CHAPTER XLV. "I WILL FEED FAT THE ANCIENT GRUDGE I BEAR HIM."
The Treaty of Aix La Chapelle, so long tossed about on the waves of war,was finally signed in the beginning of October. A swift-sailing goeletteof Dieppe brought the tidings to New France, and in the early nightsof November, from Quebec to Montreal. Bonfires on every headland blazedover the broad river; churches were decorated with evergreens, and TeDeums sung in gratitude for the return of peace and security to theColony.
New France came out of the struggle scathed and scorched as by fire,but unshorn of territory or territorial rights; and the glad colonistsforgot and forgave the terrible sacrifices they had made in theuniversal joy that their country, their religion, language, and lawswere still safe under the Crown of France, with the white banner stillfloating over the Castle of St. Louis.
On the day after the arrival of the Dieppe goelette bringing the news ofpeace, Bigot sat before his desk reading his despatches and letters fromFrance, when the Chevalier de Pean entered the room with a bundle ofpapers in his hand, brought to the Palace by the chief clerk of theBourgeois Philibert, for the Intendant's signature.
The Bourgeois, in the course of his great commercial dealings, gotpossession of innumerable orders upon the royal treasury, which in duecourse had to be presented to the Intendant for his official signature.The signing of these treasury orders in favor of the Bourgeois neverfailed to throw Bigot into a fit of ill humor.
On the present occasion he sat down muttering ten thousand curses uponthe Bourgeois, as he glanced over the papers with knitted eyebrows andteeth set hard together. He signed the mass of orders and drafts madepayable to Nicolas Philibert, and when done, threw into the fire thepen which had performed so unwelcome an office. Bigot sent for the chiefclerk who had brought the bills and orders, and who waited for them inthe antechamber. "Tell your master, the Bourgeois," said he, "thatfor this time, and only to prevent loss to the foolish officers, theIntendant has signed these army bills; but that if he purchase more, indefiance of the sole right of the Grand Company, I shall not sign them.This shall be the last time, tell him!"
The chief clerk, a sturdy, gray-haired Malouin, was nothing daunted bythe angry look of the Intendant. "I shall inform the Bourgeois of yourExcellency's wishes," said he, "and--"
"Inform him of my commands!" exclaimed Bigot, sharply. "What! haveyou more to say? But you would not be the chief clerk of the Bourgeoiswithout possessing a good stock of his insolence!"
"Pardon me, your Excellency!" replied the chief clerk, "I was only goingto observe that His Excellency the Governor and the Commander of theForces both have decided that the officers may transfer their warrantsto whomsoever they will."
"You are a bold fellow, with your Breton speech; but by all the saintsin Saintonge, I will see whether the Royal Intendant or the BourgeoisPhilibert shall control this matter! And as for you--"
"Tut! cave canem! let this cur go back to his master," interruptedCadet, amused at the coolness of the chief clerk. "Hark you, fellow!"said he, "present my compliments--the Sieur Cadet's compliments--to yourmaster, and tell him I hope he will bring his next batch of army billshimself, and remind him that it is soft falling at low tide out of thewindows of the Friponne."
"I shall certainly advise my master not to come himself, Sieur Cadet,"replied the chief clerk; "and I am very certain of returning in threedays with more army bills for the signature of his Excellency theIntendant."
"Get out, you fool!" shouted Cadet, laughing at what he regarded theinsolence of the clerk. "You are worthy of your master!" And Cadetpushed him forcibly out of the door, and shut it after him with a bangthat resounded through the Palace.
"Don't be angry at him, Bigot, he is not worth it," said Cadet. "'Likemaster like man,' as the proverb says. And, after all, I doubt whetherthe furred law-cats of the Parliament of Paris would not uphold theBourgeois in an appeal to them from the Golden Dog."
Bigot was excessively irritated, for he was lawyer enough to knowthat Cadet's fear was well founded. He walked up and down his cabinet,venting curses upon the heads of the whole party of the Honnetes Gens,the Governor and Commander of the Forces included. The Marquise dePompadour, too, came in for a full share of his maledictions, forBigot knew that she had forced the signing of the treaty of Aix laChapelle,--influenced less by the exhaustion of France than by afeminine dislike to camp life, which she had shared with the King, and aresolution to withdraw him back to the gaieties of the capital, where hewould be wholly under her own eye and influence.
"She prefers love to honor, as all women do!" remarked Bigot; "and likesmoney better than either. The Grand Company pays the fiddler for theroyal fetes at Versailles, while the Bourgeois Philibert skims the creamoff the trade of the Colony. This peace will increase his power and makehis influence double what it is already!"
"Egad, Bigot!" replied Cadet, who sat near him smoking a large pipe oftobacco, "you speak like a preacher in Lent. We have hitherto butteredour bread on both sides, but the Company will soon, I fear, have nobread to butter! I doubt we shall have to eat your decrees, which willbe the only things left in the possession of the Friponne."
"My decrees have been hard to digest for some people who think they willnow eat us. Look at that pile of orders, Cadet, in favor of the GoldenDog!"
The Intendant had long regarded with indignation the ever increasingtrade and influence of the Bourgeois Philibert, who had become the greatbanker as well as the great merchant of the Colony, able to meet theGrand Company itself upon its own ground, and fairly divide with it theinterior as well as the exterior commerce of the Colony.
"Where is this thing going to end?" exclaimed Bigot, sweeping from himthe pile of bills of exchange that lay upon the table. "That Philibertis gaining ground upon us every day! He is now buying up army bills, andeven the King's officers are flocking to him with their certificates ofpay and drafts on France, which he cashes at half the discount chargedby the Company!"
"Give the cursed papers to the clerk and send him off, De Pean!" saidBigot.
De Pean obeyed with a grimace, and returned.
"This thing must be stopped, and shall!" continued the Intendant,savagely.
"That is true, your Excellency," said De Pean. "And we have triedvigorously to stop the evil, but so far in vain. The Governor and theHonnetes Gens, and too many of the officers themselves, countenance hisopposition to the Company. The Bourgeois draws a good bill upon Parisand Bordeaux, and they are fast finding it out."
"The Golden Dog is drawing half the money of the Colony into hiscoffers, and he will blow up the credit of the Friponne some fine daywhen we least expect it, unless he be chained up," replied Bigot.
"'A mechant chien court lien,' says the proverb, and so say I," repliedCadet. "The Golden Dog has barked at us for a long time; par Dieu! hebites now!--ere long he will gnaw our bones in reality, as he does ineffigy upon that cursed tablet in the Rue Buade."
"Every dog has his day, and the Golden Dog has nearly had his, Cadet.But what do you advise?" asked Bigot.
"Hang him up with a short rope and a shorter shrift, Bigot! You havewarrant enough if your Court friends are worth half a handful of chaff."
"But they are not worth half a handful of chaff, Cadet. If I hung theBourgeois there would be such a cry raised among the Honnetes Gens inthe Colony, and the whole tribe of Jansenists in France, that I doubtwhether even the power of the Marquise could sustain me."
Cadet looked quietly truculent. He drew Bigot aside. "There are moreways than one to choke a dog, Bigot," said he. "You may put a tightcollar outside his throat, or a sweetened roll inside of it. Some coursemust be found, and that promptly. We shall, before many days, have LaCorne St. Luc and young Philibert like a couple of staghounds in fullcry at our heels about that business at the Chateau. They must be thrownoff that scent, come what will, Bigot!"
The pressure of time and circumstance was drawing a narrower circlearound the Intendant. The advent of peace would, he believed, inauguratea persona
l war against himself. The murder of Caroline was a hard blow,and the necessity of concealing it irritated him with a sense of fearforeign to his character.
His suspicion of Angelique tormented him day and night. He had lovedAngelique in a sensual, admiring way, without one grain of real respect.He worshipped her one moment as the Aphrodite of his fancy; he was readyto strip and scourge her the next as the possible murderess of Caroline.But Bigot had fettered himself with a lie, and had to hide his thoughtsunder degrading concealments. He knew the Marquise de Pompadour wasjealously watching him from afar. The sharpest intellects and mostuntiring men in the Colony were commissioned to find out the truthregarding the fate of Caroline. Bigot was like a stag brought to bay. Anordinary man would have succumbed in despair, but the very desperationof his position stirred up the Intendant to a greater effort to freehimself.
He walked gloomily up and down the room, absorbed in deep thought.Cadet, who guessed what was brooding in his mind, made a sign to De Peanto wait and see what would be the result of his cogitations.
Bigot, gesticulating with his right hand and his left, went onbalancing, as in a pair of scales, the chances of success or failure inthe blow he meditated against the Golden Dog. A blow which would scatterto the winds the inquisition set on foot to discover the hiding-place ofCaroline.
He stopped suddenly in his walk, striking both hands together, as if insign of some resolution arrived at in his thoughts.
"De Pean!" said he, "has Le Gardeur de Repentigny shown any desire yetto break out of the Palace?"
"None, your Excellency. He is fixed as a bridge to fortune. You can nomore break him down than the Pont Neuf at Paris. He lost, last night,a thousand at cards and five hundred at dice; then drank himself deaddrunk until three o'clock this afternoon. He has just risen; his valetwas washing his head and feet in brandy when I came here."
"You are a friend that sticks closer than a brother, De Pean. Le Gardeurbelieves in you as his guardian angel, does he not?" asked Bigot with asneer.
"When he is drunk he does," replied De Pean; "when he is sober I carenot to approach him too nearly! He is a wild colt that will kick hisgroom when rubbed the wrong way; and every way is wrong when the wine isout of him."
"Keep him full then!" exclaimed Bigot; "you have groomed him well, DePean! but he must now be saddled and ridden to hunt down the biggeststag in New France!"
De Pean looked hard at the Intendant, only half comprehending hisallusion.
"You once tried your hand with Mademoiselle de Repentigny, did you not?"continued Bigot.
"I did, your Excellency; but that bunch of grapes was too high for me.They are very sour now."
"Sly fox that you were! Well, do not call them sour yet, De Pean.Another jump at the vine and you may reach that bunch of perfection!"said Bigot, looking hard at him.
"Your Excellency overrates my ability in that quarter, and if I werepermitted to choose--"
"Another and a fairer maid would be your choice. I see, De Pean, youare a connoisseur in women. Be it as you wish! Manage this business ofPhilibert discreetly, and I will coin the Golden Dog into doubloons fora marriage portion for Angelique des Meloises. You understand me now?"
De Pean started. He hardly guessed yet what was required of him, but hecared not in the dazzling prospect of such a wife and fortune as werethus held out to him.
"Your Excellency will really support my suit with Angelique?" De Peanseemed to mistrust the possibility of such a piece of disinterestednesson the part of the Intendant.
"I will not only commend your suit, but I will give away the bride, andMadame de Pean shall not miss any favor from me which she has deservedas Angelique des Meloises," was Bigot's reply, without changing a muscleof his face.
"And your Excellency will give her to me?" De Pean could hardly believehis ears.
"Assuredly you shall have her if you like," cried Bigot, "and with adowry such as has not been seen in New France!"
"But who would like to have her at any price?" muttered Cadet tohimself, with a quiet smile of contempt,--Cadet thought De Pean afool for jumping at a hook baited with a woman; but he knew what theIntendant was driving at, and admired the skill with which he angled forDe Pean.
"But Angelique may not consent to this disposal of her hand," repliedDe Pean with an uneasy look; "I should be afraid of your gift unless shebelieved that she took me, and not I her."
"Hark you, De Pean! you do not know what women like her are made of,or you would be at no loss how to bait your hook! You have made fourmillions, they say, out of this war, if not more."
"I never counted it, your Excellency; but, much or little, I owe it allto your friendship," replied De Pean with a touch of mock humility.
"My friendship! Well, so be it. It is enough to make Angelique desMeloises Madame de Pean when she finds she cannot be Madame Intendant.Do you see your way now, De Pean?"
"Yes, your Excellency, and I cannot be sufficiently grateful for such aproof of your goodness."
Bigot laughed a dry, meaning laugh. "I truly hope you will always thinkso of my friendship, De Pean. If you do not, you are not the man I takeyou to be. Now for our scheme of deliverance!
"Hearken, De Pean," continued the Intendant, fixing his dark, fiery eyesupon his secretary; "you have craft and cunning to work out this designand good will to hasten it on. Cadet and I, considering the necessitiesof the Grand Company, have resolved to put an end to the rivalry andarrogance of the Golden Dog. We will treat the Bourgeois," Bigot smiledmeaningly, "not as a trader with a baton, but as a gentleman with asword; for, although a merchant, the Bourgeois is noble and wears asword, which under proper provocation he will draw, and remember hecan use it too! He can be tolerated no longer by the gentlemen of theCompany. They have often pressed me in vain to take this step, but nowI yield. Hark, De Pean! The Bourgeois must be INSULTED, CHALLENGED, andKILLED by some gentleman of the Company with courage and skill enoughto champion its rights. But mind you! it must be done fairly and in openday, and without my knowledge or approval! Do you understand?"
Bigot winked at De Pean and smiled furtively, as much as to say, "Youknow how to interpret my words."
"I understand your Excellency, and it shall be no fault of mine if yourwishes, which chime with my own, be not carried out before many days. Adozen partners of the Company will be proud to fight with the Bourgeoisif he will only fight with them."
"No fear of that, De Pean! give the devil his due. Insult the Bourgeoisand he will fight with the seven champions of Christendom! so mind youget a man able for him, for I tell you, De Pean, I doubt if there beover three gentlemen in the Colony who could cross swords fairly andsuccessfully with the Bourgeois."
"It will be easier to insult and kill him in a chance medley than torisk a duel!" interrupted Cadet, who listened with intense eagerness."I tell you, Bigot, young Philibert will pink any man of our party. Ifthere be a duel he will insist on fighting it for his father. The oldBourgeois will not be caught, but we shall catch a Tartar instead, inthe young one."
"Well, duel or chance medley be it! I dare not have him assassinated,"replied the Intendant. "He must be fought with in open day, and notkilled in a corner. Eh, Cadet, am I not right?"
Bigot looked for approval from Cadet, who saw that he was thinking ofthe secret chamber at Beaumanoir.
"You are right, Bigot! He must be killed in open day and not in acorner. But who have we among us capable of making sure work of theBourgeois?"
"Leave it to me," replied De Pean. "I know one partner of the Companywho, if I can get him in harness, will run our chariot wheels in triumphover the Golden Dog."
"And who is that?" asked Bigot eagerly.
"Le Gardeur de Repentigny!" exclaimed De Pean, with a look ofexultation.
"Pshaw! he would draw upon us more readily! Why, he is bewitched withthe Philiberts!" replied Bigot.
"I shall find means to break the spell long enough to answer ourpurpose, your Excellency!" replied De Pean. "Permit me only to take myown way
with him."
"Assuredly, take your own way, De Pean! A bloody scuffle betweenDe Repentigny and the Bourgeois would not only be a victory for theCompany, but would breakup the whole party of the Honnetes Gens!"
The Intendant slapped De Pean on the shoulder and shook him by the hand."You are more clever than I believed you to be, De Pean. You have hiton a mode of riddance which will entitle you to the best reward in thepower of the Company to bestow."
"My best reward will be the fulfilment of your promise, yourExcellency," answered De Pean.
"I will keep my word, De Pean. By God you shall have Angelique, withsuch a dowry as the Company can alone give! Or, if you do not want thegirl, you shall have the dowry without the wife!"
"I shall claim both, your Excellency! But--"
"But what? Confess all your doubts, De Pean."
"Le Gardeur may claim her as his own reward!" De Pean guessed correctlyenough the true bent of Angelique's fancy.
"No fear! Le Gardeur de Repentigny, drunk or sober, is a gentleman. Hewould reject the Princess d'Elide were she offered on such conditionsas you take her on. He is a romantic fool; he believes in woman's virtueand all that stuff!"
"Besides, if he kill the Bourgeois, he will have to fight PierrePhilibert before his sword is dry!" interjected Cadet. "I would not givea Dutch stiver for Le Gardeur's bones five hours after he has pinked theBourgeois!"
An open duel in form was not to be thought of, because in that theywould have to fight the son and not the father, and the great objectwould be frustrated. But the Bourgeois might be killed in a sudden fray,when blood was up and swords drawn, when no one, as De Pean remarked,would be able to find an i undotted or a t uncrossed in a fair record ofthe transaction, which would impose upon the most critical judge as anhonorable and justifiable act of self-defence.
This was Cadet's real intent, and perhaps Bigot's, but the Intendant'sthoughts lay at unfathomable depths, and were not to be discovered byany traces upon the surface. No divining-rod could tell where the secretspring lay hid which ran under Bigot's motives.
Not so De Pean. He meditated treachery, and it were hard to say whetherit was unnoted by the penetrating eye of Bigot. The Intendant, however,did not interfere farther, either by word or sign, but left De Peanto accomplish in his own way the bloody object they all had in view,namely, the death of the Bourgeois and the break-up of the HonnetesGens. De Pean, while resolving to make Le Gardeur the tool of hiswickedness, did not dare to take him into his confidence. He had tobe kept in absolute ignorance of the part he was to play in the bloodytragedy until the moment of its denouement arrived. Meantime he must beplied with drink, maddened with jealousy, made desperate with losses,and at war with himself and all the world, and then the whole furyof his rage should, by the artful contrivance of De Pean, beturned, without a minute's time for reflection, upon the head of theunsuspecting Bourgeois.
To accomplish this successfully, a woman's aid was required, at once toblind Le Gardeur and to sharpen his sword.
In the interests of the Company Angelique des Meloises was at all timesa violent partisan. The Golden Dog and all its belongings were objectsof her open aversion. But De Pean feared to impart to her his intentionto push Le Gardeur blindly into the affair. She might fear for the lifeof one she loved. De Pean reflected angrily on this, but he determinedshe should be on the spot. The sight of her and a word from her, whichDe Pean would prompt at the critical moment, should decide Le Gardeur toattack the Bourgeois and kill him; and then, what would follow? DePean rubbed his hands with ecstasy at the thought that Le Gardeur wouldinevitably bite the dust under the avenging hand of Pierre Philibert,and Angelique would be his beyond all fear of rivals.