"They are entering! Must I then kill you with my own hand?"
"Pardon!"
"The door gives way! You will then have it so!"
And the comte placed the muzzle of the weapon against Florestan"s breast.
The noise without announced that the door of the cabinet could not long resist. The vicomte saw he was lost. A sudden and desperate resolution lighted up his countenance. He no longer struggled with his father, and he said to him, with equal firmness and resignation:
"You are right, my father! Give me the pistol! There is infamy enough on my name! The life in store for me is frightful, and is not worth the trouble of a struggle. Give me the pistol! You shall see if I am a coward!" and he put forth his hand to take the pistol. "But, at least, one word,--one single word of consolation,--pity,--farewell!" said Florestan; and his trembling lips, his paleness, his agitated features, all betokened the terrible emotion of this frightful moment.
"But what if he were, indeed, my son!" thought the comte, with terror, and hesitating to hand him the deadly instrument. "If he were my son I ought to hesitate before such a sacrifice."
A loud cracking of the cabinet door announced that it was being forced.
"My father, they are coming! Oh, now I feel that death is indeed a benefit. Yes, now I thank you! But, at least, your hand,--and forgive me!"
In spite of his sternness, the comte could not repress a shudder, as he said, in a voice of emotion:
"I forgive you."
"My father, the door opens; go to them, that, at least, they may not even suspect you. Besides, if they enter here, they will prevent me from completing,--adieu!"
The steps of several persons were heard in the next room. Florestan placed the muzzle of the pistol to his heart. It went off at the instant when the comte, to avoid the horrid sight, turned away his head, and rushed out of the salon, whose curtains closed upon him.
At the sound of this explosion, at the sight of the comte, pale and haggard, the commissary stopped short at the threshold of the door, making a sign to his agents to pause also.
Informed by Boyer that the vicomte was shut up with his father, the magistrate understood all, and respected his deep grief.
"Dead!" exclaimed the comte, hiding his face in his hands. "Dead!" he repeated in a tone of agony. "It was just,--better death than infamy!
But it is horrible!"
"Sir," said the magistrate, sorrowfully, after a few minutes" silence, "spare yourself a painful spectacle,--leave the house. And now I have another duty to fulfil, even more painful than that which summoned me hither."
"You are quite right, sir," said M. de Saint-Remy; "as to the sufferer by this robbery, you will request him to call on M. Dupont, the banker."
"In the Rue Richelieu? He is very well known," replied the magistrate.
"What is the estimated value of the stolen diamonds?"
"About thirty thousand francs. The person who bought them, and by whom the fraud was detected, gave that amount for them to your son."
"I can still pay it, sir. Let the jeweller go to my banker the day after to-morrow, and I will have it all arranged."
The commissary bowed. The comte left the room.
After the departure of the latter, the magistrate, deeply affected by this unlooked-for scene, went slowly towards the salon, the curtains of which were closed. He moved them on one side with agitation.
"n.o.body!" he exclaimed, amazed beyond measure, and looking around him, unable to see the least trace of the tragic event which he believed had just occurred.
Then, seeing a small door in the panel of the apartment, he went towards it. It was fastened in the side of the secret staircase.
"It was a trick, and he has escaped by this door!" he exclaimed, with vexation.
And in fact, the vicomte, having in his father"s presence placed the pistol on his heart, had very dexterously fired it under his arm, and rapidly made off.
In spite of the most careful search throughout the house, they could not discover Florestan.
During the conversation with his father and the commissary, he had quickly gained the boudoir, then the conservatory, then the lone alley, and so to the Champs Elysees.
The picture of this ign.o.ble degradation in opulence is a sad thing.
We are aware of it. But for want of warnings, the richer cla.s.ses have also fatally their miseries, vices, crimes. Nothing is more frequent and more afflicting than those insensate, barren prodigalities which we have now described, and which always entail ruin, loss of consideration, baseness, or infamy. It is a deplorable, sad spectacle, just like contemplating a flourishing field of wheat destroyed by a herd of wild beasts. No doubt that inheritance, property, are, and ought to be, inviolable, sacred. Wealth acquired or transmitted ought to be able to shine with impunity and magnificently in the eyes of the poor and suffering ma.s.ses. We must, too, see those frightful disproportions which exist between the millionaire Saint-Remy, and the artisan Morel. But, inasmuch as these inevitable disproportions are consecrated, protected by the law, so those who possess such wealth ought morally to be accountable to those who have only probity, resignation, courage, and desire to labour.
In the eyes of reason, human right, and even of a well-understood social interest, a great fortune should be a hereditary deposit, confided to prudent, firm, skilful, generous hands, which, entrusted at the same time to fructify and expend this fortune, know how to fertilise, vivify, and ameliorate all that should have the felicity to find themselves within the scope of its splendid and salutary rays.
And sometimes it is so, but the instances are very rare. How many young men, like Saint-Remy, masters at twenty of a large patrimony, spend it foolishly in idleness, in waste, in vice, for want of knowing how to employ their wealth more advantageously either for themselves or for the public. Others, alarmed at the instability of human affairs, save in the meanest manner. Thus there are those who, knowing that a fixed fortune always diminishes, give themselves up, fools or rogues, to that hazardous, immoral gaming, which the powers that be encourage and patronise.
How can it be otherwise? Who imparts to inexperienced youth that knowledge, that instruction, those rudiments of individual and social economy? No one.
The rich man is thrown into the heart of society with his riches, as the poor man with his poverty. No one takes any more care of the superfluities of the one than of the wants of the other. No one thinks any more of making the one moralise than the other. Ought not power to fulfil this great and n.o.ble task?
If, taking to its pity the miseries, the continually increasing troubles, of the still resigned workmen, repressing a rivalry injurious to all, and, addressing itself finally to the imminent question of the organisation of labour, it gave itself the salutary lesson of the a.s.sociation of capital and labour; and if there were an honourable, intelligent, equitable a.s.sociation, which should a.s.sure the well-doing of the artisan, without injuring the fortune of the rich, and which, establishing between the two cla.s.ses the bonds of affection and grat.i.tude, would for ever keep safeguard over the tranquillity of the state,--how powerful, then, would be the consequences of such a practical instruction!
Amongst the rich, who then would hesitate as to the dishonourable, disastrous chances of stock-jobbing, the gross pleasures of avarice, the foolish vanities of a ruinous dissipation; or, a means at once remunerative and beneficial, which would shed ease, morality, happiness, and joy, over scores of families?
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ADIEUX.
The day after that on which the Comte de Saint-Remy had been so shamefully tricked by his son, a touching scene took place at St. Lazare at the hour of recreation amongst the prisoners.
On this day, during the walk of the other prisoners, Fleur-de-Marie was seated on a bench close to the fountain of the courtyard, which was already named "La Goualeuse"s Bench." By a kind of taciturn agreement, the prisoners had entirely given up this seat to her, as she had evinced a marked preference for it,--for the young girl"s influence had decidedly increased. La Goualeuse had selected this bench, situated close to the basin, because the small quant.i.ty of moss which velveted the margin of the reservoir reminded her of the verdure of the fields, as the clear water with which it was filled reminded her of the small river of Bouqueval. To the saddened gaze of a prisoner a tuft of gra.s.s is a meadow, a flower is a garden.
Relying on the kind promises of Madame d"Harville, Fleur-de-Marie had for two days expected her release from St. Lazare. Although she had no reason for being anxious about the delay in her discharge, the young girl, from her experience in misfortune, scarcely ventured to hope for a speedy liberation. Since her return amongst creatures whose appearance revived at each moment in her mind the incurable memory of her early disgrace, Fleur-de-Marie"s sadness had become more and more overwhelming. This was not all. A new subject of trouble, distress, and almost alarm to her, had arisen from the impa.s.sioned excitement of her grat.i.tude towards Rodolph.
It was strange, but she only fathomed the depth of the abyss into which she had been plunged, in order to measure the distance which separated her from him whose perfection appeared to her more than human, from this man whose goodness was so extreme, and his power so terrible to the wicked. In spite of the respect with which her adoration for him was imbued, sometimes, alas! Fleur-de-Marie feared to detect in this adoration the symptoms of love, but of a love as secret as it was deep, as chaste as it was secret, and as hopeless as it was chaste. The unhappy girl had not thought of reading this withering revelation in her heart until after her interview with Madame d"Harville, who was herself smitten with a love for Rodolph, of which he himself was ignorant.
After the departure and the promises of the marquise, Fleur-de-Marie should have been transported with joy on thinking of her friends at Bouqueval, of Rodolph whom she was again about to see. But she was not.
Her heart was painfully distressed, and to her memory occurred incessantly the severe language, the haughty scrutiny, the angry looks, of Madame d"Harville, as the poor prisoner had been excited to enthusiasm when alluding to her benefactor. By singular intuition La Goualeuse had thus detected a portion of Madame d"Harville"s secret.
"The excess of my grat.i.tude to M. Rodolph offended this young lady, so handsome and of such high rank," thought Fleur-de-Marie; "now I comprehend the severity of her words, they expressed a jealous disdain.