The Conspirators
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
GOD DISPOSES.
D'Harmental, as we have seen, had set off at a gallop, feeling that hehad not an instant to lose in bringing about the changes which thedeath of Captain Roquefinette rendered necessary in his hazardousenterprise. In the hope of recognizing by some sign the individuals whowere destined to play the part of supernumeraries in this great drama,he followed the boulevards as far as the Porte Saint Martin, and havingarrived there, turned to the left, and was in the midst of the horsemarket: it was there, it will be remembered, that the twelve or fifteensham peasants enlisted by Roquefinette waited the orders of theircaptain. But, as the deceased had said, no sign pointed out to the eyeof the stranger who were the men, clothed like the rest, and scarcelyknown to each other. D'Harmental, therefore, sought vainly; all thefaces were unknown to him; buyers and sellers appeared equallyindifferent to everything except the bargains which they wereconcluding. Twice or thrice, after having approached persons whom hefancied he recognized as false bargainers, he went away without evenspeaking to them, so great was the probability, that, among the five orsix hundred individuals who were on the ground, the chevalier would makesome mistake which might be not only useless, but even dangerous.
The situation was pitiable: D'Harmental unquestionably had there, readyto his hand, all the means necessary to the happy completion of hisplot, but he had, in killing the captain, broken with his own hand thethread which should have served him as a clew to them, and, the centerlink broken, the whole chain had become useless.
D'Harmental bit his lips till the blood came, and wandered to and fro,from end to end of the market, still hoping that some unforeseen eventwould get him out of his difficulty. Time, however, flowed away, themarket presented the same aspect, no one spoke to him, and two peasantsto whom despair had caused him to address some ambiguous words, hadopened their eyes and mouths in such profound astonishment that he hadinstantly broken off the conversation, convinced that he was mistaken.
Five o'clock struck.
At eight or nine the regent would repair to Chelles, there was thereforeno time to be lost, particularly as this ambuscade was the last resourcefor the conspirators, who might be arrested at any moment, and whostaked their remaining hopes on this last throw. D'Harmental did notconceal from himself the difficulties of the situation; he had claimedfor himself the honor of the enterprise; on him therefore rested all theresponsibility--and that responsibility was terrible. On the other hand,he found himself in one of those situations where courage is useless,and where human will shatters itself against an impossibility, and wherethe last chance is to confess one's weakness, and ask aid from those whoexpect it of us. But D'Harmental was a man of determination; hisresolution was soon taken--he took a last turn round the market to seeif some conspirator would not betray himself by his impatience; but,seeing that all faces retained their expression of unconcern, he put hishorse to the gallop, rode down the Boulevards, gained the Faubourg SaintAntoine, dismounted at No. 15, went up the staircase, opened the door ofa little room, and found himself in the company of Madame de Maine,Laval, Valef, Pompadour, Malezieux and Brigaud.
A general cry arose on seeing him.
D'Harmental related everything: the pretensions of Roquefinette, thediscussion which had followed, the duel which had terminated thatdiscussion. He opened his cloak and showed his shirt saturated withblood; then he passed to the hopes which he had entertained ofrecognizing the sham peasants, and putting himself at their head inplace of the captain. He showed his hopes destroyed, his investigationsuseless, and wound up by an appeal to Laval, Pompadour, and Valef, whoanswered that they were ready to follow the chevalier to the end of theearth, and to obey his orders.
Nothing was lost, then--four resolute men, acting on their own account,were well worth twelve or fifteen hired vagabonds, who were notinfluenced by any motive beyond that of gaining some hundred louisa-piece. The horses were ready in the stable, every one had come armed;D'Avranches was not yet gone, which re-enforced the little troop byanother devoted man. They sent for masks of black velvet, so as to hidefrom the regent as long as possible who his enemies were, left withMadame de Maine Malezieux, who from his age, and Brigaud, who from hisprofession, were naturally excluded from such an expedition, fixed arendezvous at Saint Mande, and left, each one separately, so as not toarouse suspicions. An hour afterward the five friends were reunited, andambushed on the road to Chelles, between Vincennes and Nogent-sur-Marne.
Half-past six struck on the chateau clock.
D'Avranches had been in search of information. The regent had passed atabout half-past three; he had neither guards nor suite, he was in acarriage and four, ridden by two jockeys, and preceded by a singleoutrider. There was no resistance to be feared; on arresting the princethey would turn his course toward Charenton, where the postmaster was,as we have said, in the interest of Madame de Maine, take him into thecourtyard, whose door would close upon him, force him to enter atraveling carriage, which would be waiting with the postilion in hissaddle; D'Harmental and Valef would seat themselves by him, they wouldcross the Marne at Alfort, the Seine at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, reachGrand-Vaux, then Monthery, and find themselves on the road to Spain. Ifat any of the villages where they changed horses the regent endeavoredto call out, D'Harmental and Valef would threaten him, and, if he calledout in spite of the menaces, they had that famous passport to prove thathe who claimed assistance was not the prince, but only a madman whothought himself the regent, and whom they were conducting to his family,who lived at Saragossa. All this was a little dangerous, it is true,but, as is well known, these are the very enterprises which succeed, somuch the easier from their unforeseen audacity.
Seven o'clock, eight o'clock, struck successively. D'Harmental and hiscompanions saw with pleasure the night approaching, and the darknessfalling more and more dense and black around them; two or threecarriages had already given false alarms, but had had no other effectthan preparing them for the real attack. At half-past eight the nightwas pitch-dark, and a sort of natural fear, which the conspirators hadfelt at first, began to change into impatience.
At nine o'clock they thought they could distinguish sounds. D'Avrancheslay down, with his ear to the ground, and distinctly heard the rollingof a carriage. At that instant they saw, at about a thousand paces fromthe angle of the road, a point of light like a star; the conspiratorstrembled with excitement, it was evidently the outrider with his torch.There was soon no doubt--they saw the carriage with its two lanterns.D'Harmental, Pompadour, Valef, and Laval, grasped one another's hands,put on their masks, and each one took the place assigned to him. Thecarriage advanced rapidly--it was really that of the duke. By the lightof the torch which he carried they could distinguish the red dress ofthe outrider, some five-and-twenty paces before the horses. The road wassilent and deserted, everything was favorable. D'Harmental threw a lastglance on his companions. D'Avranches was in the middle of the roadpretending to be drunk, Laval and Pompadour on each side of the path,and opposite him Valef, who was cocking his pistols. As to the outrider,the two jockeys and the prince, it was evident that they were all in astate of perfect security, and would fall quietly into the trap. Thecarriage still advanced; already the outrider had passed D'Harmental andValef, suddenly he struck against D'Avranches, who sprang up, seized thebridle, snatched the torch from his hand, and extinguished it. At thissight the jockeys tried to turn the carriage, but it was too late;Pompadour and Laval sprang upon them pistol in hand, while D'Harmentaland Valef presented themselves at the two doors, extinguished thelanterns, and intimated to the prince that if he did not make anyresistance his life would be spared, but that if, on the contrary, hedefended himself, or cried out, they were determined to proceed toextremities.
Contrary to the expectation of D'Harmental and Valef, who knew thecourage 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 andD'Avranches leading into the depth of the wood the outrider, the twojockeys, the outrider's horse, and two of the carriage horses which theyhad unharnessed. The chevalier sprang from his horse, mounted that ofthe 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 ofCharenton. All the arrangements had been so perfect, that the seizurehad not occupied more than five minutes; no resistance had been made,not a cry had been uttered. Most assuredly, this time fortune was on theside of the conspirators.
But having arrived at the end of the cross-road, D'Harmental encountereda first obstacle; the barrier--either by accident or design--was closed,and they were obliged to retrace their steps and take another road. Thechevalier 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-crossroad; one of the roads led straight to Charenton. There was no time tolose, and in any event he must traverse this square. For an instant hethought he distinguished men in the darkness before him, but this visiondisappeared like a mist, and the carriage continued its progress withoutinterruption. On approaching the cross-roads D'Harmental fancied heheard the neighing of a horse, and a sort of ringing of iron, likesabers being drawn from their sheaths, but either taking it for thewind among the leaves, or for some other noise for which he need notstop, he continued with the same swiftness, the same silence, and in themidst of the same darkness. But, having arrived at the cross-roads,D'Harmental noticed a singular circumstance, a sort of wall seemed toclose all the roads; something was happening. D'Harmental stopped thecarriage, and wished to return by the road he had come down, but asimilar wall had closed behind him. At that instant he heard the voicesof Laval and Valef crying:
"We are surrounded, save yourself!"
And both left the doors, leaped their horses over the ditch, darted intothe forest, and disappeared among the trees.
But it was impossible for D'Harmental, who was mounted on thepostilion's horse, to follow his companions, and, not being able toescape the living wall, which the chevalier recognized as a regiment ofmusketeers, he tried to break through it, and with his head lowered, anda pistol in each hand, spurred his horse up the nearest road, withoutconsidering whether it was the right one. He had scarcely gone tensteps, however, when a musket-ball entered the head of his horse, whichfell, entangling D'Harmental's leg. Instantly eight or ten cavalierssprang upon him; he fired one pistol by hazard, and put the other to hishead, to blow his brains out, but he had not time, for two musketeersseized him by the arms, and four others dragged him from beneath thehorse. The pretended prince descended from the carriage, and turned outto be a valet in disguise; they placed D'Harmental with two officersinside the carriage, and harnessed another horse in the place of the onewhich had been shot. The carriage once more moved forward, taking a newdirection, and escorted by a squadron of musketeers. A quarter of anhour afterward it rolled over a drawbridge, a heavy door grated upon itshinges, and D'Harmental passed under a somber and vaulted gateway, onthe inner side of which, an officer in the uniform of a colonel waswaiting for him. It was Monsieur de Launay, the governor of theBastille.
If our readers desire to know how the plot had been discovered, theymust recall the conversation between Dubois and La Fillon. The gossip ofthe prime minister, it will be remembered, suspected Roquefinette ofbeing mixed up in some illicit proceeding, and had denounced him oncondition of his life being spared. A few days afterward D'Harmentalcame to her house, and she recognized him as the young man who had heldthe former conference with Roquefinette. She had consequently mountedthe stairs behind him, and, going into the next room, had, by aid of ahole bored in the partition, heard everything.
What she had heard was the project for carrying off the regent on hisreturn from Chelles. Dubois had been informed the same evening, and, inorder to take the conspirators in the act, had put a suit of theregent's clothes on Monsieur Bourguignon, and, having surrounded theBois de Vincennes with a regiment of Gray Musketeers, besideslight-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 primeminister knew the names of all the conspirators, there was little chanceremaining for them of escape from the meshes of the vast net which washourly closing around them.