“And I,” said the other, quietly, “am Maurice d’Escorval.”
They surveyed each other for a moment; each expecting, perhaps, an insult from the other. Instinctively, they felt that they were to be enemies; and the bitterest animosity spoke in the glances they exchanged. Perhaps they felt a presentiment that they were to be champions of two different principles, as well as rivals.
Martial, remembering his father, yielded.
“We shall meet again, Monsieur d’Escorval,” he said, as he retired. At this threat, Maurice shrugged his shoulders, and said:
“You had better not desire it.”
CHAPTER V
The abode of the Baron d’Escorval, that brick structure with stone trimmings which was visible from the superb avenue leading to Sairmeuse, was small and unpretentious.
Its chief attraction was a pretty lawn that extended to the banks of the Oiselle, and a small but beautifully shaded park.
It was known as the Chateau d’Escorval, but that appellation was gross flattery. Any petty manufacturer who had amassed a small fortune would have desired a larger, handsomer, and more imposing establishment.
M. d’Escorval—and it will be an eternal honor to him in history—was not rich.
Although he had been intrusted with several of those missions from which generals and diplomats often return laden with millions, M. d’Escorval’s worldly possessions consisted only of the little patrimony bequeathed him by his father: a property which yielded an income of from twenty to twenty-five thousand francs a year.
This modest dwelling, situated about a mile from Sairmeuse, represented the savings of ten years.
He had built it in 1806, from a plan drawn by his own hand; and it was the dearest spot on earth to him.
He always hastened to this retreat when his work allowed him a few days of rest.
But this time he had not come to Escorval of his own free will.
He had been compelled to leave Paris by the proscribed list of the 24th of July—that fatal list which summoned the enthusiastic Labedoyere and the honest and virtuous Drouot before a court-martial.
And even in this solitude, M. d’Escorval’s situation was not without danger.
He was one of those who, some days before the disaster of Waterloo, had strongly urged the Emperor to order the execution of Fouche, the former minister of police.
Now, Fouche knew this counsel; and he was powerful.
“Take care!” M. d’Escorval’s friends wrote him from Paris.
But he put his trust in Providence, and faced the future, threatening though it was, with the unalterable serenity of a pure conscience.
The baron was still young; he was not yet fifty, but anxiety, work, and long nights passed in struggling with the most arduous difficulties of the imperial policy, had made him old before his time.
He was tall, slightly inclined to embonpoint, and stooped a little.
His calm eyes, his serious mouth, his broad, furrowed forehead, and his austere manners inspired respect.
“He must be stern and inflexible,” said those who saw him for the first time.
But they were mistaken.
If, in the exercise of his official duties, this truly great man had the strength to resist all temptations to swerve from the path of right; if, when duty was at stake, he was as rigid as iron, in private life he was as unassuming as a child, and kind and gentle even to the verge of weakness.
To this nobility of character he owed his domestic happiness, that rare and precious happiness which fills one’s existence with a celestial perfume.
During the bloodiest epoch of the Reign of Terror, M. d’Escorval had wrested from the guillotine a young girl named Victoire-Laure d’Alleu, a distant cousin of the Rhetaus of Commarin, as beautiful as an angel, and only three years younger than himself.
He loved her—and though she was an orphan, destitute of fortune, he married her, considering the treasure of her virgin heart of far greater value than the most magnificent dowry.
She was an honest woman, as her husband was an honest man, in the most strict and vigorous sense of the word.
She was seldom seen at the Tuileries, where M. d’Escorval’s worth made him eagerly welcomed. The splendors of the Imperial Court, which at that time surpassed all the pomp of the time of Louis XIV., had no attractions for her.
Grace, beauty, youth and accomplishments—she reserved them all for the adornment of her home.
Her husband was her God. She lived in him and through him. She had not a thought which did not belong to him.
The short time that he could spare from his arduous labors to devote to her were her happiest hours.
And when, in the evening, they sat beside the fire in their modest drawing-room, with their son Maurice playing on the rug at their feet, it seemed to them that they had nothing to wish for here below.
The overthrow of the empire surprised them in the heydey of their happiness.
Surprised them? No. For a long time M. d’Escorval had seen the prodigious edifice erected by the genius whom he had made his idol totter as if about to fall.
Certainly, he felt intense chagrin at this fall, but he was heart-broken at the sight of all the treason and cowardice which followed it. He was indignant and horrified at the rising en masse of the avaricious, who hastened to gorge themselves with the spoil.
Under these circumstances, exile from Paris seemed an actual blessing.
“Besides,” as he remarked to the baroness, “we shall soon be forgotten here.”
But even while he said this he felt many misgivings. Still, by his side, his noble wife presented a tranquil face, even while she trembled for the safety of her adored husband.
On this first Sunday in August, M. d’Escorval and his wife had been unusually sad. A vague presentiment of approaching misfortune weighed heavily upon their hearts.
At the same hour that Lacheneur presented himself at the house of the Abbe Midon, they were seated upon the terrace in front of the house, gazing anxiously at the two roads leading from Escorval to the chateau, and to the village of Sairmeuse.
Warned, that same morning, by his friends in Montaignac of the arrival of the duke, the baron had sent his son to inform M. Lacheneur.
He had requested him to be absent as short a time as possible; but in spite of this fact, the hours were rolling by, and Maurice had not returned.
“What if something has happened to him!” both father and mother were thinking.
No; nothing had happened to him. Only a word from Mlle. Lacheneur had sufficed to make him forget his usual deference to his father’s wishes.
“This evening,” she had said, “I shall certainly know your heart.”
What could this mean? Could she doubt him?
Tortured by the most cruel anxieties, the poor youth could not resolve to go away without an explanation, and he hung around the chateau hoping that Marie-Anne would reappear.
She did reappear at last, but leaning upon the arm of her father.
Young d’Escorval followed them at a distance, and soon saw them enter the parsonage. What