The Bath Keepers Volume I Part 28

Giovanni bestowed an affectionate glance on the girl and pressed her hand lovingly, murmuring:

"Poor girl! I know well that that is true! You are not like other women!"

But soon, as if regretting that momentary weakness, the Italian resumed his indifferent air and began to pace the floor.

"Well," he said, "have you been to see the bath keeper's daughter on Rue Saint-Jacques?"

"Mon Dieu! no; in the first place, I waited for Cedrille a long while; and when he did not come, I decided to go alone, for I am not timid, as you know. But when I found myself all alone, at night, in the streets of this great city, of which I have heard so many terrible things, I felt troubled, my heart beat fast; however, I walked on, thinking that I knew my road. At last, as I was afraid of going astray, I spoke to a gentleman who was pa.s.sing, and asked him to direct me to Master Hugonnet's baths, on Rue Saint-Jacques.--Ah! how I regretted speaking to that man! If you knew how he treated me!--'Aha! you wanton!' he said; 'going to the baths so late? then the a.s.signation must be very important!'--And he added a lot of insulting remarks, and tried to put his arm about my waist and to detain me by force. But anger gave me strength; I pushed the man away so violently that he seemed dazed, and I fled, running at random; then it was that I lost my way altogether. I walked a long, long while, trying to find my way back to the Hotel de Mongarcin; but I would have pa.s.sed the whole night in the street rather than ask my way again! Then you met me."

"This should serve you as a lesson, Miretta; you must not venture out alone in Paris at night; it is dangerous for a man, much more so for a pretty young girl; and if the watch had fallen in with you, they would have taken you to the Filles Repenties. But the clock struck ten long ago; I will take you back to the Hotel de Mongarcin. Do you know that they will form a strange opinion of you there? On the very day of your arrival, you disappear for a large part of the evening."

"I shall tell my young mistress what happened to me; I shall tell her the whole truth; Mademoiselle Valentine will forgive me, for I will promise to be more prudent hereafter."

"You will tell her the _whole_ truth?" repeated Giovanni, fastening his eyes on the girl's face.

"Yes, but without naming you. Oh! never fear: I will not tell--your secret."

"I rely upon it; come! But wait a moment."

Giovanni took the horrible hairy cap, the huge beard, and the olive-green cloak, and held them all up before Miretta, saying:

"Look at these carefully; if you should ever see a man dressed in these clothes, fly, fly at once--do not go near that man!--Do you swear, Miretta?"

"I swear," faltered the girl, in a trembling voice.

"On that condition, you will see me again sometimes, now as a wealthy gentleman, now as a simple artisan, or a bourgeois; but I will speak first to you."

With that, the Italian hastily resumed the costume of an old Bohemian; when that was done, he said:

"Come, now, let us make haste; but, above all things, make no noise."

Giovanni quickly extinguished the candles and replaced in its corner the smoking lamp, which but dimly lighted the apartment. Then he took Miretta's hand and led her from the room and the house with the same precautions and without meeting anybody. Once in the street, he drew his companion's arm through his and forced her to walk rapidly.

They walked the whole distance in silence; the girl was oppressed by grief and alarm; when they met anyone, she pressed her guide's arm tight, for she imagined that he would be recognized and arrested. But Giovanni knew Paris and its most crooked streets perfectly; in a very short time he and his companion stopped in front of a large house, and he said to her:

"This is the place; here is the Hotel de Mongarcin; you are at home."

"Already!"

"You say _already_, and you are trembling like a leaf, my poor girl!"

"Oh! not for myself! For now I must leave you; but when shall I see you again?"

Giovanni made a movement with his head which seemed to indicate that he did not himself know. Then, before Miretta had had time to detain him, he disappeared, and she soon ceased to hear his footsteps.

Thereupon Miretta gave free vent to her sobs and went into the house, murmuring:

"Ah! the unhappy man!"

XVII

THE FIRE OF SAINT-JEAN

Long before the reign of King Louis XIII, the sheriffs of Paris were wont, on Saint-Jean's Eve, to cause huge piles of sticks of all dimensions, with thorn bushes and small twigs quick to ignite, to be constructed on Place de Greve, whither the king would come, in solemn state, to set fire to that enormous ma.s.s with his own hand.

In 1471, Louis XI followed the example of his predecessors and presided at that ceremony, which eventually came to be attended with fetes and entertainments to which the good people of Paris always looked forward with impatience.

The Fire of Saint-Jean in 1573 was a magnificent ceremony, so it is said. A mast about sixty feet in height had been erected on Place de Greve, with many wooden crossbars, to which an enormous quant.i.ty of f.a.gots and bundles of brushwood was attached. A number of loads of wood and countless bundles of straw were heaped about the base of this structure. The whole was decorated, or rather disguised, by wreaths and garlands. Bouquets were distributed to the king and his suite, to the notables of the city, and to the magistrates. Fireworks also were placed under the f.a.gots. A hundred and twenty archers from the city, a hundred bowmen, and a hundred arquebusiers kept order. Lastly, they hung on the mast a large basket containing two dozen cats and a fox. This last then was, no doubt, the _ne plus ultra_ of the fete. Poor cats!

poor foxes! We leave you in peace now when we have public rejoicings; and to say the truth, I am persuaded that they are none the less attractive for that reason.

Under Cardinal de Richelieu, the ceremony of the Fire of Saint-Jean had lost much of its brilliancy; cats were no longer burned, as it was natural that they should not be, the first minister having a deep affection for those animals, by which he loved to be surrounded.

However, the ceremony continued to take place, and still attracted a goodly number of sightseers, idlers, students, young girls, and even young gentlemen, who came thither in search of adventures, or to play tricks on rustics.

A few weeks after the events we have narrated, the Place de Greve was adorned by a pile of combustibles, which, while it could not be compared with those which we have described, was very presentable none the less.

When the night began to fall, there was a large number of people a.s.sembled on the square; but that was a mere nothing, for every moment thereafter the quays or the narrow streets leading into the square poured forth a constant stream of bourgeois parties, bands of young clerks of the Basoche, young men arm in arm, people of the lower cla.s.ses, esquires, pages, and elegant young gentlemen carefully enveloped in their cloaks, beneath which they tried to conceal the richness of their costumes, but always betrayed it by the too gorgeous plumes that adorned their hats or the magnificence of the spurs attached to their boots.

By the time that it was quite dark, the square was crowded, and one could not move without difficulty, especially in the direction of the pile. But what life! what animation! what a fusillade of voices! what a din of remarks and questions bandied about in all directions! It was an incessant humming sound.

Many people reflected aloud, in order to be overheard by everybody within earshot; for at all times there have been plenty of those fine talkers, those pretentious personages who deem themselves called upon to declaim, to put themselves forward, and who often put forward nothing but their folly or their conceit!

"This way, father; let us go this way; I promise you that we shall have a much better place to see the fire!" said a tall, fine-looking girl, in whom we meet once more a pleasant acquaintance from Rue Saint-Jacques.

It was Ambroisine, whose right arm was pa.s.sed through the arm of a girl even prettier than herself, but with a shy, timid air, who was evidently surprised beyond measure to find herself in the midst of that tumult.

That girl was Bathilde, the daughter of Landry the bath keeper of Rue Dauphine.

How did it happen that she was so far from home, and without her mother, in the midst of that bold and curious crowd, where beauty and youth were the objective point of the glances of most of the sightseers? How did it happen that she was arm in arm with Ambroisine, upon whom Dame Ragonde had looked coldly for so long a time, and with whom she seemed afraid to allow her daughter to talk?

The reason was that Bathilde's mother had an old kinswoman in Normandie, who had always manifested much affection for her, and had refrained from marrying, with the intention of leaving all her property to Ragonde some day. That property consisted of a few acres of land and a wretched house--the whole being worth, perhaps, fifteen hundred livres; but we must remember that in those days fifteen hundred livres was equal to six thousand to-day; that Landry had no other property than his business; and lastly, that in Ragonde's eyes that fifteen hundred livres would be a sufficient dowry to obtain for Bathilde the hand of some respectable Parisian tradesman.

It happened that one fine day a message arrived from Caudebec, the old kinswoman's residence. A neighbor of hers wrote to Dame Landry, to inform her that her cousin was very ill, and was most anxious to have her by her side, to close her eyes. He added that haste was important, because the old maid seemed to have only a short time to live.

On receipt of this message, Dame Ragonde instantly made preparations for her journey; the famous inheritance being at stake, she felt that she must not hesitate! But as she was about to start, she thought of Bathilde, whom in her absorption she had forgotten. Should she take her or leave her with her father? To trust the old trooper of Henri IV to watch over a young girl was imprudent, perhaps. But, on the other hand, to take on a journey the child whom she had guarded so carefully up to that time was to expose her to the risk of listening to the chatter of every comer; of being the object of gallant attentions, perhaps even of bold enterprises, on the part of their fellow travellers. For Dame Ragonde had not the means to travel in a litter; and in those days travel was so slow, the means of transport so difficult, that one was obliged to pa.s.s a long time in a coach or other vehicle, even when one had not a long distance to travel. And then there was the matter of expense, which was of great importance to the bath keeper's wife. It cost a great deal to travel; and the expense would be doubled if she should take her daughter.

The result of her reflections was that Dame Ragonde set out alone, but not without saying to her husband many times:

"Keep a sharp eye on your daughter! Don't let her leave the house or receive any visits; make no change in the order which I have established in our household, so that no one may notice that I am absent! And always tell everyone that I am coming back in the course of the day."

If the person who goes away knew how soon her injunctions are forgotten, she would not take the trouble to repeat them so many times. It is not always disinclination to comply with them on the part of those whom you leave in your place; but when you give your instructions, you cannot at the same time impart your habits, your intelligence, your rigidity, your searching glance, your observant mind--in a word, your nature; and everyone acts according to his nature.

Landry, despite his moustaches and his surly manner, had a softer heart than his wife; and then, too, this persistent watching, this making one's self a spy upon one's daughter, is much more consonant with a woman's habit than with a man's. Moreover, as the old soldier had not the slightest doubt of his child's virtue, he did not understand why he must be incessantly on his guard, as with a prisoner who is always trying to escape.

The first days that followed Dame Ragonde's departure brought about no change in Bathilde's usual mode of life, for it did not occur to her to ask leave to go out, and no one came to divert her.