Chapter 14

THE OLD-IRON SHOP

An enormous yellow and black coach lumbered and strained along by the aid of six lean horses, and many elaborate springs, chains and straps, from Brittany towards Paris. The autumn roads were execrable, for the rains had been heavy, and the ruts made by the harvest-waggons were deep. The lateness of the season intensified the deserted look of rural France. Little else was to be seen along most of the route than rows of polled trees lining the highway, and here and there an old castle on a hill, or a _commune_ of a few whitewashed cottages, where the coach would pull up at the inn and perhaps change horses. The driver and guard remained the same; but various postillions took charge and then gave up their charges to others. Travellers of assorted ranks and occupations got in and out. Of the twelve for whom there were places in the coach some remained during long distances, some shorter, but only one was faithful from Brittany to the end. He was a short-statured, country _bourgeois_, whose woollen stockings and faded hat gave to him a certain look of non-importance. Moreover, he was always wrapped unsociably in a brown cloak, of which he kept a fold over his lower face, and in which he snored in his corner even when all the others jumped up to escape an upset.

After several days the aspect of the country suddenly changed. Immense woods and parks rendered it even more solitary, yet strange to say the increased solitude was evidence that the hugest capital in Europe was near, for these were the hunting domains of the princes of the blood and great courtiers, which encircled Paris.

During the night there was another sudden change. The forest solitudes disappeared, the horses sped forward on fine broad roads; and soon the coach dashed with a triumphant blast into the lights and stir of Versailles, crossed its Place d'Armes and turned again into darkness along the Avenue of Paris.

At length, in the first grey of morning, it rumbled loudly over a stretch of cobbled pave, and pulled up at an iron railing inside the City wall. Here the officers of the municipal customs came out. One of the first passengers visited was the _bourgeois_, and his dingy black box and sleepy expression received exceptionally contemptuous usage.

"Haste, beast, open it! Dost thou think I have to wait all day? Take that," and the gendarme struck him a tap on the side with the flat of his sword.

For a second the _bourgeois_ seemed another man. He drew up with such an inhuman gleam in his cadaverous eyes that the customs man drew back.

"Quick, then, a little," said the latter in something of an apologetic tone. The short man as rapidly recovered his self-possession. He leered in a conciliatory way upon the official and pressed a livre into his palm. The official passed the box through the gate. The coach proceeded into the City until it arrived at its heart and stopped at the entrance of that great and wide bridge, the Pont Neuf, the main artery of Paris, where most of the passengers alighted. They found themselves engulfed in a yelling multitude of porters, who scrambled for passengers and baggage as if they would tear both to pieces, which indeed they had no great aversion to doing.

The _bourgeois_ singled out a tall man who had mingled in the scrimmage as if only for his amusement. Cuffing the others aside like puppies with his long arms, the latter lifted the black box out of the tussle and started away, followed by its owner. They plunged into that maze of tall, narrow, medieval streets of older Paris which Méryon loved to picture before they disappeared in the improvements of Napoleon. They crossed the Latin Quarter and thence wending eastward, entered finally the Quarter of St. Marcel, the wretchedest of the city, and came into a lane named the Street of the Hanged Man; where dilapidated rookeries leaned across at each other, their upper floors occupied by swarms of human beings. The _bourgeois_ here stopped alongside his porter and spoke to him in the tone of an intimate.

"Is it far now, Hache? It is already some distance from the old place."

"Here we are; come in quick," replied Hache. He was a bold-looking, black-haired man, red-faced, unshaven, and battered with the effects of brandy-drinking.

They turned into a grimy old-iron shop. A woman sitting in a corner fixed her eyes upon them like a watch-dog. They stumbled through, climbed a dark stair, and entered a room where the traveller, without speaking to a man who lay there on a bench, locked the door, and Hache dropped the box on the table with a thud, shaking off a cap and bottle which were on it.

The man on the bench started at the noise, and got up on his elbow, his eyes opening with an effort.

"Great God, the Admiral!" he exclaimed.

The _bourgeois_ had thrown off his hat, wig, and cloak. He was the visitor to the cavern of Fontainebleau.

"It is I, Gougeon," he returned, his death's-head face smiling.

Gougeon wore the garb of an old-iron gatherer. His countenance was unkempt, pale, scowling, with black eyes embedded in it, his hair coarse and long, his mouth hard and drooping. He pushed back the grey _tuque_ with which his head had been covered, and without readdressing the Admiral, got up, slowly unwound the cords which bound the black box, and raised the lid. Hache looked on.

Gougeon first took out a couple of coarse articles of clothing, and uttered a grunt. His next grasp brought up a brilliant article of apparel. He raised it to examine it at the window. The garment shone even in the meagre light. It was a waistcoat of flowered silk, sown with seed-pearls. The Admiral stood by, smiling.

With the other hand Gougeon pulled out and lifted a magnificent rose-coloured dress-coat with silver buttons.

Having gazed at them all round and grunted to his own satisfaction and to that of Hache, he dived again into the box, where he fumbled around a large lump covered with linen, and at length drew out a shining article--a golden _soleil_, or sun-shaped stand for displaying the Host at the mass. Beside it was a finely embossed chalice of silver. His eyes and those of Hache were lost in wonder.

There came just then a tap at the door.

The articles were whipped back into their box and covered. The woman of the shop below walked in. All recovered self-possession. She bolted the door herself.

Gougeon's mate, who thus appeared among them, was a small woman of about forty, with the sharp grey eyes of a wild animal.

The coat and vessels were displayed to her by her husband.

"Admiral," she said, "where do these come from?"

The chief seemed to recognise in her a personage equal to himself. He bowed and said--

"Madame, the _soleil_ and chalice were the Abbey of Pontcalec's, and were politely removed for safe-keeping by seven marines of the Galley-on-land."

"And this fine waistcoat?" said Madame, smiling.

"Was one of which the owner had no longer need," he said, looking at her.

"Indeed," she returned nonchalantly.

"It was a troublesome marquis who ventured home one night by a short cut. He was one of the fellows who does not believe in the necessity of a poor man living. He saw a fire of ours in the waste, and what does he do but ride up and over us. Luckily there is no blood on the waistcoat."

Madame's smile expanded. She looked the article over, picked the seed-pearls and lace with her little skinny hands, turned out the pockets, and inspected the flower-pattern of the silk.

Gougeon held the glittering _soleil_ fast in his hands. He could not keep his scowling eyes off it. Hache took up the bottle from the floor, and poured some wine into the chalice, whence he drank it off. Madame lifted the dress-coat, and inspected it with the same feminine closeness as the vest.

"It is a good package," remarked she.

"You have not seen all," vivaciously replied the Admiral, and diving his hand into the box he drew forth and opened the black kerchief of the cave of Fontainebleau. Gougeon's hand snatched the watch of the Prince de Poix. Hache caught up the chalice, and executed a jig round the room while drinking it empty; and Madame arranged her neck to great self-satisfaction with Cyrène's necklace, while the Admiral told with no small exaggeration the story connected with the plunder.

"This brings us," he continued, "to the object of my coming. Bec, Caron, and la Tour, the three taken in the cave, are now in Paris imprisoned in the Little Châtelet. What can be done for them?"

"Nothing," answered Gougeon.

"Be still," enjoined his wife, flashing her eyes at him.

"Were it I, I would go to the galleys and get away just as I did before," exclaimed Hache.

"Hache, you have no head."

"Not so good as yours, wife Gougeon, I admit; but I escaped from the galleys."

"To force the guards is impossible," said she speculating. "Who are the witnesses?"

"I fear they are out of the question."

"Who are they?"

"The Prince de Poix."

"He will not appear in the matter. It is not like your provincial tribunals."

"Several gendarmes."

"They have their price."

"Granted; but another remains, a bad one."

"Who?"

"The aristocrat who fell into the cave. He is near us."

"His name?"

"Répentigny."

"I will do what I can. We shall see what the Galley is good for in Paris."