The Knight of Maison-Rouge_ A Novel of Marie Antoinette - Alexandre Dumas [89]
“Poor Héloïse!” cried the erstwhile Opera dancer. “It’s not my fault if I betray you.”
“Good! Good! Dear friend,” said Lorin, handing Artemisia a sheet of paper, “you’ve already gratified me with a Christian name; now how about giving me the surname and address.”
“Oh, no. I can’t write it down! Never!” cried Artemisia. “You win:
I’ll tell you.”
“So tell me and don’t worry, I won’t forget.”
Artemisia then gave Lorin the name and address of the phony flower girl in a voice that did not waver.
Her name was Héloïse Tison and she lived at 24, rue des Non-nandières.
At the name, Lorin gave a cry and darted off at full speed. He hadn’t gone as far as the end of the street when a letter arrived at Artemisia’s. The letter contained only these three lines:
Not a word about me, dear friend; the revelation of my name would finish me off without fail.… Wait till tomorrow to name me, for tonight I will have left Paris.
YOUR HÉLOÏSE
“Oh, my God!” cried the future Goddess. “If only I’d realized, I’d have waited till tomorrow.”
She dashed to the window to call Lorin back, if there was still time; but Lorin had vanished.
24
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
We have already said that in a few hours the news of this event was all over Paris. Indeed, in those days, leaks and lapses in discretion were only too easy to understand on the part of a government whose policies were made and unmade in the street.
And so the rumor, terrible and threatening, reached the old rue Saint-Jacques, and two hours after Maurice’s arrest they knew all about it there.
Thanks to Simon’s industry, the details of the plot had promptly broken through the confines of the Temple. But as everyone had had their little embellishments to add to the basic story, the truth arrived at the master tanner’s a little altered. It was a poisoned flower, they said, that had been handed to the Queen, with which the Austrian woman was to put the guards to sleep in order to make her escape from the Temple.… This version neatly dovetailed with certain suspicions about the loyalty of the battalion that had been sent packing the day before by Santerre. What it all came to was that a number of victims had already been identified for the people to hate.
But at the old rue Saint-Jacques, they were under no illusions about the real nature of events—and with good reason. Morand immediately dashed out one side of the house and Dixmer the other, leaving Geneviève in the grip of the most violent despair.
Indeed, if anything were to happen to Maurice, Geneviève would be to blame. It was she who had led the blind young man by the nose right up to the cell he would be locked up in, and which he would not be leaving except for a short trip to the scaffold.
But, whatever happened, Geneviève was determined that Maurice would not pay with his head for his determination to please her. If Maurice was condemned, Geneviève was going to accuse herself at the Tribunal; she would confess all. She would take the responsibility upon herself as a matter of course and she would save Maurice even if it meant losing her own life.
Instead of trembling at the thought of dying for Maurice, Geneviève, on the contrary, savored it with a kind of bittersweet relish. She loved him. She loved him more than was right for a woman who was not free. For her it was a way of remitting to God’s care her pure and stainless soul just as she had received it from Him.
On leaving the house, Morand and Dixmer had gone their separate ways. Dixmer wended his way toward the rue de la Corderie and
Morand ran to the rue des Nonnandières. When he reached the far end of the pont Marie, Morand saw the usual horde of idlers and gawkers that flock to Paris during or after a major event and plunk themselves down wherever the event took place, the way crows flock to a battlefield.
The sight caused Morand to stop