If he escapes, you can so easily settle the score.
It is drawing a bill on the guillotine!
Only, as he was consigned to Rochefort with no amiable intentions, you must promise me that he shall be quartered at Toulon, and well treated there.
“Now, for myself, I want something more.
I have the packets of letters from Madame de Serizy and Madame de Maufrigneuse. — And what letters!
— I tell you, Monsieur le Comte, prostitutes, when they write letters, assume a style of sentiment; well, sir, fine ladies, who are accustomed to style and sentiment all day long, write as prostitutes behave.
Philosophers may know the reasons for this contrariness. I do not care to seek them.
Woman is an inferior animal; she is ruled by her instincts.
To my mind a woman has no beauty who is not like a man.
“So your smart duchesses, who are men in brains only, write masterpieces.
Oh! they are splendid from beginning to end, like Piron’s famous ode! ——”
“Indeed!”
“Would you like to see them?” said Jacques Collin, with a laugh.
The magistrate felt ashamed.
“I cannot give them to you to read. But, there; no nonsense; this is business and all above board, I suppose?
— You must give me back the letters, and allow no one to play the spy or to follow or to watch the person who will bring them to me.”
“That will take time,” said Monsieur de Granville.
“No. It is half-past nine,” replied Jacques Collin, looking at the clock; “well, in four minutes you will have a letter from each of these ladies, and after reading them you will countermand the guillotine.
If matters were not as they are, you would not see me taking things so easy.
— The ladies indeed have had warning.”— Monsieur de Granville was startled. —“They must be making a stir by now; they are going to bring the Keeper of the Seals into the fray — they may even appeal to the King, who knows? — Come, now, will you give me your word that you will forget all that has passed, and neither follow, nor send any one to follow, that person for a whole hour?”
“I promise it.”
“Very well; you are not the man to deceive an escaped convict.
You are a chip of the block of which Turennes and Condes are made, and would keep your word to a thief.
— In the Salle des Pas–Perdus there is at this moment a beggar woman in rags, an old woman, in the very middle of the hall.
She is probably gossiping with one of the public writers, about some lawsuit over a party-wall perhaps; send your office messenger to fetch her, saying these words,
‘Dabor ti Mandana’ (the Boss wants you).
She will come. “But do not be unnecessarily cruel.
Either you accept my terms or you do not choose to be mixed up in a business with a convict. — I am only a forger, you will remember!
— Well, do not leave Calvi to go through the terrors of preparation for the scaffold.”
“I have already countermanded the execution,” said Monsieur de Granville to Jacques Collin. “I would not have Justice beneath you in dignity.”
Jacques Collin looked at the public prosecutor with a sort of amazement, and saw him ring his bell.
“Will you promise not to escape?
Give me your word, and I shall be satisfied.
Go and fetch the woman.”
The office-boy came in.
“Felix, send away the gendarmes,” said Monsieur de Granville.
Jacques Collin was conquered.
In this duel with the magistrate he had tried to be the superior, the stronger, the more magnanimous, and the magistrate had crushed him.
At the same time, the convict felt himself the superior, inasmuch as he had tricked the Law; he had convinced it that the guilty man was innocent, and had fought for a man’s head and won it; but this advantage must be unconfessed, secret and hidden, while the magistrate towered above him majestically in the eye of day.
As Jacques Collin left Monsieur de Granville’s room, the Comte des Lupeaulx, Secretary-in-Chief of the President of the Council, and a deputy, made his appearance, and with him a feeble-looking, little old man.
This individual, wrapped in a puce-colored overcoat, as though it were still winter, with powdered hair, and a cold, pale face, had a gouty gait, unsteady on feet that were shod with loose calfskin boots; leaning on a gold-headed cane, he carried his hat in his hand, and wore a row of seven orders in his button-hole.
“What is it, my dear des Lupeaulx?” asked the public prosecutor.
“I come from the Prince,” replied the Count, in a low voice. “You have carte blanche if you can only get the letters — Madame de Serizy’s, Madame de Maufrigneuse’s and Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu’s.
You may come to some arrangement with this gentleman ——”
“Who is he?” asked Monsieur de Granville, in a whisper.
“There are no secrets between you and me, my dear sir,” said des Lupeaulx.
“This is the famous Corentin.
His Majesty desires that you will yourself tell him all the details of this affair and the conditions of success.”
“Do me the kindness,” replied the public prosecutor, “of going to tell the Prince that the matter is settled, that I have not needed this gentleman’s assistance,” and he turned to Corentin. “I will wait on His Majesty for his commands with regard to the last steps in the matter, which will lie with the Keeper of the Seals, as two reprieves will need signing.”
“You have been wise to take the initiative,” said des Lupeaulx, shaking hands with the Comte de Granville. “On the very eve of a great undertaking the King is most anxious that the peers and the great families should not be shown up, blown upon. It ceases to be a low criminal case; it becomes an affair of State.”