And, without hurrying, "Advised, as I have just told you," he continued, "and a.s.sisted by the experience of a professional man, I went first to No. 3, Rue des Bergers, in Grenelle. I found there some old people, the foreman of a neighboring factory and his wife, who had been living in the house for nearly twenty-five years. At my first question, they exchanged a glance, and commenced laughing. They remembered perfectly the Marquise de Javelle, which was but a nickname for a young and pretty laundress, whose real name was Euphrasie Taponnet. She had lived for eighteen months on the same landing as themselves: she had a lover, who pa.s.sed himself off for a clerk, but who was, in fact, she had told them, a very wealthy n.o.bleman. They added that she had given birth to a little girl, and that, two weeks later she had disappeared, and they had never heard a word from her. When I left them, they said to me, "If you see Phrasie, ask her if she ever knew old Chandour and his wife. I am sure she"ll remember us.""
For the first time Mme. de Thaller shuddered slightly; but it was almost imperceptible.
"From Grenelle," continued M. de Tregars, "I went to the house where my father"s mistress had lived under the name of Mme. Devil. I was in luck. I found there the same concierge as in 1853. As soon as I mentioned Mme. Devil, she answered me that she had not in the least forgotten her, but, on the contrary, would know her among a thousand. She was, she said, one of the prettiest little women she had ever seen, and the most generous tenant. I understood the hint, handed her a couple of napoleons, and heard from her every thing she knew on the subject. It seemed that this pretty Mme. Devil had, not one lover, but two,-the acknowledged one, who was the master, and footed the bills; and the other an anonymous one, who went out through the back-stairs, and who did not pay, on the contrary. The first was called the Marquis de Tregars: of the second, she had never known but the first name, Frederic. I tried to ascertain what had become of Mme. Devil; but the worthy concierge swore to me that she did not know.
"One morning, like a person who is going abroad, or who wishes to cover up her tracks, Mme. Devil had sent for a furniture-dealer, and a dealer in second-hand clothes, and had sold them every thing she had, going away with nothing but a little leather satchel, in which were her jewels and her money."
The Baroness de Thaller still kept a good countenance. After examining her for a moment, with a sort of eager curiosity, Marius de Tregars went on, "When I communicated this information to my friend, the commissary of police, he shook his head. "Two years ago," he told me, "I would have said, that"s more than we want to find those people; for the public records would have given us at once the key of this enigma. But we have had the war and the Commune; and the books of record have been burnt up. Still we must not give up. A last hope remains; and I know the man who is capable of realizing it."
"Two days after, he brought me an excellent fellow, named Victor Chupin, in whom I could have entire confidence; for he was recommended to me by one of the men whom I like and esteem the most, the Duke de Champdoce. Giving up all idea of applying at the various mayors" offices, Victor Chupin, with the patience and the tenacity of an Indian following a scent, began beating about the districts of Grenelle, Vargirard, and the Invalids. And not in vain; for, after a week of investigations he brought me a nurse, residing Rue de l"Universite, who remembered perfectly having once attended, on the occasion of her confinement, a remarkably pretty young woman, living in the Rue des Bergers, and nicknamed the Marquise de Javelle. And as she was a very orderly woman, who at all times had kept a very exact account of her receipts, she brought me a little book in which I read this entry: "For attending Euphrasie Taponnet, alias the Marquise de Javelle (a girl), one hundred francs." And this is not all. This woman informed me, moreover, that she had been requested to present the child at the mayor"s office, and that she had been duly registered there under the names of Euphrasie Cesarine Taponnet, born of Euphrasie Taponnet, laundress, and an unknown father. Finally she placed at my disposal her account-book and her testimony."
Taxed beyond measure, the energy of the baroness was beginning to fail her; she was turning livid under her rice-powder. Still in the same icy tone, "You can understand, madame," said Marius de Tregars, "that this woman"s testimony, together with the letters which are in my possession, enables me to establish before the courts the exact date of the birth of a daughter whom my father had of his mistress. But that"s nothing yet. With renewed zeal, Victor Chupin had resumed his investigations. He had undertaken the examination of the marriage-registers in all the parishes of Paris, and, as early as the following week, he discovered at Notre Dame des Lorettes the entry of the marriage of Euphrasie Taponnet with Frederic de Thaller."
Though she must have expected that name, the baroness started up violently and livid, and with a haggard look.
"It"s false!" she began in a choking voice.
A smile of ironical pity pa.s.sed over Marius" lips.
"Five minutes" reflection will prove to you that it is useless to deny," he interrupted. "But wait. In the books of that same church, Victor Chupin has found registered the baptism of a daughter of M. and Mme de Thaller, bearing the same names as the first one, -Euphrasie Cesarine."
With a convulsive motion the baroness shrugged her shoulder.
"What does all that prove?" she said.
"That proves, madame, the well-settled intention of subst.i.tuting one child for another; that proves that my father was imprudently deceived when he was made to believe that the second Cesarine was his daughter, the daughter in whose favor he had formerly disposed of over five hundred thousand francs; that proves that there is somewhere in the world a poor girl who has been basely forsaken by her mother, the Marquise de Javelle, now become the Baroness de Thaller."
Beside herself with terror and anger, "That is an infamous lie!" exclaimed the baroness. M. de Tregars bowed.
"The evidence of the truth of my statements," he said, "I shall find at Louveciennes, and at the Hotel des Folies, Boulevard du Temple, Paris."
Night had come. A footman came in carrying lamps, which he placed upon the mantelpiece. He was not all together one minute in the little parlor; but that one minute was enough to enable the Marquise de Thaller to recover her coolness, and to collect her ideas. When the footman retired, she had made up her mind, with the resolute promptness of a person accustomed to perilous situations. She gave up the discussion, and, drawing near to M. de Tregars, "Enough allusions," she said: "let us speak frankly, and face to face now. What do you want?"
But the change was too sudden not to arouse Marius"s suspicions.
"I want a great many things," he replied.
"Still you must specify."
"Well, I claim first the five hundred thousand francs which my father had settled upon his daughter,-the daughter whom you cast off."
"And what next?"
"I want besides, my own and my father"s fortune, of which we have been robbed by M. de Thaller, with your a.s.sistance, madame."
"Is that all, at least?"
M. de Tregars shook his head.
"That"s nothing yet," he replied.
"Oh!"
"We have now to say something of Vincent Favoral"s affairs."
An attorney who is defending the interests of a client is neither calmer nor cooler than Mme. de Thaller at this moment.
"Do the affairs of my husband"s cashier concern me, then?" she said with a shade of irony.
"Yes, madame, very much."
"I am glad to hear it."
"I know it from excellent sources, because, on my return from Louveciennes, I called in the Rue du Cirque, where I saw one Zelie Cadelle."
He thought that the baroness would at least start on hearing that name. Not at all. With a look of profound astonishment, "Rue du Cirque," she repeated, like a person who is making a prodigious effort of memory,-"Rue du Cirque! Zelie Cadelle! Really, I do not understand."
But, from the glance which M. de Tregars cast upon her, she must have understood that she would not easily draw from him the particulars which he had resolved not to tell.
"I believe, on the contrary," he uttered, "that you understand perfectly."
"Be it so, if you insist upon it. What do you ask for Favoral?"
"I demand, not for Favoral, but for the stockholders who have been impudently defrauded, the twelve millions which are missing from the funds of the Mutual Credit."
Mme. de Thaller burst out laughing.
"Only that?" she said.
"Yes, only that!"
"Well, then, it seems to me that you should present your reclamations to M. Favoral himself. You have the right to run after him."
"It is useless, for the reason that it is not he, the poor fool! who has carried off the twelve millions."
"Who is it, then?"
"M. le Baron de Thaller, no doubt."
With that accent of pity which one takes to reply to an absurd proposition,-"You are mad, my poor marquis," said Mme. de Thaller.
"You do not think so."
"But suppose I should refuse to do any thing more?"
He fixed upon her a glance in which she could read an irrevocable determination; and slowly, "I have a perfect horror of scandal," he replied, "and, as you perceive, I am trying to arrange every thing quietly between us. But, if I do not succeed thus, I must appeal to the courts."
"Where are your proofs?"
"Don"t be afraid: I have proofs to sustain all my allegations."
The baroness had stretched herself comfortably in her arm-chair.
"May we know them?" she inquired.
Marius was getting somewhat uneasy in presence of Mme. de Thaller"s imperturbable a.s.surance. What hope had she? Could she see some means of escape from a situation apparently so desperate? Determined to prove to her that all was lost, and that she had nothing to do but to surrender, "Oh! I know, madame," he replied, "that you have taken your precautions. But, when Providence interferes, you see, human foresight does not amount to much. See, rather, what happens in regard to your first daughter,-the one you had when you were still only Marquise de Javelle."
And briefly he called to her mind the princ.i.p.al incidents of Mlle. Lucienne"s life from the time that she had left her with the poor gardeners at Louveciennes, without giving either her name or her address,-the injury she had received by being run over by Mme. de Thaller"s carriage; the long letter she had written from the hospital, begging for a.s.sistance; her visit to the house, and her meeting with the Baron de Thaller; the effort to induce her to emigrate to America; her arrest by means of false information, and her escape, thanks to the kind peace-officer; the attempt upon her as she was going home late one night; and, finally, her imprisonment after the Commune, among the petroleuses, and her release through the interference of the same honest friend.
And, charging her with the responsibility of all these infamous acts, he paused for an answer or a protest.
And, as Mme. de Thaller said nothing, "You are looking at me, madame, and wondering how I have discovered all that. A single word will explain it all. The peace-officer who saved your daughter is precisely the same to whom it was once my good fortune to render a service. By comparing notes, we have gradually reached the truth,-reached you, madame. Will you acknowledge now that I have more proofs than are necessary to apply to the courts?"
Whether she acknowledged it or not, she did not condescend to discuss.
"What then?" she said coldly.
But M. de Tregars was too much on his guard to expose himself, by continuing to speak thus, to reveal the secret of his designs.
Besides, whilst he was thoroughly satisfied as to the manoeuvres used to defraud his father he had, as yet, but presumptions on what concerned Vincent Favoral.
"Permit me not to say another word, madame," he replied. "I have told you enough to enable you to judge of the value of my weapons."
She must have felt that she could not make him change his mind, for she rose to go.
"That is sufficient," she uttered. "I shall reflect; and to-morrow I shall give you an answer."
She started to go; but M. de Tregars threw himself quickly between her and the door.
"Excuse me," he said; "but it is not to-morrow that I want an answer: it is to-night, this instant!"
Ah, if she could have annihilated him with a look.
"Why, this is violence," she said in a voice which betrayed the incredible effort she was making to control herself.
"It is imposed upon me by circ.u.mstances, madame."
"You would be less exacting, if my husband were here."
He must have been within hearing; for suddenly the door opened, and he appeared upon the threshold. There are people for whom the unforeseen does not exist, and whom no event can disconcert. Having ventured every thing, they expect every thing. Such was the Baron de Thaller. With a sagacious glance he examined his wife and M. de Tregars; and in a cordial tone, "We are quarreling here?" he said.
"I am glad you have come!" exclaimed the baroness.
"What is the matter?"
"The matter is, that M. de Tregars is endeavoring to take an odious advantage of some incidents of our past life."
"There"s woman"s exaggeration for you!" he said laughing.
And, holding out his hand to Marius, "Let me make your peace-for you, my dear marquis," he said: "that"s within the province of the husband." But, instead of taking his extended hand, M. de Tregars stepped back.
"There is no more peace possible, sir, I am an enemy."
"An enemy!" he repeated in a tone of surprise which was wonderfully well a.s.sumed, if it was not real.
"Yes," interrupted the baroness; "and I must speak to you at once, Frederic. Come: M. de Tregars will wait for you."
And she led her husband into the adjoining room, not without first casting upon Marius a look of burning and triumphant hatred.
Left alone, M. de Tregars sat down. Far from annoying him, this sudden intervention of the manager of the Mutual Credit seemed to him a stroke of fortune. It spared him an explanation more painful still than the first, and the unpleasant necessity of having to confound a villain by proving his infamy to him.
"And besides," he thought, "when the husband and the wife have consulted with each other, they will acknowledge that they cannot resist, and that it is best to surrender." The deliberation was brief. In less than ten minutes, M. de Thaller returned alone. He was pale; and his face expressed well the grief of an honest man who discovers too late that he has misplaced his confidence.
"My wife has told me all, sir," he began.
M. de Tregars had risen. "Well?" he asked.
"You see me distressed. Ah, M. le Marquis! how could I ever expect such a thing from you?-you, whom I thought I had the right to look upon as a friend. And it is you, who, when a great misfortune befalls me, attempts to give me the finishing stroke. It is you who would crush me under the weight of slanders gathered in the gutter."
M. de Tregars stopped him with a gesture.
"Mme. de Thaller cannot have correctly repeated my words to you, else you would not utter that word "slander.""
"She has repeated them to me without the least change."
"Then she cannot have told you the importance of the proofs I have in my hands."
But the Baron persisted, as Mlle. Cesarine would have said, to "do it up in the tender style."
"There is scarcely a family," he resumed, "in which there is not some one of those painful secrets which they try to withhold from the wickedness of the world. There is one in mine. Yes, it is true, that before our marriage, my wife had had a child, whom poverty had compelled her to abandon. We have since done everything that was humanly possible to find that child, but without success. It is a great misfortune, which has weighed upon our life; but it is not a crime. If, however, you deem it your interest to divulge our secret, and to disgrace a woman, you are free to do so: I cannot prevent you. But I declare it to you, that fact is the only thing real in your accusations. You say that your father has been duped and defrauded. From whom did you get such an idea?
"From Marcolet, doubtless, a man without character, who has become my mortal enemy since the day when he tried a sharp game on me, and came out second best. Or from Costeclar, perhaps, who does not forgive me for having refused him my daughter"s hand, and who hates me because I know that he committed forgery once, and that he would be in prison but for your father"s extreme indulgence. Well, Costeclar and Marcolet have deceived you. If the Marquis de Tregars ruined himself, it is because he undertook a business that he knew nothing about, and speculated right and left. It does not take long to sink a fortune, even without the a.s.sistance of thieves.
"As to pretend that I have benefitted by the embezzlements of my cashier that is simply stupid; and there can be no one to suggest such a thing, except Jottras and Saint Pavin, two scoundrels whom I have had ten times the opportunity to send to prison and who were the accomplices of Favoral. Besides, the matter is in the hands of justice; and I shall prove in the broad daylight of the court-room, as I have already done in the office of the examining judge, that, to save the Mutual Credit, I have sacrificed more than half my private fortune."
Tired of this speech, the evident object of which was to lead him to discuss, and to betray himself, "Conclude, sir," M. de Tregars interrupted harshly. Still in the same placid tone, "To conclude is easy enough," replied the baron. "My wife has told me that you were about to marry the daughter of my old cashier,-a very handsome girl, but without a sou. She ought to have a dowry."
"Sir!"
"Let us show our hands. I am in a critical position: you know it, and you are trying to take advantage of it. Very well: we can still come to an understanding. What would you say, if I were to give to Mlle. Gilberte the dowry I intended for my daughter?"
All M. de Tregars" blood rushed to his face.
"Ah, not another word!" he exclaimed with a gesture of unprecedented violence. But, controlling himself almost at once, "I demand," he added, "my father"s fortune. I demand that you should restore to the Mutual Credit Company the twelve millions which have been abstracted."
"And if not?"
"Then I shall apply to the courts."