This attitude, this reserve and calm demeanor, produced an excellent effect in Issoudun. Max’s adherents all looked upon Philippe as a sabreur, a swashbuckler, an expression used by soldiers to attribute the coarsest kind of courage to a superior officer, while denying him the capacity for command.
“He is a very respectable man,” said the elder Goddet to Max.
“Pooh!” replied Captain Gilet, “his behavior before the Court shows him to be either a dupe or a spy; he is, as you say, fool enough to have been the dupe of those who were playing for high stakes.”
After getting his appointment, Philippe, aware of the gossip of the place, was anxious to conceal certain facts as far as possible from his neighbors’ knowledge; he therefore took rooms in a house at the end of the Faubourg Saint-Paterne with a very large garden attached. There, in perfect secret he would practise swordplay with Carpentier, who had been instructor in a regiment of foot before his promotion to the Imperial Guard. After having thus recovered his old superiority, Philippe learned from Carpentier certain secret tricks which would enable him to meet the most accomplished opponent without any fear. He next took to pistol practice with Mignonnet and Carpentier, for amusement, as he said, but in reality to lead Maxence to believe that, in the event of a duel, he relied on that weapon. Whenever Philippe met Gilet he expected him to salute, and replied by lifting the front of his hat with his finger in a cavalier fashion, as a colonel does to a private.
Maxence Gilet never gave any sign of annoyance or dissatisfaction; he never uttered a single word on the subject at la Cognette’s, where he still had little suppers, though since Fario’s knife-thrust the nocturnal pranks were for a time pretermitted. Still, at the end of a certain time, Lieutenant-Colonel Bridau’s contempt for Major Gilet was a patent fact, and discussed by some of the Knights of Idlesse who were less closely attached to Maxence than were Baruch, François, and two or three more. It was a matter of general surprise to see Max the vehement and fiery behaving so meekly. No one at Issoudun, not even Potel or Renard, ventured to mention so delicate a matter to Gilet. Potel, really disturbed by such a public misunderstanding between two officers of the old guard, represented Max as quite capable of hatching some plot in which the Colonel might get the worst of it. By Potel’s account some new pitfall might be expected, after what Max had done to be rid of the mother and brother—for the Fario affair was no longer a mystery. Monsieur Hochon had not failed to expose Gilet’s atrocious game to all the wise heads of the town. Monsieur Mouilleron, too, the hero of a piece of town gossip, had confidentially revealed the name of Gilet’s would-be murderer, if only to find out the causes of Fario’s hatred of Max, so as to keep justice on the alert in case of further events. Thus, while discussing the Colonel’s attitude towards Max, and endeavoring to guess what might come of this antagonism, the town regarded them by anticipation as adversaries.
Philippe, who was anxiously investigating the details of his other’s arrest, and the antecedent history of Gilet and la Rabouilleuse, ended by forming a somewhat intimate alliance with Fario, who was his neighbor. After carefully studying the Spaniard, Philippe thought he might trust a man of his temper. Their hatred was so absolutely in unison that Fario placed himself at Philippe’s service, and told him all he knew of the feats of the Knights of Idlesse. Philippe, on his part, promised that, if he should succeed in obtaining such influence over his uncle as Gilet now exerted, he would indemnify Fario for all his losses, and thus secured his fidelity. Maxence had therefore a formidable enemy to meet—someone who could talk to him, as they say in those parts. The town of Issoudun, excited by rumor, foresaw a struggle between these two men who, be it observed, held each other in utter contempt.
One morning, towards the end of November, Philippe, meeting Monsieur Hochon at noon in the Avenue de Frapesle, said to him:
“I have discovered that your grandsons Baruch and François are the intimate allies of Maxence Gilet. The young rogues take part at night in all the pranks played in the town. And so, through them, Maxence knew everything that went on in your house when my brother and mother were staying with you.”
“And what proof have you of anything so shocking?”
“I heard them talking at night as they came out of a tavern. Your two grandsons each owe Maxence a thousand crowns. The villain desired the poor boys to find out what our plans are. He reminded them that it was you who proposed to besiege my uncle through the priesthood, and said that no one could advise me but you—for, happily, he regards me as a mere fighting-cock.”
“What! My grandchildren …”
“Watch them,” said Philippe; “you will see them coming home to the Place Saint-Jean at two or three in the morning, as sodden as champagne-corks, and walking with Maxence.”
“So that is why the rascals are so abstemious!” said Monsieur Hochon.
“Fario told me something of their nocturnal habits,” said Philippe. “But for him I should never have guessed it.—My uncle is evidently oppressed by the most horrible tyranny, to judge from the few words my Spaniard overheard Max saying to your boys. I suspect that Max and la Rabouilleuse have a plan for grabbing the State securities for fifty thousand francs a year and going off to be married I don’t know where, after plucking that wing from the pigeon. It is high time to find out what is going on in my uncle’s house, but I do not know how to set about it.”
“I will think it over,” said
