Scaramouche Part 40

Those two letters, both written in April of that year 1789, had for only immediate effect to increase the activity with which Andre-Louis Moreau was being sought.

Le Chapelier would have found him so as to lend him a.s.sistance, to urge upon him once again that he should take up a political career. The electors of Nantes would have found him--at least, they would have found Omnes Omnibus, of whose ident.i.ty with himself they were still in ignorance--on each of the several occasions when a vacancy occurred in their body. And the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr and M. de Lesdiguieres would have found him that they might send him to the gallows.

With a purpose no less vindictive was he being sought by M. Binet, now unhappily recovered from his wound to face completest ruin. His troupe had deserted him during his illness, and reconst.i.tuted under the direction of Polichinelle it was now striving with tolerable success to continue upon the lines which Andre-Louis had laid down. M. le Marquis, prevented by the riot from expressing in person to Mlle. Binet his purpose of making an end of their relations, had been constrained to write to her to that effect from Azyr a few days later. He tempered the blow by enclosing in discharge of all liabilities a bill on the Caisse d'Escompte for a hundred louis. Nevertheless it almost crushed the unfortunate and it enabled her father when he recovered to enrage her by pointing out that she owed this turn of events to the premature surrender she had made in defiance of his sound worldly advice. Father and daughter alike were left to a.s.sign the Marquis' desertion, naturally enough, to the riot at the Feydau. They laid that with the rest to the account of Scaramouche, and were forced in bitterness to admit that the scoundrel had taken a superlative revenge. Climene may even have come to consider that it would have paid her better to have run a straight course with Scaramouche and by marrying him to have trusted to his undoubted talents to place her on the summit to which her ambition urged her, and to which it was now futile for her to aspire. If so, that reflection must have been her sufficient punishment. For, as Andre-Louis so truly says, there is no worse h.e.l.l than that provided by the regrets for wasted opportunities.

Meanwhile the fiercely sought Andre-Louis Moreau had gone to earth completely for the present. And the brisk police of Paris, urged on by the King's Lieutenant from Rennes, hunted for him in vain. Yet he might have been found in a house in the Rue du Hasard within a stone's throw of the Palais Royal, whither purest chance had conducted him.

That which in his letter to Le Chapelier he represents as a contingency of the near future was, in fact, the case in which already he found himself. He was dest.i.tute. His money was exhausted, including that procured by the sale of such articles of adornment as were not of absolute necessity.

So desperate was his case that strolling one gusty April morning down the Rue du Hasard with his nose in the wind looking for what might be picked up, he stopped to read a notice outside the door of a house on the left side of the street as you approach the Rue de Richelieu. There was no reason why he should have gone down the Rue du Hasard. Perhaps its name attracted him, as appropriate to his case.

The notice written in a big round hand announced that a young man of good address with some knowledge of swordsmanship was required by M.

Bertrand des Amis on the second floor. Above this notice was a black oblong board, and on this a shield, which in vulgar terms may be described as red charged with two swords crossed and four fleurs de lys, one in each angle of the saltire. Under the shield, in letters of gold, ran the legend:

BERTRAND DES AMIS

Maitre en fait d'Armes des Academies du Roi

Andre-Louis stood considering. He could claim, he thought, to possess the qualifications demanded. He was certainly young and he believed of tolerable address, whilst the fencing-lessons he had received in Nantes had given him at least an elementary knowledge of swordsmanship. The notice looked as if it had been pinned there some days ago, suggesting that applicants for the post were not very numerous. In that case perhaps M. Bertrand des Amis would not be too exigent. And anyway, Andre-Louis had not eaten for four-and-twenty hours, and whilst the employment here offered--the precise nature of which he was yet to ascertain--did not appear to be such as Andre-Louis would deliberately have chosen, he was in no case now to be fastidious.

Then, too, he liked the name of Bertrand des Amis. It felicitously combined suggestions of chivalry and friendliness. Also the man's profession being of a kind that is flavoured with romance it was possible that M. Bertrand des Amis would not ask too many questions.

In the end he climbed to the second floor. On the landing he paused outside a door, on which was written "Academy of M. Bertrand des Amis." He pushed this open, and found himself in a spa.r.s.ely furnished, untenanted antechamber. From a room beyond, the door of which was closed, came the stamping of feet, the click and slither of steel upon steel, and dominating these sounds a vibrant sonorous voice speaking a language that was certainly French; but such French as is never heard outside a fencing-school.

"Coulez! Mais, coulez donc!.... So! Now the flanconnade--en carte.... And here is the riposte.... Let us begin again. Come! The ward of fierce....

Make the coupe, and then the quinte par dessus les armes.... O, mais allongez! Allongez! Allez au fond!" the voice cried in expostulation.

"Come, that was better." The blades ceased.

"Remember: the hand in p.r.o.nation, the elbow not too far out. That will do for to-day. On Wednesday we shall see you tirer au mur. It is more deliberate. Speed will follow when the mechanism of the movements is more a.s.sured."

Another voice murmured in answer. The steps moved aside. The lesson was at an end. Andre-Louis tapped on the door.

It was opened by a tall, slender, gracefully proportioned man of perhaps forty. Black silk breeches and stockings ending in light shoes clothed him from the waist down. Above he was encased to the chin in a closely fitting plastron of leather, His face was aquiline and swarthy, his eyes full and dark, his mouth firm and his clubbed hair was of a l.u.s.trous black with here and there a thread of silver showing.

In the crook of his left arm he carried a fencing-mask, a thing of leather with a wire grating to protect the eyes. His keen glance played over Andre-Louis from head to foot.

"Monsieur?" he inquired, politely.

It was clear that he mistook Andre-Louis' quality, which is not surprising, for despite his sadly reduced fortunes, his exterior was irreproachable, and M. des Amis was not to guess that he carried upon his back the whole of his possessions.

"You have a notice below, monsieur," he said, and from the swift lighting of the fencing-master's eyes he saw that he had been correct in his a.s.sumption that applicants for the position had not been jostling one another on his threshold. And then that flash of satisfaction was followed by a look of surprise.

"You are come in regard to that?"

Andre-Louis shrugged and half smiled. "One must live," said he.

"But come in. Sit down there. I shall be at your.... I shall be free to attend to you in a moment."

Andre-Louis took a seat on the bench ranged against one of the whitewashed walls. The room was long and low, its floor entirely bare.

Plain wooden forms such as that which he occupied were placed here and there against the wall. These last were plastered with fencing trophies, masks, crossed foils, stuffed plastrons, and a variety of swords, daggers, and targets, belonging to a variety of ages and countries.

There was also a portrait of an obese, big-nosed gentleman in an elaborately curled wig, wearing the blue ribbon of the Saint Esprit, in whom Andre-Louis recognized the King. And there was a framed parchment--M. des Amis' certificate from the King's Academy. A bookcase occupied one corner, and near this, facing the last of the four windows that abundantly lighted the long room, there was a small writing-table and an armchair. A plump and beautifully dressed young gentleman stood by this table in the act of resuming coat and wig. M. des Amis sauntered over to him--moving, thought Andre-Louis, with extraordinary grace and elasticity--and stood in talk with him whilst also a.s.sisting him to complete his toilet.

At last the young gentleman took his departure, mopping himself with a fine kerchief that left a trail of perfume on the air. M. des Amis closed the door, and turned to the applicant, who rose at once.

"Where have you studied?" quoth the fencing-master abruptly.

"Studied?" Andre-Louis was taken aback by the question. "Oh, at Louis Le Grand."

M. des Amis frowned, looking up sharply as if to see whether his applicant was taking the liberty of amusing himself.

"In Heaven's name! I am not asking you where you did your humanities, but in what academy you studied fencing."

"Oh--fencing!" It had hardly ever occurred to Andre-Louis that the sword ranked seriously as a study. "I never studied it very much. I had some lessons in... in the country once."

The master's eyebrows went up. "But then?" he cried. "Why trouble to come up two flights of stairs?" He was impatient.

"The notice does not demand a high degree of proficiency. If I am not proficient enough, yet knowing the rudiments I can easily improve. I learn most things readily," Andre-Louis commended himself. "For the rest: I possess the other qualifications. I am young, as you observe: and I leave you to judge whether I am wrong in a.s.suming that my address is good. I am by profession a man of the robe, though I realize that the motto here is cedat toga armis."

M. des Amis smiled approvingly. Undoubtedly the young man had a good address, and a certain readiness of wit, it would appear. He ran a critical eye over his physical points. "What is your name?" he asked.

Andre-Louis hesitated a moment. "Andre-Louis," he said.

The dark, keen eyes conned him more searchingly.

"Well? Andre-Louis what?"

"Just Andre-Louis. Louis is my surname."

"Oh! An odd surname. You come from Brittany by your accent. Why did you leave it?"

"To save my skin," he answered, without reflecting. And then made haste to cover the blunder. "I have an enemy," he explained.

M. des Amis frowned, stroking his square chin. "You ran away?"

"You may say so.

"A coward, eh?"

"I don't think so." And then he lied romantically. Surely a man who lived by the sword should have a weakness for the romantic. "You see, my enemy is a swordsman of great strength--the best blade in the province, if not the best blade in France. That is his repute. I thought I would come to Paris to learn something of the art, and then go back and kill him. That, to be frank, is why your notice attracted me. You see, I have not the means to take lessons otherwise. I thought to find work here in the law. But I have failed. There are too many lawyers in Paris as it is, and whilst waiting I have consumed the little money that I had, so that... so that, enfin, your notice seemed to me something to which a special providence had directed me."

M. des Amis gripped him by the shoulders, and looked into his face.

"Is this true, my friend?" he asked.

"Not a word of it," said Andre-Louis, wrecking his chances on an irresistible impulse to say the unexpected. But he didn't wreck them.

M. des Amis burst into laughter; and having laughed his fill, confessed himself charmed by his applicant's fundamental honesty.