Julien wrote to Fouque in order to have something to do.
"My friend, do not open the enclosed letter except in the event of an accident, if you hear that something strange has happened to me.
In that case blot out the proper names in the manuscript which I am sending you, make eight copies of it, and send it to the papers of Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyons, Brussels, etc. Ten days later have the manuscript printed, send the first copy to M. the marquis de la Mole, and a fortnight after that throw the other copies at night into the streets of Verrieres."
Julien made this little memoir in defence of his position as little compromising as possible for mademoiselle de la Mole. Fouque was only to open it in the event of an accident. It was put in the form of a story, but in fact it exactly described his situation.
Julien had just fastened his packet when the dinner bell rang. It made his heart beat.
His imagination was distracted by the story which he had just composed, and fell a prey to tragic presentiments.
He saw himself seized by servants, trussed, and taken into a cellar with a gag in his mouth.
A servant was stationed there, who never let him out of sight, and if the family honour required that the adventure should have a tragic end, it was easy to finish everything with those poisons which leave no trace. They could then say that he had died of an illness and would carry his dead body back into his room.
Thrilled like a dramatic author by his own story, Julien was really afraid when he entered the dining-room.
He looked at all those liveried servants—he studied their faces.
"Which ones are chosen for to-night's expedition?" he said to himself.
"The memories of the court of Henri III. are so vivid in this family, and so often recalled, that if they think they have been insulted they will show more resolution than other persons of the same rank."
He looked at mademoiselle de la Mole in order to read the family plans in her eyes; she was pale and looked quite middle-aged.
He thought that she had never looked so great: she was really handsome and imposing; he almost fell in love with her.
"Pallida morte futura," he said to himself (her pallor indicates her great plans).
It was in vain that after dinner he made a point of walking for a long time in the garden, mademoiselle did not appear.
Speaking to her at that moment would have lifted a great weight off his heart.
Why not admit it? he was afraid.
As he had resolved to act, he was not ashamed to abandon himself to this emotion.
"So long as I show the necessary courage at the actual moment," he said to himself, "what does it matter what I feel at this particular moment?"
He went to reconnoitre the situation and find out the weight of the ladder.
"This is an instrument," he said to himself with a smile, "which I am fated to use both here and at Verrieres.
What a difference!
In those days," he added with a sigh, "I was not obliged to distrust the person for whom I exposed myself to danger.
What a difference also in the danger!"
"There would have been no dishonour for me if I had been killed in M. de Renal's gardens.
It would have been easy to have made my death into a mystery.
But here all kinds of abominable scandal will be talked in the salons of the Hotel de Chaulnes, the Hotel de Caylus, de Retz, etc., everywhere in fact.
I shall go down to posterity as a monster."
"For two or three years," he went on with a laugh, making fun of himself; but the idea paralysed him.
"And how am I going to manage to get justified?
Suppose that Fouque does print my posthumous pamphlet, it will only be taken for an additional infamy.
Why!
I get received into a house, and I reward the hospitality which I have received, the kindness with which I have been loaded by printing a pamphlet about what has happened and attacking the honour of women!
Nay! I'd a thousand times rather be duped."
The evening was awful. _____
CHAPTER XLVI
ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING _____
This garden was very big, it had been planned a few years ago in perfect taste.
But the trees were more than a century old. It had a certain rustic atmosphere.—Massinger. _____
He was going to write a countermanding letter to Fouque when eleven o'clock struck.
He noisily turned the lock of the door of his room as though he had locked himself in.
He went with a sleuth-like step to observe what was happening over the house, especially on the fourth storey where the servants slept.
There was nothing unusual.
One of madame de la Mole's chambermaids was giving an entertainment, the servants were taking punch with much gaiety.
"Those who laugh like that," thought Julien, "cannot be participating in the nocturnal expedition; if they were, they would be more serious."
Eventually he stationed himself in an obscure corner of the garden.
"If their plan is to hide themselves from the servants of the house, they will despatch the persons whom they have told off to surprise me over the garden wall.
"If M. de Croisenois shows any sense of proportion in this matter, he is bound to find it less compromising for the young person, whom he wishes to make his wife if he has me surprised before I enter her room."
He made a military and extremely detailed reconnaissance.