IT WANTED BUT a few minutes of midnight, when a man coming from the Rue Royale into that of St. Antoine, followed the latter to the fountain of St. Catherine, and at last reached the gate of the Cemetery St. Jean.
There, as if his eyes had feared to see some spectre start from the ground, he waited, and with the sleeve of his coat, the uniform of a sergeant of the guards, he wiped the heavy drops of sweat from his brow.
Just as the clock struck twelve, something like a shadow appeared to glide amid the ivies, box-trees, and cypresses. This shadow approached the gate, and by the grating of the key in the lock, one might see that the spectre, if such it was, not only had the privilege of leaving the tomb, but, when once out, of leaving the cemetery.
When he heard the key turn, the soldier drew back.
“Why, M. de Beausire,” said the mocking voice of Cagliostro, “do you not know me, or have you forgotten our rendezvous?”
“Ah! is it you?” said Beausire, breathing like a man, the heart of whom is relieved from a heavy burden. “So much the better. These damned streets are so dark and deserted, that one does not know if it be better to travel alone, or to meet anybody.”
“Bah!” said Cagliostro, “for you to fear anything, at any hour, either of the day or night! You cannot make me believe that of a brave man who travels with his sword by his side! There,” said Cagliostro, “follow this little path, and about twenty paces hence we will find a kind of ruined altar, on the steps of which we will be able to talk at ease of our affairs.”
Beausire hurried to obey Cagliostro; but after a moment of hesitation, said:
“Where the devil is the path? I see only briars which wound my elbows, and grass which reaches to my knees.”
“The fact is, the cemetery is in worse order than any I know of, but that is not surprising. You know that none are buried here but criminals executed in the Greve, and nobody takes an interest in those poor devils. Yet, my dear M. de Beausire, we have many illustrious characters here. If it were day, I could show you where the Constable de Montmorency lies. He was executed for having fought a duel; the Chevalier de Rohan for having conspired against the government; the Count de Horn, who was broken on the wheel for having assassinated a Jew; Damiens, who was quartered because he sought to kill Louis XV.; and who knows who else? You are wrong to speak ill of the cemetery of St John. It is not kept well, but is very full. However,” said Cagliostro, pausing near a kind of ruin, “here we are!”
Sitting on a broken stone, he pointed out to Beausire a stone which seemed designated by the first to spare Cinna the trouble of removing his seat to the side of that of Augustus.
“Now we are at our ease and able to talk, my dear M. de Beausire,” said Cagliostro, “tell me what took place this evening under the arches of the Place Royale; was the meeting interesting?”
“Ma foi,” said Beausire, “I own, count, that my head just now is a little bothered, and need I say each of us would gain if you adopted the system of questions and answers?”
“So be it,” said Cagliostro; “I am easy, and provided I obtain ray end, do not care what means be adopted. How many were you, under the arches of the Place Royale?”
“Six with yourself, dear M. de Beausire; let me see if they are the men I think. In the first place, yourself?”
Beausire uttered a sigh which indicated that he wished there was u possibility of doubt.
“Then there was your friend Trocarty?”
“Then a royalist, named Marquee, ci-devant sergeant in the Royal French Guards, and now sous-lieutenant of a company of the Centre?”
“Yes, count, Marquee was there.”
“Can you give me any information about this masked man, M. de Beausire?”
“Well,” said Beausire, “I think it was Monsieur—”
“Monsieur who?” said Cagliostro, sharply.
“Monsieur—Monsieur, the brother of the king.”
“Ah! dear M. de Beausire, the Marquis de Favras has a deep interest in creating the impression that, in all this affair, he has touched the prince's head. That may be so; but a man who cannot lie, cannot conspire. But that you and your friend Trocarty, two recruiting officers, used to measure men by the eye, by feet, inches, and lines, is very improbable. Monsieur is five feet three high, the masked man was five feet six.”
“True, count, so I thought: but who was he?”
“Pardieu, my dear M. de Beausire, will I not be prettily engaged in teaching you, when I expected to be taught by you?”
“Then,” said Beausire, who gradually recovered his presence of mind, as he returned, little by little, to reality, “you know who this man is?”
“Is there any indiscretion in asking?”
Beausire nodded that was what he wished.
“Do you know the play of OEdipus?”
“Not well; I have seen the play at the Comedie Francaise, but towards the end of the fourth act I sank to sleep.”
“I will, then, briefly tell you the story:
“I knew OEdipus; it was foretold that he would be the murderer of his father and the husband of his mother. Now, believing Polybius his father, he left him and set out, without assigning any reason, for Phocis. As he set out, I advised him, instead of taking the high road from Dantes to Delphi, to take a mountain path I was acquainted with. He, however, was obstinate, and as I could not tell him why I gave him this advice, all exhortation was vain. From this obstinacy resulted exactly what I expected. At the forks of the road, from Delphi to Thebes, he met a man followed by five slaves. The man was in a chariot, which crowded the whole road; all difficulty would have been obviated had the man in the car consented to have turned a little to the right, and OEdipus to the left; each, however, insisted on the centre of the road. The man in the chariot was choleric, and OEdipus not very patient. The five slaves rushed, one after the other, before their master, and one after the other was slain. OEdipus passed over six dead bodies, one of which was his father.”
“The devil!” said M. de Beausire.
“He then went to Thebes; now, on the road to Thebes was Mount Pincior, and in a yet more narrow road than that in which he had slain his father, a strange animal had a cavern. This animal had the wings of an eagle, the head and heart of a woman, the body and claws of a lion.”
“Oh, oh!” said Beausire, “are there any such monsters, in your opinion?”
“I cannot possibly affirm their existence, since, when I went to Thebes, a thousand years afterwards, and travelled the same road, during the time of Epaminondas, the Sphinx, at the time of OEdipus the Sphinx was alive; one of its passions was to place itself by the roadside, proposing enigmas to the passing travellers, and devouring all who could not answer them. Now, as this lasted for more than three centuries, travellers became more and more rare, and the Sphinx's teeth rather long. When it saw OEdipus, it placed itself in the centre of the road, and lifted up its paw, to bid the young man stop. 'Traveller,' it said, 'I am the Sphinx.' 'Well, what then?' asked OEdipus. 'Well, destiny has sent me to earth, to propose an enigma to men—if they do not guess it, they are mine; if they do, I am Death's, and I must throw myself into the abyss where I have thrown the fragments of the bodies of those I have devoured.' OEdipus looked over the precipice and saw the white bones. 'Well,' said the young man, 'the enigma.' 'It is this: What animal walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three at night?' OEdipus thought for a moment with a smile of disdain, which could not but make the Sphinx uneasy. 'If I guess it,' said OEdipus, 'will you precipitate yourself into the abyss?' 'Yes.' 'Well,' said OEdipus, 'that animal is man.'”
“How so? man!” interrupted Beausire, who became interested in the conversation, as if it related to something contemporary.
“Yes, man! who in his childhood, that is to say, in the morning of life, crawls on his feet and hands, who in his prime, that is to say, at the noon of life, walks erect, and in his old age, that is to say, in the evening of life, uses a staff.”
“Ah!” said Beausire, “that is true. Fool that the Sphinx was!”
“Yes, my dear M. de Beausire, so foolish, that it threw itself into the cavern, without using its wings, and broke its head on the rocks. As for OEdipus, he pursued his journey, came to Thebes, found Jocasta a widow, married her, and thus fulfilled the oracle, that he would kill one parent and marry the other.”
“But, count,” said De Beausire, “where is the analogy between the story of OEdipus and the mask?”
“Good! you desired to know his name just now?”
“And I told you that I was about to propose an enigma. True, I am of better material than the Sphinx, and will not devour you if you do not answer. Attention, I am about to lift up my hand: 'What part of the court is the grandson of his father, the brother of his mother, and the uncle of his sisters?'”
“Diable!” said Beausire, relapsing into a quandary, great as was that of OEdipus.
“Think, sir: study it out,” said Cagliostro.
“Willingly; I asked you if you knew the story of OEdipus.”
“Now we will pass to sacred history. You know what is said of Lot—”
“Parbleu, I know. Wait, though, do you know what was said of Louis XV. and his daughter, Madame Adelaide?”
“Then the masked man was Count Louis?”
“It is true,” murmured Beausire, “the grandson of his father, the brother of his mother, the uncle of his sisters, is Count Louis de Nar.”
Beausire interrupted his monologue, and listened with all his ears.
“Now we no longer doubt who the conspirators are, either masked or not. Let us proceed to the plot.”
Beausire nodded, as if to say that he was ready.
“The object is to convey the king away?”
“What at present are the means?”
“Lent them by a Genoese banker. I know him. Have they none other?”
“They have money enough, but they need men.”
“M. Lafayette has authorised the raising of a legion, to aid Brabant, which has revolted against the empire.”
“Oh! kind Lafayette, I see your hand clearly there.” Then aloud, “So be it; but not a legion, but an army is needed for such an enterprise.”
“Two hundred horse will be collected at Versailles, and on the appointed day will leave Versailles at eleven p.m. At two o'clock in the morning they will reach Paris in three columns.”
“The first will enter Paris at the gate of Chaillot, the second at the Barriere du Roule, the third at Grenelle. The latter will murder Lafayette; the first M. Necker, and the other Bailly, the Maire of Paris.”
“The blow being struck, the guns will be spiked. They will meet at the Champs Elysees, and a march will be made on the Tuileries, which are ours.”
“What, yours! and the National Guard?”
“There the Brabanconne column will act, joined to four hundred Swiss, and three hundred people from the outside of Paris. Thanks to confederates in the palace, they will hurry to the king, and say, 'Sire, the Faubourg St. Antoine is in a state of insurrection. A carriage is ready harnessed. You must go.' If the king consent, the thing will be right; if he do not, he will be forcibly seized and taken to St. Denis.”
“There are twenty thousand infantry. They will set out on the appointed day, at eleven at night, with twelve hundred cavalry; the Brabanconne legion, the Swiss, the people from out of Paris, and ten or twenty thousand royalists, will escort the king to Peronne.”
“Better and better; and what will be done at Peronne?”
“At Peronne are expected twenty thousand men from the Flemish border, Picardy, Artois, Champagne, Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace and Cambresis. They are in treaty for twenty thousand Swiss, twelve thousand Germans, and twelve thousand Sardinians, who, joined to the royal escort, will form an effective force of one hundred and fifty thousand men.”
“With these one hundred and fifty thousand men, it is proposed to march on Paris, to intercept water communication above and below the city, and cut off all supplies. Paris will be starved out, and will capitulate. The National Assembly will be dissolved, and the king restored to the throne of his fathers.”
Arising, he said: “My dear M. de Beausire, you have a most agreeable knack of conversation; the case with you is like that of all great orators: when you have said all, there is nothing more to be said.”
“Then, my dear M. de Beausire, when you need ten other louis, always on this condition, be it understood, come to my house at Bellevue.”
“At Bellevue! and shall I ask for Count Cagliostro?”
“Cagliostro? No, they would not know whom you mean; ask for Baron Zanoni. And now,” said Cagliostro, “whither, M. de Beausire, do you go?”
“In the direction you do not go.”
“I go to the Palais Royal, count.”
