3 books to know Napoleonic Wars. Leo Tolstoy

and one that will never end. What is the use of involving France in a matter which is peculiar to Paris? Paris alone, with her newspapers and her drawing-rooms, has done the harm; let the modern Babylon perish.

      ‘Between the Altar and Paris, there must be a fight to the finish. This catastrophe is indeed to the earthly advantage of the Throne. Why did not Paris dare to breathe under Bonaparte? Ask the artillery of Saint–Roch.’

      It was not until three o’clock in the morning that Julien left the house with M. de La Mole.

      The Marquis was depressed and tired. For the first time, in speaking to Julien, he used a tone of supplication. He asked him to promise never to disclose the excesses of zeal, such was his expression, which he had chanced to witness. ‘Do not mention it to our friend abroad, unless he deliberately insists on knowing the nature of our young hotheads. What does it matter to them if the State be overthrown? They will be Cardinals, and will take refuge in Rome. We, in our country seats, shall be massacred by the peasants.’

      The secret note which the Marquis drafted from the long report of six and twenty pages, written by Julien, was not ready until a quarter to five.

      ‘I am dead tired,’ said the Marquis, ‘and so much can be seen from this note, which is lacking in precision towards the end; I am more dissatisfied with it than with anything I ever did in my life. Now, my friend,’ he went on, ‘go and lie down for a few hours, and for fear of your being abducted, I am going to lock you into your room.’

      Next day, the Marquis took Julien to a lonely mansion, at some distance from Paris. They found there a curious company who, Julien decided, were priests. He was given a passport which bore a false name, but did at last indicate the true goal of his journey, of which he had always feigned ignorance. He started off by himself in a calash.

      The Marquis had no misgivings as to his memory, Julien had repeated the text of the secret note to him several times; but he was greatly afraid of his being intercepted.

      ‘Remember, whatever you do, to look like a fop who is travelling to kill time,’ was his friendly warning, as Julien was leaving the room. ‘There may perhaps have been several false brethren in our assembly last night.’

      The journey was rapid and very tedious. Julien was barely out of the Marquis’s sight before he had forgotten both the secret note and his mission, and was thinking of nothing but Mathilde’s scorn.

      In a village, some leagues beyond Metz, the postmaster came to inform him that there were no fresh horses. It was ten o’clock at night; Julien, greatly annoyed, ordered supper. He strolled up and down outside the door and passed unperceived into the stable-yard. He saw no horses there.

      ‘The man had a singular expression all the same,’ he said to himself; ‘his coarse eye was scrutinising me.’

      We can see that he was beginning not to believe literally everything that he was told. He thought of making his escape after supper, and in the meanwhile, in order to learn something of the lie of the land, left his room to go and warm himself by the kitchen fire. What was his joy upon finding there Signor Geronimo, the famous singer!

      Comfortably ensconced in an armchair which he had made them push up close to the fire, the Neapolitan was groaning aloud and talking more, by himself, than the score of German peasants who were gathered round him open-mouthed.

      ‘These people are ruining me,’ he cried to Julien, ‘I have promised to sing tomorrow at Mayence. Seven Sovereign Princes have assembled there to hear me. But let us take the air,’ he added, in a significant tone.

      When he had gone a hundred yards along the road, and was well out of earshot:

      ‘Do you know what is happening?’ he said to Julien; ‘this postmaster is a rogue. As I was strolling about, I gave a franc to a little ragamuffin who told me everything. There are more than a dozen horses in a stable at the other end of the village. They mean to delay some courier.’

      ‘Indeed?’ said Julien, with an innocent air.

      It was not enough to have discovered the fraud, they must get on: this was what Geronimo and his friend could not manage to do. ‘We must wait for the daylight,’ the singer said finally, ‘they are suspicious of us. Tomorrow morning we shall order a good breakfast; while they are preparing it we go out for a stroll, we escape, hire fresh horses, and reach the next post.’

      ‘And your luggage?’ said Julien, who thought that perhaps Geronimo himself might have been sent to intercept him. It was time to sup and retire to bed. Julien was still in his first sleep, when he was awakened with a start by the sound of two people talking in his room, apparently quite unconcerned.

      He recognised the postmaster, armed with a dark lantern. Its light was concentrated upon the carriage-trunk, which Julien had had carried up to his room. With the postmaster was another man who was calmly going through the open trunk. Julien could make out only the sleeves of his coat, which were black and close-fitting.

      ‘It is a cassock,’ he said to himself, and quietly seized the pocket pistols which he had placed under his pillow.

      ‘You need not be afraid of his waking, Monsieur le Cure,’ said the postmaster. ‘The wine we gave them was some of what you prepared yourself.’

      ‘I can find no trace of papers,’ replied the cure. ‘Plenty of linen, oils, pomades and fripperies; he is a young man of the world, occupied with his own pleasures. The envoy will surely be the other, who pretends to speak with an Italian accent.’

      The men came up to Julien to search the pockets of his travelling coat. He was strongly tempted to kill them as robbers. This could involve no dangerous consequences. He longed to do it . . . ‘I should be a mere fool,’ he said to himself, ‘I should be endangering my mission.’ After searching his coat, ‘this is no diplomat,’ said the priest: he moved away, and wisely.

      ‘If he touches me in my bed, it will be the worse for him!’ Julien was saying to himself; ‘he may quite well come and stab me, and that I will not allow.’

      The cure turned his head, Julien half-opened his eyes; what was his astonishment! It was the abbe Castanede! And indeed, although the two men had tried to lower their voices, he had felt, from the first, that he recognised the sound of one of them. He was seized with a passionate desire to rid the world of one of its vilest scoundrels . . .

      ‘But my mission!’ he reminded himself.

      The priest and his acolyte left the room. A quarter of an hour later, Julien pretended to awake. He called for help and roused the whole house.

      ‘I have been poisoned,’ he cried, ‘I am in horrible agony!’ He wanted a pretext for going to Geronimo’s rescue. He found him half asphyxiated by the laudanum that had been in his wine.

      Julien, fearing some pleasantry of this kind, had supped upon chocolate which he had brought with him from Paris. He could not succeed in arousing Geronimo sufficiently to make him agree to leave the place.

      ‘Though you offered me the whole Kingdom of Naples,’ said the singer, ‘I would not forgo the pleasure of sleep at this moment.’

      ‘But the seven Sovereign Princes!’

      ‘They can wait.’

      Julien set off alone and arrived without further incident at the abode of the eminent personage. He spent a whole morning in vainly soliciting an audience. Fortunately, about four o’clock, the Duke decided to take the air. Julien saw him leave the house on foot, and had no hesitation in going up to him and begging for alms. When within a few feet of the eminent personage, he drew out the Marquis de La Mole’s watch, and flourished it ostentatiously. ‘Follow me at distance,’ said the other, without looking at him.

      After walking for a quarter of a league, the Duke turned abruptly in to a little Kaffeehaus. It was in a bedroom of this humblest form of inn that Julien had the honour of reciting his four pages to the Duke. When he had finished: ‘Begin again, and go more slowly,’ he was told.