The Barber of Paris Part 42

"It's enough! I'll be here, I'll not fail, whether it rains or shines.

One word, if you please, messenger of love. Can you not tell me where your mistress has seen me?"

"In the street, I presume, since she was at her window. Tomorrow evening, monsieur; I can't stop any longer."

"Go, Flore! go back to Cytheree," said Chaudoreille, as the old woman went off, then he continued on his way, saying,--

"It's an amorous adventure, I know;--this mystery and a rendezvous at dusk. She has seen me through the window. By jingo! I do well to look my best; a pretty man should always carry himself as if everybody was looking at him." He then walked along, looking so much in the air that he ran against a water-carrier who was advancing quietly with his two buckets full, and threw himself so heavily upon him that one of the buckets escaped from his hand.

"Cursed idiot," cried the Auvergnat. "Wait, take that to teach you to look before you!" Saying these words the water-carrier calmly emptied his other bucket over Chaudoreille. The chevalier was drenched. In his fury he drew Rolande from the scabbard and advanced on the Auvergnat; but the water-carrier, without appearing at all dismayed by the falchion which his adversary flashed as he capered and jumped about like one possessed, took one of his buckets in each hand and tranquilly awaited the expected onset of the doughty knight, shouting in an aggravatingly jeering tone,--

"Come on, you baked apple! come on stupid, that turnspit you term a sword doesn't frighten me in the least."

Chaudoreille put Rolande in his scabbard again and then escaped by the boulevard, crying, "Watch," and followed by all the idlers, and these were not a few, of the neighborhood. The chevalier did not pause in his flight until he was positively sure there was no longer anybody behind him. He was then quite near the Fosses Jaunes, which were excavated in the reign of Charles the Ninth, and which extended from the Porte Saint-Denis nearly to the Porte Saint-Honore. These had been made to still further enlarge Paris. A new wall was built along the Fosses Jaunes, and also two new gates; one, Rue Montmartre, near the Rue des Jeneurs, replaced the old Porte Montmartre, demolished in 1633; the other, Rue Saint-Honore, between the boulevard and the Rue Royale, replaced the one situated between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue Saint-Honore, which was erected in 1631. On the terrace within this new wall they presently laid out the Rues de Clery, du Mail, des Fosses-Montmartre, de Victoires, des Pet.i.ts-Champs, etc. However, in the midst of these new constructions the hill of Saint-Roch still preserved its picturesque form and its windmills.

Chaudoreille was trembling, he was very cold; and he could not change at his house, for a reason that one may easily divine. Fortunately the weather was fine and the sun, while it gave little heat, shone on the promenade, established then along the wall of Paris. The chevalier saw no other means of drying himself than that of running for two or three hours in the sun, and he gave himself immediately to that exercise, looking much less in the air than formerly, and only answering some of his acquaintances, who asked him why he ran so quickly, by these words,--

"It's a wager, don't stop me. I have put up a hundred pistoles that I would sweat some great drops."

The chevalier's garments commenced to have more consistence and he stopped to take breath.

"You have missed your vocation, my friend; you should have been a runner for some prince," said a man, who had stopped with two others, and seemed to take much pleasure in looking at Chaudoreille, while one of his companions, of an extraordinarily stout build, laughed at the top of his voice, and the third making comical gestures and extraordinary grimaces seemed to be trying to copy the features and the figure of the runner.

"What do you say, monsieur," said the son of Gascony to the three individuals, who had stopped before him, "can't one run if he wants to, capededious!"

"Oh, his accent renders him even more comical," said the fat man. "Look at him well, comrade, it's necessary to reproduce that face for us this evening. It will be worth its weight in gold."

"I have it," responded the third. "Hang it! may I stifle if I don't copy it this evening, feature for feature."

"Have you looked at me long enough," said Chaudoreille, ogling them from the back, because he did not feel enough courage to look them in the face. "What do you take me to be?"

"Oh, hang it!" said Turlupin, to himself, for it was he who was walking with his two companions, Gros-Guillaume and Gautier-Garguille. "We must try to make the little man angry. That can't fail to amuse us."

Approaching Chaudoreille, who was reflecting on the grimace he should make, he commenced by striking Rolande's scabbard with the stick which he held in his hand, saying,--

"What the devil do you call that, seigneur chevalier?"

The chevalier became at one moment pale, red, and yellow.

"These men are desirous of seeking a quarrel with me," said he to himself, looking around him to see if he could make his retreat. But already some pa.s.sers-by had stopped and formed a circle; for, having recognized the three comedians who had been drawing crowds at the Hotel de Bourgogne, they did not doubt they were going to play some farce with the personage whom they were surrounding. The sight of all these people calmed Chaudoreille's fear a little.

"It is unlikely," said he to himself, "that they will let these three men kill me without rescuing me." He then endeavored to put a good face on the matter. Glancing at the crowd with what he meant to be a look of a.s.surance, he exclaimed,--

"I don't understand why these gentlemen molest me. I take everybody to witness that I have not insulted them."

A general laugh was the only answer Chaudoreille received, which had the effect of increasing his ill-humor; he angrily drew down his little hat in such a way that the gold-colored rosette almost touched the tip of his nose, and tried to make his way through the crowd, but they drew closer to him on every side, and he found himself face to face with Turlupin, who put himself on guard with his stick; Chaudoreille turned another way and was confronted by Gautier-Garguille, who had placed his hat precisely in the same manner as Chaudoreille's, and imitated exactly his piteous grimaces; finally, Gros-Guillaume barred the chevalier's pa.s.sage with his enormous corpulence.

Chaudoreille was exasperated, he could bear no more and he drew Rolande.

Turlupin advanced to the combat with his cane, and the chevalier, having eyed his adversary's weapon out of the corner of his eye, put himself on guard, crying,--

"Look to it, guard yourself carefully; I ply a very strong blade."

At the end of the third bout Turlupin feigned to be wounded; he fell, uttering a horrible groan, and making a frightful contortion.

Gros-Guillaume threw himself down beside him, exclaiming,--

"He is dead!"

Chaudoreille was stunned and bewildered; he still held his sword in his hand and looked at everyone as if distracted. Gautier-Garguille took him by the arm and led him away, saying,--

"Save yourself; you have killed the son of the King of Cochin-China."

Chaudoreille listened no further; he went on his way, left Paris and darted across the fields and the marshes; the three hours he had spent in running in the sun had not strained his legs, he felt no fatigue; fear lent him wings, and he did not stop until he believed that he had escaped the pursuit of which he imagined himself to be the object. It may seem astonishing, perhaps, that the chevalier had not recognized, in the three men who had stopped him on the boulevard, the three comedians whose performances were then in great vogue, and who permitted themselves a thousand licenses that the Parisians authorized, and which delighted even the great n.o.blemen. But when Chaudoreille had any money he pa.s.sed the greater part of his time in gambling houses, and had been but rarely to the theatre called the Hotel de Bourgogne; besides, Turlupin and Gautier-Garguille were so adept in the art of changing their physiognomies that it was difficult to recognize them unless one had often witnessed their performances.

The fugitive had stopped to breathe for a moment, he looked timidly about him and recognized the locality; he was at the end of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, near the Vallee de Fecamp, and he perceived about three hundred paces from him the Marquis de Villebelle's little house.

Chaudoreille had fasted since the evening before, he was overcome with fatigue and believed himself menaced by the greatest dangers. In such circ.u.mstances he forgot that the barber had forbidden him to go there and decided to ring at the little house and seek refuge.

Collecting his strength he turned towards the dwelling; he rang the bell, and Marcel opened the door almost immediately.

"What, is it you?" said he in astonishment. "Did the marquis or M.

Touquet send you here?"

Before answering, Chaudoreille entered the garden, and closed the door after him.

"But what the devil is the matter with you?" said Marcel. "What are you doing here?--and your face is in such a state, all in a cold sweat; one would believe, on my word, that you'd all the sergeants of Paris at your heels."

"And you wouldn't be mistaken," said Chaudoreille, in a scarcely audible voice.

"Why, what are you saying?"

"That I'm pursued, or at least I shall be. That the greatest danger threatens me."

"My G.o.d! What have you done?"

"I've killed the son of the King of Cochin-China."

"The son of Cochin-China?"

"Why, yes, just now, not more than a few minutes ago, against the Fosses-Jaunes--near the Porte Saint-Denis--but it was in honorable combat, a duel with equal weapons; and Rolande laid him at my feet.

Heavens, what a cry he uttered as he fell--it still rings in my ears. I slaughtered him like a bullock."

Marcel listened with his habitual good-humor; however, Chaudoreille's story appeared so extraordinary that he could not refrain from exclaiming,--

"But, truly, can all that be possible?"

"What, by jingo, you question its possibility,--my dear Marcel, it's absolutely true. You know me; you know that I'm a hot-headed fellow, a rake of honor. It's a habit I've formed, and what can you expect. I can't reform myself. But this time, at all events, it was not my fault.

I was walking quietly along by the city wall; all of a sudden three men came before me and uttered some jokes which were very much out of place and offended me; I politely asked them to allow me to pa.s.s, but they still obstructed my way. I immediately drew my sword, the crowd surrounded us, one of my adversaries put himself on guard. I immediately rushed on him; the combat was terrible. My enemy fought desperately; but soon he fell at my feet, making frightful grimaces, and one of his companions told me I had killed the heir to the throne of Cochin-China."

"And what the devil was the Prince of Cochin-China doing on the boulevards with two idiots who allowed him to fight with you?"