CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE GAME IS UP--THE TRAP--MARIE RETURNS WITH DESGRAIS TO THE CONCIERGERIE

Any other officer than Desgrais would have given up further attempts to arrest the Marchioness, now that she was in the sanctuary of a convent--in a town, too, where any invasion of the privileges belonging to a religious house would have been avenged with the most unrelenting severity. But the exempt felt bitterly the manner in which he had been more than once duped upon the road, at times when his prey was completely within his grasp. He was exceedingly sensitive as regarded his position, and reputation as the most vigilant officer of the Maréchaussée, and he determined not to enter Paris again until he could do so accompanied by the Marchioness.

To effect this, he took a lodging in a retired quarter of Liége, and remained there for a few weeks, dismissing his archers and guards, with orders to return to Givet, and be in readiness to join him at Liége upon the shortest notice. To the Marchioness he was personally unknown. She had not met him above once or twice, and then without particularly regarding him; and this decided him as to the course he would pursue. He was young and active; the very business in which he was constantly engaged had given him admission into all ranks of society; and he had tact and ready perception to profit by his observations, and adopt the manners of any particular class which he found it necessary to assume. He arranged his plans and, when he imagined sufficient time had elapsed, proceeded to put them into execution.

To effect the capture he disguised himself in the dress of an abbe, and presented himself one evening at the gates of the convent in which Marie had sought shelter, requesting to see her. The porter, after a slight hesitation, admitted him to the parlour, and in a few minutes the object of his venture appeared.

The Marchioness had entirely recovered from the fatigues of her journey. Those who had known her intimately would have remarked a few lines on her face, resulting from the agitation caused by recent events; but to others there was still the same girlish, confiding face--still the same blue lustrous eyes and smooth expansive forehead, and the rosy lips still half-revealed the same beautiful teeth that had so dazzled the sight of the gallants, and raised the envy of the dames of the court at Versailles. She bowed gracefully to Desgrais as she entered the room, and then in her softest tones inquired ‘to what chance she was indebted for the honour of a visit from Monsieur l’Abbé?’

‘I am a poor servant of the Church, madame,’ he replied, ‘and am returning from a pilgrimage to Rome with relics to be deposited at the Jacobins, in the Rue St. Honoré. Being detained at Liége upon matters of ecclesiastical interest, I heard that you were here, and came to offer my respects.’

‘I have done little to deserve this attention, my holy father,’ said Marie.

‘You have suffered much undeserved misery, madame,’ answered Desgrais. ‘You were a supporter of our Church--a good and charitable lady, as all Paris can vouch; and I should have taken blame unto myself had I not paid this tribute to your goodness.’

‘Alas! _mon père!_’ cried Marie; ‘would that the world could think of me as well as you do. Of what avail has been my past life? You will find, on your return to Paris, the blackest stories current against me. A woman, once fallen, has no hope; but every one--those who would have cringed to her the lowest when she was in her position being the foremost--will hurry to crush her more utterly, to beat her lower down. I am lost--for ever!’

‘Yet you should hope that the consciousness of your own innocence will one day prevail,’ returned the exempt.

‘I have no hope, monsieur. I am alone in this dreary place--alone, even in the midst of its inmates, as though I were shut out entirely from the world.’

Desgrais paused for an instant. ‘She has not mentioned her comrades,’ he said to himself, ‘and she was certainly accompanied on the road. All accounts agree in this.’

‘You are mistaken, madame,’ he continued aloud. ‘Think. Is there no one on whom you think you might rely?’

‘What mean you?’ inquired Marie eagerly.

For a few seconds they continued gazing at one another, each waiting for the other to speak. Desgrais was waiting for some cue, from which his tact might enable him to proceed, and the Marchioness was fearful of committing herself by revealing more than the other knew. Two deep and artful natures were pitted against each other.

Desgrais was the first to speak. With an assumed expression of countenance, calculated to impress his companion with the idea that he understood everything then passing in her mind, and in a voice of deep meaning, he said--

‘Is there no one, think you, who feels an interest in you? You can trust me. What communication have you held with the world since you have been in this retreat?’

‘None, father--on my soul, none.’

‘And have you expected to hear from no one?’ continued Desgrais in the same tone.

‘Camille!’ exclaimed the Marchioness eagerly. And then, as if aware she had been indiscreet, she closed her lips forcibly together, and remained silent.

‘Yes--Camille,’ replied Desgrais, quickly catching at the name. ‘Did you think he had deserted you?’

And he looked cautiously round the parlour, and then placed his finger on his mouth, as though he was fearful of being overheard.

‘I did not know in what quarter of the town he lived,’ she answered.

‘So,’ thought Desgrais, ‘he is in Liége, then.’

‘And besides,’ she went on, ‘circumstances are changed. He cares no more for me.’

‘Would you see him?’ asked Desgrais.

The vanity of the woman triumphed over her caution. Camille Theria, it was evident to Marie, had found his old attachment revive as they had met again. He had forgotten his fiancée, and was anxious again to see her.

‘Am I to believe you?’ she asked.

‘You may believe your eyes,’ replied the exempt. ‘He will be at the tavern of the “Trois Rois” at curfew time to-night.’

‘Why will he not come here?’

‘Would it be advisable? You need fear nothing. I will escort you from the convent and return with you.’

‘It will compromise your position,’ said Marie.

‘That will be my own affair, madame,’ replied Desgrais. ‘The weather is unfavourable enough to drive the passengers from the streets, and the night is dark. No harm can arrive.’

‘What can he want with me?’ said Marie, half speaking to herself, as she appeared undecided how to act.

‘You will learn all,’ said Desgrais, not trusting himself to speak further on a subject of which he was so utterly ignorant. ‘But time presses, and the bells will soon ring out. Come, madame, come.’

Without any other covering than a cloak wrapped about her, and concealing as much as possible her head and face, Marie yielded to the persuasions of Desgrais, and, taking his arm, left the convent unobserved, in the direction of the tavern he had mentioned. The perfect quietude she had enjoyed since her arrival at the convent had led her to believe that the French police had entirely given up their intentions of arresting her. Sainte-Croix, in her fearful heartlessness, had been already forgotten, and the prospect of a new conquest--a new victim to her treacherous passions--drew her on with irresistible attraction.

They traversed the steep and uneven streets of Liége until they came to the door of the tavern, from whose windows the red firelights were streaming across the thoroughfare. Desgrais muttered a few words of excuse for the humble appearance of the place, and then conducted Marie into the public room.

‘One instant,’ he said. ‘I will ask if he is here.’

He left the room, closing the door behind him, and Marie was a few moments alone in the apartment. With some slight mistrust, she listened for his return, and imagined she heard, for a few seconds, the clank of arms. But this subsided almost immediately, and Desgrais came back again.

‘Is he not yet here?’ she asked.

‘He is not, madame,’ said Desgrais in an altered tone; ‘nor is it likely that he will come.’

‘What do you imply?’ exclaimed Marie, somewhat alarmed, and advancing towards the door.

‘Pardon me, madame,’ said Desgrais, ‘but you cannot pass.’

‘Insolent!’ cried the Marchioness. ‘What does this outrage mean?’

‘That you are my prisoner, madame.’

‘Prisoner! And by whose orders?’

‘By order of his Majesty Louis XIV., King of France,’ cried Desgrais loudly, as he threw aside his abbe’s robes, and appeared in his under-clothing as exempt of the guard. ‘Madame, you are mine at last!’

The words had been the signal to those without, whom he had left the room to put upon their guard. As he pronounced

[image: img_14.jpg caption: ‘Then, Madame, you are mine at last!’]

them, they rushed into the room, and the Marchioness found herself surrounded by the archers of the royal guard.

In an instant Marie perceived the trap that had been laid for her.

‘Miscreant!’ she cried, as she rushed at Desgrais in her rage. ‘You have not yet got your prey within your fangs. I am in a country in which your authority goes for nought. You cannot arrest me.’

‘Once more, you must pardon me, Madame la Marquise,’ replied Desgrais, as he drew a paper from his belt. ‘The council of this town has authorised your extradition, upon a letter from the King. You are as much our prisoner as though we had arrested you in your own _hôtel_ in Paris.’

As quick as lightning, upon comprehending the meaning of the words, Marie drew a poniard from its sheath at the side of one of the guards, and endeavoured to plunge it into her breast. But her hand was arrested by another of the party, and the weapon wrested from her. Baffled in this intention, and in an agony of powerless rage, she endeavoured to speak, but her mouth refused utterance to the words, and with a terrible cry she fell senseless upon the ground.

Confiding her to the care of one of his men, and ordering the others to keep guard without, Desgrais now returned to the convent in search of further evidence, furnished with proper authority to bring away whatever he could find. But Marie had little with her. A small case of letters and papers was, however, discovered under her pillow, and of this Desgrais immediately took possession. It contained most important evidence against her--no less than a confession of the past actions of her life.

In the meantime Marie gradually recovered; but it was some time before she came completely to herself, from a succession of fainting-fits supervening one upon another as the least degree of consciousness returned, and the dreadful reality of her position broke in upon her. The rough soldier with whom she had been left, unused to guard such prisoners, and somewhat struck with her beauty and evidently superior position in life, had been in great confusion of ideas as to what he ought to do, and had at last called one of the females attached to the establishment to the aid of the Marchioness. By some of those trifling remedies which women only appear to have at command for their own sex, in the like emergencies, Marie was gradually brought round, and then the female departed, and she was left alone with her guard--pale and trembling, resembling a corpse, but for the still bright eye, and the convulsive quivering of every nerve in her delicate frame. She uttered not a syllable, but remained in a corner of the room, on a rude settle to which she had been carried by the soldiers; and the sentinel’s heavy tread, as he paced backwards and forwards before the door of the apartment, was the only sound that broke the dreary stillness.

In less than an hour Desgrais returned. He came accompanied by a _voiture de poste_, having directly after the capture of his prisoner ordered it to be in waiting, as well as despatched a courier with commands to have everything in readiness along the road for fresh relays. He now entered the room, and requested Marie to accompany him into the carriage.

‘You have played a sorry part, monsieur, in this drama,’ she said to him, ‘and you have triumphed: do not think I am stooping to you if I make one request: could you see how deeply I feel myself to be degraded in asking this favour, you--even you--might pity me and grant it. You have played with the name of a person this evening, and won your stake off it. Will you allow me to write to him?’

‘Provided I see the letter, and you can write it in ten minutes,’ replied Desgrais. ‘We must reach Dinant to supper, where also you will rest the night.’

‘Half that time will be sufficient,’ said Marie. ‘Give me the means, and for a few minutes leave me to myself.’

Desgrais produced his tablets, and tearing a few blank leaves from them gave them to the Marchioness, as well as a style he carried; then placing the sentinel again before the door, he withdrew.

As soon as he was gone Marie traced a few words upon the paper, and then spoke to the guard.

‘What is your name?’ she asked in a low, hurried tone.

‘Antoine Barbier,’ replied the man gruffly, ‘archer in his Majesty’s service.’

And he continued his march. In less than a minute she again addressed him.

‘See!’ she exclaimed, taking a massive jewelled ornament from her hair. ‘The sale of this will provide you with good cheer for many a long day, and I will give it to you if you will forward this letter for me to its address. There is nothing in this against your orders. See,’ she continued, adding the address. ‘“M. Camille Theria, à Liége;” he is an apothecary in the town. Will you do this for me?’

‘Give it to me,’ said the man. ‘I will find some one when I am relieved who will pay attention to it.’

‘Take the wages, then, at the same time,’ added Marie.

‘No,’ replied the archer, as he put the proffered gift on one side. ‘I do not want payment for this.’

In a minute or two Desgrais came back to know if the letter was concluded, as the carriage was ready to start. Marie shrunk from him when he entered as though he had been a serpent--her horror of the exempt was not feigned.

‘I cannot write, monsieur,’ she said. ‘I am at your service. _Allons!_’

She put away the arm of the officer as he held it forward for her to take, and passed into the passage, which was lined with the archers. As she passed the sentinel who had kept guard over her in the inn, she whispered to him ‘Remember,’ and then entered the carriage without another word, throwing herself into a corner and muffling her face in her cloak.

Desgrais was about to follow, when Barbier slipped the note into his hand. He read--

‘My dear Theria--I have been taken by Desgrais, and am on my road to Paris: save me at all hazards.

‘Marie.’

‘Lose not an instant,’ cried the exempt, as he entered the carriage. ‘On--on with your horses as fast as whip and spur can urge them!’