Honore de Balzac (21 page)

Giguet and the justice of peace rode so rapidly to Cinq-Cygne that
they met Laurence's servants returning from the festivities at Troyes.
Stopped, and taken before the mayor where they were interrogated, they
all stated, being ignorant of the importance of the answer, that their
mistress had given them permission to spend the whole day at Troyes.
To a question put by the justice of the peace, each replied that
Mademoiselle had offered them the amusement which they had not thought
of asking for. This testimony seemed so important to the justice of the
peace that he sent back a messenger to Gondreville to advise Lechesneau
to proceed himself to Cinq-Cygne and arrest the four gentlemen, while
he went to Michu's farm, so that the five arrests might be made
simultaneously.

This new element was so convincing that Lechesneau started at once for
Cinq-Cygne. He knew well what pleasure would be felt in Troyes at such
proceedings against the old nobles, the enemies of the people, now
become the enemies of the Emperor. In such circumstances a magistrate
is very apt to take mere presumptive evidence for actual proof.
Nevertheless, on his way from Gondreville to Cinq-Cygne, in the
senator's own carriage, it did occur to Lechesneau (who would certainly
have made a fine magistrate had it not been for his love-affair, and the
Emperor's sudden morality to which he owed his disgrace) to think the
audacity of the young men and Michu a piece of folly which was not in
keeping with what he knew of the judgment and character of Mademoiselle
de Cinq-Cygne. He imagined in his own mind some other motives for the
deed than the restitution of Gondreville. In all things, even in the
magistracy, there is what may be called the conscience of a calling.
Lechesneau's perplexities came from this conscience, which all men put
into the proper performance of the duties they like—scientific men into
science, artists into art, judges into the rendering of justice. Perhaps
for this reason judges are really greater safeguards for persons accused
of wrong-doing than are juries. A magistrate relies only on reason and
its laws; juries are floated to and fro by the waves of sentiment. The
director of the jury accordingly set several questions before his mind,
resolving to find in their solution satisfactory reasons for making the
arrests.

Though the news of the abduction was already agitating the town of
Troyes, it was still unknown at Arcis, where the inhabitants were
supping when the messenger arrived to summon the gendarmes. No one, of
course, knew it in the village of Cinq-Cygne, the valley and the chateau
of which were now, for the second time, encircled by gendarmes.

Laurence had only to tell Marthe, Catherine, and the Durieus not to
leave the chateau, to be strictly obeyed. After each trip to fetch the
gold, the horses were fastened in the covered way opposite to the breach
in the moat, and from there Robert and Michu, the strongest of the
party, carried the sacks through the breach to a cellar under the
staircase in the tower called Mademoiselle's. Reaching the chateau with
the last load about half-past five o'clock, the four gentlemen and Michu
proceeded to bury the treasure in the floor of the cellar and then to
wall up the entrance. Michu took charge of the matter with Gothard to
help him; the lad was sent to the farm for some sacks of plaster left
over when the new buildings were put up, and Marthe went with him to
show him where they were. Michu, very hungry, made such haste that by
half-past seven o'clock the work was done; and he started for home at
a quick pace to stop Gothard, who had been sent for another sack of
plaster which he thought he might want. The farm was already watched
by the forester of Cinq-Cygne, the justice of peace, his clerk and four
gendarmes who, however, kept out of sight and allowed him to enter the
house without seeing them.

Michu saw Gothard with the sack on his shoulder and called to him from a
distance: "It is all finished, my lad; take that back and stay and dine
with us."

Michu, his face perspiring, his clothes soiled with plaster and covered
with fragments of muddy stone from the breach, reached home joyfully and
entered the kitchen where Marthe and her mother were serving the soup in
expectation of his coming.

Just as Michu was turning the faucet of the water-pipe intending to wash
his hands, the justice of peace entered the house accompanied by his
clerk and the forester.

"What have you come for, Monsieur Pigoult?" asked Michu.

"In the name of the Emperor and the laws, I arrest you," replied the
justice.

The three gendarmes entered the kitchen leading Gothard. Seeing the
silver lace on their hats Marthe and her mother looked at each other in
terror.

"Pooh! why?" asked Michu, who sat down at the table and called to his
wife, "Give me something to eat; I'm famished."

"You know why as well as we do," said the justice, making a sign to his
clerk to begin the
proces-verbal
and exhibiting the warrant of arrest.

"Well, well, Gothard, you needn't stare so," said Michu. "Do you want
some dinner, yes or no? Let them write down their nonsense."

"You admit, of course, the condition of your clothes?" said the justice
of peace; "and you can't deny the words you said just now to Gothard?"

Michu, supplied with food by his wife, who was amazed at his coolness,
was eating with the avidity of a hungry man. He made no answer to
the justice, for his mouth was full and his heart innocent. Gothard's
appetite was destroyed by fear.

"Look here," said the forester, going up to Michu and whispering in his
ear: "What have you done with the senator? You had better make a clean
breast of it, for if we are to believe these people it is a matter of
life or death to you."

"Good God!" cried Marthe, who overheard the last words and fell into a
chair as if annihilated.

"Violette must have played us some infamous trick," cried Michu,
recollecting what Laurence had said in the forest.

"Ha! so you do know that Violette saw you?" said the justice of peace.

Michu bit his lips and resolved to say no more. Gothard imitated him.
Seeing the uselessness of all attempts to make them talk, and knowing
what the neighborhood chose to call Michu's perversity, the justice
ordered the gendarmes to bind his hands and those of Gothard, and take
them both to the chateau, whither he now went himself to rejoin the
director of the jury.

The four young men and Laurence were so hungry and the dinner so
acceptable that they would not delay it by changing their dress. They
entered the salon, she in her riding-habit, they in their white leather
breeches, high-top boots and green-cloth jackets, where they found
Monsieur d'Hauteserre and his wife, not a little uneasy at their long
absence. The goodman had noticed their goings and comings, and, above
all, their evident distrust of him, for Laurence had been unable to get
rid of him as she had of her servants. Once when his own sons evidently
avoided making any reply to his questions, he went to his wife and said,
"I am afraid that Laurence may still get us into trouble!"

"What sort of game did you hunt to-day?" said Madame d'Hauteserre to
Laurence.

"Ah!" replied the young girl, laughing, "you'll hear some day what a
strange hunt your sons have joined in to-day."

Though said in jest the words made the old lady tremble. Catherine
entered to announce dinner. Laurence took Monsieur d'Hauteserre's arm,
smiling for a moment at the necessity she thus forced upon her cousins
to offer an arm to Madame d'Hauteserre, who, according to agreement, was
now to be the arbiter of their fate.

The Marquis de Simeuse took in Madame d'Hauteserre. The situation was so
momentous that after the Benedicite was said Laurence and the young
men trembled from the violent palpitation of their hearts. Madame
d'Hauteserre, who carved, was struck by the anxiety on the faces of
the Simeuse brothers and the great alteration that was noticeable in
Laurence's lamb-like features.

"Something extraordinary is going on, I am sure of it!" she exclaimed,
looking at all of them.

"To whom are you speaking?" asked Laurence.

"To all of you," said the old lady.

"As for me, mother," said Robert, "I am frightfully hungry, and that is
not extraordinary."

Madame d'Hauteserre, still troubled, offered the Marquis de Simeuse a
plate intended for his brother.

"I am like your mother," she said. "I don't know you apart even by your
cravats. I thought I was helping your brother."

"You have helped me better than you thought for," said the youngest,
turning pale; "you have made him Comte de Cinq-Cygne."

"What! do you mean to tell me the countess has made her choice?" cried
Madame d'Hauteserre.

"No," said Laurence; "we left the decision to fate and you are its
instrument."

She told of the agreement made that morning. The elder Simeuse, watching
the increasing pallor of his brother's face, was momentarily on the
point of crying out, "Marry her; I will go away and die!" Just then, as
the dessert was being served, all present heard raps upon the window of
the dining-room on the garden side. The eldest d'Hauteserre opened it
and gave entrance to the abbe, whose breeches were torn in climbing over
the walls of the park.

"Fly! they are coming to arrest you," he cried.

"Why?"

"I don't know yet; but there's a warrant against you."

The words were greeted with general laughter.

"We are innocent," said the young men.

"Innocent or guilty," said the abbe, "mount your horses and make for
the frontier. There you can prove your innocence. You could overcome
a sentence by default; you will never overcome a sentence rendered
by popular passion and instigated by prejudice. Remember the words of
President de Harlay, 'If I were accused of carrying off the towers of
Notre-Dame the first thing I should do would be to run away.'"

"To run away would be to admit we were guilty," said the Marquis de
Simeuse.

"Don't do it!" cried Laurence.

"Always the same sublime folly!" exclaimed the abbe, in despair. "If I
had the power of God I would carry you away. But if I am found here
in this state they will turn my visit against you, and against me too;
therefore I leave you by the way I came. Consider my advice; you have
still time. The gendarmes have not yet thought of the wall which adjoins
the parsonage; but you are hemmed in on the other sides."

The sound of many feet and the jangle of the sabres of the gendarmerie
echoed through the courtyard and reached the dining-room a few moments
after the departure of the poor abbe, whose advice had met the same fate
as that of the Marquis de Chargeboeuf.

"Our twin existence," said the younger Simeuse, speaking to Laurence,
"is an anomaly—our love for you is anomalous; it is that very quality
which was won your heart. Possibly, the reason why all twins known to
us in history have been unfortunate is that the laws of nature are
subverted in them. In our case, see how persistently an evil fate
follows us! your decision is now postponed."

Laurence was stupefied; the fatal words of the director of the jury
hummed in her ears:—"In the name of the Emperor and the laws, I
arrest the Sieurs Paul-Marie and Marie-Paul Simeuse, Adrien and Robert
d'Hauteserre—These gentlemen," he added, addressing the men who
accompanied him and pointing to the mud on the clothing of the
prisoners, "cannot deny that they have spent the greater part of this
day on horseback."

"Of what are they accused?" asked Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, haughtily.

"Don't you mean to arrest Mademoiselle?" said Giguet.

"I shall leave her at liberty under bail, until I can carefully examine
the charges against her," replied the director.

The mayor offered bail, asking the countess to merely give her word of
honor that she would not escape. Laurence blasted him with a look which
made him a mortal enemy; a tear started from her eyes, one of those
tears of rage which reveal a hell of suffering. The four gentlemen
exchanged a terrible look, but remained motionless. Monsieur and Madame
d'Hauteserre, dreading lest the young people had practised some deceit,
were in a state of indescribable stupefaction. Clinging to their chairs
these unfortunate parents, finding their sons torn from them after
so many fears and their late hopes of safety, sat gazing before them
without seeing, listening without hearing.

"Must I ask you to bail me, Monsieur d'Hauteserre?" cried Laurence to
her former guardian, who was roused by the cry, clear and agonizing to
his ear as the sound of the last trumpet.

He tried to wipe the tears which sprang to his eyes; he now understood
what was passing, and said to his young relation in a quivering voice,
"Forgive me, countess; you know that I am yours, body and soul."

Lechesneau, who at first was much struck by the evident tranquillity in
which the whole party were dining, now returned to his former opinion
of their guilt as he noticed the stupefaction of the old people and the
evident anxiety of Laurence, who was seeking to discover the nature of
the trap which was set for them.

"Gentlemen," he said, politely, "you are too well-bred to make a useless
resistance; follow me to the stables, where I must, in your presence,
have the shoes of your horses taken off; they afford important proof of
either guilt or innocence. Come, too, mademoiselle."

The blacksmith of Cinq-Cygne and his assistant had been summoned by
Lechesneau as experts. While the operation at the stable was going on
the justice of peace brought in Gothard and Michu. The work of detaching
the shoes of each horse, putting them together and ticketing them, so as
to compare them with the hoof-prints in the park, took time. Lechesneau,
notified of the arrival of Pigoult, left the prisoners with the
gendarmes and returned to the dining-room to dictate the indictment.
The justice of peace called his attention to the condition of Michu's
clothes and related the circumstances of his arrest.