The Eagle of the Empire Part 33

"I thank you, sir, and you, gentlemen," said the young aide, surveying the men, their sudden temper abated, now looking at him with admiration, some of them with hands raised in salute. "The duty you have imposed upon me by your choice is the most painful I shall ever be called upon to perform."

"This way, Monsieur St. Laurent," said old Lestoype, stepping through the door with his head high, beckoning the young aide to follow him.

The door had scarcely closed behind the two when the wild confusion broke out again.

"What shall be done now?" cried Captain Grenier, the senior officer present, as soon as he could be heard.

"Messieurs," said Marteau, striving to gain the attention of all, "let me speak a moment. I have a plan. Be silent, I beg of you."

"We will hear Marteau."

"What have you to suggest?"

"Speak!"

"Be quick."

"This. I will take the Eagle, I, who brought it."

"You will throw it into the Isere?"

"No. I know this town like a book. The regiment was once stationed here for a few months. I had time on my hands. I explored many of the ancient buildings. I will---- But ask me nothing. Trust the Eagle to me. I have periled my life for it as have you all. Trust it to me.

It shall come to no dishonor in my hands. Say to the Governor that I came here, that I brought the Eagle, that I was asked to surrender it, that I refused, that I took it away, that you know not where I concealed it, nor whither I am gone. Let Monsieur St. Laurent make his report. You can simply tell the truth. Nothing will be done."

"It is well thought on," said Captain Grenier.

"The danger is to you," said another.

"What of that? I have looked danger in the face often since I have been in the army, like all the rest of you."

"I like not to shift the responsibility upon this young man," said the old port-aigle dubiously. "He is saving our lives at the risk of his own if they should find him--which is likely."

"Messieurs," said Marteau quickly, "I am not preserving your lives for yourselves."

"Why, then?" asked an officer.

"That you may be ready," said the young man, throwing his cloak about his shoulders, seizing the Eagle with his hands, "when the violets bloom again."

As they stared at him he saluted, turned on his heel, opened the door and went out.

CHAPTER XXI

LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT

The reception was over. The last guest had departed. The house had been closed. Sir Gervaise Yeovil and his son and the Countess Laure had bidden the old Marquis good night and retired to their several apartments. There were wakeful hours ahead for the Governor, who repaired to his cabinet and got to work. The tidings which had been brought him by the young Baron St. Laurent were sufficiently grave and perturbing to render sleep impossible, even if he had nothing to do.

In great astonishment the Marquis had questioned Major Lestoype closely and from him had received a frank and accurate version of the whole affair. The Major would have died rather than betray a comrade, but in this instance the betrayal had already been effected and there was nothing whatever to be gained, from Marteau's point of view or from anybody's point of view, by an attempt at concealment.

The old Marquis had acted with dazzling prompt.i.tude. His personal escort had consisted of a troop of loyalist cavalry from the King's household guard and it had not yet returned to Paris. He could depend absolutely upon these men. They had none of them been soldiers of the grand armies of the Emperor. They had been recruited in loyal and long-suffering Vendee. He placed them under the command of St.

Laurent, of whose conduct he highly approved, being in ignorance of the offer of secrecy made by that young soldier, Lestoype being too fine a man to attempt to better his case by bringing the Lieutenant into disgrace. This detachment had searched the Major's quarters thoroughly. They had found them, of course, deserted.

Captain Grenier, being forthwith summoned to headquarters, had stated truthfully that Marteau had taken the Eagle and gone and thereafter the a.s.sembly had dispersed. He declared upon his word of honor that he had no knowledge where he had gone or what he had done with the Eagle. The Marquis had a complete description of Marteau drawn up and sent to every gate in the walled town. The guard was ordered to permit n.o.body and nothing to pa.s.s without the severest scrutiny and the closest search or inspection. The Governor made preparations for public proclamation on the morrow, offering a large reward for the fugitive's apprehension dead or alive, and also an additional reward for information that would lead to the discovery of the missing Eagle.

Promising himself to deal with the matter even more thoroughly in the morning, he had at last dismissed his subordinates and retired. If Marteau was within the city walls--and it was impossible to see how he could have got out of the town without a pa.s.s after twelve o'clock at night--he would find him if he had to search every house in the town.

The spirit of the old man was high and aflame. To be so braved, to have his command the scene of such an outbreak of disloyalty and treason to the King was more than he could bear with equanimity.

There was another regiment in the town that had formerly been known as the Seventh-of-the-Line, commanded by Colonel Labedoyere, and there were detachments of artillery. The Eagle of the Seventh had never been sent to the War Office in Paris. It, too, had disappeared. But that had been months before the Marquis' time, and he had no responsibility for that. Colonel Labedoyere was more than suspected of lukewarmness, but as he was a young man of great influence, high social standing and much personal popularity no steps had as yet been taken against him.

The Marquis determined to have it out with him also at the first convenient season, and unless he could be a.s.sured of his absolute devotion to King Louis, he would report to the Minister of War the necessity of the Colonel's removal.

The old man was fully alive to the Napoleonic sentiment among the soldiers, a sentiment which arose from a variety of motives. In the first place, war was the trade of most of the soldiers. They lived on it, thrived by it, delighted in it. The permanence of the monarchy meant peace. There would be little chance for advancement and none at all for plunder. Self-interest predisposed every old soldier to continue an imperialist.

In the second place, the finances of France were naturally in a most disordered condition. The pay of officers and men was greatly in arrears; promises made had not been kept, and there was much heart-felt dissatisfaction on that account. The pay of a soldier is in no sense an adequate compensation for the risks he runs, the perils to which he voluntarily and willingly subjects himself, but it is a universal experience that although his pay is in no degree commensurate, yet the soldier whose pay is withheld instantly becomes insubordinate and mutinous, however high or patriotic the motives back of his enlistment.

Again the officers had, most of them, been degraded in rank. Many of them had been retired on pittances which were not paid. Those who were lucky enough to be retained in active service were superseded by superannuated, often incompetent old officers of the old royal army before the revolution, or by young scions of n.o.bility with no knowledge or fitness to command veterans, to whom the gross-bodied, uninspiring, gouty old King did not appeal. Again, the regimental names and a.s.sociations had been changed and the old territorial or royal and princely designations had been reestablished; the Napoleonic victories had been erased from the battle-flags; the Eagles had been taken away.

The plain people of France were more or less apathetic toward Emperor or King. France had been drained of its best for so long that it craved rest and peace and time to recuperate above everything else. It had been sated with glory and was alike indifferent to victory or defeat. But the army was a seething ma.s.s of discontent. It had nothing to gain by the continuance of present conditions and everything to lose. It was a body of soldiers-of-fortune held in control temporarily by circ.u.mstances but ready to break the leash and respond instantly to the call of the greatest soldier-of-fortune of all.

And while all this is true it must also be admitted that there were many officers and men like Marteau who were profoundly humiliated and distressed over conditions in France and who, pa.s.sionately wrapped up in and devoted to the Emperor, had spurned commissions and dignities and preferments. If they were obscure men they remained in France unnoticed; if they were great men they had expatriated themselves and sought seclusion and safety in other countries, oftentimes at great personal sacrifice of property, ease and comfort.

The King, who was by no means lacking in shrewdness and wit, and his chief advisers in Paris, did not fail to realize something of this, but keen-sighted men like the Marquis d'Aumenier, away from the person of the monarch, realized it much more fully, although even he had not the least idea of the wide extent and depth of this feeling. But the old man knew instinctively that he must control things in Gren.o.ble at least with an iron hand and that no temporizing was possible. The return of Marteau, who was a man of parts and power, he admitted--he recalled how well he had borne himself before the little group in the drawing-room!--followed by the midnight gathering, the joy of the veterans, their worship almost of the Eagle, enlightened him. He would put down sedition with an iron hand, he swore to himself. The King had committed this important place to him. It was, in a certain sense, a frontier city if the impossible happened. Well, the King should find that he had not reposed trust in the Marquis for nothing.

So the old man thought as he lay sleepless during the night. He was not the only one who lay sleepless during the night. Laure d'Aumenier sought rest and oblivion in vain. She had been more moved by Marteau's conduct and bearing and presence in the old Chateau d'Aumenier, a year ago, than she had been willing to admit until she thought him dead.

The Marteaux had always been a good-looking, self-respecting people.

Madame Marteau, his mother, had been an unusual woman who had, it was said, married beneath her when she became the wife of old Jean Marteau, although she never in her long married life thought of it in that way.

The present Jean Marteau was as handsome and distinguished looking a man as there was in France. The delicacy and refinement of his bearing and appearance did not connote weakness either, as she could testify.

The young woman owed her life and honor to the young soldier. But long before that chance meeting they had been companions in childhood, intimate companions, too. The boy had been her servitor, but he had been more. He had been her protector and friend. In her memory she could recall incident after incident when he had helped her, shielded her. Never once had he failed to show anything but devotion absolute and unbounded toward her.

The proposition of marriage he had made in the old hall, which she had laughed to scorn, had by no means escaped her memory. She had dwelt upon it, she had even speculated upon the possibility of an acceptance of his proposal. Why not? She knew no man more gentle at heart, more gallant in soul, more n.o.ble in spirit than he. That, too, she had turned over and over in her mind.

She admired Frank Yeovil. He was a likable man, frank by nature as well as name and brave, sunny in disposition and ardently devoted to her. When the betrothal had been made at her uncle's urgent insistence that she accept Captain Yeovil's suit, it had been a great match for her, for the d'Aumeniers were impoverished exiles, while the Yeovils were a rich family and of a line almost as long as her own. It had been easy enough to plight her troth to the young Englishman at first, but since she had seen Marteau, she realized that it would not be easy to keep that engagement. Fortunately, Captain Yeovil had been on service in Spain and the South of France with the Duke of Wellington's army, and only a few weeks before had he joined her uncle and herself in Paris on leave of absence. He had pressed her to name the day but she had temporized and avoided the issue; not for any definite reason but because as the time drew near she became less and less willing to be the Englishman's wife.

Marteau had been reported killed at Arcis. Perhaps that report had done more to enlighten her to the true state of her affections than anything else. Her pride of birth, her rank and station would never have permitted her, it may be, to dwell upon a living Marteau as a possible husband, but since he was dead there could be no harm in dreams of that kind; and in her grief she had indulged herself in them to the full. It had been a shock to her, of course, but not so great a shock as it would have been if an engagement had subsisted between the two, or she had permitted herself to think that she could ever look favorably on the proposition he had made to her. Nevertheless, it had been a great sorrow. There were some alleviations to the situation, however. Since it had become impossible, since she believed Marteau dead, she could indulge her grief and her mind could dwell upon those attractions which had influenced her so powerfully.

The period was one of intense anxiety and excitement. The old Marquis had lived much alone. He was not versed in woman's ways. Her agitation and grief pa.s.sed unnoticed. By degrees she got control of herself. Since it was not to be Marteau it might as well be young Yeovil. The whole episode with which the French officer was concerned she viewed from a point of detachment as a romantic dream. His arrival had rudely shattered that dream and awakened her to the reality of the situation. She loved him.

For Laure d'Aumenier to marry Marteau was impossible. The Marquis would never consent. He was her legal guardian, the head of her race.

Marriage without his consent was unthinkable. Loving Marteau she would fain not marry Yeovil; yet her troth being plighted in the most public manner and with her consent, the Marquis would force her to keep her word. She knew exactly the pressure that would be brought to bear upon her. Although she had lost some of the pride of her ancestors, she could see the situation from their point of view. There was a deadlock before her and there appeared to be no way of breaking it.

It was a wild night outside. The rain beat upon the cas.e.m.e.nt windows of the old castle. The tempest without seemed fit accompaniment to the tempest within, thought the woman.

A long time she lay thinking, planning, hoping, praying; alike unavailingly. Toward morning, utterly exhausted by the violence of her emotions, the scene she had gone through--and it had been a torture to stand and receive the townspeople after the departure of Marteau--she fell at last into a troubled sleep.

She was awakened by a slight sound, as of a light footstep. She enjoyed the faculty of awakening with full command of her senses at once. She parted the curtains of the bed. With her eyes wide open, holding her breath, she listened. She heard soft movements. There was someone in the room!

Laure d'Aumenier, as has been said, had been trained to self-reliance.