Part 22 (1/2)

”_Bonjour, monsieur._ We amuse ourselves well, and forget a little,”

said Du Vallon. ”Ah, the Vicomte de Courval! Enchanted to see you here.

Allow me to present Monsieur de Malerive. He is making a fortune with the ice-cream, but he condescends to give us a lesson now and then.

Gentlemen, the Vicomte de Courval.” The foils were lowered and men bowed. Scarce any knew him, but several came forward and said pleasant things, while, as they left to return to their fencing, Schmidt made his brief comments. ”That is the Chevalier Pontgibaud, Rene,--the slight man,--a good soldier in the American war. The Vicomte de Noailles is a partner of Bingham.”

”Indeed!” said Rene. ”He is in trade, as I am--a Noailles!”

”Yes; may you be as lucky. He has made a fortune, they say.”

”Take a turn with the marquis,” said Du Vallon. The marquis taught fencing. De Courval replied, ”With pleasure,” and the clatter of foils began again, while Du Vallon and Schmidt fell apart into quiet talk.

”The young man is a clerk and I hear has won credit and money. _Bon chien, bonne cha.s.se._ Do you know his story? Ah, my sad Avignon! La Rochefoucauld told me they killed his father; but of course you know all about it.”

”No, I have heard but little,” said Schmidt. ”I know only that his father was murdered. Des Aguilliers told me that; but as De Courval has not, does not, speak of it, I presume him to have his reasons. Pray let us leave it here.”

”As you please, _mon ami_.” But Du Vallon thought the German strangely lacking in curiosity.

The time pa.s.sed pleasantly. De Courval did better with Tiernay, who taught French to the young women and was in the shabby splendor of clothes which, like their owner, had seen better days.

They went away late. Yes, he was to have lessons from Du Vallon, who had courteously criticized his defense as weak. But the remedy had answered the German's purpose. Here was something to learn which as yet the young man did badly. The lessons went on, and Schmidt at times carried him away into the country with fowling-pieces, and they came home loaded with wood pigeons; and once, to De Courval's joy, from the Welsh hills with a bear on the back of their chaise and rattles for Pearl from what De Courval called the _serpent a sonnettes_--”a nice Jacobin snake, _Mademoiselle_.” And so the quiet life went on in the Quaker house with books, walks, and the round of simple duties, while the young man regained his former vigor.

The spring came in with flowers and blossoms in the garden, and, on the 21st of May, Citizen Genet was to arrive in this year of '93. The French frigate _Ambuscade_, lying in the river and hearing from Chester in due season, was to warn the republicans with her guns of the coming of the minister.

”Come,” said Schmidt, as the cas.e.m.e.nts shook with the signal of three cannon. ”Pearl said she would like to see it, and the farce will be good. We are going to be amused; and why not?”

”Will Friend de Courval go with us?” asked Margaret. Walks with the young woman were somehow of late not so easily had. Her mother had constantly for her some interfering duties. He was glad to go.

At the signal-guns, thousands of patriots gathered in front of the State House, and in what then was called the Mall, to the south of it. Schmidt and the young people paused on the skirts of the noisy crowd, where were many full of liquor and singing the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise” with drunken variations of the tune. ”A sight to please the devil of laughter,” said Schmidt. ”There are saints for the virtues, why not devils for men's follies? The mischief mill for the grinding out of French Jacobins from Yankee grain will not run long. Let us go on around the Mall and get before these foolish folk. Ah, to insult this perfect day of May with drunkenness! Is there not enough of gladness in the upspring of things that men must crave the flattery of drink?” He was in one of those moods when he was not always, as he said, understandable, and when his English took on queer ways.

Pausing before the gray jail at the corner of Delaware, Sixth Street, and Walnut, they saw the poor debtors within thrust out between the bars of the windows long rods with bags at the end to solicit alms. Schmidt emptied his pockets of s.h.i.+llings, and they went on, the girl in horror at the blasphemies of those who got no coin. Said Schmidt: ”Our friend Wynne lay there in the war for months. Ask Madam Darthea for the tale, De Courval. 'T is pretty, and worth the ear of attention. When I rule the world there will be no prisons. I knew them once too well.”

So rare were these glimpses of a life they knew not of that both young people, surprised, turned to look at him.

”Wert thou in jail, sir?” said the Pearl.

”Did I say so? Life is a jail, my good Margaret; we are all prisoners.”

The girl understood, and asked no more. Crossing the Potter's Field, now Was.h.i.+ngton Square, they leaped over the brook that ran through it from the northwest.

”Here below us lie the dead prisoners of your war, Pearl. The jail was safe, but now they are free. G.o.d rest their souls! There's room for more.” Scarcely was there room in that summer of '93. Pa.s.sing the Bettering House on Spruce Street Road, and so on and out to the Schuylkill, they crossed the floating bridge, and from the deep cutting where Gray's Lane descended to the river, climbed the slope, and sat down and waited.

Very soon across the river thousands of men gathered and a few women.

The bridge was lined with people and some collected on the bank and in the lane below them, on the west side of the stream.

Hauterive, the French consul at New York, and Mr. Duponceau and Alexander Dallas of the Democratic Club, stood near the water on the west end of the bridge, waiting to welcome Genet. ”I like it very well,”

said Schmidt; ”but the play will not run long.”

”Oh, they are coming!” cried Margaret. This was interesting. She was curious, excited and with her bonnet off, as De Courval saw, bright-eyed, eager, and with isles of color mysteriously pa.s.sing over her face, like rose clouds at evening.

A group of hors.e.m.e.n appeared on the top of the hill above them, one in front. ”Genet, I suppose,” said De Courval. A good-looking man, florid, smiling, the tricolor on the hat in his hand, he bowed to right and left, and honored with a special salute mademoiselle, near-by on the bank. He had the triumphant air of a very self-conscious conqueror.

Cheers greeted him. ”_Vive la republique!_ D----George Was.h.i.+ngton!