La Mothe

“ La Mothe was not the only man in Amboise who found his skill as a circus-rider tried to the utmost, and like La Mothe Commines temporized.
"Who are we to judge the King?" He spoke harshly, even aggressively, and as if combating some undeveloped argument of La Mothe's. A burst of temper may not convince a man's own conscience, or quiet its uneasiness, but it silences its voice for a time as declamation can always silence pleading. "Who are we to question his justice or deny its right to strike? And it is as his arm of justice that you are here in Amboise." ”

“ He had learned, too, that on the tree of knowledge of the ways of men are many fruits which pucker the mouth, as well as those which gladden the spirit. As to the ways of women, that is an altogether different book—a serial, let us say, but in how many numbers?
Of these ways La Mothe learned one before the sun of a new day had risen. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of the auberge where Paul Beaufoy had purchased breakfast at a cost greater than an empty purse, the troopers were dismissed after a brief conference, from which La Mothe was excluded, and the two rode on alone. ”

“ I said, “that if the operator is a good man the influence he exercises will be for good.”
“Most certainly,” said La Mothe.
I did not urge the opposing fact that if the operator is an evil man his influence must be for evil. My mind was already made up. Whatever La Mothe night be, if the powers he exercised were what he described, the risk that Lucy would run in being made subject to them was so fearful that no gain seemed great enough to justify the change. The remedy would be worse than the disease. On the one side was the drink crave with its blasting curse ”

“ She had, through my means, quitted the New Catholics. It was that young woman whom I mentioned before, whom the priest of Gex wanted to win over. As she is beautiful, though very prudent, there always continues a cause for fear, when such an one is exposed in the world. La Mothe wanted to have that money, and signified to La Combe that, if he did not make me give it to him for a wall, which he had to rebuild in his convent, he would make him suffer for it. ”

“ But all precautions are useless, when it pleases God to permit them to be frustrated. Our adversaries immediately wrote to Paris. A hundred ridiculous stories were circulated about this journey; comedies were acted on it, things invented at pleasure, and as false as anything in the world could be. It was my brother, Father de la Mothe, who was so active in uttering all this stuff. Had he believed it to be true, he ought out of charity to have concealed it; much more, being so very false. ”

“ God be thanked for a good man,' and the tears were tumbling down her cheeks. My friend," and Villon's voice deepened soberly, "I who am old have been young, and I tell you this, if a man has any true salt in him at all, heaven may well open for him when a woman like Ursula de Vesc calls him good with tears on her cheeks." And La Mothe had the wisdom and humble grace to answer nothing at all. ”

“ Setting out from Moulins on one of the Count de Blenau’s strongest horses, and furnished with plenty of that patent anti-attrition composition, which has facilitated the progression of all sorts of people in all ages of the world, and in all states except in Lycurgus-governed Sparta—namely gold, Henry de La Mothe was not long in reaching St. Germain; and with all the promptitude of his age and nature, he hastened eagerly towards the Palace, promising himself infinite pleasure in delivering a genuine love-letter into the fair hands of Mademoiselle Pauline. ”

“ The best hope for the colony, as Charlevoix, de la Gallissoniere and de Bougainville saw, was to develop the corn-growing lands of Detroit and Illinois, where La Mothe Cadillac had formed a hopeful settlement in 1702. The chief interest of the Louisiana scheme lay in the immense possibilities that opened before it if the whole Mississippi valley could be brought into a real connection with the Canadian Lakes. ”

“ They bethought themselves of one thing further likely to favor their scheme. They knew I had been at Marseilles, and thought they had a good foundation for a fresh calumny. They counterfeited a letter from a person at Marseilles (I heard it was from the Bishop) addressed to the Archbishop of Paris, or to his official, in which they wrote the most abominable scandal. Father La Mothe came to try to draw me into his snare, and to make me say, in the presence of the people whom he had brought, that I had been at Marseilles with Father La Combe. ”

“ Many of his relatives remained Huguenots up to the end, but M. de la Mothe returned to the old religion after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572. No man ever had a narrower escape of his life, for his house in Paris was attacked during the day, and though his servants defended it bravely, neither he nor his children [Pg 251] would have been left alive had not a messenger wearing the queen's colours been seen pushing through the crowd. ”

“ And riding down the slope to the river Beaufoy read:
"Go to Amboise. Arrest Monsieur Stephen La Mothe and bring him to Valmy without delay. Tell him his orders are cancelled, and on your life let him hold no communication with the Dauphin.—LOUIS."
CHAPTER XXIX THE PRICE OF A LATE BREAKFAST For men there is no such ladder to place and fame as their fellow-men. Over their crushed and trampled backs, or with a hand in their pocket, ambition or greed can climb to heights which would be hopelessly unattainable but for the unwilling foothold of another's disadvantage. La Mothe? ”

“ That aubergiste meant something—I know him well. ’Tis old Jacques Chatpilleur, the vivandier, who served with the army in Roussillon, when I was there with the Count.”
“Well, well, my good youth, go to Paris if you please,” replied the old servant. “You’ll gain no tidings more than I have given you.—Did not I make all sorts of inquiries myself? and they are not likely to deceive me, I wot. Young birds think they can fly before they can peck; but go, go,—you’ll gain no more than what I have told you.”
Henry de La Mothe did not feel very well assured of the truth of this last position ”

“ I’ll break every bone in your body!” Others ride behind, and you will do well to retire before this whirlwind of destruction comes upon you.’
Just then out of a cloud of dust in the distance the king saw Moti approaching at a hard gallop, looking indeed like a giant compared with the little beast he rode, whirling his castor-oil plant, which in the distance might have been an oak tree, and the sound of his revilings and shoutings came down upon the breeze! ”

“ It is not a pretty thing to say. Life is cheap out there, and if I was killed, what matter? Let us talk of other and more pleasant things."
"Of your travels and adventures, for instance. Did you find any wonderful flowers, like you did, for instance, in Borneo, Harold? Where did you get that lovely orchid from?"
A single blossom flamed on the silk lapel of Denvers' coat—a whitish bloom with a cloud of little flowers hovering over it like moths. It was the Cardinal Moth again. ”

“ The sight and the sound struck terror into the king, and, turning his horse, he fled at top speed, thinking that a regiment of yelling giants was upon him; and all his force followed him as fast as they might go. One fat officer alone could not keep up on foot with that mad rush, and as Moti came galloping up he flung himself on the ground in abject fear. This was too much for Moti's excited pony, who shied so suddenly that Moti went flying over his head like a sky rocket, and alighted right on the top of his fat foe. ”

“ The orchid, sir, is unique. It was used to guard the Temple of Ghan. It is supposed to possess certain sinister qualities. Criminals who were sent into the place where the Moth hung never came out alive, they always died, as the two unhappy men whose cases we have under consideration perished. The sentence was to pluck a flower from the Cardinal Moth. The flowers were plucked, and when the great gates were thrown back the criminal was dead, strangled. Sir Clement, I presume that you knew all about this before you purchased the Cardinal Moth the other night. ”

“ There's such an everlasting tribe of those Moths; and if you invite dull people they're always sure all to come, every one of them. Still, if you have the Butterflies, you can't leave out the Moths."
"Old Mrs. Moth has been laid up lately with a gastric fever, and that may keep two or three of the Misses Moth at home," said the colonel.
"Whatever could give the old lady such a turn?" said Miss Katy. "I thought she never was sick." ”

“ Her sobs ceased at last.
‘Now them hickups is over, said he, ‘suppose you stand up, Moth, and give me your arm, and——Lord! Moth, never another word, there’ll be no sale, you ain’t going to leave the cottage. You unpack whatever you have put away, and we’ll be married. Why, I put it to you. If you was to leave this part of the country, the moths and the caterpillars and the butterflies and the grubs of every description would multiply to that enormous extent, that the plagues of Egypt would be child’s play to the state of Greenhythe. ”

“ But there is more danger here than you anticipate, danger to me and to all of us. Sir Clement Frobisher is one of the greatest scoundrels on earth; he is cunning into the bargain, a perfect master of trickery and intrigue. Do you know anything of the Cardinal Moth?"
Angela shook her head. She was practically ignorant on that point. Mrs. Benstein indicated the nodding, trembling spray of blossom on her breast.
"These flowers are in it," she said. "The Cardinal Moth must play its part with the rest. There will be no rest until the Moth is back again over the altar in the temple of Ghan. ”

“ As a dry air came in the long strands of the Manilla rope stretched as the moisture warmed out of it, a climber of the Moth dangled over the head of an inspector who pushed it aside, as if it had been poison. Harold produced something that looked like an oblong sack filled with firewood. He proceeded to tangle it in the loops and folds of the rope.
"We will suppose that is a man," he said, "a man who has climbed up to the roof to steal the Moth which is all tangled up. He puts his arm through one loop and his head through another, thinking no evil, when suddenly the steam-hose is turned on. ”

“ The reader is empoigné in the first page, and eagerly follows the flight of La Motte, also of Peter, his coachman, an attached, comic, and familiar domestic. After a few days, the party observe, in the recesses of a gloomy forest, the remains of a Gothic abbey. They enter; by the light of a flickering lamp they penetrate “horrible recesses,” discover a room handsomely provided with a trapdoor, and determine to reside in a dwelling so congenial, though, as La Motte judiciously remarks, “not in all respects strictly Gothic.” ”

“ Your condition, La Motte, is unhappy; this abbey is a melancholy residence for a man like you fond of society, and like you also qualified to adorn it. La Motte bowed. I wish it was in my power to restore you to the world, continued the Marquis; perhaps, if I knew the particulars of the affair which has driven you from it, I might perceive that my interest could effectually serve you:—I think I have heard you hint it was an affair of honour? La Motte was silent. I mean not to distress you, however; nor is it common curiosity that prompts this inquiry, but a sincere desire to befriend you. ”

“ Often within this fortress, im{154}pregnable to birds, bees, and even to mischievous boys themselves, that beautiful Moth which flutters about so gaily during the first weeks of Summer, on snow-white wings spotted all over with black and yellow, takes up its final abode,—retiring thither when weary of its desultory wanderings, and after having prepared for the perpetuation of its ephemeral race, sleeping itself to death, to the rocking lullaby of the breeze. ”

“ So La Motte, Madame La Motte, and the beautiful girl drive away, La Motte’s one desire being to find a retreat safe from the police of an offended justice.
Is this not a very original, striking, and affecting situation; provocative, too, of the utmost curiosity? A fugitive from justice, in a strange, small, dark, ancient house, is seized, threatened, and presented with a young and lovely female stranger. In this opening we recognise the hand of a master genius. ”

“ Thus it is that a lovely white moth flits often in the veriest gray of dawn just to the eastward of where I lie. It always seems as if he were a condensation out of the white mists that are born in that darkest hour when the night winds cease and that runic rhyme of the pines is lulled for a time. He seems as transparent as they and is nothing but the ghost of a moth as he passes from one head of goldenrod bloom to another. Some mornings he vanishes in the amber glow that ushers in the daylight and then I think I have merely been dreaming of lepidoptera. ”

“ A rope breaks,--the churned water sweeps over the women,--the end is near,--when another frantic struggle leaves Moti alone to her task. The high childish voice calling on her favourite's courage rises again and again ”

“ She was very beautiful, laughing there—more beautiful than any moth. He suddenly felt for his glasses to rub them. But he had no glasses. Ah, it was truly another world, and he could see far into the clear eyes, deep—deep.
"Come," she said. She was holding out her hand,—the small brown hand,—and he covered it with his own, and they wandered through the forest, sometimes swiftly, along cleared spaces, as if wings bore them, and sometimes slowly, looking from side to side and looking long at each other. Once she stopped and leaned over a bush with hushed breath. "Look!" she said. ”

“ The king, however, did not share his pleasure at all, but called up a soldier to shoot the tiger, much to the relief of all the inmates of the serai except Moti. If the king, however, was before convinced that Moti was one of the wisest of men, he was now still more convinced that he was the bravest, and he increased his pay a hundredfold, so that our hero thought that he was the luckiest of men. ”