, and she seemed to feel better; Madame Denis had left the room; Mademoiselle Athenais also had retired; Monsieur Boniface, after returning from the Morgue, where he had been to pay a visit to the body