Ange Pitou

by Alexandre Dumas

  "Very well; go quickly, I beg of you."

  The servant opened the gate, and Gilbert entered the grounds.

  While relocking the gate, the servant cast an inquisitive glance on the vehicle which had brought the doctor, and on the extraordinary faces of his two travelling companions; then he went off, shaking his head, like a man who feels somewhat perplexed, but who defies any other intellect to see clearly into a matter where his own has been altogether puzzled.

  Gilbert remained alone, waiting his return.

  In about five minutes the servant reappeared.

  "The Baroness de Staël is taking a walk," said he, and he bowed in order to dismiss Gilbert.

  But the doctor was not so easily got rid of.

  "My friend," said he, "be pleased to make a slight infraction in your orders, and tell the baroness, when you announce me to her, that I am a friend of the Marquis de Lafayette."

  A louis, slipped into the lackey's hands, completely removed the scruples he had entertained, which the name of the marquis had nearly half dispelled.

  "Come in, sir," said the servant.

  Gilbert followed him; but instead of taking him into the house he led him into the park.

  "This is the favorite walk of the baroness," said the lackey to Gilbert, pointing out to him the entrance to a species of labyrinth; "will you remain here a moment?"

  Ten minutes afterwards he heard a rustling among the leaves, and a woman between twenty-three and twenty-four years of age, and of a figure rather noble than graceful, appeared to the eyes of Gilbert.

  She seemed surprised on finding a man who still appeared young, when she had doubtless expected to meet one advanced in years.

  Gilbert was a man of sufficiently remarkable appearance to strike at first sight so able an observer as Madame de Staël.

  The features of few men were formed with such pure lines, and these lines had assumed, by the exercise of an all-powerful will, a character of extraordinary inflexibility. His fine black eyes, which were always so expressive, had become somewhat veiled by his literary labors and the sufferings he had undergone, and had lost a portion of that mobility which is one of the charms of youth.

  A wrinkle, which was at once deep and graceful, hollowed out at the corner of his thin lips, that mysterious cavity in which physiognomists place the seat of circumspection. It appeared that time alone, and a precocious old age, had given to Gilbert that quality with which nature had neglected to endow him.

  A wide and well-rounded forehead, slightly receding towards the roots of his fine black hair, which for years powder had no longer whitened, gave evidence at once of knowledge and of thought, of study and imagination. With Gilbert, as with his master, Rousseau, his prominent eyebrows threw a deep shade over his eyes, and from this shade glanced forth the luminous rays which revealed life.

  Gilbert, notwithstanding his unassuming dress, presented himself before the future authoress of "Corinne," with a remarkably dignified and distinguished air,—an air of which his well-shaped tapering white hands, his small feet, and his finely formed and muscular legs, completed the noble appearance.

  Madame de Staël devoted some moments to examining Gilbert.

  During this, Gilbert, on his side, had given a stiff sort of bow, which slightly recalled the modest civility of the American Quakers, who grant to women only the fraternity which protects instead of the respect which smiles.

  Then, with a rapid glance, he, in his turn, analyzed the person of the already celebrated young woman, whose intelligent and expressive features were altogether devoid of beauty; it was the head of an insignificant and frivolous youth, rather than that of a woman, but which surmounted a form of voluptuous luxuriance.

  She held in her hand a twig from a pomegranate-tree, from which, from absence of mind, she was biting off the blossoms.

  "Is it you, sir," inquired the baroness, "who are Doctor Gilbert?"

  "Yes, Madame, my name is Gilbert."

  "You are very young, to have acquired so great a reputation, or rather, does not that reputation appertain to your father, or to some relative older than yourself?"

  "I do not know any one of the name of Gilbert but myself, Madame. And if indeed there is, as you say, some slight degree of reputation attached to the name, I have a fair right to claim it."

  "You made use of the name of the Marquis de Lafayette, in order to obtain this interview with me, sir; and, in fact, the marquis has spoken to us of you, of your inexhaustible knowledge—"

  Gilbert bowed.

  "A knowledge which is so much the more remarkable and so much the more replete with interest," continued the baroness, "since it appears that you are not a mere ordinary chemist, a practitioner, like so many others, but that you have sounded all the mysteries of the science of life."

  "I clearly perceive, Madame, that the Marquis de Lafayette must have told you that I am somewhat of a sorcerer," replied Gilbert, smiling; "and if he has told you so, I know that he has talent enough to prove it to you, had he wished to do so."

  "In fact, sir, he has spoken to us of the marvellous cures you often performed, whether on the field of battle, or in the American hospitals, upon patients whose lives were altogether despaired of; you plunged them, the general told us, into a factitious death, which so much resembled death itself, that it was difficult to believe it was not real."

  "That factitious death, Madame, is the result of a science almost still unknown, now confided only to the hands of some few adepts, but which will soon become common."

  "It is mesmerism you are speaking of, is it not?" asked Madame de Staël with a smile.

  "Of mesmerism, yes, it is."

  "Did you take lessons of the master himself?"

  "Alas! Madame, Mesmer himself was only a scholar.

  Mesmerism, or rather magnetism, was an ancient science, known to the Egyptians and the Greeks. It was lost in the ocean of the middle ages. Shakespeare divined it in Macbeth. Urbain Grandier found it once more, and died for having found it. But the great master—my master—was the Count de Cagliostro."

  "That mountebank!" cried Madame de Staël.

  "Madame, Madame, beware of judging as do contemporaries, and not as posterity will judge. To that mountebank I owe my knowledge, and perhaps the world will be indebted to him for its liberty."

  "Be it so," replied Madame de Staël, again smiling: "I speak without knowing,—you speak with full knowledge of the subject. It is probable that you are right and that I am wrong. But let us return to you. Why is it that you have so long kept yourself at so great a distance from France? Why have you not returned to take your place, your proper station, among the great men of the age, such as Lavoisier, Cabanis, Condorcet, Bailly, and Louis?"

  At this last name Gilbert blushed, though almost imperceptibly.

  "I have yet too much to study, Madame, to rank myself all at once among these great masters."

  "But you have come at last, though at an unpropitious moment for us; my father, who would, I feel assured, have been happy to be of service to you, has been disgraced, and left here three days ago."

  Gilbert smiled.

  "Baroness," said he, bowing slightly, " only six days ago I was imprisoned in the Bastille, pursuant to an order from Baron Necker."

  Madame de Staël blushed in her turn.

  "Really, sir, you have just told me something that greatly surprises me. You in the Bastille!"

  "Myself, Madame."

  "What had you done to occasion your imprisonment?"

  "Those alone who threw me into prison can tell that."

  "But you are no longer in prison!"

  "No, Madame, because the Bastille no longer exists."

  "How can that be?—does the Bastille no longer exist?" cried Madame de Staël, feigning astonishment.

  "Did you not hear the firing of cannon?"

  "Yes; but cannons are only cannons, that is all."

  "Oh, permit me to tell you, Madame, that it is impossible that Madame de Staël, t
he daughter of Monsieur de Necker, should not know, at this present time, that the Bastille has been taken by the people."

  "I assure you, sir," replied the baroness, somewhat confused, "that being unacquainted with any of the events which have taken place since the departure of my father, I no longer occupy my time but in deploring his absence."

  "Madame! Madame!" said Gilbert, shaking his head, "the State messengers are so familiar with the road that leads to the château of St. Ouen, that at least one bearer of despatches must have arrived during the four hours that have elapsed since the capitulation of the Bastille."

  The baroness saw that it was impossible for her to deny it without positively lying. She abhorred a falsehood; she therefore changed the subject of the conversation.

  "And to what lucky event do I owe your visit, sir?" asked she.

  "I wished to have the honor of speaking to Monsieur de Necker, Madame."

  "But do you know that he is no longer in France?"

  "Madame, it appeared to me so extraordinary that Monsieur de Necker should be absent, so impolitic that he should not have watched the course of events—"

  "That—"

  "That I relied upon you, I must confess, Madame, to tell me where I could find him."

  "You will find him at Brussels, sir."

  Gilbert fixed his searching gaze upon the baroness.

  "Thank you, Madame," said he, bowing; "I shall then set out for Brussels, as I have matters of the highest importance to communicate to him."

  Madame de Staël appeared to hesitate, then she rejoined:—

  "Fortunately I know you, sir," said she, "and I know you to be a man of serious character. 'Tis true, important things might lose a great deal of their value by passing through other lips. But what can there be of importance to my father, after his disgrace—after what has taken place?"

  "There is the future, Madame; and perhaps I shall not be altogether without influence over the future. But all these reflections are to no purpose. The most important thing for me, and for him, is, that I should see Monsieur de Necker. Thus, Madame, you say that he is at Brussels?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "It will take me twenty hours to go there. Do you know what twenty hours are during a revolution, and how many important events may take place during twenty hours? Oh! how imprudent it was for Monsieur de Necker, Madame, to place twenty hours between himself and any event which might take place—between the hand and the object it desires to reach."

  "In truth, sir, you frighten me," said Madame de Staël, "and I begin to think that my father has really been imprudent."

  "But what would you have, Madame? Things are thus, are they not I have, therefore, merely to make you a most humble apology for the trouble that I have given you. Adieu, Madame."

  But the baroness stopped him.

  "I tell you, sir, that you alarm me," she rejoined; "you owe me an explanation of all this; you must tell me something that will reassure me."

  "Alas! Madame," replied Gilbert, "I have so many private interests to watch over at this moment, that it is impossible for me to think of those of others; my life and honor are at stake, as would be the life and honor of Monsieur de Necker if he could take advantage of the words which I shall tell him in the course of twenty hours."

  "Sir, allow me to remember something that I have too long forgotten; it is that grave subjects ought not to be discussed in the open air, in a park, within the reach of every ear."

  "Madame," said Gilbert, "I am now at your house, and permit me to observe that consequently it is you who have chosen the place where we now are. What do you wish? I am entirely at your command."

  "I wish you to do me the favor to finish this conversation in my cabinet."

  "Ah! ah!" said Gilbert to himself, "if I did not fear to confuse her, I would ask her whether her cabinet is at Brussels."

  But without further question he contented himself with following the baroness, who began to walk quickly toward the château.

  The same servant who had admitted Gilbert was found standing in front of the house. Madame de Staël made a sign to him, and opening the doors herself, she led Gilbert into her cabinet, a charming retreat, more masculine, it is true, than feminine, of which the second door and the two windows opened into a small garden, which was not only inaccessible to others, but also beyond the reach of all strange eyes.

  When they had gone in, Madame de Staël closed the door, and turning towards Gilbert:—

  "Sir, in the name of humanity, I call upon you to tell me the secret which is so important to my father, and which has brought you to St. Ouen."

  "Madame," said Gilbert, "if your father could now hear me, if he could but know that I am the man who sent the king the secret memoirs entitled, 'Of the State of Ideas and of Progress,' I am sure the Baron de Necker would immediately appear, and say to me, 'Doctor Gilbert, what do you desire of me? Speak; I am listening.'"

  Gilbert had hardly pronounced these words when a secret door which was concealed by a panel painted by Vanloo was noiselessly slid aside, and the Baron de Necker, with a smiling countenance, suddenly appeared, standing at the foot of a small, winding staircase, at the top of which could be perceived the dim rays of a lamp.

  Then the Baroness de Staël courtesied to Gilbert, and kissing her father's forehead, left the room by the same staircase which her father had just descended, and having closed the panel, she disappeared.

  Necker advanced towards Gilbert, and gave him his hand, saying,—

  "Here I am, Monsieur Gilbert; what do you desire of me? Speak, I am listening."

  They both seated themselves.

  "Monsieur le Baron," said Gilbert, "you have just heard a secret which has revealed all my ideas to you. It was I who, four years ago, sent an essay to the king on the general state of Europe; it is I who, since then, have sent him from the United States the various works he has received on all the questions of conciliation and internal administration which have been discussed in France."

  "Works of which his Majesty," replied Monsieur de Necker, bowing, "has never spoken to me without expressing a deep admiration of them, though at the same time a profound terror at their contents."

  "Yes, because they told the truth. Was it not because the truth was then terrible to hear, and, having now become a fact, it is still more terrible to witness?"

  "That is unquestionably true, sir," said Necker.

  "Did the king send these essays to you for perusal?" asked Gilbert.

  "Not all of them, sir; only two: one on the subject of the finances—and you were of my opinion with a very few exceptions; but I nevertheless felt myself much honored by it."

  "But that is not all; there was one in which I predicted all the important events which have taken place."

  "Ah!"

  "Yes."

  "And which of them, sir, I pray?"

  "There were two in particular; one was that the king would find himself some day compelled to dismiss you, in consequence of some engagements he had previously entered into."

  "Did you predict my disgrace to him?"

  "Perfectly."

  "That was the first event: what was the second?"

  "The taking of the Bastille."

  "Did you predict the taking of the Bastille?"

  "Monsieur le Baron, the Bastille was more than a royal prison, it was the symbol of tyranny. Liberty has commenced its career by destroying the symbol; the Revolution will do the rest."

  "Have you duly considered the serious nature of the words you have just uttered, sir?"

  "Undoubtedly I have."

  "And you are not afraid to express such a theory openly?"

  "Afraid of what?"

  "Afraid lest some misfortune should befall you."

  "Monsieur de Necker," said Gilbert, smiling, " after once having got out of the Bastille, a man has nothing more to fear."

  "Have you, then, come out of the Bastille?"

  "This very day."

  "And why were you thro
wn into the Bastille?"

  "I ought to ask you that question."

  "Ask me?"

  "You, undoubtedly."

  "And why should you ask me?"

  "Because it was you who caused my imprisonment there."

  "I had you thrown into the Bastille?"

  "Six days ago; the date, as you see, is not so very remote that you should not be able to recollect it."

  "It is impossible."

  "Do you recognize your own signature?"

  And Gilbert showed the ex-minister the leaf of the jail-book of the Bastille, and the lettre de cachet which was annexed to it.

  "Yes," said Necker, "that is doubtless the lettre de cachet. You know that I signed as few as possible, and that the smallest number possible was still four thousand annually; besides, at the moment of my departure, they made me sign several in blank. Your warrant of imprisonment, sir, must have been one of the latter."

  "Do you mean to imply by this that I must in no way attribute my imprisonment to you?"

  "Most certainly, I do."

  "But still, Monsieur le Baron," said Gilbert, smiling, "you understand my motives for being so curious; it is absolutely necessary that I should know to whom I am indebted for my captivity. Be good enough, therefore, to tell me."

  "Oh! there is nothing easier. I have always taken the precaution never to leave my letters at the ministry, and every evening I brought them back here. Those of this month are in the drawer B of this chiffonnier; let us look for the letter G in the bundle."

  Necker opened the drawer, and looked over an enormous file, which might have contained some five or six hundred letters.

  "I only keep those letters," said the ex-minister, "which are of such a nature as to cover my responsibility. Every arrest that I order insures me another enemy. I had therefore to guard myself against such a contingency. An omission to do so would surprise me greatly. Let us see—G—G, that is the one. Yes, Gilbert—your arrest was brought about by some one in the queen's household, my dear sir. Ah—ah!—in the queen's household—yes, here is a request for a warrant against a man named Gilbert. Profession not mentioned; black eyes, black hair. The description of your person follows. Travelling from Havre to Paris. That is all. Then the Gilbert mentioned in the warrant must have been you."