‘Four thousand livres.’
‘That is the very amount that you would pay, should the princes agree to replace your services by those of amercenary…’
‘Surely not! I could get a replacement for a hundred écus!’
‘A replacement of your calibre, one who rides his mule with feet outside like you, one who knows 18,772 laws! Come now, Monsieur, for an ordinary fellow, yes, a hundred écus would surely be enough, but if we were to be content with ordinary fellows, it would hardly be worthwhile competing with the king. What we need are men of quality, of your rank and your height. For goodness’ sake, you shouldn’t undervalue yourself: I think you’re worth at least four thousand livres!’
‘I can see what’s coming,’ said the bourgeois. ‘This is a highway robbery.’
‘You are insulting us, Monsieur,’ said Cauvignac, ‘and we should skin you alive in atonement for this insult, were it not that we are keen to preserve the good name of the princes’ armies. No, Monsieur, give me your four thousand livres, but at least don’t imagine that this is extortion; it is a necessity.’
‘So who will pay my attorney?’
‘We shall.’
‘You?’
‘Us.’
‘But will you bring me a receipt?’
‘Duly made out.’
‘Signed by him?’
‘Signed by him.’
‘Well, that’s a different matter.’
‘As you see. So, do you accept?’
‘I must, since I have no alternative.’
‘Now, give us the address of the attorney and a few essential details of the case.’
‘I told you that it was a judgement resulting from a lost suit.’
‘Against whom?’
‘Against a certain Biscarros, who was pleading as the heir of his wife, an Orléanist.’10
‘Careful!’ said Ferguzon.
Cauvignac gave him a wink that meant: Don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye open.
‘Biscarros,’ he repeated. ‘Isn’t he an innkeeper from somewhere near Libourne?’
‘Just so. He lives between that town and Saint-André-de-Cubzac.’
‘At the hostelry of the Golden Calf?’
‘The very same. Do you know him?’
‘A little.’
‘The wretch! Having me ordered to pay back money…’
‘That you didn’t owe him?’
‘Well, yes… but which I hoped never to pay.’
‘I understand, it’s hard.’
‘So I give you my word that I should rather see this money in your hands than in his.’
‘In that case, I think you will get what you want.’
‘But my receipt?’
‘Come with us and you can have it, duly signed.’
‘How will you manage that?’
‘That’s my business.’
They continued their ride towards Orléans, where they arrived two hours later. The bourgeois led the gang of crimps to the inn nearest to his attorney. It was a frightful low dive, at the sign of the Dove of the Ark.
‘Now,’ said the bourgeois, ‘how do we go about this? I should very much prefer not to hand over my four thousand livres until I have a receipt.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Do you know your attorney’s writing?’
‘Very well.’
‘So when we bring back the receipt, you won’t make any trouble about handing over the money to us?’
‘None at all. But without the money, my attorney won’t give you a receipt. I know him.’
‘I’ll make him an advance.’
At which, taking four thousand livres out of his satchel, two thousand of it in louis and the rest in demi-pistoles, he put up the piles of coins in rows in front of the astonished bourgeois’s eyes.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘what is your attorney’s name?’
‘Maître Rabodin.’
‘Well, then, take a quill and write.’
The bourgeois obeyed.
‘Maître Rabodin, I am sending you herewith the four thousand livres in damages, which I was ordered by the court to pay to Master Biscarros, whom I strongly suspect of wishing to make some criminal use of the money. Please be so kind as to give your receipt duly made out to the bearer of this.’
‘And then?’ asked the bourgeois.
‘And then, date and sign.’
The bourgeois did so.
‘Now, take this letter and this money,’ Cauvignac said to Ferguzon. ‘Disguise yourself as a miller and go round to the attorney.’
‘And what shall I do at the attorney’s?’
‘Give him the money and take his receipt.’
‘Is that all?’
‘That’s all.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘So much the better: your task will be carried out all the more efficiently.’
Ferguzon had immense confidence in his captain, and so, without reply, he went to the door.
‘Get them to send up some wine, and the best,’ said Cauvignac. ‘This gentleman must be thirsty.’
Ferguzon nodded obediently and went out. Half an hour later he returned and found Cauvignac sitting at table with the bourgeois, both of them paying their respects to that famous little Orléans wine that so much pleased Henri VI’s Gascon palette.
‘Well?’ Cauvignac asked.
‘Well! Here’s the receipt.’
‘It this right?’ Cauvignac asked, passing the piece of stamped paper across to the bourgeois.
‘That’s it.’
‘And the receipt is all in order?’
‘Perfectly.’
‘So you won’t object to giving me your money for this receipt?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Very well, do so.’
The bourgeois counted out the four thousand livres. Cauvignac put them in his satchel where they replaced the missing four thousand.
‘And with that, I am released?’ said the bourgeois.
‘Good heavens, yes, unless you absolutely insist on serving…’
‘No, not personally, but…’
‘But what? Come now,’ said Cauvignac, ‘I have a presentiment that we shall not leave one another without doing business again.’
‘Quite possibly,’ said the bourgeois, who was entirely reassured by the possession of his receipt. ‘I have a nephew…’
‘Ha, ha!’
‘A stubborn, rowdy lad.’
‘And you’d like to get rid of him?’
‘Not exactly, but I think he’d make an excellent soldier.’
‘Send him to me, I’ll make a hero of him.’
‘You’ll take him on?’
‘With pleasure.’
‘There’s my godson, too, a fine boy who wants to take holy orders, for whom I have to pay a large boarding fee.’
‘So you’d rather he took military orders? Very well, send me the godson and the nephew. It will cost you five hundred livres for the pair, that’s all.’
‘Five hundred livres! I don’t understand.’
‘Of course. You pay on entry.’
‘So why did you make me pay for not entering?’
‘That was a special case. Your nephew and your godson will each pay two hundred and fifty livres, and you’ll never hear of them again.’
‘Damn it! That’s an attractive proposition. Will they be all right?’
‘What I mean is that once they have enjoyed serving under me, they will not change their position for that of the Emperor of China. Ask these gentlemen how I feed them. Go on, Barabbas; answer, Carrotel.’
‘The truth,’ Barabbas said, ‘is that we live like lords.’
‘And how are they dressed: just look…’
Carrotel pirouetted on the spot to show off all sides of his splendid attire.
‘It’s a fact,’ said the bourgeois. ‘There’s nothing to be said where dress is concerned.’
‘So? You’ll send us the two young men?’
‘I’d very much like to. Will yo
u be here long?’
‘No, we’re leaving tomorrow morning; but, so that they can catch up, we’ll go at walking pace. Give us the five hundred livres and the deal is done.’
‘I only have two hundred and fifty.’
‘Give them the other two hundred and fifty livres: this will even give you a reason to send them to me. Otherwise, you see, if you had no pretext, they might suspect something.’
‘But they may tell me that only one of them is the only messenger needed.’
‘Tell them that the roads are unsafe and give each one twenty-five livres, an advance on their pay as an inducement.’
The bourgeois opened his eyes wide in astonishment.
‘You have to admit,’ he said. ‘Only a soldier can find a way round every difficulty.’
After counting out the two hundred and fifty livres to Cauvignac, he left, delighted at having found an opportunity, for only five hundred livres, to set up a nephew and a godson who cost him more than two hundred pistoles a year.
V
‘Now, Master Barabbas,’ said Cauvignac, ‘do you have some clothes in your bag that are slightly less elegant than the ones you have on, ones which would make you look like a clerk with the Revenue?’11
‘I have the tax collector’s, you know, the one we – ’
‘Good, very good. And no doubt you have his written authority?’
‘Lieutenant Ferguzon told me not to lose it, so I have kept it carefully.’
‘Lieutenant Ferguzon is the most prudent man I know. Dress up as the collector and take the authority.’
Barabbas went out and returned ten minutes later completely transformed. He found Cauvignac dressed entirely in black and looking for all the world like a man of law.
The two of them hurried towards the attorney’s house. Maître Rabodin lived on the third floor, at the back of an apartment entirely composed of an antechamber, an office and a study. There were surely other rooms, but since they were not open to clients, we shall not speak of them.
Cauvignac crossed the antechamber, left Barabbas in the office, threw an appreciative glance as he went by at the two clerks who were pretending to scribble away while playing noughts and crosses and entered the sanctum sanctorum.
Maître Rabodin was sitting behind a desk so loaded with files that the respectable attorney seemed actually to be buried in duplicates and court rulings. He was a tall, dry, yellow man wearing a black coat, which clung tightly to his limbs as the skin of an eel clings to its body. Hearing Cauvignac’s footsteps, he raised his long torso from where it was bent over and lifted his head, which was now raised above the rampart surrounding him.
For a moment, Cauvignac thought he had rediscovered the basilisk (that animal which modern scientists consider to be fabulous), so strongly were the attorney’s eyes shining with the dark glow of avarice and cupidity.
‘Monsieur,’ Cauvignac said, ‘I apologize for introducing myself without being announced, but,’ he added, with his most charming smile, ‘that is the privilege of my office.’
‘A privilege of your office?’ said Maître Rabodin. ‘And what office is that, may I ask?’
‘I am His Majesty’s exempt.’12
‘His Majesty’s exempt?’
‘I have that honour.’
‘Excuse me, I don’t understand.’
‘You will. I believe you know Monsieur Biscarros…?’
‘I do, indeed. He’s my client.’
‘What do you think of him, I wonder?’
‘What do I think of him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why, I think… I think… I think he’s a very fine man.’
‘Well, Monsieur, you are wrong.’
‘I’m wrong? How’s that?’
‘Your fine man is a rebel.’
‘What! A rebel!’
‘Yes, Monsieur, a rebel who is taking advantage of the isolated situation of his inn to make it a hotbed of conspiracy.’
‘Really!’
‘He has sworn to poison the king, the queen and Monsieur de Mazarin, should they stop at his inn.’
‘Really!’
‘And I have just arrested him and had him brought to the prison at Libourne, charged with the crime of lèse-majesté.’13
‘Monsieur, you take my breath away!’ said Maître Rabodin, slumping back in his chair.
‘There is more,’ continued the fake exempt. ‘There is the fact that you are compromised in this affair.’
‘Me, Monsieur!’ the attorney exclaimed, his colour going from orangey-yellow to apple-green. ‘Me? Compromised? How is that?’
‘You are in possession of a sum that this scoundrel Biscarros intended for the payment of a rebel army.’
‘It is true, Monsieur, that I did receive, on his behalf…’
‘The sum of four thousand livres. He was subjected to the torture of the boot and at the eighth wedge,14 the wretch admitted that this sum must be with you.’
‘It is, indeed, but it has only been here a moment.’
‘Too bad, Monsieur, too bad.’
‘Why is it too bad?’
‘Because I shall be obliged to take you into custody.’
‘Take me in?’
‘Of course. The charge sheet names you as an accomplice.’
The attorney’s face changed in colour from apple-green to bottle-green.
‘Now, if you had not received the money,’ Cauvignac went on, ‘it would be a different matter. But you admit to having received it: it’s evidence, you see.’
‘Monsieur, suppose I were to give it up, to hand it over to you at once, to say that I have no connection with the wretched Biscarros, to deny…’
‘Grave suspicions would still hang over you… though I must say that the immediate return of the money…’
‘At once, Monsieur!’ Maître Rabodin cried. ‘The money is still there, in the bag in which it was handed to me. I checked the amount, that’s all.’
‘Was it correct?’
‘Count it yourself, Monsieur, count it yourself.’
‘No, I shall not, if you don’t mind. I do not have authority to touch His Majesty’s money, but I do have with me the tax collector of Libourne, who was seconded to me to collect the various sums of money that the wretch, Biscarros, distributed around in this way, so that he could later collect them.’
‘He did indeed request me, when I received these four thousand livres, to send them to him without delay.’
‘You see! He must already know that the princess has fled Chantilly and is heading towards Bordeaux. He was gathering all his forces to make himself head of her faction.’
‘Scoundrel!’
‘And you suspected nothing?’
‘Nothing, Monsieur, nothing.’
‘No one warned you?’
‘No one.’
‘But what are you telling me?’ Cauvignac asked, pointing towards the bourgeois’s letter, which had remained wide open on Maître Rabodin’s desk, among a host of other papers. ‘What are you saying, while you yourself are showing me proof to the contrary?’
‘What proof?’
‘Just read that!’
Rabodin read in a trembling voice: ‘Maître Rabodin, I am sending you herewith the four thousand livres in damages, which I was ordered by the court to pay to Master Biscarros, whom I strongly suspect of wishing to make some criminal use of the money.’
‘ “Criminal use”!’ Cauvignac repeated. ‘You see: your client’s dreadful reputation had already reached this far.’
‘I am overwhelmed, Monsieur,’ said the attorney.
‘I cannot conceal from you that my orders are strict.’
‘I swear to you, Monsieur, that I am innocent.’
‘Well, now! Biscarros said the same, until they subjected him to torture. It was not until the fifth wedge that he changed his tune.’
‘I’m telling you, Monsieur: I’m ready to hand the money over to you. Here it is, take it.’
‘Let’s do things pr
operly,’ said Cauvignac. ‘I’ve already advised you that I do not have the authority to touch the king’s money.’ So, going towards the door, he said: ‘Come here, Tax Collector. Each man to his own duty.’
Barabbas approached.
‘This gentleman has confessed everything,’ said Cauvignac.
‘What! Have I confessed something?’ cried the attorney.
‘Yes. You’ve confessed that you were in communication with Biscarros.’
‘But, Monsieur, I only ever received two letters from him, and I only wrote one.’
‘This gentleman confesses that he was in possession of funds belonging to the accused.’
‘Here they are! All I have ever received for him are these four thousand livres which I am ready to hand over to you.’
‘Tax Collector,’ said Cauvignac, ‘show your letter of authority, take the money and return a receipt in the name of His Majesty.’
Barabbas handed the letter of authority to the attorney, who pushed it away, not wishing to insult him by reading it.
‘Now you must come with me,’ said Cauvignac, while Barabbas, to avoid any mistakes, was counting the money.
‘Come with you?’
‘Of course. Didn’t I tell you that you are a suspect?’
‘But, Monsieur, I swear that His Majesty has no more faithful servant than I.’
‘It’s not enough to say so, we must have proof.’
‘I’ll give you proof.’
‘What?’
‘All my past life.’
‘Not enough. I need a guarantee for the future.’
‘Tell me what I can do, and I’ll do it.’
‘There might be one way to prove your loyalty in an undeniable way.’
‘What is that?’
‘There is at this moment here in Orléans a captain, who is a friend of mine, and who is raising a company of troops for the king.’
‘So?’
‘Well, you could enlist in this company.’
‘I, Monsieur? An attorney…’
‘The king has dire need of attorneys, because his affairs are highly involved.’
‘I should do it willingly, but what about my practice?’
‘Let your clerks manage it.’
‘Impossible! What about the signatures?’
‘Excuse me, gentlemen, if I interrupt,’ said Barabbas.
‘What!’ said the attorney. ‘Speak, Monsieur, speak!’
‘It appears to me that if this gentleman, who would not make much of a soldier, were to offer…’