The Regent's Daughter - Alexandre Dumas père (ink book reader .TXT) 📗

not mistaken; from day to day, from this day to the next, there is a chance of a terrible event. I must tell you now, Helene, what I can offer you. If I succeed, a high and powerful position; but if I fail, flight, exile, it may be poverty. Do you love me enough, Helene, or rather do you love your honor enough, to brave all this and follow me?"

"I am ready, Gaston; tell me to follow you, and I do so."

"Well, Helene, your confidence shall not be displaced, believe me; I will take you to a person who will protect you, if necessary, and who, in my absence, will replace the father you thought to find, but whom you have, on the contrary, lost a second time."

"Who is this person, Gaston? This is not distrust," added Helene, with a charming smile, "but curiosity."

"Some one who can refuse me nothing, Helene, whose days are dependent on mine, and who will think I demand small payment when I exact your peace and security."

"Still mysterious, Gaston: really, you frighten me."

"This secret is the last, Helene; from this moment my whole life will be open to you."

"I thank you, Gaston."

"And now I am at your orders, Helene."

"Let us go then."

Helene took the chevalier's arm, and crossed the drawing-room, where sat Madame Desroches, pale with anger, and scrawling a letter, whose destination we can guess.

"Mon Dieu! mademoiselle, where are you going? what are you doing?"

"I am going away from a house where my honor is threatened."

"What!" cried the old lady, springing to her feet, "you are going away with your lover."

"You are mistaken, madame," replied Helene, in an accent of dignity, "it is with my husband."

Madame Desroches, terrified, let her hands fall by her side, powerless.

"You shall not go, mademoiselle, even if I am forced to use violence."

"Try, madame," said Helene, in the queenly tone which seemed natural to her.

"Hola, Picard, Coutourier, Blanchet."

The servants appeared.

"The first who stops me I kill," said Gaston quietly, as he drew his sword.

"What a will," cried Madame Desroches; "ah, Mesdemoiselles de Chartres and de Valois, I recognize you there."

The two young people heard this exclamation, but did not understand it.

"We are going, madame," said Helene; "do not forget to repeat, word by word, what I told you."

And, hanging on Gaston's arm, flushed with pleasure and pride, brave as an ancient Amazon, the young girl ordered that the door should be opened for her; the Swiss did not dare to resist. Gaston took Helene by the hand, summoned the carriage in which he had come, and seeing that he was to be followed, he stepped toward the assailants, and said in a loud voice:

"Two steps further, and I tell this history aloud, and place myself and mademoiselle under the safeguard of the public honor."

Madame Desroches believed that Gaston knew the mystery, and would declare it: she therefore thought best to retire quickly, followed by the servants.

The intelligent driver started at a gallop.


CHAPTER XXI.

WHAT PASSED IN THE RUE DU BAC WHILE WAITING FOR GASTON.

"What, monseigneur, you here!" cried Dubois, entering the room of the house in the Rue du Bac, and finding the regent seated in the same place as on the previous day.

"Yes; is there anything wonderful in that? Have I not an appointment at noon with the chevalier?"

"But I thought the order you signed would have put an end to these conferences."

"You were mistaken, Dubois; I wish to have another interview with this young man. I shall make one more effort to induce him to renounce his plans."

"And if he should do so?"

"Then all will be at an end--there will be no conspiracy--there will have been no conspirators. I cannot punish intentions."

"With any other I should not allow this; but with him I say, as you please."

"You think he will remain firm?"

"Oh! I am quite easy. But when he has decidedly refused, when you are quite convinced that he persists in his intention of assassinating you, then you will give him over to me, will you not?"

"Yes, but not here."

"Why not here?"'

"Better to arrest him at his hotel."

"There, at the Muids d'Amour, with Tapin and D'Argenson's people--impossible, monsieur. Bourguignon's affair is still in everybody's mouth in that quarter. I am not sure that they even quite believe in the attack of apoplexy, since Tapin now gives strict measure. It will be much better to arrest him as he leaves here, monseigneur; the house is quiet; four men could easily do it, and they are already here. I will move them, as you insist on seeing him; and, instead of arresting him as he enters, it must be done as he leaves. At the door a carriage shall be ready to take him to the Bastille; so that even the coachman who brings him here shall not know what has become of him. No one but Monsieur de Launay shall know; and I will answer for his discretion."

"Do as you please."

"That is my usual custom."

"Rascal that you are!"

"But I think monseigneur reaps the benefit of the rascality."

"Oh, I know you are always right."

"But the others?"

"What others?"

"The Bretons, Pontcalec, Du Couedic, Talhouet, and Montlouis?"

"Oh, the unfortunates; you know their names."

"And how do you think I have passed my time at the hotel Muids d'Amour?"

"They will know of their accomplice's arrest."

"How?"

"Having no letter from Paris, they will fear that something is wrong."

"Bah! Is not Captain la Jonquiere there to reassure them?"

"True; but they must know the writing?"

"Not bad, monseigneur, you are improving; but you take useless precautions, as Racine says. At this moment, probably, they are arrested."

"And who dispatched the order?"

"I. Pardieu! I am not your minister for nothing. Besides, you signed it."

"I! Are you mad?"

"Assuredly, these men are not less guilty than the chevalier; and in authorizing me to arrest one, you authorized me to arrest all."

"And when did the bearer of this order leave?"

Dubois took out his watch.

"Just three hours ago. Thus, it was a poetical license when I said they were all arrested; they will not be till to-morrow morning."

"Bretagne will be aroused, Dubois."

"Bah! I have taken measures."

"The Breton tribunals will not condemn their compatriots."

"That case is foreseen."

"And, if they should be condemned, none will be found to execute them. It will be a second edition of the affair at Chalais. Remember, it was at Nantes that _that_ took place, Dubois. I tell you, Bretons are unaccommodating."

"This is a point to settle with the commissioners, of whom this is a list. I will send three or four executioners from Paris--men accustomed to noble deeds--who have preserved the traditions of the Cardinal de Richelieu."

"Good God!" cried the regent; "bloodshed under my reign--I do not like it. As to Count Horn, he was a thief, and Duchaffour a wretch; but I am tender, Dubois."

"No, monseigneur, you are not tender; you are uncertain and weak; I told you so when you were my scholar--I tell you so again, now that you are my master. When you were christened, your godmothers, the fairies, gave you every gift of nature--strength, beauty, courage, and mind: only one--whom they did not invite because she was old, and they probably foresaw your aversion to old women--arrived the last, and gave you weakness--that spoiled all."

"And who told you this pretty tale? Perrault or St. Simon?"

"The princess palatine, your mother."

The regent laughed.

"And whom shall we choose for the commission?" asked he.

"Oh, monseigneur, people of mind and resolution, be sure; not provincials; not very sensitive to family scenes; men old in the dust of tribunals, whom the Breton men will not frighten with their fierce eyes, nor the Breton women seduce with their beautiful languid ones."

The regent made no reply.

"After all," continued Dubois, "these people may not be as guilty as we suppose. What they have plotted let us recapitulate. Bah! mere trifles. To bring back the Spaniards into France, what is that? To call Philip the Fifth king, the renouncer of his country; to break all the laws of the State--these good Bretons."

"Dubois, I know the national law as well as you."

"Then, monseigneur, if you speak truly, you have only to approve the nomination of the commissioners I have chosen."

"How many are there?"

"Twelve."

"Their names?"

Dubois gave in the list.

"Ah, you were right--a happy choice; but who is to preside over this amiable assembly?"

"Guess, monseigneur."

"Take care; you must have an honest man at the head of these ravagers."

"I have one."

"Who is it?"

"An ambassador."

"Cellamare, perhaps."

"Ma foi! I think if you would let him come out of Blois he would not refuse you even the heads of his accomplices."

"Let him stop at Blois. Who is to preside?"

"Chateau-Neuf."

"The ambassador from Holland, from the great king. Dubois, I do not generally compliment you, but this time you have done wonders."

"You understand, monseigneur: he knows that these people wish to make a republic; and he, who is brought up to know none but sultans, and who has a horror of Holland through the horror of Louis XIV. for republics, has accepted with a good grace. We shall have Argram for prosecutor. Cayet shall be our secretary. We go to work quickly and well, monseigneur, for time presses."

"But shall we at least have quiet afterward?"

"I believe so. We may sleep all day and all night; that is to say, when we have finished the war in Spain."

"Oh!" cried the regent, "why did I strive for the regency? I should laugh to see M. de Maine freeing himself with his Jesuits and his Spaniards! Madame de Maintenon and her politics, with Villeroy and Villars, would drive away the spleen; and Hubert says it is good to laugh once a day."

"Apropos of Madame de Maintenon," replied Dubois; "you know, monseigneur, that she is very ill, and that she cannot live a fortnight."

"Bah!"

"Since the imprisonment of Madame de Maine and the exile of her husband, she says that decidedly Louis XIV. is dead, and that she goes weeping to rejoin him."

"Which does not trouble you, eh?"

"Oh! I confess that I hate her cordially; it was she who made the king open his eyes so wide when I asked for the red hat at your marriage; and, corbleu! it was not an easy thing to arrange, monseigneur, as you know. If you had not been there to redress my wrongs, she would have spoiled my career. If I could but have crammed her M. de Maine into this Bretagne affair; but it was impossible--the poor man is half dead with fear, so that he says to every one he meets, 'Do you know there has been a conspiracy against the government of the king and against the person of the regent? it is a disgrace to France. Ah! if all men were only like me!'"

"No one would conspire--that is certain," said the regent.

"He