The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic. Эжен Сю
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"Shortly before his death, by suicide, Monsieur Marius Rennepont was looking over some family papers running back to the Sixteenth Century, to the period of the religious wars. There he found to a certainty proof of the connection between the Renneponts and the Lebrenns. But whether the latter had left any descendants he was unable to determine."
"Does that mean, Samuel, that should there be living survivors of the Lebrenn family at the time the Rennepont fortune is partitioned, they will have no share in it?"
"The formal wish of the testator," replied Samuel, "is that only those who in 1832 present themselves here armed with their hereditary medallion shall be admitted to benefice in the inheritance. I shall abide by the instructions which have been handed down to me. According to what my father said, who had his information direct from his father, the confidant of Monsieur Rennepont himself, that clause was dictated by motives which will be revealed in the will."
"Everything in this affair is strange and singular. Probably no one even knows where to find the present descendants of Monsieur Rennepont."
"As to me, Bathsheba, I have not the slightest clue. Still—my father did tell me that twice in his life, Rennepont heirs presented themselves here with their hereditary medals bearing the address of this house, drawn hither by curiosity or vague pecuniary expectations—curiosity and expectations which met only with disappointment."
"What said your father to them?"
"Just what I should say in like case: 'I have nothing to communicate to you. This house belongs to me; it was left me by my father. I know not for what purpose or with what plan in view your ancestor designated this building to his heirs as their rendezvous a century and a half from date.'"
"That is, in fact, the answer commanded by prudence, Samuel. The world must remain in ignorance of the great value of the bequest you are charged with."
"Reasons of the utmost gravity impose upon us an absolute secrecy on the subject. In the first place, according to what my father had from my grandfather, the Society of Jesus, always so well served by its innumerable host of spies, succeeded in finding out that Monsieur Rennepont had saved an important sum from the confiscation which proved so profitable to the reverend fathers; for the informers and the executioners parted the spoils."
"Samuel! If these priests, so powerful, so masterful, and with so many avenues of underground working should ever suspect the truth! I tremble at the mere thought."
"Take heart, my good wife. The danger would be great, but I should know how to escape it. It was even more necessary in my grandfather's and especially in my father's case that they kept in profound secrecy the treasures they possessed; for the governments of Louis XIV, the Regent, and Louis XV, always in want, always at their wits' end for cash, were none too scrupulous in the means they chose to replenish their coffers. We Jews have always been a little beyond the pale of common rights, so that my grandfather or my father, once suspected of being the possessors of a sum amounting to several millions, would have been haled off on lettres de cachet, thrown into the cell of some State prison, and kept there till they had bought off their liberty, or, perhaps, their very lives at the price of the treasure which they were suspected of guarding."
"Ah, Samuel, I shudder to think that in those days every wickedness was possible. They might even have put your father to the torture."
"Thanks be to God, all that is out of the question to-day. And still, anticipating ill chances and exactions, we have always stowed our treasure in safe places and safe hands. Should the mansion be ransacked from cellar to eaves, the wealth of which we are the keepers would escape the search—"
Pricking his ear, Samuel checked his speech and listened intently a moment in the direction of the street gate. Then he said aloud to himself:
"Who is knocking there? It is not one of our men."
"The hour is unearthly," answered Bathsheba, uneasily. "It is past midnight. This lonely street has long since been deserted. May it not be our lookout come to warn us of the approach of some peril?"
"No, our lookout would have given the established signal," answered the Jew. "I'll go see what it may be."
And taking the lamp, he passed out of the chamber.
CHAPTER II.
REVOLUTIONARY EFFERVESCENCE.
Lamp in hand, Samuel approached the wicket gate. The light he carried revealed to him standing outside a lackey in a livery of orange and green, trimmed with silver lace. The fellow, swaying unsteadily on his feet, and with the air of one half-seas over with drink, knocked again, violently.
"Ho, friend!" cried Samuel. "Don't knock so hard! Perhaps you mistake the house."
"I—I knock how I please," returned the lackey in a thick voice. "Open the door—right off. I want to come in—gallows-bird!"
"Whom do you wish?"
"You do not want to open; dog of Jewry! Swine! My master will beat you to death with his stick. He said to me: 'Carry—this letter to Samuel the Jew—and above all—rascal—do not tarry at the inn!' So I want to get in to your dog-kennel, you devil of a Jew!"
"May I ask your master's name?"
"My master is Monseigneur the Count of Plouernel, colonel in the Guards. You know him well. You have before now lent him money—triple Arab!—according to what my lord's steward says—and at good interest, too."
"Have you your master's letter?"
"Yes—pig! And so, open. If not—I'll break in the gate."
"Then pass me the letter through the wicket, and hurry about it. Else I shall go in and leave you as you are."
"Mule! Isn't he stubborn, that animal!" grumbled the lackey as he shoved the letter through the grating. "I must have an answer, good and quick, I was told," he added.
"When I have read the letter," replied Samuel.
"To make me wait outside the door—like a dog!" muttered the tipsy servingman. "Me, the first lackey of my lord!"
Samuel, without paying the least attention to the impertinences of the lackey, read the letter of the Count of Plouernel by the light of his lamp, and then answered:
"Say to your master that I shall visit him to-morrow morning at his rooms. Your errand is done. You may leave."
"You won't give me a written answer?"
"No, the reply I have just given you will suffice."
Leaving the valet outside to fume his wrath away, Samuel refastened the wicket and returned to the room where he had left his wife. Bathsheba said to him, with some uneasiness:
"My friend, did I not hear a threatening voice?"
"It was a drunken lackey who brought me a letter from the Count of Plouernel."
"Another demand for a loan, I suppose?"
"Exactly. He has ordered me to undertake to secure for him the sum of 100,000 livres. He did not call on me direct for the loan, because he thought me too poor to be able to furnish it."
"Will you lend him the money, my friend?"
"Surely, on excellent securities of thirty deniers to one. The Count is good for it, and it will please me to squeeze him, along with other great seigneurs, to the profit of the strong-box of the Voyants."
Hardly had Samuel uttered these words when Prince Franz of Gerolstein, accompanied by one single companion, entered the room. Samuel and his wife silently passed upstairs to the floor above, leaving the two alone.
Franz of Gerolstein, then at the age of twenty-five, tall of stature and at once graceful and