LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER I

      The doors of the Taverne Gabrielle, in the Rue des Franc Bourgeois in the Marais, stood open to all passers-by, and also to the cool wind blowing from the south-east. This evening, perhaps because it was summer-time, and perhaps, also, because it was supper-time for all in Paris from his Splendid Majesty down to the lowest who had any supper to eat, the appropriately named tavern--since directly opposite to it was the hôtel which Henri IV. had built for the fair Gabrielle d'Estrées--was not so full as it would be later on.

      Indeed, it was by no means full, and the landlord, with his family, was occupying the time during which he scarcely ever had a demand for a pint of wine, or even a pigeolet, to have his own supper.

      There were, however, some customers present--since when was there ever a time that the doors of a cabaret which is also an eating-house, and that one of good fame in a populous neighbourhood, did not have some customers beneath its roof at every hour of the day from the moment the doors opened until they closed? And the Taverne Gabrielle was no exception to this almost indisputable fact.

      In one corner of the great, square room there sat an ancient bourgeois with his cronies sipping a flask of Arbois; in another a young man in the uniform of the Régiment de Perche was discussing a savoury ragout with a demoiselle who was masked; close by the open door, with the tables drawn out in front of it, though not too near to it to prevent free ingress and egress, were two men who, in an earlier period than that of Le Dieudonné, might have been termed marauds, swashbucklers, bretteurs, or heaven knows what. Now--even in the days which seemed to those who lived in them to be degenerate ones with all the flame and excitement of life departed, and which seem to those who have lived after them to have been so full of a strong, masterfully pulsating, full-blooded existence, perfumed with all that goes to make life one long romance--these men might have appeared to be anything except sober citizens or honest bourgeois carrying on steady, reputable callings. For, on their faces, in their garb, even in their wicked-looking side-weapons which now hung peacefully on the wall close by where they sat, there was an indescribable something which proclaimed that they were not men bringing up families decently and honestly. Not men content with small gains obtained by honest labour, by taking down their shutters at dawn and putting them up again long after nightfall; not men who walked side by side with their wives to Saint Eustache or Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois on Sabbath mornings while leading their children by the hand. Men, indeed, to judge by their appearance, their words and exclamations--which would not have graced the salons of St. Germain or Versailles!--and also by their looks and gestures, more fitted, more suitable to, and better acquainted with a huge fortress-prison close at hand, termed the Bastille, than any place of worship.

      "He should be here by now," the elder of the two said to his companion, whom he addressed frequently as Fleur de Mai. "The sun has set and, ere long, every bell in Paris will be proclaiming that it is nine o'clock. If he comes not soon, there will be little time for us to go to the Hôtel des Muses and have a cast for a pistole or two. Van den Enden closes his tripot early."

      "He will come, Boisfleury. So will the other. His master and, now, ours. Yet, remember what I have already told you, treat neither of them too much en maître. Remember also, that we are all officers and gentlemen--or have been."

      "Yet--malheur à tous! we are no longer officers and, well! they are."

      "La Truaumont is not. The other, the Chief, is, seeing that he is actual first in command of all the guards of the Splendid One."

      "If he were not he would not be coming here to-night. That command gives him the power he desires."

      "Yes, combined with the other power, the other assistance, he expects."

      "Will he succeed, Fleur de Mai?"

      "Succeed!" the younger man, addressed as Fleur de Mai, exclaimed. "Cadédis! 'tis to be hoped so. Or else, where are we? We, mon ami. Where are we?"

      "There," Boisfleury said, pointing a finger towards the Rue St. Antoine, at the end of which the Bastille stood; "or there," directing an eye towards the vicinity of the Louvre, close by which was the Place du Carrousel where, when the great place in front of the Bastille was similarly occupied, the Wheel was set up.

      "Precisely. Therefore, mon camarade, he must not fail. There is too much at stake; our precious lives principally. Afterwards his. Then, hers. To say nothing of Van den Enden's life."

      "Theirs are of poor account. Yet, à-propos of hers; where is she and what is she doing now?"

      "Plotting, of course. For him whom she loves and for her province which, though it treated her but scurvily, she still loves. Being a woman, neglect on one side and ill-treatment on the other has made her love grow stronger. It does that with some women and most dogs, since their love is like tropic flowers that often grow best in dry, uncared-for soil."

      "But her other love; for him? Does that not prosper?"

      "Again the dog's nature is shown in that. She gets no love, but still she loves on and on blindly. If that," imitating the other's recently pointing finger, "or that," imitating his recently directed glance, "claims him it will claim her too. Should he ever get into the jaws of Madame la Bastille she will get there also. For, again, dog-like, where he goes Emérance will follow."

      "Such a love is worth having," his comrade said meditatively, as though, perhaps in better days, he had once possessed, or dreamed of possessing, a similar one.

      "For which very reason the Chief does not value it. If he were forced to sigh and moan for want of it and still find it refused----"

      "He would never do that for any woman!"

      "'Tis true. And in this case he is right. So long as he disdains her so long will she serve him heart

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