第22章

"Speak to him!" M. de Saintonge cried. He was breathless with rage. He could say no more. It may be imagined how unpalatable my answer was to him.

But I was not disposed to endure his presumption and ill-temper beyond a certain point; and feeling no sympathy with him in a difficulty which he had brought upon himself by his spitefulness, I answered him roundly. "Yes," I said," I will speak to him, if you please. But not otherwise. I can assure you, I should not do it for everyone."But M. de Saintonge's chagrin and rage at finding himself thus rebuffed, in a quarter where his haughty temper had led him to expect an easy compliance, would not allow him to stoop to my offer. He flung away with expressions of the utmost resentment, and even in the hearing of my servants uttered so many foolish and violent things against me, that had my discretion been no greater than his I must have taken notice of them. As, however, I had other and more important affairs upon my hands, and it has never been my practice to humour such hot-heads by placing myself on a level with them, I was content to leave his punishment to St. Mesmin; assured that in him M. Saintonge would find an opponent more courageous and not less stubborn than himself.

The event bore me out, for within a week M. de St. Mesmin's pretensions to the hand of Mademoiselle de Saintonge shared with the Biron affair the attention of all Paris. The young lady, whose reputation and the care which had been spent on her breeding, no less than her gifts of person and character, deserved a better fate, attained in a moment a notoriety far from enviable; rumour's hundred tongues alleging, and probably with truth--for what father can vie with a gallant in a maiden's eyes?--that her inclinations were all on the side of the pretender. At any rate, St. Mesmin had credit for them; there was talk of stolen meetings and a bribed waiting-woman; and though such tales were probably as false as those who gave them currency were fair, they obtained credence with the thoughtless, and being repeated from one to another, in time reached her father's ears, and contributed with St. Mesmin's persecution to render him almost beside himself.

Doubtless with a man of less dogged character, or one more amenable to reason, the Marquis would have known how to deal; but the success which had hitherto rewarded St. Mesmin's course of action had confirmed the young man in his belief that everything was to be won by courage; so that the more the Marquis blustered and threatened the more persistent the suitor showed himself.

Wherever Mademoiselle's presence was to be expected, St. Mesmin appeared, dressed in the extreme of the fashion and wearing either a favour made of her colours or a glove which he asserted that she had given him. Throwing himself in her road on every occasion, he expressed his passion by the most extravagant looks and gestures; and protected from the shafts of ridicule alike by his self-esteem and his prowess, did a hundred things that rendered her conspicuous and must have covered another than himself with inextinguishable laughter.

In these circumstances M. de Saintonge began to find that the darts which glanced off his opponent's armour were making him their butt; and that he, who had valued himself all his life on a stately dignity and a pride: almost Spanish, was rapidly becoming the laughing-stock of the Court. His rage may be better imagined than described, and doubtless his daughter did not go unscathed. But the ordinary contemptuous refusal which would have sent another suitor about his business was of no avail here; he had no son, while St. Mesmin's recklessness rendered the boldest unwilling to engage him. Saintonge found himself therefore at his wits' end, and in this emergency bethought him again of a LETTRE DE CACHET. But the King proved as obdurate as his minister; partly in accordance with a promise he had made me about a year before that he would not commonly grant what I had denied, and partly because Biron's affair had now reached a stage in which Saintonge's aid was no longer of importance.

Thus repulsed, the Marquis made up his mind to carry his daughter into the country; but St. Mesmin meeting this with the confident assertion that he would abduct her within a week, wherever she was confined, Saintonge, desperate as a baited bull, and trembling with rage--for the threat was uttered at Zamet's and was repeated everywhere--avowed equally publicly that since the King would give him no satisfaction he would take the law into his own hands, and serve this impudent braggart as Guise served St. Megrin. As M. le Marquis maintained a considerable household, including some who would not stick at a trifle, it was thought likely enough that he would carry out his threat;especially as the provocation seemed to many to justify it. St.

Mesmin was warned, therefore; but his reckless character was so well known that odds were freely given that he would be caught tripping some night--and for the last time.

At this juncture, however, an unexpected ally, and one whose appearance increased Saintonge's rage to an intolerable extent, took up St. Mesmin's quarrel. This was young St. Germain, who, quitting his chamber, was to be seen everywhere on his antagonist's arm. The old feud between the Saint Germains and Saintonges aggravated the new; and more than one brawl took place in the streets between the two parties. St. Germain never moved without four armed servants; he placed others at his friend's disposal; and wherever he went he loudly proclaimed what he would do if a hair of St. Mesmin's head were injured.

This seemed to place an effectual check on M. de Saintonge's purpose; and my surprise was great when, about a week later, the younger St. Germain burst in upon me one morning, with his face inflamed with anger and his dress in disorder; and proclaimed, before I could rise or speak, that St. Mesmin had been murdered.