The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
Emmanuel was bleating in horror. 'Chabot!'
'Bah!' said Junius at length. 'What, after all, can the marriage profit us? Shall we be foreigners any the less when it is made? Shall we be the less liable to these expropriations?'
De Batz smiled the smile of superior shrewdness. 'Evidently you have not perceived the possibilities. It might, indeed, be that the brothers-in-law of a representative of Chabot's consequence would never be regarded as foreigners; that no legislation against foreign property could be understood to include theirs. This may come to be the case. But I have something more solid and assured for you.'
'You will need to have, by Heaven!'
'Once your sister is married to Chabot, she, at least, will have ceased to be a foreigner. Marriage will bestow upon her the French nationality of her distinguished husband. Her funds will be in no danger of confiscation, whatever happens. Do you see how simple it becomes? You transfer to her—to her and Chabot—all your possessions, and that is the end of your difficulties.'
'The end of my difficulties!' Junius's deep voice went shrill in protest. 'You tell me that will be the end of my difficulties! I am to make over all my property to my sister, to my sister and her husband Chabot, and that makes me safe, does it? But at that rate, my friend, I might as well suffer confiscation.'
De Batz waved a hand to quiet him. 'You assume too much. The transfer I suggest need not amount to the surrender of a single franc. I have thought it out. In the marriage contract you enter into an engagement to pay Chabot's wife over a term of years certain sums which in the aggregate will amount to your total present possessions. Don't interrupt me, or we shall never be done. Such an engagement, absorbing all you possess, will leave nothing available for confiscation.'
Junius could contain himself no longer. 'You substitute one form of confiscation by another. Fine advice, as God lives!'
'I do nothing of the kind. Observe my words more closely. I say that you enter into an engagement to pay. I did not say that you actually pay.'
'Oh! And the difference?'
'The engagement is of no effect. You engage to donate. Now a donation, under our existing laws, is valid only if formally accepted. Léopoldine being a minor has no legal power to accept. The donation must be accepted for her by a guardian or trustee. You will overlook this legal necessity; and you may rest assured that the omission will never be noticed. Whilst, then, leaving the donation without validity, so that neither Chabot nor your sister could ever claim fulfilment, it will, nevertheless, create the appearances necessary to place your fortune beyond the reach of confiscation. That, my good friends, is the way to save it. And it is the only way.'
It was indeed, as Junius at last perceived. A guttural German oath was his intimation that the light of this revelation had momentarily dazzled him.
'Oh, but Léopoldine! My little Léopoldine!' Emmanuel was quavering in tearful protest.
Savagely Junius turned upon him. 'Don't distract me with your bleating!' He took a turn in the room, and came to halt with his shoulders to the overmantel and the clock of Sèvres biscuit. The earlier gloom had passed from his face. There was a lively keenness in his dark eyes. Thoughtfully he stroked his long, pendulous nose. 'It is the way. Undoubtedly it is the way,' he muttered. 'Oh, but one cannot hesitate to take it, provided that Chabot ...'
'I will answer for Chabot. The prospect of so much wealth will bring him to your will. Be sure of that. If more is necessary, remind him that the looseness of his frequent amours is putting a weapon into the hands of his enemies. The day of aristocratic vice is overpast. The people demands purity of life in its representatives. He must not lie exposed to scandal. It is time he sought refuge from it in matrimony. That is the second argument. The third is Léopoldine herself.'
Junius nodded his big head. Emmanuel regarded him in distress, without daring to protest again.
CHAPTER XXVIII
LÉOPOLDINE
The Baron de Batz came back to the Rue de Ménars, to find André-Louis in shirt-sleeves, writing the closing words of his encomium on Chabot. He was in high spirits, the result of fruitful concentration.
'I have endowed François Chabot with all the virtues of Brutus, Cicero and Lycurgus.' There was a sparkle in the dark eyes, a flush on the lean face as he flung down his pen. 'A great morning's work!'
But de Batz accounted his own labours of greater consequence. 'Whilst you have been merely praising Chabot, I have been marrying him.'
With a touch of pride he reported his transaction with the Freys. He was met by stark dismay.
'You have done this? Without consulting me?'
De Batz was not only disappointed of the praise for which he had looked; he was piqued.
'Without consulting you? Am I to consult you upon every step I take?'
'It would be more prudent, and more courteous. I have consulted you at every step.'
There was argument upon this, and it began to assume a tone of acerbity. De Batz set himself to point out all the advantages which this marriage must bring to the campaign they were conducting. André-Louis broke in upon these indications.
'I know all that. I perceive it all. But the means! It is with the means that I am quarrelling. There is a limit to those we may employ. A limit imposed by decency, which no cynicism may overstep.'
'On my soul, this comes well from you! You shrink from cynicism? You? Why, what the devil ails you?'
'We'll play this game without using that unfortunate child as a pawn in it.'
De Batz passed from amazement to amazement. 'Of what account is she?'
André-Louis smote the table with his open palm. 'She has a soul. I do not traffic in souls.'
'I could tell you of others who possess souls. Others whom you hound relentlessly. Has Chabot no soul, or Delaunay, or Julien, or the Freys, or that fellow Burlandeux whom you sent to the guillotine without a twinge of conscience? Or Julie Berger with whom you would have dealt in the same way?'
'Those persons are vile. I give them what they seek. Burlandeux wanted blood. He got it. His own. But why quibble? Will you compare the beasts we are engaged in exterminating with this poor, inoffensive child?'
And now de Batz, remembering a moment in the courtyard of the Rue d'Anjou, broke into laughter and derision.
'I see, I see! The little partridge, as Chabot calls her, was to be preserved for you. I am sorry, my friend. But we are the servants of a cause that admits of no such personal considerations.'
André-Louis came to his feet. He was white with anger.
'Another word in this strain, and we quarrel, Jean.'
Swift as lightning came the peppery Gascon's riposte: 'That is a thing I never avoid.'
Their breathing slightly quickened, they eyed each other with defiance whilst a man might count to twelve. André-Louis was the first to master himself. He turned aside.
'This way lies madness, Jean. It is not for you and me, surrounded as we are by dangers, any one of which may at any moment send either of us to the guillotine, to set up a quarrel.'
'The word was yours,' said the Baron.
'Perhaps it was. You stung me with your imputation of base motives. It seemed an offence less against me than against someone who is to me an inspiration. To imply that I should be wanting in fidelity ...' He broke off. De Batz was surveying him with a surprise that was faintly cynical. 'It is the thought of her, who is pure and spotless, as I am sure is this poor child of the Freys, that makes the prospect horrible. If there were any such conspiracy against my Aline! I contemplate the agony to her, and grow the more conscious of the agony involved for little Léopoldine.