CHAPTER XV
THE BEGGARS' BALL
That evening there was a ball on the flat above. It was refreshinglydemocratic. The rag-pickers who lodged with Madame Gougeon and laid thefoundation of her iron business, attended. Thither thronged the beggars,the knife-grinders, the old-bottle collectors of the neighbouringrookeries. The crookedest men of Paris, the most hideous women, thesqualidest tatters were on hand. They whirled and jumped furiously intheir unwashed feet; they became almost invisible in the clouds of dust;the odour sickened, the screeching and jumping deafened one. Bad, butmaddening, wine was drunk in torrents. A man would kick his partner andthe combatants tumble over each other in the midst of an applaudingcircle.
Who were these libels on women, these alleged men, these howling fiends?They were a driblet of two hundred thousand such wretches who overranand menaced the city, a product of the dense illiteracy of the time.
Wife Gougeon entered with the Admiral. They pushed their way to a longtable in the corner where some sots were gambling, and sitting down onone of the benches around it, she shouted a couple of words to the mannearest to her, who bolted off into the dust and returned with ared-nosed beggar.
"Motte," said she, leering, "are you now on the Versailles roads?"
"Always," he said sharply.
"Do your division watch Versailles?"
"Without ceasing."
"This is the Admiral."
"The great Admiral? Of the Galley?"
"Certainly."
"I salute you, Chief," he said, raising a ragged arm.
"Have some brandy, Green Cap," the Admiral returned, rapping loudly fordrink, which was brought.
"We want," said Madame engagingly, "to find a hog called Repentigny atVersailles."
The man snatched the bottle from the hand of the _garcon_, and pouring aglass off, greedily drank it before replying.
"I don't know the name. What age is he?"
"About twenty," the chief said.
"Don't you know any more about him?"
The Admiral described him as closely as possible. They took some time inthe conversation. "He ought to be in the company of officers of theBodyguard," added he. The beggar by that time was becoming unsteady withrapid libations. He nodded, dropping his head.
"Do you understand me?" shouted the Admiral.
"Repentigny," the other muttered, correctly enough.
"Can you meet us at the Place d'Armes of Versailles to-morrow?" wheedledFemme Gougeon.
He looked at her steadily and nodded deliberately.
"Is twelve o'clock too early?"
He shook his head a little.
"He will assuredly do it," she said to her companion.
The next second the beggar fell off the bench, dead drunk.
The following day at Versailles, at the entrance of the Avenue de Paris,two nuns were seen to stop and give alms to an old bent beggar. Aconversation took place between them, and was interrupted by theapproach of a gendarme.
"I have found him," was the beggar's whisper.
"Where?"
"At the Hotel de Noailles. Am I to kill him?" he asked excitedly.
"No," said the taller nun.
The gendarme stepped up towards the beggar.
"I arrest you for mendicity," he said, just about to lay his hand on hisshoulder.
The beggar--who bore a red nose--started back with an alacrityunexpected of so aged a man. He took to his heels, and, with tattersflying, fled like an arrow from the Avenue.
The gendarme furiously looked after him. When he turned, the pair ofnuns also had moved on. They were slipping round a corner which led intoa by-street of the old town.
Versailles, the City of the Court, was then in the height of itssplendour, gay and triumphant. Everything in it looked towards thePalace of the King, the long and lordly facade of which, with its threeconcentric courtyards, faced the great square of the town, the Placed'Armes; and behind lay those delicious gardens, groves and waters, themere remains of which, such as the Tapis Vert, the Basins of Neptune andEnceladus, the Trianons, and the Orangerie, are marvels even to our day.Thousands of costumes and equipages made the town a panorama of luxury;and countless thoroughbreds, of which the King alone possessed more thantwo thousand, glistened and curvetted in the streets.
The neighbourhood of the Palace was naturally that of the aristocracy.The vast mansions of the Princes of the blood and the Peers of Francewere clustered about the sides of the Place d'Armes and the streetsimmediately surrounding. One of these was the Hotel de Noailles. Itsrange of buildings, for it surrounded a court, stood at the corner ofthe Rues de la Pompe et des Bons Enfans. Behind it were its gardens.Opposite, on the Rue des Bons Enfans, were the hotels of the Princes ofConde and the Dukes of Tremouille. The hotels of Luxembourg, Orleans,and Bouillon faced it on the Rue de la Pompe. The Noailles family werethemselves many times of royal descent. Adjoining the hotel were thequarters of the Queen's equerries.
Germain sat in his apartment, watching, over the balcony of one of thewindows, the incessant movement of lackeys, mounted officials, andcarriages on the street near by. Raising his eyes across the gardens ofthe Tremouille Palace, he rested them with quickened delight on theelegant avenues and groves of the royal pleasure-realm, rich in thegolden tones and clear air of an autumn morning.
In the midst the Basin of Neptune, glittering and shining, and with itswhite statues, seemed to inspire him with a happy suggestion, and hetrolled to himself a ballad with a nonsensical chorus, popular in hisnative land--
"Behind the manor lies the mere, _En roulant, ma boule_; Three fair ducks skim its water clear.
_En roulant, ma boule roulant._ _En roulant, ma boule._
Three fair ducks skim its waters clear, The King's son hunteth far and near.
The King's son draweth near the lake, He bears his gun of magic make.
With magic gun of silver bright He sights the Black but kills the White.
He sights the Black but kills the White; Ah, cruel Prince, my heart you smite."
A rap on the door interrupted him. Dominique put his head in,announcing--
"A woman, sir."
"A woman? Young and beautiful?"
"No, sir; old."
"On what errand?"
"She insists it is business."
"Let her come in."
A figure entered dressed in a faded black shawl, a red dress, and a bluelinen apron, and her face shadowed in a hood. She kept back out of thewindow-light, and he thought she was in great distress.
"Madame," he stammered, putting aside his gaiety, and rose.
"Monseigneur, I supplicate your mercy," she sobbed.
"My mercy? I do not understand."
"Your mercy; I supplicate it," she cried in an agonised voice.
"My good woman, I would never injure you, I protest."
"I am their mother, sir; I am starving."
"Whose mother?"
She represented the prisoners as being sons of hers. When she mentionedthe robbery, he recoiled. As she proceeded, however, he condoled withher and gave her a piece of money, which she took, expatiating brokenlyon the dependance of her sons' necks on his evidence.
"Mon Dieu! Monsieur," she concluded, "do you know what it is to takethree lives of poor men? Can you picture what it means to a parent? Youhave a heart--you have a God--you have a mother."
The flood of tears and hysterical sobbing were in the highest art ofexpert mendicancy. She advanced towards him, threw herself upon herknees at his feet, embraced his shoes, and writhed.
Germain was so shaken that for a moment he had an intention of runningfor a cabriolet to take him to Paris to intercede with the magistratesin the affair. He was about to follow his impulse when a considerationstartled him. He had heard the Prince repeatedly speak with satisfactionof the capture of the highwaymen. To interfere with the arrests, he saw,would shock the robbed family; it would banish him, he thought, from thecircle of C
yrene. The question troubled him. In a few moments he decidedit: he must stretch out a hand of mercy to this woman.
Following the custom among beggars, she watched his countenancefurtively during her appeals, interpreting its changes more accuratelythan he himself was doing, and at its last expression her eyes flashedwith triumph.
"Go; I will help you," he said to her in an agitated voice, and callingDominique, added with great courtesy, "See Madame to the gates, and helpher in any way you can."
But no sooner had she left the chamber than a thought which angered himcame like a flash, and stepping to the door, he called them back.
"You say these men are your sons?" he said severely, when she had comeinto the room; "let me see your face."
She shrank from him and hid it more deeply in her hood.
"The man who was a cultivator is forty years of age; you are no more,"he pronounced, "how can you be his mother?"
A few mumbled words passed her lips, but he did not listen to them.
"The three are from three different families, three different ranks,three different Provinces, and yet you have pretended to be the parentof all of them. You are the parent of none of them, but have come hereto shamefully impose upon my feelings. What you are is a confederate ofthe gang. Had you been the woman you have pretended I was ready to makesacrifices for you, the extent of which you cannot know. But if, insteadof returning sons to a mother, I am to loose again three most dangerouscriminals upon the country, it is a different affair. Be well satisfiedthat I do not immediately have yourself convicted as their accomplice."In his anger he motioned her to be off, and she, dropping the piece ofgold which he had given her, crept away with alacrity, not daring toventure a word.
It was only as she passed down through the Prince's halls behindDominique that she allowed her fury full possession of her, and as sheglanced about on the evidences of luxury, she gnashed her teeth andhissed half aloud--
"Ah, but I would stick your throats, you fat hogs!"
"What do you say, Madame?" inquired Dominique.
"Nothing at all."
Germain threw himself again upon his chair and gave himself up tomisery.