CHAPTER IV

When first Georges, Sieur de la Truaumont, of an ancient Norman family, late a captain of "La Garde de Monsieur" and formerly of the Regiment de Roncherolles, had broached to the Prince Chevalier de Beaurepaire the suggestion that he should place himself at the head of the Norman plot for deposing King Louis, he had also indicated to him a number of persons of whom he might make use.

Passing over the greatest, since they were all known to the Prince and were also resident in Normandy, he had described to his half-friend and half-employer more than one who would be useful in Paris, and, among them, was Emérance, who styled herself the Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville.

"Who and what is she?" De Beaurepaire had asked almost indifferently, while wondering how a woman who lived in a decayed, though once fashionable, quarter of Paris and was reported by La Truaumont to be in an almost penniless condition, could be of the slightest assistance to him.

"She is a woman well born, of ancient family, who has been badly treated by all with whom she has of late had to deal. She was accused and tried for a crime she never committed and--she was acquitted. But, with those of her breed, the trial was enough to place her outside the pale. Fortunately it was the King's own court--not a local Norman one--that tried her, and, out of that, grew her determination to assist in wrenching Normandy--nay, France--from his hands, of reinstating herself in the eyes of our beloved province by acting as one of its saviours."

"How?" De Beaurepaire asked, already almost wearied by this short account of the unhappy woman's life.

"By spying on those who, having given in their adhesion to the plot, might, perhaps, find more profit in betraying it than keeping faith with it. Therefore she came to Paris, and, while watching those who might become backsliders, learnt that you, whom she had seen before, were the accepted head of the movement. And she will serve you well. Never fear for that."

"Why serve me? At present her pay cannot be great. As yet the bulk of money we hope to get is not ours."

"Why! Why! Well! you have known enough of women, young as you still are. You know why she will serve you."

"Bah!" De Beaurepaire said, "she works for her pay, poor as it is."

"Does she?" replied La Truaumont quietly.

"Georges," De Beaurepaire continued, addressing the other by his Christian name as he often did in these days, "who is this woman? You know still more than you will tell."

"I know nothing more of her except that she is, like myself, from Normandy. And I know that, for this self-same reason, she will go hand in hand with us in the scheme we have set afloat when--well!--when Madame la Duchesse is safe in Italy and we are back in France."

"You know nothing more of her?"

"Nothing. Van den Enden brought her to me here and said she might be useful, being Norman. When she heard you were the head and front of our future undertaking, she said she would do all we might ask. She had, as I say, seen you before and--la! la!--admired you. But she was poor, she said, and she must live. As you now know, the Jew brought you and her together, and she was finally vowed heart and soul to us, to the cause--to you. De Beaurepaire, you can grapple her to that cause, to yourself; you can make her do aught you, or we, desire if you will but give her a kindly word, a----"

"I will think upon it," the Prince said, while telling himself that already he had thought enough.

"She will be worth it. Do that. Be generous to her and she will go hand in hand to the scaffold with you if you desire."

"Bon Dieu! there is no need for that. And the scaffold is not for a De Beaurepaire."

"The heavens forbid! Yet, when the time comes--it is at hand--we shall throw a great stake."

"And win!"

"So be it. I live in hopes."

After De Beaurepaire had seen Emérance again, after he had more carefully observed her soft features and noted her sad look: above all, after he had seen one or two of the glances she had cast on him, he decided he would grapple her to him and to the cause. A woman such as this was wanted for the scheme he had on foot--the wild, delirious scheme of striving to find himself ruler of France and with, it might be, Louis for his subject instead of his king. He would do it, he would use Emérance de Villiers-Bordéville, as she called herself, to wheedle and hoodwink others, to sow the poison-seed of treachery and anarchy and revolt in their souls, to ride for him to other countries with messages and treaties to be signed and executed; to do all he bade her. And, as slaves had ere now been crowned with roses and rewarded, so he would crown and reward her. He would be soft and gentle to her, he vowed; he would speak her fair and sweet, and she should be well repaid for her services and no longer go in rags or live poorly.

He had decided all this some month or so before the night when now he came back to Emérance to tell her what further services were required of her above those she had already rendered, and, during that period, he had had good opportunities of observing her unfailing fidelity to him and his cause. One thing, however, that he had resolved to do had not yet been carried out. The money with which he meant to reward her, the money that should enable her to be decently housed, well fed and properly clad and equipped, had not yet been forthcoming. Spain had sent nothing until a few days before, and that only a trifle, since it had been arranged that no money was to be paid until the signal was given in the Gazette de Bruxelles, and then she had only sent this small sum on the representation being made that the conspirators in France would themselves do nothing until Spain led the way. As for De Beaurepaire he had nothing; his years of extravagant living and the expense which his appointments caused him necessitating his continually asking money from his mother.

"Madame," he said, as now he entered the room, "I am here to speak with you." Then, seeing that although Emérance turned away from the window and faced him, she uttered no word, he continued, "My presence is not irksome, I trust."

"There could be no presence less so," the woman answered, regaining full command of her speech, of which some strange inward agitation had momentarily deprived her. A moment later, forgetting that the room in which she was belonged no more to her than to him, she motioned to De Beaurepaire to be seated and, ere he could place a chair for her, had seated herself.

"To-night," she went on, her calmness all returned, "you are to tell me what farther part I can play in your--our, since I am Norman--enterprise. Do so, therefore, I entreat of you. And, whatever it may be, have no fear to name it. What there is to be done, I will do."

"Madame is very brave," the Prince said, his voice soft and gentle and his look--that was so often harsh and contemptuous--equally so. "Very brave. Madame's heart is in this."

"It is," Emérance replied. "To the end. I fear nothing in this cause; nothing. Speak freely."

"At present," De Beaurepaire said, "there is no danger to madame in what she is asked to perform. Nay, she is but asked to perform that which should bring safety to herself in place of danger. I ask her on behalf of the Attempt and--well!--of myself, to quit France." Then, seeing that the pallor on the face of Emérance had increased--if that were possible: seeing, too, that her lips framed, though they did not utter, the word "Never," he added, "only for a little while. A few days at most."

"So!" the woman exclaimed, divining his meaning in a moment, "it is not to quit France because I am no longer wanted, or am dangerous, or no longer to be trusted, but because----"

"Madame, you have guessed aright, or perhaps you know the service I would demand."

"It is not hard to guess. The great lady," Emérance said, in a tone more of sorrow than bitterness, "she who is so great and might, had she so chosen, have been greater, quits France for Italy. Her journey is to be well protected. Even Monsieur le Prince will escort her outside the gates. The guards he commands; the other soldiery to whom he can issue commands that must be obeyed; the watch, the police, will be prevented from interfering with her. Ah! it is well to be Madame la Duchesse de----"

"Silence, I beg. Do not mention her name. Should it ever become known that I have lent her assistance in her escape from Paris, I should not be safe from the King's wrath. And, at present, that wrath is a thing that even I must fear since, should it fall on me, it might, nay must, prevent our venture from progressing. The Bastille, Vincennes, some gloomy fortress far from Paris are not places where plots can well be carried on."

"The Bastille, Vincennes--for you!" Emérance exclaimed again, her eyes fixed on the other. "Ah! That must never be." Then, suddenly, she leant forward across the table towards De Beaurepaire. "What is it I am to do? What?"

"Listen, Emérance--madame," the man replied, correcting himself as he observed the flush that overcame her features as he mentioned her name: a flush that, he observed almost with surprise, transformed her from a pale, careworn woman to a beautiful one. "Listen. There sets out with madame a party of four, not one of whom I dare trust entirely. Two of this party are Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury, Normans like yourself----"

"You may trust them both. They are too deeply embarked in our scheme to betray any other."

"It may be so. Yet the former is a babbler, especially in his cups. The other is morose and melancholy; one who may possess that inconvenient thing called a conscience. If this conscience pricks him, or he should become alarmed as to discovery being made of the Attempt, he may tell all."

"Not 'twixt here and Basle. Still, if it is to watch those men until they are safe in Switzerland that I am being sent, it shall be done."

"Not that more than to watch the others."

"The Duchess!" Emérance exclaimed, astonished. "She would not betray you!"

"She knows somewhat of the scheme and disbelieves in its chance of success. Above all, she fears for me and my probable ruin."

"Therefore, she loves you."

"Nay. But we have been friends since almost childhood. If by betraying the scheme to the King, by causing all others who are concerned in it to be betrayed so that, thereby, she might save me, I do think she would do it."

"If she will do it nought can prevent her. In Italy--in Basle--in Geneva--in Nancy--she can do it. Who can control the posts? One letter to Louis will be enough."

"Let her but reach Italy, be once across the Alps, and she may send a thousand letters if she will. For, by the time they can reach Louis' hands, he should be powerless. The Dutch fleet will be off Quillebeuf, the men who are to seize on him will be riding in small troops and companies, by divers routes towards Versailles or Fontainebleau or wherever the Court may chance to be. Before a letter can cross the Alps and reach him there--well! he will be neither at Fontainebleau nor Versailles to receive it."

"They will not murder him!" the woman exclaimed, a look of terror in her face. "That must never be. No Norman would consent to that. He must not go the way of his grandsire."

"Fear not. None dream of such a thing, nor, if it were so, would I be party to any such compact. Instead, he will go at first on the way he has sent many others. To Pignerol perhaps, or out of France. To England." After which De Beaurepaire returned to the subject which was the real object of his interview with Emérance.

"Besides Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury," he went on now, "two others go with her. One is Mademoiselle d'Angelis, the daughter of a French father and English mother, the other is an Englishman named Humphrey West, the son of an English father and a French mother. They are lovers. Have you ever heard speak of them?"

"Of him, never. Of her, yes. Is she not the demoiselle de compagnie of Madame la Duchesse?"

"She is."

"What can they know, or knowing, what harm do?"

"Listen, Emérance," De Beaurepaire said now, while no longer taking pains to correct himself since he knew, felt sure, that the unhappy woman secretly loved him, and, consequently, that this familiar style of address would be far from displeasing to her. "Listen. The Duchess is une folle, a chatterer. She may talk of, hint at, what she knows. And a word dropped in the ears of her followers, a hint, would be the spark that would explode the magazine."

"What could they do, what should they do? They will be in Italy, too; if a letter from across the Alps will take so long in reaching Louis; if, when it reaches Fontainebleau, or Versailles, he shall be no longer there, how can either this man or the woman he loves travel back to France faster than it? And why should either do anything?"

"His Majesty was good to Humphrey West's mother when his father, an old cavalier, died, and he put pressure on Charles after his restoration to at last make good to them the money and estate Cromwell had seized on during his protectorate. D'Angelis, the girl's late father, was one of Louis' earliest tutors, and Louis loved him and has also been good to his widow and the girl. If either Humphrey West or Jacquette d'Angelis should learn that an untoward breath of wind was like to blow against him, the former, at least, would take horse and ride back as fast as one steed after another could carry him to divulge all."

"What power shall I have to stop them? What can I do?"

"Follow them, watch them, until they leave Nancy together. If Humphrey West still forms one of the cortége we are safe until they reach Basle. At Basle watch them again and again, while, if all leave that place, either for the St. Gothard or for Geneva, thereby to make the passage of the St. Bernard--why, then, let them go. Once out of Basle and on the road to Italy and we are entirely safe. You will have done your work and," he added with that smile which so stirred the heart of the unhappy woman, "your friends in Paris will be awaiting you eagerly."

"'My friends,'" said Emérance sadly. "I have none. Not one." But, seeing a look on De Beaurepaire's face that partly made her feel delirious with delight and partly caused her to feel as though her heart had turned to ice within her, so wide was the gulf between this man and her, she quickly returned to the matter in question: "And if I discover aught that you should know at once? If one or other of the men sets out for, returns to Paris; if a letter should by chance be sent--what then?"

"Then," said De Beaurepaire, "fly back more swiftly than they, if you can accomplish it. Spare neither pains nor money--to-morrow you shall be furnished with ample for your needs from the funds Spain has sent. Outstrip post or horseman, or, failing the possibility of that, follow as swiftly as may be. Thus, Emérance, my friend, my co-plotter, my sweet Norman ally, shall you win the deepest gratitude of Louis de Beaurepaire. Thus, too, if he wins in this great cause, will you make him your debtor for ever. You will make him one who will never forget the services Emérance de Villiers-Bordéville has rendered him."