diane de fargas
just as the unfortunate lucien de fargas was drawing his last breath in the subterranean chapel of the chartreuse of seillon, a post-chaise stopped before the inn of the dragon at nantua. this inn of the dragon had a certain reputation in nantua and its suburbs, a reputation which it owed to the well-known opinions of its proprietor, rené servet.
without knowing why, master rené servet was a royalist. thanks to the distance which stretched between nantua and all the great centres of civilization, thanks also to the mild temperament of its inhabitants, master rené servet had passed through the revolution without being in the least molested for his opinions, well-known though they were.
it must be confessed, though, that the worthy man had done all in his power to invite persecution. not only had he retained the name of the dauphin for his inn, but on the tail of the fantastic fish on his sign-board, a tail which protruded insolently from the water, he had drawn the profile of the poor little prince, who had remained shut up for four years and who had died, shortly after the thermidorean reaction, in the prison of the temple.
therefore all those who for sixty miles round the inn of the dragon—and their number was great—shared the opinions of rené servet, did not fail to patronize his inn, and would not have consented to go elsewhere.
it was not astonishing, therefore, that a post-chaise having to stop at nantua should leave its passengers rather at the aristocratic inn of the dragon than at its democratic rival, the boule d'or.
at the sound of the chaise, although it was barely five[pg 408] in the morning, rené servet leaped out of bed, and putting on his drawers, a pair of white stockings, list slippers, and a great bath-robe over his shoulders, and holding his cotton cap in his hand, reached the doorstep just as a beautiful young woman of twenty or thereabout descended from the chaise.
she was dressed in black, and in spite of her youth and great beauty she was travelling alone.
she replied with a nod to rené servet's obsequious salutation, and, without paying any attention to his offers of service, asked him if he had a good room in his house with a dressing-room. master rené mentioned no. 7 on the first floor as the best he had.
the young lady hastened impatiently to the wooden placard where the keys were hanging from a frame and took down her key herself.
"sir," said she, "will you be good enough to show me to my room? i want to ask you some questions. you can send the chambermaid to me when you go down."
rené servet bowed almost to the floor and hastened to obey. he went first and the young lady followed. when they reached the room she closed the door behind them, and, as she seated herself, she addressed the landlord, who remained standing.
"master servet," she said with decision, "i know you both by name and reputation. throughout the bloody years that have just elapsed you have remained a partisan, if not a defender of the good cause. therefore i come directly to you."
"you do me honor, madame," replied the innkeeper, bowing.
she resumed: "i shall therefore abandon all circumlocution or evasion, to which i might resort with a man whose opinions were less well-known to me, or who was suspected by me. i am a royalist. that gives you a right to my confidence. i know no one here, not even the president of the tribunal, for whom i have a letter from his brother-in-law at[pg 409] avignon; it is therefore perfectly natural that i should address myself to you."
"i am waiting, madame," said rené servet, "for you to do me the honor to tell me what it is that i can do for you."
"have you heard, sir, that a young man named lucien de fargas was brought to the prison at nantua a few days ago?"
"alas! yes, madame; it seems that he is to be tried here, or rather at bourg. he is a member, so i am told, of the secret society called the companions of jehu."
"do you know the purpose of that society, sir?" asked the young woman.
"i believe that they are to seize the government money and to forward it to our friends in the vendée and brittany."
"exactly, sir; and the government treats these men like ordinary thieves!"
"i believe, madame," said rené servet, in a voice full of confidence, "that our judges are sufficiently intelligent to differentiate between them and ordinary malefactors."
"but to come to the point. it was thought that my brother ran some risk in the prison at avignon, and it was to protect him that he was removed to the other end of france. i wish to see him. to whom ought i to apply to obtain this favor?"
"why, madame, to the very president to whom you have that letter."
"what sort of a man is he?"
"a prudent man, but well-meaning, i hope. i will have you taken to his house whenever you wish."
mademoiselle de fargas drew out her watch. it was scarcely half-past five in the morning.
"but i cannot present myself at such an hour," she said. "shall i go to bed? i am not sleepy." then, after thinking for a moment, she asked: "on what side of the town is the prison?"
"if madame would like to take a turn that way," re[pg 410]plied master servet, "i would beg the honor of accompanying her."
"very well, sir. send me a glass of milk, coffee, tea, whatever you please, and finish your toilet. while i am waiting for leave to enter, i should like to see the walls behind which my brother is confined."
the innkeeper made no remark; the desire was a natural one. he went down and sent her in a cup of coffee and some milk. ten minutes later she came down and found him dressed in his sunday clothes, ready to guide her through the streets of the little town, which was founded by the benedictine saint-amand, and in whose church charles the bold sleeps more tranquilly than ever he did in life.
the town of nantua is not large. a five minutes' walk brought them to the prison, where they found a crowd full of excitement.
everything arouses foreboding in the minds of those whose friends are in danger. mademoiselle de fargas had more than a friend—an adored brother, who was lying in prison, charged with a capital offence. it seemed to her that her brother must be involved in the excitement which had caused the crowd to assemble. growing pale, she seized the guide's arm, crying: "oh! my god! what has happened?"
"we shall soon see, mademoiselle," replied rené servet, much less easily moved than his companion.
no one knew positively what had happened. when they had come to relieve the sentinel at two o'clock they had found him gagged and bound hand and foot in his box. all that he could tell was that he had been surprised by four men, and that he had offered a desperate resistance, which had ended in their leaving him in the state in which his comrades had found him. he could give no information concerning what had passed after he had been bound and gagged. he believed, however, that the prisoner had been the object of the attack. the mayor,[pg 411] the commissioner of police, and the fireman's sergeant had then been notified of what had occurred. these three digitaries had then held council, had summoned the sentinel before them, and there he had repeated the same story.
after a half hour of deliberation and surmises, each one more ridiculous than its predecessor, they resolved to end where they ought to have begun, by going to the prison. but, in spite of prolonged knocking, no one came to admit them. but the strokes of the knocker aroused the people in the adjacent houses. they came to the windows, and a series of questions and answers passed, which resulted in a locksmith being sent for.
in the meantime the dawn had come, several dogs began to bark, and the occasional passers-by had grouped themselves round the mayor and the police commissioner; and when the sergeant returned with a locksmith, about four o'clock in the morning, he found quite a crowd gathered in front of the prison doors. the locksmith remarked that if the doors were bolted on the inside all the picklocks in the world would be of no avail. but the mayor, a man of great good sense, ordered him to try first, and if he failed they could devise some other means later. now, as the companions of jehu had been unable to close the door on the outside and to bolt it on the inside at one and the same time, they had simply pulled it to after them; and to the great satisfaction of everybody the door had opened at once.
then everybody tried to rush into the prison; but the mayor placed the sergeant on guard before the door, with orders to keep them all out. they had to obey the law. the crowd increased, but the mayor's order was respected.
there are not many cells in the prison of nantua; they consist of three subterranean chambers, in one of which they could hear groans. these groans attracted the attention of the mayor, who interrogated those who were making them through the door, and soon found that they were none other than the doorkeeper and the jailer themselves.
[pg 412]
they had proceeded thus far with the municipal investigation, when diane de fargas and the landlord of the inn of the dragon arrived in the square before the prison.
