The Rafael Sabatini Megapack. Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ are sixty-six Breton deputies in the Assembly. Should a vacancy occur, will you act as suppleant? A word from me together with the influence of your name in Rennes and Nantes, and the thing is done.”

      Andre-Louis laughed outright. “Do you know, Isaac, that I never meet you but you seek to thrust me into politics?”

      “Because you have a gift for politics. You were born for politics.”

      “Ah, yes—Scaramouche in real life. I’ve played it on the stage. Let that suffice. Tell me, Isaac, what news of my old friend, La Tour d’Azyr?”

      “He is here in Versailles, damn him—a thorn in the flesh of the Assembly. They’ve burnt his chateau at La Tour d’Azyr. Unfortunately he wasn’t in it at the time. The flames haven’t even singed his insolence. He dreams that when this philosophic aberration is at an end, there will be serfs to rebuild it for him.”

      “So there has been trouble in Brittany?” Andre-Louis had become suddenly grave, his thoughts swinging to Gavrillac.

      “An abundance of it, and elsewhere too. Can you wonder? These delays at such a time, with famine in the land? Chateaux have been going up in smoke during the last fortnight. The peasants took their cue from the Parisians, and treated every castle as a Bastille. Order is being restored, there as here, and they are quieter now.”

      “What of Gavrillac? Do you know?”

      “I believe all to be well. M. de Kercadiou was not a Marquis de La Tour d’Azyr. He was in sympathy with his people. It is not likely that they would injure Gavrillac. But don’t you correspond with your godfather?”

      “In the circumstances—no. What you tell me would make it now more difficult than ever, for he must account me one of those who helped to light the torch that has set fire to so much belonging to his class. Ascertain for me that all is well, and let me know.”

      “I will, at once.”

      At parting, when Andre-Louis was on the point of stepping into his cabriolet to return to Paris, he sought information on another matter.

      “Do you happen to know if M. de La Tour d’Azyr has married?” he asked.

      “I don’t; which really means that he hasn’t. One would have heard of it in the case of that exalted Privileged.”

      “To be sure.” Andre-Louis spoke indifferently. “Au revoir, Isaac! You’ll come and see me—13 Rue du Hasard. Come soon.”

      “As soon and as often as my duties will allow. They keep me chained here at present.”

      “Poor slave of duty with your gospel of liberty!”

      “True! And because of that I will come. I have a duty to Brittany: to make Omnes Omnibus one of her representatives in the National Assembly.”

      “That is a duty you will oblige me by neglecting,” laughed Andre-Louis, and drove away.

      CHAPTER IV

      AT MEUDON

      Later in the week he received a visit from Le Chapelier just before noon.

      “I have news for you, Andre. Your godfather is at Meudon. He arrived there two days ago. Had you heard?”

      “But no. How should I hear? Why is he at Meudon?” He was conscious of a faint excitement, which he could hardly have explained.

      “I don’t know. There have been fresh disturbances in Brittany. It may be due to that.”

      “And so he has come for shelter to his brother?” asked Andre-Louis.

      “To his brother’s house, yes; but not to his brother. Where do you live at all, Andre? Do you never hear any of the news? Etienne de Gavrillac emigrated years ago. He was of the household of M. d’Artois, and he crossed the frontier with him. By now, no doubt, he is in Germany with him, conspiring against France. For that is what the emigres are doing. That Austrian woman at the Tuileries will end by destroying the monarchy.”

      “Yes, yes,” said Andre-Louis impatiently. Politics interested him not at all this morning. “But about Gavrillac?”

      “Why, haven’t I told you that Gavrillac is at Meudon, installed in the house his brother has left? Dieu de Dieu! Don’t I speak French or don’t you understand the language? I believe that Rabouillet, his intendant, is in charge of Gavrillac. I have brought you the news the moment I received it. I thought you would probably wish to go out to Meudon.”

      “Of course. I will go at once—that is, as soon as I can. I can’t today, nor yet tomorrow. I am too busy here.” He waved a hand towards the inner room, whence proceeded the click-click of blades, the quick moving of feet, and the voice of the instructor, Le Duc.

      “Well, well, that is your own affair. You are busy. I leave you now. Let us dine this evening at the Café de Foy. Kersain will be of the party.”

      “A moment!” Andre-Louis’ voice arrested him on the threshold. “Is Mlle. de Kercadiou with her uncle?”

      “How the devil should I know? Go and find out.”

      He was gone, and Andre-Louis stood there a moment deep in thought. Then he turned and went back to resume with his pupil, the Vicomte de Villeniort, the interrupted exposition of the demi-contre of Danet, illustrating with a small-sword the advantages to be derived from its adoption.

      Thereafter he fenced with the Vicomte, who was perhaps the ablest of his pupils at the time, and all the while his thoughts were on the heights of Meudon, his mind casting up the lessons he had to give that afternoon and on the morrow, and wondering which of these he might postpone without deranging the academy. When having touched the Vicomte three times in succession, he paused and wrenched himself back to the present, it was to marvel at the precision to be gained by purely mechanical action. Without bestowing a thought upon what he was doing, his wrist and arm and knees had automatically performed their work, like the accurate fighting engine into which constant practice for a year and more had combined them.

      Not until Sunday was Andre-Louis able to satisfy a wish which the impatience of the intervening days had converted into a yearning. Dressed with more than ordinary care, his head elegantly coiffed—by one of those hairdressers to the nobility of whom so many were being thrown out of employment by the stream of emigration which was now flowing freely—Andre-Louis mounted his hired carriage, and drove out to Meudon.

      The house of the younger Kercadiou no more resembled that of the head of the family than did his person. A man of the Court, where his brother was essentially a man of the soil, an officer of the household of M. le Comte d’Artois, he had built for himself and his family an imposing villa on the heights of Meudon in a miniature park, conveniently situated for him midway between Versailles and Paris, and easily accessible from either. M. d’Artois—the royal tennis-player—had been amongst the very first to emigrate. Together with the Condes, the Contis, the Polignacs, and others of the Queen’s intimate council, old Marshal de Broglie and the Prince de Lambesc, who realized that their very names had become odious to the people, he had quitted France immediately after the fall of the Bastille. He had gone to play tennis beyond the frontier—and there consummate the work of ruining the French monarchy upon which he and those others had been engaged in France. With him, amongst several members of his household went Etienne de Kercadiou, and with Etienne de Kercadiou СКАЧАТЬ