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BOOK III: THE SWORD CHAPTER VIII.
THE PALADIN OF THE THIRD
M. Le Chevalier de Chabrillane had been closely connected, you will remember, with
the iniquitous affair in which Philippe de Vilmorin had lost his life.
We know enough to justify a surmise that he had not merely been La Tour d'Azyr's second
in the encounter, but actually an instigator of the business.
Andre-Louis may therefore have felt a justifiable satisfaction in offering up the
Chevalier's life to the Manes of his murdered friend.
He may have viewed it as an act of common justice not to be procured by any other
means.
Also it is to be remembered that Chabrillane had gone confidently to the
meeting, conceiving that he, a practised ferailleur, had to deal with a bourgeois
utterly unskilled in swordsmanship.
Morally, then, he was little better than a murderer, and that he should have tumbled
into the pit he conceived that he dug for Andre-Louis was a poetic retribution.
Yet, notwithstanding all this, I should find the cynical note on which Andre-Louis
announced the issue to the Assembly utterly detestable did I believe it sincere.
It would justify Aline of the expressed opinion, which she held in common with so
many others who had come into close contact with him, that Andre-Louis was quite
heartless.
You have seen something of the same heartlessness in his conduct when he
discovered the faithlessness of La Binet although that is belied by the measures he
took to avenge himself.
His subsequent contempt of the woman I account to be born of the affection in
which for a time he held her.
That this affection was as deep as he first imagined, I do not believe; but that it was
as shallow as he would almost be at pains to make it appear by the completeness with
which he affects to have put her from his
mind when he discovered her worthlessness, I do not believe; nor, as I have said, do
his actions encourage that belief.
Then, again, his callous cynicism in hoping that he had killed Binet is also an
affectation.
Knowing that such things as Binet are better out of the world, he can have
suffered no compunction; he had, you must remember, that rarely level vision which
sees things in their just proportions, and
never either magnifies or reduces them by sentimental considerations.
At the same time, that he should contemplate the taking of life with such
complete and cynical equanimity, whatever the justification, is quite incredible.
Similarly now, it is not to be believed that in coming straight from the Bois de
Boulogne, straight from the killing of a man, he should be sincerely expressing his
nature in alluding to the fact in terms of such outrageous flippancy.
Not quite to such an extent was he the incarnation of Scaramouche.
But sufficiently was he so ever to mask his true feelings by an arresting gesture, his
true thoughts by an effective phrase.
He was the actor always, a man ever calculating the effect he would produce,
ever avoiding self-revelation, ever concerned to overlay his real character by
an assumed and quite fictitious one.
There was in this something of impishness, and something of other things.
Nobody laughed now at his flippancy. He did not intend that anybody should.
He intended to be terrible; and he knew that the more flippant and casual his tone,
the more terrible would be its effect. He produced exactly the effect he desired.
What followed in a place where feelings and practices had become what they had become
is not difficult to surmise.
When the session rose, there were a dozen spadassins awaiting him in the vestibule,
and this time the men of his own party were less concerned to guard him.
He seemed so entirely capable of guarding himself; he appeared, for all his
circumspection, to have so completely carried the war into the enemy's camp, so
completely to have adopted their own
methods, that his fellows scarcely felt the need to protect him as yesterday.
As he emerged, he scanned that hostile file, whose air and garments marked them so
clearly for what they were.
He paused, seeking the man he expected, the man he was most anxious to oblige.
But M. de La Tour d'Azyr was absent from those eager ranks.
This seemed to him odd.
La Tour d'Azyr was Chabrillane's cousin and closest friend.
Surely he should have been among the first to-day.
The fact was that La Tour d'Azyr was too deeply overcome by amazement and grief at
the utterly unexpected event. Also his vindictiveness was held curiously
in leash.
Perhaps he, too, remembered the part played by Chabrillane in the affair at Gavrillac,
and saw in this obscure Andre-Louis Moreau, who had so persistently persecuted him ever
since, an ordained avenger.
The repugnance he felt to come to the point, with him, particularly after this
culminating provocation, was puzzling even to himself.
But it existed, and it curbed him now.
To Andre-Louis, since La Tour was not one of that waiting pack, it mattered little on
that Tuesday morning who should be the next.
The next, as it happened, was the young Vicomte de La Motte-Royau, one of the
deadliest blades in the group.
On the Wednesday morning, coming again an hour or so late to the Assembly, Andre-
Louis announced--in much the same terms as he had announced the death of Chabrillane--
that M. de La Motte-Royau would probably
not disturb the harmony of the Assembly for some weeks to come, assuming that he were
so fortunate as to recover ultimately from the effects of an unpleasant accident with
which he had quite unexpectedly had the misfortune to meet that morning.
On Thursday he made an identical announcement with regard to the Vidame de
Blavon.
On Friday he told them that he had been delayed by M. de Troiscantins, and then
turning to the members of the Cote Droit, and lengthening his face to a sympathetic
gravity:
"I am glad to inform you, messieurs, that M. des Troiscantins is in the hands of a
very competent surgeon who hopes with care to restore him to your councils in a few
weeks' time."
It was paralyzing, fantastic, unreal; and friend and foe in that assembly sat alike
stupefied under those bland daily announcements.
Four of the most redoubtable spadassinicides put away for a time, one of
them dead--and all this performed with such an air of indifference and announced in
such casual terms by a wretched little provincial lawyer!
He began to assume in their eyes a romantic aspect.
Even that group of philosophers of the Cote Gauche, who refused to worship any force
but the force of reason, began to look upon him with a respect and consideration which
no oratorical triumphs could ever have procured him.
And from the Assembly the fame of him oozed out gradually over Paris.
Desmoulins wrote a panegyric upon him in his paper "Les Revolutions," wherein he
dubbed him the "Paladin of the Third Estate," a name that caught the fancy of
the people, and clung to him for some time.
Disdainfully was he mentioned in the "Actes des Apotres," the mocking organ of the
Privileged party, so light-heartedly and provocatively edited by a group of
gentlemen afflicted by a singular mental myopy.
The Friday of that very busy week in the life of this young man who even thereafter
is to persist in reminding us that he is not in any sense a man of action, found the
vestibule of the Manege empty of swordsmen
when he made his leisurely and expectant egress between Le Chapelier and Kersain.
So surprised was he that he checked in his stride.
"Have they had enough?" he wondered, addressing the question to Le Chapelier.
"They have had enough of you, I should think," was the answer.
"They will prefer to turn their attention to some one less able to take care of
himself." Now this was disappointing.
Andre-Louis had lent himself to this business with a very definite object in
view. The slaying of Chabrillane had, as far as
it went, been satisfactory.
He had regarded that as a sort of acceptable hors d'oeuvre.
But the three who had followed were no affair of his at all.
He had met them with a certain amount of repugnance, and dealt with each as lightly
as consideration of his own safety permitted.
Was the baiting of him now to cease whilst the man at whom he aimed had not presented
himself? In that case it would be necessary to force
the pace!
Out there under the awning a group of gentlemen stood in earnest talk.
Scanning the group in a rapid glance, Andre-Louis perceived M. de La Tour d'Azyr
amongst them.
He tightened his lips. He must afford no provocation.
It must be for them to fasten their quarrels upon him.
Already the "Actes des Apotres" that morning had torn the mask from his face,
and proclaimed him the fencing-master of the Rue du Hasard, successor to Bertrand
des Amis.
Hazardous as it had been hitherto for a man of his condition to engage in single combat
it was rendered doubly so by this exposure, offered to the public as an aristocratic
apologia.
Still, matters could not be left where they were, or he should have had all his pains
for nothing.
Carefully looking away from that group of gentlemen, he raised his voice so that his
words must carry to their ears.
"It begins to look as if my fears of having to spend the remainder of my days in the
Bois were idle." Out of the corner of his eye he caught the
stir his words created in that group.
Its members had turned to look at him; but for the moment that was all.
A little more was necessary. Pacing slowly along between his friends he
resumed:
"But is it not remarkable that the assassin of Lagron should make no move against
Lagron's successor? Or perhaps it is not remarkable.
Perhaps there are good reasons.
Perhaps the gentleman is prudent." He had passed the group by now, and he left
that last sentence of his to trail behind him, and after it sent laughter, insolent
and provoking.
He had not long to wait. Came a quick step behind him, and a hand
falling upon his shoulder, spun him violently round.
He was brought face to face with M. de La Tour d'Azyr, whose handsome countenance was
calm and composed, but whose eyes reflected something of the sudden blaze of passion
stirring in him.
Behind him several members of the group were approaching more slowly.
The others--like Andre-Louis' two companions--remained at gaze.
"You spoke of me, I think," said the Marquis quietly.
"I spoke of an assassin--yes. But to these my friends."
Andre-Louis' manner was no less quiet, indeed the quieter of the two, for he was
the more experienced actor.
"You spoke loudly enough to be overheard," said the Marquis, answering the insinuation
that he had been eavesdropping. "Those who wish to overhear frequently
contrive to do so."
"I perceive that it is your aim to be offensive."
"Oh, but you are mistaken, M. le Marquis. I have no wish to be offensive.
But I resent having hands violently laid upon me, especially when they are hands
that I cannot consider clean, In the circumstances I can hardly be expected to
be polite."
The elder man's eyelids flickered. Almost he caught himself admiring Andre-
Louis' bearing. Rather, he feared that his own must suffer
by comparison.
Because of this, he enraged altogether, and lost control of himself.
"You spoke of me as the assassin of Lagron. I do not affect to misunderstand you.
You expounded your views to me once before, and I remember."
"But what flattery, monsieur!"
"You called me an assassin then, because I used my skill to dispose of a turbulent
hot-head who made the world unsafe for me.
But how much better are you, M. the fencing-master, when you oppose yourself to
men whose skill is as naturally inferior to your own!"
M. de La Tour d'Azyr's friends looked grave, perturbed.
It was really incredible to find this great gentleman so far forgetting himself as to
descend to argument with a canaille of a lawyer-swordsman.
And what was worse, it was an argument in which he was being made ridiculous.
"I oppose myself to them!" said Andre-Louis on a tone of amused protest.
"Ah, pardon, M. le Marquis; it is they who chose to oppose themselves to me--and so
stupidly.
They push me, they slap my face, they tread on my toes, they call me by unpleasant
names. What if I am a fencing-master?
Must I on that account submit to every manner of ill-treatment from your bad-
mannered friends?
Perhaps had they found out sooner that I am a fencing-master their manners would have
been better. But to blame me for that!
What injustice!"
"Comedian!" the Marquis contemptuously apostrophized him.
"Does it alter the case? Are these men who have opposed you men who
live by the sword like yourself?"
"On the contrary, M. le Marquis, I have found them men who died by the sword with
astonishing ease. I cannot suppose that you desire to add
yourself to their number."
"And why, if you please?" La Tour d'Azyr's face had flamed scarlet
before that sneer. "Oh," Andre-Louis raised his eyebrows and
pursed his lips, a man considering.
He delivered himself slowly. "Because, monsieur, you prefer the easy
victim--the Lagrons and Vilmorins of this world, mere sheep for your butchering.
That is why."
And then the Marquis struck him. Andre-Louis stepped back.
His eyes gleamed a moment; the next they were smiling up into the face of his tall
enemy.
"No better than the others, after all! Well, well!
Remark, I beg you, how history repeats itself--with certain differences.
Because poor Vilmorin could not bear a vile lie with which you goaded him, he struck
you. Because you cannot bear an equally vile
truth which I have uttered, you strike me.
But always is the vileness yours. And now as then for the striker there
is..." He broke off.
"But why name it?
You will remember what there is. Yourself you wrote it that day with the
point of your too-ready sword. But there.
I will meet you if you desire it, monsieur."
"What else do you suppose that I desire? To talk?"
Andre-Louis turned to his friends and sighed.
"So that I am to go another jaunt to the Bois.
Isaac, perhaps you will kindly have a word with one of these friends of M. le
Marquis', and arrange for nine o'clock to- morrow, as usual."
"Not to-morrow," said the Marquis shortly to Le Chapeher.
"I have an engagement in the country, which I cannot postpone."
Le Chapelier looked at Andre-Louis.
"Then for M. le Marquis' convenience, we will say Sunday at the same hour."
"I do not fight on Sunday. I am not a pagan to break the holy day."
"But surely the good God would not have the presumption to damn a gentleman of M. le
Marquis' quality on that account?
Ah, well, Isaac, please arrange for Monday, if it is not a feast-day or monsieur has
not some other pressing engagement. I leave it in your hands."
He bowed with the air of a man wearied by these details, and threading his arm
through Kersain's withdrew. "Ah, Dieu de Dieu!
But what a trick of it you have," said the Breton deputy, entirely unsophisticated in
these matters. "To be sure I have.
I have taken lessons at their hands."
He laughed. He was in excellent good-humour.
And Kersain was enrolled in the ranks of those who accounted Andre-Louis a man
without heart or conscience.
But in his "Confessions" he tells us--and this is one of the glimpses that reveal the
true man under all that make-believe--that on that night he went down on his knees to
commune with his dead friend Philippe, and
to call his spirit to witness that he was about to take the last step in the
fulfilment of the oath sworn upon his body at Gavrillac two years ago.