The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon. Alexandre Dumas

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       The father

      The next day, as three o’clock was striking on the pavilion clock, Hector de Sainte-Hermine knocked at the door of the Hôtel de Sourdis, whose lovely terrace, covered with orange trees and rose laurels, looked out over the Quai Voltaire. The door opened onto the Rue de Beaune. It was the great door, the door of honor. Another, smaller door, nearly invisible as it was painted the color of the wall, opened out onto the quay.

      The great door opened. The Swiss guard asked for the visitor’s name and allowed him to pass. A valet, alerted no doubt by Madame de Sourdis, was waiting in the antechamber. “Madame,” he said, “is not receiving today. But Mademoiselle is in the garden, and she offers her mother’s excuses to Monsieur le Comte.”

      The count followed the valet to the garden gate. “Follow this path,” the valet told him. “Mademoiselle is at the other end, under the jasmine arbor.”

      And indeed, beneath the rays of a lovely March sun, Claire, wrapped in an ermine cloak, seemed to be a bloom, like one of those first spring flowers we call snowdrops because they return so early. Spread out under her feet lay a thick Smyrna carpet to protect her light blue velvet slippers from the cold ground. When she noticed Sainte-Hermine, although she had been expecting him and had heard the clock strike three, her cheeks turned pink and hid for an instant how marvelously lily-white they were. She rose with a smile illuminating her face.

      Sainte-Hermine walked faster, and when he drew near, she pointed to where her mother was sitting at one of the drawing-room windows overlooking the garden. From there she could keep the two young people in sight, although she would not be able to hear a word they were saying. Sainte-Hermine bowed deeply to her, to show her both his thanks and his respect.

      Claire offered him a chair, and once he was seated, he spoke: “I shall not, mademoiselle, try to make you understand how happy I am to be able to talk freely alone with you for a moment. For a year I’ve been awaiting this moment, granted to me now by Heaven’s goodness, and upon it will depend the fortune or the misfortune of my entire life, although I’ve only been able truly to harbor such a hope for the last three days. You were kind enough to tell me at the ball that you noticed the anxiety I seemed to experience in your presence, as well as the pain and the joy you suspected were in my heart. I am going to tell you the cause of my anxieties, perhaps at greater length than necessary, but I cannot expect you to understand me unless I present you all the necessary details.”

      “Speak, monsieur,” said Claire. “Anything coming from you, you may be sure, will be worthy of my interest.”

      “We are—or rather, since I’m the only member of my family left, I should say, I am—from a noble family in the Juras. My father, a high-ranking officer under Louis XVI, was among those defending him on August 10. Only, instead of fleeing like all the princes and courtiers, he stayed, and even when the king was dead, he hoped that all was not lost and that they would be able somehow to help the queen escape from the Temple. To that end, he gathered together a large sum of money. Among the municipal guards he found a young man from the South—his name was Toulan—who had fallen in love with the queen and had pledged her his heart. My father resolved to join forces with Toulan, or rather to use his position as a guard in the Temple, to save the prisoner.

      “Then my oldest brother Léon de Sainte-Hermine, who was growing tired of being no use to the cause whose religion he had long espoused, solicited my father’s permission to leave France and serve in Condé’s army. Once he received that permission, he went directly to join the prince.

      “Meanwhile, my father made arrangements with Toulan. At that time, a large number of people, including several of the queen’s devoted servants, were still asking the municipal guards, on whom such favors depended, if they could see her. So, the guards would arrange for the queen’s friends to be in the path their noble prisoner would follow when she went down into the garden to get some fresh air, as she did twice a day. Sometimes, if the guard looked the other way, it was possible for the queen’s old devotées to exchange a word with her or even to slip her a note. It is true that they were risking their necks, but there are times when one’s neck counts for little.

      “Because Toulan had some obligation to my father and his gratitude to him thus coincided with his love for the queen, he agreed to allow my father and mother into the Temple. On the pretext of their wish to see the queen, my father and mother, dressed like rich Jura peasants, would come to the Temple, put on a Besançon accent, and ask for Monsieur Toulan. He, in turn, would place them somewhere on the queen’s path.

      “Among the prisoners in the Temple and the Royalists there was a whole system of signals that they employed to communicate as surely as did ships on the sea. On the day of my father and mother’s visit, as the queen was leaving her room, she found a wisp of straw leaning up against the wall, which meant: ‘Stay alert, someone is looking out for you.’ The queen had not immediately seen the straw; it was Madame Elisabeth, less preoccupied than she, who called it to the attention of her sister-in-law.

      “As soon as the two prisoners stepped into the garden, they noticed that Toulan was on duty. The queen counted on the poor young man’s love for her. She had bound him to her destiny with six words. On the sure chance that she’d see him one day on duty, she had written on a piece of paper that she always carried next to her bosom: Ama poco che teme la morte! (He who fears death loves little!) And one day she did see him, and she had slipped him the note. Even before he had read it, Toulan’s heart had leaped with joy. And after he’d read it, he had vowed that from that that day forward he was going to prove to the queen that he had no fear of death.

      “He placed my father and mother in the tower staircase so that the queen would hardly be able to pass without touching them. My mother was holding a lovely bouquet of carnations, and when the queen saw them, she cried out, ‘Oh, what lovely flowers, and how sweet they smell!’ My mother pulled out the most beautiful carnation and held it out to the queen, who looked inquiringly at Toulan for permission to accept it. Toulan nodded almost imperceptibly.

      “In ordinary circumstances, everything that was transpiring would have been quite unremarkable. But not in those extraordinary days when danger lay only a breath away. The queen suspected that a note might be hidden in the carnation’s calyx, and she quickly slipped the flower into the bodice of her dress. My mother the Comtesse de Sainte-Hermine held up well under the pressure, although during the exchange, my father told us, her face went paler and more sallow than the tower walls.

      “The queen had the courage not to cut short at all the time she usually spent walking in the garden and returned to her quarters at the usual hour. However, as soon as she was once again alone with the Madames Elisabeth and Royale, she pulled the flower from her bodice. And in fact, the calyx did contain a note written on silk paper in a tiny hand. It offered this consolation:

      Day after tomorrow, on Wednesday, ask to go down to the garden. They will allow you to do so with no difficulty, since orders have been given to allow you this favor whenever you ask. After walking around the garden three or four times, pretend to be tired. Go over to the canteen in the middle of the garden and ask Madame Plumeau if you can sit down.

      It is important for you to ask permission at exactly eleven o’clock in the morning so that your liberators can coordinate their movements with your own.

      Then, after a moment, pretend to be even weaker, and faint. The doors will be closed while help is summoned, and you will be alone with Madame Elisabeth and Madame Royale. Immediately the trapdoor to the cellar will open. Hurry down through the opening with your sister and daughter, and all three of you will be saved.

      “Three factors conjoined to instill confidence СКАЧАТЬ