achille cazaio on the taunenfels did not sleep that night….
the two essays [footnote: the twenty-first chapter of du maillot's hommes illustres; and the fifth of d'avranches's ancêtres de la révolution. löwe has an excellent digest of this data.] dealing with the man have scarcely touched his capabilities. his exploits in and about paris and his gascon doings, while important enough in the outcome, are but the gesticulations of a puppet: the historian's real concern is with the hands that manoeuvered above cazaio; and whether or no achille cazaio organized the riots in toulouse and guienne and béarn is a question with which, at this late day, there can be little profitable commerce.
one recommends this cazaio rather to the spinners of romance: with his morality—a trifle buccaneerish on occasion—once discreetly palliated, history affords few heroes more instantly taking to the fancy….one casts a hankering eye toward this cazaio's rumored parentage, his hopeless and life-long adoration of claire de puysange, his dealings with d'argenson and king louis le bien-aimé, the obscure and mischievous imbroglios in spain, and finally his aggrandizement and his flame-lit death, as du maillot, say, records these happenings: and one finds therein the outline of an impelling hero, and laments that our traffic must be with a stolid and less livelily tinted bulmer. and with a sigh one passes on toward the labor prearranged….
to-night cazaio's desires were astir, and consciousness of his own power was tempting him. he had never troubled poictesme much: the taunenfels were accessible on that side, and so long as he confined his depredations to the frontier, the duc de puysange merely shrugged and rendered his annual tribute; it was not a great sum, and the duke preferred to pay it rather than forsake his international squabbles to quash a purely parochial nuisance like a bandit, who was, too, a kinsman….
meanwhile cazaio had grown stronger than de puysange knew. it was a time of disaffection: the more violent here and there were beginning to assert that before hanging a superfluous peasant or two de puysange ought to bore himself with inquiries concerning the abstract justice of the action. for everywhere the irrational lower classes were grumbling about the very miseries and maltreatments that had efficiently disposed of their fathers for centuries: they seemed not to respect tradition: already they were posting placards in the paris boulevards,—"shave the king for a monk, hang the pompadour, and break machault on the wheel,"—and already a boy of twelve, one joseph guillotin, was running about the streets of saintes yonder. so the commoners flocked to cazaio in the taunenfels until, little by little, he had gathered an army about him.
and at bellegarde, de soyecourt had only a handful of men, cazaio meditated to-night. and the woman was there,—the woman whose eyes were blue and incurious, whose face was always scornful.
in history they liken achille cazaio to simon de montfort, and the gracchi, and other graspers at fruit as yet unripe; or, if the perfervid word of d'avranches be accepted, you may regard him as "le saint-jean de la révolution glorieuse." but i think you may with more wisdom regard him as a man of strong passions, any one of which, for the time being, possessed him utterly.
now he struck his palm upon the table.
"i have never seen a woman one-half so beautiful, dom michel. i am more than ever in love with her."
"in that event," the friar considered, "it is, of course, unfortunate she should have a brand-new husband. husbands are often thought much of when they are a novelty."
"you bungled matters, you fat, mouse-hearted rascal. you could quite easily have killed him."
the dominican spread out his hands, and afterward reached for the bottle. "milanese armor!" said dom michel frégose. [footnote: the same ecclesiastic who more lately dubbed himself, with maréchal de richelieu's encouragement, l'abbé de trans, and was discreditably involved in the forgeries of madame de st. vincent.]
"yet i am master of poictesme," cazaio thundered, "i have ten men to de
soyecourt's one. am i, then, lightly to be thwarted?"
"undoubtedly you could take bellegarde—and the woman along with the castle,—if you decided they were worth the price of a little killing. i think they are not worth it, i strongly advise you to have up a wench from the village, to put out the light, and exercise your imagination."
cazaio shook his head. "no, dom michel, you churchmen live too lewdly to understand the tyranny of love."
"—besides, there is that trifling matter of your understanding with de
puysange,—and, besides, de puysange will be here in two days."
cazaio snapped his fingers. "he will arrive after the fair." cazaio uncorked the ink-bottle with an august gesture.
"write!" said achille cazaio.
