CHAPTER XVII.
THE GASCON GOES THROUGH FIRE AND WATER TO ATTRACT ATTENTION--THE BROTHER AND SISTER
During the stormy interview we have just narrated, the festivities were proceeding with unflagging splendour. The repast in the Bosquet de la Salle de Bal had finished, and the company were now thronging along the Tapis Vert, towards the Bassin de Neptune, whereon some magnificent fireworks were to be displayed. Beyond this the canal was illuminated by coloured lights placed round its edge, and quivering in the water by reflection; and a number of small boats, similarly decorated, passed to and fro, until they were almost lost in the distance. A species of vast tent, open towards the water, had been erected at the extremity of the Tapis Vert for the reception of Louis and his court; the inferior guests, who were not supposed to be sensible of any difference of temperature, stood about upon the grass, wherever the best view of the _feu d’artifice_ was to be obtained,--for to witness this portion of the fete the people were admitted to the gardens indiscriminately; the royal guard, however, forming a sufficiently impregnable barrier to keep them from intruding too closely upon the presence of the monarch and his favourites.
Amongst the crowd was Jean Blacquart, who had escaped from the abbe, and having discovered Maître Picard, was pressing forward to obtain a front place, where his martial dress and gay ribbons could be seen to the best advantage, even at the risk of being pushed into the basin. Several of his old acquaintances were near him--_bourgeoisie_ of the Quartier Latin, and students at the schools. Amongst these latter Philippe Glazer had mounted on to one of the urns, which stood on pedestals surrounding the basin, for the double purpose of obtaining a better view of the exhibition, and addressing, from time to time, those amongst the crowd whom he knew, and a great many more whom he did not; and as the court had not yet arrived, his verbal tournaments with such as he chose to joke with, or at, produced great mirth amongst the bystanders.
‘Maître Picard,’ cried Philippe, ‘take care of your feather; you are burning it against the lamp.’
The little bourgeois, who was below, turned hurriedly round, and took off his hat to look at it. Of course nothing was the matter. The people began to laugh.
‘Pardon, bourgeois,’ continued Philippe; ‘I mistook your red face for a flame, as it was reflected in your halberd. I forgot you had been used for a lamp yourself before now. Do you remember the “Lanterne” in the Rue Mouffetard? I’m afraid the rain almost put you out.’
‘_Polisson!_’ cried Maître Picard very angrily, as he recalled the adventure. ‘I shall trounce you and your graceless fellows yet. You will all come to the gallows.’
‘Of course we shall--the day you are hung,’ replied Glazer. ‘You may count upon our attendance.’
There was another burst of laughter from the bystanders, and Maître Picard waxed wrathful exceedingly. He turned the halberd upside down, and made a blow at Philippe with the long wooden handle of it. But the student, as he was perched upon the urn, caught up his sword in its scabbard, and warded off the blow, so that it was turned on one side, and the pikestaff descended with all its weight upon the head of Jean Blacquart, who was directly underneath, crushing his fine hat, and nearly sending him into the water.
‘_Ohé, messieurs!_’ shouted Philippe, without giving the bourgeois time to recover himself. ‘The King! the King! He is coming to the pavilion.’
‘The King! the King!’ echoed the people, imagining, from Glazer’s elevated position, that he could see what was going on. Maître Picard immediately bustled through the crowd, and the mob pushing after him effectually prevented him for the time from returning; which, however, he attempted to do as soon as he found the announcement was a false alarm.
‘That was a spiteful blow, Blacquart, and, of course, done on purpose,’ continued Philippe to the Gascon, who was, with a rueful countenance, rearranging his hat. ‘Maître Picard is jealous of you.’
‘The women certainly do come to the shop very often when I am sitting in the parlour,’ replied Jean, whose temper was smoothed at once by what he considered a compliment. ‘Madame Beauchesne, the young widow of the Rue Hautefeuille, is smitten, I am sure; but, betwixt ourselves, talks to Maître Picard as a cloak to her true sentiments. Mass! what a neck and shoulders she used to display!’
‘And why does she not now, Jean?’
‘_Pardieu!_ the _curé_ of Saint Etienne-du-Mont attacked her suddenly during mass for going to church _gorge découverte_. He told her from the pulpit that such display was wrong, for priests were mortal after all. How the congregation shouted again with laughter!’
‘I will swear that you are here to captivate some of the court ladies,’ continued Theria.
‘Nay, hardly that,’ replied the Gascon conceitedly, as he cocked his hat and drew himself up as high as he could; ‘although I did fancy De Montespan eyed me as I stood by the door in the theatre. She has a goodly presence.’
Glazer was about to make some reply, calculated to draw forth a fresh outpouring of Jean’s Gascon conceit, when he was interrupted by a stranger, who advanced hastily towards the spot where Blacquart was standing, and at once addressed him. His dress was little suited to the festival. He wore large riding-boots, which were dusty, as though he had just come from a journey. His dress too was disordered, his hair carelessly arranged, and his general appearance sufficiently marked to attract attention amongst the gay crowd about him, even in the semi-obscurity of the illumination.
‘Are you on guard here, monsieur?’ he said to Blacquart, scarcely noticing his eccentric accoutrements, which might have prevented him from asking the question.
Jean was flattered at being evidently taken for a real soldier. He boldly admitted at once that he was.
‘Can you tell me if the Marchioness of Brinvilliers is at Versailles this evening?’
‘She is,’ returned Jean. ‘I saw her arrive with Madame Scarron--de Maintenon, as they now call her. And not ten minutes back she crossed the Tapis Vert on the arm of M. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix.’
The stranger uttered a subdued oath, as Blacquart pronounced the name.
‘Which way were they going?’ he asked quickly.
‘Towards the pavilion,’ answered Jean. ‘I have no doubt you will find them there by this time.’
The new-comer returned no answer, but turning hastily away, passed on to the pavilion, which had been erected at the edge of the basin. It was hung with lamps, and he could discern the features of all the company who were assembled in it. His eye ran anxiously along the lines of plumed and jewelled head-dresses, until at last his glance fell upon Marie and Sainte-Croix, who were seated in a corner of the building near one of the entrances. He started slightly as he saw them; and then hurriedly tracing a few lines upon his tablets, he pointed the Marchioness out to one of the pages, who were in waiting at the pavilion, and told him to give the message to her. The boy immediately obeyed his orders. As the Marchioness read the note her features underwent a rapid change; but the next instant they recovered their wonted unfathomable calmness; and whispering a few words to Sainte-Croix, she rose from her seat and left the pavilion. Gaudin waited until she had quitted the building, and then, as if moved by a sudden impulse, followed her.
As she reached the outer entrance she found the stranger waiting to receive her. It was her brother. She held out her hand to greet him; but he refused to take it, and retreating a step or two, raised his hat, as he received her with a cold salute.
‘François!’ exclaimed the Marchioness; ‘what brings you here! Has anything happened to our father? Tell me!’
‘He is _dead_, Marie!’ replied her brother, with a solemn earnestness, that would have shivered the feelings of any other human being but the one he addressed. ‘I have left the body not an hour and a half ago, to bring you the intelligence in the midst of the heartless glitter of Versailles.’
‘Dead!’ repeated the Marchioness, feigning the same surprise with which she had received the self-same words from Sainte-Croix such a short time previously. ‘Dead! and I was not there!’
‘No, Marie!’ returned François d’Aubray; ‘and I come to find you at Versailles--in this licentious court, not with females in whom you might have confided your reputation, after what has already occurred, but with the man by whose wretched acquaintance with you the last days of your father’s life were poisoned.’
Marie started at the words: could it be possible that the cause of death was suspected?
‘Ay, poisoned,’ continued her brother, ‘as fatally as though real venom had been used, instead of this abandoned heartlessness.’
The Marchioness breathed again.
‘To whom do you refer?’ she asked coldly.
‘To Monsieur de Sainte-Croix,’ replied her brother.
‘Who is here to answer any charge you may have to make against him, monsieur,’ interrupted Gaudin, who just now joined the party.
‘You shall have the opportunity afforded you, monsieur,’ replied François d’Aubray; ‘but this is neither the time nor the place. Marie, you will return with me immediately to Paris.’
‘With you, François?’
‘This instant! I have your father’s dying words yet echoing in my brain, committing you to _our_ care. Are you ready?’
‘Surely the Marchioness of Brinvilliers is her own mistress?’ observed Gaudin, scarcely knowing how to act.
‘She will obey me, monsieur,’ replied the other. ‘Come, Marie; you know me.’
As he spoke he seized his sister’s arm, and bowing to Sainte-Croix, drew her away.
‘You still live in the Place Maubert, I believe,’ he continued: ‘you will receive a message from me in the morning. _Viens!_’
He spoke in a tone of authority that Marie felt was only to be disputed by an instant encounter between François and Sainte-Croix, where they were then standing. So, throwing an expression full of intense meaning to Gaudin, she allowed her brother to lead her along the Tapis Vert, towards the entrance of the palace. Gaudin saw them depart, and then going to the stables had his horse resaddled, and rode at a desperate pace back to Paris, passing the _calèche_ in which the Marchioness had been placed by her brother on the road.
Meanwhile the King and his immediate suite had arrived at the pavilion, and the fireworks were about to commence. Water-serpents and floating pieces of fire were already whizzing and spinning about on the surface of the basin; and one or two men had crossed the water from the opposite side of the fountain to the well-known group, where they were arranging the cases for the grand bouquet. Philippe saw this from his perch upon the urn, and determined to turn the Gascon’s vanity to some account.
‘Your dress is really very handsome, Jean,’ he observed. ‘It is a pity that its beauty is lost in the mob.’
‘I think so myself, indeed,’ replied Blacquart; ‘but I have been allowed no opportunity of showing it off. At court everything goes by interest; and--hem!--I can excuse a little jealousy on the part of the Garde Royale.’
‘Now, if they will let you light the _feu d’artifice_,’ said Philippe, ‘you will be seen by everybody.’
‘But how can I get to do it?’ asked Blacquart.
‘Come with me,’ said Glazer.
And tumbling from his post, purposely, on the head of Maître Picard, who had returned to his position, he shot amongst the crowd, before the bourgeois could contrive to aim another blow at him, and, followed by Jean, got to the other side of the fountain. Here he claimed acquaintance with one of the artificers, who, it appeared, had been under his care at the Hôtel Dieu with an accident; and by his interest Jean was furnished with a link, and directed what to do, being inducted into the group along a slight temporary bridge of boards.
In the interim before the grand piece was lighted, Jean arranged and rearranged his cloak and hat a hundred times; and when at last he applied the light to the quickmatch, and the horses began to blow out fire from their nostrils, apparently in the centre of the water, and the points of Neptune’s trident also went off in a brilliant discharge of sparks, Jean was in ecstasies. The people applauded; all of which he took to himself, and would even have bowed in return to them, had not the presence of the King restrained him. But he felt satisfied that, in the glare of the fire, he was plainly visible to all, and this for the time consoled him.
But his evil genius was about to triumph. A number of changes had taken place in the bouquet, when suddenly, and simultaneously from every point of the statues, a column of fire shot up high in the air, and fell again in a shower of flame upon the group, threatening to exterminate the Gascon in its descent. His first impulse was to retreat to the planks and get to the edge of the basin, but a formidable blazing wheel, forming the back-work of the entire piece, cut off his flight, so that he was driven back again. Thicker and thicker fell the flakes, as the tawdry dabs of lace which hung about his dress caught fire; and his thin, half-starved feather, which gained in height what it lost in substance, also took light. Philippe Glazer, who had foreseen all this, set up a loud huzza, in which those near him joined; the remainder fancied that the figure of the Gascon, as he danced amidst the glowing shower, was a part of the exhibition, and intended to represent one of the allegorical personages who always figured in the masques and tableaux of the period. But at last he could bear it no longer. His cloak was just bursting into a flame when, in the agony of his despair, he threw himself into the basin, amidst the renewed hilarity of the spectators, including Louis himself, who, with La Montespan, and even the pale pensive La Vallière, was more amused than if everything had gone on in its proper way.
The reservoir was not very deep, but the Gascon had lost all self-possession, and he floundered about like a water-god, to the great detriment of so much of his finery as yet remained, until he got near enough to the edge of the basin for Maître Picard to hook him out with his halberd, and drag him half-drowned and half-roasted to dry ground.