The Bronze Eagle Part 2

"The Comte de Cambray," retorted de Marmont with a sneer, "is full up to his eyes with the prejudices and arrogance of his caste. It is men of his type--and not Marat or Robespierre--who made the revolution, who goaded the people of France into becoming something worse than man-devouring beasts. And, mind you, twenty years of exile did not sober them, nor did contact with democratic thought in England and America teach them the most elementary lessons of commonsense. If the Emperor had not come back to-day, we should be once more working up for revolution--more terrible this time, more b.l.o.o.d.y and vengeful, if possible, than the last."

Then as Clyffurde made no comment on this peroration, the younger man resumed more lightly:

"And--knowing the Comte de Cambray's prejudices as I do, imagine my surprise--after I had met you in his house as an honoured guest and on what appeared to be intimate terms of friendship--to learn that you . . . in fact . . ."

"That I was nothing more than a shopkeeper," broke in Clyffurde with a short laugh, "nothing better than our mutual friend M. Dumoulin, glovemaker, of Gren.o.ble--a highly worthy man whom M. le Comte de Cambray esteems somewhat lower than his butler. It certainly must have surprised you very much."

"Well, you know, old de Cambray has a horror of anything that pertains to trade, and an avowed contempt for everything that he calls 'bourgeois.'"

"There's no doubt about that," a.s.sented Clyffurde fervently.

"Perhaps he does not know of your connection with . . ."

"Gloves?"

"With business people in Gren.o.ble generally."

"Oh, yes, he does!" replied the Englishman quietly.

"Well, then?" queried de Marmont.

Then as his friend sat there silent with that quiet, good-humoured smile lingering round his lips, he added apologetically:

"Perhaps I am indiscreet . . . but I never could understand it . . . and you English are so reserved . . ."

"That I never told you how M. le Comte de Cambray, Commander of the Order of the Holy Ghost, Grand Cross of the Order du Lys, Hereditary Grand Chamberlain of France, etc., etc., came to sit at the same table as a vendor and buyer of gloves," said Clyffurde gaily. "There's no secret about it. I owe the Comte's exalted condescension to certain letters of recommendation which he could not very well disregard."

"Oh! as to that . . ." quoth de Marmont with a shrug of the shoulders, "people like the de Cambrays have their own codes of courtesy and of friendship."

"In this case, my good de Marmont, it was the code of ordinary grat.i.tude that imposed its dictum even upon the autocratic and aristocratic Comte de Cambray."

"Grat.i.tude?" sneered de Marmont, "in a de Cambray?"

"M. le Comte de Cambray," said Clyffurde with slow emphasis, "his mother, his sister, his brother-in-law and two of their faithful servants, were rescued from the very foot of the guillotine by a band of heroes--known in those days as the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel."

"I knew that!" said de Marmont quietly.

"Then perhaps you also knew that their leader was Sir Percy Blakeney--a prince among gallant English gentlemen and my dead father's friend. When my business affairs sent me to Gren.o.ble, Sir Percy warmly recommended me to the man whose life he had saved. What could M. le Comte de Cambray do but receive me as a friend? You see, my credentials were exceptional and unimpeachable."

"Of course," a.s.sented de Marmont, "now I understand. But you will admit that I have had grounds for surprise. You--who were the friend of Dumoulin, a tradesman, and avowed Bonapartist--two unpardonable crimes in the eyes of M. le Comte de Cambray," he added with a return to his former bitterness, "you to be seated at his table and to shake him by the hand. Why, man! if he knew that I have remained faithful to the Emperor . . ."

He paused abruptly, and his somewhat full, sensitive lips were pressed tightly together as if to suppress an insistent outburst of pa.s.sion.

But Clyffurde frowned, and when he turned away from de Marmont it was in order to hide a harsh look of contempt.

"Surely," he said, "you have never led the Comte to suppose that you are a royalist!"

"I have never led him to suppose anything. But he has taken my political convictions for granted," rejoined de Marmont.

Then suddenly a look of bitter resentment darkened his face, making it appear hard and lined and considerably older.

"My uncle, Marshal de Marmont, Duc de Raguse, was an abominable traitor," he went on with ill-repressed vehemence. "He betrayed his Emperor, his benefactor and his friend. It was the vilest treachery that has ever disgraced an honourable name. Paris could have held out easily for another four and twenty hours, and by that time the Emperor would have been back. But de Marmont gave her over wilfully, scurvily to the allies. But for his abominable act of cowardice the Emperor never would have had to endure the shame of his temporary exile at Elba, and Louis de Bourbon would never have had the chance of wallowing for twelve months upon the throne of France. But that which is a source of irreparable shame to me is a virtue in the eyes of all these royalists.

De Marmont's treachery against the Emperor has placed all his kindred in the forefront of those who now lick the boots of that infamous Bourbon dynasty, and it did not suit the plans of the Bonapartist party that we--in the provinces--should proclaim our faith too openly until such time as the Emperor returned."

"And if the Comte de Cambray had known that you are just an ardent Bonapartist? . . ." suggested Clyffurde calmly.

"He would long before now have had me kicked out by his lacqueys," broke in de Marmont with ever-increasing bitterness as he brought his clenched fist crashing down upon the table, while his dark eyes glowed with a fierce and pa.s.sionate resentment. "For men like de Cambray there is only one caste--the _n.o.blesse_, one religion--the Catholic, one creed--adherence to the Bourbons. All else is sc.u.m, trash, beneath contempt, hardly human! Oh! if you knew how I loathe these people!" he continued, speaking volubly and in a voice shaking with suppressed excitement. "They have learnt nothing, these aristocrats, nothing, I tell you! the terrible reprisals of the revolution which culminated in that appalling Reign of Terror have taught them absolutely nothing! They have not learnt the great lesson of the revolution, that the people will no longer endure their arrogance and their pretensions, that the old regime is dead--dead! the regime of oppression and pride and intolerance! They have learnt nothing!" he reiterated with ever-growing excitement, "nothing! 'humanity begins with the _n.o.blesse_' is still their watchword to-day as it was before the irate people sent hundreds of them to perish miserably on the guillotine--the rest of mankind, to them, is only cattle made to toil for the well-being of their cla.s.s. Oh!

I loathe them, I tell you! I loathe them from the bottom of my soul!"

"And yet you and your kind are rapidly becoming at one with them," said Clyffurde, his quiet voice in strange contrast to the other man's violent agitation.

"No, we are not," protested de Marmont emphatically. "The men whom Napoleon created marshals and peers of France have been openly snubbed at the Court of Louis XVIII. Ney, who is prince of Moskowa and next to Napoleon himself the greatest soldier of France, has seen his wife treated little better than a chambermaid by the d.u.c.h.esse d'Angouleme and the ladies of the old _n.o.blesse_. My uncle is marshal of France, and Duc de Raguse and I am the heir to his millions, but the Comte de Cambray will always consider it a mesalliance for his daughter to marry me."

The note of bitter resentment, of wounded pride and smouldering hatred became more and more marked while he spoke: his voice now sounded hoa.r.s.e and his throat seemed dry. Presently he raised his mug to his lips and drank eagerly, but his hand was shaking visibly as he did this, and some of the wine was spilled on the table.

There was silence for a while outside the little inn, silence which seemed full of portent, for through the pure mountain air there was wafted the hot breath of men's pa.s.sions--fierce, dominating, challenging. Love, hatred, prejudices and contempt--all were portrayed on de Marmont's mobile face: they glowed in his dark eyes and breathed through his quivering nostrils. Now he rested his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, his nervy fingers played a tattoo against his teeth, clenched together like those of some young feline creature which sees its prey coming along and is snarling at the sight.

Clyffurde, with those deep-set, earnest grey eyes of his, was silently watching his friend. His hand did not shake, nor did the breath come any quicker from his broad chest. Yet deep down behind the wide brow, behind those same overshadowed eyes, a keen observer would of a surety have detected the signs of a latent volcano of pa.s.sions, all the more strong and virile as they were kept in perfect control. It was he who presently broke the silence, and his voice was quite steady when he spoke, though perhaps a trifle more toneless, more dead, than usual.

"And," he said, "what of Mlle. Crystal in all this?"

"Crystal?" queried the other curtly, "what about her?"

"She is an ardent royalist, more strong in her convictions and her enthusiasms than women usually are."

"And what of that?" rejoined de Marmont fiercely. "I love Crystal."

"But when she learns that you . . ."

"She shall not learn it," rejoined the other cynically. "We sign our marriage contract to-night: the wedding is fixed for Tuesday. Until then I can hold my peace."

An exclamation of hot protest almost escaped the Englishman's lips: his hand which rested on the table became so tightly clenched that the hard knuckles looked as if they would burst through their fetters of sinew and skin, and he made no pretence at concealing the look of burning indignation which flashed from his eyes.

"But man!" he exclaimed, "a deception such as you propose is cruel and monstrous. . . . In view, too, of what has occurred in the past few days . . . in view of what may happen if the news which we have heard is true . . ."

"In view of all that, my friend," retorted de Marmont firmly, "the old regime has had its nine days of wonder and of splendour. The Emperor has come back! we, who believe in him, who have remained true to him in his humiliation and in his misfortunes may once more raise our heads and loudly proclaim our loyalty. The return of the Emperor will once more put his dukes and his marshals in their rightful place on a level with the highest n.o.bility of France. The Comte de Cambray will realise that all his hopes of regaining his fortune through the favours of the Bourbons have by force of circ.u.mstances come to naught. Like most of the old _n.o.blesse_ who emigrated he is without a sou. He may choose to look on me with contempt, but he will no longer desire to kick me out of his house, for he will be glad enough to see the Cambray 'scutcheon regilt with de Marmont gold."

"But Mademoiselle Crystal?" insisted Clyffurde, almost appealingly, for his whole soul had revolted at the cynicism of the other man.

"Crystal has listened to that ape, St. Genis," replied de Marmont drily, "one of her own caste . . . a marquis with sixteen quarterings to his family escutcheon and not a sou in his pockets. She is very young, and very inexperienced. She has seen nothing of the world as yet--nothing.

She was born and brought up in exile--in England, in the midst of that narrow society formed by impecunious _emigres_. . . ."

"And shopkeeping Englishmen," murmured Clyffurde, under his breath.

"She could never have married St. Genis," reiterated Victor de Marmont with deliberate emphasis. "The man hasn't a sou. Even Crystal realised from the first that nothing ever could have come of that boy and girl dallying. The Comte never would have consented. . . ."

"Perhaps not. But she--Mademoiselle Crystal--would she ever have consented to marry you, if she had known what your convictions are?"