Part 17 (2/2)
”It is clear,” said M. d'Anquetil, ”that we are in danger: I of being sent to the Bastille, you, abbe, together with your pupil, Tournebroche, who certainly has not killed anybody, of being hanged.”
”That's but too true,” said my good master. ”We have to look out for safety. Perhaps it will be necessary to leave Paris, where, no doubt, we shall be wanted; and even to fly to Holland. Alas! I foresee that there I shall write lampoons for ballet girls with that same hand which has been employed to annotate right amply the alchemistic treatises of Zosimus the Panopolitan.”
”Listen to me, abbe,” said M. d'Anquetil, ”I have a friend who will hide us at his country seat for any length of time. He lives within four miles of Lyons, in a country horrid and wild, where nothing is to be seen but poplars, gra.s.s and woods. There we must go. There we'll wait till the storm is over. We'll pa.s.s the time hunting and shooting. But we must at once find a post-chaise or, better still, a travelling coach.”
”I know where to get that,” said the abbe. ”At the _Red Horse_ hotel, at the Circus of the Bergeres, you can have good horses, as well as all sorts of vehicles. I made the acquaintance of the landlord at the time I was secretary to Madame de Saint Ernest. He liked to oblige people of quality. I am not quite sure if he is still alive, but he ought to have a son like himself. Have you money?”
”I have with me a rather large sum,” replied M. d'Anquetil, ”and I am glad of it, as I cannot dream of going home, where the constables will not fail to be on the lookout to arrest and conduct me to the Chatelet.
I forgot my servants, whom I left in Catherine's house, and I do not know what has become of them. I thrashed them, and never paid their wages, and withal I am not sure of their fidelity. In whom can you have confidence? Let's be off at once for the Circus of the Bergeres.”
”Sir,” said the abbe, ”I'll make you a proposal, hoping it may be agreeable to you. We are living, Tournebroche and I, in an alchemistic and ramshackle castle at the Cross of the Sablons, where we can easily stay for a dozen hours without being seen by anyone. There we will take you and wait quietly till our carriage is ready. The advantage is that the Sablons is very near the Circus of the Bergeres.”
M. d'Anquetil had nothing against the abbe's proposal, and so we resolved in front of the Triton, who blew the water out of his fat cheeks, to go first to the Cross of the Sablons, and to hire, later on, at the _Red Horse_ hotel, a travelling coach for our journey to Lyons.
”I want to inform you, gentlemen,” said my dear tutor, ”that of the three bottles I took care to carry with me, one was broken on the head of M. de la Gueritude, another one was smashed in my pocket during my flight. They are both regretted. The third, against all hope, has been preserved. Here it is!”
Pulling it out of his pocket, he placed it on the edge of the fountain.
”That's well,” sail M, d'Anquetil. ”You have some wine, I have dice and cards in my pocket. We can play.”
”It is true,” said my good master, ”that is a pleasant pastime. A pack of cards is a book of adventure, of the kind called romances. It is so far superior to other books of a similar kind that it can be made and read at the same time, and that it is not necessary to have brains to make it, nor knowledge of reading to read it. It is a marvellous work, also, in that it offers a regular and new sense every time its pages are shuffled. It is a contrivance never to be too much admired, because out of mathematical principles it extracts thousands on thousands of curious combinations, and so many singular affinities that it is believed, contrary to all truth, that in it are discoverable the secrets of hearts, the mystery of destinies and the arcanum of the future. What I have said is particularly applicable to the tarot of the Bohemians, which is the finest of all games, piquet not excepted. The invention of cards must be ascribed to the ancients, and as far as I am concerned--I have, to speak candidly, no kind of doc.u.mentary evidence for my a.s.sertion--I believe them to be of Chaldean origin. But in their present appearance the piquet cards cannot be traced further back than to King Charles VII., if what is said in a learned essay, that I remember to have read at Seez, is true, that the queen of hearts is an emblematical likeness of the beautiful Agnes Sorel, and that the queen of spades is, under the name of Pallas, no other than that Jeanne Dulys, better known as Joan of Arc, who by her bravery re-established the business of the French monarchy and was afterwards boiled to death by the English, in a cauldron, shown for two farthings at Rouen, where I have seen it in pa.s.sing through that city. Certain historians pretend that she was burnt alive at the stake. It is to be read in the works of Nicole Gilles and in Pasquier that St Catherine and St Margaret appeared to her. Certainly it was not G.o.d who sent these saints to her, because there is no person of any learning and solid piety who does not know that Margaret and Catherine were invented by Byzantine monks, whose abundant and barbarous imaginations have altogether muddled up the martyrology. It is a ridiculous impiety to pretend that G.o.d made two saints who never existed appear to Jeanne Dulys. However, the ancient chroniclers were not afraid to publish it. Why have they not said that G.o.d sent to the Maid of Orleans the fair Yseult, Melusine, Berthe the Bigfooted, and all the other heroines of the romances of chivalry the existence of whom is not more fabulous that that of the two virgins, Catherine and Margaret?
M. de Valois, in the last century, rose with full reason against these clumsy fables, as much opposed to religion as error is to truth. It is desirable that an ecclesiastic learned in history undertook to show the distinction between real saints and saints such as Margaret, Luce or Lucie, Eustache, and perhaps Saint George, about whom I have my doubts.
”If on a future day I should be able to retire to some beautiful abbey, possessing a rich library, I will devote to this task the remainder of a life, half worn out in frightful tempests and frequent s.h.i.+pwrecks. I am longing for a harbour of refuge, and I have the desire and the taste for a chaste repose suitable to my age and profession.”
While M. Coignard was holding this memorable discourse, M. d'Anquetil, without listening to the abbe's words, was seated on the edge of the fountain, shuffling the cards and swearing like a trooper, because it was too dark to play a game of piquet.
”You are right,” said my good master; ”it is a bad light, and I am somewhat displeased over it, less because I cannot play cards than because I have a desire to read a few pages of the 'Consolations' of Boethius, of which I always carry a small edition, so as to have it handy when something unfortunate overcomes me, as has been the case this day. It is a cruel disgrace, sir, for a man of my calling to be a homicide, and liable at any moment to be locked up in one of the ecclesiastical prisons. I feel that a single page of that admirable book would strengthen my heart, crushed by the very idea of the officer.”
Having spoken, he let himself gently slide over the edge of the basin, so deep that the best part of his body went into the water. But not taking the slightest notice, and hardly feeling it, he took the Boethius out of his pocket--it was really there--and putting his spectacles on, wherein one gla.s.s only remained, and that one cracked in three places, he looked in the little book for the page most appropriate for his present situation. He doubtless would have found it, and extracted from it new strength, if the rotten state of his barnacles, the tears that came into his eyes, and the feeble light which came from the sky, had permitted him to search for it. Very soon he had to confess that he was unable to see a wink, and became angry with the moon, who showed her pointed sickle on the edge of a cloud. He reproached her and heaped bitter invectives on her. He shouted:
”Luminary obscene, mischievous and libidinous, you never tire of illuminating men's wickedness, and you deny a ray of your light to him who searches for virtuous maxims!”
”The more so, abbe, as this b.i.t.c.h of a moon gives just light enough to find our way along the streets, and not sufficient to play a game of piquet. Let's go at once to the castle you spoke of, where I have to slip in without being seen.”
That was good advice, and after we had drunk the wine to the last drop we took the road, all three of us, to the Cross of the Sablons. I walked with M. d'Anquetil. My good tutor, hindered by the water his breeches had soaked in, followed us, crying, moaning and disgusted.
CHAPTER XVIII
Our Return--We smuggle M. d'Anquetil in--M. d'Asterac on Jealousy--M.
Jerome Coignard in Trouble--What happened while I was in the Laboratory--Jahel persuaded to elope.
The morning light already p.r.i.c.ked our jaded eyes when we reached the green door to the park. We had not to use the knocker, as some time ago the porter had given us the keys of his domain. It was agreed that my good tutor, with d'Anquetil, should cautiously advance in the shadow of the lane, and that I should remain behind on the lookout for the faithful Criton, and the kitchen boys who might perhaps see us coming along. This arrangement, which was nothing but reasonable, was to turn out rather badly for me. My two companions had gone up without being discovered, and reached my room, where we had decided to hide M.
d'Anquetil until the moment of escape in the post-chaise, but as I was climbing the second flight of steps I met M. d'Asterac, in a red damask gown, carrying a silver candlestick. He put, as he habitually did, his hand on my shoulder.
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