CHAPTER IX.
COUNT DE MIRABEAU AND MONSIEUR JACQUES.
Mirabeau and Monsieur Jacques went to a neighboring chamber and sat down together; for, strange as the contrast was between them, they were foster-brothers, and a stronger tie than that of absolute kinship existed between them.
“Well, Jacques, where did you find these people? Who are they?” inquired the count, flinging himself into a chair, and reaching forth his hand for that of his foster-brother. “The demoiselle is beautiful. It is a sin to find her here.”
Jacques gave a succinct account of his acquaintance with the mother and daughter, and repeated, word for word, the conversation he had held with them that evening.
Mirabeau listened eagerly. There was romance in this—a mother and daughter devoting their lives to the hope of winning freedom for an innocent man, had something sublime in it, which kindled his imagination, and touched all that was good in his heart. He took out a well-worn purse, which contained only a piece or two of gold, and emptied it on the table.
“See that there is no more starvation. Women like these must not be permitted to suffer,” he said, thrusting the empty purse back into a pocket of his dress. “The girl is beautiful, the mother simply grand.”
“Ah! but the young lady is so good,” answered Jacques, who did not feel quite satisfied with this sudden interest.
“Good, very possible—I am no judge; but she is fair as a lily, and bright as a sunbeam. Did my face terrify her, Jacques?”
“Your face, Count Mirabeau—how should it? Why, your face is magnificent, grand—it is that I glory in most of anything.”
Jacques believed all that he was saying. In his heart great love had glorified that massive head, with its shock of ruddy hair, into something beautiful. He heard the question put to him with genuine surprise, as if some one had disputed the brightness of the sun; but Count Mirabeau understood himself better. He rather gloried in the rude grandeur of his appearance, the conquests which he made in spite of it were doubly grateful to him. “It is a common thing to be beautiful,” he would say; “but to be hideous and beloved in spite of it, is sublime.”
“Ah! you are no judge, brother Jacques. Of course, I am everything grand and agreeable to you; but with a young lady, the thing is different. I saw her look of surprise when I came in. No wonder; but she forgot to be afraid after a little. Did you see that? How her eyes kindled! What a smile came to her face—a lovely face, undoubtedly; a very lovely face!”
Count Mirabeau fell into a reverie here, and began to thread with his hand the long waves of hair that fell to his shoulder.
Jacques remained silent, and sat watching him.
After awhile the count arose, and taking one of the gold pieces from the table, dropped it into his pocket. Glancing at the two Louis d’or that were left, he said, with a laugh.
“These will be enough for the present—one cannot do entirely without money. Come to me, Jacques, when you want more.”
“But the ladies are proud; they will not accept it, knowing where it comes from.”
“They must not know where it comes from. You understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Now I will bid you good-night, Jacques. Do you know that my father is in Paris?”
“In Paris! I did not know it. What brings him here?”
“He comes to be reconciled with his son, so I am told. I had a letter from him this morning, appointing a time when I am to call on him. It was this which brought me here.”
“Then you will go?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“But he has been so cruel, so harsh. It is not long since the doors of his chateau were closed against you.”
“Yes. I am not likely to forget that; but in these times it is not policy to be resentful. My father has influence with the king.”
“But I thought you were the enemy of Louis the Sixteenth, and of all his family!”
“You forget the Duc d’Orleans.”
“But he is not your friend.”
“He is the friend of no man but himself. Still one does not quarrel with him. A bad, weak friend, Jacques; but sometimes such characters carry braver men into power. While he is popular with the people, who will not readily release their hold on royalty of some kind, I, for one, shall not abandon him.”
“Still, it is a terrible thing to know that he is plotting against his own brother, his anointed king,” said Jacques.
“Nay, it is rather against the Austrian woman, who rules that brother. Surely, Frenchmen owe little allegiance to her.”
“That is, perhaps, because they do not know her!” said Jacques.
“That is true. She makes sure that those men who love France, and seek after liberty, never shall come near enough to know her.”
“Yet it is said that those who have opportunities of seeing the royal family love her most. To them she is a beautiful, good woman.”
“Yes, she is beautiful. She has, sometimes, allowed your humble servant to see her across the theatre; but disdains to receive him at court. Her mother would have known better. She had some idea of statesmanship, and understood how to employ talent, though it might exist a little outside of court circles. She would never have left a Mirabeau to be converted into an enemy.”
“Ah! if the queen only knew you as Jacques does—but how can she? The courtiers who surround her are jealous of powers they cannot rival. The queen will never be permitted to know how brave a friend is kept from her.”
“She will learn, rest content, Jacques. She will learn who Mirabeau is, and what he can do, before she sits firmly on the throne of France. She will learn, to her cost, that nobility does not always convey talent; and that the best adviser a monarch can have is the man who is most popular with the people.”
“That you are, my count. I do not see you pass the streets of Paris without acclamations!”
“Yes, they love me, and I love them. It was my great fault with that grand old aristocrat, my father, that plebeians would love me, and that I sometimes stooped to their companionship. Even then I felt what was coming, and, knew where the best elements of power lay. But my thickheaded old ancestor was never able to understand it. What do you think he would say now if he knew where I have spent this evening? Yet a lovelier creature, or more dainty, does not live in any court, than the girl we left yonder.”
Monsieur Jacques colored crimson, and moved uneasily in his chair. He did not like this open admiration in his foster-brother.
“Yes, the young lady is pretty and gentle as a bird; but I doubt if——”
Here Jacques paused, and colored still more violently than before.
“Doubt if what——”
“If—if she is used to such warm admiration. Is that it, brother Jacques?”
“Exactly,” answered Jacques. “She is country bred, you know, and innocent as a fawn.”
Mirabeau laughed rather boisterously.
“Why, you foolish fellow, that is her chief attraction. Had she been one of your hackneyed court dames, her beauty would have passed as nothing. As it is, she is charming. Simple as a violet, pure as a lily-of-the-valley—not that I have seen one of late; but those things still linger in my memory Jacques, man of the world as you may think me.”