The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini
royal family found shelter under the protection of the National Assembly.'
An awed silence ensued, broken presently by Monsieur's impatience.
'What else, sir? What else?'
'The Sections of Paris appear to be at present the masters of the State. It is doubtful if the National Assembly can stand against them. They control the populace. They direct its fury into such channels as seems best to them.'
'And that is all you know, sir? All you can tell us?'
'That is all, Monseigneur.'
The large prominent eyes continued to survey him, if without hostility, without kindliness.
'Who are you, sir? What is your name?'
'Moreau, Highness. André-Louis Moreau.'
It was a plebeian name, awakening no memories in that elegant, frivolous world of woefully short memories.
'Your condition, sir?'
For Kercadiou, Aline, and Madame de Plougastel the moment was charged with suspense. It was so easy for André-Louis to avoid, as they hoped, full revelation. But he showed himself contemptuous of subterfuge.
'Until lately, until a week ago, I represented the Third Estate of Ancenis in the National Assembly.'
He felt rather than perceived the horrified, inward recoil from him of every person present.
'A patriot!' said Monsieur, much as he might have said 'a pestilence.'
Monsieur de Kercadiou came breathlessly to his godson's rescue. 'Ah, but, Monsieur, one who has seen the error of his ways. One who is now proscribed. He has sacrificed everything to his sense of duty to me, his godfather. He has rescued Madame de Plougastel, my niece, and myself from that shambles.'
Monsieur looked at the Lord of Gavrillac, at the Countess of Plougastel, and, lastly, at Aline. He found Mademoiselle de Kercadiou's glance full of intercession, and it seemed to soften him.
'You would add, mademoiselle?' he invited gently.
She was troubled. 'Why ... why, only that considering his sacrifice, I hope that Monsieur Moreau will deserve well of your Highness. He cannot now return to France.'
Monsieur inclined his fleshly head. 'We will remember that only. That we are in his debt for this. It will lie with Monsieur Moreau to make it possible for us in the time that is fast approaching to discharge this debt.'
André-Louis said nothing. In the hostile eyes that were bent upon him from every side, his calm seemed almost insolent. Yet two eyes in that assembly considered him with interest and without hostility. They belong to a stiffly built man of middle height and not more than thirty years of age, plainly dressed without fripperies: a man with a humorous mouth above an aggressive chin, and a prominent nose flanked by lively, quick-moving dark eyes under heavy brows.
Presently, when the court had broken into groups to discuss this dreadful news from Paris, and André-Louis, ignored, had withdrawn into one of the window embrasures, this man approached him. He carried a three-cornered hat with a white cockade, tucked under his right arm. His left hand rested on the steel hilt of his slim sword.
He came to a halt before André-Louis.
'Ah, Monsieur Moreau! Or is it Citizen Moreau?'
'Why, which you please, monsieur,' said André-Louis, alert.
'"Monsieur" will accord better with our environment.' He spoke with a soft, slurred accent, almost like a Spaniard, thus proclaiming his Gascon origin. 'Once, unless my memory betrays me, you were better known by yet another title: The Paladin of the Third Estate, was it not?'
André-Louis was not abashed. 'That was in '89, at the time of the spadassinicides.'
'Ah!' The Gascon smiled. 'Your admission is of a piece with the rest. I am of those who can admire gallantry wherever found. I love a gallant enemy as I loathe a flabby friend.'
'You have also a taste for paradox.'
'If you will. You made me regret that I was not a member of the Constituent Assembly, so that I might have crossed blades with you when you made yourself the militant champion of the Third Estate.'
'You are tired of life?' said André-Louis, who began to mistrust the gentleman's motives.
'On the contrary, mon petit. I love life so intensely that I must be getting its full savour; and that is only to be got when it is placed in hazard. Without that' ... he shrugged, '... as well might one be born an ox.'
The declaration, thought André-Louis, was one that went excellently with the man's accent.
'You are from Gascony, monsieur,' he said.
Mock gravity overspread the other's intrepid countenance. 'Po' Cap de Diou!' he swore as if to leave no doubt on the score of his origin. 'Now that is an innuendo.'
'I am always accommodating. It is to help you on your way.'
'On my way? But on my way to what, name of God?'
'To live intensely by the thrill of placing your life in hazard.'
'You suppose that that is what I seek?' The Gascon laughed shortly. He fell to fanning himself with his hat. 'Almost you put me in a heat, sir.' He smiled. 'I see the train of thought: this enemy camp; the general hostility to your opinions overriding even the generous thing you have done. There is no graciousness at court, sir, as any fool may perceive once his eyes cease to be dazzled by the superficial glitter. You gather that I am no man of courts. Let me add that I am certainly not the bully-lackey of any party. I desired, sir, to become acquainted with you. That is all. I am a monarchist to the marrow of my bones, and I detest your republican principles. Yet I admired your championship of the Third even more than I abhorred the cause you championed. Paradoxical, as you say. I am like that. You bore yourself as I should have wished to bear myself in your place. Where the devil is the paradox after all?'
André-Louis was brought to the point of laughter. 'You meet my stupidity with graciousness, sir.'
'Pish! I am not gracious. I but desire our better acquaintance. My name is de Batz; Colonel Jean de Batz, Baron of Armanthieu, by Gontz, which is in Gascony, as you have guessed. Though how the devil you guessed it, God alone knows.'
Monsieur de Kercadiou was ambling towards them. The Baron made a leg, valedictorily. 'Monsieur!'
And 'Serviteur!' said André-Louis, with an answering courtesy.
CHAPTER III
BARON DE BATZ
André-Louis was annoyed; not hotly annoyed; he was never that; but coldly bitter. He expressed it without tact considering his audience.
'The more I see of the nobility, the better I like the canaille; the more I see of royalty, the more I admire the roture.'
They sat—André-Louis, Aline and Monsieur de Kercadiou—in the long narrow room appropriated by the Lord of Gavrillac on the first floor of the Three Crowns. It was a room entirely Saxon in character. There was no carpet on the waxed floor. The walls were lined in polished pine adorned with some trophies of the chase: a half-dozen stags' heads, with melancholy glass eyes, the mask of a boar with enormous tusks, a hunting-horn, an antiquated fowling-piece, and some other kindred odds and ends. On the oak table, from which a waiter had lately removed the remains of breakfast, stood a crystal bowl containing a great sheaf of roses with which some lilies had been intermingled.
These flowers provided one source of André-Louis's ill-humour. They had been brought from Schönbornlust an hour ago by a very elegant, curled, and pomaded gentleman, who announced himself as Monsieur de Jaucourt. He had delivered them with expressions of homage from Monsieur to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou, in the hope—so ran the royal message—that they might brighten the lodging