CHAPTER XXXVIII
A COUP-D'ETAT
As the Marquis de Gemosac's step was already on the stairs, Barebone wasspared the necessity of agreeing in words to the inevitable.
A moment later the old man hurried into the room. He had not even waitedto remove his coat and gloves. A few snow-flakes powdered his shoulders.
"Ah!" he cried, on perceiving Barebone. "Good--you are safe!" He turnedto speak to some one who was following him up the stairs with the slowersteps of one who knew not his way.
"All is well!" he cried. "He is here. Give yourself no anxiety."
And the second comer crossed the threshold, coming suddenly out of theshadow of the staircase. It was Dormer Colville, white with snow, hisface grey and worn. He shook hands with Barebone and bowed to Juliette,but the Marquis gave him no time to speak.
"I go down into the town," he explained, breathlessly. "The streets arefull. There is a crowd on the marketplace, more especially round thetobacconist's, where the newspapers are to be bought. No newspapers, ifyou please. The Paris journals of last Sunday, and this is Fridayevening. Nothing since that. No Bordeaux journal. No news at all fromParis: absolute silence from Toulouse and Limoges. 'It is anotherrevolution,' they tell each other. Something has happened and no oneknows what. A man comes up to me and tugs at my sleeve. 'Inside yourwalls, Monsieur le Marquis, waste no time,' he whispers, and is gone. Heis some stable-boy. I have seen him somewhere. I! inside my walls! Herein Gemosac, where I see nothing but bare heads as I walk through thestreets. Name of God! I should laugh at such a precaution. And while I amstill trying to gather information the man comes back to me. 'It is notthe people you have to fear,' he whispers in my ear, 'it is theGovernment. The order for your arrest is at the Gendarmerie, for it was Iwho took it there. Monsieur Albert was arrested yesterday, and is now inLa Rochelle. Madame de Chantonnay's house is guarded. It is from Madame Icome.' And again he goes. While I am hesitating, I hear the step of ahorse, tired and yet urged to its utmost. It is Dormer Colville, thisfaithful friend, who is from Paris in thirty-six hours to warn us. Heshall tell his story himself."
"There is not much to tell," said Colville, in a hollow voice. He lookedround for a chair and sat down rather abruptly. "Louis Bonaparte isabsolute master of France; that is all. He must be so by this time. WhenI escaped from Paris yesterday morning nearly all the streets werebarricaded. But the troops were pouring into the city as I rode out--andartillery. I saw one barricade carried by artillery. Thousands must havebeen killed in the streets of Paris yesterday--"
"--And, _bon Dieu!_ it is called a _coup-d'etat_," interrupted theMarquis.
"That was on Tuesday," explained Colville, in his tired voice--"at sixo'clock on Tuesday morning. Yesterday and Wednesday were days ofmassacre."
"But, my friend," exclaimed the Marquis, impatiently, "tell us how ithappened. You laugh! It is no time to laugh."
"I do not know," replied Colville, with an odd smile. "I think there isnothing else to be done--it is all so complete. We are all so utterlyfooled by this man whom all the world took to be a dolt. On Tuesdaymorning he arrested seventy-eight of the Representatives. When Parisawoke, the streets had been placarded in the night with the decree of thePresident of the Republic. The National Assembly was dissolved. TheCouncil of State was dissolved. Martial law was declared. And why? Hedoes not even trouble to give a reason. He has the army at his back. Thesoldiers cried '_Vive l'Empereur_' as they charged the crowd onWednesday. He has got rid of his opponents by putting them in prison.Many, it is said, are already on their way to exile in Cayenne; theprisons are full. There is a warrant out against myself; against you,Barebone; against you, of course, Monsieur le Marquis. Albert deChantonnay was arrested at Tours, and is now in La Rochelle. We mayescape--we may get away to-night--"
He paused and looked hurriedly toward the door, for some one was comingup the stairs--some one who wore sabots. It was the servant, Marie, whocame unceremoniously into the room with the exaggerated calm of one whorealises the gravity of the situation and means to master it.
"The town is on fire," she explained, curtly; "they have begun on theGendarmerie. Doubtless they have heard that these gentlemen are to bearrested, and it is to give other employment to the gendarmes. But thecavalry has arrived from Saintes, and I come upstairs to ask Monsieur tocome down and help. It is my husband who is a fool. Holy Virgin! how manytimes have I regretted having married such a blockhead as that. He sayshe cannot raise the drawbridge. To raise it three feet would be to gainthree hours. So I came to get Monsieur," she pointed at Barebone with asteady finger, "who has his wits on the top always and two hands at theend of his arms."
"But it is little use to raise the drawbridge," objected the Marquis."They will soon get a ladder and place it against the breach in the walland climb in."
"Not if I am on the wall who amuse myself with a hayfork, Monsieur leMarquis," replied Marie, with that exaggerated respect which implies aknowledge of mental superiority. She beckoned curtly to Loo and clattereddown the stairs, followed by Barebone. The others did not attempt to goto their assistance, and the Marquis de Gemosac had a hundred questionsto ask Colville.
The Englishman had little to tell of his own escape. There were so manymore important arrests to be made that the overworked police of Monsieurde Maupas had only been able to apportion to him a bungler whom Colvillehad easily outwitted.
"And Madame St. Pierre Lawrence?" inquired the Marquis.
"Madame quitted Paris on Tuesday for England under the care of JohnTurner, who had business in London. He kindly offered to escort heracross the Channel."
"Then she, at all events, is safe," said the Marquis, with a little waveof the hand indicating his satisfaction. "He is not brilliant, MonsieurTurner--so few English are--but he is solid, I think."
"I think he is the cleverest man I know," said Dormer Colville,thoughtfully. And before they had spoken again Loo Barebone returned.
He, like Marie, had grasped at once the serious aspect of the situation,whereas the Marquis succeeded only in reaching it with a superficialtouch. He prattled of the political crisis in Paris and bade his friendsrest assured that law and order must ultimately prevail. He even seemedto cherish the comforting assurance that Providence must in the endinterfere on behalf of a Legitimate Succession. For this old noble wasthe true son of a father who had believed to the end in that King whotalked grandiloquently of the works of Seneca and Tacitus while drivingfrom the Temple to his trial, with the mob hooting and yellingimprecations into the carriage windows.
The Marquis de Gemosac found time to give a polite opinion on John Turnerwhile the streets of Gemosac were being cleared by the cavalry fromSaintes, and the Gendarmerie, burning briskly, lighted up a scene ofbloodshed.
"We have raised the drawbridge a few feet," said Barebone; "but thechains are rusted and may easily be broken by a blacksmith. It will serveto delay them a few minutes; but it is not the mob we seek to keep out,and any organised attempt to break in would succeed in half an hour. Wemust go, of course."
He turned to Colville, with whom he had met and faced difficulties in thepast. Colville might easily have escaped to England with Mrs. St. PierreLawrence, but he had chosen the better part. He had undertaken a longjourney through disturbed France only to throw in his lot at the end ofit with two pre-condemned men. Loo turned to him as to one who had provedhimself capable enough in an emergency, brave in face of danger.
"We cannot stay here," he said; "the gates will serve to give us anhour's start, but no more. I suppose there is another way out of thechateau."
"There are two ways," answered the Marquis. "One leads to a house in thetown and the other emerges at the mill down below the walls. But, alas!both are lost sight of. My ancestors--"
"I know the shorter one," put in Juliette, "the passage that leads to themill. I can show you the entrance to that, which is in the crypt of thechapel, hidden behind the casks of wine."
She spoke to Barebone, only half-concealing, as Marie
had done, the factthat the great respect with which the Marquis de Gemosac was treated wasartificial, and would fall to pieces under the strain of an emergency--afaint echo of the old regime.
"When you are gone," the girl continued, still addressing Barebone,"Marie and I can keep them out at least an hour--probably more. We may beable to keep them outside the walls all night, and when at last they comein it will take them hours to satisfy themselves that you are notconcealed within the enceinte."
She was quite cool, and even smiled at him with a white face.
"You are always right, Mademoiselle, and have a clear head," saidBarebone.
"But no heart?" she answered in an undertone, under cover of her father'sendless talk to Colville and with a glance which Barebone could notunderstand.
In a few minutes Dormer Colville pronounced himself ready to go, andrefused to waste further precious minutes in response to Monsieur deGemosac's offers of hospitality. No dinner had been prepared, for Mariehad sterner business in hand and could be heard beneath the windowsurging her husband to display a courage superior to that of a rabbit.Juliette hurried to the kitchen and there prepared a parcel of cold meatand bread for the fugitives to eat as they fled.
"We might remain hidden in a remote cottage," Barebone had suggested toColville, "awaiting the development of events, but our best chance is'The Last Hope.' She is at Bordeaux, and must be nearly ready for sea."
So it was hurriedly arranged that they should make their way on foot to acottage on the marsh while Jean was despatched to Bordeaux with a letterfor Captain Clubbe.
"It is a pity," said Marie, when informed of this plan, "that it is not Iwho wear the breeches. But I will make it clear to Jean that if he failsto carry out his task he need not show his face at the gate again."
The Marquis ran hither and thither, making a hundred suggestions, whichwere accepted in the soothing manner adopted toward children. He assuredJuliette that their absence would be of short duration; that there wasindeed no danger, but that he was acceding to the urgent persuasions ofBarebone and Colville, who were perhaps unnecessarily alarmed--who didnot understand how affairs were conducted in France. He felt assured thatlaw and order must prevail.
"But if they have put Albert de Chantonnay in prison, why should you besafe?" asked Juliette. To which the Marquis replied with a meaning cacklethat she had a kind heart, and that it was only natural that it should beoccupied at that moment with thoughts of that excellent young man who, inhis turn, was doubtless thinking of her in his cell at La Rochelle.
Which playful allusion to Albert de Chantonnay's pretensions was receivedby their object with a calm indifference.
"When Jean returns," she said, practically, "I will send him to you atthe Bremonts' cottage with food and clothing. But you must not attempt tocommunicate with us. You would only betray your whereabouts and do nogood to us. We shall be quite safe in the chateau. Marie and I and MadameMaugiron are not afraid."
At which the Marquis laughed heartily. It was so amusing to think thatone should be young and pretty--and not afraid. In the mean time Barebonewas sealing his letter to Captain Clubbe. He had written it in theSuffolk dialect, spelling all the words as they are pronounced on thatcoast and employing when he could the Danish and Dutch expressions indaily use on the foreshore, which no French official seeking to translatecould find in any dictionary.
Loo gave his instructions to Jean himself, who received them in a silencenot devoid of intelligence. The man had been round the walls and reportedthat nothing stirred beneath them; that there was more than one fire inthe town, and that the streets appeared to be given over to disorder andriot.
"It is assuredly a change in the Government," he explained, simply. "Andthere will be many for Monsieur l'Abbe to bury on Sunday."
Jean was to accompany them to the cottage of an old man who had oncelived by ferrying the rare passenger across the Gironde. Having left themhere, he could reach Blaye before daylight, from whence a passage up theriver to Bordeaux would be easily procurable.
The boatman's cottage stood on the bank of a creek running into theGironde. It was a lone building hidden among the low dunes that liebetween the river and the marsh. Any one approaching it by daylight wouldbe discernible half an hour in advance, and the man's boat, though old,was seaworthy. None would care to cross the lowlands at night exceptunder the guidance of one or two, who, like Jean, knew their way even inthe dark.
Colville and Barebone had to help Jean to move the great casks stored inthe crypt of the old chapel by which the entrance to the passage wasmasked.
"It is, I recollect having been told, more than a passage--it is a ramp,"explained the Marquis, who stood by. "It was intended for the passage ofhorses, so that a man might mount here and ride out into the mill-stream,actually beneath the mill-wheel which conceals the exit."
Juliette, a cloak thrown over her evening dress, had accompanied them andstood near, holding a lantern above her head to give them light. It wasan odd scene--a strange occupation for the last of the de Gemosacs.Through the gaps in the toppling walls they could hear the roar of voicesand the occasional report of a firearm in the streets of the town below.The door opened easily enough, and Jean, lighting a candle, led the way.Barebone was the last to follow. Within the doorway he turned to saygood-bye. The light of the lantern flickered uncertainly on Juliette'sfair hair.
"We may be back sooner than you expect, mademoiselle," said Barebone.
"Or you may go--to England," she answered.