When he came to the chateau his object was to take me back to Grasseville, for Margot had decided to leave for England with her husband and Chariot. She would not go without me and he agreed whole-heartedly with her that we must leave as soon as possible.
Arriving at the chateau he heard what had happened and Perigot and he had agreed that it was like an act of Providence that he had come just at that time. He had arranged with Perigot that he and I should leave at once.
“Paris is terrifying,” he said. They are talking of what they will do to certain people when they have them in their hands. “
“Was… the Comte’s name mentioned?”
It is a well-known name. “
I shivered.
“And they have him,” I murmured. They came and took him.
Leon, that wicked traitor, led them to him. “
Thank God they did not get you. “
“It was Perigot who saved me … as he did before.”
“He is a devoted servant.”
“Oh, Joel,” I cried, ‘they have him there in the Conciergerie. The prison they call the ante-room of death. “
“But he is alive,” Joel reminded me.
“Etienne is in there also. I heard he had been taken with Armand.”
“So they will be there together. I was afraid the mob had killed me Comte.”
“No. Perigot told me he is too big a prize for an insignificant death.
The mob was persuaded to fake him to Paris. “
I felt sick with fear. They bad taken him to the Conciergerie, the waiting-room of death. They would make a good show of his journey to his execution. He was to represent the symbol of their power. Through him they would show that there would be no mercy on those aristocrats who fell into the hands of the people. The tables had been viciously turned. Yet at the same time my spirits were lifted a little because he still lived.
“I must go to Paris,” I said to Joel.
“No, Minella. We are going to Grasseville. We must leave this country without delay.”
“You must go, Joel, but I shall stay in Paris. While he lives I want to be near him. “
“It is madness,” said Joel. “Perhaps, but it is what I shall do.”
How patient Joel was with me. How clearly he understood. If I could not leave Paris, then nor would he. He spared himself nothing. He faced a hundred dangers for my sake. He had a friend in the Rue Saint-Jacques and we stayed in his house there. It was an unobtrusive dwelling among the booksellers and the seventeenth-century houses.
Many students lived there and in the sombre clothes which Joel had acquired for us we were inconspicuous.
To be in that city-once so proud and beautiful and to see it brought low as only mob rule can bring a city, was to suffer deeply, but to know that the man I loved was in the hands of those who would show no mercy was so profound a sorrow that I did not think I could ever recover from it. The shrieking mobs roamed the streets in their red caps. The nights were the most terrible. I used to lie in my bed shivering, for I knew that in the morning, if we ventured out, we should see lifeless corpses dangling from the lanterns . sometimes hideously mutilated.
“We should go now,” Joel was constantly telling me.
“There is nothing more we can do.”
But I could not go . not until I knew he was dead.
I would haunt the Cour du Mai and watch the tumbrils go by. I stood there among that morbidly fascinated crowd and listened to the jeers as some nobleman rode by, wig less head shaved, aloof, disdainful.
I was there when Etienne went by. Hauehty, showing no fear, proud of the fact right to the end that he was of noble blood, to establish which he had tried to kill me.
I thought: It is Etienne today. Will it be his father tomorrow?
It was night . hideous night. From my window I could hear the shouts of the people.
There was a sudden banging on the front door. I threw a robe about me and went on to the landing. Joel was already at the top of the stairs.
“Stay where you are,” he commanded.
I obeyed while he descended the stairs. Then I heard some one talking to him and a man came up the stairs with him. He wore a cloak and a hat pulled over his eyes.
He took off the hat when he saw me.
“Leon!” I cried, and such waves of anger swept over me that I was speechless. I could only stare at him.
“You are surprised to see me?” he said.
Then I found my voice.
“I wonder you dare come here! You, who betrayed him! He brought you to the chateau, gave you education, standing …”
Leon held up a hand.
“You misjudge me,” he said.
“I have come to try to save him.”
I laughed bitterly.
“I saw you on the night they took him.”
“I think,” said Joel, we should go somewhere where we can talk. Come into my room. “
I shook my head.
“I do not want to talk to this man,” I said.
“Go away. He has come to trick us, Joel. He doesn’t want his revenge to stop with the Comte.”
Joel had led us into his room. There was a table there with a few chairs.
“Come and sit down,” he said to me tenderly
I sat down, Joel beside me. Leon sat opposite. He was looking at me earnestly.
“I want to help you,” he said.
“I always had a great regard for you.” He smiled rather onesidedly.
“Why, at one time I thought of offering myself. But I knew how things were. I want you to know that I would be ready to do a great deal for you. I shall run great risks if I do this, but then this is a time of risks. Those who are alive one day are dead the next.”
“I want nothing to do with you,” I said.
“I know you for what you are.
I saw you throw the stone through the window on the night of the ball, but I could not believe my eyes and thought I had imagined it. I know now how wrong I was . for you were there when they took him. You were at their head. You led them to him. I saw the cruelty and hatred in your eyes and there was no mistaking you then. “
“But you were mistaken. I see I must convince you of my loyalty to the Comte.”
“You will never do that if you talk all night.” I turned to Joel.
“Send him away. He is a traitor.”
“There is little time left to us,” said Leon.
“Will you give me a few moments to explain, because if you are going to save the Comte you need my help, and anything I can do will be of no use unless you are ready.”
Joel was looking at me.
“I saw him,” I said.
“There can be no doubt.”
“You did not see me,” said Leon.
“You saw my twin brother.”
I laughed.
“It won’t do. We know he died. He was killed by the Comte’s horses and this is the reason why you were brought to the chateau.”
“My brother was injured … badly. It was thought he would never recover. They all thought he was dying. The Comte took me as recompense. But my brother did not die.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“Nevertheless it’s true.”
“But where was he all those years?”
“When they knew he was going to recover my parents believed that if he did all the benefits which came from the chateau would cease. I should be sent from the chateau and one of the great joys of my parents’ life was to have an educated son … a ” chateau boy”, they called me. The thought of losing that was intolerable to them. They loved their children. Oh, they were good parents. That was the main reason why they did what they did. They arranged for my brother to ” die” … to appear to be dead, you see. They had a coffin made for him and he lay in it and when the time for burial came my uncle was the coffin-maker which simplified matters-it was nailed down and my brother smuggled out of the village to another, fifty miles away, where he was brought up with my cousins.”