The False Chevalier Part 37

"More than that--it is felonious," almost shouted the Marquis, great veins swelling upon his forehead and his hand shaking with rage. "Should the monster ever land again upon the sh.o.r.es of France from which I drove him, my G.o.d, I will hang him! Leave me this letter."

"The fellow is gross enough to return," said Louis scornfully. "What could be plainer--his movements speak for themselves."

Here a shabby individual stepped up, handed the Marquis a note, and at the same time beckoned the two into a corner out of the crowd. The billet was a sc.r.a.p on which was written only--

"LECOUR."

Mystery had a fascination for de Lotbiniere. Not so for Louis, who was impatient that so seedy a person should presume to stop them. Still, on being handed the paper, he condescended to remain.

"Craving pardon, my Lord," said Jude--it was of course he--in a low voice, "I have word for you in this affair. Your powerful movements are known to me."

"Indeed?"

"I know your sentiments on the impostor."

"And you wish me to buy some information from you?"

"Monsieur le Marquis--he is my enemy also: I ask no price, only your co-operation with a humble individual like myself."

"Speak on."

"It is all letters to day, my Lord. I heard you both discuss that of Madame de Lery."

"You are a spy, then?" asked Louis tartly, scorn flashing across his face.

"An _observer_, Monsieur--one of the King's secret service."

"A 'Sentinel of the nation,'" the Marquis said, only the more deeply interested, smiling and tendering his snuff-box to Jude graciously.

"And next?" added he.

"Next, too, is a letter. I watched the mails addressed to his correspondents and friends here. This is a letter to his valet."

The Marquis took it. It read--

"DOVER, _6th January, 1789_.

"MY DEAR DOMINIQUE,--Prepare for me within ten days after you receive this.

"DE LINCY."

"_Peste!_" hissed the Marquis.

Jude pressed a folded paper into his hand, slipped behind a pillar and disappeared, and the two relatives joined the crowd. The Marquis that day made copious entries in his journal.

His life was now entirely engrossed in the controversy with LeCour. As a Frenchman the occupation was dear to his heart. What Norman does not love a lawsuit? What Parisian, politics? The journal became even more complete and exact on the matter and teemed with expressions of contempt thrust home to the heart of the absent adversary. It recapitulated minutely the manner in which LeCour had been discovered wearing the Repentigny name; the refusal of the slayer of Philibert to punish him; the change of name to de Lincy, which de Lotbiniere shrewdly attributed to the genealogist; the conduct of de Bailleul; the real origin of the Lecour family, with the history of the father; the duels with Louis, and his vexations on account of the matter; the writer's journey to Chalons, Troyes, and Versailles, the circ.u.mstances of the disappearance of Germain, and the news of his actions in Canada.

After bringing his account down to date with a description of the written proofs collected, he laid the journal aside, opened the drawer of his secretary and took out a folio sheet of an exceedingly heavy wrapping-paper. This he bent over so as to make it into something resembling the cover of a book, then cut a lining of white unruled foolscap for this improvised cover, and taking out his paste-pot, fitted it neatly to the inside. Next he clipped up a length of linen tape and by means of wafers attached eight pieces of it as ties to the top, bottom, and sides. The whole const.i.tuted one of those record-covers which he had been taught to make for the papers of special enterprises in his profession. On the outside he pasted a small square labelled:--

+-------------------------+ PAPERS RELATIVE TO LECOUR, RePENTIGNY, DE LINCY, ET CETERA. +-------------------------+

There was, he considered, a fine turn of irony in "_et cetera_."

The record-cover completed, he surveyed it front and back with satisfaction, tried the ties, read the inscription over once more, and opened it. In it he placed a long "_Extract from my journal_," written with care in his beautiful handwriting and bound with a tiny ribbon.

Next, he added some letters of Collinot to himself and de Lery. These were followed by copies of his own to the latter. His epistle of reproach to de Bailleul came next. Then a genealogical memorandum of the family of LeGardeur. Then Madame de Lery's letter from Canada; after it a solemn statement which he had caused to be drawn by Quartermaster Villerai of Chalons. Then the folded paper left by Jude, which was a copy of the damaging entry discovered by him in the books of the church of St. Germain-des-Pres. Some lesser doc.u.ments added to these made up the nucleus of a _dossier_ or Record--an armoury of weapons which were to be gathered for the complete and final destruction of the usurper, should he again set foot in France.

Only a day or two pa.s.sed when another letter came to him from Madame de Lery. It related the actions of Germain on his second visit to Quebec, dwelling, with the rage of a proud woman, on what had pa.s.sed between her husband and the young man. Judge Panet, too, had joined his efforts to hers, and rapidly tracked Germain's intrigues from Notary d'Aguilhe to the Judge and the young gentlemen of Montreal, and from the Governor at Quebec to the sacristy of the cathedral. He therefore was able to enclose a packet of letters and affidavits arranged in order, and which included among others--

1. A long foolscap statement by d'Aguilhe, in which the Notary of St.

Elphege took care to duly magnify his own dignity and precautions.

2. A copy of the Lecour pet.i.tion to insert the t.i.tles into the contract of marriage.

3. A letter from Chief Justice Fraser about the granting of the pet.i.tion.

4. A copy of the marriage contract of Lecour's parents showing the alterations.

5. A letter from Lord Dorchester on the duel arbitration, addressed to Madame de Lery, and sealed with his seal.

6. One from the Bishop of Quebec.

7. A copy, signed by him, of the true birth-certificate of Germain.

8. A total repudiation by Quinson St. Ours of the affair of the banquet at Montreal.

9. A letter from General Gabriel Christie, Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Canada and proprietor of the Seigniory of Repentigny: "I declare upon my honour that I have never sold my Seigniory of Repentigny."

Letters and certificates from nearly all of the most prominent of the French gentry of the colony concerning Lecour, his family, and his pretensions.

The affair was causing a rustle among the entire alliance, and the letters were full of the terms, "my dear cousin," "uncle," "brother,"

&c.

D'Aguilhe (No. 1) said, among other things, "The probity and good faith which should be the basis of the actions of all men, and more particularly those of a _Public Person_, preserved me from condescending to the reiterated demands made upon me by the Sieurs Lecour, father and son, to myself make the additions of the t.i.tles in question to the said contract, a thing which I refused absolutely, giving them plainly to understand that a deed received by a Notary, made and finished in his notariat and enregistered, was a _sacred thing_, to which it could not BE PERMITTED TO ANY ONE TO MAKE THE SLIGHTEST ALTERATION WITHOUT PROFOUND DISGRACE."

Chief Justice Fraser (No. 3) wrote: "Some time ago I heard some rumours current about Monsieur LeCour, but I had no idea I had played a _role_ in the affair. Here are the facts: In September last a Guard of his Majesty the King of France presented himself with his papers, which appeared to me as much in proper form as foreign papers could seem to me. He presented a pet.i.tion to me to be permitted to add the names 'de Lincy' and 'Esquire' to his doc.u.ments. I allowed it. I had no suspicion that the Guard or his papers were impostures. In any event, I reap from this incident the pleasure of corresponding with Madame de Lery."

The letter of Quinson St. Ours (No. 8) read: "Sir and dear relative,--I should deem myself lacking in what I owe both to you and to myself were I to neglect to destroy the suspicion you have formed of my conduct in the affair of Monsieur, your son, against Lecour. I can give you my word of honour that I always refused to give my signature to his different pet.i.tions. My brother informs me that you say 'that several of your friends, and even of your relations at Montreal, certified that Monsieur Lecour was a gentleman.' I am not of their number, and I do not know that family."

The Marquis eagerly read the packet through, digested its contents, blessed his ally Panet for his professional methodicality, and placed the papers in order in the Record.

After the flight of more than a century, this Record, yellow and faded and a little worm-eaten, but complete even to its wax seals, its wire-headed pins, and the thin gilt edges of the correspondence paper, lies before the writer of these pages, a vivid fragment of the old _regime_, a witness to the hatred, the activity, the very thoughts, as it were, of the enemies of Lecour, and revealing his perils from their inner side.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

THE MARQUIS'S VISITOR