The Man with the Black Feather

CHAPTER VII

THE YOUNG CARTOUCHE

On the morrow of this terrible discovery Theophrastus and Marceline sought once more the calm joys of Azure Waves Villa. Theophrastus had not said a word of the shocking business; and Marceline had not dared question him about it so that she was still ignorant of their dreadful misfortune. A blank consternation reigned perpetually on his gentle face; and every now and then tears filled his kind eyes.

Adolphe, who had remained in Paris to make researches into the life of the famous King Of Thieves, was to join them in a couple of days; and the hours till his coming passed gloomily indeed: Marceline pottered about the house, busy with her household tasks; Theophrastus silently prepared his fishing-tackle, and on the afternoon of the second day fished with very little luck.

But the third day dawned bright and sunny; and Theophrastus, who had passed a good night, showed an easier face of less dismayed expression; about his lips hovered a shadow of a smile. Adolphe Lecamus came to Esbly station by the 11.46 train, and was welcomed with transports of joy. They went straight to déjeuner, and did not rise from the table till two o'clock. Marceline once more breathed peacefully in the presence of their faithful friend; and Theophrastus regaled him with a detailed account of his afternoon's impassioned, but unsuccessful, fishing. M. Lecamus said little; but after his coffee he helped himself to a third glass of a curaçoa which he appreciated far more highly than it deserved.

After lunch Theophrastus loaded himself with rods, lines, and bait; Adolphe took the landing-net; they bade Marceline good-bye; and walked down to the Marne with the quiet gait of men who have lunched well.

"I have got everything ready for your afternoon's sport," said Theophrastus, when they reached its banks. "While you fish I will listen to your news and amuse myself by trolling. It's all I'm fit for. I've a can full of minnows under the willows. I am prepared for the worst."

Adolphe said nothing; and when he was baiting his hook, Theophrastus said, with a touch of impatience in his tone, "Well?"

"Well, my news is good and bad," said Adolphe. "But I must warn you that it's more bad than good: no doubt they have invented a good many stories about you; but the truth is bad enough for anything."

"Your information is correct?" said Theophrastus with a sigh.

"I went to the source, the original documents," said Adolphe. "I'll tell you what I learned;

and you can set me right if I go wrong

."

"Go on," said Theophrastus in a tone of patient resignation. "I must make the best of it."

"In the first place

you were born in the month of October, 1693, and you are named Louis-Dominique Cartouche—

"

"There's no point in calling me Cartouche," interrupted Theophrastus, pulling a minnow out of the bait-can. "There's no reason anyone should know it. You know what these country people are: they'd laugh at the idea. Call me the

Child

: I prefer it."

"You agree that

Cartouche

 is your real name and not a nickname?" persisted Adolphe.

"Cut it out! Cut it out! It's a vile name!" said Theophrastus impatiently.

"They relate that you were well educated at Clermont College and were a pupil there at the same time as Voltaire. But that's a mere legend: unless you learnt to read from the gipsies, you never learnt to read at all."

"I like that!" cried Theophrastus. "How could I have learnt to write unless I knew how to read? And if I didn't know how to write, how could I have written the document I hid in the cellars of the Conciergerie?"

"That's reasonable enough. But at your trial—"

"Did I have a trial?" interrupted Theophrastus eagerly.

"I should think you did—a very famous trial!" said Adolphe. "And at your trial you declared that you did not know how to write. You signed all your depositions with a cross, and you never wrote a line to a single soul."

"Because one never should put anything in writing," said Theophrastus firmly. "I was doubtless afraid to compromise myself. None the less the document exists."

"That's true. But let us go back to your eleventh year. One day you went with some of your school-fellows to Saint-Laurent fair—"

"Look here, Adolphe: couldn't you put it differently? You keep saying, '

You

 went with your school-fellows to Saint-Laurent fair' … '

You

 were born in 1693' … 'You were a school-fellow of Voltaire.' After all, though I admit I was

Car

—" he stopped short—"the

Child

, I am also Theophrastus Longuet; and I can assure you that Theophrastus Longuet is not at all flattered at having been

Car

—the

Child

. Give everyone his due. I should be much obliged if you'd put it that 'The

Child

 went with his school-fellows.'"

"Certainly—certainly. At Saint-Laurent fair little Cartouche—"

"The

Child!

"

"But you weren't yet called the

Child

—you weren't called the

Child

 till you were a man—"

"Well, say, 'Little Louis-Dominique.'"

"Louis-Dominique fell among a troop of gipsies—"

"That shows you that parents ought never to let their children go to fairs alone," said Theophrastus solemnly.

"The gipsies carried him off; they stole him—"

"Poor little Louis-Dominique: he deserves our pity," said Theophrastus in a tone of warm compassion. "Do they express pity for him in the books?"

"They say that he made no difficulties about being stolen."

"And what do they know about it!" cried Theophrastus indignantly.

"Well, the gipsies taught him cudgel-play, fencing, pistol-shooting, the art of springing from roof to roof, juggling, tumbling—"

"All very useful things," said Theophrastus in a tone of approval.

"They taught him to empty the pockets of tradesmen and gentlemen without their perceiving it. Oh, he was a nice boy! No one could touch him at collaring handkerchiefs, snuff-boxes, watches, sword-knots—"

"That was not at all nice!" cried Theophrastus in scandalised tones.

"Oh! If that were all!" said Adolphe gloomily. "The troop of gipsies was at Rouen, when Louis-Dominique fell ill."

"Poor little boy! He was never meant for such a life," cried Theophrastus compassionately.

"He was sent to the Rouen hospital; and there a brother of his father found him. He recognised him, embraced him with tears of joy, and swore to restore him to his parents."

"A fine fellow that uncle! Louis-Dominique was saved!" cried Theophrastus joyfully.

M. Lecamus lost patience, turned sharply on Theophrastus and begged him to cease his continual interruptions, declaring that it would take him a good ten years to tell the story of Cartouche, if he could not bring himself to listen without these comments.

"It's all very well for you to say that!" said Theophrastus with some heat. "But I should like to see

you

 in my place! However, I'll do as you want; but just tell me first if Cartouche was as redoubtable as they say: was he a brigand chief?"

"He was indeed."

"Of many brigands?"

"At Paris alone he commanded about three thousand men."

"Three thousand? Goodness! That's a lot!"

"You had more than fifty lieutenants; and there were always about a city twenty men dressed exactly like you—in a reddish brown coat, lined with amaranthine silk, and wearing a patch of black cloth over the left eye—to put the police off your track."

"Oh, ho! it was a household of some size!" said Theophrastus, in a tone of irrepressible pride.

"They attribute to you more than a hundred and fifty murders by your own hand."

All this while Theophrastus had been trolling with a minnow without having had the slightest reason to suspect the existence of any fish in the waters of the Marne with the slightest appetite for his living bait. Of a sudden, the float which the minnow was drawing gently along among the green hearts of the water-lilies seemed smitten with frenzy. It leapt out of the water and plunged into it again, with such an unexpected swiftness and in such a resolute haste that it disappeared in the depths, carrying with it all the line which united it to the rod which united it to the hand of Theophrastus. The unfortunate thing was that after having taken after it all the line, it also took with it all the rod—with the result that nothing whatever united it any longer to the empty hand of Theophrastus.

"The blackguard!" cried Theophrastus, with a gesture of despair, in such a manner that it is impossible to say whether he used that strong expression, so rare in his mouth, about the murderer of the past or the fish of the present.

He added however: "It must have weighed a good four pounds!"

Taking everything into account, Theophrastus appeared to regret the loss of his fish more bitterly than his hundred and fifty murders.

Adolphe condoled with him and went on with his story.

"This good uncle," he said, "rescued little Cartouche from his wretched condition, took him from the Rouen hospital, and restored him to his parents. There was joy in Cabbage-Bridge Street—it was at number nine Cabbage-Bridge Street that little Cartouche was born and his father followed the trade of cooper. Louis-Dominique, warned by his early misfortunes, swore that for the future there should not be a more obedient son or steadier apprentice than he in all Paris. He helped his good father make casks; and it was a pleasure to see him ply the hammer and adze from early dawn to dewy eve. He seemed to be making it his first business to forget his disastrous truancy. The few months he had passed in the company of the gipsies had however been of some service to him in that they had taught him some of the arts of pleasing; and in the dinner hour he would amuse his fellow workmen by conjuring tricks, and on holidays there was a rush to invite his family to dinner in order that the company might be amused by his dexterity and humour. He was a great success in the neighbourhood; and his growing renown filled him with pride.

"In these occupations he reached that happy age at which the least sensible of human beings feels his beating heart awake the tenderest sentiments in him; and Louis-Dominique fell in love. The object of his affections was charming. She was a little milliner of Portefoin Street, with blue eyes, golden hair, a slender figure, and coquettish in the extreme—"

"But I see nothing wrong in all this," Theophrastus interrupted. "It's all very natural, and shows no signs of depravity whatever. How he turned out so badly passes my comprehension."

Adolphe looked at him gloomily and said, "I've just told you that the little milliner was a coquette. She was fond of dress and finery and trinkets, and burned to outshine her friends. Very soon the modest earnings of Louis-Dominique did not suffice to pay for her fancies—"

"Oh, these women!" cried Theophrastus, clenching his fists.

"You seem to forget that you have a wife who is your chief joy and pride," said Adolphe with some severity.

"That's true," said Theophrastus. "But you forget that I am as deeply interested in the adventures of the

Child

 as if they were my own; and I am naturally irritated to see him so seriously compromise his future for the sake of a little milliner of Portefoin Street."

"Well, presently he robbed his father; and his father was not long finding it out. He obtained an Order of Committal by which he could make his son enter the Convent of the Lazarists of the Faubourg Saint-Denis, which was really a House of Correction."

"Just like parents!" said Theophrastus bitterly. "Instead of combating the evil instincts of their children by kindness, they drive them to despair by shutting them up in these villainous reformatories, where they only find bad examples, and where the spirit of revolt ferments, gathers force, boils over, and suffocates every other sentiment in their innocent young souls. I'd bet anything that if they had not shut up Louis-Dominique in a House of Correction, none of the rest would have followed!"

"You needn't worry about that," said Adolphe drily. "Louis-Dominique was not shut up in a House of Correction."

"How did that come about?" said Theophrastus in a less eloquent tone.

"His father did not inform him of his discovery of his thefts, but one Sunday morning he invited him to come for a stroll. Louis-Dominique went with him with pleasure, for he was in a very good temper and had put on his best clothes with the intention of taking his sweetheart to the Palais-Royal in the afternoon. But when his father took the way to the Faubourg Saint-Denis, Louis-Dominique began to prick up his ears. He knew that at the end of the Faubourg were the Lazarists; and he also knew that parents sometimes took their children to the Lazarists. However, he showed none of the distrust which sprang from his uneasy conscience; but when they came to the corner of Paradise Street, and the buildings of Saint-Lazare rose before them, it seemed to Louis-Dominique that his father wore a strained air; and he took an instant dislike to the neighbourhood. He lagged a little behind.

"When his father turned to look for him, Louis-Dominique had disappeared; and he was never to see him again."

"And quite right too!" cried Theophrastus hotly. "In his place I should have done exactly the same!"

"

But you were in his place

," said Adolphe.

"Ah, yes—yes—of course I was! I keep forgetting it," said Theophrastus with less heat.

Theophrastus still gazed in wonder

"Well, you were next heard of in a disreputable house on the other side of the Seine. Your pretty manners were found pleasing by frequenters of the

Three Tuns

 tavern at the corner of Rat Street. But since there was no credit on that side of the Seine, you were presently under the necessity of using the accomplishments you had learned from the gipsies and betook yourself to lightening the pockets of passers-by of everything that weighed them down: snuff-boxes, purses, handkerchiefs, bon-bon boxes, and patch-boxes.

"After a while you became the confederate of a rascal of the name Galichon, who had taken a great fancy to you. You married his wife's sister. Marriage became quite a habit of yours; for, when at the end of six months Galichon, his wife, and his wife's sister were condemned to the galleys, you married an uncommonly clever pickpocket of Bucherie Street, and with her pursued your trade in the Palais-Royal."

"Disgraceful!" cried Theophrastus, overwhelmed with shame.

"But presently you were blown upon, and compelled to put your cunning at the disposal of the recruiting sergeants. The method of recruiting in those days was quite simple: the recruiting sergeants, to whom one brought simple young fellows or ragged ne'er-do-wells without a home, made everybody drunk; and when they awoke next morning, sober, they found that they had enlisted; and off to the wars they had to go. You provided the recruiting sergeants with recruits at a fixed price. But you were caught in your own trap; for having brought two young fellows to a recruiting sergeant one evening, you made merry with them at a tavern called 'the Sweethearts of Montrueil,' and awoke next morning to find that you had signed on yourself, you were the recruiter recruited."

"Well, I don't complain of that," said Theophrastus. "I always had a taste for the army. Besides, if I signed on, it proves that I could write; and you can tell the historians so from me."

A clock at Esbly chimed half-past six, and warned them that it was time to go home to dinner.

Adolphe broke off his story and took his rod to pieces; and they started for home.

On the way Theophrastus said: "Tell me, Adolphe: what was I like? I'm curious to know. I was a fine man, wasn't I? Big and well made?"

"You are like that on the stage in that piece of Ennery's. But, as a matter of fact, you were, according to the poet Granval, a man who knew you well and chanted your glory—"

"My what?" cried Theophrastus.

"Your sanguinary glory—you were:

'Brown, dried-up, thin, and small, by courage great,

Reckless and brisk, robust, alert, adroit.'"

Theophrastus frowned as if he would have preferred a more romantic picture; then he said, "You haven't told me how you got hold of that portrait in the house in Guénégaud Street."

"It's a copy of a photograph by Nadar."

"But how on earth did Nadar take my photograph?" cried Theophrastus in extreme surprise.

"He took it from a wax mask which must have been very like you, since it was moulded from your face by the order of the Regent. Nadar photographed this mask on the 17th of January, 1859."

"And where is it to be found?" said Theophrastus eagerly.

"At the Château de Saint-Germain."

"I must see that mask!" cried Theophrastus, "I must see it and touch it! We will go to Saint-Germain to-morrow."

At that moment the smiling Marceline opened the door of Azure Waves Villa for them.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WAX MASK

At this point I let Theophrastus once more take up the narrative.

"I had the strongest desire," he writes, "to see and touch that wax which had been moulded on my own skin; and this desire grew, if possible, stronger when Adolphe told me that the Château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye had contained the wax portrait of the famous Cartouche since the 25th of April, 1849. It had been presented to it by an Abbé Niallier, who had inherited it under the will of a Monsieur Richot, an Officer of the Household of Louis XVI, who had had it for many years. It was all the more valuable for having belonged to the Royal Family.

"This bust was moulded by a Florentine artist a few days before my execution. On it is a cap of wool or rough leather; and it is dressed in a coarse linen shirt covered with soot, and a waistcoat and a jacket of black camlet. But the most extraordinary thing about it is, that my hair and moustache were cut off after I was executed, and glued on to my mask! The portrait is enclosed in a large, deep, gilded frame, a very pretty piece of work. A sheet of Venetian glass protects the portrait; and one can still see on the frame faint traces of the arms of France.

"I asked Adolphe how he had obtained these exact details. He answered that they were the result of two days' work in the National Library.

"My hair! my moustache! my clothes! All as they were two hundred years ago! In spite of the horror with which the relics of a man who had committed so many crimes should have inspired me, I could hardly contain myself in my impatience to see and touch them. O mystery of Nature! Profound abyss of the soul! Giddy precipice of the heart! I, Theophrastus Longuet, whose name is the synonym of honour, I who was always afraid of bloodshed, I already

cherished

 in my heart the relics of the greatest brigand in the world!

"When I recovered my senses after the sight of the portrait in Guénégaud Street, I was at first amazed not to find myself in a state of despair bitter enough to disgust me with life, and plunge me once more into the tomb. No: I did not dream of suppressing this envelope, with the face of an honest man, which in the twentieth century was labelled 'Theophrastus Longuet,' which enclosed and bore about the world the soul of Cartouche. Undoubtedly at the first moment of such a revelation the least I could do was to faint; and I did so. But instead of finding despair in my heart I found a great compassion, which not only drew tears from me for the misfortune of myself, Theophrastus, but also for Cartouche. I asked myself in fact which was having the best time of it, the honest Theophrastus dragging the brigand Cartouche about inside him or the brigand Cartouche shut up in the honest Theophrastus.

"'We must try and understand one another,' I said out loud.

"The words had scarcely passed my lips when a dazzling light broke on me, as I recalled the theory of Reincarnation which M. Lecamus had revealed to me.

"The whole object of evolution is the evolution of the reincarnate soul towards the Better. It is the Progressive Ascent of Being of which Commissary Mifroid had spoken to us with such delightful earnestness. It was quite plain that the powers who regulate the process of reincarnation had found nothing more honest on earth than the body of Theophrastus Longuet to enable the criminal soul of Cartouche to evolve towards the Better.

"I must admit that when this idea took hold of me, instead of the childish despair which had caused me to faint, I felt myself filled with a sentiment more akin to pride. I was charged by the Planetary Logos, I, the humble, honest Theophrastus, to regenerate in ideal splendour that soul of darkness and of blood, the soul of Louis-Dominique Cartouche, known as the

Child

. I accepted willingly, since I could not do otherwise, this unexpected mission and at once I was on my guard. I did not repeat the phrase, 'We must understand one another'; but I at once commanded Cartouche to obey Theophrastus; and I promised myself that I would give him such a time of it that I could not prevent myself from saying with a smile: 'Poor old Cartouche!'

"I confided these reflections to Adolphe, who received them with approval, but at the same time warned me against my tendency to separate Theophrastus from Cartouche.

"'You must not forget,' he said, 'that they are one. You have the instincts of Theophrastus, that is to say, of the cabbage-planters (gardeners, market-gardeners) of Ferté-sous-Jouarre. These instincts are good. But you have also the soul of Cartouche, which is detestable. Take care: war is declared. The question is, which will conquer, the soul of long ago or the instincts of to-day.'

"I asked him if the soul of Cartouche was truly altogether detestable, which would have grieved me. I was pleased to learn that it had its good points.

"'Cartouche,' said he, 'expressly forbade his men to kill, or even wound, wayfarers without some reason. When he was at work in Paris with any of his bands, and his men brought him prisoners, he spoke to them with the utmost politeness and gentleness and made them restore a part of their spoil. Sometimes the affair was confined to a mere exchange of clothes. When he found in the pockets of the coat thus exchanged letters of importance, he ran after its late owner to give them back to him, wished him a pleasant evening, and gave him the password. It was a maxim of this extraordinary man that no one ought to be robbed twice on the same night, or treated too harshly, in order that the Parisians might not take a dislike to going out in the evening.'

"Since, then, he was opposed to unreasonable murder, it is clear that this man was not utterly wicked. I regret, however, that, as far as he himself was concerned, he should have had in the course of his life a hundred and fifty reasons for assassinating his contemporaries.

"But to come back to the wax mask, my friend Adolphe and myself had just descended from the train at Saint-Germain station when I fancied that I saw among a group of passengers a figure which I knew. Moved by a sentiment which was not altogether under my control, I dashed towards the group, but the figure had disappeared.

"'That form is essentially repugnant to me. Where have I seen it?' said I to myself; and Adolphe asked me the reason of my excitement. All at once I remembered.

"'I could swear that it was Signor Petito, the Professor of Italian who lives in the flat above us!' I cried. 'What is Signor Petito up to at Saint-Germain? He had better not get in my way!'

"'What is it he's done?' said Adolphe, in some surprise at the emphasis with which I uttered the last sentence.

"'Oh, nothing—nothing. Only if he gets in my way I swear to you

I'll clip his ears for him!

'

"

And I would have done as I said, you know.

"We went on then, without bothering any more about Signor Petito, to the Château, that wonderful Château. We went into the museum; and I was extremely annoyed to find that those chambers which knew the whole history of France, and would have served as the frame of our past, even had they been empty, should be serving to-day as a bazaar for Roman plaster casts, prehistoric arms, elephants' tusks, and bas-reliefs from the Arch of Constantine. But my annoyance turned to fury when I learnt that the mask of Cartouche was not there. I had just stealthily thrust the ferule of my green umbrella into the eye of a plaster legionary and smashed it, when an old custodian came to us and said that he was sure there was a mask of Cartouche at Saint-Germain and he thought it was in the library; but that had, for a week, been closed for repairs.

"We decided that we would return at a more favourable opportunity; for the further the mask withdrew itself, the fiercer I burned to touch it.

"We went out on to the terrace, for it was a glorious day, and plunged into the forest, down a magnificent aisle of it, which brought us to the lodges built in front of the Château by the desire of Queen Anne of Austria.

"As we reached the left corner of the wall, I thought I once more recognised, slinking into a thicket, the abominable silhouette and repulsive face of Signor Petito. Adolphe maintained that I was mistaken.

"Was it because I was treading this old soil which I knew, because I found myself in that friendly forest among those familiar trees, or was it the result of a long, suggestive conversation about old times and the people of long ago? Of a sudden memory sprang to birth in me, a very pleasant memory, as sometimes a moving remembrance of one's youthful days comes back to one, days which one believed for ever lost, buried in the memory. And then I saw quite clearly that I was

the same

 soul, for I recalled Cartouche as if we had not been separated

by two hundred years of death

.

"Yes, I had the same soul, a long same soul indeed: at one end was Cartouche, at the other Theophrastus.

"I remembered the old days; and above all I remembered them when we had passed the northern wall, plunging always deeper into the forest. I threw myself down on the turf at the foot of an immemorial tree, my eyes sparkling with an amazing youthful fire, and looking round the spot I knew so well, I said:

"'Ah, Adolphe! the last time I was here my fortune was at its height. I was feared and loved by all. I was even loved, Adolphe, by my victims, I plundered them so gracefully that afterwards they went about Paris singing my praises. I was not yet a prey to that dreadful thirst for blood which was some months later to drive me to commit the most atrocious crimes. Everything went well with me, feared and loved by all, I was happy, light-hearted, of a splendid daring, magnificent in love, of the finest nature in the world, and

master of Paris

.

"'Do you remember that glorious September night when we broke into the house of the Ambassador of Spain, made our way into his wife's bedroom, took all her embroidered robes of silk and velvet, a buckle set with twenty-seven large diamonds (one might almost fancy that it happened yesterday), a necklace of fine pearls, six gold plates, six gold knives and forks, and ten silver-gilt goblets (what a thing what a wonderful thing, my dear Adolphe, the phenomenon of memory is!)? Do you remember how we wrapped