“If you will allow me to offer you a piece of advice,” said the public prosecutor, “you will get into a post-chaise this evening at eleven o’clock—the postmaster will let you have one—and get back to Paris by diligence from Bourges.”
“That is my opinion too,” said Monsieur Hochon, who was dying to be rid of his guest.
“And it is my most earnest wish to be out of Issoudun, though I leave my only friend here,” replied Agathe, taking Madame Hochon’s hand and kissing it. “When shall I see you again?”
“Ah! my child, we shall never meet again till we meet above! We have suffered so much here,” she added, in an undertone, “that God will have pity on us.”
A moment after, when Monsieur Mouilleron had been over to see Max, Gritte greatly astonished Monsieur and Madame Hochon, Agathe, Joseph, and Adolphine by announcing a call from Monsieur Rouget. Jean-Jacques had come to take leave of his sister, and to offer her the carriage to take her to Bourges.
“Ah, your pictures have done us an ill-turn,” said Agathe.
“Keep them, sister,” said the old man, who did not yet believe in the value of the paintings.
“Neighbor Rouget,” said Monsieur Hochon, “our relations are our best friends and protectors, especially when they are such as your sister Agathe and your nephew Joseph.”
“Perhaps so,” said the old fellow, in bewilderment.
“You must be thinking of making a Christian end,” said Madame Hochon.
“Oh, Jean-Jacques, what a day this has been!” said Agathe.
“Will you accept my carriage?” asked Rouget.
“No, brother,” replied Madame Bridau. “Thank you, all the same. I wish you good health!”
Rouget allowed his sister and nephew to embrace him, then he went away after a cool leave-taking.
Baruch, at a word from his grandfather, had hurried off to the posting-house. At eleven that evening the two Parisians, packed into a wicker chaise with one horse ridden by a postilion, left Issoudun. Adolphine and Madame Hochon had tears in their eyes; they alone regretted Agathe and Joseph.
“They are gone!” cried François Hochon, going into Max’s room with la Rabouilleuse.
“Well, the trick is done!” said Max, weakened by fever.
“But what did you say to old Mouilleron?” asked François.
“I told him that I had almost given my assassin just cause to wait for me at a street corner; that the man was quite capable, if the law were at his heels, of killing me like a dog before he could be caught. In consequence, I begged Mouilleron and Prangin to pretend to be hunting him down, but in fact to leave the man alone, unless they wanted to see me a dead man.”
“I hope now, Max,” said Flore, “that you will remain quiet at night for some little time.”
“Well, we are quit of the Parisians at any rate,” cried Max. “The man who stabbed me did not imagine he was doing us such good service.”
Next day, with the exception of a few very quiet and reserved people who shared the views of Monsieur and Madame Hochon, all the town rejoiced over the departure of the Bridaus, though it was due to a deplorable mistake, as if the event were a triumph of the provinces over Paris. Some of Max’s friends expressed themselves in hard terms.
“Well, indeed! Did those Parisians imagine that we are all idiots, and that they had only to hold out a hat for fortunes to pour into it.”
“They came in search of wool, and they have gone away shorn, for the nephew is not to his uncle’s taste.”
“And they had the advice of a Paris lawyer, if you please—”
“Oh, ho! They had laid a plan then?”
“Why, yes, a plan to get round Père Rouget; but the Parisians saw that they were not equal to it, and their lawyer won’t laugh at the natives of le Berry—”
“But it is abominable, you know!”
“That is your Parisian!”
“La Rabouilleuse saw that she was attacked, and she defended herself—”
“And quite right too!”
To everyone in the town Agathe and Joseph were “Parisians”—strangers—foreigners. They preferred Max and Flore.
With what satisfaction Agathe and Joseph found themselves at home in their little lodging in the Rue Mazarine may be imagined. In the course of the journey the artist had recovered his spirits, crushed for a time by the scene of his arrest, and by twenty hours in prison; but he could not rally his mother. Agathe could the less get over it, because the trial for military conspiracy before the Supreme Court was coming on.
Philippe’s conduct, in spite of the skill of an advocate recommended by Desroches, gave rise to suspicions unfavorable to his reputation. So as soon as Joseph had reported to Desroches all that had occurred at Issoudun, he started forthwith, accompanied by Mistigris, for the Comte de Sérizy’s château, so as to hear nothing of this trial, which lasted twenty days.
It is useless here to enlarge on facts which are part of contemporary history. Whether it was that he played a part dictated to him, or that he turned King’s evidence, Philippe’s sentence was to police surveillance for five years; and he was required to set out, the very day he was released, for Autun, the town assigned to him as his place of residence during those five years. The sentence was a form of detention similar to that of prisoners on parole, who are confined within the walls of a town.
On hearing that the Comte de Sérizy, one of the peers appointed by the Upper Chamber to sit on the commission, was employing Joseph to decorate his house at Presles, Desroches craved an audience of this minister, and found him very well inclined to help Joseph, whose acquaintance he happened to have made. Desroches explained the pecuniary difficulties of the two brothers, mentioning the good service done by their father, and the way in which he had been forgotten under the Restoration.
“Such injustice as this, monseigneur,” said the attorney, “is a permanent source of irritation and
