Lacheneur

“ M. d’Escorval seized Lacheneur’s hands, and almost crushing them in his grasp:
“Unfortunate man!” he exclaimed, hoarsely, “what do you intend to do? Of what terrible vengeance are you dreaming?”
“I swear to you——”
“Oh! do not swear. You cannot deceive a man of my age and of my experience. I divine your intentions—you hate the Sairmeuse family more mortally than ever.” ”

“ Baron d’Escorval and Abbe Midon.
They were in advance of Lacheneur. They thought they had arrived in time.
Alas! here, as on the Reche, all their efforts, all their entreaties, and all their threats were futile.
They had come in the hope of arresting the movement; they only precipitated it.
“We have gone too far to draw back,” exclaimed one of the neighboring farmers, who was the recognized leader in Lacheneur’s absence. “If death is before us, it is also behind us. To attack and conquer—that is our only hope of salvation. ”

“ Jean Lacheneur’s threats were not the wild ravings of anger. His was a cold, deep-set premeditated desire for vengeance which would last as long as he lived—and he took good care that his sister should understand him, for between his teeth he added: “Undoubtedly these people are very high, and I am very low; but when a tiny insect pierces the root of a giant oak, that tree is doomed.” ”

“ Jean Lacheneur made a gesture terrible in its irony and menace.
“A bond of alliance!” he exclaimed. “You are too fast, Monsieur le Marquis! Have you forgotten all the blood that flows between us? You did not cut the ropes; but who condemned the innocent Baron d’Escorval to death? Was it not the Duc de Sairmeuse? An alliance! You have forgotten that you and yours sent my father to the scaffold! How have you rewarded the man whose heroic honesty gave you back a fortune? By murdering him, and by ruining the reputation of his daughter.” ”

“ Like all passionate men, M. Lacheneur overdid his part. This last remark was too much; it awakened a terrible suspicion in M. d’Escorval’s mind. “Good heavens!” he thought, “does this wretched man meditate some crime?” He glanced at Chanlouineau, and his anxiety increased, for on hearing Lacheneur speak of the marquis and Marie-Anne, the stalwart young farmer had turned livid.
“It is decided,” resumed Lacheneur with an air of unbounded satisfaction, “that they will give me the ten thousand francs bequeathed to me by Mademoiselle Armande. ”

“ Lacheneur took his friend’s hand and pressed it tenderly.
“Ah! you are noble people,” he exclaimed, “and God will reward you for your kindness to a poor fugitive. But you have done too much already. I should be the basest of men if I consented to uselessly expose you to danger. I can bear this life no longer; I have no wish to escape.”
He drew the sobbing woman to him and kissed her upon the forehead.
“I have a daughter, young and beautiful like yourself, as generous and proud. Poor Marie-Anne! And I have pitilessly sacrificed her to my hatred! ”

“ It said:
“This is to inform you that the authorities of Montaignac promise to give a reward of twenty thousand francs—two thousand pistoles, you understand—to him who will deliver up the man known as Lacheneur, dead or alive. Dead or alive, you understand. If he is dead, the compensation will be the same; twenty thousand francs! It will be paid in gold.”
With a bound, Lacheneur had risen, wild with despair and horror. Though he had believed himself utterly exhausted, he found superhuman strength to flee. ”

“ I can hope to obtain this sum only through the generosity of the Duc de Sairmeuse and his son.” These words from Lacheneur’s lips astonished the baron.
Lacheneur perceived it, and it was with every appearance of sincerity and good faith that he resumed:
“Does what I say surprise you? I understand why. My anger at first made me give utterance to all sorts of absurd threats. But I am calm now, and I realize my injustice. What could I expect the duke to do? To make me a present of Sairmeuse? He was a trifle brusque, I confess, but that is his way; at heart he is the best of men.” ”

“ Marie-Anne felt that her apprehensions were correct. “Take care, take care,” she said entreatingly. “Do not tamper with such matters. God’s justice will punish those who have wronged us.”
But nothing could move Jean Lacheneur, or divert him from his purpose. With a hoarse, discordant laugh, he clapped his hand on his gun and retorted, “That’s my justice!” ”

“ Lacheneur had a perception of the truth, and regretted that the bullets just discharged had not pierced his own heart. He put spurs to his horse and galloped past the cross-roads towards Montaignac. At last he perceived the fugitives approaching in the distance. He dashed forward to meet them, and mingling curses and insults together he vainly tried to stay their flight. “You cowards!” he vociferated, “you traitors! you fly and you are ten against one! Where are you going? To your own homes? Fools! you will only find the gendarmes there, waiting your coming to conduct you to the scaffold. ”

“ The others laughed heartily.
“Ruined—Monsieur Lacheneur!” they exclaimed in chorus. “How absurd! He is richer than all of us together. Do you suppose that he has been stupid enough not to have laid anything aside during all these years? He has put this money not in grounds, as he pretends, but somewhere else.”
“You are saying what is untrue!” interrupted Maurice, indignantly. “Monsieur Lacheneur left Sairmeuse as poor as he entered it.” ”

“ M. Lacheneur shook his head.
“Monsieur Maurice,” said he, “is young; he will console himself—he will forget.”
“Never!” interrupted the unhappy lover—“never!”
“And your daughter?” inquired the baroness.
Ah! this was the weak spot in his armor; the instinct of a mother was not mistaken. M. Lacheneur hesitated a moment; but he finally conquered the weakness that had threatened to master him.
“Marie-Anne,” he replied, slowly, “knows her duty too well not to obey when I command. When I tell her the motive that governs my conduct, she will become resigned ”

“ Lacheneur could restrain his furious passion no longer. “Well, yes!” he exclaimed, with a frightful oath; “yes, you have spoken the truth. Marie-Anne must be, and will be the instrument of my plans. A man in my situation is free from the considerations by which others are guided. Fortune, friends, life, honour—I have been forced to sacrifice everything. ”

“ Thunderstruck at first, Maurice afterward renewed the attack with an energy which no one had ever suspected in his character before.
“Do you, then, wish to ruin my life, Monsieur?” he exclaimed; “to ruin our life; for if I love Marie-Anne, she also loves me.”
It was easy to see that he spoke the truth. The unhappy girl, crimson with happy blushes the moment before, had suddenly become whiter than marble, as she looked imploringly at her father.
“It cannot be,” repeated M. Lacheneur; “and the day will come when you will bless the decision I make known at this moment.” ”

“ Jean Lacheneur, more fortunate, was on his feet by the end of the week.
Forty days had passed, when one evening—it was the 17th of April—while the abbe was reading a newspaper to the baron, the door gently opened and one of the Poignot boys put in his head, then quickly withdrew it.
The priest finished the paragraph, laid down the paper, and quietly went out.
“What is it?” he inquired of the young man.
“Ah! Monsieur, Monsieur Maurice, Mademoiselle Lacheneur and the old corporal have just arrived; they wish to come up.” ”

“ Was there a man named Gustave among the frequenters of the Poivriere?”
“No, sir, I’m quite sure there wasn’t.”
“Very well. But Lacheneur—you must know Lacheneur!”
“Yes, sir; I know him.”
The young police agent could not repress an exclamation of delight. “At last,” thought he, “I have a clue that may lead me to the truth. What kind of man is he?” he asked with intense anxiety.
“Oh! he is not at all like the other men who come to drink at my mother-in-law’s shop. I have only seen him once; but I remember him perfectly. It was on a Sunday. He was in a cab. ”

“ Mme. d’Escorval, after kissing Marie-Anne, drew the girl toward her.
“What has happened? For God’s sake, tell me what has happened!” she exclaimed.
With a gesture expressive of the most sorrowful resignation, the girl motioned her to look and to listen to M. Lacheneur.
He had recovered from that stupor—that gift of God—which follows cries that are too terrible for human endurance. Like a sleeper who, on waking, finds his miseries forgotten during his slumber, lying in wait for him, he regained with consciousness the capacity to suffer. ”

“ Alas! it must be confessed that Lacheneur had not hesitated to utter the grossest falsehoods in his anxiety to gain followers to his cause. Madame d’Escorval, before whom this peasant was conducted, could not be deceived by these ridiculous stories, but she could and did believe that the baron was the prime mover in the insurrection. And this belief, which would have carried consternation to many women’s hearts, absolutely reassured her. She had entire, unlimited faith in her husband. She believed him superior to all other men—infallible, in short. ”

“ So after all his terrible exertions, Lacheneur was not a league from the inn.
Appalled by this discovery, he remained for a moment undecided which course to pursue.
What did it matter? Why should the doomed hesitate? Do not all roads lead to the abyss into which they must sink?
He remembered the gendarmes that the innkeeper’s wife had warned him against, and slowly and with great difficulty descended the steep mountainside leading down to France.
He was near Saint-Pavin, when, before an isolated cottage, he saw a pretty peasant woman spinning in the sunshine. ”

“ His restless eyes betokened a prying curiosity of mind, and his smile betrayed an unusual degree of shrewdness, amounting almost to cunning. He made a deep bow when his father introduced him; but he was evidently out of temper.
“Having no longer the means to keep Jean in Paris,” resumed M. Lacheneur, “I have made him return as you see. My ruin will, perhaps, prove a blessing to him. The air of great cities is not good for a peasant’s son. Fools that we are, we send our children to Paris that they may learn to rise above their fathers. But they do nothing of the kind. ”

“ Am I not an old friend? It may be that your father in his despair has adopted extreme resolutions. Let me know them and we will conquer them together. Lacheneur knows how deeply I am attached to him. I will speak to him: he will listen to me.”
“I can tell you nothing, sir.”
“What! you remain inflexible when a father entreats you to assist him, when he says to you: ‘Marie-Anne, you hold my son’s happiness, life, and reason in your hands. Can you be so cruel——’ ”
“Ah! it is you who are cruel, sir,” answered Marie-Anne with tears glittering in her eyes; “it is you who are without pity. ”

“ The blood had returned to the pale cheeks of Maurice.
“Such a conspiracy would not explain Monsieur Lacheneur’s obstinate rejection of my suit.”
“Alas! yes, my poor boy. It is through Marie-Anne that Lacheneur exerts such an influence over Chanlouineau and the Marquis de Sairmeuse. If she became your wife to-day, they would desert him tomorrow. Then, too, it is precisely because he loves us that he is determined we shall not be mixed up in an enterprise the success of which is extremely doubtful. ”

“ The baron felt that all denial would be useless. “Lacheneur is deaf to my remonstrances and entreaties,” he replied, sadly. “There is no hope, my poor boy; you must submit. I will not tell you that time will assuage the sorrow that now seems insupportable—for you wouldn’t believe me if I did. But I do say to you be a man, and prove your courage. I will say even more: fight against all thought of Marie-Anne, as a traveller on the brink of a precipice fights against the thought of vertigo.” ”

“ Maurice, Chanlouineau, Jean, Marie-Anne, and about twenty of the old soldiers of the Empire, understood and shared Lacheneur’s despair. They knew the terrible danger they were incurring, and they, too, repeated:
“Faster! Let us march faster!”
Vain exhortation! It pleased these people to go slowly.
Suddenly the entire band stopped. Some of the peasants, chancing to look back, had seen the lamps of Mlle. de Courtornieu’s carriage gleaming in the darkness. ”

“ With sorrow comes experience, and that cruel knowledge of life which teaches one to guard one’s self against one’s hopes.
It was not until he heard the conversation of these peasants that Maurice fully realized the horror of Lacheneur’s position. Suddenly precipitated from the social eminence which he had attained, he found, in the valley of humiliations into which he was cast, only hatred, distrust, and scorn. ”

“ Often, as the marquis roamed about the large gardens, his daughter regarded him from her window with a strange terror in her heart.
But this warning of Providence only increased her desire for revenge.
“Who would not prefer death to such a misfortune?” she murmured. “Ah! Jean Lacheneur’s revenge is far more terrible than it would have been had his bullet pierced my father’s heart. It is a revenge like this that I desire. It is due me; I will have it!”
She saw Chupin every two or three days; sometimes going to the place of meeting alone, sometimes accompanied by Aunt Medea. ”