CHAPTER XXIX. THE GENEVA DILIGENCE
About the hour when Roland was entering Nantes, a diligence, heavily loaded, stopped at the inn of the Croix-d"Or, in the middle of the main street of Chatillon-sur-Seine.
In those days the diligences had but two compartments, the coupe and the interior; the rotunda is an adjunct of modern times.
The diligence had hardly stopped before the postilion jumped down and opened the doors. The travellers dismounted. There were seven in all, of both s.e.xes. In the interior, three men, two women, and a child at the breast; in the coupe, a mother and her son.
The three men in the interior were, one a doctor from Troyes, the second a watchmaker from Geneva, the third an architect from Bourg. The two women were a lady"s maid travelling to Paris to rejoin her mistress, and the other a wet-nurse; the child was the latter"s nursling, which she was taking back to its parents.
The mother and son in the coupe were people of position; the former, about forty years of age, still preserving traces of great beauty, the latter a boy between eleven and twelve. The third place in the coupe was occupied by the conductor.
Breakfast was waiting, as usual, in the dining-room; one of those breakfasts which conductors, no doubt in collusion with the landlords, never give travellers the time to eat. The woman and the nurse got out of the coach and went to a baker"s shop nearby, where each bought a hot roll and a sausage, with which they went back to the coach, settling themselves quietly to breakfast, thus saving the cost, probably too great for their means, of a meal at the hotel.
The doctor, the watchmaker, the architect and the mother and son entered the inn, and, after warming themselves hastily at the large kitchen-fire, entered the dining-room and took seats at the table.
The mother contented herself with a cup of coffee with cream, and some fruit. The boy, delighted to prove himself a man by his appet.i.te at least, boldly attacked the viands. The first few moments were, as usual, employed in satisfying hunger. The watchmaker from Geneva was the first to speak.
"Faith, citizen," said he (the word citizen was still used in public places), "I tell you frankly I was not at all sorry to see daylight this morning."
"Cannot monsieur sleep in a coach?" asked the doctor.
"Oh, yes, sir," replied the compatriot of Jean-Jacques; "on the contrary, I usually sleep straight through the night. But anxiety was stronger than fatigue this time."
"Were you afraid of upsetting?" asked the architect.
"No. I"m very lucky in that respect; it seems enough for me to be in a coach to make it unupsettable. No, that wasn"t it."
"What was it, then?" questioned the doctor.
"They say in Geneva that the roads in France are not safe."
"That"s according to circ.u.mstances," said the architect.
"Ah! how"s that?" inquired the watchmaker.
"Oh!" replied the architect; "if, for example, we were carrying government money, we would surely be stopped, or rather we would have been already."
"Do you think so?" queried the watchmaker.
"That has never failed. I don"t know how those devils of Companions of Jehu manage to keep so well posted; but they never miss an opportunity."
The doctor nodded affirmatively.
"Ah!" exclaimed the watchmaker, addressing the doctor; "do you think so, too?"
"I do."
"And if you knew there was government money in the coach, would you be so imprudent as to take pa.s.sage in it?"
"I must admit," replied the doctor, "that I should think twice about it."
"And you, sir?" said the questioner to the architect.
"Oh, I," replied the latter--"as I am on important business, I should have started anyway."
"I am tempted," said the watchmaker "to take off my valise and my oases, and wait for to-morrow"s diligence, because my boxes are filled with watches worth something like twenty thousand francs. We"ve been lucky so far, but there"s no use tempting Providence."
"Did you not hear these gentlemen say," remarked the lady, joining in the conversation for the first time, "that we run the risk of being stopped only when the coach carries government money?"
"That"s exactly it," replied the watchmaker, looking anxiously around.
"We are carrying it."
The mother blanched visibly and looked at her son. Before fearing for herself every mother fears for her child.
"What! we are carrying it?" asked the doctor and the architect in varying tones of excitement. "Are you sure of what you are saying?"
"Perfectly sure, gentlemen."
"Then you should either have told us before, or have told us in a whisper now."
"But perhaps," said the doctor, "the gentleman is not quite sure of what he says."
"Or perhaps he is joking," added the architect.
"Heaven forbid!"
"The Genevese are very fond of a laugh," persisted the doctor.
"Sir," replied the Genevese, much hurt that any one should think he liked to laugh, "I saw it put on the coach myself."
"What?"
"The money."
"Was there much?"
"A good many bags."
"But where does the money come from?"
"The treasury of the bears of Berne. You know, of course, that the bears of Berne received an income of fifty or even sixty thousand francs."
The doctor burst out laughing.
"Decidedly, sir, you are trying to frighten us," said he.
"Gentlemen," said the watchmaker, "I give you my word of honor--"