Chance has a very funny way of shuffling the cards in the game of life. Here were two men, Louis Maurin, the French lawyer, and Lord St. John Devinne, son of an English Duke, both deadly enemies of Simon Pradel, the local doctor, who hardly knew either of them but who was looked upon by both as a serious rival to their love, a rival who must incontinently be swept out of the way. Maurin desired his moral and physical downfall in order to find his way clear for the wooing of Blanche Levet, whilst Devinne had reluctantly come to the conclusion that Cécile de la Rodière had so far demeaned herself as to fall in love with the fellow. She certainly had turned her back on him,
Devinne, ever since that fatal morning, and unless he now took strong measures on his own behalf, he might lose all chance of ever winning her.
These thoughts, as well as certain contumacious ones against the discipline imposed on him by "the chief," kept the young man's mind busy while he made his way through the town. Snow was falling in thin flakes: it was very cold, and there were few people about. It was then just past twelve o'clock: at half-past the workers in the government factory would be coming out and cafés and restaurants would soon be filled to overcrowding.
The new calendar with its Sans-Culottides, its Republican years and its Décadis, had not yet been evolved, and this was still Sunday-not a Christian Sunday, surely, but just a Day of Rest, with factories closed in the afternoon and hours during which paid agitators and government spies could find work for idle hands to do and thoughts of mischief for empty heads to plan. Devinne hurried along, hoping to deliver his message at the Levets and be well on the way to La Rodière before the crowd had been stirred into an organised march on the château. He pulled the collar of his greatcoat up to his ears and his had down to meet it, for the wind blowing right across the Grand' Place was cutting. At the angle of the Rue Verte he suddenly became aware of the man who at the moment was foremost in his thoughts. Simon Pradel was standing at the corner of the street, talking to a girl whose head was swathed in a shawl. Devinne thought that in her he recognized Levet's daughter, whom he had once seen at the château. She was talking heatedly and appeared distressed, for her voice shook as she spoke, and she had one hand on Pradel's arm as if she were either entreating or restraining him. As he went past them, Devinne heard the girl say:
"Don't go up there, Simon! Those aristos hate you. They will only think that you are fawning on then. . . . Don't go, Simon. . . . You will regret it, and they will despise you for it . . . they will . . ."
She seemed to be working herself up into a state of excitement and kept on raising her voice until it sounded quite shrill.
Pradel tried to pacify her. "Hush, my dear," he said; "don't talk so loud: anyone might hear you."
But she was not to be pacified:
"I don't care who hears me," she retorted; those aristos are devils who deserve all they will get. Why should you care what happens to them? . . . You only care because you are in love with Cécile. . . ."
She burst into tears. Pradel put an arm round her shoulders.
"And now you talk like a foolish child. . . ."
Devinne had instinctively halted within earshot, but now he was in danger of being seen and this he did not wish, so, rather reluctantly, he turned and went his way. It was too soon yet to gauge the importance of what he had heard, but already he felt that in this girl, who was obviously half crazy with jealousy, he might find a useful ally, should he fail to obtain an interview with Cécile on his own initiative. In any case, she must have the same desire that he had, namely, to keep Cécile and Pradel apart. This thought elated him, and it was with a more springy step that he strode briskly down the Rue Verte and after a few minutes rang the outside bell of the Levets' house.
Charles Levet opened the door to him, received the message sent to him by his friend Professor d'Arblay, expressed his satisfaction at hearing that Monsieur l'Abbé Edgeworth was safely on his way to Belgium, asked his visitor to join the family at dinner, and on the latter's courteous refusal, bade him a friendly farewell. Back the other side of the gate. Devinne paused a moment to reconsider the whole situation. Should he continue his protest against an irksome discipline, which he felt was incompatible with his dignity as a man of action and of thought, or should he make a virtue of necessity, meet Blakeney and the others in the Restaurant Tison, hear their plans and then act in accordance with his own schemes and in his own interest?"
On the whole he felt inclined to adopt the latter course He didn't want to quarrel with Blakeney, not just yet, nor yet with the others who were all influential and popular men about town, who might, if the split came, make his position extremely uncomfortable in London. There was nothing he desired more at the moment than to extricate himself from the entanglement of the League, but he was wise enough to realise that if this was done at this juncture, he would, on his return to England, find the doors of more than one smart hostess closed against him. So for the moment there was nothing for it but to keep his appointment with Percy and the others in the Restaurant Tison, and in any case learn what plans were being evolved for this afternoon. If nothing was going to be done right away for the safety of Cécile, then he would act on his own. To this he had fully made up his mind. All this would mean going back now to that horrible cottage and getting once more into those filthy rags which he had come to hate, but he didn't really care now that he knew he could count on the co-operation of a jealous woman, whom he had heard cry out in a voice shrill with emotion: "You only care because you are in love with Cécile!"
BOOK III
MADEMOISELLE
21 CITIZEN CHAUVELIN
It must not be thought for a moment that authority as represented by the Gendarmerie Nationale, regular or volunteer, in any way approved, let alone aided and abetted, the insurrectionary movements that were such a feature of the first two years of the Revolution. Authority did not even wink at them, did its best, in fact, to put a stop to these marches and raids on neighbouring châteaux which only ended in a number of broken heads, in loot and unnecessary violence, and a severe remonstrance from the government who had its eye on all property owned by ci-devants and strongly disapproved of its wanton destruction at the hands of an irresponsible mob.
Thus it was that as soon as Simon Pradel became aware of the imminence of the mischief contemplated against the aristos up at La Rodière, and thinking only of Cécile and her safety, he went straight to the Hotel de Ville and drew the attention of the Chief Commissary of the Gendarmerie to what was in the wind.
"Citizen Conty," he explained, "has inflamed everyone's temper to such an extent that there is hardly a man or woman in Choisy to-day who will not march up to La Rodière, and, even if they do not commit murder, will certainly destroy a great deal of property which rightly belongs to the nation."