Uncle Bernac - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (books to read this summer .TXT) 📗

having them restored to you.'

'No, Sire. It is my ambition to make a career for myself.'

'It is a prouder thing,' said the Emperor, 'to found a family than merely to perpetuate one. I could not restore your estates, Monsieur de Laval, for things have come to such a pitch in France that if one once begins restorations the affair is endless. It would shake all public confidence. I have no more devoted adherents than the men who hold land which does not belong to them. As long as they serve me, as your uncle serves me, the land must remain with them. But what can this young lady require of me? Show her in, Constant!'

An instant later my cousin Sibylle was conducted into the room. Her face was pale and set, but her large dark eyes were filled with resolution, and she carried herself like a princess.

'Well, mademoiselle, why do you come here? What is it that you want?' asked the Emperor in the brusque manner which he adopted to women, even if he were wooing them.

Sibylle glanced round, and as our eyes met for an instant I felt that my presence had renewed her courage. She looked bravely at the Emperor as she answered him.

'I come, Sire, to implore a favour of you.'

'Your father's daughter has certainly claims upon me, mademoiselle. What is it that you wish?'

'I do not ask it in my father's name, but in my own. I implore you, Sire, to spare the life of Monsieur Lucien Lesage, who was arrested yesterday upon a charge of treason. He is a student, Sire--a mere dreamer who has lived away from the world and has been made a tool by designing men.'

'A dreamer!' cried the Emperor harshly. 'They are the most dangerous of all.' He took a bundle of notes from his table and glanced them over. 'I presume that he is fortunate enough to be your lover, mademoiselle?'

Sibylle's pale face flushed, and she looked down before the Emperor's keen sardonic glance.

'I have his examination here. He does not come well out of it. I confess that from what I see of the young man's character I should not say that he is worthy of your love.'

'I implore you to spare him, Sire.'

'What you ask is impossible, mademoiselle. I have been conspired against from two sides--by the Bourbons and by the Jacobins. Hitherto I have been too long-suffering, and they have been encouraged by my patience. Since Cadoudal and the Due d'Enghien died the Bourbons have been quiet. Now I must teach the same lesson to these others.'

I was astonished and am still astonished at the passion with which my brave and pure cousin loved this cowardly and low-minded man, though it is but in accordance with that strange law which draws the extremes of nature together. As she heard the Emperor's stern reply the last sign of colour faded from her pale face, and her eyes were dimmed with despairing tears, which gleamed upon her white cheeks like dew upon the petals of a lily.

'For God's sake, Sire! For the love of your mother spare him!' she cried, falling upon her knees at the Emperor's feet. 'I will answer for him that he never offends you again.'

'Tut, tut!' cried Napoleon angrily, turning upon his heel and walking impatiently up and down the room. 'I cannot grant you what you ask, mademoiselle. When I say so once it is finished. I cannot have my decisions in high matters of State affected by the intrusion of women. The Jacobins have been dangerous of late, and an example must be made or we shall have the Faubourg St. Antoine upon our hands once more.'

The Emperors set face and firm manner showed it was hopeless, and yet my cousin persevered as no one but a woman who pleads for her lover would have dared to do.

'He is harmless, Sire.'

'His death will frighten others.'

'Spare him and I will answer for his loyalty.'

'What you ask is impossible.'

Constant and I raised her from the ground.

'That is right, Monsieur de Laval,' said the Emperor. 'This interview can lead to nothing. Remove your cousin from the room!'

But she had again turned to him with a face which showed that even now all hope had not been abandoned.

'Sire,' she cried. 'You say that an example must be made. There is Toussac--!'

'Ah, if I could lay my hands upon Toussac!'

'He is the dangerous man. It was he and my father who led Lucien on. If an example must be made it should be an example of the guilty rather than of the innocent.'

'They are both guilty. And, besides, we have our hands upon the one but not upon the other.'

'But if I could find him?'

Napoleon thought for a moment.

'If you do,' said he, 'Lesage will be forgiven!'

'But I cannot do it in a day.'

'How long do you ask?'

'A week at the least.'

'Then he has a respite of a week. If you can find Toussac in the time, Lesage will be pardoned. If not he will die upon the eighth day. It is enough. Monsieur de Laval, remove your cousin, for I have matters of more importance to attend to. I shall expect you one evening at the Pont de Briques, when you are ready to be presented to the Empress.'


CHAPTER XIII

THE MAN OF DREAMS

When I had escorted my cousin Sibylle from the presence of the Emperor, I was surprised to find the same young hussar officer waiting outside who had commanded the guard which had brought me to the camp.

'Well, mademoiselle, what luck?' he asked excitedly, clanking towards us.

For answer Sibylle shook her head.

'Ah, I feared as much, for the Emperor is a terrible man. It was brave, indeed, of you to attempt it. I had rather charge an unshaken square upon a spent horse than ask him for anything. But my heart is heavy, mademoiselle, that you should have been unsuccessful.' His boyish blue eyes filled with tears and his fair moustache drooped in such a deplorable fashion, that I could have laughed had the matter been less serious.

'Lieutenant Gerard chanced to meet me, and escorted me through the camp,' said my cousin. 'He has been kind enough to give me sympathy in my trouble.'

'And so do I, Sibylle,' I cried; 'you carried yourself like an angel, and it is a lucky man who is blessed with your love. I trust that he may be worthy of it.'

She turned cold and proud in an instant when anyone threw a doubt upon this wretched lover of hers.

'I know him as neither the Emperor nor you can do,' said she. 'He has the heart and soul of a poet, and he is too high-minded to suspect the intrigues to which he has fallen a victim. But as to Toussac, I should have no pity upon him, for I know him to be a murderer five times over, and I know also that there will be no peace in France until he has been taken. Cousin Louis, will you help me to do it?'

The lieutenant had been tugging at his moustache and looking me up and down with a jealous eye.

'Surely, mademoiselle, you will permit me to help you?' he cried in a piteous voice.

'I may need you both,' said she. 'I will come to you if I do. Now I will ask you to ride with me to the edge of the camp and there to leave me.'

She had a quick imperative way which came charmingly from those sweet womanly lips. The grey horse upon which I had come to the camp was waiting beside that of the hussar, so we were soon in the saddle. When we were clear of the huts my cousin turned to us.

'I had rather go alone now,' said she. 'It is understood, then, that I can rely upon you.'

'Entirely,' said I.

'To the death,' cried Gerard.

'It is everything to me to have two brave men at my back,' said she, and so, with a smile, gave her horse its head and cantered off over the downland in the direction of Grosbois.

For my part I remained in thought for some time, wondering what plan she could have in her head by which she hoped to get upon the track of Toussac. A woman's wit, spurred by the danger of her lover, might perhaps succeed where Fouche and Savary had failed. When at last I turned my horse I found my young hussar still staring after the distant rider.

'My faith! There is the woman for you, Etienne!' he kept repeating. 'What an eye! What a smile! What a rider! And she is not afraid of the Emperor. Oh, Etienne, here is the woman who is worthy of you!'

These were the little sentences which he kept muttering to himself until she vanished over the hill, when he became conscious at last of my presence.

'You are mademoiselle's cousin?' he asked. 'You are joined with me in doing something for her. I do not yet know what it is, but I am perfectly ready to do it.'

'It is to capture Toussac.'

'Excellent!'

'In order to save the life of her lover.'

There was a struggle in the face of the young hussar, but his more generous nature won.

'Sapristi! I will do even that if it will make her the happier!' he cried, and he shook the hand which I extended towards him. 'The Hussars of Bercheny are quartered over yonder, where you see the lines of picketed horses. If you will send for Lieutenant Etienne Gerard you will find a sure blade always at your disposal. Let me hear from you then, and the sooner the better!' He shook his bridle and was off, with youth and gallantry in every line of him, from his red toupet and flowing dolman to the spur which twinkled on his heel.

But for four long days no word came from my cousin as to her quest, nor did I hear from this grim uncle of mine at the Castle of Grosbois. For myself I had gone into the town of Boulogne and had hired such a room as my thin purse could afford over the shop of a baker named Vidal, next to the Church of St. Augustin, in the Rue des Vents. Only last year I went back there under that strange impulse which leads the old to tread once more with dragging feet the same spots which have sounded to the crisp tread of their youth. The room is still there, the very pictures and the plaster head of Jean Bart which used to stand upon the side table. As I stood with my back to the narrow window, I had around me every smallest detail upon which my young eyes had looked; nor was I conscious that my own heart and feelings had undergone much change. And yet there, in