Scaramouche, Rafael Sabatini [inspirational books txt] 📗

“I should say, madame, that nothing is wise that complicates existence; and I know of nothing that so complicates it as insincerity. Consider a moment the complications that have arisen out of this.”

“But surely, André-Louis, your views have not been so perverted that you do not see that a governing class is a necessity in any country?”

“Why, of course. But not necessarily a hereditary one.”

“What else?”

He answered her with an epigram. “Man, madame, is the child of his own work. Let there be no inheriting of rights but from such a parent. Thus a nation’s best will always predominate, and such a nation will achieve greatly.”

“But do you account birth of no importance?”

“Of none, madame⁠—or else my own might trouble me.” From the deep flush that stained her face, he feared that he had offended by what was almost an indelicacy. But the reproof that he was expecting did not come. Instead⁠—

“And does it not?” she asked. “Never, André?”

“Never, madame. I am content.”

“You have never⁠ ⁠… never regretted your lack of parents’ care?”

He laughed, sweeping aside her sweet charitable concern that was so superfluous. “On the contrary, madame, I tremble to think what they might have made of me, and I am grateful to have had the fashioning of myself.”

She looked at him for a moment very sadly, and then, smiling, gently shook her head.

“You do not want self-satisfaction⁠ ⁠… Yet I could wish that you saw things differently, André. It is a moment of great opportunities for a young man of talent and spirit. I could help you; I could help you, perhaps, to go very far if you would permit yourself to be helped after my fashion.”

“Yes,” he thought, “help me to a halter by sending me on treasonable missions to Austria on the Queen’s behalf, like M. de Plougastel. That would certainly end in a high position for me.”

Aloud he answered more as politeness prompted. “I am grateful, madame. But you will see that, holding the ideals I have expressed, I could not serve any cause that is opposed to their realization.”

“You are misled by prejudice, André-Louis, by personal grievances. Will you allow them to stand in the way of your advancement?”

“If what I call ideals were really prejudices, would it be honest of me to run counter to them whilst holding them?”

“If I could convince you that you are mistaken! I could help you so much to find a worthy employment for the talents you possess. In the service of the King you would prosper quickly. Will you think of it, André-Louis, and let us talk of this again?”

He answered her with formal, chill politeness.

“I fear that it would be idle, madame. Yet your interest in me is very flattering, and I thank you. It is unfortunate for me that I am so headstrong.”

“And now who deals in insincerity?” she asked him.

“Ah, but you see, madame, it is an insincerity that does not mislead.”

And then M. de Kercadiou came in through the window again, and announced fussily that he must be getting back to Meudon, and that he would take his godson with him and set him down at the Rue du Hasard.

“You must bring him again, Quintin,” the Countess said, as they took their leave of her.

“Some day, perhaps,” said M. de Kercadiou vaguely, and swept his godson out.

In the carriage he asked him bluntly of what madame had talked.

“She was very kind⁠—a sweet woman,” said André-Louis pensively.

“Devil take you, I didn’t ask you the opinion that you presume to have formed of her. I asked you what she said to you.”

“She strove to point out to me the error of my ways. She spoke of great things that I might do⁠—to which she would very kindly help me⁠—if I were to come to my senses. But as miracles do not happen, I gave her little encouragement to hope.”

“I see. I see. Did she say anything else?”

He was so peremptory that André-Louis turned to look at him.

“What else did you expect her to say, monsieur my godfather?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Then she fulfilled your expectations.”

“Eh? Oh, a thousand devils, why can’t you express yourself in a sensible manner that a plain man can understand without having to think about it?”

He sulked after that most of the way to the Rue du Hasard, or so it seemed to André-Louis. At least he sat silent, gloomily thoughtful to judge by his expression.

“You may come and see us soon again at Meudon,” he told André-Louis at parting. “But please remember⁠—no revolutionary politics in future, if we are to remain friends.”

One morning in August the academy in the Rue du Hasard was invaded by Le Chapelier accompanied by a man of remarkable appearance, whose herculean stature and disfigured countenance seemed vaguely familiar to André-Louis. He was a man of little, if anything, over thirty, with small bright eyes buried in an enormous face. His cheekbones were prominent, his nose awry, as if it had been broken by a blow, and his mouth was rendered almost shapeless by the scars of another injury. (A bull had horned him in the face when he was but a lad.) As if that were not enough to render his appearance terrible, his cheeks were deeply pockmarked. He was dressed untidily in a long scarlet coat that descended almost to his ankles, soiled buckskin breeches and boots with reversed tops. His shirt, none too clean, was open at the throat, the collar hanging limply over an unknotted cravat, displaying fully the muscular neck that rose like a pillar from his massive shoulders. He swung a cane that was almost a club in his left hand, and there was a cockade in his biscuit-coloured, conical hat. He carried himself with an aggressive, masterful air, that great head of his thrown back as if he were eternally at defiance.

Le Chapelier, whose manner was very grave, named him to André-Louis.

“This is M. Danton, a brother-lawyer, President of the Cordeliers, of whom you will have heard.”

Of course André-Louis