CHAPTER I

The doors of the Taverne Gabrielle, in the Rue des Franc Bourgeois in the Marais, stood open to all passers-by, and also to the cool wind blowing from the south-east. This evening, perhaps because it was summer-time, and perhaps, also, because it was supper-time for all in Paris from his Splendid Majesty down to the lowest who had any supper to eat, the appropriately named tavern--since directly opposite to it was the h?tel which Henri IV. had built for the fair Gabrielle d'Estrées--was not so full as it would be later on.

Indeed, it was by no means full, and the landlord, with his family, was occupying the time during which he scarcely ever had a demand for a pint of wine, or even a pigeolet, to have his own supper.

There were, however, some customers present--since when was there ever a time that the doors of a cabaret which is also an eating-house, and that one of good fame in a populous neighbourhood, did not have some customers beneath its roof at every hour of the day from the moment the doors opened until they closed? And the Taverne Gabrielle was no exception to this almost indisputable fact.

In one corner of the great, square room there sat an ancient bourgeois with his cronies sipping a flask of Arbois; in another a young man in the uniform of the Régiment de Perche was discussing a savoury ragout with a demoiselle who was masked; close by the open door, with the tables drawn out in front of it, though not too near to it to prevent free ingress and egress, were two men who, in an earlier period than that of Le Dieudonné, might have been termed marauds, swashbucklers, bretteurs, or heaven knows what. Now--even in the days which seemed to those who lived in them to be degenerate ones with all the flame and excitement of life departed, and which seem to those who have lived after them to have been so full of a strong, masterfully pulsating, full-blooded existence, perfumed with all that goes to make life one long romance--these men might have appeared to be anything except sober citizens or honest bourgeois carrying on steady, reputable callings. For, on their faces, in their garb, even in their wicked-looking side-weapons which now hung peacefully on the wall close by where they sat, there was an indescribable something which proclaimed that they were not men bringing up families decently and honestly. Not men content with small gains obtained by honest labour, by taking down their shutters at dawn and putting them up again long after nightfall; not men who walked side by side with their wives to Saint Eustache or Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois on Sabbath mornings while leading their children by the hand. Men, indeed, to judge by their appearance, their words and exclamations--which would not have graced the salons of St. Germain or Versailles!--and also by their looks and gestures, more fitted, more suitable to, and better acquainted with a huge fortress-prison close at hand, termed the Bastille, than any place of worship.

"He should be here by now," the elder of the two said to his companion, whom he addressed frequently as Fleur de Mai. "The sun has set and, ere long, every bell in Paris will be proclaiming that it is nine o'clock. If he comes not soon, there will be little time for us to go to the H?tel des Muses and have a cast for a pistole or two. Van den Enden closes his tripot early."

"He will come, Boisfleury. So will the other. His master and, now, ours. Yet, remember what I have already told you, treat neither of them too much en ma?tre. Remember also, that we are all officers and gentlemen--or have been."

"Yet--malheur à tous! we are no longer officers and, well! they are."

"La Truaumont is not. The other, the Chief, is, seeing that he is actual first in command of all the guards of the Splendid One."

"If he were not he would not be coming here to-night. That command gives him the power he desires."

"Yes, combined with the other power, the other assistance, he expects."

"Will he succeed, Fleur de Mai?"

"Succeed!" the younger man, addressed as Fleur de Mai, exclaimed. "Cadédis! 'tis to be hoped so. Or else, where are we? We, mon ami. Where are we?"

"There," Boisfleury said, pointing a finger towards the Rue St. Antoine, at the end of which the Bastille stood; "or there," directing an eye towards the vicinity of the Louvre, close by which was the Place du Carrousel where, when the great place in front of the Bastille was similarly occupied, the Wheel was set up.

"Precisely. Therefore, mon camarade, he must not fail. There is too much at stake; our precious lives principally. Afterwards his. Then, hers. To say nothing of Van den Enden's life."

"Theirs are of poor account. Yet, à-propos of hers; where is she and what is she doing now?"

"Plotting, of course. For him whom she loves and for her province which, though it treated her but scurvily, she still loves. Being a woman, neglect on one side and ill-treatment on the other has made her love grow stronger. It does that with some women and most dogs, since their love is like tropic flowers that often grow best in dry, uncared-for soil."

"But her other love; for him? Does that not prosper?"

"Again the dog's nature is shown in that. She gets no love, but still she loves on and on blindly. If that," imitating the other's recently pointing finger, "or that," imitating his recently directed glance, "claims him it will claim her too. Should he ever get into the jaws of Madame la Bastille she will get there also. For, again, dog-like, where he goes Emérance will follow."

"Such a love is worth having," his comrade said meditatively, as though, perhaps in better days, he had once possessed, or dreamed of possessing, a similar one.

"For which very reason the Chief does not value it. If he were forced to sigh and moan for want of it and still find it refused----"

"He would never do that for any woman!"

"'Tis true. And in this case he is right. So long as he disdains her so long will she serve him heart and soul. She will intrigue for him, spy for him, work for him and, in the end, die with him if he dies 'there' or 'there'," again imitating, saturninely, the other; "or, if may be, die for him. But, if he succeeds, if he arrives at that which he hopes to reach, then--well!--they will die apart. For, succeeding, she will not be able to follow where he goes: the spot where she remains will have been left far behind by him."

"'Tis hard on her," the elder man said, still musing. "A woman's love, a true woman's love, is worth having; it is too good a thing to be wasted."

"It is the fate of woman's love where misplaced. Now," he said, "look behind you down the street. La Truaumont is coming. We shall hear of our first employment. It will not be a pleasant journey, but we shall be away from all plotting and we shall be well paid. That is better than 'there,'" and again Fleur de Mai mockingly imitated his companion.

Turning round on his chair and glancing down the street, Boisfleury saw that a burly, bull-necked man was coming along it with his light cloak thrown over one arm, since the evening had not yet become cool enough for it to be worn, and heard the end of the scabbard of his rapier scraping the cobble stones of the road as he walked, since there were no footpaths in the Rue des Franc Bourgeois.

Yet, bull-necked and burly though this man might be, there was about him something that proclaimed him of better metal than those whom he was undoubtedly coming to meet, and also that, even as they were men accustomed to obey, so he was one well used to command. For there was in him an indescribable yet easily recognised air of command, a look, an air, that told plainly enough that this man had in his life given more orders, with the certainty of those orders being obeyed, than he had ever taken. In age he was perhaps fifty, or a year or two less, he was plainly but well dressed, and, in spite of the ruggedness of his appearance, he was a well-favoured, good-looking man.

He drew near to the Taverne Gabrielle now and entered it as Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury each rose to their feet and saluted him in a manner different from that of the other, yet typical of each. The former, who, though a younger man than his companion, was evidently the principal of the two, welcomed the Captain La Truaumont more en camarade than the other; more familiarly indeed, as though feeling that, in absolute truth, he was his equal. The latter rose with some sort of quiet dignity which, while expressing the fact that he considered himself as quite a humble instrument to be bought by money, was not without a certain self-respect. Also, that dignity seemed to suggest that, once, the man's position had been different from, and better than, it was now or would ever be again.

"So," La Truaumont said, "you keep the rendezvous. It is very well. Unhappily, I have made it too late. The citizens have supped, their wives will be putting the children to bed, they will be coming forth to drink their flask and discuss their neighbours', and their own, doings. This tavern will be full ere long; we had best go elsewhere since there is much to talk over."

"There is Van den Enden's," Fleur de Mai said. "Plenty of rooms there where none can overhear or intrude! What say you, noble captain? You know the place and the man. Likewise, she is there and--well! she is in the affair and deeply too."

"'Twill do. It is there I have told the Chief I will be between ten and eleven. He will be back by then from making his last arrangements for the departure of that other." After which he said, while addressing both men, "You set out to-morrow night."

"All nights are the same to us--is it not so, Boisfleury?" Fleur de Mai exclaimed, slapping his somewhat melancholy comrade on the back as though to hearten him up.

"It is," the other said. "All nights and all roads, and all days as well. Fleur de Mai and I require little preparation. Our horses are in their stables, our clothes on our backs; our best friends," with a glance of his eye--that glance with which a Frenchman can infer a whole sentence!--towards the weapons hanging in their sashes on the wall, "are there."

"Good. You will have a light, easy task of it, a pleasant ride through the sunniest provinces of France; the best of inns to sleep in, eat in, drink in----"

"So. So. 'Tis very well," grunted Fleur de Mai approvingly.

"--and," continued La Truaumont, "your pockets filled with pistoles ere you set out, replenished with them when you arrive at your destination, and refilled again when you return to Paris. Can heart of man desire more?"

"Whatever the hearts of Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury may desire more," the former of those two worthies said, "they are not likely to get. Therefore we are content. We will guard the noble lady valiantly. If our two swords are not enough to shield her and her companion, 'tis not very like a dozen others could."

"There will be one other," La Truaumont said quietly, as now Fleur de Mai made a sign to the drawer to bring the reckoning.

"One other!" the latter exclaimed, turning round to look at La Truaumont. "What other? Any of our 'friends' by chance? Of our noble and distinguished confraternity?"

"By no means. The other blade--he is a good one--is a young man who loves the demoiselle de compagnie of the illustrious traveller; one who rides half-way upon the long journey to thereby keep his fiancée company and to act as protector, escort, squire of dames."

"Who is he? Do we know him?" While, dropping his voice, Fleur de Mai added, "Is he in the Great Venture?"

"No, to each and every question. You have never heard of him or seen him, and he knows no more of the 'Great Venture' than he who is the object of that great venture's existence knows. The man in question is an Englishman."

"An Englishman!" the two companions exclaimed together, while Fleur de Mai added, "What do we want with him?"

"Nothing--no more than he wants with you, he going only, as I have said, to be by the side of his beloved. He goes," La Truaumont continued with some little emphasis, "unpaid, unhired and untrammelled. He can turn back when half of the first portion of the journey is completed, or, arrived at the end of the first portion, he can, if it so pleases him, encompass the second with the ladies. He is well-to-do and his pockets are well lined."

"He is an Englishman all the same," Fleur de Mai grumbled.

"On one side only. His mother is a Frenchwoman."

"That's better," both the men said together. After which Fleur de Mai asked:--

"But the Venture? The Great Attempt? You say he knows nought of that. Yet he will be there as well as we when the illustrious lady has gone on her way; when Van den Enden----"

"Hush, idiot. No names."

"When the emissary, then, comes to meet her. That other whom we shall see to-night."

"Again I say he is harmless, since he knows nothing. Now, come. Let us to the 'emissary's'. The Chief will be there as soon as may be. We must not be later than he."

Whereon Fleur de Mai once more crooked a ringer at the drawer lurking by the window and keeping an eye on those who had been consuming his master's wine--he being accustomed to trust no one whom he did not know to be an honest bourgeois of the vicinity; and, at the same time, each man reached down his hat and sword and buckled the latter around his waist.

Then, the reckoning paid, the three went forth into the narrow street and directed their steps towards the Rue Picpus which was not so very far off. For it was in that street that there dwelt the man who had, but a few moments before, been spoken of as Van den Enden and the "emissary." A man who was as much concerned in that Great Venture, that Great Attempt referred to, as was either Le Capitaine La Truaumont or the other man termed the Chief.