The Brotherhood of Consolation Part 29

"But who helped you in all this?"

"A gentleman, whom we think is employed to do the queen's benefits."

"What is he like?"

"Well, he is of medium height; rather stout, but active; with a kindly, genial face. It was he who found my father ill of fever in the house where you knew us and had him brought to that in which we now live. And just fancy, as soon as my father recovered _I_ was installed there too, in my very own room, just as if I had never left it. Halpersohn, whom the gentleman captivated, I am sure I don't know how, then told me all the sufferings my father had endured. Ah, when I think of it! my father and my son often without bread to eat, and when with me pretending to be rich! even the diamonds in the snuff box sold! Oh, Monsieur G.o.defroid!

those two beings are martyrs. And so, what can I say to my father?

Between him and my son I can take no part; I can only make return to them in kind by suffering with them, as they once suffered with me."

"And you say you think that gentleman came from the queen?"

"Oh! I am sure you know him, I see it in your face," cried Vanda, now at the door of the house.

She seized G.o.defroid by the hand with the vigor of a nervous woman and dragged him into a salon, the door of which stood open.

"Papa!" she cried, "here is Monsieur G.o.defroid! and I am certain he knows our benefactors."

Baron Bourlac, whom G.o.defroid now saw dressed in a manner suitable for a man of his rank and position, rose and came forward, holding out his hand to G.o.defroid, saying as he did so:--

"I was sure of it."

G.o.defroid made a gesture denying that he shared in this n.o.ble vengeance, but the former attorney-general gave him no chance to speak.

"Ah! monsieur," he said, continuing, "Providence could not be more powerful, love more ingenious, motherhood more clear-sighted than your friends have been for us. I bless the chance that has brought you here to-day; for Monsieur Joseph has disappeared forever; he has evaded all the traps I set to discover his true name and residence. Here, read his last letter. But perhaps you already know it."

G.o.defroid read as follows:--

Monsieur le Baron Bourlac,--The sums which we have spent for you, under the orders of a charitable lady, amount to fifteen thousand francs. Take note of this, so that you may return that sum either yourself, or through your descendants, whenever the prosperity of your family will admit of it,--for that money is the money of the poor. When you or your family are able to make this rest.i.tution, pay the sum you owe into the hands of Messrs. Mongenod and Company, bankers.

May G.o.d forgive you.

Five crosses formed the mysterious signature of this letter, which G.o.defroid returned to the baron.

"The five crosses are there," he said as if to himself.

"Ah! monsieur," said the old man; "you do know all; you were sent to me by that mysterious lady--tell me her name!"

"Her name!" exclaimed G.o.defroid; "her name! Unhappy man! you must not ask it; never seek to find it out. Ah! madame," he cried, taking Madame de Mergi's hand; "tell your father, if he values his peace of mind, to remain in his ignorance and make no effort to discover the truth."

"No, tell it!" said Vanda.

"Well, then, she who saved your daughter," said G.o.defroid, looking at the old man, "who returns her to you young and beautiful and fresh and happy, who rescued her from her coffin, she who saved your grandson from disgrace, and has given you an old age of peace and honor--" He stopped short--"is a woman whom you sent innocent to prison for twenty years; to whom, as a magistrate, you did the foulest wrong; whose sanct.i.ty you insulted; whose beautiful daughter you tore from her arms and condemned to the cruellest of all deaths, for she died on the guillotine."

G.o.defroid, seeing that Vanda had fallen back half fainting on her chair, rushed into the corridor and from there into the street, running at full speed.

"If you want your pardon," said Baron Bourlac to his grandson, "follow that man and find out where he lives."

Auguste was off like an arrow.

The next morning at eight o'clock, Baron Bourlac knocked at the old yellow door in the rue Chanoinesse, and asked for Madame de la Chanterie. The portress showed him the portico. Happily it was the breakfast hour. G.o.defroid saw the baron, through one of the cas.e.m.e.nts on the stairs, crossing the court-yard; he had just time to get down into the salon where the friends were all a.s.sembled and to cry out:--

"Baron Bourlac is here!"

Madame de la Chanterie, hearing the name, rose; supported by the Abbe de Veze she went to her room.

"You shall not come in, tool of Satan!" cried Manon, recognizing their former prosecutor and preventing his entrance through the door of the salon. "Have you come to kill Madame?"

"Manon, let the gentleman come in," said Monsieur Alain.

Manon sat down on a chair as if both her legs had given way at once.

"Monsieur," said the baron in an agitated voice, recognizing Monsieur Joseph and G.o.defroid, and bowing to Monsieur Nicolas, "mercy gives rights to those it benefits."

"You owe us nothing, monsieur;" said the good old Alain; "you owe everything to G.o.d."

"You are saints, and you have the calmness of saints;" said the former magistrate; "you will therefore listen to me. I know that the vast benefits I have received during the last eighteen months have come from the hand of a person whom I grievously injured in doing my duty. It was fifteen years before I was convinced of her innocence; and that case is the only one, gentlemen, for which I feel any remorse as to the exercise of my functions. Listen to me! I have but a short time to live, but I shall lose even that poor remnant of a life, still so important to my children whom Madame de la Chanterie has saved, unless she will also grant me her pardon. Yes, I will stay there on my knees on the pavement of Notre-Dame until she says to me that word. I, who cannot weep, whom the tortures of my child have dried like stubble, I shall find tears within me to move her--"

The door of Madame de la Chanterie's room opened; the Abbe de Veze glided in like a shadow and said to Monsieur Joseph:--

"That voice is torturing Madame."

"Ah! she is there!" exclaimed the baron.

He fell on his knees and burst into tears, crying out in a heart-rending voice: "In the name of Jesus dying on the cross, forgive, forgive me, for my daughter has suffered a thousand deaths!"

The old man fell forward on the floor so p.r.o.ne that the agitated spectators thought him dead. At that instant Madame de la Chanterie appeared like a spectre at the door of her room, against the frame of which she supported herself.

"In the name of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette whom I see on their scaffold, in the name of Madame Elisabeth, in the name of my daughter and of yours, and for Jesus' sake, I forgive you."

Hearing those words the old man raised his head. "It is the vengeance of angels!" he said.

Monsieur Joseph and Monsieur Nicolas raised him and led him to the courtyard; G.o.defroid went to fetch a carriage, and when they put the old man into it Monsieur Nicolas said to him gravely:--

"Do not return here, monsieur; the power of G.o.d is infinite, but human nature has its limits."

On that day G.o.defroid was admitted to the order of the Brotherhood of Consolation.