The Serapion Brethren Volume Ii Part 19

"With my mind in a whirl, almost unconscious, I was sitting in my garret, when the door opened, and Rene Cardillac came in. 'For Christ's sake! what do you want?' I cried. He, paying no heed to this, came up to me, smiling at me with a calmness and urbanity which increased my inward horror. He drew forward an old rickety stool, and sat down beside me; for I was unable to rise from my straw bed, where I had thrown myself. 'Well, Olivier,' he began, 'how is it with you, my poor boy? I really was too hasty in turning you out of doors. I miss you at every turn. Just now I have a job in hand which I shall never be able to finish without you; won't you come back and work with me? You don't answer. Yes, I know very well I insulted you. I don't hide from you that I was angry about your little bit of love-business with my Madelon; but I have been thinking matters well over, and I see that I couldn't have a better son-in-law than you, with your abilities, your skilfulness, diligence, trustworthiness. Come back with me, and see how soon you and Madelon can make a match of it.'

"His words pierced my heart; I shuddered at his wickedness; I could not utter a syllable. 'You hesitate,' he said, in an acrid tone, while his sparkling eyes transfixed me. 'Perhaps you can't come to-day. You have other things to do. Perhaps you want to go and see Desgrais, or have an interview with D'Argenson or La Regnie. Take care, my boy, that the talons which you are thinking of drawing out to clutch others, don't mangle yourself.' At this my deeply-tried spirit found vent. 'Those,' I said, 'who are conscious of horrible crimes may dread those names which you have mentioned, but I do not. I have nothing to do with them.'

'Remember, Olivier,' he resumed, 'that it is an honour to you to work with me--the most renowned Master of his time, everywhere highly esteemed for his truth and goodness; any foul calumny would fall back on the head of its originator. As to Madelon, I must tell you that it is her alone whom you have to thank for my yielding. She loves you with a devotion that I should never have given her credit for being capable of. As soon as you were gone, she fell at my feet, clasped my knees, and vowed, with a thousand tears, that she could never live without you. I thought this was mere imagination, for those young things always think they're going to die of love whenever a young wheyface looks at them a little kindly. But my Madelon really did fall quite sick and ill; and when I tried to talk her out of the silly nonsense, she called out your name a thousand times. Last evening I told her I gave in and agreed to everything, and would go to-day to fetch you; so this morning she is blooming again like any rose, and waiting for you, quite beyond herself with love-longing.' May the eternal power of Heaven forgive me, but--I don't know how it came about--I suddenly found myself in Cardillac's house, where Madelon, with loud cries of 'Olivier!--my Olivier!--my beloved! my husband!' clasped both her arms about me, and pressed me to her heart; whilst I, in the plenitude of the supremest bliss, swore by the Virgin and all the Saints never, never to leave her."

Overcome by the remembrance of this decisive moment, Olivier was obliged to pause. Mademoiselle Scuderi, horrified at the crime of a man whom she had looked on as the incarnation of probity and goodness, cried--

"Dreadful!--Rene Cardillac a member of that band of murderers who have so long made Paris into a robber's den!" "A member of the band, do you say, Mademoiselle?" said Olivier. "There never was any band; it was Rene Cardillac alone, who sought and found his victims with such an amount of diabolical ingenuity and activity. It was in the fact of his being alone that his impunity lay--the practical impossibility of coming upon the murderer's track. But let me go on. What is coming will clear up the mystery, and reveal the secrets of the most wicked, and at the same time most wretched of all mankind. You at once see the position in which I now stood towards my master. The step was taken, and I could not go back. At times it seemed to me that I had rendered myself Cardillac's accomplice in murder, and it was only in Madelon's love that I forgot for a time the inward pain which tortured me; only in her society could I drive away all outward traces of the nameless horror. When I was at work with the old man in the workshop, I could not look him in the face--could scarcely speak a word--for the horror which pervaded me in the presence of this terrible being, who fulfilled all the duties of the tender father and the good citizen, while the night shrouded his atrocities. Madelon, pure and pious as an angel, hung upon him with the most idolatrous affection. It pierced my heart when I thought that, if ever vengeance should overtake this masked criminal, she would be the victim of the most terrible despair. That, of itself, closed my lips, though the consequence of my silence should be a criminal's death for myself. Although much was to be gathered from what the Marechaussee had said, still Cardillac's crimes, their motive, and the manner in which he carried them out, were a riddle to me. The solution of it soon came. One day Cardillac--who usually excited my horror by laughing and jesting during our work, in the highest of spirits--was very grave and thoughtful. Suddenly he threw the piece of work he was engaged on aside, so that the pearls and other stones rolled about the floor, started to his feet, and said: 'Olivier! things cannot go on between us like this; the situation is unendurable. What the ablest and most ingenious efforts of Desgrais and his myrmidons failed to find out, chance has played into your hands. You saw me at my nocturnal work, to which my Evil Star compels me, so that no resistance is possible for me; and it was your own Evil Star, moreover, which led you to follow me; wrapped and hid you in an impenetrable mantle; gave that lightness to your foot-fall which enabled you to move along with the noiselessness of the smaller animals, so that I--who see clear by night, as doth the tiger, and hear the smallest sound, the humming of the gnat, streets away--did not observe you. Your Evil Star brought you to me, my comrade--my accomplice! You see, now, that you can't betray me; therefore you shall know all.'

"I would have cried out, 'Never, never shall I be your comrade, your accomplice, you atrocious miscreant.' But the inward horror which I felt at his words paralysed my tongue. Instead of words I could only utter an unintelligible noise. Cardillac sat down in his working chair again, wiped the perspiration from his brow, and seemed to find it difficult to pull himself together, hard beset by the recollection of the past. At length he began: 'Wise men have much to say of the strange impulses which come to women when they are _enceinte_, and the strange influence which those vivid, involuntary impulses exercise upon the child. A wonderful tale is told of _my_ mother. When she was a month gone with me she was looking on, with other women, at a court pageant at the Trianon, and saw a certain cavalier in Spanish dress, with a glittering chain of jewels about his neck, from which she could not remove her eyes. Her whole being was longing for those sparkling stones, which seemed to her more than earthly. This same cavalier had at a previous time, before my mother was married, had designs on her virtue, which she rejected with indignation. She recognized him, but now, irradiated by the light of the gems, he seemed to her a creature of a higher sphere, the very incarnation of beauty. The cavalier noticed the longing, fiery looks which she was bending on him, and thought he was in better luck now than of old. He managed to get near her, and to separate her from her companions, and entice her to a lonely place. There he clasped her eagerly in his arms. My mother grasped at the beautiful chain; but at that moment he fell down, dragging her with him. Whether it was apoplexy, or what, I do not know; but he was dead. My mother struggled in vain to free herself from the clasp of the arms, stiffened as they were in death. With the hollow eyes, whence vision had departed, fixed on her, the corpse rolled with her to the ground. Her shrieks at length reached people who were pa.s.sing at some distance; they hastened to her, and rescued her from the embrace of this gruesome lover. Her fright laid her on a bed of dangerous sickness. Her life was despaired of as well as mine; but she recovered, and her confinement was more prosperous than had been thought possible. But the terrors of that awful moment had set their mark on _me_. My Evil Star had risen, and darted into me those rays which kindled in me one of the strangest and most fatal of pa.s.sions.

Even in my earliest childhood I thought there was nothing to compare with glittering diamonds with gold settings. This was looked upon as a childish fancy; but it was otherwise, for as a boy I stole gold and jewels wherever I could lay hands on them, and I knew the difference between good ones and bad, instinctively, like the most accomplished connoisseur. Only the pure and valuable attracted me; I would not touch alloyed or coined gold. Those inborn cravings were kept in check by my father's severe chastis.e.m.e.nts; but, so that I might always have to do with gold and precious stones, I took up the goldsmith's calling. I worked at it with pa.s.sion, and soon became the first living master of that art. Then began a period when the natural bent within me, so long restrained, shot forth in power, and waxed with might, bearing everything away before it. As soon as I finished a piece of work and delivered it, I fell into a state of restlessness and disconsolateness which prevented my sleeping, ruined my health, and left me no enjoyment in my life. The person for whom I made the work haunted me day and night like a spectre--I saw that person continually before my mental vision, with my beautiful jewels on, and a voice kept whispering to me: 'They belong to you! take them; what's the use of diamonds to the dead?' At last I betook myself to thieving. I had access to the houses of the great; I took advantage quickly of every opportunity. No locks withstood my skill, and I soon had my work back in my hands again. But this was not enough to calm my unrest. That mysterious voice made itself heard again, jeering at me, and saying, 'Ho, ho! one of the dead is wearing your jewels.' I did not know whence it came, but I had an indescribable hatred for all those for whom I made jewelry. More than that, in the depths of my heart I began to long to kill them; this frightened me. Just then I bought this house. I had concluded the bargain with the owner: here in this very room we were sitting, drinking a bottle of wine in honour of the transaction. Night had come on, he was going to leave when he said to me: 'Look here, Maitre Rene, before I go I must let you into a secret about this house.' He opened that cupboard, which is let into the wall there, and pushed the back of it in; this let him into a little closet, where he bowed down and raised a trap-door. This showed us a steep, narrow stair, which we went down, and at the bottom of it was a little narrow door, which let us out into the open courtyard. There he went up to the wall, pushed a piece of iron which projected a very little, and immediately a piece of the wall turned round, so that a person could get out through the opening into the street. You must see this contrivance sometime, Olivier; the sly old monks of the convent, which this house once was, must have had it made so as to be able to slip out and in secretly. It is wood but covered with lime and mortar on the outside, and to the outer side of it is fitted a statue, also of wood, though _looking_ exactly like stone, which turns on wooden hinges. When I saw this arrangement, dark ideas surged up in my mind; it seemed to me that deeds, as yet mysterious to myself, were here pre-arranged for. I had just finished a splendid set of ornaments for a gentleman of the court who, I knew, was going to give them to an opera dancer. My death-torture soon was on me; the spectre dogged my steps, the whispering devil was at my ear. I went back into the house, bathed in a sweat of agony; I rolled about on my bed, sleepless. In my mind's eye I saw the man gliding to his dancer with _my_ beautiful jewels. Full of fury I sprang up, threw my cloak round me, went down the secret stair, out through the wall into the Rue Nicaise. He came, I fell upon him, he cried out; but, seizing him from behind, I plunged my dagger into his heart. The jewels were mine. When this was done, I felt a peace, a contentment within me which I had never known before. The spectre had vanished--the voice of the demon was still. _Now_ I knew what was the behest of my Evil Star, which I had to obey, or perish. You know all now, Olivier. Don't think that, because I must do that which I cannot avoid, I have clean renounced all sense of that mercy or kindly feeling which are the portion of all humanity, and inherent in man's nature.

You know how hard I find it to let any of my work go out of my hands, that there are many whom I would not have to die for whom nothing will induce me to work; indeed, that in cases when I feel that, next day, my spectre will have to be exorcised with blood, that day I settle the business by a swas.h.i.+ng blow, which lays the holder of my jewels on the ground, so that I get them back into my own hands.' Having said all this, Cardillac took me into his secret strong-room and showed me his collection of jewels; the King does not possess such an one. To each ornament was fastened a small label stating for whom it had been made, and when taken back--by theft, robbery, or murder.

"'On your wedding day, Olivier,' he said, in a solemn tone, 'you will swear me a solemn oath, with your hand on the crucifix, that as soon as I am dead you will at once convert all those treasures into dust, by a process which I will tell you of. I will not have any human being, least of all Madelon and you, come into possession of those blood-bought stones.'

"Shut up in this labyrinth of crime, torn in twain by love and abhorrence, I was like one of the d.a.m.ned to whom a glorified angel points, with gentle smile, the upward way, whilst Satan holds him down with red-hot talons, and the angel's loving smile, reflecting all the bliss of paradise, becomes, to him, the very keenest of his tortures. I thought of flight, even of suicide, but Madelon! Blame me, blame me, Mademoiselle, for having been too weak to overcome a pa.s.sion which fettered me to my destruction. I am going to atone for my weakness by a shameful death. One day Cardillac came in in unusually fine spirits, he kissed and caressed Madelon, cast most affectionate looks at me, drank, at table, a bottle of good wine, which he only did on high-days and holidays, sang, and made merry. Madelon had left us, and I was going to the workshop 'Sit still, lad,' cried Cardillac, 'no more work to-day; let's drink the health of the most worthy and charming lady in all Paris.' When we had clinked our gla.s.ses, and he had emptied a b.u.mper, he said: 'Tell me, Olivier, how do you like those lines?

'Un amant qui craint les voleurs N'est point digne d'amour.'

And he told me what had happened between you and the King in Madam de Maintenon's salon, adding that he had always wors.h.i.+pped you more than any other human being, and that his reverence and esteem for your qualities was such that his Evil Star paled before you, and he would have no fear that, were you to wear the finest piece of his work that ever he made, the spectre would ever prompt him to thoughts of murder.

'Listen, Olivier,' he said, 'to what I am going to do. A considerable time ago I had to make a necklace and bracelets for Henrietta of England, supplying the stones myself. I made of this the best piece of work that ever I turned out, and it broke my heart to part with those ornaments, which had become the very treasures of my soul. You know of her unfortunate death by a.s.sa.s.sination. The things remained with me, and now I shall send them to Mademoiselle Scuderi, in the name of the dreaded band, as a token of respect and grat.i.tude. Besides its being an unmistakable mark of her triumph, it will be a richly deserved sign of my contempt for Desgrais and his men. You shall take her the jewels.'

When he mentioned your name, Mademoiselle, dark veils seemed to be taken away, revealing the bright image of my happy early childhood, rising again in glowing colours before me. A wonderful comfort came into my soul, a ray of hope, driving the dark shadows away. Cardillac saw the effect his words had produced upon me, and gave it his own interpretation. 'My idea seems to please you,' he said. 'I must declare that a deep inward voice, very unlike that which cries for blood like a raving wild beast, commanded me to do this thing. Many times I feel the strangest ideas come into my mind--an inward fear, the dread of something terrible, the awe whereof seems to come breathing into this present time from some distant other world, seizes powerfully upon me.

I even feel, at such times, that the deeds which my Evil Star has committed by means of me, may be charged to the account of my immortal soul, though it has no part in them. In one of those moods I determined that I would make a beautiful diamond crown for the Virgin in the Church of St. Eustache. But the indescribable dread always came upon me, stronger than ever, when I set to work at it, so that I left it off altogether. Now it seems to me that, in presenting Mademoiselle Scuderi with the finest work I have ever turned out, I am offering a humble sacrifice to goodness and virtue personified, and imploring their powerful intercession.' Cardillac, well acquainted with all the minutiae of your manner of life, told me the how and the when to take the ornaments to you. My whole Being rejoiced, for Heaven seemed to be showing me, through the atrocious Cardillac, the way to escape from the h.e.l.l in which I was being tortured. Quite contrarily to Cardillac's wish, I resolved that I would get access to you and speak with you. As Anne Brusson's son, and your former pet, I thought I would throw myself at your feet and tell you everything. Out of consideration for the nameless misery which a disclosure of the secret would bring upon Madelon, I knew that you would keep it, but that your grand and brilliant intellect would have been sure to find means to put an end to Cardillac's wickedness without disclosing it. Do not ask me what those means were to have been; I cannot tell. But that you would rescue Madelon and me I believed as firmly as I do in the intercession of the Holy Virgin. You know, Mademoiselle, that my intention was frustrated that night; but I did not lose hope of being more fortunate another time. By-and-by Cardillac suddenly lost all his good spirits; he crept moodily about, uttered unintelligible words, and worked his arms as if warding off something hostile. His mind seemed full of evil thoughts.

For a whole morning he had been going on in this way. At last he sat down at the work-table, sprang up again angrily, looked out of window, and then said, gravely and gloomily, 'I wish Henrietta of England had had my jewels.' Those words filled me with terror. I knew that his diseased mind was possessed again by the terrible murder-spectre, that the voice of the demon was loud again in his ears. I saw your life threatened by the horrible murder-demon. If Cardillac could get his jewels back again into his hands, you were safe. The danger grew greater every instant. I met you on the Pont Neuf, made my way to your carriage, threw you the note which implored you to give the jewels back to Cardillac immediately. You did not come. My fear became despair, when, next day, Cardillac spoke of nothing but the priceless jewels he had seen before him in his dreams. I could only suppose that this referred to _your_ jewels, and I felt sure he was brooding over some murderous attack, which he had determined to carry out that night. Save you I must, should it cost Cardillac's life. When, after the evening prayer, he had shut himself up in his room as usual, I got into the courtyard through a window, slipped out through the opening of the wall, and stationed myself close at hand, in the deepest shadow. Very soon Cardillac came out, and went gliding softly down the street. I followed him. He took the direction of the Rue St. Honore. My heart beat fast. All at once he disappeared from me. I determined to place myself at your door. Just as fate had ordered matters on the first occasion of my witnessing one of his crimes, there came along past me an officer, trilling and singing; he did not see me. Instantly a dark form sprang out and attacked him. Cardillac! I determined to prevent this murder. I gave a loud shout, and was on the spot in a couple of paces. Not the officer, but Cardillac, fell gasping to the ground, mortally wounded. The officer let his dagger fall, drew his sword, and stood on the defensive, thinking I was the murderer's accomplice. But he hastened away when he saw that, instead of concerning myself about _him_, I was examining the fallen man. Cardillac was still alive. I took up the dagger dropped by the officer, stuck it in my belt, and, lifting Cardillac on to my shoulders, carried him, with difficulty, to the house, and up the secret stair to the workshop. The rest you know.

You perceive, Mademoiselle, that my only crime was that I refrained from giving Madelon's father up to justice, thereby making an end of his crimes. I am innocent of bloodguilt. No torture will draw from me the secret of Cardillac's iniquities. Not through any action of mine shall that Eternal Power, which hid from Madelon the gruesome bloodguilt of her father all this time, break in upon her now, to her destruction, nor shall earthly vengeance drag the corpse of Cardillac out of the soil which covers it, and brand the mouldering bones with infamy. No; the beloved of my soul shall mourn me as an innocent victim. Time will mitigate her sorrow for me, but her grief for her father's terrible crimes nothing would ever a.s.suage."

Olivier ceased, and then a torrent of tears fell down his cheeks.

He threw himself at Mademoiselle Scuderi's feet, saying imploringly, "You are convinced that I am innocent; I know you are. Be merciful to me. Tell me how Madelon is faring." Mademoiselle Scuderi summoned La Martiniere, and in a few minutes Madelon was clinging to Olivier's neck. "Now that you are here, all is well. I knew that this n.o.ble-hearted lady would save you," Madelon cried over and over; and Olivier forgot his fate, and all that threatened him. He was free and happy. They bewailed, in the most touching manner, what each had suffered for the other, and embraced afresh, and wept for joy at being together again.

Had Mademoiselle Scuderi not been convinced of Olivier's innocence before, she must have been so when she saw those two lovers forgetting, in the rapture of the time, the world, their sufferings, and their indescribable sorrows. "None but a guiltless heart," she cried, "would be capable of such blissful forgetfulness."

The morning light came breaking into the room, and Desgrais knocked gently at the door, reminding them that it was time to take Olivier away, as it could not be done later without attracting attention. The lovers had to part.

The dim antic.i.p.ations which Mademoiselle Scuderi had felt when Olivier first came in had now embodied themselves in actual life--in a terrible fas.h.i.+on. The son of her much-loved Anne was, though innocent, implicated in a manner which apparently made it impossible to save him from a shameful death. She admired his heroism, which led him to prefer death loaded with the imputation of guilt to the betrayal of a secret which would kill Madelon. In the whole realm of possibility, she could see no mode of saving the unfortunate lad from the gruesome prison and the dreadful trial. Yet it was firmly impressed on her mind that she must not shrink from any sacrifice to prevent this most crying injustice.

She tortured herself with all kinds of plans and projects, which were chiefly of the most impracticable and impossible kind--rejected as soon as formed. Every glimmer of hope grew fainter and fainter, and she well-nigh despaired. But Madelon's pious, absolute, childlike confidence, the inspired manner in which she spoke of her lover, soon to be free, and to take her to his heart as his wife, restored Mademoiselle Scuderi's hopes to some extent.

By way of beginning to do something, she wrote to La Regnie a long letter, in which she said that Olivier Brusson had proved to her in the most credible manner his entire innocence of Cardillac's murder, and that nothing but a heroic resolution to carry to the grave with him a secret, the disclosure of which would bring destruction upon an innocent and virtuous person, withheld him from laying a statement before the Court which would completely clear him from all guilt, and show that he never belonged to the band at all. She said everything she could think of, with the best eloquence at her command, which might be expected to soften La Regnie's hard heart.

He replied to this in a few hours, saying he was very glad that Olivier had so thoroughly justified himself in the eyes of his kind patron and protector; but, as regarded his heroic resolution to carry to the grave with him a secret relating to the crime with which he was charged, he regretted that the Chambre Ardente could feel no admiration for heroism of that description, but must endeavour to dispel it by powerful means.

In three days time he had little doubt he would be in possession of the wondrous secret, which would probably bring many strange matters to light.

Mademoiselle Scuderi knew well what the terrible La Regnie meant by the "powerful means," which were to break down Olivier's heroism. It was but too clear that the unfortunate wretch was threatened with the torture. In her mortal anxiety it at last occurred to her that, were it only to gain time, the advice of a lawyer would be of some service.

Pierre Arnaud d'Andilly was at that time the most celebrated advocate in Paris. His goodness of heart, and his highly honourable character were on a par with his professional skill and his comprehensive mind.

To him she repaired, and told him the whole tale, as far as it was possible to do so without divulging Olivier's secret. She expected that d'Andilly would warmly espouse the cause of this innocent man, but in this she was wofully disappointed. He listened silently to what she had to say, and then, with a quiet smile, answered in the words of Boileau, "Le vrai peut quelquefois n'etre point vraisemblable." He showed her that there were the most grave and marked suspicions against Olivier.

That La Regnie's action was by no means severe or premature, but wholly regular; indeed, that to do otherwise would be to neglect his duty as a Judge. He did not believe that he--d'Andilly--could save Brusson from the rack, by the very ablest of pleading. n.o.body could do that but Brusson himself, either by making the fullest confession, or by accurately relating the circ.u.mstances of Cardillac's murder, which might lead to further discoveries.

"Then I will throw myself at the King's feet and sue for mercy," cried Mademoiselle Scuderi, her voice choked by weeping.

"For Heaven's sake, do not do that," cried d'Andilly. "Keep it in reserve for the last extremity. If it fails you once, it is lost for ever. The King will not pardon a criminal such as Brusson; the people would justly complain of the danger to them. Possibly Brusson, by revealing his secret, or otherwise, may manage to dispel the suspicion which is on him at present. Then would be the time to resort to the King, who would not ask what was legally proved, but be guided by his own conviction."

Mademoiselle Scuderi could not but agree with what d'Andilly's great experience dictated. She was sitting in her room, pondering as to what--in the name of the Virgin and all the saints--she should try next to do, when La Martiniere came to say that the Count de Miossens, Colonel of the King's Body Guard, was most anxious to speak with her.

"Pardon me, Mademoiselle," said the Colonel, bowing with a soldier's courtesy, "for disturbing you, and breaking in upon you at such an hour. Two words will be sufficient excuse for me. I come about Olivier Brusson."

"Olivier Brusson," cried Mademoiselle Scuderi, all excitement as to what she was going to hear, "that most unfortunate of men! What have you to say of him?"

"I knew," said Miossens, laughing again, "that your _protege's_ name would ensure me a favourable hearing. Everybody is convinced of Brusson's guilt. I know you think otherwise, and, it is said, your opinion rests on what he himself has told you. With me the case is different. n.o.body can be more certain than I that Brusson is innocent of Cardillac's death."

"Speak! Oh, speak!" cried Mademoiselle Scuderi.

"I was the man who stabbed the old goldsmith, in the Rue St. Honore, close to your door," said the Colonel.

"_You_--_you!_" cried Mademoiselle Scuderi. "In the name of all the Saints, how?"

"And I vow to you, Mademoiselle, that I am very proud of my achievement. Cardillac, I must tell you, was a most abandoned old hypocritical ruffian, who went about at night robbing and murdering people, and was never suspected of anything of the kind. I don't, myself, know from whence it came, that I felt a suspicion of the old scoundrel when he seemed so distressed at handing me over some work which I had got him to do for me, when he carefully wormed out of me for whom I designed it, and cross-questioned my valet as to the times when I was in the habit of going to see a certain lady. It struck me long ago, that all the people who were murdered by the unknown hands, had the self-same wound, and I saw quite clearly, that the murderer had practised to the utmost perfection of certainty that particular thrust, which must kill instantaneously--and that he reckoned upon it; so that, if it were to fail, the fight would be fair. This led me to employ a precaution so very simple and obvious, that I cannot imagine how somebody else did not think of it long ago. I wore a light breastplate of steel under my dress. Cardillac set upon me from behind. He grasped me with the strength of a giant, but his finely directed thrust glided off the steel breast-plate. I then freed myself from his clutch, and planted my dagger into his heart."

"And you have said nothing?" said Mademoiselle Scuderi. "You have not told the authorities anything about this?"

"Allow me to point out to you, Mademoiselle," said he, "that to have done that would have involved me in a most terrible legal investigation, probably ending in my ruin. La Regnie, who scents out crime everywhere, would not have been at all likely to believe me at once, when I accused the good, respectable, exemplary Cardillac of being an habitual murderer. The sword of Justice would, most probably, have turned its point against me."

"Impossible," said Mademoiselle Scuderi. "Your rank--your position----"

"Oh!" interrupted Miossens, "remember the Marechal de Luxemburg; he took it into his head to have his horoscope cast by Le Sage, and was suspected of poisoning, and put in the Bastille. No; by Saint Dyonys!

not one moment of freedom--not the tip of one of my ears, would I trust to that raging La Regnie, who would be delighted to put his knife to all our throats."

"But this brings an innocent man to the scaffold," said Mademoiselle Scuderi.

"Innocent, Mademoiselle!" cried Miossens. "Do you call Cardillac's accomplice an innocent man? He who a.s.sisted him in his crimes, and has deserved death a hundred times? No, in verity; _he_ suffers justly; although I told you the true state of the case in the hope that you might somehow make use of it in the interests of your _protege_, without bringing me into the clutches of the Chambre Ardente."

Mademoiselle Scuderi, delighted at having her conviction of Olivier's innocence confirmed in such a decided manner, had no hesitation in telling the Count the whole affair, since he already knew all about Cardillac's crimes, and in begging him to go with her to d'Andilly, to whom everything should be communicated under the seal of secrecy, and who should advise what was next to be done.

D'Andilly, when Mademoiselle Scuderi had told him at full length all the circ.u.mstances, inquired again into the very minutest particulars.

He asked Count Miossens if he was quite positive as to its having been Cardillac who attacked him, and if he would recognise Olivier as the person who carried away the body.

"Not only," said Miossens, "was the moon s.h.i.+ning brightly, so that I recognised the old goldsmith perfectly well, but this morning, at La Regnie's, I saw the dagger with which he was stabbed. It is mine; I know it by the ornamentation of the handle. And as I was within a pace of the young man, I saw his face quite distinctly, all the more because his hat had fallen off. As a matter of course I should know him in a moment."

D'Andilly looked before him in meditation for a few moments, and said: "There is no way of getting Brusson out of the hands of justice by any ordinary means. On Madelon's account, nothing will induce him to admit that Cardillac was a robber and a murderer. And even were he to do so, and succeed in proving the truth of it by pointing out the secret entrance and the collection of the stolen jewels, death would be his own lot, as an accomplice. The same consequence would follow if Count Miossens related to the judges the adventure with Cardillac. Delay is what we must aim at. Let Count Miossens go to the Conciergerie, be confronted with Olivier, and recognise him as the person who carried off Cardillac's body; let him then go to La Regnie, and say, 'I saw a man stabbed in the Rue St. Honore, and was close to the body when another man darted up, bent down over it, and finding life still in it, took it on his shoulders and carried it away. I recognise Olivier Brusson as that man.' This will lead to a further examination of Brusson, to his being confronted with Count Miossens; the torture will be postponed, and further investigations made. Then will be the time to have recourse to the King. Your brilliant intellect, Mademoiselle, will point out the most fitting way to do this. I think it would be best to tell His Majesty the whole story. Count Miossen's statement will support Olivier's. Perhaps, too, an examination of Cardillac's house would help matters. The King might then follow the bent of his own judgment--of his kind heart, which might pardon where justice could only punish." Count Miossens closely followed D'Andilly's advice, and everything fell out just as he had said it would.

It was now time to repair to the King; and this was the chief difficulty of all, as he had such an intense horror of Brusson--whom he believed to be the man who had for so long kept Paris in a state of terror--that the least allusion to him threw him at once into the most violent anger. Madame de Maintenon, faithful to her system of never mentioning unpleasant subjects to him, declined all intermediation; so that Brusson's fate was entirely in Mademoiselle Scuderi's hands. After long reflection, she hit upon a scheme which she put in execution at once. She put on a heavy black silk dress, with Cardillac's jewels, and a long black veil, and appeared at Madame de Maintenon's at the time when she knew the King would be there. Her n.o.ble figure in this mourning garb excited the reverential respect even of those frivolous persons who pa.s.s their days in Court antechambers. They all made way for her, and when she came into the presence, the King himself rose, astonished, and came forward to meet her. The splendid diamonds of the necklace and bracelets flashed in his eyes, and he cried: "By Heavens!

Cardillac's work!" Then, turning to Madame de Maintenon, he said, with a pleasant smile, "See, Madame la Marquise, how our fair lady mourns for her affianced husband." "Ah, Sire!" said Mademoiselle Scuderi, as if keeping up the jest, "it would ill become a mourning bride to wear such bravery. No; I have done with the goldsmith; nor would I remember him, but that the gruesome spectacle of his corpse carried close by me before my eyes keeps coming back to my memory." "What!" said the King, "did you actually see him, poor fellow?" She then told him in few words (not introducing Brusson into the business at all) how chance had brought her to Cardillac's door just when the murder had been discovered. She described Madelon's wild terror and sorrow; the impression made upon her by the beautiful girl; how she had taken her out of Desgrais's hands, and away with her, amid the applause of the crowd. The scenes with La Regnie, with Desgrais, with Olivier Brusson himself, now followed, the interest constantly increasing. The King, carried away by the vividness with which Mademoiselle Scuderi told the tale, did not notice that the Brusson case, which he so abominated, was in question, listened breathlessly, occasionally expressing his interest by an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. And ere he was well aware, still amazed by the marvels which he was hearing, not yet able to arrange them all in his mind, behold! Mademoiselle Scuderi was at his feet, imploring mercy for Olivier Brusson.

"What are you doing?" broke out the King, taking both her hands and making her sit down. "You take us by storm in a marvellous fas.h.i.+on. It is a most terrible story! Who is to answer for the truth of Brusson's extraordinary tale?" "Miossen's deposition proves it," she cried; "the searching of Cardillac's house; my own firm conviction, and, ah!

Madelon's pure heart, which recognises equal purity in poor Brusson."

The King, about to say something, was interrupted by a noise in the direction of the door. Louvois, who was at work in the next room, put his head in with an anxious expression. The King rose, and followed him out. Both Madame de Maintenon and Mademoiselle Scuderi thought this interruption of evil augury; for, though once surprised into interest, the King might take care not to fall into the snare a second time. But he came back in a few minutes, walked up and down the room two or three times, quickly, and then, pausing with his hands behind his back before Mademoiselle Scuderi, he said, in a half-whisper, without looking at her: "I should like to see this Madelon of yours." On this Mademoiselle Scuderi said: "Oh! gracious Sire! what a marvellous honour you vouchsafe to the poor unfortunate child. She will be at your feet in an instant." She tripped to the door as quickly as her heavy dress allowed, and called to those in the anteroom that the King wished to see Madelon Cardillac. She came back weeping and sobbing with delight and emotion. Having expected this, she had brought Madelon with her, leaving her to wait with the Marquise's maid, with a short pet.i.tion in her hand drawn up by D'Andilly. In a few moments she had prostrated herself, speechless, at the King's feet. Awe, confusion, shyness, love, and sorrow sent the blood coursing faster and faster through her veins; her cheeks glowed, her eyes sparkled with the bright tear-drops, which now and again fell from her silken lashes down to her beautiful lily breast. The King was moved by the wonderful beauty of the girl. He raised her gently, and stooped down as if about to kiss her hand, which he had taken in his; but he let the hand go, and gazed at her with tears in his eyes, evincing deep emotion. Madame de Maintenon whispered to Mademoiselle Scuderi: "Is she not exactly like La Valliere, the little thing? The King is sunk in the sweetest souvenirs: you have gained the day." Though she spoke softly, the King seemed to hear. A blush came to his cheek; he scanned Madame de Maintenon with a glance, and then said, gently and kindly: "I am quite sure that you, my dear child, think your lover is innocent; but we must hear what the Chambre Ardente has to say." A gentle wave of his hand dismissed Madelon, bathed in tears. Mademoiselle Scuderi saw, to her alarm, that the resemblance to La Valliere, advantageous as it had seemed to be at first, had nevertheless changed the King's intention as soon as Madame de Maintenon had spoken of it. Perhaps he felt himself somewhat ungently reminded that he was going to sacrifice strict justice to beauty; or he may have been like a dreamer who, when loudly addressed by his name, finds that the beautiful magic visions by which he thought he was surrounded vanish away. Perhaps he no longer saw his La Valliere before him, but thought only of S[oe]ur Louise de la Misericorde--La Valliere's cloister name among the Carmelite nuns--paining him with her piety and repentance. There was nothing for it now but to patiently wait for the King's decision.

Meanwhile Count Miossen's statement before the Chambre Ardente had become known; and, as often happens, popular opinion soon flew from one extreme to the other, so that the person whom it had stigmatized as the most atrocious of murderers, and would fain have torn in pieces before he reached the scaffold, was now bewailed as the innocent victim of a barbarous sacrifice. His old neighbours only now remembered his admirable character and behaviour, his love for Madelon, and the faithfulness and devotion of soul and body with which he had served his master. Crowds of people, in threatening temper, often collected before La Regnie's Palais, crying, "Give us out Olivier Brusson!--he is innocent!" even throwing stones at the windows, so that La Regnie had to seek the protection of the Marechaussee.

Many days elapsed without Mademoiselle Scuderi's hearing anything on the subject of Olivier Brusson. In her disconsolateness she went to Madame de Maintenon, who said the King was keeping silence on the subject, and it was not advisable to remind him of it. When she then, with a peculiar smile, asked after the "little La Valliere,"

Mademoiselle Scuderi saw that this proud lady felt, in the depths of her heart, some slight annoyance at a matter which had the power of drawing the mobile King into a province whose charm was beyond her own sphere. Consequently nothing was to be hoped from Madame de Maintenon.