Lola Montez Part 6

"On the eve of fighting for the most absurd reasons, on the most frivolous of pretexts, and without its being possible for my friends, Arthur Bertrand and Charles de Boigne, to avoid an encounter, which was provoked in terms that forced me on my honour to accept, I set forth hereafter my last wishes...."

Then he wrote to his mother.

"MY GOOD MOTHER,--If this letter reaches you, it will be because I am dead or dangerously wounded. I shall exchange shots to-morrow with pistols. It is a necessity of my position, and I accept it as a man of courage. If anything could have induced me to decline the challenge, it would have been the grief which the blow would cause you, were I struck. But the law of honour is imperative, and if you must weep, dear mother, I would rather it be for a son worthy of you than for a coward. Let this thought a.s.suage your grief: my last thought will have been of you. I shall go to the encounter to-morrow calm and sure of myself. Right is on my side. I embrace you, dear mother, with all the warmth of my heart.

"DUJARIER."

There was nothing more to be done or to be said. Only a few hours of the night remained. The experienced duellist would have steadied his nerves by as long a sleep as possible. But Dujarier regarded himself as doomed. He mentally contrasted his miserable performances at the shooting gallery with the wonderful things De Beauvallon was reported to have done with the pistol in Cuba. The stories might be inventions. He tried to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' sleep.[9]

XIV

THE DUEL

The morning of the 11th March dawned. The ground was white with snow.

Dujarier was taking his light French breakfast when Lola's maid brought him a message. She wished to see him. He promised to come at once, and the servant took her leave. Dujarier hastily scribbled these lines:--

"MY DEAR LOLA,--I am going out to fight a duel with pistols. This will explain why I wished to pa.s.s the night alone, and why I have not gone to see you this morning. I need all the composure at my command and you would have excited in me too much emotion. I will be with you at two o'clock, unless----Good-bye, my dear little Lola, the dear little girl I love.

D."

It was seven o'clock. He told his servant to deliver the letter about nine. He then rose and walked to De Boigne's house in the Rue Pinon. There he found the four seconds in consultation. He saluted them, and thanked De Boigne for his notice of Lola. The conditions of the encounter were then signed and read. The combatants were to be placed at thirty paces distance, and could make five forward before firing, but each was to step after the other had fired. One was to fire immediately after the other. A coin was spun to determine who should provide the pistols; but it was understood that the weapons were not to have been used before by the combatants. The coin decided in favour of De Beauvallon. D'Ecquevillez then produced a pair of pistols, which he gave the other seconds to understand were his personal property. He and De Flers then went in search of their princ.i.p.al. Dujarier and his friends returned to the Rue Laffitte, where they picked up the doctor, Monsieur de Guise, and drove off, all four, to the Bois de Boulogne.

The rendezvous was a secluded spot near the Restaurant de Madrid. There is, and probably was then, a _tir aux pigeons_ close by. The morning was intensely cold, and no one was about. A few snowflakes were falling as the party arrived. There was no sign of De Beauvallon and his seconds, though it was now ten o'clock. The four men impatiently paced up and down, Bertrand and De Boigne conversing in low tones as to the probable result of the encounter, while Dujarier talked with the doctor on matters in general. De Guise, however, could not refrain from questioning him as to the cause of the affair. The journalist related the episodes at the Freres Provencaux, from his own point of view, and said that D'Ecquevillez had told him that De Beauvallon intended to fight him "because he did not like him." "I naturally replied," continued Dujarier, "that many people might not like me, and I could not be supposed on that account to fight them.

D'Ecquevillez retorted that his princ.i.p.al would force me to fight by a blow and an insult. This threat was in itself an insult. I accepted the challenge."

The doctor observed the journalist closely. He was shivering with the cold, and the nervous excitement, which Dumas had remarked in him always at this hour, was manifesting itself. The seconds drew near, and De Guise gave it as his professional opinion that Dujarier was not in a condition to fight. Bertrand and De Boigne joined their entreaties to his, and argued that having waited an hour for the other party, they could in all honour retire from the field. Dujarier refused to do any such thing.

Before all things, like most nervous men, he dreaded the imputation of cowardice. The cold and the excitement made him tremble. His friends would suspect him of fear; therefore, at all hazards, he must give them proof of his courage.

Finding his persuasions futile, De Guise resigned himself to listen to a long and minute account of the quarrel with De Beauvoir. The recital was finished when the sound of carriage wheels was heard. Dujarier's heart must have given a big leap! A shabby cab drove up and out of it jumped De Beauvallon and his seconds. De Boigne accosted the Creole with some asperity. He remarked that it was confoundedly cold, and that he and his princ.i.p.al had been kept waiting for an hour and a half. D'Ecquevillez, who seems to have done most of the talking throughout the whole affair, turned to Bertrand, and explained that they had been delayed by the necessity of purchasing ammunition and by the slowness of the cab horse.

De Boigne now addressed himself to De Beauvallon, and made a final effort to arrange the dispute. "I speak to you," he said, "as one who has had experience of these affairs. There is nothing to fight about. Your friends have put it into your head that an insult was intended."

"Sir," replied De Beauvallon coldly, "you say there is no motive for this duel. I think differently, since I am here with my seconds. You don't suggest any other course. The position is the same as yesterday, when it was settled that we should fight. Besides, an affair of this sort is not to be arranged on the field."

De Boigne shrugged his shoulders. He had done his utmost for his friend.

He and De Flers selected the ground, and with the consent of the other, he measured forty-three paces, diminishing the distance originally agreed to.

D'Ecquevillez, meanwhile, had produced his pistols, recognisable by their blue barrels. Bertrand was about to charge one, when he introduced his finger into the muzzle, and withdrew it, black to the depth of the finger-nail. He looked at the other. "These pistols have been tried," he said.

"On my honour," declared D'Ecquevillez, "we have only tried them with powder. Monsieur de Beauvallon has never handled them before."

With this positive a.s.surance Bertrand had to be content. The pistols were again tried with caps. With grave misgivings, he and De Boigne placed their man. De Beauvallon also took up position. Dujarier took his pistol from his second so clumsily that he moved the trigger and nearly blew De Boigne's head off.

The signal was given. Dujarier fired instantly. His ball flew wide of the mark. He let drop his pistol, and faced his adversary.

De Beauvallon very deliberately raised his arms and covered his opponent.

The spectators held their breath. "Fire, d.a.m.n you! fire!" cried De Boigne, exasperated by his slowness. The Creole pulled the trigger. For an instant Dujarier stood erect. The next, he fell, huddled up on to the ground. The doctor rushed towards him. His practised eye told him that the wound was mortal. The bullet had entered near the bridge of the nose, and broken the occipital bone, so as to produce a concussion of the spine. De Guise a.s.sured Dujarier the wound was not serious and told him to spit. He tried in vain to do so. Bertrand summoned the carriage to approach. De Boigne leant over his friend, and asked him if he suffered much pain. Dujarier, already inarticulate, nodded; his eyelids dropped, and he fell back in the physician's arms. He was dead.

D'Ecquevillez, seeing Dujarier fall, offered Bertrand his a.s.sistance. He was rebuffed, told to gather up his pistols, and to go. He hurried off with the other second and his princ.i.p.al, who murmured: "Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!" as he pa.s.sed his late adversary. "How have I conducted myself?" he asked his second.

"I hope I shall always act in similar circ.u.mstances as you did," was the rea.s.suring reply.

Meanwhile, Dumas had gone, full of anxiety, to the Rue Laffitte, to find that his friend had left the house, with what object he guessed. He noticed as a sinister omen that there was blood on the banister. He went away, sad at heart, to await the result of the combat.

Lola, on the receipt of her lover's note, hurried at once to his house.

She burst into his bedroom and saw two pistols--Alexandre's, no doubt--lying upon the quilt. Gabriel, Dujarier's servant, who had followed her, shook his head sadly, and said, "My master knows very well he will not return." In an instant Lola was again outside the house, driving to her good friend, Dumas's. The novelist told her that it was with De Beauvallon, not with De Beauvoir, that their friend had gone to exchange shots. "My G.o.d!" she cried, "then he is a dead man!"

She rushed back to the Rue Laffitte. She spent half an hour in agony of mind, when the sound of a carriage stopping fell upon her ears. She flew into the street, and opened the carriage door. A heavy body lurched against her bosom. It was her dead lover.

XV

THE RECKONING

It was not in fair fight that Dujarier had fallen. Before even he had been carried to his grave, with Balzac, Mery, Dumas, and De Girardin as his pall-bearers, the suspicions of all his friends had been aroused. At Dr.

Verons, the morning of his death, Bertrand showed Dumas his finger-tip still blackened by the barrel of De Beauvallon's pistol. Would a pistol which had not been charged with ball leave such a stain? Experts present said no. The suspicion that De Beauvallon had made doubly sure of killing his adversary by trying his weapon beforehand ripened in the minds of many into conviction. How, too, had the Creole spent the early part of the morning? Why did he not come with his seconds to the Rue Pinon. What was he doing while Dujarier was awaiting him in the Bois? The affair began to wear a very sinister complexion. Representations were made to the police.

Enquiries were set on foot, and De Beauvallon and D'Ecquevillez promptly retired across the Spanish frontier.

Lola had sustained a staggering blow. She was sincerely attached to Dujarier, who had been more to her than any other man had been. The memory of her husband was hateful. Liszt had flashed suddenly across her path, to disappear a few weeks later. Besides, he had given her up of his own accord. But this man had shared her life for months, had loved her to the last, had cared for her both as a lover and a husband. In his will he left her eighteen shares in the Palais Royal Theatre, representing twenty thousand francs. She referred, years after, and no doubt sincerely, to his death as a loss that could never be made up to her.

The luxury of grief is allowed in scant measure to those who minister to the public's amus.e.m.e.nt. They must dry their tears quickly. Three weeks after the fatal duel, Lola made her appearance at the Porte-St.-Martin Theatre, in _La Biche au Bois_. The audience was no less critical than at the Opera. She was hissed, and with her usual audacity, she exasperated the public still more by expressing her contempt for them upon the stage.

So ended her career as a _danseuse_ in the French capital.

She lingered on in Paris, notwithstanding, frequenting the society of her dead lover's friends in accordance with his last wishes. The legacy had relieved her for the moment of the necessity of earning her living. She longed to see retribution overtake the man who had robbed her of all that life held dear. Justice seemed for a time to pursue the slayer with leaden feet. In July the Royal Court of Paris practically exonerated the seconds, and De Beauvallon thought it safe to surrender voluntarily. The explanations he gave as to his movements on the 10th and 11th March did not, as he had hoped they would, satisfy the authorities. The Court of Ca.s.sation quashed the decision of the lower court, and sent the accused for trial, on the charge of murder, before the a.s.size Court of Rouen.

The case is one of the most celebrated in the annals of French justice. It all turned on the article in the code of honour that forbids a duellist to make use of arms which he has already tried, and with which he is proficient. All the witnesses--among whom were professed experts--agreed that this rule was absolute. The case, which raised many other nice points of law, was heard before the President of the Tribunal, Monsieur Letendre de Tourville. The prosecution was conducted by the King's Procurator (General Salveton), the Advocate-General, and two very able counsel, Maitres Leon Duval and Romiguiere. But the defence had a tower of strength in the great advocate Berryer, the defender of Ney, Lamennais, Chateaubriand, and Louis Napoleon--the greatest pleader and, after Mirabeau, the greatest orator his country has produced.

A trial whereat Alexandre Dumas and Lola Montez, to say nothing of the lesser lights of the literary and theatrical world, appeared as witnesses, excited immense interest. Dumas produced a sensation which must have rejoiced his heart on entering the witness-box. He was asked his name and profession. "Alexandre Dumas, Marquis Davy de la Pailleterie," he replied with evident complacency; "and I should call myself a dramatist if I were not in the country of Corneille."

"There are degrees in everything," replied the learned President.

Claudin, who heard these oft-quoted words, gives it as his opinion that Dumas expressed himself thus from a genuine sense of modesty, and that the judge did not succeed in being funny.

The great Alexandre was in very good form throughout the whole trial, which lasted from the 26th to the 30th March 1846, inclusive. He expounded the laws and principles of the duel, with copious commentaries.

He quoted an authoritative work on the subject, drawn up by a body of n.o.blemen and gentlemen--a work which the judge dryly observed he did not intend to add to his library. At the conclusion of the first part of his evidence (the gist of which we know) he solicited leave to return to Paris, to a.s.sist at the representation of one of his dramas in five acts.

Dumas never lost an opportunity of advertising himself. He managed also to drag his son into the box, though the latter had really nothing to say.

The frail, fair ladies of the supper-party also had to run the gauntlet of examination and cross-examination. The virtuous ladies of Rouen, anxious to hear the most scandalous details of the case, filled the s.p.a.ce reserved for the public, and having feasted their eyes on the _demi-mondaines_, obstinately refused to let these find seats among them. Mademoiselle Lievenne appeared in a charming toilette of blue velvet, with a red Cashmere shawl, and a pearl-grey satin hood. Lola, as befitted the melancholy occasion, wore the garb of mourning, and never, perhaps, showed to more advantage than in her close-fitting black satin costume and flowing shawl. She was the cynosure of all eyes. Though a year had pa.s.sed since the event now being discussed, her utterance was choked with sobs, and the reading of Dujarier's last note caused her to shed floods of tears. She declared that had she known it was De Beauvallon with whom her lover intended to fight, she would have communicated with the police and prevented the duel. "I would have gone to the rendezvous myself," she cried with characteristic spirit. In her Memoirs, she adds that she would have fought De Beauvallon herself, and her life-story testifies that this was no empty gasconade.

That Dujarier's death had been premeditated by his antagonist was abundantly proved at the trial. The pistols which the dead man's seconds had been led to believe belonged to D'Ecquevillez were now admitted to be the property of the accused's brother-in-law, Monsieur Granier de Ca.s.sagnac. They had been in the possession of De Beauvallon since the eve of the encounter. Circ.u.mstantial evidence went to show that he was familiar with the weapons, and had practised with them on the fatal morning. But the testimony of the witnesses, the facts themselves, the skilful pleading of Duval, prevailed not against the eloquence of Berryer.

His magical powers of oratory brought the jury round to his point of view, and De Beauvallon was acquitted of the charge of murder, though cast in damages of twenty thousand francs towards the mother and the sister of his victim.