GILBERT FELT IT rather disagreeable to be obliged to obey a footman; nevertheless, he lost no time in following him, for he thought that now there was some prospect of a change in his condition, and it seemed to him that any change must be for the better.
Chon, now completely her own mistress, after having initiated her sister into the whole affair of the Countess de Bearn, was breakfasting very much at her ease in a charming morning-dress, beside a window shaded with acacias and chestnut trees.
She was eating with an excellent appetite, and Gilbert remarked that a pheasant and truffles justified the relish with which she enjoyed her breakfast.
The philosopher, having entered the apartment, looked around to discover his place at the table, but there was no plate for him, and he was not even asked to sit down.
Chon merely cast a glance on him; then, after swallowing a little glass of wine, as clear and yellow as a topaz:
“Well, my dear doctor,” said she, “how have you got on with Zamore?”
“Yes; I hope you have become acquainted with him?”
“How could one make acquaintance with an animal like that, who never speaks, and who, when one speaks to him, only rolls his eyes?”
“Really you frighten me!” said Chon, without stopping one moment in her repast, and without her countenance showing any expression at all corresponding to her words. “Your friendship is difficult to gain, then?”
“Friendship presupposes equality, madame.”
“A noble maxim,” said Chon. “Then you don't think yourself the equal of Zamore?”
“That is to say, that I do not think him my equal,” replied Gilbert.
“In truth,” said Chon, as if talking to herself, “he is charming!”
Then turning to Gilbert, she remarked his stately air.
“So, my dear doctor,” said she, “you do not easily bestow your affections?”
“Then I was mistaken when I thought you held me as your friend, and as a good friend, too?”
“Madame,” said Gilbert, very stiffly, “I feel for you naturally a liking, but—”
“Oh! a thousand thanks for your condescension! you really overwhelm me! and how long do you think, my scornful young gentleman, it would require to gain your affection?” “A long time, madame; and there are even persons who, whatever they did, could never obtain it.”
“Oh! then that explains the reason why, after having been eighteen years in the Baron de Taverney's house, you left it all at once. The Taverneys were not so fortunate as to obtain your affections —that was it, was it not?”
“Well? you don't answer,” continual Chon.
“I have nothing to reply, madame, but that friendship and confidence must be merited.”
“Oh! it appears, then, that your friends at Taverney did not merit your friendship and confidence?”
“Ah! and what had those done who were so unfortunate as not to please you?”
“I do not complain of them, madame.” answered he, proudly.
“Well, well. I perceive, M. Gilbert, that I am also one of the unfortunates excluded from your confidence; yet, believe me, it is not from any want of a desire to obtain it, but from my not knowing the right means of doing so!”
“But to shorten the matter,” added she with an inquisitiveness which he felt must be for some object, “the Taverneys did not behave quite satisfactorily to you. Tell me, if you please, what was your occupation in their establishment?”
This was rather an embarrassing question, as Gilbert certainly could not say that he held any particular office at Taverney.
“Madame,” said he, “I was—I was their confidential adviser.”
At these words, which he pronounced most phlegmatically and philosophically, Chon was seized with such a fit of laughter that she threw herself back in her chair.
“Do you doubt my words?” asked Gilbert, frowning.
“Heaven preserve me from such a rash act, my dear friend I Really, you are so fierce, that one can scarcely venture to speak to you. I merely asked what sort of people the Taverneys were. Believe me, it was with no other intention than that of serving you, by assisting you to be revenged' on them.”
“If I am revenged, madame, it must be by myself.”
“All very well; but we have a cause of complaint against the Taverneys ourselves; and, as you have one, or perhaps indeed several, we are naturally allies in our wish for revenge.”
“You are quite mistaken, madame. Should I think of vengeance, mine could have no connection with yours. You speak of all the Taverneys, while I have different shades of feeling toward different members of the family.”
“The Chevalier Philip de Taverney, for instance, is he in the number of your friends or enemies?”
“I have nothing to say against the chevalier. He never did me either good or ill. I neither love him nor hate him; I am quite indifferent to him.”
“Then you would not give evidence before the king, or before the Duke de Choiseul, against M. Philip de Taverney?”
“About the duel with my brother.”
“I should say all that I know about it, if I were called upon to give evidence.”
“And what do you know about it?”
“But what do you call truth? That is a word whose meaning is very vague.”
“No; not to the man who can distinguish between good and evil—between justice and injustice.”
“I understand you; justice is on the side of the Chevalier de Taverney, injustice on that of Viscount Dubarry?”
“Yes, madame, so I think, if I must speak conscientiously.”
“So this is the creature I picked up on the highway!” said Chon, sharply; “I am rewarded in this way by one who owes it to me that he is living!”
“That is to say, madame, who does not owe you his death.”
“On the contrary, madame, it is very different.”
“I do not owe my life to you; you merely prevented your horses from depriving me of it; besides, it was not you, but the postilion.”
Chon fixed a penetrating look on the young logician, who showed so little scruple in the choice of his terms.
“I should have expected,” said she, in a milder tone, and allowing a smile to steal over her features, “a little more gallantry from you. Come, come! you will give evidence against the chevalier, will you not?”
“And why not, you foolish fellow?”
“Because the viscount was in the wrong.”
“And, pray, how was he in the wrong?”
“By insulting the dauphiness; while, on the contrary, the chevalier—”
“Oh, ho! then it appears you belong to the dauphiness's party?”
“Hold your tongue, Gilbert, you are a fool! Do not let any one hear you talk in that way here.”
“Then permit me to remain silent when I am questioned.”
“In that case, let us change the subject.”
Gilbert bowed, in token of assent.
“And now, my little friend,” said the young lady, in rather a harsh tone of voice, “what do you intend to do here, if you refuse to make yourself agreeable?”
“Must I perjure myself in order to make myself agreeable?”
“Perjure! where did you learn all those grand words?”
“In the knowledge that I have a conscience to which I must be faithful.”
“Pshaw!” said Chon; “when we serve a master, the master takes all the responsibility from our conscience.”
“But I have no master,” growled Gilbert.
“Indeed?—well, answer my question. What do you mean to do here?”
“I did not think that I required to study to be agreeable when I could be useful.”
“You are mistaken, we can get useful people anywhere; we are tired of them.”
“Yes, of course. I did not ask to come here; I am therefore free.”
“Free?” exclaimed Chon, who began to get angry at this resistance to her will, a thing to which she was by no means accustomed. “Free? indeed you are not!”
“Come, come!” said she, seeing by his frown that he would not easily renounce his freedom, “let us be friends. You are a handsome lad, and very virtuous, which makes you very amusing, were it only for the contrast which you will present to everybody else about us. Only keep a guard upon that love of truth of yours.”
“I shall take care to keep it,” said Gilbert.
“Yes; but we understand the word in two different senses; I mean to keep it to yourself. You need not exhibit it in the lobbies and anterooms of Luciennes or Versailles.”
“There is no occasion for 'hum!' You are not so learned, M. Philosopher, but that you may learn something from a woman; and let this be your first maxim, 'to hold your tongue is not to lie'—remember that!”
“But if any one questions me?”
“Who would question you?—are you mad, my friend? Who in the world would ever think about you but myself? You have not yet founded a school, M. Philosopher, I presume. It will require some little searching and trouble before you happen upon a body of followers. You shall live with me; and before four times four-and-twenty hours, I shall transform you into a perfect courtier.”
“I doubt that,” replied Gilbert majestically. Chon shrugged her shoulders.
“Now,” said Chon, “to settle the matter at once, you have only to endeavor to please three persons.”
“The king, my sister, and myself.”
“Have you not seen Zamore?” asked the young lady, avoiding a direct reply.
“The negro?” said Gilbert, with the utmost contempt.
“What similarity is there between him and me?”
“Try to make a similarity of fortune, my good friend. That negro has already two thousand livres per annum from the king's privy purse. He is to be appointed governor of Luciennes; and even those that laugh at his thick lips and his black face call him sir, and even my lord!”
“I shall not be one of those,” said Gilbert.
“Oh! I thought that the first principle of you philosophers was that all men are equal.”
“That is the very reason that I shall not call Zamore my lord.”
Chon was beaten with her own weapons. It was her turn to bite her lips.
“So you are not ambitious?” said she.
“Oh, yes, I am!” replied Gilbert, with sparkling eyes.
“And if I remember rightly your ambition was to be a physician.”
“I look upon the mission of soothing the pain and suffering of our fellow creatures as the noblest in the world.”
“Well, your dream shall be realized.”
“You shall be a physician —and the king's physician to boot.”
“I?” cried Gilbert, “I, who know not even the first principles of medical science? You jest, madame.”
“Well, and what does Zamore know about portcullises, and drawbridges, and counterscarps? He does not trouble his head about such things, yet that does not prevent him from being governor of Luciennes with all a governor's privileges.”
“Ah, yes, yes, I understand!” said Gilbert, bitterly. “You have only one buffoon, and that is not sufficient. The king is getting tired and wishes for another.”
“There,” said Chon, “you are putting on your long face again. You make yourself so ugly, my little man, it is really quite delightful to see you. Keep all those ridiculous faces till the wig is on your head and the sugar-loaf hat over the wig, then, instead of being ugly, they will be comical.”
Gilbert frowned more darkly still.
“I should think you might be glad of the post of the king's physician, when the Duc de Tresmes solicits that of my sister's monkey.”
Gilbert made no answer. Chon thought of the proverb, “Silence gives consent.”
“As a proof that you are in favor,” said she, “you shall not eat with servants.”
“Ah! thank you, madame,” replied Gilbert.
“I have already given orders to that effect.”
“Yes, the king's governor and his physician may surely eat together; go now to your dinner.”
“I am not hungry,” answered Gilbert, rudely.
“Very well,” said Chon, quietly; “you are not hungry now, but you will be in the evening.”
“To-morrow, then, or the day after tomorrow you may be. Oh, we know how to tame rebels here; and if you continue obstinate we have besides the corrector of our pages to do our will!”
Gilbert shuddered and turned pale.
“Go to my lord Zamore now,” she added, sharply; “you will be very well treated with him; his table is excellent. But no ingratitude, remember, or we shall teach you to be grateful.”
Gilbert let his head fall on his breast, an invariable symptom that instead of going to reply, he was going to act.
The footman who had showed him to Chon's apartment waited at the door, and on his dismissal conducted him to a little dining-room adjoining the anteroom.
Zamore was at table. Gilbert took his place at the table, but he could not be made to eat.
Three o'clock struck, Madame Dubarry set off for Paris. Chon, who was to join her there a short time after, left instructions for the taming of her bear. Plenty of sweetmeats were to be his reward if he became docile; plenty of threats, and at last the dungeon, if he continued rebellious.
At four o'clock a complete suit, such as that worn by the “medecin malgre lui,” was brought into Gilbert's apartment. There was the pointed cap, the wig, the black jacket, and the long black robe; in addition to these, they sent him a collar, a wand, and a large book. The footman who carried them in exhibited the various articles one by one. Gilbert no longer manifested any disposition to rebel. Grange entered after the footman, and instructed him how all the different parts of the dress should be worn. Gilbert listened most patiently.
“I thought,” said he, at length, “that doctors formerly carried a little writing-case and a roll of paper?”
“Yes, faith, he is right,” replied the steward; “go and bring him a long writing-case, which he can hang at his girdle.”
“With pen and paper,” added Gilbert, “I must have every part of my costume complete.”
The footman hastened to execute the order, and at the same time to tell Chon how obliging Gilbert had become. Chon was so much delighted, that she gave the messenger a little purse with eight crowns in it, to hang with the writing-case at the girdle of this model of a physician.
“Thank you,” said Gilbert to the person who brought it, “now may I be left alone to dress?”
“Well, make haste,” replied Grange, “so that mademoiselle may see you before she goes to Paris.”
“Half an hour,” said Gilbert, “I only ask half an hour!”
“You may take three-quarters, if you like, my dear doctor,” said the steward, shutting the door carefully, as if it had been that of his money-box.
Gilbert stole on tip-toe to the door, to be certain that the footsteps were dying away in the distance; then he glided to the window and looked down. There was a terrace about eighteen feet below him, covered with fine gravel, and bordered by lofty trees, which shaded the balconies of the windows.
Gilbert tore his long robe into three pieces which he tied lengthwise together, placed the hat on the table, and near it the purse and the following note:
“MADAME—Liberty is the first of blessings. Man's most sacred duty is to preserve it. You endeavored to enslave me —I set myself free.—GILBERT.”
This letter he folded and addressed to Mademoiselle Chon; then he tied his twelve feet of serge to the bars of the window, slipped between them with the suppleness of an eel, and when at the end of his cord, dropped down to the terrace at the risk of breaking his neck. Though a little stunned by the fall, he lost not a moment in gaining the trees, among which he glided stealthily, and running as fast as his limbs would carry him, he disappeared in the direction of Villa d'Avray.
When, at the end of half an hour, they came to seek for him, he was already far beyond their reach.
