'These —— meetings that are held here? If they are not for treasonable purposes, what are they?'
'Am I the only man in Paris to receive visitors?'
'Visitors! Oh, visitors! But these are not ordinary visitors. They come too often, and always at the same time, and they are always the same. That's my information. No use to deny it. No use to tell me any of your lies.'
The Baron's manner changed. 'Will you leave by the door, or shall we throw you from the window?'
The cool, incisive tone acted like a douche upon the burly municipal. He fell back a pace and drew himself up.
'Ah, name of a name! My damned little aristocrat ...'
The Baron threw wide the door of the salon to interrupt him. 'Outside, you filth! Back to your dunghill! At the double! March!'
'Holy Guillotine! We shall see if you talk like that when you come before the Committee.' The purple municipal moved to the door, deliberately so as to save his dignity. 'You shall be taught a lesson, you cursed traitors, with your aristocratic airs and graces. My name is Burlandeux. You'll remember that.'
He was gone. They heard the outer door slam after him. André-Louis smiled deprecation.
'That is not quite how I should have handled him.'
'It is not at all how he should have been handled. He should have been thrown from the window without warning. An indelicate fellow! Let him go before the Committee. Sénard will do his business.'
'I would have given Sénard definite grounds upon which to deal with him if you had been less precipitate. However, that will be for another time. For he will certainly return to the assault. You should curb your humours, Jean.'
'Curb my humours before an obscenity like that!' The Baron snorted. 'Well, well! Where is Langéac.'
He summoned Tissot. Monsieur de Langéac had not yet arrived. The Baron glanced at the Sèvres timepiece and muttered an oath of exasperation.
'What's to astonish you?' wondered André-Louis. 'The young gentleman is never punctual. A very unsatisfactory fellow, Jean, this Langéac. If he's typical of the tools d'Entragues employs, it is not surprising that the Regent's credit prospers so little in the courts of Europe. Myself, I should be sorry to have him for my valet.'
To aggravate his offence, when Langéac arrived at last, out of breath, he came startlingly brave in a coat of black stripes on a yellow ground, and a cravat that André-Louis likened unkindly to an avalanche.
'You want to take the eye, it seems. You'll be taking that of the National Widow. She has a taste in over-coquettish young gentlemen.'
Langéac was annoyed. He had long since conceived a dislike for André-Louis whose sneers he had earned every time he deserved them, which was often. 'You don't dress like a sans-culotte, yourself.'
'Nor yet like a zebra. It's well enough in a virgin forest, but a little conspicuous in Paris for a gentleman whose pursuits should make him study self-effacement. Have you heard of a revolution in France? No wonder municipal officers grow suspicious of the ci-devant Baron de Batz on the score of his visitors.'
Langéac replied with vague invective, and so came under the condemnation of de Batz.
'Moreau is right. That coat is an advertisement of anti-civism. A conspirator should be circumspect in all things.'
'For a gentleman,' said the fatuous Langéac, 'there are limits to circumspection.'
'But none for a fool,' said André-Louis.
'I resent that, Moreau! You are insufferable! Insufferable, do you understand?'
'If you will make transcendentally foolish statements, by way of justifying transcendentally foolish actions, can you expect congratulations? But I am sorry you find me insufferable.'
'And, anyway,' said de Batz, 'shall we come to business? I am supposing that you will have something to report. Have you seen Cortey?'
The question recalled Langéac from his annoyance. 'I have just left him. The affair is for Friday night.'
De Batz and André-Louis stiffened into attention. Langéac supplied details.
'Cortey will be on guard at the Temple from midnight with twenty men, every one of whom he swears he can trust, and Michonis will be on duty in the Queen's prison and ready for us. Cortey has seen him. Michonis answers for it that the other municipals will be out of the way. Cortey would like a final word with you on the arrangements as soon as may be.'
'Naturally,' said de Batz. 'I'll see him tomorrow. We've two days, and at need we could be ready in two hours.'
'Is there anything for me to do?' asked Langéac, his manner still a little sulky.
'Nothing now. You will be of Moreau's party, to cover the retreat. You will assemble in the Rue Charlot at eleven o'clock. See that you are punctual. We shall convey the royal ladies and the Dauphin to Roussel's in the Rue Helvétius for the night, and we shall hope to get them out of Paris a day or two later. But I will attend to all that. For you nothing more now, Langéac, until eleven o'clock on Friday night.'
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE RUE CHARLOT
Cortey, known when in uniform as Captain Cortey, the commandant of the National Guard of the Section Lepelletier, kept when out of uniform a grocer's shop at the corner of the Rue de la Loi. An orderly citizen and at heart a monarchist, he had enlisted in the guard of the section when it was still entirely monarchical. He remained in it out of prudence now that its character had become entirely republican.
Because in its ranks there were still a good many who shared his sentiments, it had been possible for Cortey to get together a little band of men for the attempt that was now fixed for Friday night. It was one of those periodic occasions on which it fell to the duty of the Section Lepelletier to supply the guard for the Temple, where the royal prisoners were confined.
As captain of the guard, it lay to a limited extent within Cortey's power to select the men for duty under him, and every one of the twenty now selected was in the conspiracy for the rescue of the Queen. They were to coöperate with de Batz and with Sergeant Michonis, the municipal in charge of the guard within the prison.
The plan, every detail of which had been carefully worked out, was an extremely simple one. The municipals within the Temple were not in the habit of wearying themselves unduly with a vigilance which the locks and bolts and the National Guard on patrol duty outside rendered superfluously formal. So long as one of their number complied with the order of the Committee of General Safety, by stationing himself within the chamber occupied by the royal prisoners, the others were in the habit of retiring to the Council Chamber, and there, within hail in case of need, they commonly spent the night playing cards.
For Friday night next, Michonis would, himself, assume the duty of guarding the prisoners, and he had undertaken to answer for it that his eight fellow municipals should be out of the way. To the three royal ladies he would convey three uniforms of the National Guard which they were to assume by midnight. At that hour a party of a dozen men, also in uniforms of the National Guard, would knock for admission at the Temple Gate. The porter, supposing them to be a patrol on a round of inspection within the prison, would offer no obstacle to their entrance. They would ascend the tower to the Queen's chamber, gag and bind Michonis, so that afterwards he should present the appearance of having been overpowered. They would then place the three disguised royal ladies and the little Dauphin in their midst, descend the staircase, and issue with them from the prison. It was not likely that the sleepy porter would notice the increase in the number of persons composing the patrol. If he did, it would be the worse for him, as for any other who should happen to surprise them before they were clear of the prison. In this respect the orders of de Batz were precise and ruthless.